#lie: i did not

[phoenixkaptain]

I love Tim’s first appearance in comics. I love it. I adore it. God it’s so perfect in every single way.

First of all: stalking. He’s stalking Bruce, he’s taking incriminating pictures (this is where the photographer Tim thing comes from), he’s stalking the Teen Titans, he knows where Starfire lives. Good golly he’s stalking everyone. Like a little mini Bruce, stalking away. Kori: “How did you know where I live?” Tim: “No time for questions, I’ve got to find Nightwing.” Kori: “???”

I love that Kori’s kind of creeped out. I would be too! A kid just knocked on my door and basically said “Yo, Starfire, do you know where Dick Grayson, known to some as Nightwing, is? No? See ya.” Kori’s right to be creeped out.

(God god god I want I need I yearn please tell me the first time Starfire sees Robin III she says something like “I feel like I’ve met you before…” I need Starfire to realize that Tim is the creepy stalker kid. I need Starfire to be like “Dick, not to judge you or your family, but what?” I neeeed iiiiittttt)

Tim 1.) knows about Dick living with Kori, 2.) knows that Dick kept another apartment, 3.) broke into the safe in Dick’s apartment then replaced the wall that was in front of it, and 4.) it’s heavily implied that he has been doing all of this on his bike with a backpack. Tim has been biking across the country with his dumb little coat and his not very big backpack or, at the very least, he biked all the way to where Haly’s Circus was set up. Maybe he did both! This kid is an absolute maniac and I adore him.

I love that Tim makes every single thing he says as ominous as possible! He’s just: “Dick. You need to return to Batman. He needs your help.” No wonder Dick is confused and a bit concerned and kind of creeped out!

Also, I really like the Haly Circus bit, if only because Tim spends most of his parts of the comic internally fanboying over how cool Dick is, and it’s super cute. Tim at one point is just like “Wow, Dick Grayson really is the very best!” and he’s so happy to spend time with Dick, why is he so cute???

Tim saving Batman and Nightwing from the rubble of a building is a very good visual representation of Tim’s ongoing thematic struggle to keep Bruce and Dick from collapsing under the weight of Jason’s death. It’s hanging over both of them, everything is different, Bruce keeps trying to lock Dick out and pretend everything is find and Dick is trying to help him but can’t do anything because Bruce never gives him the opportunity to. Bruce is on the second floor and Dick is in the basement and Two-Face blows up the building and they’re nearly crushed under the rubble.

Tim coming in at this point is great, because he uses a mixture of what Bruce and Dick both did to enter the house. Dick comments, in the comic directly before this one, that he’s too big to fit in the coal shaft, a narrative mirroring of Dick being too old to be Robin anymore. He doesn’t fit in the costume, but more than that, he doesn’t fit in the role anymore, and nothing can force him to fit. He goes in through a window instead.

Bruce breaks through the front, through a window, as subtly as a bull in a china shop (thank you, Dick Grayson, for your incredibly on the nose comments in times of great crisis). Bruce is trying to hurt himself, he’s been trying to hurt himself for the past issues since Jason’s death, and this is just compounded by the way he’s chasing the feeling of being happy again, the feeling he gets when he swings through the air, the feeling that isn’t the same without Jason by him. This is furthered by him mistakenly calling a young boy “Jason,” and him almost calling Nightwing “Robin” multiple times. He’s stuck in the present while the past haunts him and the future looms in front of him, and he wants to be happy again but can only see making himself happy as hurting himself.

Tim doesn’t take out Two-Face, but Tim does sneak into the rubbled building through the coal shoot that Dick couldn’t fit in (and he’s in the Robin costume! He’s so cute!!). Then, when he finds Batman and Nightwing stuck under the rubble, he’s forced to brute force his way out and move the rubble off of them. It’s a mixture of how Bruce and Dick handled things, but more than that. Bruce went in through the window, a distraction, in a Robin-like move. Dick snuck in through the window, in the shadows, in a Batman-like move. Tim manages to take both roles and mix them together, coming in sneakily but brute-forcing when there’s no other option. Tim has always been the Robin the most similar to Batman, but it all begins here, with Tim being the most prepared character in the comic. More than just the most prepared character, he’s doing the opposite of what Bruce and Dick are doing. While Bruce and Dick keep disappearing without another word, Tim keeps appearing right when the narrative has forgotten him. Instead of being an outright distraction like Dick and Jason were in the past, Tim plays a diversion.

Tim’s whole character in this storyline is someone desperate for things to be balanced again. He’s scared for Bruce because Batman is his hero. He’s scared for Dick because he doesn’t want Dick to hate him. Tim doesn’t want anyone to hate him, which is why, earlier, he’s very polite even as Dick is like “Alfred, this is Tim, he showed up after stalking me for a while and he knows our secret identities.” Tim wants Bruce to keep living. Tim is the one who says the hard truth to Bruce, that he isn’t acting normal and that everyone’s noticed. Tim says it because Alfred and Dick both tried and failed.

And the panel of Tim, in the Robin outfit, standing shadowed by Bruce as Batman is just a brilliant piece of visual storytelling. Even without the captions, you can see that Tim is standing up to Bruce, is out-stubborning Bruce by being simultaneously brutally honest and clever. Tim is supposed to be the ray of light at the end of the tunnel, the light in the darkness, the Robin to Batman, and it’s so good.

Anyway, I really liked this storyline and I really liked Raven appearing to just be like “btw Nightwing, we all love and support you, but we’ll back off if that’s what you really want.” Also the throw-away line in front of Commissioner Gordon: “he found it out while he was inside of your body.” What was Gordon thinking right then? I love it.

I also love Tim, but that much is obvious, let me explain. He took a bunch of pictures of Batman being beat up by Ravager just to show them to Dick to get Dick to realize there’s a problem. Tim does not actually interact with Batman or Bruce Wayne in any way until he rescues Batman and Nightwing. Tim doesn’t set out with the intention of becoming Robin, he sets out with the intention of making Dick Robin again because he believes that Robin is what Batman needs. Batman needs something that makes him stop and hesitate. Something that reminds him that he’s more than just Bruce Wayne.

It also has the unintended side effect of Tim saying the funniest fucking line in the whole storyline: “This was the best day of my life.” Like, excuse me??? You almost died! Multiple times! You drove from Haly’s Circus to Bruce Wayne’s house in the morning, presumably in awkward silence because you told Dick you’d tell him everything on the way to Gotham, but only actually tell him anything when he’s with Alfred. When Dick shows up with Tim, Dick tells Alfred that he barely knows any more than Alfred does! Alfred just met the kid, he only knows his first name! Tim did not tell Dick one single thing on the entire ride to Wayne Manor, he didn’t even tell them his name was Tim Drake! Every single bit of information they get out of Tim is pushed and prodded and pulled out, Tim is the least forthcoming character of all fucking time.

Dick shows Tim the Batcave. For what purpose did he do this? Just to storm out dramatically? I have no idea, why did Dick show the child this, I’m lost. Tim has been sitting with Alfred for hours by the time he finally convinces Alfred to drive him out! Alfred gets a single phone call from the Teen Titans and Tim is still there, so we know he didn’t leave or anything. What were they doing? Did they talk at all? Or was it another Nightwing situation where Tim just sat there in awkward silence?

Not the point, Tim almost gets beaten up by Two-Face, gets yelled at by his hero, has to berate his hero, and he’s still like “What a chamring time this has all been, thank you for the experience, hope Dick has fun being Robin again.” Tim is a maniac, he’s nuts, he’s absolutely buckwild, I love him more than oxygen.

Side note: I love when Alfred (while Tim is berating Batman, like you do) says “The kid would make a good politician.” And Dick says “He’d do more good by Batman’s side.” It made me laugh. I also love Dick: “I couldn’t let a twelve-year-old wander around a circus all by himself!” Tim: “I am NOT twelve! I am thirteen.” Tim also introduces himself to Alfred like “Hello, Mr. Pennyworth, what an honour to meet the man who Batman confides with, the stories you could tell!” and then walks in like that won’t raise any questions. Alfred is confused, Dick is confused, Bruce is confused, Kori is confused, the circus people are confused, the only one not confused is Tim himself because he’s a wild child and he probably had ten contingency plans up his sleeve, just in case.

10/10, pretty good storyline. Batman #440-442 and the New Teen Titans #60-61. It goes like: 440, 60, 441, 61, 442, making it a five parter. It came out in the nineties, I believe, and yes, Dick is wearing his silly little flared collar

[teaboot]

If I can recommend you do 1 low-effort thing for the love of God it is this:

Keep 5 cards in your pocket. One will say "yes", the second will say "no."

If you lose your voice, or lose speech, or want to make a dramatic embellishment at the right time, it is an elegant and efficient solution that is right there at hand.

But what if people question you from there? "Why do you have that card? Why would you do this? How long have you had that in your pocket?" For this, or whatever else they say, the third card: "I don't have a card for that."

"What the fuck," they ask. They laugh. They are bemused. You bring the energy back down with the fourth card: "I have laryngitis. I've lost speech. My throat hurts". Whatever you expect to occur.

The joke is over. Rule of threes. Now they are curious. They wonder about logistics. "How did you know I would say that? Is everyone so predictable?"

As a three-part bit, nobody ever sees the fifth card coming.

"I have powerful wizard magics."

Gets them every time

[qiinamii]

crown swap

[newgroundstier]

idiot baby kill credit fight

[tragicotps]

What age was Gillian Anderson in The X-Files? (x)

[allthegothihopgirls]

one of the rumours the batkids looooove to spread when they join bruce going interstate or abroad for business, is that he's the biological father of all the kids.

this means bruce, talking to potential investors, or eating out with business partners, is frequently subject to the "your kids... there's a lot of them.... all yours.... how????"

sometimes the kids like to add depth to the lie, mentioning they all have different mothers, or that bruce engineered them all as lab babies.

the worst part is how many people blindly believe it. playboy billionare bruce wayne? sure he's swung a few women in his life, maybe he's just not overly careful??? or, with all that money, and no desire to wed, it makes sense that he'd seek alternative routes to have children.

[chiptrillino]

By any chance do you have a larger photo of those Yue designs? I'm absolutely digging them

uhm... sadly i didn't at the time you asked me. but i do have now! so sorry for the longer wait;;;

the one i posted were really tiny and i was working anyway on these. it just took me a bit to get it done :D uhm... so here me playing dressup... with yue... again... sorry yue...

if i have to explain mayself... my thought process is basically... yue is the moon. so her dress is either the moon or the enviorment around or below her. and.... you know... fish... -tries not to feel my ex profs glaring at me like "elaborate more dang it"-

also! all these option but if someone tells me to draw yue again i would still give her... a new outfit or just idk... because i can't pick!!!!

[plushievash]

There’s only so much time, we have to play with To waste it is a crime, we have so much to give

//

Never let me go

[inkclover]

been feeling hella tired… so i drew prismo being tired 💃 😔 🛌

rough sketches below the cut:

first art of 2024 and its the fruity wall stickers fellas… HUZZAH

[redrobin-detective]

Simon Petrikov really is the dad of all time.

Continuing my Adventure Time binge and I got to the Gunter/Orgalorg bits. Ice King took this horrible, cruel alien menace who's been seeking ultimate power for millennia and loved him, cuddled him, disciplined him (sometimes undeservedly) and overall sucked him into his deluded family unit. He did this for so long that when Gunter finally was given a chance for ultimate power -via the wishing crown - he chose instead to become Ice Thing. To become like his dad.

Simon dadded so hard that he turned two eldritch beings with capacity for immense destruction into daddies girls.

[heynhay]

OFMD season two bonus posters! (source)

[lewiscarrolatemybrain]

Friendly reminder that the suffering and torment Xie Lian experienced actually made him LESS kind, and the lessons he learned as a result of that pain were that human life is meaningless and compassion is worthless and people don't deserve your help or care or love for them. Xie Lian had to backtrack and reject these new lessons in favor of the old ones he had already known in order to return to being kind.

Xie Lian losing everything he loved and knew, being stripped of his power, autonomy, safety, and community, and being ridiculed and humiliated, did not teach him anything worth knowing. He did not learn any valuable or important lessons from it. In fact, he needed to consciously decide that he wasn't going to let it change him and work to go back to the person he was before all that shit happened in order to avoid turning evil.

[killldeer]

i am going so so so insane over grian’s “shes dead scar. you won” and evidently for an ENTIRELY different reason than everyone else. like i get the ppl seeing the warm fuzzy desertduo “grian standing over scar’s shoulder with a proud smile” moment and all but i saw those little messages and my heart just fucking BROKE. something about the no-punctuation-no-caps just made it feel so devastating, like grian was not at all happy to say it. scar was continuing to call after pearl because they really were just messing around by the time it was down to them, like he was eager to keep having fun with it, and grian almost just had to break it to him that it was over. and that he was alone. again.

i just. oh man. ohhhh my god man

[gaysquares]

Kait Rokowsky || Mary Shelley, Frankenstein || @hopepunk-humanity || Jenny Slate, Little Weirds || Intricate Explorer || Melissa Broder, Problem Area || Kerri Maniscalco, Kingdom of the Wicked || Louise Eldritch, The King of the Owls || Stephanie Foo, What My Bones Know || Damir Omerović || David Leviathan, How They Met and Other Stories || Ariana Reines, The Cow || Anaís C., Am I Good? || Okechukwu Nzelu, Here Again Now || Max Muselmann || Fernando Pessoa, I See Boats Moving || Mary Maclane, I Await the Devil's Coming || Jhumpa Lahiri, Whereabouts || Mary Oliver, Spring || Jordan Steranka Tathlyn Auvrynval: On Endurance, Defending, and Being Made A Weapon

[rcbertleckie]

noticing the days hurrying by when you're in love, my how they fly — for @pirateaangel

[strangerwheelerthings]

The funniest aspect of Nancy's personality is that she has absolutely no idea how terrible she is at lying.

"Ok, could you just let me do the talking." Like, girl you've only made it this far on pure luck. You're good at prep work, but horrible at improvisation.