#drake stans be like

[breadandblankets]

you, batfam blogger, do you know that duke thomas is his own hero and isn't just a prop that you can use to make your favorites look good

[batcavescolony]

I know the fandom trope of "Tim hates Dick for what he said in Red Robin" but like

He probably felt hurt for a minute but the second he saw Dick again it was instant forgiveness. He is in awe of his big brother, he thinks he has it all together (even though he very much doesn't), he thinks the world of Dick. in the alt universe vampire comic Tim probably forgave Dick for crushing his scull in. Tim at his core is a Dick Grayson Stan first, human second.

[idyllcy]

shoujo moments in my life with the robins

word count: 870

summary: anything is romanticizeable if you're delusional enough /j

𓅫. your crush cooking for you when you're sick - Jason Todd

Your head is splitting apart, and you think you're going to die. Sure, this happens every year thanks to your shitty immune system, but it's also NOT a fun experience. You might lose your life at this rate (you're being dramatic. you know.) but it does feel terrible. The door to your room creaks open slightly, and you manage to groan as a greeting. "You good? Heard you were sick." Jason speaks up, blinking at you owlishly. "Feel terrible." You mumble back. "Want anything?" "Sleep." You knock out immediately after. Jason, sweetheart Jason, sweet 11-year-old Jason, walks down the stairs at Wayne Manor and heads to the kitchen, asking Alfred for some fruit and tomatoes, cuts them up for you, sprinkling sugar on the tomatoes for you. Alfred looks, eyes fond as Jason takes the plate upstairs. You hear the door open again, voice scratchy as it comes out of your throat. "Who is it?" "I brought you fruit." "Leave it on the table, please." You mumble. "Thank you." "Of course." When you feel better a couple hours later, you bring it downstairs to share with Jason, a smile on your face, flush on your cheeks, warm with appreciation for the boy, all while Jason checks your temperature to make sure you're fine.

𓅫. a summer fling with a boy you'll never see again - Tim Drake

The summer sun burns into your skin while the breeze sends chills down your spine as you walk down from your cabin to the main tent. Your roommate reminds you of which team the two of you are on, and it's really unassuming. The camp is normal until it's not. It's normal until your fingers are brushing Tim's as your cramming to get the stupid car working, and it's normal until Tim has his hand on your shoulder, anxiety all over his face at the thought of not winning. It's normal until Tim steps next to you every chance he gets, his bias for you showing clearly in your group. You barely know him. Until a day ago, he was just some stranger to you. Then, he's one of the closest to you in the group. He's cheering for you when you're dying on the climb up, and he's next to you on the bus ride back. He's next to you when you're decoding a puzzle, and he's next to you at every chance he gets. But you'll never see him again. Even when the two of you are talking about the rest of summer's plans, you know you'll never see him again. He's too far away. But you cherish the last moments with him, tilting your head to bully him for not learning your name, knowing well that Tim does know your name. He called you on the second day, eyes digging into yours, something spiking through your chest. a mutual i like you hangs in the air, but that's the end of your story. You never get his number.

𓅫. getting your shoelaces tied by a boy in your class - Dick Grayson

You're young, eyes big and frustrated, and you've just made the change to actual laces instead of velcro. You're part of the cool kids club now— except you aren't. You have no idea how to tie your shoelaces. You step out of the girls bathroom, looking around for your bathroom buddy, noticing your laces have come untied. Dick tilts his head at you as you wince at your untied laces, and he drops down to reach for your laces. "What are you doing?!" "Tying your laces." Dick smiles up at you. "You can just teach me..." You trail off, frowning. "Yes, but we're in the middle of an activity in class right now, so we're in a hurry. Have madame send me with you next time and I can teach you." He smiles at you as he stands up. "Come on." True to his word, the next time the two of you leave for the bathroom, he sits you on one of the benches only the older kids were allowed to sit on and shows you how to tie your laces, grinning at you, missing a front tooth, waiting as you tie your laces over and over again, all the way until you could do it without questioning your ability. "thank... you." You mumble, cheeks red with embarrassment. "Of course." He grins.

𓅫. an ex-crush who liked you the most amongst the class - Damian Wayne

You're at a class reunion— or, something along the lines of that. You were called by a friend to take a photo together as a group, and you dragged another friend along, another old classmate of the same class, and the two of you wait in the lobby of the cafeteria. You hope you don't need to talk to Damian, your middle school crush on him was embarrassing enough on its own. Then, your friend arrives, and you rush over, missing the way Damian steps through the glass doors too. Your other friend follows behind you as you greet him, and in that moment, Damian walks past you, green eyes digging into yours, before he steps next to you, speaking to your friend too, light conversation before he turns his attention to you, tilting his head. "Heard you're going to the same college as me." "A-ah? yeah." You smile awkwardly, feeling the nerves from middle school crawl up your back again. You curse yourself for never getting the closure you needed. "What's your major?" You tilt your head. "Didn't I tell you?" "Did you? I must've forgot." He hums. "my apologies." Your major slips past your lips, and his does too, and your friend on the side perks up, mentioning that she was studying the same major as him. You tilt your head to look back a her before Damian ignores what she's said, going back to you— and your heart races, being favored so obviously in front of everyone else. and before you leave, he catches you, smile on his face, away from the rest of the class. "I'll see you in college?" "Y-yeah!" You smile. "See you then."

𓅫. putting on makeup for you - Steph Brown

"Stay still." Steph mumbles, hand on your face, tilting it so that she could get a better angle. You hold your breath as she does, closing your eyes as she brushes the eyeliner on. Your heart races in your chest as she pulls back, staring at both of your eyes, puffing out her cheeks. "Steph? You good?" "You look good. Too good. I need to jump you good." You bark out a laugh, throwing your head back as you laugh. "Alright. Lipstick next." Steph grins. "pucker up babes." "You want a kiss while we're at it?" You wiggle your brows. "Oh? I sure do." Steph winks, pressing the lipstick to your lips as she does, and she pulls back when she finishes. "There. Now your prom look is finished." "Do I look like I could pull?" "I'd fuck you right now." "I'M BEING VIOLATEDDDD!!!" You fake a shriek. Steph tilts her head as she looks at you, and she grins. You look really good.

i ran out of brain juice in the end sorry lol

[admireforever]

Endings, Beginnings

[comatose--overdose]

I really hate when people write Tim to be afraid of Jason. I mean, you do you, but I'm not gonna read it.

First of all, Jason was NOT trying to kill Tim, and honestly Tim knew that. Second of all, even if he had been, Tim does not care about that. At all. It's not something he bothers holding grudges for. Half the people he knows have tried to kill him at some point, NBD. Hazards of being a Bat. Tim also talked shit the entire time Jay was kicking his ass, he had no fear WHILE IT WAS HAPPENING. He certainly wouldn't be scared of him after.

Tim is fucked up. He's weird. The are very few things that would make him afraid. There are many things for which he would hold a grudge, but his attempted murder isn't one of them. Now, Jay takes his last fruit roll up? Oh Todd's gonna wish he never crawled out of his grave.

He's petty. He's an asshole. His moral code is more a list of suggestions Bruce left taped to the fridge.

But he definitely isn't afraid of Jason.

[punkeropercyjackson]

A J*ytim shipper liked my post comparing myself and my brother to Jason and Tim

[dceasesd]

i think that we as a fandom need to make a change and STOP the woobification of tim drake before we reach the point of no return

[unchartedthelostlegacy]

i'm not sorry

[starlooove]

Ppl will say fanon v canon doesn’t matter and it’s all jokes and I’m sooooo close to going sure sometimes and then I remember y’all removed a major role of one of the if not THEE most prominent black character in Bruce’s story who was created a whole decade before tim and gave it to tim based off a run where he literally handed the role back! Like IN THE COMIC Tim was CEO in name only and handed it back to Lucius relieved when he didn’t need to front anymore like.

[lettucecomplexx]

admittedly i'm not a really a tim drake stan, but like, i can't be the only one who hates this idea that tim killed those league assassins when he blew up the bases.

Like yeah, "they exploded there's no logical way the survived that" but non-killing comic book characters do stuff that seems like it would kill people all the time. Unless the narrative expressly says or insinuates that tim killed those people, i consider them alive.

Also i feel like it's detrimental to his character. Like saying that he killed people is a pushback to his woobified fanon image (where he can't take care of himself/needs to be coddled by his family and was horribly neglected by his parents) but saying that he killed a bunch of people doesn't fix that. It just twists his character even more into something that it's not.

Tim is someone who became a vigilante not out of any personal stakes, he just wanted to help. I think that's such an impressive and admirable part of his character. He is a good person. He admittedly is susceptible to becoming a super villain, but he doesn't want to be that. I don't see why someone who doesn't want to become a super villain to the point of threatening to kill himself would go and bomb hundreds of people.

idk i'm just really sick of seeing jokes about tim killing people, kind of ruins what i like about him.

[danny-chase]

It's haunting me that I think if Tim's origin were updated and the spirit of the old origin were the same he'd def write Nightwing fanfiction and maybe a bit of Batman fanfic as well

[idyllcy]

Hi! I'm quite new to your account but your writing is too good for me to not follow you!!!

Anyways I wanted to say that the way you write Tim is impeccable, love the characterization you have of him, so ofc I got obsessed with him even though im not a big Tim girlie (might as well become one) and I find it soo hard to find good Tim fics and was wondering if you got any recs? can be anything from tumblr or ao3

And if you don't do these types of things im sorry, don't bother answering at all! Hope you're having a good day anyways!

Yes yes yes!!! Ofc I have recs! (mostly ao3 fics because I don't think I have much saved from tumblr and also under the cut bc of length)

Pushing my mutual to the top because I love their works

city of stars - lovelyre

This is a small series with Tim Drake and reader and the tension the TENSION THE TENSION!!!!!! THE CONFESSION!!! IM !>#EJ@HE this series makes me ill in the best way

show me how you're proud, tell me how you reach the moon - lovelyre

not tim drake centric but they flirt a lil in it and it has the same idea of "reader is a fic writer" as saying we're just friends! This one's more batfam n I really liked it

Okay so stuff by moss (@/mangoisms here on tumblr)

I'll be the dangerous ledge, you be the parachute - soter

meet cute at the laundry and such a great fluff read. Not too much anxiety inducing happens and it's just so cute and everything

circle k (back to you) - soter

reader works at a gas station and red robin drops by which leads to a shit ton of other vigilantes dropping by too (I love this fic it's ongoing rn but I'm pretty sure it's decently finished or smth

ok now for the misc recs

I'm a (blood) sucker for you - palmyre

vampire tim drake. Im so ill over this fic. Tim fics that make me ill fr. Ok but it does have a blood tw bc Tim is kinda 😭 drinking your blood even tho he's like super sweet abt it

Body Language - anothertimdrakestan

this writes like nerd Tim so well. Tim literally analyzes reader's entire body language around him to deduce that they like him back

We're (not) just friends - by me hehe

and also final plug the Tim college au actually is a series on ao3 I just haven't figured out the best way to post a series on Tumblr lol

So I only have one fic on tumblr saved

Popsicle - batboys-and-other-messes

reader stares dead into Tim's eyes as they suck on a popsicle while the batfam watches in horror LMFAO this one has equal crack and sexual tension is was really funny

BUT!! glorified-red has Tim fics that I've read before which are good too!

[admireforever]

Shailene Woodley, Endings, Beginnings

[leafyforreal]

thinking about how the one time dick has a say in who gets to be robin the fandom bashes him to hell bc how daaare dick take his own mantle away from tiiiim (the guy who stole it) now he's saaaad :(

[silverwhittlingknife]

Has Tim ever put Dick on a pedestal?

100% yes! This is basically Tim's backstory IMO. Prior to meeting Dick in Lonely Place of Dying, Tim's a kid who's got a distant, idealized, made-for-TV vision of Dick and Bruce - mostly Dick - and he sets out on a quest based entirely around that misperception.

Aaaand then he immediately crashes headfirst into reality, because the Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne he remembers from his childhood memories and daydreams are like this:

But it turns out that the actual real-life human people are a bit more, uh, cranky than Tim's glossy vision - things are tense and neither of them are super-happy to meet Tim:

And Tim has to rethink a bunch of his mistaken deductions as it slowly dawns on him that - far from being a plucky team - Dick and Bruce are actually not getting along at all:

And so Tim has to realize his whole plan of "Dick has to be Robin again!!! That will fix everything!!! :)))))" was actually wrong, and based on a misunderstanding of Bruce and Dick's relationship. And having realized he was wrong, he immediately sets about trying to figure out what he’s failed to understand in the most intrusive way possible—by asking lots of nosy questions!

Actually-meeting-Dick is basically the end of Tim’s super-idealized vision of Dick. It's not a vision that can survive contact with an actual human being who's snapping at you. And kid!Tim is (I love him but) extremely pushy and annoying, and Dick's a prickly young adult who is not above getting annoyed, which means Dick snaps at him pretty regularly.

But Tim does continue to admire him.

So for their various interactions after Lonely Place of Dying, IMO "does Tim have Dick on a pedestal" is kind of a judgment call based on your assessment of Dick's relative strengths/virtues. What's unambiguous: Tim has a consistently higher opinion of Dick than Dick does of Dick, and they argue about it a lot.

I had way too many thoughts about this, so below the cut:

Comics where Dick and Tim have conversations along the lines of Dick: "I suck and I'm failing at everything." Tim: "That's not true!! Actually you're great and you're succeeding at the thing you think you're failing at!!"

So who's right - Dick or Tim?

Dick and Tim's high opinions/expectations of each other: the plusses and minuses

Comic examples

Here are a couple different variations on Tim thinking that Dick is great (often when Dick's less sure):

in Showcase, Tim thinks that Dick’s a way better teammate than Azrael, even as Dick’s thinking himself as a failure who let the Titans down; 

in Prodigal, Dick tells Tim a story about confronting Two-Face which to Dick symbolizes a moment of great failure and which Tim insists was a no-win situation where Dick did the best he could;

also in Prodigal, Dick’s despairing over how badly he thinks their encounter with Killer Croc went and meanwhile Tim thinks it went fine (after all, Dick listened to him and called an ambulance instead of beating up Croc!), and Tim tells Dick to lighten up and Dick talks about how he’s a failure; 

in Nightwing 6, Dick thinks he’s doing badly in Blüdhaven and he’s self-conscious about it and paranoid about what Tim might tell Bruce, and Tim insists that the fact that Dick’s being targeted means he’s succeeding and getting close instead of failing, and Dick retorts that this won’t be comforting if he winds up dead because getting close just isn’t good enough; 

also in Nightwing 6, Tim thinks Dick was a better Robin than Tim is, and Dick thinks he wasn’t that great and that Tim’s better;

post-Last Laugh, Tim’s insistent that Dick's being too hard on himself about attacking the Joker whereas Dick's really haunted by the experience and confides that it feels like he's discovered a terrible dark side of himself;

way later in Nightwing 110, Tim’s seeking Dick out and Dick’s trying to avoid him because he thinks he’s a bad person who’d be bad for Tim;

in BW: Murderer, Tim doesn’t trust Bruce absolutely, but in Red Robin, he does trust Dick absolutely (or at least, more than Tim trusts himself);

etc. etc. etc.

Who's right: Dick or Tim?

So, is Tim being too easy on Dick and looking at him with rose-colored glasses, and Dick’s harsher view of himself is the correct one; or is Dick a perfectionist who’s being too hard on himself, and Tim’s the one who’s actually seeing Dick’s strengths more clearly?  

I don’t think the comics really commit one way or another! These are moments of multiple-perspectives, where we notice that Tim has one attitude and Dick has another attitude and that tells us things about the characters, not moments that are meant to resolve to a simplistic “one person is Right and one person is Wrong.”  I think often you could argue that they're both right? So, like, if you wanted to take the approach of, "Tim's idolizing him but he's not actually as great as Tim thinks," I don't think the comics precisely contradict that interpretation.

... THAT SAID, look, I am a Dick Grayson fan at heart, and I tend to lean toward “Dick’s being too hard on himself.” 

Tim’s not oblivious to Dick’s flaws—he immediately figures out, for example, that Dick’s gonna attack the Joker, and rushes off to stop him; he just isn’t as judgmental about this moment as Dick is, and he doesn’t think it makes Dick an awful person forever.  The point is (Tim says later, practical-minded) that it was made right, and Dick shouldn’t beat himself up about it.  In Prodigal, Tim’s not unaware that their fight with Croc went badly; he’s just focused on how Dick’s morals and teamwork-centric attitude feel right to him in a way that Azrael’s didn’t, and look, Tim didn’t get shot even though he got shot at, and isn’t that the important thing?  Tim gets caught in the same ambush that Dick does in Nightwing 6; he just takes the glass-half-full attitude toward it while Dick takes the glass-half-empty attitude.  And so on.

Tim admires Dick, looks up to him, trusts him, interprets his flaws generously, and doesn’t think he’s a failure. And... this isn't quite in the comics, but it doesn't contradict them: I like to imagine Dick feeling like he's on a pedestal, and feeling kinda uncomfortable with Tim's admiration when he's forced to realize it exists, and feeling like he doesn't deserve it, and sometimes subconsciously braced for the other shoe to drop, convinced that Tim can't possibly really think this forever, that he's deluded somehow, and that eventually Tim will realize who Dick really is and get disillusioned and leave.

And I tend to think of Dick having this problem a bit with everyone in his life who thinks highly of him, but especially with Tim, because he doesn't feel like Tim's ever needed him or that he's done anything worth Tim's admiration. I feel like Dick - despite some insecurities - does know his own worth as a team leader, and he knows he was a good partner to Bruce, and he understands when he's helping people who are clearly floundering, like Damian and Rose. But all he's ever done for Tim is...hang out, and be nice. And he doesn't think Tim ever needed fixing or saving, and he vastly underestimates both the value of his own friendship in general and how much it's meant to Tim in particular. Not all the time, because later in their relationship when they've known each other for years I do think Dick does feel a bit more secure in that friendship and entitled to make demands based on it (and vice versa, for Tim). But I do imagine Dick periodically feeling like Tim lets him off the hook too easily, and thinks more highly of him than he should, and alternating between being grateful for it and uncomfortable with it.

But I would argue that Dick does deserve Tim’s admiration! 

Look, Dick's not a perfect person - no one is. He does screw up sometimes, and sometimes he's petty or jealous, and sometimes his temper gets the better of him. But he is pretty great! He's brave and thoughtful and kind and generous and caring. He takes his own grief and his own suffering and devotes himself to helping other people. And Tim sees that. Tim watches an orphaned kid crying on stage, and has nightmares about it - and later recognizes the hero in him. Tim stops Dick from beating the Joker to death, and he holds Dick back from strangling Hugo Strange, and he talks Dick down from two separate panic attacks, and he listens to Dick monologue about his various perceived failures, and he gets yelled at a lot when Dick's annoyed with him, and his takeaway from all of that is that he believes in Dick, and trusts Dick, and thinks he's a hero.

You could see that as Tim having him on a pedestal and refusing to acknowledge the ugly reality. But I tend to see it as Tim understanding that Dick's flaws and occasional missteps don't define who he is - the fact that Dick's human doesn't make him any less of a hero. Tim can see the hero that Dick can't always see in himself.

Dick and Tim have really high opinions of each other... for better or worse

Tim's not alone in having a high opinion of Dick - Dick thinks Tim's pretty great, too! Dick repeatedly compares himself to Tim and finds himself wanting, whether he's thinking that Tim's a better partner for Bruce, or having a fear toxin nightmare where Tim's a rival who's beating him out of a job, or deciding that Tim would never have let Blockbuster die (and that he'll be better off if Dick avoids him), or musing that Tim would be a better Batman. Dick calls Tim his equal and closest ally in Red Robin; Tim thinks Dick is "the best" in his origin story and basically never changes his mind.

I think nowadays we're sometimes pretty highly-attuned to the way that high expectations can be bad or oppressive, and... I have mixed feelings about this? On the one hand, it isn't untrue! Dick and Tim's mutual high opinions of each other, and correspondingly high expectations, are not an unmixed blessing! They 100% cause problems! Dick and Tim think highly of each other, and expect a lot from each other, and sometimes they're pushy or abrupt or demanding when they could stand to be more sensitive. And the iffy side of high expectations is something I find interesting, and I do think it's solidly canon-based - you see aspects of this in several of their comic conflicts - LPoD, Graduation Day, BftC, RR, etc.

But at the same time, it's complicated! I don't think you can fully untangle the higher expectations from "they rely on each other and have a lot of faith in each other." Love and trust are different things, and Dick and Tim care a whole lot about being trusted, not just about being loved.

I also think it's important that their belief in each other is often a gift rather than an inevitability: Dick and Tim choose to see each other in positive ways. Something they both do is after they have a conflict, they'll apply on a retrospective very positive gloss to whatever just happened. So e.g. Dick starts Resurrection mad at Tim, and ends it by declaring, "I let you make the choice... because I knew you'd make the right one." Tim spends most of Red Robin 1-12 mad at Dick, and ends it by declaring that he knew Dick would catch him because Dick's always there for him. And in both cases, we-the-readers are aware that they knew no such thing! But to me, that doesn't make these declarations meaningless - it makes them more meaningful. Their faith in each other is sometimes genuinely felt, and sometimes it's something they stubbornly brute-force into existence because they want to give that gift to each other.

And I mean... Tim did make the right choice. Dick was there when it really counted. Just because it isn't the whole truth doesn't mean it's not a truth.

Now, does this positivity also put some pressure on them? Absolutely! They're both people who are very upset by failure, so they tend to reassure each other by insisting that there was no failure, could never be failure, failure is impossible, even when they know perfectly well that's not true. They praise each other's skills as a love language, when what they mean is I love you no matter what. They talk about other people's needs but don't always acknowledge each other's. And it'd probably be healthier if they said instead, "Even if you'd made the wrong choice, it'd be okay, because it's okay to make the wrong choice sometimes," or "Even if you're not always there for me, that's okay, because no one can be there for someone else all the time."

And they do not say that, because Dick and Tim are relatively well-adjusted by Batfamily standards but that is a very low bar, and at the end of the day they're still deeply messed-up perfectionists who deal with their emotional problems by punching crime in the face.

But look, they're trying. And isn't that the important thing? <3

[tonkysexist]

I feel like some comic fans will just call anything that isn’t identical to the original iteration of the character ooc or “fanon writing”. Character growth and development can happen it will be okay please have an ounce of patience. Let the writers work— too many books at DC are getting cancelled or rushed because nobody wants to let a story breathe anymore.