#listen LISTEN they're both people who routinely hide behind metaphorical and literal masks & it's hard to let other people see | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

silverwhittlingknife · 2 years

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Dick at Janet Drake's funeral

Dick (internally): The cruel fates, the Greeks called them. The three sisters weaving the loom of life, spinning its golden threads into the years - cutting it whenever the whim took them. Stupid! But I guess we all need something to help us make sense of it all. We need to find meaning in the pain…patterns in the chaos. Tim needs it now, as I once did. As Bruce did before me. So why do we make our faces into masks? Why do we hide the pain we all feel? Tim: Thanks for coming, Dick. I know how busy - (They shake hands.) Dick: It was the least I could do, Tim. Believe me - I know what you're going through. If you need any help, any time - Tim (looking down): I appreciate that. But... I'll cope. (In the background, we see Tim shaking somebody else's hand.) Dick to Bruce: He's a brave kid. He's in control. Bruce: Yes. Dick: You know what comes next, don't you? - Batman 455 (Christmas Eve, the day before Tim officially becomes Robin)

#nothing will ever be as great as dick's long pained internal monologue about why they hide the pain they feel #followed by a ritualized exchange of condolences with tim #followed by the robin costume as the memorial through which to channel grief #because none of them know how to grieve in normal ways #how could you possibly grieve for your dead parents other than dressing up in a costume at night & punching people?? impossible #also earlier in this comic tim has a nightmare in which dick and bruce are wearing masks & he demands to see their real faces #and they take their masks off & beneath their masks are MORE MASKS #and they're burying his mother and he screams at them saying it has to mean something #and then he sees a doppelgänger of himself with no mask & he demands that it show him its true face #and doppelgänger!tim starts PEELING HIS FACE OFF and underneath is a monstrous face that looks like a cross btw clayface & the joker #and then we cut to tim screaming in his sleep #anyway one of the many great things about this comic from a dick-and-tim perspective is that tim's subconscious mind is obsessing about #trying to make sense of senseless violence & about people hiding their true selves under masks #which is exactly the SAME THING that dick is obsessing about consciously so do they ACT on these insights and stop doing the #thing where they hide their emotions???? of course not are you crazy #anyway i am FASCINATED by that handshake #this is obviously a pre-prodigal interaction they're not really close yet #consider how different this is from dick calling tim when jack drake gets murdered (and also the ways the problem is the same!!)#listen LISTEN they're both people who routinely hide behind metaphorical and literal masks & it's hard to let other people see #and their whole relationship is this back-and-forth btw the defensive masks & slowly trusting each other enough to take off the masks #did you know that in resurrection at the end of their fight tim literally TAKES OFF HIS MASK when he's surrendering #did you know that they spend their entire red robin 4 fight in masks & don't see each other's faces until tim passes out in red robin 12 #and dick catches him and while falling tim's mask has begun to FALL OFF #dick & tim #dick grayson #tim drake #hoc scripsi

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