hey, i'm cue!! i read/collect dc comics + write batfam fic :) pretty much everything on this blog will be related to those two things, in one way or another. feel free to send a dm or ask if you're feeling friendly (pfp tim is from tec #701)
(the robin poll has its own blog now! @therobinpoll)
tags by topic ⤑
personal: general | my meta/commentary | my fic | answered asks |current comics liveblogging | older comics liveblogging | comics log
comics: resources for getting into comics | panels | canon reference
fandom: bats/comics | ao3/writing/Fandom
misc: ask games/polls
tags by character/group ⤑
bats: bruce wayne | dick grayson | jason todd | tim drake | damian wayne | cassandra cain | stephanie brown | bruce + kid(s) | dick & jay | dick & tim | robins
titans: | donna troy | koriand'r | roy harper | wally west | garth
young justice: | kon | cassie sandsmark | bart allen
super sons
ships: timkon | dickkory
for filtering ⤑
recent comics release posts will always be tagged #wednesday spoilers. ships will be tagged with either the portmanteau or the organizational tag, i forget to do both sometimes.
By the way, the questions of "Who is the biggest Tim glazer, Bruce or Dick?" and "Who is the biggest Dick glazer, Bruce or Tim?" are both rather close, like we are talking President and Vice President of the respective fanclubs.
But the question of who is the biggest Bruce glazer is Dick. And it's not close. Not remotely. He's the biggest Bruce glazer alive. And Tim doesn't even really glaze Bruce. But Tim is conversely the biggest Bruce excuser, which is like the opposite while maintaining positive feelings. So basically if Bruce actually fucks up, Tim ends up like "well what did you expect?" and Dick is like "BETTER OF HIM" which is why Dick is the one that gets angry.
i don’t know which way i would have voted back in the 80’s but if they put out a poll rn i would vote for jason to die. via as many accounts as i could.
A while ago, I made a site skin that replaces all of the AO3 icons with new ones. I was pretty happy with it, but I wanted more options for changing the colors. So I made a new skin with customizable colors!
Here are previews of the three example color schemes I created (default, berry/reversed blue, and pink) in comparison to the old icons:
Almost all icon background colors (and a few other ones) can be changed to any color you want!
Find instructions for adding and customizing the site skin here on AO3:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
EDIT (20 July 2025): I have added pink icons and updated this post accordingly.
in a similar vein to my prev post. the urge to block the jason todd tag is strong bc i am weak and the majority of the meta i see for him makes me forget that i like him as much as i do holy crap
and like dgmw, i want everyone to play with the dolls in whichever way brings them joy. i just simply do not wish to be audience to every play
“Bruce and Tim are the same person” actually Bruce is “I’ll down that roofied drink so I don’t spring whatever trap this is” and Tim is “THIS time when I taste the roofie I’ll be able to identify it” (he’s been wrong every single time so far) — very similar flavors of the same kind of idiot, but not quite the same
guy who has read 10 comics: bruce wayne is a good parent
guy who has read 100 comics: bruce wayne is an evil person and a terrible parent and fandom larpers who only read wayne family adventures don't actually know anything about bruce wayne and are projecting their stupid inane fantasies onto him
guy who has read 1000 comics: bruce wayne is a good parent
Once upon a time, two kids met at a circus... and the rest is history.
table of contents:
who are these losers?
what's fun about them?
why a reading guide?
how does the reading guide work? (tl;dr: there are quick recs, a selected chronological list, and a complete chronological list)
where is the spreadsheet? (x)
who are they?
Dick Grayson and Tim Drake: the first Robin and the third Robin.
Also known as the circus boy and the earnest computer geek, the hotshot and the pretender, the slighted prince and the new apprentice, the acolyte and the hanger-on, Nightwing and Robin, Batman and Robin, Batman and Red Robin, and Marcia and Cindy (BftC 3, N 110 & 119, B 617, DC 677, Detention Comics 1, R 168, RR 14).
Or as Jason calls them, "You idiots" (TT 47).
More seriously, Dick Grayson is one of the most enduring comic characters ever - he's been around since Detective Comics 38 in 1940! He's Batman's first ward, first partner, and eldest son. When Dick's parents are murdered, Bruce identifies with him, comforts him, and takes him into his home, where Dick ultimately volunteers to join his crimefighting mission. By candlelight, the Dynamic Duo swear an oath: That we two will fight together against crime and corruption and never swerve from the path of righteousness!
Tim Drake was created in Batman 436 and formally introduced in Lonely Place of Dying. He's a lonely kid who imprints on Dick when they meet as children, and Dick hugs him and promises to do a quadruple somersault for him; he's horrified and worried about Dick in the aftermath of the Graysons' murder, which he witnesses. He watches Batman comfort Dick, deduces Robin's secret identity, and becomes a secret devotee of the Dynamic Duo. Though he admires them both, it's ultimately Dick who he idolizes and tries to emulate when Bruce is spiraling: Batman needs a Robin. No matter what he thinks he wants.
Their slow-burn strangers-to-friends-to-brothers-to-antagonists-to-brothers-again arc develops from 1989 to 2011, and it's one of the standout examples of the DC Post-Crisis era's commitment to gradual character development and careful continuity.
what's fun about them?
SO MUCH!!! But one of my favorite things is their friendship has RANGE!! They go from sweet kids to tense strangers to loyal friends to brothers over the course of real-life years and tons of comics. They fight, they tease each other, they get protective, they worry, they chase each other down, they walk away... there's just so much story here.
They meet at the circus as children, when both their parents are still alive. They meet again, years later, when Bruce is reeling from Jason's death and they team up to stop him from hurting anyone. In the early days, they're brothers-in-arms and never quite family - instead, Dick is Bruce's loyal-but-estranged eldest son, and Tim is Bruce's new loyal-but-wary apprentice, with his own family and his own semi-estranged dad. The slow process of evolving toward found-family is a delight to watch.
They work together as Nightwing and Robin over four years of in-universe time and for over twenty years of real-time, gradually forging a fierce bond of friendship and, ultimately, brotherhood.
Then Bruce dies, and they have some huge fights.
But even when they're estranged, even when they're not speaking... they never stop loving and trying to protect each other. No matter what.
why a reading guide?
Quotes from New Titans 60 and Batman 441 (1989), Nightwing 25 (1998), Nightwing 69 (2002), Red Robin 1 (2009), Red Robin 12 (2010), Gates of Gotham 3 and Detective Comics 874 (2011)
I think reading guides are cool!! And somebody asked me about one!
More generally, I think reading guides are always helpful, but especially with Dick & Tim... you know, when I first started out trying to read their comics, I got kinda overwhelmed. Because on the one hand there's SO MUCH CONTENT - they're one of the classic enduring friendships in all of post-Crisis! their relationship is a HUGE BIG DEAL! they're constantly calling each other and hanging out and supporting each other and arguing!
But at the same time, all of that content is scattered across lots of different books, in Robin and Nightwing and Detective Comics and Batman and New Titans and Titans and Young Justice and Teen Titans and Shadow of the Bat and Gotham Knights and Birds of Prey and Showcase and DC Holiday Specials and so on and so forth. There's not One Definitive Place where you can read The Dick-and-Tim Story.
So: a reading guide!
how does the reading guide work?
Dick and Tim are in over 400 comics together and over 800 comics each separately. That's a whole lot of comics! So I've made a spreadsheet with three different reading guides, depending on how interested you are in these two:
1-5 Quick Recs: If you just want to check out a couple comics, check out these quick recs for "if you like fluff," "if you like angst," etc.
200 Starter Comics: If you want to do a comprehensive, chronological Dick-and-Tim read without committing to all the comics, this list has some of their major team-ups plus some solo comics so you know what the heck is going on. Most of them have a "sneak peek" you can use to decide if you want to read it.
Big List: A complete list of all the comics Dick and Tim are in, in chronological order, with links to dc.fandom and to DC Universe Infinite. It has filter views.
This spreadsheet was a labor of love, obsession, and SO MUCH PROCRASTINATING doing other things. I update it sometimes.
