#Tim fuck up so he will have to take responsibility even if he doesn't want to.

[brucewaynehater101]

Hemlo! Here are some sparkles and hearts for all the delicious posts and answers!! ✨️💕❤️💖✨️✨️✨️💕❤️💖✨️✨️💕❤️💖✨️✨️💕❤️💖✨️✨️💕❤️💖✨️✨️💕❤️💖✨️✨️💕❤️💖✨️✨️💕❤️💖✨️ ✨️

I also have ✨️Questions✨️! In Tim being Bruce's Father Figure AU/headcanon, how do you think Tim's 16th birthday will play out? Will Bruce even plan it? And if he does, will this AU's Alfred go with it? How differently do you think Tim will go about tackling Bruce's lesson on paranoia? And how do you think he'll discipline Bruce after all is said and done? (I am sorry for the many questions 😅😅😅)

The sparkles are really cute. Also, don't know if it was on purpose, but urban dictionary says "hemlo" is how dog's pov says hi???

(Also, I love questions and asks so much. I sometimes take a bit to respond [cause I work nights, so my sleep schedule is whenever I can when I don't work], but I genuinely love all of them).

As far as Tim's 16th birthday, fuck. Alright. I guess this AU/hc can get some more angst. It's been too light and funny lately. Why not?

Okay.

~~~

Tim stares at the object that started it all. It's perched innocently on his desk, but the teen wants nothing more than to shatter it into dusty remains.

Bruce, his son that he willing took responsibility of, his son of three years, thought it was fit to cause Tim to have a mental breakdown. Bruce isn't aware of the true nature of their relationship. Bruce thought it was fit to cause rampant paranoia in a child.

Where had Tim gone wrong?

He thought Bruce was getting better.

Were the sticker charts, the car rides for sleep, the persistent checking for injuries, and the forced self care the wrong moves? Was Tim too harsh? Too soft? Where had Tim failed his son so that he thought this was an acceptable and appropriate set of actions? Why did Bruce do this to him?

He doesn't know.

And Alfred. He thought the two of them were on the same page when it came to parenting Bruce. Were the many discussions over tea, the late night baking, the aid around the house, and the chats during gardening for naught? They were supposed to rely on one another, inform the other when Bruce was going too far, and stop the man. Tim had so many fucking conversations with Alfred on permissive parenting and being a bystander. He thought they were in agreeance.

Not only did Alfred fall back to old and wrongful ways, but he was now an active participation in Bruce's emotional abuse and manipulation. Can Tim even trust Alfred to protect Bruce's kids from Bruce? Was Tim just special?

He doesn't know if it is worse for Alfred to target Tim specifically or for the older man to allow such actions against all of Bruce's children. Both thoughts are unbearable.

The man had the audacity to joke about Tim being of age after this clusterfuck, as if Tim hadn't been an adult in a child's body parenting an adult nearly three times his age. As if Tim hadn't aged a decade in the last three years. As if Tim hadn't done enough.

Gods, Tim is tired. He doesn't think reddit can help him out of this either.

Tim brushes a finger against the offending object as his face screws up in overwhelming grief, frustration, and betrayal. The smooth edges of the cube are cold, and his face feels hot.

He won't cry.

Bruce is a bastard, a man-child who criticized Tim for believing in time travel (as if they both hadn't seen it happen before).

It's infuriating and heartbreaking, but it's not the end. Tim can still fix this. He'll be more vigilant this time as he screws the errant pieces of Bruce's morality and judgment back together. He'll study more parenting books, attend more psychology online courses, and find a therapist he can ask parenting questions to anonymously. There's still more Tim can do.

He can still save his son from himself.

There's still time.

Tim pockets the reminder of his failures towards his son as he goes to Bruce.

He won't ask Bruce to apologize.

He can't.

It's Tim's fault, after all.

#dc comics #tim drake #dc universe #bruce wayne #tim is an unreliable narrator in this and it is not his fault #fuck bruce for that birthday incident #thank you for the ask!!!! #tim is a child-man parenting a man-child #dc au #tim acting like bruce's parent

[dasha022]

Till the ghost do us part

When a bird can't help but get into trouble while searching for an answer and makes a certain ghost guy face the terrifying truth, the bird will have to deal with the consequences and give him a new home. Because that's what a husband does, right?

If I receive a lot of interest in this plot, I will upload the complete chapter to ao3.

“Ok… What the hell did you just say?”

Danny took his time to look at the large amount of furris surrounding his “holding cell” and let out a long sigh. Now he understood his former literature professor when he felt exhausted from explaining something that was too easy for him to understand.

“Ask the sad blond in the trench coat, so much for my wanting to explain my now-husband’s situation.” To make his point, Danny turned around in what by now would be his “VIP” room and proceeded to ignore his husband’s family.

“That’s the damn question mark, how in the hell did Red Robin end up married to you in the first place!” Spoiler exclaimed with his arms in the air. “There was not even a ceremony involved, much less a priest or Judge!”

“I already said it was his fault for not listening to me and continuing to use the same summoning circle to look for answers to questions that would not be answered," repeated the starry-snowy-haired boy as he stood with his back turned and waved one of his hands in disinterest.

Dick massaged his forehead while he assimilated the information, but he still could not process the whole event. “So, you got mad at Red Robin and decided to make him your husband as punishment?”

Phantom, the specter that was not supposed to need a breath, let out another sigh. “To a certain extent, you could call it punishment. But, from my point of view, this marriage is the responsibility that your co-worker must assume for ruining my peace by playing with that summoning circle.” At the end of his tone, Danny's voice turned cold. This was also reflected on the walls and the floor where he resided as a "captive".

If you find any grammar mistake, I'm sorry English is not my first lenguage and I'm a little be bad writing it. But tell me if I need to fix something. 😅

#dc x dp #dc x dp crossover #dc crossover #dc x dp fic #dc x reader #dc x dp au #Tim fuck up so he will have to take responsibility even if he doesn't want to. #Steph doesn't understand a damn thing but still enjoys it as fuck #Danny punishes Tim for putting him in a difficult situation #Married was not in his plans but he needs a place to live and he is still angry with Tim so he will not accept that he acted without think #Jazz will give him a big bollocking for this but that's Danny's problem for the future #Of course Ellie and Dan are going to laugh at him #But they are still in the custody of mom Pandora so another problem for the future Danny. #No tucker #I will not get you Wayne technology. #No Sam #you can not steal the batcaw #batfam #bruce is so done #Jazz is so done #Dick doesn't know whether to be angry that he couldn't plan the wedding or happy that his little brother is finally settling down. #dcxdp #danny is a little shit #danny gvf

[tablestoastandtime]

Legacy and Shadows

Say what you will about large parts of Tim's characterization being a product of the archetype he used to embody in the DC universe, it's kind of fucked up to suddenly become a completely different kind of character without your say so.

Or, Tim and the fact he doesn't get to have a future.

Tim wasn't sure what to make of the way everyone seemed confident that one day Damian would be Batman.

The kid was the only one to say it out loud, for the most part, but like a surprising amount of things that came out of his mouth everyone seemed to mostly take it for truth. And to be fair, when had Damian ever let anyone really stop him from going after something he felt he had a right to? So maybe it was true, if only because he was going to make sure of it. 

It was just. People used to think that about Tim, too. Not that he'd ever said that, ever even wanted it. If anything, Tim had spent as much time as he could reminding people that he wasn't Batman and had no intention of being him. But the shadow of it had lingered, and part of Tim had been bracing for it for years.

After all, Dick wanted to be Batman even less than Tim did, had initially been willing to let the mantle die to avoid it. Dick was Nightwing in a way not everyone ever got to inhabit their titles. Part of what made Dick one of the best of them was how he managed the split; by not letting there be one. Dick was Nightwing was Coach Grayson was whatever bullshit name he'd picked up while playing super spy. He never stopped being himself in any of those roles, for all that he'd put on the appropriate hat to play the crowd. There was a difference between performing and lying, and Dick was born for the lights. 

Batman didn't have much to do with light even at the best of times.

And on the other end of the spectrum, Batman was bad for Jason in a way that honestly caught Tim off guard when he first saw it. Sure none of them had been at their best back then, all alone in their own seas of grief, but Jason had lost whatever stability he'd had for a while there, and was only more recently leveling back out. He'd latched onto the mantle as both connection and insult, a last 'fuck you' to a man he wasn't ready to let go of yet. For Jason the cowl hadn't been about any actual interest in the job that needed doing. And yeah, maybe Tim was a bit biased because if he ever saw Jason in a batsuit again he was liable to do something truly stupid to pay him back for last time. What was worse, being attacked by a symbol of trauma or a symbol of faith?

Tim sure knew that he hadn't liked his end of the stick, at the very least. Maybe he'd feel differently if things hadn't gone the way they had, but he didn't want Jason to be Batman and it was only mostly personal.

Even before all that though, the idea of legacy had still been haunting Tim for longer than he'd wanted to admit. People died, heroes died, Tim knew that better than he knew what school he'd taken second year bio at, but the job always remained. Dick had only been interested in doing part of that job. He'd do the parts he wanted to well, Tim had always believed that, but that still left the rest of the job.

And Tim had kind of figured that would be his responsibility.

He hadn't always been happy about it, had resented the shapes Bruce built into his work even as he'd learned more and more why they'd been necessary to keep the undead freight train of the Bat going. Tim didn't like a lot of what Batman had to be to be effective, but he understood it and he didn't want to see Gotham or the world go without the pillar he represented. If you wanted a job done right, sometimes you had to do it yourself. Tim wouldn't ask anyone else to do something he wasn't willing to do, and if it meant Gotham got to keep its hero then yeah, he'd put on the cowl one day. He'd already tried once.

More than that, Tim was pretty sure Bruce used to see things the same way. Half of his training only made sense if it was to be something that was both more and less than Robin. He'd been preparing Tim for a role that wanted to eat him alive, and for all that Tim had gotten maybe more attached than was strictly healthy to the Robin mantle, it had become a part of him rather than his whole identity. Robin leapt into dark and danger feet first. To be Batman was to live there all the time.

Whether Tim had liked it or not, he'd spent the better part of the last four years half-knowing he'd have to move there one day and he'd lived like it was true. Frustrated, fighting it sometimes and dutifully twisting his edges to better fit others, but always like it was a future he couldn't afford to be unprepared for.

And then Damian came into their lives and Darkseid tried to transtemporally nuke Tim's remaining mental health. There was a paranoid imp that lived in the back of Tim's head that still half-believed that the whole thing had been another elaborate test, except this time if it had been then Tim must have failed because he never did get his life back afterwards. 

Tim put himself and everything he believed into a blender to find the cracks in everyone else's certainty and for all that he'd been right it had never even mattered. The Justice League found out about and went after Bruce independently. They'd only called him after he'd spent months playing into his own worst instincts to get the job done, just to do almost all of the work in front of him.

Maybe he'd done it all wrong. Maybe he'd been doing it wrong for a while.

Even if he hadn't wanted it, he'd been Tim Drake. Robin. The kid who might one day be Batman. And now, by some silent consensus he hadn't been invited to, he wasn't.

It was a relief. It was a deeply haunted house he'd been written out of the will for, it was a black hole that had materialized over his head and swallowed everything he had seen ahead of him.

It was the reality Tim needed to figure out how to live with.

He was doing his best these days, trying to fit the pieces of the person he used to be into the new shape of his life, but he kept cutting himself on the edges where they didn't quite line up. Cut other people sometimes too, even when he tried not to. But when he tried to take space to keep the sharpness to himself, it took his eyes off the movement of the world and when he looked up he had to start all over again to try to put together the puzzle of what he was going to do for the rest of his life.

And through it all, Tim kept turning over the issue of finding a name to use, methodologies to employ, somewhere he could even live, because the ones he used to have didn't really belong to him anymore. Never had, in all fairness.

They'd always been things gifted to him in exchange for dedication and hard work. He'd thought at the time that had meant earning. Now, of course, he knew better.

And now he had to do without them.

Who was Tim Drake if he was never going to be Batman? Who was Tim Drake, as someone who used to be Robin?

He had no idea. Tim just hoped it didn't take the rest of his life to figure it out.

#tim drake #my writing #quick little exercise to try to get back into the habit of writing a thought to completion

[damianbugs]

thoughts on bruce x jack drake?

hello anon apologies for the late reply but when i first received this ask i immediately assumed there was a leak in mine and @plutoslvr messages because we were literally talking about it about two seconds beforehand. i could barely sleep that night.

my thoughts are that old man yaoi is so enjoyable when it's just slightly ridiculous and entirely impossible. there are three ideal sections of the brujack ship (enjoyed by population NO ONE, apparently, but with our combined efforts i imagine we can spark this flame):

rivals to lovers

bruce wayne vs wanting to bone people who want him dead

doomed by the narrative

1. rivals to lovers.

bruce and jack competing in the worlds most intense "who is the best average-leaning-towards-okay dad" battle. trying to outperform in casual "okay dad" actions to win "okay dad" points from tim, something that is totally normal and entirely possible (jack is always in the lead and bruce has not yet realised that he will never overtake him).

this one is so fucking funny to me. silly events such as them fighting on who gets to take tim to his school events, comprising on taking turns (for tim's sake, not because they want to) or attending them together (the pta now think bruce wayne and jack drake are in a relationship). jacks like im taking tim to the skate park and bruce is like well i told tim i'd take him to lunch — now it's bruce and jack taking their kid to the park then lunch together and the paparazzi have no idea how to headline this.

i imagine eventually tim can't handle this truly bizarre tension filled dynamic anymore so he cancels last minute and bruce and jack are like, well, we've already booked a table at this super expensive restaurant AND that cool movie afterwards, so we might as well make use of them.

at some point the "i HAVE to one up the other guy to impress my son" becomes "i HAVE to one up the other guy to impress our son AND so he realises how i'm obviously a catch"

i imagine eventually when they form some sort of established relationship ("do not call me your damn boyfriend, bruce, are we fifteen?") the rivalry doesn't really stop, but it's far more fond and well, tim's just glad he doesn't need to set aside two days a week to make sure he spends time with each of them.

2. bruce wayne vs wanting to bone people who want him dead

now we all know bruce's ideal type is someone who is either a) actively a danger to his life or b) was at some point more inclined to being a danger in his life or a secret third thing that is c) would become a danger to his life if pushed slightly in that direction. we've no time to psychoanalyse this but it's hardly a point that needs to be explained after taking a look at his long list of exes.

now, after this, is it truly out of the realm of possibility that after jack drake finds out that bruce wayne is the fucking batman and is to partly blame for tim's dangerous life choices he stomps over to the man's house and threatens to SHOOT HIM, that bruce wants him carnally. my exact words when reading this scene was "rather reservedly, i imagine this level of foolish and almost stupid bravery impressed bruce, regardless if it it was for entirely unselfish reasons on jack's part or if it was genuinely out of care for tim" i then say "i also think this would have moved bruce, emotionally, figuratively, poetically, sexually WOAH"

we all know that canonically when bruce falls in love or becomes even slightly interested in someone, he goes STUPID and impulsive. he's sending jack rare artefacts and really specific gifts and throwing galas with the sole purpose of inviting jack all without even considering that is actually not a normal response to have after someone threatens to kill you. perhaps he doesn't even realise this is something more than just paranoid obsession, and he tries to rationalise it like "i'm only trying to convince him to come with me to the museum so i can work out what kind of person he is in casual date settings and also to kiss him WAIT"

this one is funny if jack is just not interested at all and he's like okay what the fuck what kind of mind games is this guy trying to pull. tim is your mentor trying to tell me something through the purchase of these front seat opera house tickets and tim is like i can't believe this is real life i hope this is all a nightmare this can't be happening to me. bruce is hopelessly infatuated and jack is like don't think i won't file a restraining order against you BATMAN.

or it can get funnier if jack is like I WONT FALL FOR YOUR SEDUCTION TECHNIQUES BATMAN (proceeds to fall for batman's seduction techniques).

bonus alfred is actively praying on jacks downfall (canon) and is experiencing war flashbacks when bruce begins to display lovesick behaviour

3. doomed by the narrative

now as you may have noticed most of these work before the bright red alarm that is JACK DRAKE'S TRAGIC DEATH. his death in and of itself is already so sad, because he was changing, he was better and tim was so close to having everything he wanted, and jack was truly hopeful to be present and good to his son.

if we now throw in the mix of this shortlived romance, wherein canon bruce is already swamped with guilt about janet's death and feels as though he OWES it to tim to save jack as well, it becomes all the more heartbreaking. i would actually change nothing about how it happened in canon. jack still leaves that phone call for tim, tim and bruce still race to get to him, tim still finds his father's dead body and bruce still holds tim away from the corpse.

because the best part about this potential relationship is that it is born from the shared want to look after tim. it's what connects them and what causes any sort of interaction between them. so even at this point, bruce's first priority is tim, because it will always be tim first, but also because that is what jack would have wanted from him.

just another love for bruce to hide in his heart, let it consume and damage him, let it make him colder and harder to approach, another layer on this already unbreakable foundation. it probably causes problems between tim and bruce, for the sake of mourning but not reacting and simply because loss can make people very unkind. bruce's guilt is now more than just what he already feels for somehow failing tim, but also for not being able to save someone he loves, again.

OR jack lives au and bruce is even MORE obsessed and insufferable about it and tim literally has to help his own dad break out of the manor because batman is holding jack hostage (bedrest for almost dying).

or we have our obligatory bruce wayne "I almost lost you, so now im going to push you away for both our sake" arc to which Jack drake probably threatens to shoot bruce again and then they do it silly HAPPY ENDING EVERYONE GO HOME

#me vs making up romance that isn't there but could be but probably not but WHAT IF #i didnt even mention the what if jack moved into the manor to recover post coma #or what if jack and bruce were together during no mans land #or short college romance jack and bruce #IM NORMAL #this is zafs fault tbh #bruce wayne #jack drake #tim drake

[soleminisanction]

The thing I keep coming back to, now that I've wrapped up the first part of "Batgirl, Repentant" and am starting to outline the second, is how much the book's hyper-focus on Steph hamstrings the story I think they're trying to tell.

I say I think because obviously I can't read the writers' minds so for all I know they taped the random lip service about hope and justice and fighting for the little guys onto the Stephanie-love-fest in a half-assed response to criticism, but I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt and believe that when the first arc ends with:

And that gets followed up two issues later with Steph telling Damian:

I want to take them at their word that that's what they're going for. But it's not the story they tell at all because, for all the lip service paid, there's not a single plot point that actually backs those themes up. Every single narrative element is instead 100% oriented around Stephanie, her feelings, her desires, and her ambitions, none of which involve helping or protecting other people.

Batgirl's first appearance in issue 1 isn't about bringing hope or protecting anybody, it's about, "Ooooh, who is this mysterious new Batgirl who's such a badass but looked down on by The Man for being a little chaotic? Ta-da, it's Stephanie Brown!!"

When she talks about promises being made to her mom (by which of course I mean lies, she's just lying to her mother) or the supposed "promise" she didn't actually make to Tim Drake, it's all framed as unreasonable expectations that other people are piling onto Steph's shoulders, without so much as a second thought for how the person she supposedly made these promises to might feel.

When Cass leaves her the Batgirl costume, it's not with requests to carry on the legacy or protect Gotham in her absence or even to look out for Barbara, it's all about Cass's relationship with Bruce (as though that was ever her motivation!) and then "Now the fight is yours, Stephanie" while she vanishes into the rain in her underwear. Like Batgirl is a toy she's letting Steph have her fair turn with now that she doesn't want to play anymore.

When Steph thinks about the symbolism of the Bat and of Batgirl, it's not about how it can be a symbol of hope and protection in the darkness of Gotham, it's about how it makes her feel powerful. Even when she worries about messing up it's framed as, "Nothing I do ever ends well" and "It's just a matter of time before I get caught," not concerns about the harm her previous attempts that "didn't end well" wound up doing to other people.

And despite the fact that there's a riot going on in the next few pages, she's not inspired to go out and help with that, but to assist a single dumbass cop who got in over his head.

And then again when Babs shows up to chew her out in the next issue, it's all about Steph and her safety. "You already died" this and "You have a death wish" that. Barbara Gordon, the original Batgirl, only gets to talk about the symbolism of Batgirl as it relates to Stephanie Brown -- "Wearing that Bat on your chest might scare off the smaller thugs, but you're literally asking, no, begging for attention from more dangerous criminals. You're a mark for anyone who wants to make theirs."

Again, even the fact that she fucked up in the past and hurt people is framed around Steph -- "The last time you tried being helpful, you accidentally brought Gotham to its knees." And while Steph pays lip service to "doing this instead of sleeping" because she "thinks it's right," she doesn't ever elaborate on what exactly is "the right thing" she thinks she's doing, and it's not like she's gone out to protect people. You can't even argue, like you maybe could with the street race, that she's doing a flashy display to show ordinary people there's someone on their side -- she's beating up random goons in an isolated chop-shop.

Then of course there's the fact that nothing about Scarecrow's whole Thrill plot makes any sense because he's not being written with any kind of coherent villain motivation, it's all just being done to set up moments for Steph. Why do some of his goons decide to spike the punch at a random college party and then run away at just the right moment to make themselves look as suspicious as possible? Because Stephanie's going to be there and they need to hook her into that plot.

And when Steph argues with Babs later about why they should work together to solve this case, does she express concern about her classmates or her university, or even point out that Barbara isn't working with an on-the-street agent like she has in the past and hey, maybe you'd be a little less stressed if you had someone to share the load?

Nope. It's just "I'm just as much a part of it now as you are!"

To say nothing of my eternal, teeth-grinding frustration over Barbara's characterization. "I'm only being so hard on her because I'm jealous that she's Batgirl and I'm not anymore." Fuck all the way off, Bryan Q. Miller.

This whole thing is so bad that when you get to the climax of this arc -- when they've tracked Scarecrow and his goons to their creepy hospital lair -- the stakes aren't that anyone is in danger, or that there's any chance that Scarecrow might be able to escape in the next five minutes before the police arrive. In fact, if Steph's actual motivation was to make sure Scarecrow saw justice, it would've been a better strategy for her to stay outside watching the exits so she could jump him if he tried to make a run for it.

But she doesn't do that. Because the actual stakes for the climax of the first arc are that if she doesn't swing in and beat the shit out of Scarecrow right the fuck now, the police will beat her to it and then Stephanie won't get the credit for saving the day.

They even try to clumsily raise the stakes by implying that Scarecrow works for Black Mask, a plot point that goes absolutely nowhere because -- whoopsie -- Black Mask is dead at this point and has been since before Steph came back to life. He only ever showed up again as a Black Lantern in Blackest Night, at which point Ivy fed him to a plant.

(They did not fix this in the trade paperback version BTW, I checked)

There's some effort to turn Steph's fight with Scarecrow into something more by having him spout some weird nonsense about how he's controlling people with drugs because, "Nobody truly has a choice little girl" while she represents free will fighting back against attempts to take it away, but that's seriously hamstrung by the fact that writing is all over the place.

Like, at the start of Steph's big dramatic speech, she's all but arguing against the concept of free will, echoing an earlier classroom discussion I've bitched about before, saying that people (by which of course she actually means herself) stay when things get tough "Because we don't know how to do anything else."

But on the very next page she poses the question again and answers it with... frankly complete nonsense.

Because the point isn't actually 'control vs. free will', the whole thing -- all of the forced, misunderstood philosophy that fills out this entire arc -- is actually just repeating the same question Babs was asking earlier, this time in metaphor -- why does Stephanie keep throwing herself into danger, why doesn't she just quit?

And her answers, apparently, are, "because this is who I want to be" and "because I don't know how do anything else." Neither of which spare even a passing thought for anyone but herself, which is kind of a problem if you're trying to present Batgirl's mission statement as bringing hope to the people around her.

Then there's the bit about "facing your worst self," which refers to slightly before this, when Scarecrow drugs Steph with Thrill (a move that makes no sense in-universe because again, Scarecrow is only here to set up set pieces for Stephanie and has zero internal logic of his own). What Steph sees during that sequence is her ex-boyfriend and previous identity tearing her down and telling her that she's not good enough to be a superhero, which implies that her 'worst self' is self-doubt, or possibly "letting other people make you doubt yourself." Again -- all about her, with other people framed as nothing but obstacles to her happiness.

And just to remind you-- she has no actual reason to be here. She's not "saving the city," the city is not under threat. She's not doing anything heroic by throwing herself into this fight. She's only doing this because she wanted the credit for saving the day. That's the only stake the story ever establishes.

It's like there's this standing assumption that she must obviously want to be superhero for selfless reasons, therefore they don't need to bring that up ever and can just focus on how much she wants to be one and how noble it is that she's willing to fight through pain and hardship to be one.

But that's just not how it works? Maybe if you were still writing for the Golden Age when the storytelling was simpler and characterization was optional, but not in 2009. Part of the purpose of a solo book's first arc is to establish/re-establish the core hero's motivation and, if it's changed, explain how and why.

Just as a contemporary example -- Red Robin sends Tim Drake off on what's literally a personal quest and spends its first arc establishing how he's darker and more alone than he's ever been before... but it still opens with him rescuing a kidnapping victim, reaffirming that, whatever he's going through and whatever he has to do to accomplish his goal, he's still, at heart, a hero who will put his own needs aside to protect an innocent. That's also the role that Tam Fox essentially plays in the second arc, giving him someone to protect even when he's isolated from the normal push and pull of the DCU.

Whether you're approaching Batgirl (2009) as a new reader who's never met Steph before in your life, or as someone who read her previous material, there is nothing in this first arc, or those that follow, that establishes her motivation beyond, "I want to be Batgirl and I won't let anyone tell me no." She'll occasionally say she's being selfless and heroic, but it's not backed up by her actions or her thoughts.

Perhaps the most blatant self-contained example of this "It's all about Stephanie and obviously she's a perfectly selfless hero so we don't need to bother establishing it," mindset comes in the denouncement of the first arc. They recreate the vow in the dark -- not the most iconic scene in Batman history but still one that's well-known, a moment that goes all the way back to the first appearance of Robin, when Dick and Bruce vowed an "undying oath" to fight together against crime and corruption and never to swerve from the path of righteousness, symbolically committing themselves to act as a light in the darkness and protectors of the innocent.

Batgirl (2009) recreates this scene... by having Barbara vow to support Stephanie Brown and only Stephanie Brown in everything that she does "for as long as she wants it" so she "won't go out alone" and end up in a chair like Babs did. Meanwhile, Steph's response boils down to, "Oh yeah totes me too," because, according to the book, she doesn't need to take an oath, it's just completely self-evident that she's already made her right choice and will obviously continue to do the same forever and ever, no doubt about it.

Two extra little details scattered throughout:

Through the entire series, Steph is constantly doing this obnoxious humble-brag thing of, "I'm Stephanie Brown, and I'm just a normal girl tee-hee" over images of her doing badass Batgirl things that are obviously supposed to be ironic, and she always uses her full name. The trade paperback version is literally called, "Batgirl: Stephanie Brown" because there's nothing else to say about this story. Tim Drake: Robin didn't use his full name this much and it was actually in the title.

And that's not even getting into how often they waste entire pages on splash images of just... Stephanie. Not Stephanie doing anything special, just, Stephanie, and we're supposed to be very awed and impressed by her because she's Stephanie Brown and she's Batgirl now wowie wow wow.

That one tiny little caption box in the upper-left corner of the last page of the storyline? That's literally the first and only time that the concept of "Batgirl makes sure everyone gets home to see tomorrow" is ever mentioned.

This his is all just the first storyline. This same pattern continues on into the rest of the book, only getting worse as they add in other Batfamily member guest-stars for Steph to show up and prove wrong, and stock civilians who do nothing but shower her with praise and adoration. The tiny little sprinkles they offer up of, "Oh yeah I'm doing this to bring hope to the people of Gotham!!" just don't compare to deluge of "Steph gets to be Batgirl because she wants to be Batgirl, that makes her the coolest motherfucker on the planet, and if you disagree you must be sexist."

---

TL;DR (and sorry this got so long) -- Bryan Q. Miller et. al seem to be either under the impression (or want to give the impression) that they're telling the story of Stephanie Brown, the plucky young girl who never gave up on her dream of being a superhero no matter the haters or setbacks she faced, and how seeing her succeed despite being so average and relatable inspires other average people to have hope and fight for a better tomorrow.

But the story they actually tell is of Stephanie Brown, a teenage girl utterly obsessed with becoming a superhero to the exclusion of all else, including her own well-being, future, and relationships with her friends and family, apparently just because she likes the way it makes her feel, has no self-control and can't imagine herself doing anything else, who is applauded and cheered for this by everyone she meets, save for a small handful of haters who are just there to be proven wrong, beaten up, or both.

The first could've been a good-ish story -- ish, because it doesn't actually engage with Steph's previous characterization, but that's a different post -- but it's just not the story they told.

#stephanie brown #batgirl #batgirl 2009 #batgirls #dc comics #dc #batman #meta #comics meta #barbara gordon #cassandra cain #hmmmm I wound up spending all day on this whoops #ah well it was a sick day and I needed to get it out of my head #there are worse reasons not to move for eight hours

[laufire]

tell me more about the Bruce Wayne womb envy theory

LOL. alright then.

tbh this was mostly a joke, born from this post (+ probably influenced by the way one of my mutuals talks about david 8 in the alien prequels but that's neither here nor there xDD)

(david 8 character of all time though. I have mixed opinions on both of those films but he as the common thread uniting them is *chef's kiss*)

(also I don't really believe these men / "men" in david's case want to be pregnant but that's because I can't conceive of anyone wanting to be pregant if nature has spared them the ability to become so whether they choose to or not, but I acknowledge those are MY gender issues. bruce can have others if he wants xD)

but if I was to take it seriously and run with it, I'd relate it to how I can see bruce... wanting to have had his kids earlier in life. seeing them grow, getting to enjoy them in those early stages when they're cute and fully depend on you and don't argue back, etc. that desire would be tinted with guilt in dick's case and to a lesser extent tim's, I suppose. I've always seen dick's parents and the environment in the circus presented as a positive one for dick (I have yet to read any of that court of owls shit lol), but I do think the drake's were neglectful/emotionally distant/not people tim could rely on, just not in the way or to the extent fanon presents. otoh... well, there's an argument to be made that maybe the waynes and the drakes weren't so different, or were around the same place in the spectrum of parenting in terms of good versus bad (source: thomas backhanding bruce in batman #430), and that bruce might've had blind spots with them as a result. I have yet to read any comic where bruce judges the drakes parenting though I wouldn't be surprised if they did exist, cause he's hypocritical like that. either way, I think tim's not in the same place as dick in this scale of guilt vs. saviour complex lol.

meanwhile in jason's, cass's, and damian's cases, that wouldn't be an issue because he'd seen it as sparing them pain / saving them. which wouldn't be innacurate, although there's an argument about whether being raised by bruce would've fucked them up in other ways lol.

and ironically, I think bruce would feel this saviour complex the most with jason, despite his situation with the todds (no matter whether you believe they were shitty parents or just fellow victims of circumstance or something in between) being objectively not as much of a shitshow as being raised the way cain raised cass OR being raised within a cult with the expectation of eventually leading it, like damian.

I attribute this to how bruce's classism always made him perceive taking jason in and adopting as the act of saving jason, both from his situation and from jason's "fate" of becoming a violent criminal himself, while cass and damian came to be in bruce's care under different circumstances. and second, to how bruce perceives jason's abilities vis a vis cass's or damian's. cass and damian were trained, obviously weren't born knowing, but they are "prodigies", if only because of how young they started. bruce doesn't even seem to contemplate the possibility of them distancing themselves from the fight. moreover, jason was trained later and by him, specifically because bruce felt lonely, all of which would add a feeling of responsibility for jason's end. but most of all, due to his death (+ might makes right + just world fallacy + other such fun things), jason's abilities are perceived by bruce as lesser, and as less of an ~inherent part of him.

so, yeah, jason will always trigger his saviour complex in an extra fun way xDD

all of this to conclude that now I have this vision of bruce having a weird dream soon after jason's death where things are happy at home (his parents are alive in the dream, because that's a prerequisite for a happy one), and dick is a much younger kid than he was when they first met (it's sort of implied dick is also biologically his but not outright stated), and he's pregnant, and he knows it's with jason, who's safe and sound encased in bruce's body, where nothing can reach him.

(I wrote a bruce + grief fic very recently already but this idea is also tempting me now ñalsdjfasf)

#talking to the void #replies #kittykatninja321 #can't believe I typed all that. oh well xD #my thoughts #dc thoughts #dc #dc comics #i need to sort out my tags. i always say that but i really need to lmao #continuities and volumes and shit #bruce wayne #bat clan #favourites: you raise sons #favourites: fucked up families #jason todd

[therealtsk]

What is the Brown family pre-Flashpoint characterization vs post-?

hoo boy. So, disclaimers, while I've read a LOT of comics, I have not in fact read all of the ones where a member of the Brown Family appears (mostly because I just don't have the heart to put myself through Batman and Robin Eternal, along with some of Dixon's notoriously sexist writing in his Robin run), but I think I've read enough to make a decently informative post on this. Let's go by characters.

Stephanie Brown.

Probably the one that most people noticed, Stephanie Brown in her pre-Flashpoint characterization is one that has (right up until a certain...event...) a lot of grit to her. While she's still the victim of Dixon's notorious attitudes towards women, she's still allowed to be competent, holding her own in a fight quite handily, especially in her own Batgirl run, where she's able to take on League of Assassin members without too much trouble at all.

Her major, I would argue defining characteristic, is that she does not give up. Ever. Her dad tells her to quit. Tim Drake tells her to quit. Fucking Batman tells her to quit. Multiple times!

Stephanie Brown does not give up. Ever. When the going gets tough, she shrugs, puts on her eggplant outfit, and kicks ass.

Post-Flashpoint? Stephanie is constantly made out to be unreliable, unable to handle herself, constantly needing other people to pull her out of trouble. She loses fights she simply wouldn't have before (although to be entirely fair, this is a problem literally every batfam member has from N52 onward but that's another post) But worse than that, post-Flashpoint Stephanie gives up. 

This scene is genuinely insulting- it's definitive proof that DC's writers from N52 onwards have never understood Stephanie Brown, and never plan to (yes, I know she does come back later, but the fact this happened at all is the point.) This is utterly antithetical to Stephanie Brown as a character, and spits in the face of everything she stands for.

Crystal Brown This is actually the main reason I decided to start writing sins of the father (working on chapter two in conjunction with this), because the treatment of Crystal Brown in Post-Flashpoint DC comics is just insulting- and a major disservice to Steph! Her relationship with her mom is essential to her arc. Crystal Brown starts out as a woman who's got a supervillain as a husband. She's struggling with him, with near-poverty, and with a drug addiction that seriously impedes her ability to be a good mom.

But like daughter, she doesn't give up. In fact, Crystal Brown kicks Arthur Brown out of her life and picks herself up, manages to quit her habits, and becomes a well-respected nurse at Gotham City West Mercy Hospital. Her defining characteristic is that she loves her daughter, even if it took some time for her to get her act together.

Post-Flashpoint Crystal Brown is not that. Hell, she's barely a character. When Steph calls her, desperate, afraid of her newly-learned-of criminal father, Crystal’s response is to lie to her daughter, and then call her husband and tell him Stephanie knows about his plan. 

Sure, she doesn't want him to kill her, but this is so wildly out of character for Crystal that this is basically an entirely different person. And it leaves Stephanie without a single parent who cares about her, since Bruce sure has hell hasn't stepped up in Rebirth. Steph doesn't have any positive role models in her life in Rebirth, leaving her bereft of really any consistent form of love and encouragement outside of maybe Cass, but even that relationship is a hollow shell of what it was previously. 

Arthur Brown. 

So Arthur’s the one who’s arguably changed the least, because abusive asshole is hard to get wrong, but he does feel like he’s lost all consistency in Rebirth. Before, he's a smug, arrogant asshole who doesn't give a damn about his family beyond how he can use them.

In Batman Eternal he’s…well, fine, but in Batgirls he’s…nearly unrecognizable, even from his characterization in the previous issues. 

Like seriously, what was going on here? Arthur's never given a single damn about Steph aside from literally using her as part of a plan to get rich. But anyway. TLDR; All three lost nuance, Steph used to be more competent and had an actual character arc, Crystal used to have an actual character and was an inspiring story of overcoming addiction, and Arthur used to feel like a consistent villain instead of a one-off whack job.

#DC #DC Comics #Stephanie Brown #Crystal Brown #Arthur Brown #ask submission #DC Meta #DC Comics Meta #Stephanie Brown Meta #as you might tell #i really don't like most of dc comic's decisions post flashpoint

[gffa]

Oh. Oh no. For the first time in my life pretty much ever I think I'm vaguely interested in a Batman vs Joker comic. This is a humiliating turn of events for me. It's never a good idea to get pre-invested in the potential of a DC comics storyline, that way only ever lies disappointment and "I don't know what I expected" because I should know better. But I can't help it! I took ten years off and came back to a DC that's better than when I left it! I have hope in my heart! And, for all that Gotham War ended with a whimper rather than a bang, I still can see so much potential. Imagine what a real shakeup of the dynamics in the Batfam would look like! I don't believe for a second that they'd do it, but imagine if they actually had Dick in the role of being the family leader, except as Nightwing this time instead of stepping into Batman's boots. He wouldn't want to be the patriarch in the same way Bruce was, but he's about the same age as Bruce was when Bruce adopted him, so imagine the tasty tasty parallels they could do with Dick suddenly in charge of a feral gremlin charge of his own (Damian), some actual support both emotionally and on the streets (Tim and Barbara), a team he actually would be able to call on for help when he needed it (Jason, Steph, Cass, Duke), that in some ways he has it easier than Bruce did, he's not as wrapped up in his own pain in the same way, but in other ways it's harder, he doesn't have Alfred, he has so many moving pieces that are all clashing and aren't necessarily going to listen to him (Steph and Cass and Duke aren't loyal to him the way he was loyal to Bruce)(and then there would be Jason's *waves hands* everything) and it would be out of his control that he'd feel responsible for and it would be a conflict between setting himself up in Bludhaven versus how Gotham still needs the team, not just Bruce being an asshole out there on his own--and god, running into Bruce, always wondering if he approves of Dick's style of leadership versus "You don't get a vote on whether to approve or not." There is SO MUCH that could be done with it! I can't help kind of being fond of the Gotham War set-up, because I like drama and I like Bruce's up and down character arc, and I like a complicated, sharp-edged Bruce who does inexcusable things because his brain is fucked up and lying to him, even when I know it'll disappoint me. But also. I was reading Batman #139 and oh, oh no, oh noooo, I'm interested in "Mindbomb" as a story--as a Joker story!--because it really is the perfect time for it, isn't it? Bruce has been overwhelmed for months now, he's in such a bad place mentally and emotionally that he's letting his fears of loss win and pushing his entire family away, he's doing horrible things to them because he can't handle loving them like he does, so he's separated himself from them, all while he thinks he's in control, but he's not, his brain is absolutely lying to him, and it's hissing in his ear to strip everything that Bruce loves away from himself and so that only Batman is left. Zur-En-Arrh is right there. "I'm in control!" Bruce screams in his own mind, all while Zur just rips through him and so easily takes over. Bruce has no control, he is so, so wrong about all of this, and oh boy the Joker is getting exactly what he wants, isn't he? No more annoying riff raff to get in the way or for Batman to care more about than him. No more Selina, no more kids, no more friends, no more loved ones--just Zur-En-Arrh, the most "pure" Batman in the Joker's eyes, now it's just the two of them. And that's everything Joker has ever wanted. And I don't want to find that to be an interesting extension of everything that led up to and during Gotham War, but crap yeah okay that's kind of a well-timed story when I look at it through that lens. I know I shouldn't get my hopes up, I'm going to be disappointed in wherever this goes, but dammit. The story kind of got me.

#lumi.txt #dc #batfam #bruce wayne #joker #batman 2016 #tuesday spoilers

[safetycar-restart]

So. I saw a certain tweet of George going into the Mclaren motorhome with Lando. Thoughts? Well mine is that you are Lando's dom. George's dom treats him badly and Lando hates seeing his friend hurting. So he drags him back to see you so he can submit and feel better. He sees how good Charles and Pierre's poly relationship is for them and he wants that too! 🐇

Please I love the image of Lando just stealing George. He’s just like “nope, mine now” and fucking takes him. Shoutout to the poor mclaren media person who left Lando alone for two minutes and came back to find Lando had kidnapped one of their competitors. I'm gonna tag this as 'd/s au - poly!George/lando' cause i really like this idea and i'd love to hear more about it and for it to be its own au!!

Firstly, lando's original plan was to simply murder the Mercedes dominant, but he figured that would probably take a lot of planning and isnt really his thing (AKA: Alex refused to help).

George is pretty good at hiding how much he's hurting, how his dom clearly isnt giving him what he needs. But Lando can still tell.

His suspicions are confirmed one evening when he's at dinner with George and George asks him if he gets berated for needing more attention from his dom. Lando's heart just breaks for his friend (okay yes he's had a crush on George for years but George doesn't know that so it's still friend). Lando thinks about all the times George has stared longingly at you and him, how George averted his eyes when Lando would catch him watching.

Then there was the time that you joined them for lunch (Lando had just had a scene with you and he didnt want to part from you just yet) and George had insisted on paying. You had thanked George sincerely, telling him you really appreciated it and George was beaming for the rest of the day.

And then Lando thinks about whatever the fuck charles and Pierre have going on with charles's team and just... yeah he needs to kidnap George.

This all comes to a head during a media pen session. Lando was already in the media pen when George arrived, and George looked so fucking sad. His eyes were red like he had been crying, and he was gripping his water bottle so hard his hand was shaking.

Lando thought back to how George's session had gone, and as far as he knew George did well. There was nothing on track that would warrant George being like that, and Lando knows there's only one other thing that could do that: his dom.

Lando decides right then and there that George needs to come back with him and scene with you.

You have no idea how Lando manages to sneak George out from under the eyes of the entire media pen and his own media person, but somehow he did because you walk into his driver room and find George sitting on the couch with Lando.

At first you think that George is just hanging out with Lando, but then you see that Lando has his arm wrapped around George and seems to be comforting him. You ask what's happened, and George looks up in fright. The poor thing honestly looks like he's about to bolt out the door, but you're standing in the way of that.

Lando starts to explain, well he just says that George really needs a nice dom and then gives you his best puppy dog eyes and damnit you are powerless to deny him.

The saddest part is honestly how the smallest thing makes George so so happy? You run your hands through his hair, asking if he's going to be a good boy and he nods to quickly its comical. The smile on his face when you kiss his forehead in response is heartbreaking. A well cared for sub shouldn't be reacting this way to a mere forehead kiss from an unknown dom.

You treat George as well as you can, cuddling him and letting Lando suckle on his cock, praising him the entire time and encouraging him to fall apart in your arms. He's floating in subspace for the rest of the night, cuddled between you and Lando.

George is absolutely mortified when he wakes up the next morning and thinks back to how he acted. But at the same time, he can't remember the last time he was this well rested? He never wants to leave this bed.

Needless to say, George starts to come back.

At first it's just Lando dragging George along to scenes and George pretending that he's annoyed by this and hasn't been counting down the days until a race weekend because he might be able to scene with you and lando again. But eventually, George starts to accept that you and Lando actually love being with him and he starts to seek you two out on his own accord.

#d/s au - poly!George/lando #sub!george #sub!lando #ln #gr #nsfw. #gn!reader #d/s au #🐇

[butch-chastity]

as The cass enjoyer and dick enjoyer i need your ideal cass & dick dynamic pls 🤲

dick & cass's dynamic is really interesting because, up until the evil cass arc, their canon material together tends to be really good! (even if there's not a lot of it)

cause, like, in the beginning, dick puts up his usual front. he's all about appearing responsible and collected in front of the new, "less experienced" hero:

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #120 / Batman: Family #7

but drops that role the moment he spends a few minutes alone with her.

dick realizes very quickly that a) cass can see through any facade dick tries to play in to, and that b) cass doesn't need him to be someone older & wiser than her.

batgirl #29

compared to dick's other siblings, like damian and tim, cass feels like dick's contemporary, not someone he's mentoring or trying to guide.

they're on equal ground. and, they both know that they can take care of themselves.

this leads them to be pretty silly (for bats) around one another:

Detective Comics #782

gotham knights #45

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #184

because, while i'm not going to outright say that dick is completely himself around her (as in, he lets himself be emotional vulnerable), dick is at least aware that he can't pretend around her, and probably feels at least a little kinship with her.

I mean, they're pretty similar. They enable each other's guilt complexes, neither one of them is comfortable spending a lot of time in one place, and they wouldn't know what a healthy amount of devotion looked like if it smacked them upside the head.

^ that's not even unpacking their similar forms of trauma, which is just. woof. y'know?

cass's insecurities are similar to dick's, in that they're both desperately afraid of slipping up and hurting every one, but also her insecurities aren't similar to his at all because they formed under completely different circumstances and choose to act on those fears in different ways.

i think a lot of what i'm trying to say could be summed up by my own tags on a post:

as well as @/heroesriseandfall's tags on the same post:

also, as cool as dick & cass's canon material is, there isn't a lot of it and the evil cass character assassination ruined EVERYTHING!!!

i want cass and dick in blud together!!!!!! we were so close to having it all!!!! i want it sooooo bad and its so fucked that dc editorial decided to pull BULLSHIT and drag cass through the mud for ??? reasons.

so, tl;dr my ideal dick & cass dynamic is pretty complicated, but looks a little like this:

they trust each other a lot. and they're a little goofy together, because they're on equal ground, and both know they're really damn good at their jobs. the majority of their relationship is quiet, based around mutual understanding and an unspoken desire to fill in the gaps left behind by trauma.

and if i had it my way: they would both live in blud (for at least part of the year) and get shitty midnight coffee together, on the really bad nights.

my absolute favorite interaction they have is in NW vol. 2, even if it happens because dick is busy being a cop:

because, yeah. "what do you need me to do?" that's it.

also, much as i love being recognized as a dick and cass enjoyer, i think the person who's actually thee d&c enjoyer is @heroesriseandfall, who posts about them semi frequently and is actually smart enough to keep a dedicated tag, which i pillaged for screenshots for this post.

thank you, bestie. :>

#mutual ace #i don't think i have a tag for you so that will just have to be it #also full disclosure dick's weird fuckin uhhhhh wet mullet looking thing from batgirl is my favorite of all of his hair. sopping wet kitty. #dc #detective comics #cassandra cain #dick grayson #nightwing #batgirl #uhhhh #batman #sorry writing this took a long time so i want at least a few notes #talking tag #asks

[alfredsolos]

I don't like how some writers bash or exaggerate the other batkids' behaviour and personalities in order to whumpify their favorite batfam member.

If Dick Grayson is the main character in the fic, then every other batfam member are suddenly incapable of doing the most simplest tasks and ask Dick to help them. He solves every single problem of his family because he is the 'eldest'. And he always puts a smile on his face and let's them treat him like shit.

Yes, it is true that Dick has more responsibility compared to his siblings. Not because he is the eldest; but because he has to keep an entire city safe all by himself, mentor teen sidekicks, lead the Titans, go on missions with the JL and so on. And he does this not because he has to, but because he wants to.

Also he may be more emotionally open than rest of his siblings, but thats just it. Compared to his siblings. Nightwing says puns and jokes yeah, but he is not at all can be classified as emotionally vulnurable. Dick led and mentored so many teams, and you can't do that while being light hearted and smiley all the time.

Dick is serious and firm when needed to. He doesn't baby any of his siblings (especially Damian), or act like an angel all the time. He has anger management issues and does not take bullshit from anyone. Not even his family.

He lives in Bludhaven to get away from the craziness that is Gotham. He loves his family, but he simply does not have the patience to deal with them all the time.

When the fic is about Jason, most of the plot is about him being dead and how Bruce betrayed him by replacing him. That Dick threw him in Arkham and everyone treats him like a monster.

Well firstly, Jason is not all about his death. He doesn't really bring it up unless he wants to make a point to Bruce.

Jason doesn't hate Tim because he replaced him. Jason hates Bruce, for taking in another Robin when the first one actively get murdered because of it. He beat Tim up to prove to him and Bruce that taking in a child, and making him his partner is seriously wrong. Jason hates the idea of kids becoming soldiers for a war they didn't start.

Another point is that after Jason came back from the dead, he wasn't an anti-hero. He was a full on villain that tried to kill most of the Batfamily. And no I'm not talking about him beating Tim up in the Titans tower (It was to send a message to Bruce) or cutting his throat (which he didn't. It was a small scratch):

I'm talking about Battle for the Cowl, when he beat Tim up badly because he refused to be his Robin. Jason thought Tim was dead at the end of their fight (Tim slowed down his heartbeat). And this is his reaction:

And yet again in Battle for the Cowl, he shot Damian. Which resulted him getting more than 70 stitches:

Also this was his reaction when a nuclear powered supervillain blew up Bludhaven:

He poisoned 82 inmates while 'Dick sent poor Jason into prison :('

Now does this mean Jason is a bad character? Fuck no! Infact he is one of my favorite characters. Jason is such an interesting character and sometimes you can't help but condone his mistakes no matter how bad they are. Even I do this.

So what I mean is that, we should stop babying him and see him as the flawed character he is. Every single character has their own flaws and that's what makes them special.

Jason was a hero, then a villain, then an anti-hero, then again a hero.

Also he doesn't get pit episodes. The only time he got one was right after getting out of the pit. Lazarus pit did not made him violent and it's not the blame for Jason's past actions. Jason was awake and aware of the things he did. And he feels guilty. But he learned to forgive. Both himself and Bruce.

Our next member is Tim Drake. Fanon Tim Drake is a coffee addict, he is thin and small, is quiet and doesn't believe he is apart of the family. Dick stole Robin from him and gave it to 'evil and cruel' Damian who bullies him every time they interact. Jason always calls him replacement and threatens to kill him most of the time. Dick is a monster that tried to lock him up in Arkham.

God I cringed writing this. Anyways firstly Tim is, in fact, not a coffee addict. I'd say he is more of a tea person and only drinks coffee to stay awake.

Tim is not short and all skin and bones. He eats properly and is very muscled. Especially around his back and biceps. He is also not short either.

Tim is quiet, yes. But not in a shy way. He is cold and calculative and sometimes a little apathatic. He isn't scared to do what's necessary and is always ready to sacrifice himself for the sake of the mission. He also definitely sees himself apart of the family.

Another really misunderstood point is that Dick took Robin from him, when it was actually Alfred who gave Damian the Robin suit.

Yes, Damian tried to kill him multiple times and it was very traumatising for Tim. But they do get along most of the time. In fact Tim may be the second closest to Damian among the family. Because no matter what happens he loves his little brother. As it was shown when he hallucinated and hugged Damian after he died.

Jason and him may be at odds from time to time, but Jason gets along with him more than most of his siblings.

And Dick most certainly did not try to put him in Arkham. Bruce was dead and Dick saw Tim. How devastated he was, so he offered him to get therapy. Like a good brother would do.

Last but not least is Damian. I think most of the time Damian centric fics manage to represent him properly. But let's start with the ones that are the most cliche-d and wrongly written.

Damian talks the Queen's British and is spoiled. Dick Grayson is his actual father and Bruce always insults him. He trains all day and goes to patrol at night. He hates his mother, always gets his ass handed to him in a fight. Tim Drake treats him horribly and everyone calls him Demon or Demon Brat. Jason is the best brother in the world and him and Dick always protect him from Bruce's wrath. Alfred annoyes him and Damian doesn't really care about him. All of his personality is summed up with: "Yes, Father."

In actuality, Damian is most of the time sassy or straight up mocking. He uses slangs and isn't scared of disrespecting Ra's or Talia and Bruce (in fact he may be enjoying it a little).

Dick Grayson is in fact not his father figure. That title belongs to Alfred, who was always there whenever he needed him.

Damian plays video games and his favorite one is cheese vikings.

He also loves his mother and forgives her even through all does horrible things she does to him. He is most likely conditioned to feel that way. Because it's not normal to treat someone normally after they murder you. He is also an exceptionally good fighter.

Tim Drake is possibly his second closest sibling. They banter and fight sometimes, yes. But they still very much care for each other. When Tim was thought to be dead, Damian was shown to be holding his bo staff and mourning.

Him and Jason were never close. Jason tried to kill him and so did Damian. They don't know each other well and Damian does not want to; since at the time he was Robin, Jason was a villain that actively tried to hurt him and Dick.

I don't think anyone ever called him a Demon Brat. Or if they did it was probably like one time, since I couldn't find any panels that refer to him that way.

Damian is the most rebellious and hot headed Robin. He doesn't shy from saying what wants or stepping up to Bruce. In fact those two are the ones who fight the most in the family. Even more than Tim and Damian.

And Bruce doesn't always insult or bench him. He just straight up ignores him or his needs and always puts him in second.

There are obviously way more than these, but I'll stop for today. No hate to the creators, this is just my own opinion.

#damian wayne #dc comics #batfamily #batfam #tim drake #bruce wayne #jason todd #dick grayson #fanon batfam #canon batfam

[baileys-3]

The Secret Datin Era - NEW Chapter (#32) now online on AO3

First thing first. Thanks to you @himynameiscookies for beta-reading again ... until the middle the night. No definitly after the middle of the night. You are crazy :)

Thanks for alle the comments and kudos. And wow ... over 40.000 klicks on the story. I am blown away. And something other is crazy too. I am nearing the 200.000 word mark. Actually I am at 198.000 words. Never imagined this story will be soooo huge. And we are not even near the end. Puh.

So I hope you enjoy this chapter. I think you will ... perhaps. I hope so. Feel free to let me know in your comments.

Sneak Peak:

Lucy has a date night on Saturday. Which wouldn’t really be a problem, but it’s not with him, it’s with Angela and Nyla. At a SINGLES NIGHT party. Holy shit Angela. Holy shit Lucy. He doesn't know what to do with this information right now. He's absolutely certain that Lucy somehow got roped into this thing. If you know Angela, you know that sometimes you have absolutely no chance against her. And he also knows that he has absolutely no reason to be jealous or anything else. But that doesn't mean he has to like the fact that Lucy is taken on singles night by Angela. Together with Nyla. Holy shit.

All of this is going through his mind as he stands on the Grizzlies' practice field, where he's supposed to be coaching his baseball team. He sees Lucy eyeing him. For about the fifth time. But she hasn't said anything yet. He gives her a few more minutes. He knows his girl.

It doesn't take long for them to set up the boys with an exercise that keeps them all in motion and requires minimal correction. Standing next to him, they exchange a look, and he simply says, "Singles night? What the fuck Lucy."

He didn't want to bring up the topic so bluntly, but that's just the way it is. He had intended to be more composed and cooler, without turning it into some kind of accusation. He rolls his eyes at himself mentally, while Lucy actually rolls her eyes at him.

"I swear I couldn't help it. You know Angela... Well, she was being Angela. And there was no way to escape it. Believe me, I tried."

Tim notices that one of the boys believes he can ease up a bit just because his two coaches are engaged in conversation. He almost has to commend him for his keen observation. But before he can address it, he hears Lucy's shout.

"Hey Simon, again, half speed doesn't count."

Tim's face lights up with a wide grin. Lucy can be tough, and it's amusing how their roles seem to reverse when they're on the baseball field. Typically, he's the tough one - on the job anyways - but in baseball, she holds a higher standard. Lucy has a competitive drive; she wants to win and slacking on training will not led to win.

But back to Lucy. Who is going on a date at a singles night event.

"So, I'm not going to see you on Saturday because you're going on a date … nice." He emphasizes date like it's a contagious disease.

"I'm not going on a date. I'm going out for a drink with Angela and Nyla. In a bar where there happens to be singles night."

"Sure. And Angela and Nyla won't spend the whole time trying to set you up with someone. What was it Angela said? Trying to find Mr. Right for you? "

In response, Lucy shifts her gaze toward him, arching her eyebrows. "Really Tim? Don’t be such a drama queen!"

#chenford #lucy chen #the rookie #tim bradford #tim bradford x lucy chen #archive of our own #tim x lucy #chenford fanfic #chenford fic #chenfordsource #ao3 link #lucy x tim #lucy and tim

[deepwithintheabyss]

i’m!! so curious about the omega!jason/beta!tim fic! i’d love to know anything you want to share about the idea 👀

i’m also really curious about your take on betas! i haven’t read a lot of stories that feature betas (smth i would like to amend lol)

Honestly I'm very fluid on how I headcanon the secondary genders and how they work for a story. In this one I wanted to explore the idea of Betas playing a support role for packmates in their heat/rut. With both genitalia charasteristics as to provide sufficient help but unable to form a knot and very unlikely to get pregnant or impregnate someone.

They role was basically to be there for unmated alphas and omegas and help them through their season and offer relief by being an able and willing body without having the strong overpowering pheremones or instincts another alpha/omega would have. So that there would someone be who keeps a clear head while a packmate goes through this.

Of course in more modern times this role falls a bit to the wayside as people massively improve toys and contraceptives. Plus the general pack structure becoming more open and fluid and less rigid than it was before.

(I also had some ideas about how the world of human trafficing would look in such a world but this is uhhh unrelated to the story, or like insults and stereotypes and stuff)

-

This story idea was me just going "heh what if Jason was an Omega and tim a Beta and they had sex but it was not how Tim expected it" + then later "wait what if he ends up pregnant??" and it spiraled from there a bit.

Considering I'm not sure how I'm going to work this into the story I'll ramble a bit about this now here.

Basically Tim offers to help Jason more out of obligation as to how he was raised more traditionally. He knows Jason can easily ride out his heat on his own doesn't need any kind of help from Tim and maybe wouldn't even like it, but as the beta it's his responsibility to take care of his packmates and offer them help if they desire and he is prepared to follow through this offer. He wouldn't have made it if he wasn't but he feels like he should make it.

Helping a packmate/friend through their season can be very different in what they do.

While Tim expected sex to be on the table he assumed that Jason as an Omega would be the one that wants to get fucked, or that wants to fuck himself on Tim's cock while the other releases his calming beta scent or something like that. What he didn't expect was for Jason wanting to fuck him. And he was too caught of guard/too high on pleasure to really tell this Jason or object, or like just mention that he never had penentrative sex at all and only fucked others so far.

The reason that he ends up pregnant is that both he and Jason did not think to use any kind of protection. Sure Jason takes the pill but that doesn't affect his sperm and while Tim might take some for his that doesn't protect his womb.

Alphas and Betas can get pregnant but it's very rare, and usually this happens through another Alpha. There have been cases of an Omega impregnanting another Omega but these things take time a lot of help and a lot of tries. Omegas simply aren't made for impregnanting someone else the same way Alphas and Betas are made for getting pregnant.

There is a higher chance of a beta getting someone pregnant than an Omega, and there is a higher chance of an Alpha getting pregnant than an beta. So beta's are literally made by nature to be as infertile as possible so they can carry out their role as pack support without being held down by seasons or pregnancy.

And Tim and Jason manage to fuck with this via ONE heat.

Everyone is shocked, this isn't something Tim will be able to hide with his public persona and the questions about who the father is will arise as well.

Tim and Jason will both have navigate getting to know each other while also having to deal with this (especially when they decide to make it public who the father is)

#the abyss speaks #my asks #omega!jason beta!tim au #ladytauria #my writing #jaytim

[almost-a-class-act]

Please share some givenson HCs I've been loving the Justified posting

It's like you knew I'm watching Justified and not studying! RIP.

Okay, bear in mind I'm on season 5 so I haven't seen it all, and I'm a bitch who thinks canon is a suggestion, so anything that doesn't make sense with canon? We get what we get and we don't get upset. Lmao.

Also, I have no idea if @cenyiere wants us to acknowledge that she was party to this but she was and so she must take responsibility for her crimes get credit. Anything particularly funny is all her.

Raylan is the one who drifts through life getting attached and not being particularly great at it but it's obviously something he wants, while Tim is not That Guy, traditionally. But now there's Raylan, unexpectedly, and Tim isn't sure what to do with it. Is he insecure about himself? No, rarely, but he's insecure about this nebulous thing they haven't named, that he's trying to fit into a life and routine that has been tightly regimented since the army.

So what I'm saying is, Raylan saying/doing soft romantic shit out of the blue to this man who has never, either expressly or by the way he presents himself, invited anyone to speak to him like that and accordingly doesn't know what the hell to do with it, is like a grenade in poor Tim's mental landscape but it's also how I figure they get beyond just being coworkers who fuck after a long day at the office.

2. Thinking about that time Tim was babysitting Raylan and stayed over at the motel, and Raylan woke up to just find Tim sitting there reading. Like this man had time to get up, shower, shave & brush his teeth, put that bucket of gel in his hair, get dressed, put his sleeping bag away, and settle in with his book, and apparently did it quietly enough that it didn't wake Raylan. This has implications for their morning routine when they live together.

Picture it: Raylan wakes up one morning at 6 to pee and Tim's side of the bed is not only empty, but not even warm anymore and it's been made (as well as a person can make one side of a bed when there's someone else in it). When Raylan's sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee later on while Tim does the exact same shit he does every morning whether Raylan is there or not because this man loves a routine (makes coffee, then eggs - sometimes enough for Raylan if he's not being a pain in the ass - then washes his dishes) Raylan is like, "I thought you said you get up at 6:30."

Tim is like, "No, I said I can't sleep past 6:30. If I want to run, shower, and drink my coffee like a civilized person before work, I set an alarm for 5." This is how Raylan finds out things about Tim, like that he runs and fucking hates being rushed through his coffee.

Related: Tim's mom sends him new high-end sheets every year for Christmas because I just want him to have nice things, okay? Raylan does not grasp this at all. "Always sheets?" "Yeah." "It's not really a surprise." "Why does it need to be a surprise?" "...I guess!"

In that vein, Raylan's always learning things about Tim deeply piecemeal, because Tim is not a closed book if you ask him a direct question but he's not like, volunteering personal information.

"I didn't know you had a mom." "Did you think I just sprang up out of the ground?" "No, I mean - you never talk about her." "...She thinks your hat is stupid."

(Raylan can't decide if he's offended by the remark or charmed to have been brought up in conversation.)

(It's both.)

3. Tim has an LOTR tattoo. (It's an Evenstar trampstamp.)

4. I know everyone is in love with Gold Star Gay Tim but I'm not mad at the idea of him being bi? His Very Extremely Hetero comments about Victoria's Secret models and Sigourney Weaver could well be a product of DADT-era Tim super accustomed to trying to fit in, but picture this: His ex-girlfriend rolls into town (the FBI agent he had an in with, maybe? Tim likes smart women but dumb men, it's his toxic trait) and shenanigans ensue. She walks right up to Raylan and eyes him up like, "...this one?" And Raylan suddenly gets the uncomfortable sense that he's being appraised by two versions of Tim. (Will I write this fic? Don't rule it out.)

5. Tim loves crackers. It came to me in a dream. He keeps a box in his desk and another one in the car for cracker-related emergencies. Raylan looks up during a serious moment when they're talking to a fugitive in the conference room just in time to see Tim quietly wedge an entire cracker into his mouth and then panic about how he's going to chew it quietly. Raylan's chasing down a fugitive and he's in a convenience store and on his way out, but he doubles back and grabs a particular box of crackers. Art is like, did I see you pause and waste 20 second grabbing crackers? Raylan's like, .........those ones are hard to find in Lexington.

6. I'm sure this particular smut has been written a million times but don't tell me Raylan isn't super into the idea of Tim wearing his hat while they smash.

7. It's the sad verse, everybody: Tim's dad pointed at gun at him a time or two when he was a kid and that's why he got a little attached to the idea of killing him with a gun.

8. Tim feels like his value is tied up in his job, which gets established early. When he's babysitting Raylan (in season 2 I think?) he says something like "will you give me some credit, I'm a professional", and when Raylan asks how he knows about Gary it's "because I'm good at my job?" And then of course: "I can't carry a tune etc but I don't miss." And when he's reluctant to help Raylan with the FBI thing it's because he doesn't want Raylan "going all Raylan" and burning his contact. I have feelings about this because flash forward if you will to established relationship Givenson, when Tim must know that a big part of the reason why Raylan and Winona didn't work out and he got a shot in the first place is because of the job they do. Something to stare at the wall about!

9. Two nights ago I watched that part in season 4 where Callie remarks on the fact that Tim held back with Bad Haircut Fuckface because "you had empathy for him" and Tim's like, when I take him down, his eyes will be clear. Thinking about the fact that he's probably lost a few friends to drugs, wasn't just avoiding the question when he told Bad Haircut Fuckface about joining the Marshals, understands that impulse to get fucked up and not think about it and the only thing that helps is having something to do that feels like it matters.

Also thinking about when he rolls up to help Raylan get into the veterans bar half in the bag and Raylan sounds vaguely incredulous when he asks, "are you drunk?" There's also the time when Art is talking to the guy who wants his job and says Tim "probably has ptsd, probably an alcoholic" and like, he's obviously just trying to scare this guy off but he clearly knows it's a possibility. Crucially, he doesn't know for sure.

All to say that I think maybe Tim walks a tricky line with alcoholism. When he drinks, he drinks HARD. He goes through times when it's too many nights a week. Never at cop bars or anywhere people might know him, sometimes alone. But since he doesn't drink at work and always gets up and does his morning routine and comes in seeming okay, no one notices.

10. Re: later on, established Givenson: Tim's emotionally aware enough to know that he could certainly look after someone else's kids - smash cut to the precious montage of him doing cute shit with Raylan's daughter - but he can't be someone's dad. He dragged himself out of a shitty childhood and made the best of a brutal military career where half his friends couldn't hack it in civilian life but there's no room in that carefully constructed stability, wherein he's carved out a productive adulthood and held his ground but he has to work at it, to figure out how to be a good parent and get up and do it every day. And I doubt he sees himself as the marrying type, either. I bet it's a long time before eventually Raylan is the one who suggests they move in together. There's an undercurrent of Tim like a caged tiger at first, having to share space he's unaccustomed to sharing and altering routines he's never altered. (I have the feeling Tim does a lot of work in the background, mentally, that people don't see. Raylan gets the hang of looking for it after a while.)

11. A happier one: Tim and Raylan can't remember which flannel is whose anymore. People are surprised to find out about them and then Rachel's like, are you kidding? Raylan's worn that green flannel four times in the last two weeks and it is NOT his. (Rachel Is The Best At Her Job Agenda 2k23. Tim just keeping tabs on Gary for??? What reason?? That's boyfriend behaviour. Raylan is just oblivious. You know Rachel knew!)

12. Tim I-Am-Not-Coming-Down-From-This-Car Gutterson is a cat guy. He's going to have a cat in any fic I write, sorry or you're welcome in advance. His cat's a hater, as well; Mittens and Raylan have a healthy wariness of each other.

13. There are these lyrics in the Fallout Boy song I put on my Givenson playlist (lol, you already know I'm wearing a full face of clown makeup, might as well tell you all the sorry details):

'Cause you're the last of a dying breed Write our names in the wet concrete I wonder if your therapist knows everything about me

HC: Tim has a therapist through the VA. Mentions it once (Art makes some comment about something and Tim's like, "my therapist did say I should work on that"). Raylan isn't sure if he's joking and asks about it later. "You have a therapist?" Tim looks up from step 4 of his unhingedly detailed morning routine like, "Can't you tell by how well-adjusted I am?" Raylan honestly still can't tell if he's joking.

14. Re: Tim and Winona: On Tim's part, once Givenson becomes a thing, there might be that surface level, like. That's the gorgeous woman who is always going to be in Raylan's life as his baby mama insecurity but it's not a real visceral jealousy. He almost feels a little sympathy because damn, it's clear that both parties got their hearts broken over that not working even though it was never going to. Could picture a conversation where Tim and Winona are trying to feel each other out when Raylan isn't in the room for whatever reason and neither of them are bullshitters so it's just like. "Are you worried you have something to worry about with me?" "Nope. If it were going to work, it would have." (I do think they'd be friends eventually because Winona is too much like Raylan for Tim not to come over fond, honestly. Lol.)

15. Raylan's daughter headcanons? Here we go!

Eventually the kiddo asks Tim what she should call him and he's just like "...Tim?" Because what else would it be? She draws a picture at school and it's labeled "my mom" "my daddy" "my Tim". Baffled to discover other kids don't have a Tim. Tim's only comment when he sees the drawing is: "Look, Raylan, she got your giant head right." But he puts it on the fridge and it stays there through moves and whatever else.

He definitely teaches this kid how to shoot when she's older because he doesn't want her learning bad habits. He explains it to Raylan like, "I have one marketable skill and it has served me very well so I'm passing it on." Raylan's like, "you have two, but one you can't teach her."

16. To circle back to Tim not considering himself to be the marrying type:

They've been together for years when Raylan makes some throwaway comment related to like, work benefits or something similarly unromantic: "I'd ask you to marry me tomorrow if I thought you'd say yes."

Tim gets that zeroed-in look like he does whenever Raylan says something that actually for-real pulls his focus: "What makes you think I wouldn't say yes?"

"Would you?"

"I don't do jewelry or contracts that don't expire."

"It's almost like I know you."

#my case of Never Shut The Fuck Up-Itis is nigh terminal #anyway for anyone who read all that I'm sorry about your brainrot #givenson #justified #tim gutterson #raylan givens