#at least not in preboot era

[mzminola]

Considering that Jack Drake stole from dig sites, unless I’ve completely missed something about the Graysons, Dick is the only main continuity Robin to not have at least one criminal parent (outside of Bruce).

I don’t know enough about Bette Kane to say if we can make a similar statement about the Batgirls.

#but Cass's birth parents are both murders and I kinda just assume Jim Gordon does some crime #Steph's dad is a costumed villain and her mom illegally obtained prescription meds #so that's at LEAST three out of four Batgirls with at least one criminal parent too #Bruce and Talia both do crime so that's Damian set #Jack Drake stole from dig sites though whether Janet did too is unclear #Dana may not have done crime but she did commit some ethics violations in her job #Willis worked for Two Face Sheila was embezzling I don't think Catherine did anything though #at least not in preboot era #Robin #Batgirl #Gotham #this is just how Gotham is #DC #Batfam #and of course everyone adopted by Bruce now has a criminal parent #he does SO MANY crimes

[bitimdrake]

hi! i read your dc timeline (fantastic job btw) and had trouble following all the titans/teen titans/young justice/outsiders stuff. so i was wondering what's the difference between those four groups/how many iterations of each group there were/who were their members?

Thanks! The differences between these groups is fairly easy to answer. The membership and iterations...not so much. I will first link to my (Teen) Titans reading order, which gives the gist of each era, and my Young Justice reading order (both preboot only).

Like any teams that last more than a few years, all four of those teams have had various iterations with various lineups. At the most basic level:

"Teen Titans" was initially a team of the original sidekicks (think Dick, Donna, Wally, etc), but has since become the default name for DC's current team of young heroes, whoever they may be.

"Titans" is specifically used for teams with that original generation of sidekicks, but now grown up as adults.

"Young Justice" is for the 90s generation of kid heroes (okay, some introduced in the 80s; think Tim, Bart, Cassie, etc), and has really only been used as a name for that group/generation.

And "Outsiders" is actually typically a Batman-led team of fully adult heroes that has the least overlap here--except for one particular iteration of the team in 2003 with young adult heroes, including Dick, Roy, and Kory.

tl;dr: The Titans and Young Justice are based on specific groups, the Teen Titans are any kid heroes, and the Outsiders are mostly irrelevant just with one major exception.

This means that:

Young Justice and the Titans have existed at the same time, one as the teen generation of Tim/Bart/etc, one as the young adult generation of Dick/Donna etc.

The Teen Titans and the Titans have existed at the same time. Though the naming is more confusing here, the idea is the same: the Teen Titans are the teen heroes (typically Tim-generation for this, maybe even younger), and the Titans are the Dick-generation young adults.

In recent years, the Teen Titans and Young Justice have existed at the same time. Young Justice remains the Tim-generation, and the Teen Titans are either an even newer, younger team (think Damian, Crush), or just DC's latest attempt at capitalizing on the famous name (typically with the characters known from the animated show: Raven, Cyborg, etc).

The Outsiders may or may not have existed in conjunction with any number of these, because they usually draw from a whole different set of potential characters.

As for the number of iterations and list of members...Yeah. Putting that under a cut.

A Pre-Flashpoint History

I’m going to thoroughly cover Titans/Teen Titans/Young Justice here, but I will be a lot less detailed on the Outsiders because I don’t know them as well.

The Teen Titans I (60s, 70s) sprang out of a team up between Dick Grayson/Robin, Wally West/Kid Flash, and Garth/Aqualad. The team was officially founded and formed by the fab five: those three, plus Donna Troy/Wonder Girl and Roy Harper/Speedy.

This team would have like a dozen other members at various points over the years, including Lilith Clay, Mal Duncan/Guardian/Herald, and Hank and Don Hall/Hawk and Dove.

They also briefly had a mostly-offscreen spinoff, the Titans West, which included such members as Gar Logan/Beast Boy, Bette Kane/Flamebird, and Hawk and Dove.

The Teen Titan got together in mid adolescence, and had a lot of cheesy adventures against such foes as Mad Mod and Ding Dong Daddy. They broke up when many members starting going off to college or otherwise moving on in life.

The New (Teen) Titans (80s), reassembled by Raven to fight her father, were half a reformation of old members (Dick, Donna, Wally, plus Gar now going by Changeling) and half new members (Raven, Koriand'r/Starfire, Vic Stone/Cyborg). As they were already all 18-19 when the team started--minus youngster Gar--the "Teen" was soon dropped from the name. Wally would end up leaving this team, and others like Joey Wilson/Jericho, Kole, and Danny Chase would join. Former Titans and allies, like Roy and Garth, would periodically show up to help out as well.

This run took a more serious tone and had a lot of character progression. It's when many of the first generation of sidekicks changed identities: Robin to Nightwing, Wonder Girl to Troia and later no codename, Speedy to Arsenal, etc. It also introduced such villains as Slade Wilson/Deathstroke (including the famous Judas Contract story with Terra), HIVE, Brother Blood, and Komand'r/Blackfire.

The original Outsiders I were also formed in the 80s, led by Batman and including iconic members like Black Lightning and Katana.

In the early 90s, the New Titans fell apart for a variety of terrible reasons and had massive shifts in membership. Half of them left or died or were completely changed; others like Leonid Kovar/Red Star, Pantha, and Miriam Delgado/Mirage joined, and the whole thing was a mess.

After a lot of spiraling, the team was almost entirely swapped to a largely new group funded by the government and led by Roy/Arsenal, including Gar, Miriam, Grant Emerson/Damage, Kyle Rayner/Green Lantern, Bart Allen/Impulse, Rose Wilson, Martix Supergirl, a maybe-new-maybe-not version of Terra, and more. This group was still under the New Titans name and in the same run, despite little member overlap. They split up when the government pulled funding.

Apparently there was another iteration of the Outsiders II briefly in the mid-90s, but I truly cannot tell you much about it. Still unrelated to the younger generations.

The Teen Titans II (mid 90s) were the first group to use the name with zero tie to the founders. Led by a de-aged Ray Palmer/Atom, this group consisted of teens kidnapped by aliens and genetically modified--Toni Monetti/Argent, Isiah Crockett/Joto, Audrey Spears/Prysm, and Cody Discoll/Risk. This run only lasted a couple years.

Young Justice I (late 90s/early 00s) sprang out of a team up between Tim Drake/Robin, Superboy (later named Kon-el), Bart Allen/Impulse, and Secret. The team shortly added Cassie Sandsmark/Wonder Girl and Cissie King-Jones/Arrowette, and later Anita Fite/Empress, Slobo, and Ray Terril/Ray. Under the vague mentorship of Red Tornado, this group had wacky coming of age adventures.

This is also when teams start to overlap:

The Titans I (late 90s/early 00s) formed out of the original (teen) Titans just really missing each other, okay? This team melded together the original fab five (Wally now the Flash; Garth now Tempest), Cyborg and Starfire of the original New Titans, Grant/Damage of Arsenal's New Titans, Toni/Argent of the second Teen Titans, and new-to-the-titans Jesse Quick. Other old Titans appeared here and there (Rose Wilson as Lian's babysitter <3), and a number of the starting group left along the way.

Events in 2003 broke up both Young Justice and the Titans simultaneously, and members shuffled around.

A few of the now-former Titans joined the Outsiders III (mid 00s), the one version of that team relevant here. The team was formed by Roy and initially led by Dick, and included members like Grace Choi, Anissa Pierce/Thunder, Metamorpho/Shift, and later Jennifer-Lynn Hayden/Jade and Kory/Starfire. This team was kind of a disaster (compliment) and the series took an adult tone with mature themes.

(Note: I dig the 2003 Outsiders, but there was no reason for them to be called the Outsiders. It’s just hollow name reuse for no reason.)

Meanwhile, the Teen Titans III (mid 00s-early 10s) formed with a combination of older members from the New Titans--like Kory, Vic, and Gar (Beast Boy again)--and younger members from Young Justice--Tim, Cassie, Kon-El Conner Kent, and Bart. Others like Raven and Mia Dearden/Speedy joined later.

Honestly I’m having a hard time cleanly describing the tone/identity of this series. It was a superheroes series about a team of young heroes/sidekicks. Idk. It exists and ran for a long time.

After the Infinite Crisis in 2006, everything in DC jumped One Year Later. Over the course of that missing year, the Teen Titans had a variety of rotating, mostly second-string members. But that’s really just briefly seen in 52 and never had any real appearances, so whatever.

After One Year Later, the team did have a major shake up. All the young adult members left, leaving just the teens, and many new members joined. And left. And joined. And left. I think Cassie is the only consistent member. There is a lot of turnover in the back half of this series, but some Teen Titans here include: Rose Wilson/Ravager, M’gann Morzz/Miss Martian, Eddie Bloomberg/Kid Devil/Red Devil, Jaime Reyes/Blue Beetle, and Amy Allen/Bombshell.

This constantly-rotating team would last all the way until the New 52.

Meanwhile the older generation kept switching:

The Outsiders also had a shake up after One Year Later, when it turned out they were all now fugitives for accidentally maybe doing some bad stuff. (Most important to me, Roy left so what is even the point now. “Dick is still there,” yeah but he’s not being a bitch (entertaining) anymore; he’s just grumpy.) Much of the team was gone by now, but they added Owen Mercer/Captain Boomerang Jr and Katana.

Only like a year (irl) later, Batman decided he wanted this to be his team again, and almost the entirety of the team swapped out for the Outsiders IV, which was more like the original/standard line-up, with only a few from the unusual 2003 iteration.

With the Outsiders a team of real adults again, many of the young adults were freed up. And you know what that means! Titans II (late 00s): these friends truly cannot stay away from each other. It’s a combination of the original team and the NTT: Dick, Roy (now Red Arrow), Donna, Wally, Kory, and Vic.

And also Gar and Raven kept moving between the Titans and the Teen Titans, because DC couldn’t decide how old they were supposed to be after Raven’s de-aging.

Despite the great line-up, these Titans were not to last, as DC was making a lot of changes and half the characters had other things to do. Dick had to replace a missing Bruce as Batman. Wally was always over-taxed as the Flash on the JLA and the Titans. Roy’s daughter was killed, leading him to relapse, in what everyone naively thought was the worst writing Roy would ever have before the New 52 proved just how much worse it could get. The team fell apart.

Slade Wilson/Deathstroke swooped in to form the Titans: Villains for Hire (early 10s) a team of villains and morally grey characters like Cheshire, Osiris, and [deep sigh] downward spiral Roy (now Arsenal once again), all with their own agendas.

(Note: it’s dumb as hell that this team was called the Titans. It was even more hollow name re-use. Come on, DC, just make up a new name for once.)

In the very end, the villain part split and there was a glimmer that a healing Roy and a resurrected/not evil (long story) Joey Wilson might make a new Titans team, an abandoned idea that lingers in my mind to this day...

But t’was not to be because--

A Prime Earth History

Flashpoint blew up and rebooted the entire universe.

This recap will be shakier, as I have not read anything from the latter part of it. (Still trapped in the New 52 over here.) Also I’m going to stop recapping the Outsiders entirely, sorry.

In the New 52, all history and most of what made DC good was erased. The Titans had never existed.

The (New 52) Teen Titans IV (early/mid 10s) were, in their continuity, the first team of that name. This team included rebooted, in-name only versions of Tim Drake [redacted]/Red Robin, Cassie Sandsmark/Wonder Girl, Kon-El/Superboy, Bart Allen Bar Torr/Kid Flash, Kiran Singh/Solstice, Miguel Barragan/Bunker, etc.

The theme of this run was “bad writing” and the tone was “awful”. Somehow it lasted the entire New 52 and into Rebirth.

My knowledge is really, really shaky after this:

The (Rebirth) Titans III (late 10s) formed with the original generation finally reunited, after fans revolted in the face of DC trying to erase Wally West from existence. This team had the fab five and fellow original (Teen) Titan, Lilith/Omen.

Then the (Rebirth) Teen Titans V (late 10s) formed, with a bunch of iconic young adult characters like Kory, Vic, and Gar, plus teenager Wallace West/Kid Flash (not that one; there are two Wally Wests now) and Damian Wayne/Robin. Apparently Damian is the leader of this team despite being the only child on it and. why. I don’t understand.

At some point that team revamped and became entirely a team of youngsters like Damian, Wallace, the new Red Arrow/Emiko Queen, and Xiomara Rojas/Crush.

Young Justice II (late 10s/early 20s) reformed after a while, with the universe slowly restoring bits from New Earth. This team was Kon, Bart, Tim, Cassie, and a few new peers like Jinny Hex and Teen Lantern.

The (Teen?) Titans Academy (early 20s) I believed formed with the idea of older, established Titans like Vic, Donna, Kory, etc mentoring a whole bunch of very new young heroes who I’m looking at the wiki list for and boy that’s a lot of names. Huh. I think this one is still ongoing?

Which means we have reached the present, and my list now ends.

I wonder if this makes the top 5 for my longest posts.

#* #ask #anon #*dc #dc #dc ref #dc timelines #dc comics #teen titans #titans #young justice #outsiders #dick grayson #tim drake #wally west #roy harper #donna troy #conner kent #bart allen #rose wilson #starfire #what am i doing i'm not tagging even half these characters before my hands cramp and die #there's too many #''how many iterations of these teams were there and can you list all their members'' you might as well ask me to kill god #i mean i'm gonna give it a good shot but it's a lot #10to2

[lizlives]

Being a Sonic fan and meeting new Sonic fans sometimes feels like a nightmare blunt rotation, where every new fan you meet has a new randomized vendetta against one and sometimes more than one aspect of Sonic as if it took their wife and destroyed their crops.

This Sonic fan seems nice! Oh no they hate all western continuities and content and think fan content based on Fleetway, Archie (especially preboot Archie), SATAM, etc, is "wasted space". Well this guy over here seems super nice! Oh no they despise anything that isn't one of the classic games and think Sonic peaked in the mid 90's and never again. Maybe they think Mania is pretty good. How about this person? Nope, they think Frontiers ruined Sonic's good streak by allowing the story to take itself seriously. They love the 2010s games and think their writing was as good as Sonic should ever get. Do I even have to say it? Yeah this dude is an early Archie Sonic stan who thinks Ken Penders and Karl Bollers did the best with Sonic ever and all their issues are exaggerated.

And the list just goes on. But you know what, I love pretty much every era, game, and continuity of Sonic at least a little bit. I love all of them with no need for "ironic enjoyment" at all. No one can convince me that the majority of Sonic isn't really fun and good, I dare them to try.

#sonic the hedgehog #western sonic #Japanese sonic #archie sonic #gatekeepers

[gffa]

I think coming back to comics the way I did really affected how I read them--in short, I started reading DC around the end of No Man's Land (or at least I was seeing NML books in the store, I was a very wee thing and so my memory is super fuzzy about that time), though it took me awhile to really acclimate, but I was a fairly faithful reader until Flashpoint/New 52, which at the time I loathed so much that I swore off DC comics for 10+ years (I was so, so into Dick & Damian as Batman & Robin, you don't know how eagerly I looked forward to every issue! I was so devastated to lose that!), but then Nightwing (2016) #100 happened to cross my path and I saw Dick tackle-hug Bruce and call him "dad" to his face and, oh, well, shit, here I am again, I guess, as if my vendetta against DC never happened--because I have a solid foundation of preboot understanding of the characters, I have a solid foundation of understanding the origin of Nu52 as a continuity-wide reboot, but since I was gone, Convergence happened, Rebirth happened, whatever Dawn of DC is, and I'm not reading in any particular order. So, I'm reading preboot comics, I'm reading Dawn of DC comics, I'm reading Nu52 comics, I'm reading Rebirth comics, and I generally know what goes into what era, but because I have to do the mental math each time, it's given me this sense of... ephemeralness, I guess. No one story or continuity is the only one I have to choose from. No one story or continuity is the only one that will ever exist. Sure, previous to this spate of reboots and reboot-lites, retcons happened all the time. And it's not like those stories never happened within the larger meta context of the narrative, a lot of them have come back into continuity. But it lends a sense of the stories being ephemeral, I read them and enjoy them or don't, I take each story as a thing unto itself and maybe some cool over-arching themes, but let go of the idea that each comic has to be a puzzle piece that fits together with the others. Each comic run stands on its own, I enjoy it or I don't, and anything else is a bonus. So, I read something that might have pissed me off if I were coming at this from a different angle, but instead I end up thinking, "Oh, that had some neat ideas in it!", I don't care about the dumb bullshit in it, because, eh, I've already forgotten about it, it's ephemeral, it's already gone from my mind. Too many reboots/reboot-lites in such a short period of time for any one thing to matter. There is no solid ground beneath me and I have learned to enjoy that for what it is. And, I have to say, as funny as it is to be like "nobody hates comics like comics fans hate comics", it's actually a lot more fun to just not care about the bad and enjoy a story for whatever it is and let the rest fall away. I'm going to hold onto that feeling as long as I can! Because, for the first time in probably like 20 years, I'm eagerly picking up new comics and enjoying a lot of them, instead of just the one or two authors I previously deigned to like. 😂

#lumi.txt #dc

[themetalvirus]

how did u get so good at understanding characters and how theyd react in situations and how theyd think about things /gen i wanna do that too

idk man, im just glad people find my insane ramblings about sonic characters enjoyable. i think i have some inaccurate takes on things the characters say or do, and pretty much all of my opinions on the characters are subjective. as much as i may dislike some interpretations of how sonic characters should act, one must accept that different people's different individual experiences will color their way of viewing fiction and thus their interpretations of it

i think what i do is just. ask WHY the character does x or y thing or holds some kind of principle and keep asking until you hit a dead end for some reason or another. that also requires a lot of personal interpretation and you really end up putting pieces of yourself in what you think sonic is like. i've said this before, but sonic being "the hero" means that every single individual's interpretation of what being a hero means to them is going to affect how they think sonic would or should act. it's honestly all just interrogating your own relationships with the texts laid out before you. at least thats my pretentious take on the whole thing

basically just ask Hey Why Does She Do That. either look thru the text for answers, ask Sonic Loremasters for help if you're not sure about the lore (or make some shit up if youre into that, its fun making shit up), or y'know, make stuff up. if you want your interpretations to be text-accurate, you have to ask WHICH text you want it to be accurate to. preboot archie, reboot archie, the meta era of games, sonic adventure era of games, frontiers' characterizations, the manga, sonic x, whatever other infinite canons are out there. you're going to have to study That Specific Text and ask why writers and artists made the decisions they did. take mental or even actual notes of quirks with the writing, recurring themes or jokes or catchphrases, what you think is lacking and what you think is fantastic

text-accurate sonics are difficult, but for certain people, they are very rewarding. for me, i like to mush together stuff i like from a bunch of different canons and discard whatever i dislike. again, a very personal process which is different for everyone. it's a combination of media analysis, media literacy, and personal exploration. and i think it's fun also. i just think it's fun

#exoticbutterstxt

[cephalog0d]

Whumptober 2023 - Day 2 - "My Pride Comes After A Fall"

Rating: Mature (swearing, violence)

Category: Gen

Characters/Relationships: Stephanie Brown & Tim Drake; mentioned Bruce Wayne

Additional Tags: Stephanie Brown-centric, Stephanie Brown is Spoiler, (roughly early preboot Spoiler to be specific), Tim Drake is Robin, (Steph doesn't know that yet), Whumptober 2023, Explosions, Drowning, Hypothermia, Concussions, Insecurity, Hurt/Comfort, (at least a little comfort)

Summary:

Gotham City would be radically improved, in Stephanie Brown’s opinion, if it was about ten million percent harder for every random citizen to get their hands on explosives.

A night of simple surveillance goes up in flames (literally) and quickly becomes deadly. As a mostly-brand new and mostly-unsanctioned crime fighter, Spoiler is on her own to get out of it.

Day 2: “I’ll call out your name, but you won’t call back.”

Thermometer | Delirium | “They don't care about you.”

Uh, welcome to Whumptober? A wildly different tone of writing than literally everything else I've shared here! I hope you enjoy it anyway! (There's still some humor in here, though. Because deflecting with humor to handle trauma is a Batkid staple.) This is not particularly tied to canon but it is roughly set in the early days of Steph's preboot Spoiler era. Relevant details are that she does not yet know Robin's secret identity and both Robin and Batman (but mostly Batman) have been extremely persistent in trying to stop her from doing the crime fighting thing. Title is from Anchor by Birdeatsbaby, which is a great song and also just generally gives me preboot Steph vibes.

Gotham City would be radically improved, in Stephanie Brown’s opinion, if it was about ten million percent harder for every random citizen to get their hands on explosives.

Tonight was supposed to be some simple surveillance. Just lurking on the rooftop of one of Gotham’s ten thousand waterfront warehouses and listening in on what was afoot between two of Gotham’s aforementioned overly armed citizens. Or, well, criminals, she was pretty sure, given the guns and general tough guy vibe. Wanna-be criminals, maybe, with all the posturing, even lower on the food chain than her dad, but clearly still a threat to Gotham considering, you know, the weaponry. She hadn’t managed to catch enough conversation to figure out exactly what shady business they were up to before one of them (the one wearing wildly unnecessary sunglasses, not the one with a ridiculous fedora) got trigger happy, set off an explosion, and turned her simple surveillance into a parkour run from hell.

One wall and a chunk of both the floor and the roof were obliterated immediately, throwing debris out into the harbor and ripping away support for the remaining part of the building, which rapidly started to crumble into the water after it.

Steph took off at a run the second she got her feet under her, thanking every deity that might exist that she had been perched far enough away from the epicenter that she hadn’t just gotten taken out instantly. It was entirely possible that had happened to the two crooks, given the size of the blast, but frankly she had bigger worries at the moment. She was too busy running for the nearest solid rooftop as fast as she could while dodging the cracks and holes of the rooftop she was currently on breaking apart under her feet.

“Shit, shit, shit!” She vaulted a split in the concrete just as the two sections ripped apart, landing rough on the other side of what was now a gaping chasm. So much for quiet reconnaissance. She hadn’t even screwed anything up; the dipshits with the guns had done that all on their own. Figured. She was going to break an ankle or get impaled by rebar and she hadn’t even done anything to earn it.

Just get to solid ground, and she could regroup and catch her breath.

The gap to the next rooftop was tantalizingly close when a huge crack opened right under her feet. Steph stumbled and lost her footing, dropping into the steadily widening gap and towards the churning water below. She grabbed desperately at the edge, but it crumbled away in her hand. One larger piece clocked her in the forehead hard enough that she saw stars and she lost a precious second of reaction time as she struggled to shrug it off and pull out her grapple. Her throw was more of a wild fling than anything, hoping desperately to grab something solid enough to stop her fall, but if there was anything up there to latch onto she didn’t hit it before she crashed into the harbor

The icy November water punched whatever air she had managed to hold onto out of her lungs and she only barely managed to suppress the reflex to breathe in again. Her cape immediately tangled around her and she clawed at the latch to unhook it and kick it away. The boots she had chosen for their sturdiness now seemed like the worst possible option, like lead weights dragging her down and slowing her movement, but they were too well fitted for her to just kick them off.

She swam as hard as she could in what she desperately hoped was the direction of the surface, her lungs already burning and her limbs rapidly going numb from the cold. The water was pitch black around her and churning with waves and falling debris. Something struck her hard on the shoulder and sent her spinning, ruining whatever sense of “up” she might have had.

Don’t panic, she told herself. Don’t panic don’t panic-

Her lungs were screaming at her to breathe and her teeth were chattering so hard it felt like she might bite her own tongue off. She locked her jaw hard against both reflexes and tried to focus.

Another piece of something rushed past her, dragging a line of fire down her arm for a second before the cold deadened the feeling. She tried to kick herself around so she was facing the direction it had come from, praying it had fallen straight down from the surface, and forced her frozen arms and legs to move.

It was impossible to tell if she was making any kind of progress with how turbulent the water was. It felt like she was going nowhere, just flailing around in the dark and waiting for her reflexes to win out and take a nice big gulp of seawater, or for a piece of concrete to crush her.

When her hand broke the surface she was almost too numb to notice except that the wind somehow, impossibly, made it even colder. With a last desperate kick her head followed and she inhaled without thinking. Instead of air she got a choking lungful of nothing as her wet mask plastered itself to her face. She fumbled frantically with her gloved, frozen fingers to get a grip and peel it off, her head spinning and her vision going gray, and finally managed to rip it free and inhale a huge breath.

She barely got one gasp of actual air before a wave slammed into her and filled her nose and mouth with gritty, salty water, sending her into a coughing fit. She kicked harder and arched her neck in an attempt to keep breathing as the coughs kept coming. Every one tore at her lungs and created a fresh burst of pain in her head and all she wanted to do was stop flailing around and catch her fucking breath.

Which meant she needed to get out of the water, now.

With enormous effort, she turned herself around to face the shore. She must have drifted with the current, or accidentally swam more out than up, because it seemed way too far away from where she was now.

Something in the warehouse was on fire, painting the dark water with red and orange streaks. It was pretty, sort of, like liquid light spilling over the surface.

Another wave hit her square in the face and refocused her a little.

She needed to get out of the water and get warm. It was getting harder to think, and whether that was the cold or the possible concussion it was a very bad sign.

It took way too long to reach the wall, and her focus kept slipping. She was thrown back and forth by the waves as much as she managed to move forward, and she was just so tired. Her teeth had finally stopped chattering so much and all she wanted to do was stop and rest.

Something about that was vaguely alarming, but she wasn’t sure why. Resting was good. It was important to get enough rest, especially for crime fighters. Batman and Robin probably didn’t. Maybe that was why they were so cranky all the damn time.

She was startled by a loud crack as something in the warehouse collapsed, and when she looked up she realized she was finally close to the edge of the building. Right. Get out of the water. Then she could rest. That made sense.

There was a chunk of the wall that had crumbled close enough to the waterline that she could reach it as a handhold. It still took a couple of tries for her to grab hold and actually hang on instead of being pulled away by the motion of the waves.

Up and out. Out of the water. Focus.

She wasn’t sure how long it took to actually pull herself up. She was drifting a little, her mind wandering, and sometimes she came back and realized she was still moving and sometimes she realized she had paused and was just sitting there.

Not good, whispered a little voice. Not good not good. She might have repeated it out loud, but she wasn’t sure. She couldn’t feel her face anymore. She wished the cold would extend into her skull and numb the pain there, too. It was kind of bullshit that everything else was frozen but her brain still hurt.

She made it as far as the outer wall of the warehouse, part of it that was still standing, before she couldn’t make herself move any further. She collapsed propped up against the soot-covered concrete. The fire was further inside what remained of the building, but she thought she could feel some of the heat from it. Clumsily, she yanked off her glove and reached out a hand.

She wasn’t shivering much anymore, so it must be warmer. That was good. She was too tired to do anything else, and her head felt like it was trying to split apart and float away.

Something dark dripped off her elbow and she followed the path of the droplets to a long tear in her sleeve, and a gash in her skin beneath that. She was going to have to fix her suit again. That sucked. She bet Robin never had to worry about fixing his own suit. She bet it would have been warmer and waterproof, too.

She didn’t get fancy suits. All she got was a radio, and it was all wet now. Or maybe she’d lost it? She’d lost her cape, which was a shame. Capes were expensive, and it would’ve been nice to wrap up in it and get warm now that she was out of the water.

With one hand she absently patted around, in case maybe her cape was somewhere nearby. She didn’t find it, but there was a lump in her belt that she pulled out to discover it was a little handheld radio. That was funny, for some reason, but she wasn’t sure why. Water was dripping out of it, and nothing happened when she hit the button, which was also funny.

It wouldn’t have done anything anyway, she thought in a distant sort of way. She wasn’t Robin. Robin’s radio worked to call Batman. Hers just leaked water, like a really weird squirt gun.

She giggled and dropped the radio onto the concrete. Her head didn’t hurt quite so bad anymore, which was nice. She was so tired, and now she could finally rest. She curled her arms and legs in, rested her head on her knees and drifted off watching the fire.

~*~

The first thing Steph was aware of was that her head was pounding. She groaned and tried to shift away from the pain on reflex, only to find she couldn’t really move.

That was concerning enough for her to drag the scattered bits of her awareness back together and attempt to take stock.

She was cold, for one thing. Aside from her pounding head, there was a deep ache in her left forearm, her shoulder, and she was shivering, although she felt something warm against her back and sides. She tried to shift closer to the heat and was once again foiled by whatever was restraining her. It was surprisingly soft, and did yield a little when she tried to push against it, but only a little.

“Don’t squirm too much, you’ll mess up the blankets,” said a voice directly in her ear. She was too tired to really jump, but it definitely startled her.

“Sorry,” the voice said apologetically. “It’s just me. Uh, Robin.”

Well that was...something. Surprising? A relief, maybe. Also kind of embarrassing considering she couldn’t even move. Way to make a good impression, Stephanie.

She tried to ask what had happened, or why Robin was there, or why she was mummified in blankets, apparently, but all that came out was a vague sort of groan.

“Take it easy,” Robin said. “You were in pretty bad shape.”

Something around Steph shifted, moving her a bit more upright, and she realized the source of the heat she could feel was Robin, who was apparently holding her. So yeah, definitely embarrassing. (Kind of nice, considering she hadn’t quite stopped shivering yet and he was pretty warm even through the blankets, but still.)

Steph tried to speak again, had a brief coughing fit that kicked the pain in her head up from “pounding” to “excruciating”, and then took a slow, careful breath and tried again. (God, she had inhaled so much harbor water. She was probably going to get some kind of super-pneumonia with all the shit that was in there, the kind that rotted your lungs or turned you into a sewer mutant or something.)

“Wha’ happen’d,” she managed to mumble out mostly clearly.

“We were hoping you could tell us. When we got there, there was an exploded warehouse, two dead bodies and you almost frozen solid.”

“Stupid ‘splosives. Wasn’ even my fault.”

“Who’s fault was it?” Robin sounded sort of skeptical that Steph wasn’t somehow responsible, which she thought was pretty rude. She certainly hadn’t blown herself up.

“Corey Hart,” she said.

“What?” Robin’s face was somewhere above and behind her, and she still had her eyes closed, but just from his voice Steph could imagine his look of vaguely annoyed confusion all too well. She’d seen it often enough.

“Dumbass in sunglasses,” she clarified. “He shot ‘em on accident. Like a dumbass.” She felt it was important to emphasize the level of dumbassery involved.

“Well. I guess at least we don’t have to worry too much about what they were planning to do with them. What else do you remember?"

“Building collapsed, fell in the water, got back to shore somehow, I guess. Pretty fuzzy.” She must have gotten back to shore somehow if that’s where they found her, but she couldn’t quite remember any of it. Or how they had known to look for her. Had she called them? That didn’t seem right.

“Hypothermia and a concussion will do that,” Robin said. It sounded almost accusing. What, like she had lost her memory on purpose, just to annoy them? Sorry I didn't take notes while I was drowning, she thought.

“You should have called us,” Robin continued, his voice veering rapidly into full on Lecture Mode where he would tell her exactly how she had messed up and what she should have done differently (like he wasn't younger than her, and like she wasn't figuring out most of this on her own anyway) with a heaping helping of “this is why you shouldn't be doing this and we don't take you seriously” on the side.

Cold and tired and with a persistent and painful headache, Steph was even less inclined to put up with it than usual.

“Why, so you could get in one last 'I told you so'?"” she snapped.

“So we could help you, idiot!” he snapped back. His hold on her tightened, maybe on purpose and maybe just on reflex, and Steph discovered it was extremely awkward to get in a fight with someone while they were basically hugging you.

“Do you have any idea how bad it was by the time we found you? And we were only there because of reports of the explosion! You would have frozen to death because, what, you're just too proud to realize you're in over your head and ask for help?”

Steph had an extremely vague and fleeting impression that she had thought about calling, and thought it wouldn't make a difference if she did. She couldn't quite pull an exact memory, but that was, admittedly, not the first or only time that particular line of thought had occurred to her. That they weren't about to drop everything to come rescue someone they had made it clear they didn't want out there anyway.

No way was she giving him any of that ammunition, though.

Lucky, she was also hit with an abrupt and vivid sense memory of clicking the button on her radio and water pouring out the sides.

“Or because I fell in the water and it killed my radio,” she reminded Robin sharply. There was a pause that was probably much shorter than it felt like before he responded.

“Those really need to be waterproof,” he finally conceded. No shit, Steph thought but maturely did not say. The pause this time was exactly as long as it felt before Robin finally broke it.

“Um,” he said; she could feel his fingers fidgeting a bit with the outermost blanket of her burrito. “Sorry if I was-...”

Steph both heard and felt him huff a quick breath and start again.

“We really did think you might be dead, at first,” he continued in a much softer voice. “You weren't responding at all and there was blood all over your face and on the ground from your arm. That wasn't actually as bad as it looked, you definitely have a concussion, but the hypothermia was…bad.”

Well when he put it like that…

“Thus the medically necessary snuggling?” she asked, deliberately choosing the cutsiest word she could think off of the top of her head. She still couldn't see Robin's face from her angle but she did feel him shift a bit in a shrug and hoped it was because he was also kind of embarrassed about the situation. It wasn't fair for it to be just her.

“We needed to warm you up, like, a lot," he explained rather unnecessarily. "I can always go get Batman if you’d rather cuddle with him.”

“Gross.”

“Exactly.”

“You’re the lesser of two grosses,” she declared magnanimously.

“Thanks?”

“You're welcome.”

(Maybe Robin was right about helping her if she needed it. She wasn't fully convinced, and she probably wouldn't be until it was actually tested and proven, but as she finally stopped shivering and drifted off into proper sleep it was a nice thought to hold onto.)

Notes: Later, when Steph's brain is fully online again, she'll get to have the fun of making an entire Cave full of Batfolk deeply uncomfortable by very casually asking who's responsible for getting her out of her wet costume. (Because the best way to handle being embarrassed about something is to get everyone else on the same level. I don't think Steph is actually upset about the situation because, you know, medical emergency, but that doesn't mean she's not going to push their buttons about it a lil bit.) (Me, writing: "Hmm, should I include this 80's music joke? Eh, this is sort of set in the 90's, I'm doing it anyway.")

#whumptober 2023 #no.2 #thermometer #delirium #batman #fic #drowning tw #hypothermia #stephanie brown #spoiler #tim drake #robin #(mostly it's about steph tho) #ceph writes things

[danny-chase]

For those that keep track of scar placement, here’s preboot Dick getting shot (or at least... 10 times that I found of him getting shot with a gun and it breaking the skin, the dude gets shot a lot so who knows how many other panels are out there 🤷‍♀️):

[ID: A series of comic panels featuring Dick Grayson getting shot. The first is from The New Teen Titans Annual #2 and shows a man shooting at him and Adrien Chase with Dick yelling “Aghhh!” as he falls backwards with a bullet hitting him in the right side of the middle of his torso. The next panel is from Detective Comics #408 and shows the Joker shooting Dick through the right shoulder as Batman watches on. The next panel is from Batman: Shadow of the Bat #34 and shows Dick as Batman (during Batman Prodigal era) being grazed by a bullet which strikes the left side of his forehead thinking “A setup to decoy me here! But why--” and yelling “Aaah!” The next panels are from Detective Comics #700 and show two people firing at Dick who is running towards a fence, and then he falls forward towards a hole in the ground as blood spurts from the right side of his back. The next panel is from Nightwing #80 and shows Dick in a Bludhaven officer uniform looking down at a bullet wound in his left arm as his partner says “You’ve been shot!” The next panels show cops shooting and then Dick’s and Fireflies legs, with Dick being shot in the right leg. Dick angrily holds firefly by his costume against a wall as it rains as Firefly says “Heh. They got you.” and Dick replies “Yeah--” The next two images show panels of Alfred performing surgery on Dick to remove bullet wounds, from Nightwing #148. The first shows him removing one from Dick’s right shoulder as Dick half smiles, looking at him and says “You’re not saying I like getting shot are you?” and Alfred replies “Please do not move. I need to make sure there are no bullet fragments remaining near your shoulder joint, otherwise the lead particles in the synovial fluid could dissolve in time and cause periarticular fibrosis chondrolysis, even hypertrophic arthopathy.” The second shows Dick grimacing towards the ceiling as Alfred injects something beside a bullet wound in Dick’s right side, just above his hip. Alfred says “A little more lidocaine.” Dick says “Alfred?” Alfred replies “Yes?” And Dick says “Alfred-- unn-- I’m worried.” The next image is from Batman & Robin #15 and shows Dick as Batman kneeling on the ground as Doctor Hurt stands over him, grinning as he shoots Dick in the back of the head. End ID]

#dick grayson #nightwing #batman #cw surgery #cw blood #cw gun violence #i thought about tracking all injuries and no he has too many probable concussions (people punching the shit out of his head) #like i can't even begin to list all the times someone smacked him with something random in the head #one instance that does come to mind is john paul valley throwing a fucking microwave directly into the back of his head like sheesh

[roppiepop]

for the ask meme,, timkon or stephcass? (also, i’m so curious about the unpopular opinion about damitim?? is it scandalous 👀👀)

Hey hey!! Chsbshshshs stephcass!! I do ship it, but also in that tangential casual way that betrays my main character lens for tim dhsbsbsbsbs so i dont have any big things to say abt them, they’re also a partnership that’s gotten a lot of development preboot, and has a lot more nuances and conflict than how theyre often portrayed as a side ship, but im not the right person to articulate it djdbdhshd

Kontim however,,,,, bdjssjjsjss i do ship it! Just,, well.

1. It takes a pretty special type of reading lens to read them, esp during the late-yj/titans era and not come out at least noting their chemistry. I thought the writing was on the wall the moment they shared a team it’s also an archetype ship i usually gravitate towards.

2. Theyre???? Kinda insane, aren’t they??? Just by canon standards they take ‘best friends’ to a,,,, degree. It’s actually really cute, that lowkey onesided rivalry to loyal devoted friendship that had tim both change his colors in tribute and go on that whole cloning path in grief- just totally bonkers!! Who does that!! Dynamic wise there’s a refreshing lack of baggage between them that makes conflicts be relatively clean and keeps their relationship pretty simple, relatively. A very reasonable thing to come out shipping if you have read any of their comics together.

3. Bdshhdshdhshshs i feel like i have to press that this is my personal opinion, but for me, personally, any aspect of kontim as a ship that’s interesting i feel is found… somewhat more excitingly in other tim ships, so despite everything i said idrc for them that much dhshshshs a bit basic package bundle for me

((Bdshdhshdjd also the not scandalous than me just!!! Not wanting to step on any particular toes!!! Dw abt it 😔✌️))

#roppie gets a question? #kontim #thank you for coming in!!!! #i still want to press that i understand the appeal and do ship it tho shshshshddbdb /again/

[agoddamn]

On the "batfamily", it feels cheap because it is. Most of these kids barely have dynamics with each other at all - Dick and Tim, Tim and Cass and Dick and Damian do, but about 10 years ago DC decided to pretend everyone likes each other and Damian is just a bratty lil bro and didn't bother to explain how or why any of that happened.

It's especially cheap when they want to play Bruce's ongoing drama with Jason and Damian up all the damn time. In canon Jason is constantly zigzagging between being on bad terms with the family, civil and Full On BatBro… which is before Duke shows up and is suddenly a Whole Ass Brother whose relationships with the Robins we're supposed to care about when I, personally, barely have a reason to care about the Robins relationships with each other.

It's disorienting, especially since we don't even know what is or isn't canon anymore. Damian and Dick's Batman & Robin duo is, but nothing that happened during that time is, apparently? So the already shaky foundations get even shakier. New52 was awful. We had Jason trying to murder Tim, then the reboot hit, and the next time they interacted they were The Best Bros Ever and we have no idea how or why or how their relationship ended up that way or what was or wasn't kept from the preboot.

Honestly, I liked it when the Robins had unique relationships with each other, and with Bruce. Squishing them all into a wholesome chaotic family mold really strips away a lot of what made them interesting. Also, Wayne Family Adventures is 100% pure tumblr/fanfic tropes/characterisation. I feel like I've already read every single strip in at least one fic before. Go figure it's the most popular Batcomic at the moment, though, so DC will double down on this.

I'm also a big whiner that thought Batman Reborn was a fun time to reboot the family dynamics somewhat and move into a new era, so I'm naturally biased against all this anyway.

Yeah! I feel like it's cramming them all into cookie-cutter molds and trimming off all the interesting bits that don't fit. And it feels so weird for Bruce to be interacting with Dick exactly like he interacts with Tim? I am adamantly not a fan of the "good soldier"/abusive Bruce characterization but like...if he's a perfect father with Dick from square one that means he never grows over 20+ years, which feels just as regressive to me as the eternal grimdark bullshit.

#i hate comic books

[newbordeaux]

for the ship questions: pre-relationship 4, general 1, love 10 + anna x jason if you’d like!

HIII SORRY THIS TOOK 10 YEARS BUT THANK YOU 💕💗❤ I also did two extra ones because the others were depressing for no reason

Who felt romantic feelings first?

ANNAAAAAA when they were around 13 idk which grade this was. It was just a stupid little baby crush she thought she'd grow out of eventually. This never happened of course 😊at least not until after he dies, it’s just not really possible to have daydreams about holding hands about someone when thinking about them makes you upset -_- Plus, she’s getting older and the last time she saw him he was 16 :/ He’s forever a baby in her mind. These feelings do resurface once she finds out he’s not ded though, love wins 💕❤💗

IDK for Jason a little later, like shortly before… you know 💀 IDK he only sees her again a few years later (I’m also going with preboot events here fyi ❤ l*bdell’s shitty run wants what lost days has). He’s too fucked up from dying… the fucking clown still being alive… to talk to her again/have daydreams about kissing her under the moonlight or whatever but once that’s over I do think he thinks about her a lot :( saving her ass as *** **** cause coming back from the dead would be too insane to explain and she’s probably moved on with her life anyway so grr. But also wanting to talk to her so bad again as if they're both not completely different from how they were at sixteen -_-

Who initiated the relationship, and how did it go?

HM I feel like it would be her, I haven’t figured out the specifics but I think it’d be spontaneous, a heat of the moment kind of thing. She’s usually not that impulsive but she’s gone so long without telling him how she feels, so fuck it. She’d try to say something but be at a loss of words but that’s ok he can read her mind 😌 or at least see where she’s going with this so uh they kiss <3 and then………… 

Do they prefer verbal or physical affection?

HMMM both I think? IDK I could see him be more of a verbal affection kinda guy but both is good (you know that reddit post about this guy who started crying cause his gf washed his hair tenderly or whatever it was she did. yea).. And Anna would be more about physical, she doesn’t need big words, just having an arm around her is enough 😊

Did they have an official first date? If so, what was it like?

YEAH after she spends the night at his place… they go on some shitty date at a burger place together and later went into a bad movie (I just decided this but it was after passion 2019 because it looked bad but it ended up being so boring that they left the theater halfway through the movie) 

What’s their relationship with each other’s families? Do they share a friend group?

Anna has no living family that Jason could meet lol. She doesn’t really know most of the b*tfamily either 😊 Like obviously the earlier ones from when she hung around the manor for some school shit they needed to do together/ for fun, Bruce, Alfred and Dick & Barbara whenever they were around… they all like her well enough, she’s a nice girl and no one witnessed her in her messy PI era <3 She thought they were all nice but she lost all contact with them after the clown did THAT 😑 she was mad at Bruce for not telling her what happened and didn’t bother to keep up with them after that, so really the last time she saw them was at the funeral :// And there are so many people around the manor now that she doesn’t know and quite frankly, doesn’t want to know, these people mean nothing to her. IDK she randomly sees Tim somewhere and he’s like omg hello :) (Alfred told him about her and he says hi because he feels bad for her) and she’s like wtf I don’t know you, don’t talk to me 😭

#the 10 seconds anna & tim interaction is bi vs bi hostility #anna x jason

[un-pearable]

these are slightly outdated bc it was mid-reread but. this is still very important to me and i think about it a lot

#my scourge thoughts have changed since then but i am once again thinking about this #the entire damn series. the entirety of preboot archie is *ACCIDENTALLY* an amazing breakdown of how #after the bullshit of chosen ones and prophecies during the penders/bollers/gallagher era #it is an active conscious CHOICE to do good that makes you a hero #no one is trapped within a single role- it is their choices that shape it #shadow arc in the beginning of sonic universe #where he tells metal and omega they are not defined by their status as tools of eggman #literally everything about shard #heck even SCOURGE is proof that. at least in the flynn era the moral is that there is always a CHOICE #being a hero is damn hard in that universe because of how fucked up it is #but if you make that decision and keep at it. you can do it #and no one does that better than sonic himself #which. in my opinion is a hell of a lot healthier message than the pre-ian prophecy bullshit #i will. make a more eloquent post about this at some pint #but i just. i think about it a lot and it’s part of why i love this continuity so much #these screenshots are from when i was reading the Babylon Rising arc for the first time for context

[carrotkicks]

I feel like I don’t have any sense of Tim’s relationship to the other Robins. Is it something that’s been actually neglected or am I just not looking in the right places?

hmm okay. It's totally understandable to not really know anything of Tim's relationship with all the other Batkids, since for the past decade(?) dc hasn't really teamed him up with the other Batman characters (let alone let him be one). But I'm going to assume you're talking PREboot, in which case, he's actually got a lot of interesting - and messy bc he's a Bat lbh - relationships with the rest of the fam.

Now you asked about the Robins specifically (god the fact that theres more than one is a headache and a half and i'm talking about the 3rd one lmao) and ii kinda lost patience so im talking about Jason, Damian and Steph, (ask me for Dick another time plz it’s too much with him and plus theres a million really good metas on him and Tim). I’m not including Bruce+Cass bc thats a completley different can of worms, or Duke bc they honestly don't really have a dynamic? they need to team up more

OK BABY IT'S STORY TIME WITH MEEEEE

uhh also this got wayyyyy long so checkout the "Read More" if you actually care

Duck Boy and Fire Hydrant Man

Starting with Tim's relationship with Jason since that probably has the least meat to it. And it's actually very linear In short: Tim and Jason Do NOT Like Each Other. Jason has actively tried to murder Tim multiple times with no real closure on most of those situations. Sooo pretty testy between these two. I don't understand how they work together happily during reboot and i don't want to understand tbh. it's migraine inducing.

Before he came back, Tim viewed Jason as more of a martyr figure or a cautionary tale, rather than an actual child who died. It's a bit insensitive sure, but the kid didn't know Jason, and all that he heard form Bruce - and the writers - OF Jason was that he was reckless and got himself killed. we as the readers know this isn't really how it went down but during that era there was a reframing of the narrative to make Jason seem not good enough so they could justify his death and the new Robin. It's not great but it's understandable, and nothing to detract from Tim's character but rather Bruce (but again, different rabbit hole)

It's not until the infamous encounter Teen Titans (2003) #29 where we really see an actual person-person relationship between them kick off. And its not really pretty haha. Jason comes back from the dead understandably hurt that he's been replaced, and upset about the idea that he "meant nothing" to either the Titans or Batman, so he goes to prove his superiority and take out his rage in an absolutly PSYCHO move that involved beating up a literal child while wearing an adult sized Robin costume. (good on the fans for forgetting about the yellow tights because I Did Not.) On Jason's side Tim represents the idea that he wasn't good enough, and fighting him was both to test Tim's ability AND to justify his own self worth. In Tim Drake- Town every preconcieved notion of Jason Todd being the tragic hero he's always heard about was destroyed with only Jason Todd is Dangerous - Stay Away.

Sooo they don't really interact much after that except for a few other times. One weird one that ended in Tim kicking Jay in the balls. One somewhere at the end of Robin (1993) (around Batman RIP and Bruce's death for a timeline ref) where it was JASON that approached Tim in hopes for a team-up that went with varying degrees of success. Tim was not excited about the team up at all, but he helped Jay escape from prison at the end and the two actually had A Moment in the batcave that looked like theye actually got along a bit and cared about each other just a little.

Their final interaction was in Battle for the Cowl (which also ended in a murder attempt) So Jason went on a grief induced/ manic killing spree dressed as the Batman. Tim shows up to stop him (also dressed as batman) and Jason says something about how he actually does respect Tim and he shoud (and i quote) "be HIS Robin" lmao. Tim declines as respectfully as he could after that bombshell of a line, and then Jason stabs him. That's about where things end with them in Preboot. cheerful innit?

TL;DR: Jason and Tim are not very friendly with each other- actively hostile i'd wager BUT, Jason has mad respect for the kid, and Tim is shown to keep wanting to give the guy more chances (maybe bc part of him still believe Jason to be some fallen hero thing). Regardless of a lot of their outward violence to each other they just might have maybe a tiny bit of love for one another

Sibling Rivalry on CRACK

Tim and Damian is one of the more misunderstood relationships. Most people either demonize young Damian for his not so pleasant everything (to which i say eff you) or not acknowledge how their relationship has evolved. Unsurprisingly, this one's also full of murder attempts.

So Damian shows up to Gotham to learn from his dad and y'know do the whole "take his place at his father's side" thing, which also means eliminating the competition (read: Tim). Tim is actually pretty friendly -outwardly anyways- to Damian when they first meet, but quickly becomes wary of the kid.

See what's soooo interesting about these two is that both of their hostility to the other is deeply rooted in their OWN insecurities. Damain sees Tim as an obstacle to his father's love. He see's Tim and Bruce being partner's and sees Bruce loving this outsider as his own son and he want that for himself. He doens't yet realize that love isn't a competition. Meanwhile Tim sees Damian as a threat to his own life stability. Here's this random child gunnin for the Robin spot - his life's purpose at this point- oh and turns out that this sassy lost child is actually his stepbrother. oh actually it's Bruce's bio kid. how's he gonna beat that? Tim's animosity towards Damian is also heavily based in his own fear that he's going to become obselete. So he also doesn't realize that he doesn't need to EARN Bruces love bc it's actually unconditional.

See, the parallels between these two is mind blowing to me. I like these kids very much.

Um... but to acknowledge the murder attempts thing: Damian does do it first, because he was raised to beleive that you need to kill your competition, but it's totally understandable that Tim doesn't really like the child very much. But Tim DOES actually throw hands a couple of times at Damian. I think in Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul Tim gives Damian a beatdown for a bit and also decks him in RR#1. I think it was to show that Tim is becoming increasingly unhinged, and i'm pretty sure Damian was being a mega jerk in the RR issue but like... NOT COOL BRO! jfc Tim stop indulging ur psycho tendencies omg.

BUT by that same token, those murder attempts are actually kinda funny in retrospect bc It just feels like like a sibling fight gone bananas.

Tim and Damian's relationship reallly mellowed out drastically after Tim came back from the BruceQuest. They actually seemed like real sibs(kinda like me and my sisters) where they were completley rude and bickered all the time but they also worked together and actually seemed to care about and respect each other. I rec Gates of Gotham it really shows how their relationship evolved from being hostile and violent with genuine hatred to hostile and violent with love. Tim calls Dami out on his jackassery and Dami is rude back but they also protect each other n stuff. it's nice.

TL;DR: Tim and Damian have a testy relationship but at it's core their animosity is based in their own fears of inadequacy and they see each other as threat to their own places in the family. Over time I think they really managed to move past that and care for each other a lot. It's just hidden under a lot of bonkers brother-fights. I actually think Tim and Damian might get along relativley well as reboot comics. no idea about pre-n52 wish we got more.

OTP Feels

I'm a lil worried about this section cuz it might be a bit controversial? Tim and Steph are very flawed people and i wanna point that out for BOTH of them, but also i love them <3

Steph is a really important person to Tim. which is to be expected since she's his girlfiend i guess... Okay, so it's all started with Steph smacking Tim in the face with a brick. After that it was a series of encounters that eventually led to them dating. (mostly cuz Steph was thirsty as hell and Tim was Definitly Not Cheating /s)

See, Steph when she first started out in the vigilante thing was quite the cynic whereas Tim was very moralistic. He was the proverbial light to Stephs dark (speaking solely on their morals). Steph however was not accepted by Batman and by extention Batgirl and Robin bc what the big man says goes. But Tim really warms up to Steph and enjoys hanging out with her. And i wanna emphasize Tim doesn't really believe in Steph's abilities- maybe because she's a noob, desire to keep her out of harms way, Batman's opinions, or even underlying sexism? (Chuck Dixon being a dickwad strikes again, not sure on this point)

Steph and Tim start dating eventually with the one condition being Tim not being able to tell her his secret ID. Tim know's Steph's so it's not a fair trade but also it makes sense for many reasons. 1.) relationship drama, 2.) Batman breathing down Tim's back, 3.) superhero romances tend to have the double life trope used a lot, id reveals being some sort of magical moment.

So timsteph's a smooth sailing druing pregnancy arc, and NML, and it's sometime during the Brentwood arc in Robin 1993 that we get some serious drama between the two of them. Tim's trapped in boarding school and Steph is beginning to get pretty upset about her end of the deal. In some dumb move she thinks Robin might be cheating on her? so starts trying to stalk him and crack his id herself. Some innocent civilians get hurt in the process actually, it's Not Cool on Steph's part but her perspective is very understandable. Tim is REALLY BAD at peopling and his defensiveness about his work-life balance only escalates the tension between them.

Ummm Sometime Later Tim goes MIA bc he's busy fighting a giant fish with Lagoon boy in Gotham Harbor, and Batman approaches Steph asking for her help to find Tim. Bruce reveals Tim's secret ID to her (which is Not Cool, B. You ruined the Magical Moment) and actually takes her in under his wing in Tim's absence and trains her for once. When Tim comes back he has a bit of a meltdown cuz he compartementalizes too much but he's ultimately more mad at Bruce for breaking his trust and pretty chill with Steph. OTP wins this round!

The next big turing point moment for them is the Robin!Steph arc which was VERY testy for them however! So Tim quits being Robin bc his dad finds out and Jack Drake being the nutjob that he is, threatened Bruce at gunpoint to make that happen. So Tim’s back to being a civvie (for reals?) and one day at school this chick Darla randomly kisses him without his permission and Steph CONVENIENTLY witnesses it and thinks Tim is cheating on her and decides to do him one better and steal his old job. Bruce takes her in as Robin no questions asked. (i don’t really get his motives here? was he trying to make Tim jelaous and lure him back in? he definiltly didn’t want Steph as a partner. that’s for certain) Bruce didn't giver a fair shot at all in this arc and it makes me kinda uncomfy how in this era Steph just gets the shit from everywhere it's sooo not fair to her.

The thing about the Robin!Steph saga really pulled into question what Steph’s true ambitions were. In the arc, the timsteph romance really fell apart. Steph kidna totally ghosted Tim, and Tim was feeling hurt/betrayed by B and Steph. he was probably not expecting to be replaced so easily, and it definitly shows in his rather cold attitude to both of them in the last time they spoke. It’s evidnet later in the final arc of Robin too that really more than anything Steph wants self validation. It’s not a bad thing but it’s interesting how it’s kinda a central part of her character arc but also a major flaw of hers. The Robin Experience was ultimatley Not Good for Steph, and really put strain of the romance and relationship in general. OTP loses this round :(...

Anyways. Steph “dies” Tim is sad. But she comes back and Tim has mixed feelings on that. they never really got closure for the mess their relationship became before War Games so things are once again pretty tense. Behind Tim’s back, Steph is busy carrying out some secret agenda thing Bruce left behind (which surpise surprise involved a murder attempt on Tim) Steph betrays Tim’s trust and in a really heated stressed moment ( i think some innocent kids just died like moments before?) Tim tells Steph to stop being Spoiler and essentially get out of his life. It was a REALLY BAD WRITING MOVE OKAY THIS ARC IS JUST BADLY WRITTEN. but since it is canon,  you gotta acknowledge that Steph messed up badly AND Tim was being a complete jerk for valid reasons. I know they did get a reconcilliation in a crossover event and we get an apology from Tim’s side and a kinda something? form Stephs. (Her Batgirl run is VERY good but Tim is pretty demonized in her perspective and we don’t get much acknowledgement of he mistakes leading to the falling out/ or much of the gang war thing she started? just want to point it out) But despite that Steph grows a lot since the whole thing anf her goals become a lot less self oriented I think.

TL;DR: Tim and Stephanie Brown probably have the least outwardly violent but equally messy. They love each other a lot and it’s very apparent, BUT they also have a lot of their own individual needs that get in the way of the relationship. Steph want’s validation and Tim wants someone who understands him.  Also they have pretty interesting parallels where Tim starts as hopeful and bright and Steph was cynical, but it switched by the end of preboot.  Despite everything they are probably one of the closest people to each other. (Tim wanted to ressurect her during his crazy phase lol)

***

Okay i’m done. Tim’s relationship with Dick is very long and complicated and I’m still kinda  not totally informed. I’ll come back to ya when i have formed a consensus. BUT there’s some pretty good meta’s already written i think

@silverwhittlingknife i know comes to mind. they have some pretty good ones on them

#this got so long omg i bet i was just rambling #sorry i don't have any panel evidence i don't have the patience #dc comics #meta i guess? #acutally i'll just rb this with evidence panels some other time #long post #like way long #If ya didn't care too read: good job #basically it's complicated but they all kinda love each other

[garthofshayeris]

Speaking of Mera, what IS her personality?

lmao this is the problem all the Aqualadies have, they tend to have all their interactions with their romantic interest and their personality takes a back seat.

Currently? Idk I feel like most people just write her as “confident and fighty!!” which is like…fine. She seems very Girlboss™️ and people love to point out she’s a Queen and she Can Kill You. To be fair, Arthur also didn’t have a very distinct personality for a while (at least not compared to his Edgelord era) so together they just feel very romantic and in love and I don’t think their lack of personality is noticeable when drama is constantly happening around them. You really do believe they’re in love regardless of the era.

It’s not much different than preboot, but Mera used to be really defined by her status as a wife and mother, so she would be whatever the story called for; weepy, romantic lead, nagging wife, jealous lover, etc. I think she’s consistently headstrong through the decades.

She’s Aquaman’s Confident and Capable Wife. It just becomes very obvious that it’s her main personality when Mera in a context where she is not Aquaman’s wife lol

#feel free to add your own opinions!! #I’m really not trying to be negative bc I do like Mera but #yeah she’s not like……..very interesting when removed from Aquaman? #it’s a problem a lot of supporting characters have tbh

[thatblondeperson]

TimSteph, taking care of chronic injuries!

Hey look, another ask that got buried! Sorry friend!!!! 

This is all preboot, RR/Batgirl era.

Ok so Tim is super extra imo when it comes to treating any kind of sickness, injury, ANYTHING. He’s the type of guy who will go to CVS and buy out the entire “cold + flu” aisle as soon a Steph gets a runny nose. He absolutely drowns her in cough drops and tissues. I can see him being extremely attentive as well. Like bringing blankets and pillows around the clock, happy to carry her from point A to point B, almost insisting to do so on occasion, and just sitting with her for as long as she desires/needs company. He absolutely pays no mind to germs. Steph can cuddle all she wants.

Steph is similar but less extra. She’s got some more classic home remedies that Tim doesn’t have. She absolutely would baby the hell out of him if he got sick though, and probably more often than not she has to put her foot down on him trying to patrol even if he’s completely out of it and burning up. Tim has a hard time relaxing, but eventually the time is used for him to catch up on sleep. Tim getting sick is like a mini-hibernation. I can see Alfred stepping in occasionally if they were both sick because Tim’s an absolute mess, and Steph can only do so much before she gets wiped out. They’re hopeless and completely out of service if they’re both ill at the same time. Error 404: Dorks not found. 

Chronic injuries are a constant process. Steph obviously has a ton just from Black Mask alone. I’m sure she gets aches and pains on the regular due to the severity of the torture she experience. Power drills would leave some lasting abdominal pain for sure. Hell, I wonder if it makes cramps worse for her? It could in all honestly. She may need serious pain meds during that time of the month which are of course always kept on hand. On top of that, the physical trauma definitely left endless mental trauma. No question about it. Not to mention that time she got lightly shot in the head. I say lightly because I forgot this was a thing because they don’t really address it again. I imagine that would cause occasional headaches/migraines, and I’m sure Tim likes to run a scan every now and again to make sure there isn’t any lasting damage. And of course, we return to the medicine cabinet for more pain pills. (Thank you @incoherentbabblings for reminding me of the gunshot.)

I headcanon that both of them get nightmares on almost the regular. They’ve both got it set that if one of them is in the middle of a bad nightmare, the other just holds them close, doing whatever they can to soothe them until the calmness sets back in. The nightmares get more spaced out some time after they move in together because I think the constant safeness of having someone beside them every night would eventually help them both sleep through the night better. It is hard to get back to sleep though. Both of them have been put through the ringer, they’ve both seen death of loved ones up close and personal, and I imagine a lot of what they’ve experienced is still very vivid and intense for them.

Tim’s got his own fair share of recurring pain. The boy doesn’t have a spleen and tbh I don’t know how he’s not getting sick more frequently. But extra precautions need to be taken to keep him from getting infections when he gets any kid of open wound, thank GOD Steph is a nurse. Tim has to be kept pretty healthy though if at all possible, which brings us back to my previous headcanon about him not caring about germs when Steph is sick? Yeah, not his smartest move, but Tim’s an idiot and forgets that he’s fragile. 

Both of them have regular joint issues. They’ve dislocated enough things for just about everything to make awful clicking sounds now and again. Steph doesn’t have as much regular muscle pain, she’s far more flexible than Tim is so she stays pretty loose and limber, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have to work at it every day. Steph does yoga as a part of her routine. She gets Tim to join sometimes but he’s not very good at keeping up with it. He’s flexible too but not to her level, and he locks up easier if he’s had an especially tough night. They both try to put the time in to exercise when they can, spotting each other, keeping a routine going, because given how much they both get beaten and battered on the daily, if they don’t keep up with muscle pain, it’ll just get worse. On bad days when the pain makes any mobility difficult, massages ensue. They’ve got at least 15 ice packs in the freezer at all times, and a stack of heating pads in the medicine cabinet. And if all else fails, a nice hot bubble bath never hurts. With Epsom salts and everything. Steph likes to add a touch of lavender oil.

Immediate injuries they’re both very good at treating. Steph obviously has more technical knowhow, and she is the most medically trained of all the Batfam members, but Tim is detail oriented and good at focusing when he needs to so he can keep up just fine. They’re both good at stitches and general wound treatment, but Steph is better at consistent treatment. Tim will absolutely forget to switch out his bandages or clean things because his brain is soup and he cannot be bothered to think about injuries when he’s too busy with 50 other things on the constant. He needs to slow down. We get right back into “more prone to infections” again. Alas. Idiot. 

They both have their fair share of mental health issues, though Tim’s tend to be more intense. Steph has her ways of managing her own mental state but Tim gets stuck often. He falls into some pretty deep depression spells, and his anxiety acts up fairly frequently. Steph has started teaching him how to meditate, but also has a list of distractions and special remedies that she can utilize if need be. Movies and tea are a good base line, though Tim’s mind gets very far away sometimes and it’s hard to pull him back out. Like he almost wants to wallow in his sadness. Often she just tries to ground him as best she can so he doesn’t get so lost that he can’t come back. Steph likes to make sure that he isn’t always using patrol as a crutch for when he’s feeling upset or tense. It’s hard to sway him away from more pain when he lets himself get so close to the edge. It breaks her heart, sometimes she feels helpless.

Steph has anxiety as well, and some psychosomatic tics from her past abuse. She needs a lot of reassurance and gentleness when her mind starts racing. She’s still prone to trust issues, even now when she’s surrounded herself with stable people. She’s been let down and she fears losing her steady ground sometimes. Tim, let’s face it, hasn’t been the most reliable in the past, but I firmly believe that with some growing up he’d step up to the plate and try to be a solid home base for her to the best of his abilities. He’s not going anywhere anytime soon. He’s very good at being gentle. That’s canon as fuck. I will die on the hill that Tim is as delicate with Steph as one would be with a priceless porcelain heirloom. Fight me, the boy would never intentionally try to physically or mentally hurt her. He tries so hard to reassure her but I thinks he feels a little helpless sometimes too. Some of her trust issues are his fault, and he can’t just snap his fingers and reverse his mistakes. He tries his best, but there will always be scars. 

All in all, I think they’re both very tender and caring with one another. They’re both beyond broken sometimes, and they are a mess and a half. But they know each other, they know each others pain and sadness and I think once they got back together they’d settle very easily into a care routine. Both of them are carrying the weight of countless consequences and mistakes and hardship on their shoulders. Pain is just a side affect that comes with carrying so much baggage, but it’s a little easier to manage when they have each other for support. I do think some of it would get easier over time, and my wish for them is that they can move somewhere just outside the city, maybe by a lake. Far enough away that things are quiet, but not so far that they would completely leave the hero gig behind. I agree with the consensus that neither of them could fully quit. Tim would just sink into the background, but Steph would be out there in the field for many years. Justas long as they have somewhere safe and comfortable to return to, I think they’ll both be just fine. Plus smooches are the best fallback medicine for all ailments and we all know that they never run out of those. 😘💋

THANK YOU FOR THIS ASK! More than half of this was not anything to do with chronic injuries but fuck it. We’ve tapped into the hurt/comfort section of my brain and there is a lot of material there to work with. Idk when you sent this in but I hope it wasn’t too long ago. I hope this answered more questions than you ever intended to ask. 💜❤

#TimSteph #tim drake #stephanie brown #robin iii #spoiler #robin iv #red robin #batgirl #batfam #batfamily #dc comics #dc #batman #personal #ask tbp

[speedy-kat]

Aye! Back at it again with another Sparklecare OC. 

This time it’s a reclaimed Barry from an AU I made during the preboot era. 

I renamed him Riley Ill. 

He’s Barry’s long lost second cousin who use to work at the Sparklecare Hospital, but is now a collage/university teacher for students who want to be in the medical field. 

He does try to discourage his students to never apply for a job at Sparklecare, no matter how good the pay is.

I would say how Riley managed to quit working at Sparklecare, but it’s a secret.

(I hope Noelle doesn’t mind that I made an OC that is a relative to a canon character)

I may redesign him again in the future since his design looks way too similar to Barry, but for now that’s what he looks like.

This is what he use to look like in the AU. (old art alert! I swear it’s not a recolour. And I swear my AU was just a coincidence.)

I know, it’s disgusting. At least I got better.

#sparklecare #sparklecare hospital #sparklecare oc #sparklecare au #Riley Ill #art improvement

[colorisbyshe]

going back to my adaption talk from before i think that if we most adapt every fucking thing... more things should be adapted as animation, at least sci fi/fantasy projects like comics or whatever

like spiderverse FUCKED

the x men cartoon FUCKED

star trek: the animated series ... FUCKED... sort of... but to be fair a lot of things surrounding TOS was... hit or miss

the 90s and early 2000s batman shit... absolutely fucked

apparently one of the star wars animated shows was really good

but somewhere along the line american animation turned into like comedy (or “comedy”) fests where it all has to feel like idk futurama at best or family guy at worse like the teen-to-adult audience is waiting for actually good animated adaptions i know this in my soul

like i feel like adult animation sucks rn and the overabundance of adaptions/reboots/sequels/prequels/preboots/whatever sucks right now

but it’d be BETTER if some of those presequalbootsoff were... animated

bring back 90s era sci fi cartoons for ambiguously teens and adults

#ive been stuck inside since being texted that i might've been exposed to covid #tho it's been confirmed i wasn't acouple hours ago #so all ive done today is finish finding all the ameno/geoculus #in genshin impact #and tihnk about the death of creativity #i am witnessing in real time #in maintream media at least