#i hope this is coherent im sleep deprived atm.

[cleromancy]

Something has been bugging me recently. Do you ever notice how people (particularly Jason stans) go on about how Tim victim blame's Jason for his own death, but fail to mention how Alfred and Bruce are guilty of doing the same thing in the past? Why do these two (especially Alfred) get a pass?

LMAO LIKE... EVERYONES DONE IT. BRUCE ALFRED DICK BABS *SELINA* OF ALL PEOPLE ONE TIME... actually id have to double check that one idr exactly what she said about jason it might have just been that hes unhinged (<- also a thing everyones said at some point) but like. everyones freakin done it. or at least *implied* it.

tim is a special case for a reason though--and ill come back to bruce and alfred later--and its not just bc fandom wants a scapegoat to pin All The Victim-Blaming on. on a meta level tim was specifically created to be jasons opposite, and to ~rehabilitate the robin role and make robin palatable again to modern readers. (and to be clear this wasnt bc readers didn't like jason specifically--it was the idea of robin at all, and to a lesser extent just replacing the orig. jason just took on the mantle at a really unfortunate period in comics culture.) so the comparisons to jason are baked in right off the bat. and tim has to be "better". tim had to prove that a robin was necessary so that dc could keep having one, he had to justify it so that the blame didnt fall on bruce for getting a child killed (or yk even just out there fighting crime at all). theres also an element of class dynamics thats. i mean. jason was a homeless street kid and tims this fancy little distinctly upper middle class kid who replaces him, without derailing to get too deep into that the optics already arent fucking great.

but tims creation aside, just as far as how often it comes up... tim also takes the role of robin really seriously, and its everything to him, so he spends a lot of time thinking about it, what it means to wear the uniform & fulfil the role. so hes the one whos most frequently in the position to be thinking about jason, after bruce. so tim winds up being the one pushing the bulk of the bad/angry/impulsive robin narrative retcon dc wanted to push bc... its the most directly relevant to him. bruce doesnt have much narrative need to think about jason "failing" or not being good enough until under the red hood... except to be like "i dont have to worry about tim bc hes not like jason." lmao. and then you have tim who does not want to get killed, like jason did, so he spends time thinking about how to not end up like jason. which is a fundamental misunderstanding of how being a victim of murder works but i think understandable thing for a child replacement of another dead child to latch onto (particularly one as prone to arrogance & god-complex-itude as Our Timmy, lol). and both on a meta level and in-universe this is about shifting the blame off of bruce and onto the victim because tim needs to keep filling the role hes filling without it being bruces fault that jason died in the first place, bc reckoning with batman and child endangerment is not smth the comics had ever really planned on doing in a serious way.

but as for why singling tim out over bruce and alfred-- the kind of ppl who do this already generally think bruce sucks past the point of being interested in ~holding him accountable~ for absolutely anything... like "bruce sucks, everyone knows he sucks, enough said." i think the logic is generally like "if tims not a total shithead like bruce, then why is he doing shithead stuff like bruce does :/" and then pinning it all on tim as opposed to considering like "hey uhhh do you think maybe hearing stories about jason from bruce influences how tim thinks of jason over the years." if that makes sense

as for alfred. people do not want alfred to have any interiority or to ever have been mean or wrong bc then theyd have to actually think about the fact that bruce has a 24/7 domestic servant in his employ, which is just the. tip of the iceberg when you start thinking about alfred as a full character and not a convenient cardboard cutout to prop up whoever the narrative needs him to. also alfreds role in almost every batman narrative is strictly as support, almost no agency within the story to have a meaningful impact, and people generally respond to the character in kind.

finally i think tim mmmmight be the only character at least as of the reboot who ever talked *to jason* outloud style about certain things relating to jasons death... this answer is already getting too long so i dont want to get into depth about titans tower. but tt 2003 #29 is a great example of the comics pitting tim and jason against each other to make Jason look worse by comparison--for all that tim doesn't actually *say* anything victim blaming jason for his death, *and* for all that jason totally kicks tims ass in the fight and its not even close, on a meta level the story is 100% presenting jason as the bad robin, the robin who failed, Unlike Tim Drake, A *Good* Robin. (i accidentally reread the issue ... im going to make a post about it later probably. god i wish this fucking issue had been good)

but yeah i could probably go on and on even further but yeah, i think thats where people are coming from when they single timmy out. tim only exists at all bc of jason n would be fundamentally unrecognizable without having been crafted to be the anti-jason. and on top of that he has repeatedly been used by dc to make jason look worse (or rather jason was used to make tim look better), and a lot of my fellow jason stans understandably resent tim for it. i however am built different, and want them to kiss.

[lesbianmaxevans]

finishing up my edits for liz week and watching 1x08 and getting emo about the maxliz scene at the end as always......

I just-- liz knows max’s feelings for her. thanks to michael’s confession a few hours ago, she now knows that isobel sent her away and she’s still processing what that means wrt her feelings for max. imo, liz learning that isobel sent her away is the start of her examining those feelings and accepting that she’s in love with max. but because she hasn’t had much time to process these feelings, because she doesn’t want to betray rosa by doing anything to act on these feelings (even if that’s more of an unconscious hurdle at this point), because there’s the more pressing issue of saving isobel’s life, she knows max needs a clean break. she breaks both their hearts in an attempt to let him move on because she’s not ready to admit how deeply she loves him yet.

[pemberlaey]

it's me again! i saw in one of ur answers u said that u like the victorian era, and if you don't mind i would like to know what you like specifically/why? i'm studying for a literature in context exam and i'm great with the romantic era and modernism but the victorian era... oh boi. i can't stand it. we have to read north and south by gaskell and i physically can't bring myself to touch it. maybe i'll find some positive aspects by seeing it through your eyes :) because it's unbearable atm xx

north and south is one of my favorite books ever! I’d recommend giving it another try, Margaret is such a fascinating heroine. I think one of the reasons why i’ve been drawn to the Victorian era is the duality of it. Victorians were simultaneously the most overtly emotional and emotionally repressed people i have ever seen. After the French Revolution people were afraid that an over warm heart was a recipe for malicious behavior so people desperately tried to suppress themselves. Society taught them that you lost respectability if your made public displays of passion or emotion so people had to find ways around this. For instance, authors used to write characters blushing as a covert way to express desire without soiling their good name. Victorians also invented floriography where they assigned meanings to every flower so that friends or lovers could send messages via bouquet. Also from an aesthetic point of view all of the fashion trends are incredible, i think its one of the only eras in which top hats were a gender neutral clothing item. I think what really draws me into the time period is the literature. You have your gothic novels like The Picture of Dorian Gray or Jane Eyre and your industrial novels like North and South or Hard Times. Both styles offer a fascinating commentary on the values and limitations of Victorian society. Victorians were also so god damn weird, opium was a major trend and people were bedridden if they got too stressed. Sorry for this nonsensical ramble I just think this period is so fun and im extremely sleep deprives so I hope this is coherent…