Girlgamer on ao3
Mainly Jason Todd taking over my tumblr. Also fandom stuff. And sometimes things i'd like to draw or things that inspire me or things that make me laugh too.
i don't think jason is reticent. i actually think while a bit reserved, he talks a lot. & no i don't like the autopsy scar, i believe it's absolute nonsense. no i don't like the white streak either [tho i don't really mind it much] & nor the redhead jason thing. no i don't think he hates touch, i think he's very starved of it & would cling very hard soon as anyone lets him. he maybe scared to initiate but he won't push you away; unless he's really really not in the mood for it. which. fair. & no i don't think he enjoys killing, he thinks of it as a necessary evil. it's a fundamentally flawed way to view justice but those are shaped due to his experiences [experiences being, brutally murdered as a child] same as bruce. & no i don't think he rushes headfirst like a bull seeing red whenever there's a target. he's emotional, not stupid. he strategises. he adapts. no i don't believe he relies on brute strength, he's a skilled combatant who knows how wield swords & knives & is a wonderful sharpshooter & has been trained to fight by the best, incorporating forms of martial arts. no i don't think he's a brickhouse or whatever. he is close to dick's build to copy him the way he did. he's lean, flexible, fast & sharp, with healthy muscle. no i don't think he swears every two words. i don't think jason as heavily scarred as he's usually depicted to be, i stick to the lazarus pit healing all his scars. he wears a helmet & has no reason to have facial scars other than for the one time bruce smashed it while beating the shit out of him that put him in bedrest for two months btw. for something he didnt do. no i don't like it when he's crass for no reason & no i don't think he is to be blamed for his death. i understand where certain traits that the fandom assign to him arise from but i cannot help but feel that we have veered into caricaturizing him with certain classist tones that also reek of victim blaming & its just. crazy how divorced the popular version of jason is from the real thing. & the thing is that-- the 'real' version of him can vary. i get that. but my god. i cannot be clearer abt what the problem here is
Bruce’s favourite children = the rose-tinted memory of Dick as the child who was him but better, the costumed corpse of Jason which he keeps trying to bury further underground, the colder version of Tim whose Bruce-like tendencies he encouraged + cultivated, the ideal version of Cass he made up in his head, + the obedient version of Damian he misses once his youngest son learns he can disobey his father without being doomed.
Between 1989 to 2009, Bruce directly & indirectly coaxes this kid he never wanted into acting more & more like someone he can trust. Himself. And so, what starts as Bruce’s coping mechanism over the anxiety of facing another child’s death becomes a subconscious safety net over the gnawing worry of what’ll happen to his cold & calculating detective legacy after he’s gone. As befits his debut story, Tim should always remind him that someday he will die in his cape.
But what makes this dynamic truly compelling to me is that Tim reciprocates Bruce’s interest. He intuits his intent (create a version of myself I won’t have to worry about dying) + responds by doubling down on all the traits he shares with Bruce / which Bruce wishes to encourage. E.g. disassociated detective work, condescension, taking his grief out on others, etc. This collaborative project then, in a delightfully twisted rendition of the fanboy-imitating-his-mentor trope, ends up overcoming his adolescent years + gives us the guy we’ve been loosely following since Red Robin.
That is to say, he seems like he’s playing autopilot for a project started many decades ago, + more than anything concerning his future character direction, I wish DC would put out a Tim Drake story where he realises this about himself. Where he’s forced to figure out whether he’ll ever grow up + out of the original character cultivated by a grieving Bat + his teenage fanboy. Where he digs into Who is Tim Drake after all.
Re LRB. Tim is ace to me. From canon (1989-2025) he seems like he’s biromantic asexual with a preference for women but a tendency to only obsess over men. He’s got that duality. 👍
one of the funniest bruce wayne moments of all time. to me. "tim, i would never endanger a child. unless he was really cool and i was super sure he wouldn't die. ignore the mannequin wearing my dead son's combat uniform in the basement btw."
#the implication of “look you're not a fucking dipshit like that last guy” is frying me#nothing can rival this run's crimes against cassandra cain but this scene really has a special something via @stratfordsympathizer
One thing that always bothered me as a kid, and still bothers me, is it honestly makes so little sense Steph didn't rank super high on the scale of Martial Artists after receiving the Robin training, if it's so amazing. Considering what she could do while untrained, the experience she had, it's baffling that no one ever considered her a prodigy, or that she wasn't at least notably more skilled than say, Tim was, when she started out as Robin.
Like, Steph was in the field and knocking out grown men twice her size with zero training. It was not even mentioned that she took martial arts classes or anything to explain how she can do this, just gymnastics and softball. And both were high school gymnastics, high school softball, not fancy expensive classes??? Even Babs, in Batgirl Y1 had the advantage of having taken martial arts classes and presumably a lot more since her goal was to be in the FBI.
Meanwhile Steph like. She's jumping off rooftops and surfing trains and taking down bad guys with nothing. Tim's gone through extensive Batman training and trained with Lady Shiva and all this stuff, and obviously she's not as good as him and needs him to watch her back at times, but she can keep up with him, and even saves him or get the jump on him quite a few times, and that's incredible when you think about it. Tim gave her gadgets and instructions in the field, but it's never shown that he taught her any moves.
There's even a panel where Batman notes Stephanie almost snuck up on him and "not many people can do that" when again, no training, no martial arts classes, this is way before he agreed to give her any help at all-- and then for some reason, after noting this girl with no training is more talented than most people he knows, just keeps telling her she's not good enough and should go home.
That's a ridiculous level of raw talent, and it's honestly so bizarre nobody in the Batfamily ever noted that and kept telling her to go home. When she does get training, it's very sporadic, it is not clear how much Batman or Black Canary trained her the first time, he disappeared on her and then fired her as soon as he came back, and we never saw her get trained on screen by Dinah (the only person who ever acknowledged she had talent). She sparred with Cass, but Cass never taught her anything. Despite all this, she was noticeably getting way better during the era.
But when she received the six month Robin training that's supposed to make them so strong or whatever...how did that not result in her being a prodigy? She's the only Robin who was an experienced superhero before she took on the mantle?
Bruce literally tells her "Tim did this better" when he was training her about something, which makes no sense considering she came into being Robin with way more skills and experience and martial arts prowess??? When she was surviving on her own and fighting villains before that? When she could nearly sneak up on Bruce even before that?
You could claim she's a "bad student" or whatever, but she was a clearly very good at taking her gymnastic coach's instructions, enough to become a genius at it, so that doesn't really hold water.
The only explanation that would make any sense would be that Bruce taught her badly on purpose. which. unfortunately wouldn't be too far out of character from how he treated her in that era. (And that she apparently improved a lot under Babs tutelage as Batgirl but not his. So. Not a good look for him)
I mean the real answer for why all this makes no sense is DCs misogyny ofc. But it’s pretty wild how there’s no justification for this in universe.
#on the one hand steph not being a prodigy like the other bats but doing what they do anyway fearlessly is one of her most charming traits#and I say this as someone who's other favorite bat characters are damian and cass i love prodigies in fiction#but it doesn't feel true to who steph is. she's always defined herself as one of the 'have-nots' in a world of 'haves'#but you're absolutely right that it boggles my mind how she's genuinely so good in canon when you take context into consideration#they never ONCE mention fighting training! not even a perfunctory 'oh steph got in lots of scraps as a kid'#because...i genuinely don't know why not!#post-52 after Steph has had SO much bat training she's still extremely low ranked in the batfamily in terms of abilities#i stand beside the fact that tim may have technique but steph has raw strength creativity and a scrappiness that could give her edge#she should at least be able to take tim. i feel this in my heart (no hate to tim)
I do agree that Steph having to struggle is part of what makes her so relatable, but it just...wasn't written in a way that made much sense when you look at what she can do vs how little support she had. There are other ways to write her as having to work harder (she could struggle in specific areas but be acknowledged as prodigious in others, for example) that would have been more consistent Either way, it would have been realistic to have seen leaps of improvement by the time she was Robin.
It's kind of the double edged sword-- Steph being an underdog, her resilience, not giving up when everyone's against her, is part of what makes her loveable and inspiring, yet the reason she's was an underdog is because of sexist writing where other characters's treatment of her was often incredibly condescending at best or nonsensical and cruel at worst.
As for Tim, yeah she should absolutely be on his level at the very least Look at this part in Robin 5-- In one corner, Tim has been trained by Lady Shiva and Batman and fought multiple big deal supervillains. In the other corner, we have Steph is out crimefighting on her own for her second time ever with only high school gymnastics experience and scrappiness to rely on.
She gets the drop on him and overpowers him! It might not have stayed that way if the fight had continued, I'm sure Tim-Drake's-gotta-be-the-best truthers would say, but the fact she gives him this kind of beating when there's such a huge experience gap between them?
(and also. despite his claim here it didn't hurt that much he then immediately indicates it actually did and even complains about it in the first page of the next issue, which I always found very funny)
(Tim you're the same size)
So, realistically, you look at this and think she should be better, or at least as good as Tim, if she receives the same training.
And it wouldn't be a knock against Tim if she had been more skilled than him in that area after recieving Batman training, he often admits that he's not the athletic prodigy other Robins are, that that's not his strongest area, his strengths have always been strategizing and outthinking threats, and he can outdo Steph in that area easily.
The Tim Drake uwu-ification bothers me in the face of the abject horror and trajedy of Jason's trauma so much because it reveals a lot about what kind of victim most people will want and that's why they prefer to see Tim as the poorest little wet meow meow.
The uwu-Timmy is always silent about his pain and bears it to the point of breaking under it and beyond, he never voices his trauma or fear and doesn't inconvenience anyone and he feeds into the narrative of a saviour coming along who sees his pain (Dick most often tbh), the glorious brave saviour of the victim. The helpless victim in need of saving, powerless on his own. The uwu-Timmy is cute and inoffensive, he is a "good" victim. The kind that doesn't bother other people.
Jason Todd on the other hand is the furthest thing from inoffensive and unbothersome, he's a "bad" victim, who demands you to look and see, who demands that you face the reality of him. Jason Todd doesn't need a saviour, there is no saviour of the broken power-fantasy that he enables. He doesn't need permission or support and he can't be controlled. He is the kind of victim people don't want to deal with.
And seeing the uwu-ification of Tim vs the asshole-ization of Jason just makes me realize that all these people in the fandom will hate victims who bother them and who are too loud. All these people who misunderstand Jason to just be too angry and out of control, who'd best just stick him in therapy or have someone teach him a lesson.
Reblogging with @roobylavender's tags because they are excellent. I can delete if you'd prefer though:
#honestly the most interesting thing about it all to me is the fact that tim IS an asshole#well. not an asshole asshole but he’s bratty. he’s well meaning but he can also be self absorbed and inpatient and snappy#he’s far more rebellious as a person than jason is prior to his death#so the fact that he gets so uwufied and diluted is baffling to me bc the whole point of his arc as robin#is that he’s so sheltered it renders him brash and unable to understand the depths of what exactly it is he is stepping into#jason is never afforded that shelter and it’s why we see him as someone more directly empathic as a child#but also so impassioned following his resurrection bc he understands this system and its failures intimately#jason never really gets to be a child in the sense that he’s protected#whereas tim does. and that’s what makes what happens to tim and the people he cares about eventually such a rude awakening#he’s utterly unprepared and has unrealistic expectations of the life he’s entering into as a symbol#and i think you can make really great class commentary with that in juxtaposition with jason#about how tim is in that place of privilege and how it simultaneously damns him to be unprepared for the trauma that follows#whereas jason is never afforded that luxury and must be intimate with trauma always bc to even try to look away from it is incompatible with#his own conscience. and obv his own brutal experience with death#but anyway sorry op for the mess in your tags here ultimately i agree with you lol#but it disappoints me that this is what jason and tim’s dynamic in narrative and analysis has become bc they offer a lot of potential#as foils for class commentary and such. but no writer ever really cares for it
Hi!! I didn’t realise this was your main, nice to see you ^_^. I’ll put my answers under the read more, but it may surprise you b/c my feelings towards characters almost always exist on the spectrum of “do they intrigue me?” to “do they bore me?”, not necessarily like/dislike.
How I feel about this character: Aside from his quick-thinking in a jam, he’s not a genius + he’s physically eh; I believe he mostly just gets by on his faith in heroism/Batman/the status quo, a fanboy devotion which the narrative rewards tirelessly. Very Heir of Hope-coded. This meta-textual role is probably his most interesting attribute. But it is an interesting attribute in all fairness. I actually really like thinking about this part of him, + want to write a story about it someday.
Now onto something I find boring about him. Number one = his relationships. Everyone placidly loves him b/c he’s the audience self-insert + so nothing ever comes from his dynamics with Bats + non-Bats alike. Stories thrive on character tensions. Tim offers none of that. Most conflict just happens around him + he reacts to it, which is so dull. Since almost all fans play this straight instead of interrogating or subverting it, I find Tim boring in most fan-works as well.
Unlike other people, I like how he became crueller + colder when his life imploded. I also like how he loudly insisted that he totally wasn’t going to turn into Batman—statements which this fandom treat as objective fact rather than myopic self-examination stemming from his unwillingness to confront the reality that his reaction to grief mirrored that of Bruce. (No wonder Bruce only wanted to adopt him after this.)
I only dislike how Red Robin motioned that it was going to have TD face up to who he’d become + decide from there what kind of adult he wanted to be, right before walking it all back. I still can’t believe Yost just submitted a vapid self-congratulatory scene at the climax of Tim’s implicit decade-long arc. What a let down. Lobdell—who is a terrible writer—somewhat continued this callous Timmy characterisation but everyone denounces it + so Tim’s been trapped in a rose-tinted nostalgia whirlpool ever since. His audience + writers want him to be the perfect Self-Insert again, but that was boring then + it’s boring now. See my final bullet point for what I would do with him in the present day.
All the people I ship romantically with this character: I’m not really a shipper to be fair. Timsteph exes = true + real. See my final bullet point again. Timkon = his only good mlm ship, specifically b/c Tim showed a complete disregard for clones’ rights as well as Kon’s autonomy. This casual violation of others’ autonomy + transgressing their wishes in what he thinks is their best interest = one of Tim’s more interesting traits, so I’d enjoy reading a toxic yaoi Timkon if such a thing even exists. Finally, Tim having a crush on Dick but not realising he’s interested in men yet = fanon reading, but also the only interesting aspect of Dick & Tim as a dynamic. Of course, Dick’s straight + Tim’s way younger than him + they settle into a fraternal relationship long before Bruce adopts Tim, so I can’t see it happening. It just merits mentioning.
My non-romantic OTP for this character: Two.
The Bruce & Tim dynamic where Tim teeters on the awareness that he, more than any of Bruce's other kids, was the one post-ADITF/TKJ Bruce made into himself in order to alleviate his worries about having another child vigilante. Bruce treats all his 5 canon kids like they’re extensions of himself (which is why he's so harsh with them) but Tim is the only one that he made such a concerted (& most importantly, successful) effort to mould into himself. This is made even more interesting by the fact that Tim threw himself into conforming to Bruce's controlling tendencies. Bruce was the instigator, but I think the responsibility lies with them both, which is compelling. What’s also noteworthy is how all the other Batkids save Tim resisted Bruce's controlling tendencies to some degree.
The completely fan-created version of Dick & Tim that lives in my head where Tim had a crush on the star of his earliest memory (+ trauma), + he doesn’t realise it until he’s 17/18. Crucially, this would fall within a slightly re-written Batman Reborn/early N52 period where Tim goes through a crisis after Bruce leaves his life (death + then disinterest) + Dick isn’t obsessed with welcoming Tim back — maybe b/c he learns that Tim leased two children out as bait + got them killed at the end of Robin 1993. Honestly, I just want Dick & Tim to have some meat as a dynamic to make up for how much page-time they have in the comics (+ how much attention they get in the fandom) without doing anything that interests me.
My unpopular opinion about this character: I vacillate on Tim’s status as one of Bruce’s kids. In many ways he is not, even after he’s adopted in 2006. However—I like the reading where Bruce claims him as his son after Tim starts acting like him from 2004 onward. And I like the idea that Tim’s devotion to ‘saving Bruce’ in the first year or so of Batman Reborn stems from his unresolved Identity Crisis trauma. So pre-2006 they’re not father + son. Post-2006/2016, they’re somewhat father + son, but absolutely fucked up about it. Bruce cares for what he sees of himself in Tim + little more. Sometimes he doesn’t want to see his own flaws reflected back on himself + so Tim gets ghosted. Meanwhile Tim helps him b/c it’s the only way he knows how to save his dead dad whom he sees in Bruce as well as his waning childhood faith in Batman.
One thing I wish had happened with this character in canon: I wish he had left Bruce in the early 2000s after going through his disillusionment arc. Barring that, I wish his choices + agency had been given more attention in canon. He makes decisions like every other person/character, but his Self-Insert Plot Armour insulates him from consequences/needing to reflect on who he’s become by making those choices. I wish Red Robin had gone differently + I wish his post-Lobdell characterisation didn’t airbrush him to nothingness in the name of nostalgia.
One thing I wish would happen with this character in canon: I wish we'd get a mini that runs through his publication history + uses his trajectory into his current young adult aimlessness to finally graduate Tim from the title of Robin. Yes, that includes Red Robin. It’s a symbol of his childhood + another borrowed identity from a son of Bruce + it’s a metaphorical sign that he cannot let the period go. He should be 21 right now, so I’d like to see a story told with some skill that has him grow up.
Most importantly, I would have this mini set up an ongoing akin to Gotham Knights (2000-6) or Streets of Gotham (2009-11) where him + Steph are the leads + they go into the world of work as civilians, running a P.I. office together. I would use them as vehicles through which to develop our modern day Gotham City. As well as the idea that vigilantism isn’t for life + that some characters may be more interesting when thrust into non-masked crimefighting situations.
Fascinating how many times Jason and Bruce's arguments/conflicts involves him getting beaten into the fucking ground while Batman looms over him.
There's one in utrh right before the ultimatum iirc, one from tfz with the sweet bonus of Bruce holding him down with a boot, and another one when Bruce tricked Jason to return to his death place.
For Rhato 25 I'm not sure if there's a exact pose like what I'm picturing, but Bruce dragging his limp body around counts regardless. Likewise the lobotomy scene in Gotham War isn't an active fight but we still have Jason on the floor powerless and Bruce standing over him.
So that's like, five? Idk if there's more but regardless it's becoming a recurring imagery. The narrative coming in so strongly, so in your face, to say that look at our infallible hero and the villain stomped quite literally cowering under his feet.
#bruce should get amnesia back to when jason was robin#and everyone's telling him jason became a murderer/anti hero (including jason mayhap) and he aint buying it bc WHAT#jaybin who last night stopped him from killing the joker? jay-lad who was so careful getting his ropes in place to inspect the silent bell#during the mime case? That Jason died and isn't included in the family portrait and doesn't get along with bruce?#and then he starts getting flashbacks or alternatively going over cowl footage#and traumatises himself <3 via @phantomchick
Hearing about Book Drama wherein somebody's publisher or whoever pushes to market their book as romantasy because it's #marketable and then romantasy readers read it expecting it to be romantasy and are understandably shocked and confused when it's Not. On like a semi regular basis. And I'm starting to thuink maybe we should aim for people who would "actually want to read it" instead of "demographic that makes the most money for the publisher"
Now, the "falsely advertised not-romantasy book" in question typically also has Other Problems making people Hate It. But. Yknow. Maybe the false advertising set it up for a Not So Good reception. I think we need to start hunting publishers for sport. This is not to say I am fond of Authors. Frankly the written word is of the devil
I hadn’t read ‘The Breaker: New Waves’ for a while, so I went back and re-read 'The Breaker’ and then 'New Waves’ again. I’ve learned that the next part of the series won’t come out for a year or more, because the authors want to try something else. I think it’s ridiculous to stop working on a series when it’s at the height of its popularity. The series has been doing so well, and I’ve read that many fans are as disappointed and angry as I am. So many people read this manwha, and to just stop working on the series when it’s getting so close to the conclusion of the series…it’s a bit of a slap in the face. I was really looking forward to finding out the release date of the third part of the series…but…fuck.
#alternately: DAMN how weak is the millennia old galactic state that just a couple of young adults having sex could bring it down?! (my tags because i stand by them)
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