Fanon Tim Drake and the Dynamics of Abuse Apologia
(this is my first attempt at a serious analysis post on here so please be gentle with me. also this contains a detailed discussion of familial and child abuse so be careful ā¤ļø)
Despite being an avid comic reader and general disliker of fanon Batman stories, I ironically find fanonās version of Tim deeply, deeply relatable but for all of the wrong reasons, most of which are entirely unintentional to the authorās goals.
Iām sure most of you know the typical Tim Drake story posted on AO3. The majority of them, if not ship focused, are usually about the fanon relationship between Tim and the āBatfamā, Jason especially, which is what I want to focus on. I find these types of fics are written in a way to make Tim relatable, but itās for the same reason theyāre so upsetting and why I canāt read them: the way Tim is treated in these fics is almost an exact recreation of how abuse is normalized and excused within interpersonal relationships. Many of the āGood Dad Bruceā and āJason Todd is a Good Siblingā fics contain prevalent depictions of abuse apologia which are framed as āHurt/Comfortā or āEnemy to Caretakerā
Fanon Tim stories have multiple connected tropes and themes that are nearly identical to one another, and I want to focus on the three following ones: Titans Tower and its fanon, Timās relationship with Jason and its fanon, and fanon Timās integration of Jason back into the āBatfamilyā. I will be talking less about correcting what is fanon vs canon, and more about how these fanon tropes play into the overarching undertones of abuse apologia.
Titans Tower AUs typically happen like this: a 13-14y/o Tim is minding his business in the tower, Jason ambushes/tortures him, Tim begs for Jason to stop, and Jason snaps out of his āpit madnessā to relent before Tim is killed. Tim is revealed to have been a huge fan of Jason and considers him āhis Robinā, and over time Tim manages to bring Jason back into the fold through the power of familial love/brotherhood or whatever.
In these fics, the Lazarus Pit is used as a vehicle to remove Jason from responsibility for his choices. It wasnāt really Jason committing those actions, he was being influenced by āthe greenā. Side effects from the Lazarus Pit in canon are extremely temporary, but in these stories the Lazarus Pit gives Jason the permanent side-effect of near-uncontrollable anger and rage. He wasnāt in his right mind when he attacked Tim, so itās not āreallyā Jason committing these actions, he wouldnāt have done it if it werenāt for āthe greenā clouding his vision. Due to this, Tim is subtly encouraged by the narrative to forgive Jason for what heās done because Jason is also framed as a victim in this situation.
This is interconnected with the second aspect, which is how these fics change Tim and Jasonās dynamic. They are given a much larger age gap, with Tim being an early adolescent and Jason being around 18-20 years old. Compounding this is the way the relationship is portrayed more personally, with Tim always having admired Jason as Robin and Tim having his biological parents be both physically and emotionally abusive towards him. These end up changing the dynamic to be one of overt familial violence between an older sibling towards a younger one. Tim is separated from his mother and father by their abuse, and many times these fics already have Tim adopted into the family before Jasonās return. Jack and Janetās abuse in these stories is often extreme to the point of parody, and makes Jasonās abuse look ānot as badā in comparison and the preferable option, despite whatever torture he puts Tim through. Canon Tim didnāt have a super high opinion of Jason, and the fight does not come off as Jason being an abusive sibling but rather just Jason being some asshole who pops up out of nowhere. Fanon also dials up the violence of the encounter to way, way higher levels than what canonically happens, having the throat slit from Hush happen here instead, which gives the entire story a gross, exploitative feel to it, at least in my opinion.
Lastly, and most importantly, āGood Dad Bruceā almost always forgives Jason for his actions no matter how awful the encounter was. Jason faces no consequences, at best Jason will give an apology (and sometimes not even that), and Bruce/Dick/Alfred and even Tim himself are happy to have their āLittle Wingā back. Jasonās trauma is prioritized over Timās, even when the story is from Timās POV, and Jason is portrayed as a āgood guy led astrayā rather than as an abuser. The family acts as a means to reinforce the narrative that responsibility lies with āthe greenās influenceā and not with Jason, as well as having Tim himself advocate for Jasonās forgiveness. Tim and Jason become ābrothersā and all past actions are forgiven. Dickās canonical anger at Jason is rarely portrayed, and staunchly anti-death characters such as Cassandra are chill with it (if not outright excluded from the story because of the authors unfamiliarity with canon). Tim becomes the actor made responsible for Jasonās āredemptionā, and while on rare occasion this will be pointed out, itās usually brushed aside because Tim is proven to be right, and more often than not Timās goals are subtly encouraged by the story through their endings and/or narrative arcs. The victim of abuse becomes his abuserās advocate.
These tropes combine to create a narrative about abuse. The story becomes not about redemption or forgiveness or family, but instead about how abuse can become excused through narrative and interpersonal/familial systems. Tim is the victim of a horrible, horrible crime that nearly kills himā¦and is forced to watch as his found family excuses, coddles, and forgives the person who did it to him because of their connections. His anger, his resentment is not allowed because responsibility is diverted away from the perpetrator and towards outside actors such as the Lazarus Pit or Talia, which serves to make the reader think Tim is justified in his own forgiveness towards Jason. Jasonās own tragedy is emphasized to muffle the heinousness of what heās done, and to portray his actions as tragic instead of evil. Timās closeness with and admiration of Jason preempts him to forge a bond with his abuser after the fact, and this is not portrayed as a potentially harmful or unhealthy effort to undertake. Tim becomes a victim, Jason becomes an abuser, and the family is the means by which the abuse is normalized.
I have experienced this situation, I have lived it. I know what it feels like to have your own pain ignored and have empathy turned towards the person who hurt you, instead. I have seen how families excuse abuse when itās done by someone they call their own, and I have seen how families use these methods to mitigate the seriousness of what was done, has been done, and will be done. āIt wasnāt me, it was the alcoholā, āYou know how he gets sometimesā, āI just have a bad temperā, āHe didnāt mean to hurt you that badlyā, etc. That is why I find Fanon Tim Drake so relatable, and I hope others feel the same way. These are not āHurt/Comfortāor āEnemy to Caretakerā fics, these are stories of abuse and I wish they were advertised as such.
Obviously, I hold no ill will towards people who enjoy these types of stories or create them. Iām aware many of these people come from a similar background to my own. Iām aiming to have a discussion, not incite a mob. I want to look at these stories perhaps a bit more critically, and perhaps encourage others to limit the unintentional subtext some of these stories may contain, because I doubt every single one of these stories is aiming to portray the Batfam as abusive when the tags are āGood Dad Bruceā and āDick Grayson is a Ray of Sunshineā and āFluff/Angstā.
Please feel free to add your own thoughts! I welcome any and all discussion :)
Why is Tim getting so many variant covers for Absolute Batman #20 and why are they almost always keeping him in the back and maskedā¦Scott what are you planning. Why does he have a handprint. Why are you making him so mysterious. What are you hiding Scott
The whole batfanon āAlfred is a saint who has never done anything wrong ever and bears no responsibility whatsoever for how Bruce turned outā and āBruce is an abusive monster despite Alfredās excellent parentingā misconceptions just became a lot funnier now that itās canon Alfred microchipped an eight year old Bruce just after his parents died. Bro what the fuck is your problem Alfred. Bruce is not your dog š
I wish it was common knowledge that for quite a long period of time Superman HATED Booster Gold. Hated him. Michael was one of the only people that would make Clark irritated just by being there. It was so funny they need to bring it back because I think itās a great way to make Clark a little more imperfect in an entertaining way. Let Clark have a co-worker who is enemy #1.
What makes Booster Gold both very funny and also so interesting that a lot of people miss is that heās legitimately very good at what he does. Heās the greatest hero no one remembers for a reason. Thereās an issue in his own solo where he is tasked to stop Batman by disguising himself as a villain and he knocks Bruce out in one punch. He once went through a time loop of getting repeatedly tortured by The Joker because he wanted to save Barbara and prevent her from becoming Oracle. Heās genuinely a fantastic hero but everyone else hates his ass and itās funny as hell.
And you know what, speaking of Superboy Prime, at some point we may need to interrogate why āviolent, misanthropic white man gets forgiven and praised for his growth after apologizing in a way that specifically does not invalidate his masculinityā is such a popular, quickly latched-onto narrative.
And perhaps we should interrogate who that narrative is for.
Damian has literally been sent to hell. Tara has been treated like...Tara by basically every narrative she has ever been in. To this day, people still refuse to acknowledge their growth, their nuance, or the lack of agency baked into their circumstances.
But then you get a willing, spiteful mass murderer who spends five dubious minutes posing as less of an asshole, and suddenly he is the freshest, hottest concept in comics. We simply must root for him. We must celebrate his growth. We must ignore the continuity of his crimes. And if you point out that he has, in fact, done horrific things on purpose, suddenly youāre ātaking comics too seriously.ā
Interesting.
Redemption arcs are not the problem. Growth is not the problem. Characters with blood on their hands becoming better is not the problem.
The problem is how quickly some fans recognize humanity, nuance, pain, and potential in a violent white male power fantasy, while treating characters like Damian, Talia, Tara, and plenty of others as permanently defined by their worst context, their worst writing, or their least charitable interpretation. Even Diana suffers from this and she didn't even really do anything wrong--
What could possibly cause people to project so hard into that archetype?
I think Kyle should start getting laid again. Dude was having mad sex in the 90ās and 00ās the people love a stupid man with abs he needs to return to his roots.
no no you see pit madness and past trauma is only a valid excuse for one character's actions
the other characters' mental states, past trauma and even directly stated brainwashing is simply not valid tho so everyone else must apologize to the one character instead
The funniest thing about the whole āThe Greenā¢ā nonsense is that it already exists in DC as the collective lifeforce of all plants. Swamp Thing and Ivy use āThe Greenā¢ā for their powers, Ivy used it to basically become a god at one point. Why arenāt there more fics about Jason communicating with grass or something, why must we suffer with magic rage powers.
your abuse apologia post was really interesting, when i was new to the fandom i used to get very worked up over abuse apologia among bruce stans (which is still prevalent) but over time i've noticed so much abuse apologia among stans of characters (mainly batboys) who also dunk on bruce stans for abuse apologia. i constantly see them defend bruce or their faves and pretend that it's not abuse when the character being harmed is not their fave. this happens among all batboy stans but it sticks out more for j@son stans to me because they are usually the most vocal about calling out bruce being abusive. somehow bruce causing physical harm to his other kids is not abusive. somehow j@son causing physical harm to his siblings is not abusive and they need to forgive him (with also maintaining that j@son does not regret causing them harm) to prove their kindness. there is this equating of bruce or j@son's physical violence with other characters moments of "being mean sometimes" or "provoking them" that just doesn't sit right. i saw someone say that tim attacked j@son with a crowbar to purposefully trigger him without any reason after breaking into his base in btfc. reading just the few previous pages would add the context that he was keeping torture victims in that base and attacked selina right before that and that tim does not pick the crowbar on purpose but because it is the closest thing he can grab while j@son is attacking them. if j@son was being attacked unprovoked then why do they feel the need to leave that out, unless ofc it wasn't unprovoked or a purposeful choice of weapon. btfc isn't a good comic so i'd understand not wanting to acknowledge it for your fave but why spread misinformation about it. that comic is psychophobic and just overall bad but using it to spread misinformation isn't going to make that comic less psychophobic. there is this double want of wanting only j@son's abuse to be validated (so he can win the trauma olympics) but also wanting bruce to choose him over his other kids and/or abuse his other kids for him. the thing about poor fanon timmy whose robin was j@son is that j@son stans used to be chill with it till it was used to put j@son on a pedestal within the story and give him an admirer who wouldn't give up on him and always forgive him (and someone who he wouldn't be punished by bruce for hurting) but now that people constantly call out that j@son wasn't tim's robin and that tim wasn't scared of him in that comic, they act like fanon tim exists solely to turn j@son into a brute monster in titans tower aus or that canon tim only became robin to live out his personal fantasies by manipulating a grieving family. someone says they think tim and dick's relationship as brothers developed on it's own despite j@son haunting them and you'll get a stan in the comments saying "murdered kids affect family dynamics" which no one was disputing anyway. despite being primed to have j@son as my fave i get more and more put off from his fanbase.
Thank you for reading it! Yeah I have very strong feelings about Batfanonās depictions of interpersonal violence and most are them are not positive ones. I find that accounts on here that care about one character and once character only (ie Jason, Dick, Bruce, etc.) are far more likely to have really dumb takes such as the ones youāve mentioned. What separates Jason fans for me specifically is that they are by far the most toxic about it and also the ones least willing to accept anything as a criticism. They will frame everything anyone does to Jason as abusive, cruel, and evil while purposefully framing anything Jason does wrong as ābad writingā. If you mention that Judd wrote Jason doing awful things too and even said he wrote Jason as a bad person, they say ādeath of the authorā. If you bring up objectively terrible things he does, they excuse it away with trauma. I donāt really enjoy interacting with his fans for that reason, theyāre often very mean and rude in my experience, and donāt engage others in good faith. This goes along with me having mixed opinions about his character to begin with. It just isnāt worth it. There are good ones, obviously, not all Jason fans are assholes, but there are enough bad ones that I simply donāt engage with their content.
You ever think about how many female characters in DC died because of acts of violence committed by men and how the well of souls reincarnates the souls of women who died because of acts of violence committed by men into amazons, meaning DC could very easily bring those (usually fridged) women back to life as amazons
We are ignoring the comedic potential of Bruce canonically going into in a Lazarus Pit more than once. It makes all of his rants about how itās unnatural and taints your soul and you should never use one so, so funny. A hypocrite in the funniest way possible because it lends itself to two possible scenarios:
1. Bruce blames his general craziness and unhinged behavior due to his exposure to one. Big AO3 fanon pit madness āIt wasnāt me who fired Steph or called my ten year old son a bad person it was the Lazarus Pitā energy.
Or 2. Bruce thinks heās built differentā¢ and it doesnāt affect him.
(He has been in a Lazarus Pit in both Birth of the Demon and The Resurrection of Raās al Gul)
In light of the recent Batman issue, I have no commentary on it other than I better start seeing a BILLION āPit Madnessā Bruce fics from now on or else I am going to call a certain sub-sect of fans hypocritical. If youāre going to make shit up you gotta be consistent with it. Itās the THIRD time heās been in one guys, surely you can extend your magic green rage powers to him now. If Jason going in once turns him into a crazy violent bad boy woobie who can do no wrong then Bruce going in three times better turn him into the Green Goblin. He better start biting people. Every other word out of his mouth better mention āthe greenā in his vision. He better start viciously beating his sons and then be instantly forgiven because he feels really really bad about it even though it āwasnāt really himā. Iām watching you guys š
Do you guys ever think about that time Shiva told Tim to pick a weapon he can specialize in and when he chose a bo-staff she called him a basic white boy. I mean itās true but why do you have to say it like that.
I am all for Kyleās Hispanic heritage being showcased more and having it be emphasized in stories but DC really went about it in the dumbest way because their definition of emphasis is for him to randomly speak Spanish occasionally and have him be on a very tone-deaf heritage cover. Thank you Tom King! very cool! Guy is now a consultant for DC Studios btw yay
Being a Green Lantern fan is truly a liberating experience because some rando can send you a twelve page essay about why your fav is an absolutely horrible character that no one should like and then every single reason they list is why you like them. Yes Jo in Absolute Green Lantern was a shitty partner to her ex??? Itās part of what makes her interesting??? Yes Kyle is genuinely a little stupid sometimes??? Itās funny??? Yes Hal is Hal??? Itās why Iām here??? I never feel scared to say all these guys and gals kinda suck itās part of the charm. Iāve never heard a single Hal fan not call him a pathetic loser. Iāve never heard anyone say Kyle is a smart guy, creative sure, but he also wrote his own name when signing autographs as Green Lantern. Heās dumb.
Meanwhile you point out a Batman characterās well-thought out character flaw supported by the text and they disembowel you.
