Sleep Deprived Canon-ish

My piece for the @dcfanmadezines Local lesbian aunt and her bi nephew hanging out after a hard night day of work.

For those who, like me, when they like a character they need to read every single comic the character appears in, I have compiled a list of all of Tim Drake’s appearances from his debut up to the 2011 Flashpoint reboot (not including New 52 continuity).

maybe, if someone else notices, they'll tell him he doesn't need to endure the hands on his chest and back and thighs and ass. they'll tell him gotham doesn't need him to smile through the discomfort, to invite more touches against his own will. they'll tell him it wouldn't matter even if gotham did need that, because he is free to say no. maybe, please, will someone notice?

Tim: Dick, no one else is even in the running. please be so fr right now

Damian: What are you arguing about?

Dick: Damian! Damian can do it! He’d be great at it.

Tim: No, Damian’s gonna follow his paternal grandfathers lead and be a doctor. Everyone only has to take on ONE element of Bruce. Try again

Jason: They are arguing about which one of us should be the newest representative for the Justice League for when Bruce finally conks it.

Damian: That would be an honor no? Richard you would be a competent ruler.

Cas: Leader

Damian: Whatever. I assume Timothy will be taking on WE in the event of father’s passing, so wouldn’t Jason also be in the running?

Tim: No i called dibs on Jason

Jason: What? What are you talking about. You can’t call dibs on me. What if I want to run the Justice League?

Tim: You don’t. You are going to run the Wayne foundation. Take from the rich give to the poor. Modern day Robin Hood—Very on brand for you. Don’t worry I have the contracts and everything ready.

Jason: …

Jason: Ok deal. Sorry Dickie, looks like your going to rule the interplanetary alliance :P

Dick: I don’t wanna!

Tim: What, do you wanna switch?

Dick: Well, no—

Tim: Also you’re the only one that makes sense.

Dick: I’ll do anything else, please that’s too much responsibility.

Tim: Okay. Be Batman.

Dick: …

Dick: Yea never mind. Running the Justice League won’t be that hard.

Damian: Wait so who will be Batman?

Cass: Dibs

Damian, Tim, Jason, Dick: Fair

@gosuccatoe 22!

"I was fine on Sertraline."

Bruce glowers at the tablet packet as he pops one out, and Barbara hands him a glass of water silently.

"I was."

"Were you?"

He swallows the tablet, chugging the rest of the water for good measure before setting the glass aside.

"Yes."

"No." Her voice is kind, if firm. "You weren't."

"And this is better?"

"Damian called Talia because he was so worried about you. Cass moved back in, goddammit. I know weaning yourself off Sertraline wasn't great, and adjusting to this one is tough, but do you really think that it isn't worth it?"

Bruce looks down.

He knows...

He knows he's had issues for years. 'Disordered eating' Steph calls it. Dick's always watched like a hawk when Bruce got 'too thin'. They don't... they don't understand he has to be at peak efficiency. He must have his body completely under his control.

These side effects take that away from him.

They give him control back in other ways, but strip it from his body. He's losing definition, he's tired all of the time, his flawed heat regulation only got worse.

"Don't be silly," he sighs. "You kids are always worth it."

This is FUCKING absurd man. At this point they're just trolling with the fans to see how far they can take this queer baiting 😭

This is too domestic LORD. Bruce looks like he's visiting his in laws.

His internal push-and-pull has always been about whether or not he would stay in the life at all, and any force that encouraged him away from Robin as a mantle was always external. (Although, I do want to also note that any time he quits or considers quitting, it always reinforces his decision to be a hero in the end via having that arc and continuing to make the decisions that he does, just quick sidenote.)

We also have a ton of proof, including his introduction itself, that he sees no contradiction or problem with having an adult Robin.

And thus, rather than "growing up", moving away from Robin specifically toward something else feels like "doing what other people tell you to".

It's not treating Tim as an adult with autonomy (in-universe, obviously he has no autonomy no matter what, he's a character). It's treating him like people treat children, and in a significantly worse way than even he was treated as a child on the hero side of things, since he actually had an unprecedented level of autonomy as Robin (Robin is, in fact, representative of an autonomy power fantasy in a lot of ways).

It's bending to other characters going "you don't know what's best for yourself, I do".

And while you can always write a character changing their mind (that was arguably what was done with Dick in the first place, and the idea of a universe where he just never stopped being Robin and there was only ever one is more than reasonable from the perspective of before they wrote him say the things he did later), but because of the history we do have with Dick, and the specific ways Tim has been contrasted with Dick on this subject, and it being way more clear how Tim did already feel about it, doing that with Tim now would read like support of the general "you'll grow out of it" mentality that a lot of people have toward young people with strong opinions about things.

Not only does this dogma completely undermine Tim's entire journey, but also ignores the fact that Dick and Tim were respectively Robins under vastly different circumstances. It is an established fact in canon that the world (moreso Gotham) started getting darker and more deadly AFTER Dick left the mantle, notwithstanding the Doylist caveat that Dick was Robin in the lighter pre Crisis period.

Of course with changing canon over the years and the necessity of updating DC history to better reflect the times, Dick's time as Robin may be one day recontextualized - but ultimately Dick was Robin in the times of Gotham's organized crime heyday, and the days of theme criminals being more obsessed with setting up traps inside giant piranha tanks and massive calculators. All the iconic trophies in the Batcave were during Dick's time as Robin.

It's Tim who was Robin through the Breaking of the Bat, the Clench, Cataclysm, NML and BW: Murderer/Fugitive. It was Tim who brought Bruce back from the brink of oblivion, it was Tim who lost his father, his best friend and his girlfriend as Robin, it was Tim who came without Dick's toddler training advantages, it was Tim who had to undergo THE most comprehensive and rigorous Robin graduation course.