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perpetual work in progress dc comics bats (dick and tim best bros ♥), yj '98 current events, various fandoms, miscellany I subscribe to the classic Don't Like, Don't Read / Ship and Let Ship / YKINMKATO school of fandom

[umbrellajam]

YE OLDE PINNED SIGNPOST

Dick & Tim brotherism fic recs - they're at the top for a reason :))

Tim Drake annotated reading list - comics before his Robin 1993 solo

dick & tim tag || young justice tag || fic recs || my posts || comics reading tag || dc meta tag || frequently used tags

below the cut for various meta, comic panel collections, fic snippets/rambles, etc.

Dick & Tim

alright why the heck was Dick okay with Tim becoming Robin by the end of A Lonely Place of Dying, anyway?

batboys and domestic chores - Dick & Tim and also Bruce & Tim

no comforting lies in No Man's Land

on Dick Grayson's shitlist: Joker. Two-Face. Blockbuster. Talia al Ghul. Jean-Paul Valley. and Ted Kord - widely acknowledged nicest guy in the DC universe

ready? FIGHT (or, I'm rotating Dick & Tim's fights in my head at all times) (also: more from the tags)

Dick meeting Cass vs. Tim meeting Damian

faith and trust and lying out their asses to each other out of love (or, a particular parallel between Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul and Red Robin)

on not apologizing to your brother (or, whatever, the aftermath of RR #12 is fine actually)

Tim

yes Tim is a computer guy and always has been

Kon calling Tim "Wonder Boy" and various other nicknames as soon as he laid eyes on him okay flirt harder super-dork

he "EEP!"s and he "OOP!"s

soooooo, Red Robin. was he suicidal or what? (lots of great tag commentary in the notes on this one)

Fic Snippets/Rambles

Dick opening jars for 14-year-old Tim during Prodigal

de-aged baby Tim but it's during Prodigal when Dick is an early 20s mess

y'know what, let's do it, have Jack Drake accused of murdering Janet. right in the middle of the Bruce Wayne: Murderer/Fugitive arc, you say? oh, yes. we must.

Tim as a ~secret bio Bertinelli sibling~ lol

Dick thinks he's so funny pulling death fake-outs on Tim, well buddy, how about UNO REVERSE

deaged Cass & Tim are still dramatic little shits who love fake-killing each other

[metamorphesque]

'things there are no words for, but should be', tatheve simonyan

[residentwordsofaffirmationdealer]

christmas with the superheroes (1988) #2

“the winter shadows of the man’s world are pushed back, as if by a new sun” only the best batman meeting robin quote ever ever ever

[aliteralchicken]

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

[aliteralchicken]

Alex DeWitt I have a role for you

[lickalickalipz]

Barbara drawings + trying out Black Mirror and Batman year one style of coloring

++ Some Gordon family drawings (wow what a happy and healthy family I bet they have great healthy coping mechanisms and noncomplicated relationships)

[umbrellajam]

okay I've seen a few people in various places saying Tim was 15 during Knightfall (and tangentially, since it happened during Knightfall, that he was 15 when he got his early driver's license, too), and no. he was still 14 lol. but I had to go on a bit of a rabbithole to prove it to my own satisfaction

setting aside for a moment the most straightforward way to calculate it (he's 13 in ALPOD and Knightfall happens less than four real-world years later, there isn't time to fit two birthdays in and have him be 15 already) because that's too easy, let's see, what actual panels can we look at here--

hm. I went to pull the ones where he gets his early license, but nope, they don't actually put his age in there:

Tim: YES! It's my driver's license! I forgot all about it. Mrs. Mac: Driver's--? How can that be, you not being sixteen yet, an' all? Tim: It's a special license. Dad signed a form that allows me to have it because of his handicap. I am mobile. - Detective Comics #668

all we get explicitly is that he's not sixteen 🤔

okay, wait, how about this!

Tim!Robin (narrating): Battling evildoers would be a lot easier if I had a driver's license. But that's two years away. - Robin II: Joker's Wild #1

I initially went aha, this is way more clear-cut, driver’s license is at 16 and he’s two years away from that so he's 14 - but no, this could also be ambiguous because if you interpret Gotham as being in New Jersey (not necessarily the case! certainly not confirmed canon, but a fairly common placement), then apparently the age to get your NJ driver’s license is 17, and it’s the learner’s permit that’s at 16. so that could still point people at 15

okay, wait, here we go--

also in Robin II: Joker's Wild #1, we have confirmation that Tim is in 9th grade at Gotham Heights High School, and that winter has also just started, so it's only a few months into the school year:

Tim: Gotham's expecting a cold winter. || Ives: You think they'd make people evolve before they let them into ninth grade.

unless we're arguing that somehow a full school year passes in the year-and-a-half of real time between publication of Joker's Wild (Dec 1991) and Knightfall (May 1993), he's still in 9th grade throughout Knightfall

how do we know he's 14 all throughout 9th grade, and not 15 at any point? well, for one thing, his birthday is July 19, so if he'd turned 15 before going into 9th, that would mean he'd turn 18 in the summer before 12th, and therefore graduate high school just before his 19th birthday. not out of the question for kids in the U.S. school cycle, depending--but we know it's not the case for Tim in particular. he was confirmed in Red Robin to be 17, not 18, during senior year.

he dropped out of 12th to go on Brucequest:

Tim: [...] Things got a bit...hectic...in my life... Ives: Enough to keep you from coming back to high school--but who needs a diploma when you're a rich gossip page regular? Tim: Give me a break... So, how's senior year been? - Red Robin #17

and it's a major plot point that he was still a minor at the time, hence needing the emancipation to thwart Ra's plans for Wayne Enterprises:

Tim (speaking to Ra's off-screen): Two things happened today, Ra's. The first is that I became an emancipated minor. - Red Robin #12

so! definitely 17 during 12th grade, definitely 14 during 9th. which is when Knightfall takes place and he gets his early driver's license.

[cz474]

[kimartings]

Kind of clothing study that was really an excuse to give Cass my outfit. Cass canonically going to mosh pits in early-mid 2000s New Jersey? She's listening to Thursday in my heart ❤ The song lyrics in the background are from "Steps Ascending" since the t-shirt has a lyric from it ("I'm not giving up"). She's definitely my favorite bat character I've read, and I already have plans for more involved illustrations based on some different songs...

Also my rough sketches from after I first finished reading Batgirl (2000) back in May.

[galileosballs]

This interview with Ncuti Gatwa crossed my dash again, and I was reminded of how much I like it. Because it makes the rare Third Argument for representation in fiction, the argument I think is the best, and I'm always happy to see it. I quote:

At times, Gatwa’s casting in those projects has been dismissed as an exercise in ‘box-ticking’. Gatwa scoffs. ‘First of all, you don’t know anything about me. Secondly, tick fcking boxes! People need to be fcking seen. What are you going to do, tell the same stories? Have the same people fronting things for all of eternity? Representation and inclusivity and branching out… it enriches us all. How embarrassing. You people with your tiny mindsets – open a book, look out the window and then f*ck off.’ (source)

What do I mean by the Third Argument? Well, I'm not sure I've ever made a post about this directly, but as far as I can see it, there are three main arguments for greater diversity in popular media. The first two are the most common, and they go like this:

It is good for media to be diverse because it is good for people to see people like them on screen. That is, the beneficiaries are marginalized people.

It is good for media to be diverse because it is good for people to see and learn about people who are not like them through art. That is, the beneficiaries are non-marginalized people, who then (hopefully) pass on the benefit by treating marginalized people better.

These two arguments are the source of a lot of debate here on ye olde tumblr. Despite both being arguments for representation, they pull in different directions. What counts as 'good' representation for the purposes of Argument 1 often would not be good for the purposes of Argument 2, and vice versa. Authentic versus sympathetic. Ugly or over-sanitized. You see this debate play out constantly. It's really hard for a piece of - say - queer media to do both at once.

But these debates tend to leave out Argument 3, the one that Gatwa is making above. And that argument cuts through a lot of this debate.

3. It is good for media to be diverse because art needs variety. The beneficiary of representation is art itself, absent any social effects that may or may not be present.

For this argument, diverse stories are intrinsically good. It is good to make art that's not just the same thing you've seen a hundred times before. Putting the kinds of people who don't often make it into mainstream media into your art is an extremely efficient way to make that happen. It's not the only method, but it's a really good method.

For representation to be 'good representation' according to Argument 3, all it needs to be is interesting. A story you haven't heard before, at least not in that medium. That which counts as 'bad representation' by the lights of this argument are stock characters, like the Eternally Patient Mother, the Gay Best Friend, the Wise Black Advisor. Perhaps there was a time in which these characters were new, but that time has long passed. There's no art in pulling a bog-standard character trope off the shelf. Show us a new kind of guy. The world is infinitely diverse. You're not going to run out. Telling the same stories with the same voices for all eternity, as Gatwa says, is boring. Even if there was nothing else wrong with it, this would be. Art isn't supposed to be boring.

And that's why Argument 3 is my favourite. I do want the world to be a better place, of course, and I think art is a part of that. But the main job of art is to be good as art. And diversity in all aspects of the production of art makes art better.

[alfvaen]

"It's not about adding diversity for the sake of diversity, it's about subtracting homogeneity for the sake of realism." --Mary Robinette Kowal

[su-majestad]

dropwaist skirt Arrowette concept. Cissie’s the perfect model for fashion illustration practice 🏹

[heroesriseandfall]

“Why didn’t Dick and Cassie Sandsmark believe Tim about Bruce being alive?”

He didn’t actually give them any evidence for it before running away. Didn’t even try to convince them beyond saying “he’s alive, I’ll prove it.”

He’d spent the past year trying to resurrect his dead family and friends. After 100+ cloning attempts and almost stealing Lazarus pit water, this just looks like Tim’s typical grieving pattern.

Dick, Tim, and Clark personally examined Bruce’s dead body and determined it was his!

Tim’s inner monologue in Red Robin 1 shows even he knows he’s driven by desperate hope and compounded grief: “He’s all I have and he has to be alive…Please, god, don’t let me be crazy.”

If Tim had turned out to be wrong I honestly believe he still would’ve gone looking for a way to bring Bruce back. Just like he did with Kon, Bart, Steph, Jack, and Janet.

Red Robin follows so clearly from Tim’s grief from losing Jack Drake and everyone else. DCU Halloween Special ‘09: “Our Father’s Sins” made this even more obvious by showing Red Robin Tim reflecting on his grief over Jack while he’s searching for Bruce.

Of course his friends and family think he’s grieving! He is! He just also happens to be right. Nobody is completely unjustified here.

[the-big-mood]

Not the dog tryna explain how to throw the sandal to his owner

[pivdrr]

[katanahime]

I'm so glad the Knightfall movie seems to understand the Vision

smol but ripped

We have an Understanding

[timbit-robin-art]

Raa, vampires.

[silverbloodedfox]

Some Huntress Doodles! I love her so much! Especially her personality and design from Justice League Unlimited, it makes me so happy! I grew up watching the show like every other month so I know all the episodes nearly by heart. Her and Question were truly peak couple!

[sinhosstuff]

Duke Thomas week day 1!

Eclipse - Badly injured

I love it when his helmet is broken