#aubergine posts

[dukeaubergine]

/loads up a handful of first chapters for fics I do NOT have endings written for yet/ PARKOUR!

[dukeaubergine]

“It’s totally possible that Tim has the biggest kill count of all the Robins because of that time he blew up the League of Assassin bases.”

If that’s the case, then arguably Stephanie has a similar kill count thanks to being the person who deliberately kicked off War Games.

It just depends on how many levels of separation down the chain-of-consequences we’re willing to go.

[dukeaubergine]

tumblr user hussyknee, sideblog spite-and-waffles, Ao3 PinkLetterDay, has said previously that all racism stems from colorism (and dismisses other people's lived experiences), that light-skinned Jews with any European heritage don't get to talk about racial/ethnic discrimination, and that Israel is "not a legitimate state" (what does that even mean, and do you think it applies to literally any other country on the planet).

I usually just block and move on with stuff like this, but since she's been an ass to me & others over Bat fandom content and harasses people over political issues, I figured this time I would do a brief heads up, to lower the chances of someone stumbling over her posts, comments, reblogs, etc, through fandom content, and being fucking smacked in the g*d damned face with the real world crap.

Please don't harass her (please don't harass anyone).

[dukeaubergine]

Thinking about how characterization can vary so wildly from comic to comic, so how do you pick what to draw from for fic, and that lead to thinking over what I draw from, and the realization that this page from Young Justice:

[after Nightwing walks in on two YJ members’ mothers having a fistfight and coated in cake frosting]

Red Tornado: And that is, in essence, what happened.

Nightwing: Well, that certainly accomplished a lot. We’re suppose to be here to talk about the kids, not act like kids.

Bonnie: Are you Robin’s father?

Nightwing: Well, no...

Bonnie: Then you couldn’t possibly know what it’s like.

Nightwing, using deliberately intimidating body language: Lady, every morning when I drift to sleep, I hear the screams of the loved ones I didn’t save. Don’t you dare lecture me on what I know.

Nightwing, physically backed away again and dismissive: Now... can we get back to business?

Was very influential on my formative views of Nightwing as a character.

Plus, having some personal childhood experience in performance art. Dick Grayson may have used his mom’s off-stage nickname for him to create his first vigilante person, but he also used his family’s show-colors. Robin the Boy Wonder is a character that Dick is playing.

The puns, situationally dissonant laughter, the big smiles, those are a performance. They come from Dick, he creates them, he crafted Robin and not from the ether. But assuming they’re even the majority of his personality, let alone the totality, is a mistake.

Nightwing is also a performance, drawing some of the same pieces as Robin but a lot of very different ones too. Created at a different point in Dick’s life, to play a different role.

...You know, now that I lay it out like this, I think that might be a big reason why being Batman is such a miserable experience for Dick. He didn’t craft that character. Dick created Robin & Nightwing. He didn’t create Batman. He didn’t build the role from the inside out, never saw the scaffolding, just the surface. He has to take someone else’s character and try to back-engineer it.

Whereas Tim stepped into Robin comfortable with it being a role someone else created, and gradually let more of his own personality in over time. Not being the creator wasn’t a problem for Tim. He also hates being Batman, but it’s for different reasons.

I don’t know enough about Jason & Stephanie's times as Robin to say how much they recognized that this was a character they were playing, but from what I can tell of Damian he sees Robin as a title. It’s the title of Batman’s primary field partner, the way First Mate is the title of a Ship Captain’s second in command. So Damian will fight and do detective work, but he doesn’t really get the rest of it. Not at first, at least.

[dukeaubergine]

Thinking about how I’ve repeatedly written fics that tackle the Dick-taking-Robin-from-Tim debacle, and what I keep chewing on there, and how a lot of other fanfics that tackle it so often fall short for me (many of them very good fics).

DC was blatantly trying to shoehorn several characters into specific roles and plot paths at that time, and did not do so gracefully. They left a lot of things unsaid, skipped over, probably because a lot of this was contradictory to earlier established characterizations, and detail might’ve invited nitpicking (nevermind that fans prodded at the OOC’ness anyway).

One of the nonexistent scenes is Dick talking to Tim about his decision to take the Robin mantle from Tim and give it to Damian. We aren’t shown Dick’s reasoning (at least beforehand, for all I know there could be some internal monologue or external dialogue in Dick’s Batman run), we aren’t shown him even telling Tim. Instead we get a cold open on Tim saying he isn’t doing okay, Dick dismissing what he’s saying, and Damian showing up in the Robin suit.

Now, fans could insert a scene before that where Dick tells Tim what he’s decided, so that it isn’t just sprung on him like this. Or even Dick asking for Tim’s input with Damian, but ultimately pulling the Batman card to make a unilateral decision Tim disagrees with. That cold open could’ve actually been the tail end of a longer discussion.

That’s not canon, but it doesn’t contradict canon either.

We mostly don’t, though. We mostly take the scene at face value and interpret it as Damian’s appearance being the first Tim learns of Dick’s decision. Many fics have Tim & Dick have a conversation (or sometimes just Dick having an internal monologue, or a talk with someone else) about Dick’s actions several months or years later, in which Dick reveals what his reasons for taking the mantle away were, in addition to “Damian needs it” (because that’s already his stated reason in canon).

And every single time, no matter how emotional the scene, how compelling his explanation, how cathartic the ensuing tearful hug may be, every single time I’m thinking, “Then why didn’t you just fucking say so when you did it? Why didn’t you just talk to Tim?”

There’s a lot that bothers me about what Dick did, but apparently that’s the big thing for me. He didn’t involve Tim in the decision. He didn’t talk to him. Dick didn’t ask Tim for help and he shut him out of a decision regarding Tim’s own mantle.

Especially combined with Dick telling Tim that he sees them as equals. Because either Dick is being a complete idiot who doesn’t see the contradiction of viewing someone as an equal yet acting as though he has the authority to take that person’s mantle away without so much as a by-your-leave, or he’s lying out his ass, or he’s so used to Bruce calling the Justice League, other adult heroes, etc ‘equals’ but not genuinely treating them as such that Dick has a completely warped idea of what equals means and doesn’t realize it. That in his head there’s equals as applies to everyone else, and ‘equals’ as applies to Batman.

~

There are so many fan theories and fic scenarios that try to explain Dick’s decision and I have essentially the same reaction to all of them.

Dick thought Tim outgrew Robin: why didn’t he say so? And who the hell is he to decide that for Tim?

Dick was going to offer Tim the Nightwing mantle: why didn’t he say so?

Dick thought the Robin role was holding Tim back: why didn’t he say so? Why didn’t he express that view, and ask Tim how he sees the role and his own progress as a vigilante?

Dick thought being Robin was unhealthy for Tim: why didn’t he say so? And if he’s so concerned about Tim’s wellbeing, why is he outright dismissive when Tim says he’s not doing okay?

Dick thought Tim was suicidal and shouldn’t be in the field: you get that this is worse, right? You get that if Dick genuinely thinks Tim is suicidal, taking away something important to Tim, something that gives Tim a sense of purpose and control, without even a warning, let alone a discussion, let alone asking permission, and then not talking to Tim about his concerns for Tim, is horrifically dangerous and irresponsible?

Dick thought Tim would chafe being his subordinate: why didn’t he say so, beside the single “you’re my equal” line? Tim regularly acted independently as Robin ever since donning the mantle, and Dick was around enough to know that. Dick also knows that Tim became Robin to drag Bruce out of his destructive spiral; that wouldn’t have worked if Tim’s Robin was too subordinate to Batman.

Dick wanted a Robin that wasn’t an independent operator & that he could more actively mentor: why didn’t he say so? And why does that role need to be filled by Robin, instead of letting Tim continue as an independent Robin while Damian is the one to come up with or be given a new mantle?

~

None of these are things Dick actually said. The only canon explanation we get is “[Damian] is my responsibility now. You’re not my protege, Tim… you’re my equal. You’ll be okay. Left on his own, he’s going to kill someone. Again.”

None of the fan explanations are in there. The fans want Dick to care about Tim (like he had for years), while canon gave us Dick ignoring Tim’s (vocalized for once!) needs, to focus on Damian.

Tim flat out says “You said we’d be okay. My whole life has burnt down! Again! I don’t call this ‘okay’, Dick.”

Which gets Dick’s above response. None of what Dick says indicates he’s concerned for Tim. It’s in fact pretty easy to interpret this as Dick willfully pretending Tim isn’t doing as badly as Tim says, convincing himself that Tim will be fine without any help, because Dick’s overwhelmed with new responsibilites, his own grief, massive amounts of stress, and he’s spread too fucking thin.

Also it fucking kills me that during this conversation Dick has his back to Tim, reading something on the computer. Tim rarely lets anyone know when he’s having serious problems, and now that he is, his big brother won’t even look at him. Yeah, Dick is metaphorically sticking his fingers in his ears and humming because he cannot handle Tim being yet another person in his life who has needs.

“But there wasn’t any time to talk about it! Tim ran away from the manor after the Robin reveal, and then left town!”

Bzzzt WRONG.

Red Robin starts a nebulous amount of time after Battle for the Cowl. In BftC, Damian is shot and Tim is stabbed, both of them in the torso. By the start of RR, they’re ready for field work. Even with comic book humans healing faster than real people, this is several weeks later at MINIMUM.

It’s long enough for Damian to have a custom Robin suit made, because it’s blatantly a different one than what he went out in to search for Tim underground in BftC.

So why didn’t Dick use that time, in which it’s implied they’re all living in the manor together, to talk to Tim?

If Dick sees them as equals, sees Tim as his “closest ally”, why didn’t he ask Tim for help brainstorming ways to help Damian?

If Dick is actually concerned for Tim, if that’s why he took Robin away, like so many fics write, why didn’t he discuss those concerns with Tim during those weeks of recovery? Why is their fight on the outskirts of town the first time Dick tells Tim there’s a therapist in Metropolis he wants Tim to see? It makes more sense with the canon we get that Tim destroying a room and going off the grid is the moment Dick can’t keep pretending Tim is okay, hence only bringing up therapy now.

~

Dick calls Tim an equal but doesn’t treat him like one. He takes advantage of his Batman authority to take away Tim’s mantle and use it as a tool for the issues with Damian.

Dick previously cared about Tim and looked out for him. Now he ignores/dismisses when Tim vocalizes how badly he’s doing, not taking action until Tim runs away from home.

It sucks! The whole situation sucks! It feels incongruent with previous canon, it’s emotionally painful, and we really wanna fix it but no matter what non-canon reason we can come up with to make the Robin decision just as much about Dick’s perceptions of Tim’s needs as Damian’s, none of those reasons explain in any way why he didn’t talk to Tim about it first.

We could write fic where he did. We could say he asked Tim for help, they had a long discussion, ending with Dick making this choice that Tim disagrees with. That would still be pretty painful, but it would fit with what little canon gave us.

What we can’t do is write fic where Dick has a good reason not to talk to Tim about the decision. Because there is no good reason.

There are things Dick can tell himself are why he didn’t (doesn’t want to burden Tim with heavy decisions, doesn’t want to involve Tim in Damian issues because of past history, etc) but they aren’t actually good reasons.

So I continue reading fic & fan theories, writing my own fic, grumbling that none of these help with healing unless Dick flat out says, “I’m sorry. I should have talked to you.”

[dukeaubergine]

I said this in a comment discussion on one of my fics, but I’m interested enough in the thought that I wanna chew on it a little more here. This is all observation, not criticism.

In the post-crisis pre-universe-resetting era, the common fanon version of Tim & Stephanie’s post-break-up friendship is based on Cassandra & Stephanie’s canon friendship. But often declawed.

Tim & Steph’s relationships have never been stable. They both zig-zag in how they treat each other, how they feel about each other. They had a lot of real-time years for this to happen in. After Stephanie comes back from the presumed-dead, they don’t have a lot of positive page time together before the universe resets. There really isn’t a lot there for fans who want to write a positive friendship to work with.

By contrast, Cass & Steph’s friendship is stable, probably because it’s relatively short. Cass’s Batgirl run is from 2000-2006, comprising of 73 issues, Stephanie isn’t introduced right away, and she ‘dies’ partway through with the run ending before her return. I haven’t spotted a lot of on-page interaction between them after Stephanie returns to Gotham.

Cass & Steph are equals who give each other crap while also opening up emotionally.

Cass introduces herself by breaking into Stephanie’s house to ask her to read a piece of evidence aloud, Stephanie immediately takes advantage of Cass’s disability by refusing to unless Cass brings her along on the case. On a later occasion, when Cass doesn’t need help and thinks Steph would get hurt if she came along, she uses a nerve-strike to immobilize and ditch her (she does this to Barbara once too!).

Stephanie asks Cass to train her, Cass likes showing off; whether Cass is a good teacher is up for debate, but they both have fun.

Stephanie isn’t used to other people having villain dads like she does, so she assumes Cass can’t relate, then frames it as a competition when she finally thinks to ask after Cass’s dad and learns he’s an even worse villain. But after that, she shifts gears to commiserating, and they laugh together over their terrible childhoods.

Cass taunts Stephanie about Steph always losing at rooftop tag!

When Stephanie is presumed dead, Cass hallucinates her under high-stress or near-death situations.

They’re a pair of teen girl vigilantes who can be inconsiderate of other people’s feelings, who’ve found someone who sometimes super gets where they’re coming from, but other times can’t understand each other at all. They become important to each other fast.

Batgirl 2000 let Cass & Steph be messy, imperfect people with a messy, imperfect friendship, and it felt realistic. I found it pretty satisfying to read! Cass’s relationships with her supporting cast are honestly one of the really enjoyable parts of her book.

It also provides a potential model for Stephanie’s platonic relationships with fellow teen vigilantes. So I can see why fans pick it up for a post-break-up friendship between Tim & Steph.

A lot of fic sands off the rough edges, though. For all of the characters’ relationships. I don’t see a lot of fic where I can imagine Cass nerve striking a friend to keep them out of the way. Tim is rarely allowed to really yell at people when he thinks they’re in the wrong (outside vent fic). Fanon Steph might try to hold evidence hostage to get what she wants, but she’s more likely to give up after a couple refusals and say “Ugh, you owe me one!” instead of sticking to the extortion.

Guess it’s another example of fandom using canon as building blocks. Interesting.

[dukeaubergine]

If you object to fic & meta holding Stephanie accountable for actions she canonically took (because the original writers/editors were sexist) and badger your fellow fans over it,

but don’t say anything about all the fanworks where Talia is blamed for things she did not do in canon (example, having it be her idea for Jason to attack Tim), and don’t encourage people to choose the continuities/retcons where she’s canonically not a sexual predator over the ones where she is (thanks, canon, for that double whammy of sexism and racism),

and don’t say anything about all the fanworks where Janet Drake is a worse parent than Jack despite her limited canon page time showing her to at worst be just as neglectful, and in fact more empathetic,

Then I do not, in fact, consider you to be a feminist fan bravely railing against fandom sexism. You’re just a stan of one particular character, who’s picked up some social justice language to harass other fans with.

It’s fine to like Stephanie and wish canon treated her better.

It’s not fine to accuse other fans of sexism just because they don’t stan your favorite.

And it’s downright insulting to claim you’re doing this in the name of feminism when we see you ignoring (or joining in on) how these other female characters are villainized.

[dukeaubergine]

Venting: gotta just love people stating flat out wrong things about the comics to absolve their faves of blame in complex situations. “Tim was eighteen or nineteen at the start of Red Robin, so it wasn’t Dick’s job to take care of him” is just flat out untrue.

Tim is seventeen in Red Robin. This is canon. I don’t care if the the math from the preceding years of comics doesn’t add up. If we tried to count every school break or holiday celebration Tim had on-page he’d probably either be in his early 20′s by the end, or have had to have started his Robin career as a preteen (and Dick would be well out of his twenties).

It is a canon plot point that Tim has to become emancipated to thwart Ra’s plot with Hush. That can only be necessary if Tim is under eighteen. And that’s almost halfway through the run. Which means regardless of any other time markers, Tim has to be under eighteen at the start of Red Robin too.

So, yes, it actually is Dick’s job at the time to take care of Tim, unless he relinquishes guardianship to someone else. Or Tim becomes emancipated.

Bruce might not be legally dead, but the hero community assumes he is. Adult siblings probably don’t automatically become legal guardians in the event of parental death, but we see Dick taking responsibility for Damian, and considering “contingencies within contingencies” is the Bats’ modus operandi, it would be downright bizarre for Bruce not to have some kinda of guardianship papers prepared.

Either Dick is responsible for neither Damian nor Tim, or he is responsible for both of them.

And you know what? Cassandra Cain is 18 during her first Batgirl run, and she does get legally adopted before Bruce ‘dies’. If Dick wanted to absolve himself of responsibility for Tim, while keeping things within the family instead of reaching out to other heroes, he could call her up and arranged a guardianship transfer.

But no. He doesn’t. He just brushes off all of Tim’s concerns to the point Tim runs away from home.

Is Tim running away part of a comic book adventure plot to save Bruce? Yeah. Is Dick probably not legally responsible for Tim in-universe because Hush is impersonating Bruce so Bruce isn’t legally dead? Yeah. Does this put Tim and Damian in a weird custody limbo? Yeah.

Point all that out. Argue against Tim’s decisions and in favor of Dick’s all you want.

But don’t fucking claim Tim was older than he canonically was because you want an easy out for Dick.

Tim’s seventeen at the start of Red Robin. That’s canon.