#my brother and I are very close in age

[thrill-seeker-if]

walker!

Also <333333 ;-; been ugly crying you are so sweet

walker ⇢ quote one of your favorite lines you've written.

My favorite lines is actually not from an if, but from a small game I made for my brother! We were having a pretty long standing argument, for about a year and a half. I've never been someone good at talking, and my brother is very hotheaded, so when we tried to talk it out, it just never worked.

but since I was a kid, I realized that was a short-coming of mine, and so I started writing letters, huge ones, whenever I wanted to sincerely apologize. The game is something I've kept near and dear to my heart, and it was actually kind of used as a vent, to tell him my feelings!

The final lines of the game are an apology, and the very last line is my favorite:

I hope you’re happy, lil bud.

No matter how old we got, even with the arguments, he still lets me call him lil bud! (And the fact that he's like 10 inches taller than me!) This game actually helped us talk, and we forgave each other, and started talking again! :-) So that's why it's my favorite!

(and also manon you deserve all the love in the world, you are absolutely the best, and probably the author that I look up to the most!!!)

[laidenbreecatchall]

Somebody’s jealous…

[silverwhittlingknife]

How do you feel about Jack Drake?? What are your thoughts on him and Tim’s relationship?

Anon, I hope you were interested in a novel, because look, I am fascinated by Jack Drake.  He’s key to a whole lot of what I find compelling about Tim as a character, and if I were in charge of DC, I’d bring him back to life.  This would make Tim unhappy but would IMO make for good plotlines.

Jack and Tim’s relationship is Complicated (TM)...

Jack and Tim hug in Nightwing 20 / Jack impulsively yanks a TV out of the wall in Robin 45 / Tim grieves in Identity Crisis

“I could tell the truth.  But I don’t.” - Robin 66

...and it involves a whole lot of Tim lying, and feeling guilty about lying, and thinking about telling the truth, and choosing again and again to keep lying.

And I think that’s great.

Below the cut:

Shorter version - key points about Jack

Really long version - my gentler take (vigilantism is choir and Jack loves sports) vs. my harsher take (Jack has some major flaws)

Final thoughts

Shorter version - key points about Jack:

He’s a bad parent.  He’s self-centered, he consistently prioritizes his own comfort and interests over his son’s, and when upset, he does things like order Tim off to boarding school.

But he’s never a bad parent in an actionable way.  He’s not like David Cain or Arthur Brown, who are abusive monsters.  Jack’s not a monster!  He just...kinda sucks.

He genuinely loves Tim. If Jack’s aware that Tim’s disappeared or is in trouble, he’s always worried and upset.  He periodically resolves to be a better dad, and IMO he’s always sincere.

And Tim loves him, a lot.  Tim’s protective of him and worries about him when he’s kidnapped or in danger, and when they’re reunited, Tim’s really relieved and usually hugs him (and Jack hugs back!). 

...But they have very little in common, and that’s a problem. Jack doesn’t value the things that Tim values, or respect the people that Tim admires, or care about the things that Tim’s interested in.  Tim lies to him a lot, but that’s partly because he correctly guesses Jack wouldn’t respond well if he knew the truth of what Tim’s up to.

The Batfamily is a surrogate family that Tim’s drawn to because of the ways his real family doesn’t meet his emotional needs…but also he feels guilty about that and disloyal. (And to the extent that his dad recognizes what’s going on, he's jealous and resentful!)

Very long version:

(LISTEN I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS)

Okay!  So first: Jack’s a character who IMO is pretty up for interpretation.  You can interpret him very charitably, and make excuses for the bad behavior, and fill in the blanks sympathetically when situations are ambiguous; or you can interpret him uncharitably, and emphasize the bad behavior. I don’t think either approach is invalid - it depends on what kind of story you’re interested in!  I have enjoyed Bad Dad stories and also stories that redeem Jack.

My personal take on canon is that Jack and Tim’s relationship is in a gray area.  Jack's definitely neglectful, and he does prioritize other things over Tim, but he’s never so bad that Tim can easily reject him, and he's never so bad that Bruce could justify taking Tim away.  He's just...not great.  Tim loves him, and feels loyal to him, but it’s a very mixed-up complicated love.

I have a gentler take and a harsher one which I switch between as the spirit moves me. xD

My Gentler Take (tl;dr: vigilantism is choir and Jack loves sports)

Here’s the core conflict: Jack and Tim are very different people with different values.  Tim idolizes Bruce and Dick and vigilantism, and secretly gets involved, knowing his dad will hate it. He gets increasingly wrapped up in his secret world and lies to his dad...because if his dad finds out, he’ll make Tim quit.

This is a great setup for an ongoing comic.  It’s practical, because it provides endless potential for plotlines, and it’s nicely thematic, because it maps closely onto relatable real-life situations with extracurricular activities:

Tim the drama nerd whose dad thinks he’s playing football and not in the school play; 

Tim the closeted-queer kid secretly getting involved in his school’s politically-active Gay-Straight Alliance; 

Tim the choir kid whose dad only values making money and wants him to go into the family business (and Tim keeps promising himself he'll give up choir soon, definitely soon, but maybe he'll stay in just a liiiittle longer, because they need him, you see, the last tenor left town, so...); 

Tim the computer geek with the sports-obsessed dad (this one’s just canon);

etc. etc.  

The extracurricular metaphor works pretty well for Tim’s relationship to vigilantism.  Tim's involved in his "extracurricular" because he genuinely thinks it's important and fulfilling, and he values it and wants to be good at it. He idolizes Bruce and Dick because they're good at it. He's been collecting information about it since he was a little kid, and hiding it from his parents because he knows they wouldn't approve. And mayyyybe there's also an element of low-key rebellion against his dad, and maybe that's secretly part of the appeal. And yet also as Tim gets more and more invested, he starts to daydream: maybe I could tell my dad and he'd be proud of me and supportive. But he doesn't, because actually he knows his dad would be upset and angry and make him quit.

And - again, just like with lonely kids and extracurricular hobbies - one of the things that happens is that Tim starts getting his unfilled emotional needs met ... by people he knows through this secret hobby. And people like Bruce and Dick start turning into a surrogate family. Which Tim feels guilty about. And also as Tim gets more and more wrapped up in their world, he has to lie to his dad even more, which means the distance between Tim and his dad gets bigger and bigger and more and more unfixable.

I love this dilemma. It's simple, it's recognizable, it provides endless sources for conflict, and there's no obvious solution! Tim can't tell Jack: he'll make Tim quit! And Tim doesn't want to quit, because he loves choir / art / theater / whatever.  Yeah, it’s difficult, and there are challenges, and sometimes he has doubts...but at the end of the day, he cares about it a lot.  And everything he values is there, and all the people he admires and cares about are there, and all he wants in the world is to feel like he's one of them and belongs there. So he has to lie, even though he doesn't want to lie, and he feels guilty about it...

...but also he ends up lying more and more.

(Sidenote: I think it's important that Tim chooses to keep lying - Tim's narration often glosses this as "I have to lie to my dad," and that's certainly how it feels to Tim, but this... isn't quite true. He has to lie to his dad, because if he doesn't, his dad will get mad at him and try to stop him, not because he literally has no choice about it.)

Other Reasons Why I Like The "Secret Extracurricular" Interpretation

(tl;dr it complicates not just Tim's relationship with his dad, but also all his other relationships)

Tim's problems have some obvious parallels to Steph and Cass, who both become vigilantes while rejecting their evil supervillain dads. But Jack isn't evil. And that means the Tim-and-Jack relationship is ambiguous and complicated in ways that I like. Steph and Cass can just leave their Bad Dads in prison, and say good riddance, and feel very righteous and triumphant about it! Tim’s more complicated. Tim gets into vigilantism ostensibly out of duty and altruism, but secretly, he's also involved for straight-up selfish self-fulfillment reasons. He's lonely, and bored, and his life feels pointless, but he thinks that Bruce and Dick are cool and amazing and he wants to be a part of the things that they do.  When his dad gets jealous of Tim’s relationship to Bruce, and feels like Tim’s looking for a surrogate family, he’s... not wrong.

And the ways in which Jack is not Actionably Bad complicate things from Bruce's POV.  If Jack was a straight-up villain, it’d be an easy call to keep in touch when Jack finds out and makes Tim quit...but he’s not a villain, not really.  So what do you do?  Do you try to surreptitiously stay in touch with Tim even though you’re ignoring his dad’s express wishes and thus forcing Tim to sneak around?  Do you respect his dad’s wishes and stay away from Tim even though you have a years-long relationship at this point?  

Again: a bit similar to the extracurricular analogy.  Say you’re the choir director and you’ve built this whole relationship with a kid in the choir, and you’re an important mentor to him and you care about him etc. etc. etc.... and then right before a big performance, his dad finds out he’s been secretly involved, and yanks him out.  How would you react?  Well, maybe kind of in some of the ways Bruce reacts.  You replace him. You’re annoyed with him. You miss him. You want him to come back. You’re also worried about him.  You’re upset with his dad.  But also... what should you do, exactly?

Bruce and Alfred and Dick care about Tim as if he were part of their family, but he’s not part of their family, and there’s a lot of interesting tension there.

My Harsher Take

Jack never hits his son.  But his temper is a big deal.

In his worst moments, he takes out his anger on Tim’s stuff - wrecking his room, or ripping his TV out of the wall and confiscating it.  When he’s worried about Tim, he usually expresses that fear by yelling at him / punishing him / sending him away - threatening to send him to boarding school in Metropolis in Robin III, or threatening to send him to military school abroad in Robin 92, or actually forcing him to go to an all-boys' boarding school post-NML.  

This is bad behavior!  It is Not Good!  

And you can easily connect the dots to a bunch of Tim’s terrible coping mechanisms, like the constant lying and or the fact that Tim’s go-to methods for dealing with interpersonal conflict are 1) repress it and pretend it never happened (most of his fights with Bruce), 2) withdraw from the relationship until he can pretend the conflict doesn’t exist (when his friends get mad at him in YJ, he quits the team for a while), or 3) literally run away from home.

Also, Jack is a Manly Man with firm opinions about how men behave vs. how women behave, and he thinks boys shouldn’t be scared and thinks Tim should date hot girls and pushes Tim to work out and wants him to play football and expresses period-typical sexism, etc. etc. etc. ... and though obviously this wasn’t what the writers had in mind at the time, all of that is certainly interesting to read backwards in the light of Tim as a queer character.

More Disorganized Thoughts on Jack Drake

Tim’s our hero, so we’re naturally more sympathetic to him, but it’s also true that relationships are a two-way street, and Tim doesn’t value any of the things his dad values, either.  Jack at various points is shown to care about grades, business, money, boarding schools, archeology, football, a kind of macho bragging-about-dating-hot-women ethos, and a very public and performative kind of caring. Tim tends to respond with discomfort or disinterest or even disgust.  When Jack gets on TV to try to rally the government to save his son from No Man’s Land, Tim isn’t touched—he’s mortified.  When Jack makes some bad investments and loses money, Jack’s deeply upset and his self-image is majorly impacted, and far from being sympathetic, Tim’s annoyed and kind of contemptuous of the idea that this is a problem.  Jack thinks fishing in the early morning and going to tennis matches is a fun father-son activity; Tim finds it exhausting and tedious.  And so on.

This means that Tim often longs to be closer to his dad in theory, but this longing is more tied to fantasy than to reality. He rarely seems to enjoy spending time with His-Dad-The-Actual-Person.  So for example, when Tim’s deadly ill with the Clench, he has an extremely poignant fever dream about telling his dad the truth and getting hugged…even as he insists in real-life to Alfred and Dick that he does not want them to tell his dad what’s going on.

The same is true of Jack, who IMO genuinely wants to be closer to his son and is continually declaring that he’s going to turn over a new leaf and get closer to his son…and just as continually backs out of activities or loses his temper when faced with spending time with his actual son.

Tim and his dad sadly get along best—by far—in Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder situations.  When Jack gets kidnapped or is in danger, Tim worries for him (and Tim grieves him deeply when he dies).  When Tim disappears or runs away, Jack’s genuinely worried about him.  So e.g. they have a really moving emotional reunion and hug when the earthquake hits Gotham, and Tim panics about his dad’s safety and comes running home (and meanwhile Jack’s been panicked about Tim’s safety!).  It’s the day-to-day, regular life stuff where they don’t connect.

Jack's written quite differently by different writers. Mostly, Tim's parents are at their least likable in his early appearances and early miniseries (this is where you get, for example, Jack and Janet being nasty at each other while a pained employee looks on, and Tim disappointed to once again get news of where his parents are via postcard - "I guess that sums them up! Never know where they’re going to be–or when–or even how long!” - and Tim alone on school break, and Bruce and Alfred thinking there's something weird going on with Tim's parents, etc. etc.). Jack's more sympathetic but still often unlikable in most of Tim's Robin solo, and he's almost invisible (but positively treated if he does show up) in Tim's team books.

For obvious reasons, Jack's remembered way more sympathetically after his death. Tim's completely devastated by Jack's murder, which he arrives moments too late to prevent, and he basically never gets over it. We see him grieving Jack again and again in Robin, and also in Teen Titans, and also in Resurrection, and again in the Halloween Special, and again in Batman: Blackest Night, and all the way up to the end of Red Robin. Tim also grieves for an extended time over Janet - he hallucinates a happy reunion with her when he's feverish in Contagion, and hallucinates her in the final issue of Robin, and the reveal-your-buried-emotions song in Robin 102 brings up his grief for her too (meanwhile, other characters dance or laugh or otherwise get giddy).  Tim’s grief over his parents’ deaths is intense and long-lasting.

I'm not going to clip comic panels because this is long enough, but if you're curious, here's a nice and fairly lengthy compilation of comic panels with Tim and Jack.

If you're interested in a Jack-centric story with a softer-but-still-recognizably-canon take on Jack, I really like the way Jack’s narration is written in the one-shots Heart Humble (set shortly before Jack dies) and Never a Hero (Ra's resurrects him during Brucequest, and Jack's archeology skills turn out to be unexpectedly useful).

[forestgreenlesbian]

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[mae-dwrites]

Tom and Jack are brothers - mainly DPxMLB (can be DPxDCxMLB)

It was clear from the moment Jack was born that he was Gina’s son, no one could doubt that overzealous nature, and while Tom didn't have the same level of entustatsum as his mother and brother it didn't mean he wasn't an excitable person either. Truly Roland had no idea how he didn't die living with them, the man didn't realize how much he was like them nor really saw how much Jack would go on to be like him in some ways.

One thing was for certain the boys loved their parents, the Fenton luck and sanguine as well as the Dupain passion and vigor were ever-present in the household growing up. Gina loved her boys very much, they were the only reason she stuck in one place for so long. However, she was able to convince Roland to take them all over the U.S. and Europe.

Jack went on to have a passion for inventing and ghosts, both of which Roland looked down upon but Gina was his biggest supporter followed by Tom. Tom ended up enjoying baking with his father. (Jack tended to forget a meal or two when he got too into his work. So it worked out.)

Jack would move out (taking his mother’s maiden name) and go to college in Wisconsin and meet Vlad and Maddie and fall in love and all that! Tom though opens a bakery a few years of baking for some personal events and such, and meets Sabine who moved to Paris to go to school, they fall in love and she takes business courses to help better run the bakery. Roland does his…thing and he never approved of Jack’s hobbies either, “that's not what job a family man takes on” or something, he of course doesn't try to contact him. He gets to be a grumpy old man in (guilty) peace.

Tom and Jack have never missed anything, they're best friends and each other’s biggest supporters. Best man, holiday’s, etc. So of course they make sure their kids have plenty of meetings despite being an ocean away. They couldn't have been happier that their kids were so close in age, which meant they wouldn't struggle to connect.

It was quick to be seen none of the kids showed signs of the Dupain shape, oh well maybe they’d still get the strength? Or perhaps the Fenton luck would just be much stronger. To say where the kids got their size from was an understatement, and to say very amusing to their wives and mother.

Marinette loved her cousins and didn't like how it was only every so often she got to see them. And her aunt and uncle were very cool, and reminded her of Nonna Gina. It was fun to see Uncle Jack lift her papa up, he was the only person she’d ever seen who could pick up her papa.

Jazz and Danny loved the Dupain-Chengs, they seemed to help level their parents out and they actually set aside their ghost obsession to just be a family. Not to mention they made the best food, going to their home was the best, you never got attacked by the food!

Jazz, Marinette, and Danny were as thick as thieves as their dads were, they were a unit. Which meant Marinette had called Jazz and Danny after she had taken the earrings off, and Danny had called Marinette to tell her about how he was dealing with his powers after dying.

And the next time the Fenton’s came to the Dupain-Cheng’s maybe Marinette and Danny hugged a little longer and a little tighter than usual, and Jazz spent her time glued to the younger girl’s side.

[hxhhasmysoul]

wouldn't it be nice if the author of the fics finished them. the author is me.

[goldiipond]

i adore thinking about the fucked up tpn stuff that was either not considered during the writing process or deliberately left unexplored.

tpn really said 'each house has about 6 shipments and receives about 6 new children to replace them each year. the minimum age a child can be shipped out is 6. tpn begins with conny's shipment in october, after which dominic is the only remaining 6 year-old at the house' without even considering the implications of that. how about 'we know literally nothing about anyone from the age group between anna+nat's and thoma+lanni's groups because theyre all gone by the time the story starts' also literally no one ever brings them up. or my personal favorite of 'isabella painstakingly hand-made little bunny for conny's 6th birthday. conny turned 6 in september, about a month before she was shipped out' like do you think isabella was at least a little pissed about that. i like to think she was

[the-kipsabian]

.

[ggukkiedae]

[2:01pm kst, january 3 2024]

hi guys!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! i hope everyone has had a blast and that you all receive good things going into this new year 🥰

im actually sick rn (like i have colds and a fever kind of sick that makes me stuck in bed for a few days) but i just wanted to do a quick little drop in and tell you guys my plans for the year regarding tumblr

regarding this last post, it’s still a definite might, esp for yoonmi bc minju isn’t really that active, but we’ll see

i’m catching up the timeline for my girls 😤 while i will be writing some current stuff (i already have some wips in my notes), i kinda will be focusing on the timeline stuff (bc hi it’s 2018 in the timeline seri and ari havent even debuted yet akshfjf (ari isnt even in belift yet))

i probably might go into writing more idolxreader stuff!

i will have something up in a few hours about my girls and the year they’ve had, so watch out for that!

i’m just really excited to finally have the time to write for myself again, and there are so many things in my mind and in my (not so) little excel file aksjdjfjf to those who have been with me for a while (readers and moots alike 🫶🏻) thank you so much, i love u guys! to new friends and people just finding my blog, welcome and i hope you enjoy 🥰

sending all the best vibes! please spread~ until next time! <3

~cia💕

[annoyinglibra]

Living in a state with recreational weed is so nice :)

[chrismcshell]

back in my hometown for a lil weekend visit. it's been just over a month since i moved away. the tapwater in my new city tastes better than the tapwater back here, and now the hometown tapwater tastes kinda bad by comparison. so weird how these little things can change

[nongnaos]

Win is a third year (Junior) so he's about 20-21. Depending on the semester, he could be 21 at most.

View is supposed to be in high school so 17-18. Same for him, it's a new school year so I think he's 17. In addition to his uniform indicating that he's definitely in highschool still (short sleeved light pink dress shirt + the shorts).

Wan is supposed to have already graduated so at the very least 23+ (I think I read somewhere that he's in his mid to late twenties so that would put him 25+ which would make more sense given how Win called him a "grown ass man" and it'd be weird to call your older brother whose older than you by no more than 2 years a "grown ass man" when you're so close in age, so 25+ seems more plausible, in my opinion.)

I could be completely off, since I'm basing this on an American education system...

If I were religious I'd say you were doing the lords work THANK YOU

I hate nothing more than trying to figure out ages based on education systems bc they all seem so different all the time. Especially with translations, like if they say "in grade 4" I assume they have translated it for a US grade 4, in which case I still have to find out what age that is anyway 😂 (Even just in Ireland it's difficult bc a lot of kids are finishing secondary school at like 19 now but I was barely 17 when I finished. There was a girl in my class who was 16 for the first few weeks of college, which in retrospect feels insane. Like she wouldn'tbe able to legally drink until 3rd year. Wild.)

I feel like this all does make sense, I couldn't tell how much of View's personality was acting cutesy for his favourite brother vs actually being young. But alternatively, Wan does seem older which makes sense if the actor is 27. They really do feel like they have an age gap between them all! Thanks again for letting me know!

[whatdourelfeyessee]

Screaming the name of a foreigner's God

Screaming the name of a foreigner's God

Screaming the name of a foreigner's God

The purest expression of grief

[lilgynt]

met my half sister very weird experience but still losing my mind that grown ass women calls my dad dad were SIBLINGS

[harmonizewithechoes]

.

[daimaoryu]

in real life news, i feel on edge every time my mom and any of my aunts speak to my sister in law and the my youngest uncle's wife