theavacadofruit

[theavacadofruit]

that post which acknowledges the weight of bruce not telling jason about willis' death is a godsend, it is such a major breach of trust and it happens at the beginning of jason's robin career as well and imo really sets the tone. to me it was always where jason's trust in bruce started to fracture and the diplomat's son was the last straw after which he desperately starts looking for someone to trust (a parent).

i think the change in jason's backstory in post-crisis is a major in-universe reason for why bruce's parenting stops working for jason. pre-crisis jason lost his parents in a singular moment due to an act of violence just like bruce (and dick) which bruce personally knows well and has already had experience helping dick with so he is able to be a relatively better parent to jason (i mean he was still a fumbler with the whole dyeing the hair, comparing them, jason not having time for much outside of robin and all but still much better that post-crisis). when the crisis happens and jason's trauma changes that similarity ends. jason is now a child who took care of his mother in her final days and had to survive poverty and homelessness. his loss of his parents is a slow painful process. bruce cannot relate to any of these things but he still approaches jason with that same tactic which worked for him and for dick. jason understandably wouldn't respond well to this.

none of this is jason's fault but it displays that bruce is not very capable of handling or personally helping people with trauma that he does not understand himself. he also does not understand why he is unable to help jason or why jason isn't responding to his methods. this combined with alfred's fuckass classist bullshit combines into everyone viewing jason as a problematic child instead.

i think this is why bruce being the best dad ever to jason in before his death does not work for me in a post-crisis setting because bruce fucks up a lot of things from the get-go, i do not think jason ever really felt that secure in that timeline despite the adoption (which i have seen a lot of people use as proof of their bond's stability before jason's death but i think that is incomplete without understanding why their bond fractured in spite of that). i mean there is a reason why jason doesn't even think that bruce would help him with his mom quest. the garzonas case is not a "omg why is my supportive loving dad suddenly not trusting me on this" but more of a "this man who i thought i am supposed to depend on has proved to me yet again that he does not trust me". jason doesn't really seem all that concerned or surprised with bruce not believing him imo, almost like he didn't expect bruce's explicit trust in him. which he is right to do because bruce has proven multiple times that he does not trust jason and that jason cannot trust him. garzonas was always the straw that broke the camel's back.

The post

I dont have much to add to this I really really like it and just like, YEAH yeah exactly.

[theavacadofruit]

Like. Jaybin points

-People can only be close with Bruce if they're a part of the vigilante life. If you're not out with him as Batman you'll miss him or get left behind by him alot

-Batman was also a part of the Outsiders, which ran with him in it for most of precrisis. Jason was not a part of this team and had no interactions with them (His brief appearance in an annual though makes it without doubt the stories/time are connected here)

-The comics reach a point where some fully just don't have Jason in or mentioned in the stories and cases at all (while he's still alive) simply going on with just Batman

-If I recall, there's also a good number of comics where Jason is sorta scooted off to the side

-(optional) some comics declare Jason is not allowed to patrol on School nights

-(80s parenting) Bruce didn't know Jason was at the museum until he saw him there. And I imagine in general he doesn't know where Jason is plenty of times

-(DC hates civilians and secret identities) We only see Bruce hanging out with Jason, rather than Batman and Robin, when it still holds relation to a case

-In A Death In The Family, The end of Jason's run, he says that Bruce only cares about cases/wouldn't care about Jason wanting to find his mom. No matter your thoughts on Bruce, that's still the very clearly stated thoughts of Jason himself

If you're seeing this I've added some more points in a reblog btw! :]

[theavacadofruit]

I know what panel this is based on~

It lives rent free in my head anyway.

Take #2 went MUCH better

[theavacadofruit]

This movie coming out made me aware that people don’t know the crucial motivation behind Superman’s character: To BE hope. “Kindness in a world where kindness is old-fashioned.” A super man, if you will.

Not just a guy with good powers, but a guy doing good with his powers.

Why is this political? Never mind, I understand this being an allusion to some politics or political issue, just why is it even an issue? Anyway, if you’re a fan of Superman from the comics, go see the movie!!!

Guys do you think she’s excited

[theavacadofruit]

Oh 90s Tim, you would have loved doomscrolling.

[theavacadofruit]

I finally have the receipts!

Tim Drake's Photography / Batstalking

Okay, so I've seen a lot of people dismiss the idea that Tim Drake did any Batstalking (photography of Batman, Nightwing or Robin) as completely fanon, and it... isn't? At the very least some of it is canon, and while the extent of it isn't explicitly stated, the idea that Tim's been following Batman since Dick was Robin has fairly decent canonical backing - certainly moreso than Tim never doing any. I'd argue that he probably wasn't going out every night, but there's not much support one way or the other for the timing or frequency.

To be clear, I absolutely don't care if something is fanon, just have fun with it. I just want to correct a misconception that something's fanon when it kind of isn't.

The rest of this (upsettingly long) post is under a cut for neatness

Obviously what's canon is highly variable dependent on author, their interpretation of existing information and what information they're working with in the first place, so to minimise that as far as possible, all of the following panels are taken from Batman (1940) #440-442, the first section of the 'Lonely Place of Dying' storyline, which introduced Tim Drake.

They're in chronological order, which puts the most important one near the end.

So this is actually the first we see of Tim Drake, where he's actively photographing Batman during a fight when he knows he's becoming more violent after the loss of Jason Todd. Clearly, then, he has taken photos of at least Batman without him noticing him, and it'd be a little odd to my mind if this was the first time he'd done that, simply because this would involve very specific skills that he'd have to learn somehow - most especially anticipating where Batman would be and hiding from him.

The geography of this scene is a little unclear to me, but given he's not using some massive telephoto lens and how well the pictures come out later, it seems like he was pretty close. Batman's distracted by Jason's death, but it's still either a hefty lapse in Batman's situational awareness or a very impressive feat of stealth from Tim. Possibly both.

This one isn't super clear, but it seems he has a mix of both newspaper cuttings and actual photos - on the right is a photo album of some kind starting with a picture that matches up roughly with what Tim recalls from Haly's circus in #441. This is dubious evidence, but certainly implies that Tim at least has some photos of Batman, and has had them long enough to turn into an album - note that the newspaper clippings, while showing Robins both Dick Grayson and Jason Todd, aren't in the Album, implying these might well be photos Tim's taken himself.

Also, the two photos in the centre of the frame appear to be the ones he took of the fight at the start of the comic, and aren't noticeably lower quality than the press images on the next page, for example. Obviously there's some limitations to actually showing that in a comic and it may well just be artistic licence, but if not it backs up my point above about Tim being fairly close to the fight with Batman

This is from Tim staking out Titan's tower, looking for Dick Grayson. Importantly, note that he knows the Titans' routines, is aware where both Dick Grayson and Starfire live (he knows the actual address), and is aware that Dick and Kori normally leave together. This isn't information he'd likely get in a week, this at the very least strongly suggests that he's spent time tracking Dick and the Titans in general. Specifically, it's stated later that Dick left the Titans several weeks ago and Tim didn't know this, so Tim's knowledge of what's usual for him is at least that old.

Also, this implies he's not just looking at CCTV footage, because then his information wouldn't be this out of date. We know he's physically in New York here because he meets Kori later and he's shown taking these photos, though not in part of the panel I clipped.

I didn't clip it either, but he also knows where Dick's old apartment is and that he kept it up while he was a Titan.

Also, the events of this story take place seemingly over a few days - so in the first scene where Tim says he's going to 'start on Dick Grayson', I think that's pretty clearly intended to be 'start convincing him' rather than 'start stalking him' - the timeline makes very little sense otherwise

This isn't exactly relevant to his Batstalking, but is fairly important - his parents are 'always' travelling and he's at boarding school, though clearly unsupervised during vacation weeks. He's not being left home alone yearound, but he doesn't exactly have great supervision either.

Given the implications of the previous panel and Tim's information dating back earlier than two weeks, I'd suggest that he possibly does the Batstalking during vacations, not sneaking out while school is in session. This would make his information being out of date make a lot of sense

This is the most important section to my mind - this is Tim stating outright that he's followed them both - Batman and Robin, implying either that he followed Nightwing or, more likely to my mind, that he followed Jaybin and possibly Dick as Robin, given that he otherwise makes a strong distinction between Dick/Nightwing and Robin - suddenly breaking that distinction for this panel would seem odd to me.

His phrasing in the second part of the second panel is a little ambiguous, but you could absolutely validly read that as 'he's been following the bats since Dick was Robin'.

This last panel isn't really important for the Batstalking thing so much, except the implication that Tim may have been following Batman dating back to Robin's death, I just like it because it encapsulates Tim Drake so neatly.

So, yeah. Tim Drake definitely followed Batman, Nightwing, possibly Jaybin and even possibly Dick as Robin, for an ambiguous amount of time while he was at boarding school and his parents were away. He possibly took photographs while Jay was Robin, and he definitely photographed Batman being violent. It's not at all fanon, though I'd be interested to know if anyone has any other thoughts or interpretations of this.

[theavacadofruit]

What if like, Dick was a fanfic writer? I saw a post where like, Dick was a long standing AO3 author, and Jason and Tim were too- but they didn't know Dick was a writer.

Like, he vents and writes about himself through his fics. I loved the idea. And ofc Dick knew Jason and Tim wrote bcs Big Brother and all.

*cackles* yes . . . yes . . . . a good idea indeed . . .

Dick: *walks into his new brother's room* hey jason, how are you doing? Jason: *looks over the top of his computer* uh . . . good? dick: *being nosy* WHAT are you doing? jason: uh . . .. writing dick: dick: what kind of writing? jason: stories dick: stories about what? jason: people dick: this is extremely suspicious jason: i'm aware dick: *walks out and mutters to himself* I wonder if he's a ffn or LiveJournal kid

Dick finds his account that ngiht, having searched through pride and prejudice fics and found the most recently updated ones. after reading the ANs---in which the author talked about getting kidnapped by a billionaire and then didnt' respond to any of the concerned comments---he knew it was jason. from then on, he subscribes to all of jason's stories. he leaves comments on every one, acting as a sort of fandom mentor to the 12 year old who barely knows how to write. as time goes on, jason tells him thanks in ANs and waits specifically for that profile's comments on a chapter. dick never reveals his identity.

dick, neck-deep writing star trek and star wars fanfiction, is one of the larger authors on whatever platform they're using.

when he stops posting for about a year, people take notice. he has over four unfinished fics, and has said not a word about his hiatus. a lot of fans theorize he's dead. a few people think the same of a jane austen fic author, but he's not popular enough for it to cause the waves dick's disappearance did.

when he reappears almost a year later, his AN, in which he states simply, "I'm sorry, guys. had a sudden death in the family and lost my will to write.", causes a lot of concerned comments and well-wishes. he doesn't respond to any of them, his interaction with subscribers severely diminished, but he reads every one.

the little-known jane austen author starts updating again as well. in the first AN since their hiatus, it explains that the original author of the fic died. it says that the new author is their brother, who has decided to continue writing their fics in their stead. a lot of people think it's a joke, and the account goes slightly famous for it. the fics are slowly and diligently updated, not yet ended but certainly not lacking in quality.

dick meets tim.

the kid writes BATMAN FANFICTION on fucking AO3. don't ask dick how he knows this, the shit he had to wade through to find that account . . . god, he's going to kill whoever invented rpf. especially for Nightwing. and batman. and robin. point is, this time he's straight about it. he tells tim that he writes as well, and he shows him how he's been continuing jason's fics since his other brother died. tim starts to help out. he reads four jane austen novels, annotates all with highlights and everything, and then? right then? walking through the library and seeing tim so dedicated to something that, in the long run, means so little? seeing tim commit and spend so much time on something that only one who knew jason should have cared about?

that's the moment that he decides that maybe, just maybe, he has room in his heart for another little brother. and maybe, just maybe, this one won't leave it in ruins like the last one.

two years later, and jason todd takes his first real breath since waking up in his grave. covered in green lazarus water and half out of his mind, he's cognizant for the first time in over a year. and damian, the boy he'd not left for more than five minutes since waking, told him that his father had replaced him. that there was a new robin. jason, so out of his mind with anger, is afraid he'll yell. scream. scare damian, which is the last thing he wants to do right now. the very thought of it horrifies him. damian was meant to trust him, and he was meant to trust jason. so jason asks for a computer. he tells talia that its so he can prepare, so that he can catch up on the world in order to return to gotham vengeful---but that's not the truth. or at least, not the whole truth. after looking through the news, after reading up on articles about his own death and the joker's latest killing sprees, after making sure Nightwing was still partolling, he goes to the one place he's always felt entirely calm---the fanfiction website. he logs on, intending to catch up on his own stories, and to his shock---he finds his fics almost finished. two he'd thought incomplete were done, and . . . had more saves than he'd ever through possible. the others were so close to being done, and had the same situation in their notes.

someone had been writing his fics for him.

and sitting there, damain against his side, reading over his shoulder, he goes through each and every author note that he knows he didn't write. there are over twenty of them, and he has to search for the first one after his death, but he eventually finds it.

"Ahki?" Damian asks as he reads, voice thoughtful. "I thought we had no other brothers."

Jason, vision slightly misty, swallows. "We do. We have an older brother. He . . . well, I guess he was the one to do this."

Damain, having read the entire note, nods. "He appears to be a good brother."

Jason's voice cracks. "Y-yeah. He is."

That night he takes Damian and leaves, heading for America. but not gotham---no, dick opens his door one night in bludhaven to find his dead brother and a toddler waiting for him.

the first words out of Jason's mouth are, "You had to kill off Bingley? Really?"

[theavacadofruit]

Him preventing Bruce from killing the Joker, to him begging for it =(

going insane over this actually

[theavacadofruit]

one day i am gonna grow wings