Sin título

fascism rises, again and again. the empire is only one mask it wears. it speaks different languages, waves different flags, but it’s always the same fear, the same cruelty. and every time, people who fight it –not jedi, not chosen ones– are farmers, students, workers, lovers.

a manifesto written in hiding, a prison break echoing “one way out”, a funeral that turns into a riot; the fire always starts small. a single act. a handful of people willing to stand up. it grows, and so does the cost. the prisons fill, the streets choke with fear, and still someone shouts. someone resists.

andor gets it: there’s no clean victory, no hero to save us. only people, scared and stubborn, who refuse to let the dark be the only thing that survives.

shmi had a habit of looking out to the stars, and pondering on whether anakin was safe. whether she made the right choice in letting him go, what their life would have been like if he hadn't left with the jedi, and were a part of her newfound family. things she continues to loop back on for 10 years. i mean, this should be expected. imagine being enslaved, with your 9 year old son, and his only option of a better future and freedom, is to be taken from you, and trained to be a guardian of the galaxy? with no update or word. she expresses not even knowing if he were alive.

owen lars met her grief/longing with gentleness and patience, offering comfort in the image of anakin as something greater than absence. the imagery that he is likely a hero, alive, safeguarding the galaxy. he told her that anakin's existence out there made him feel safer. that anakin being out there, makes the galaxy a better place. even setting aside their enslavement, he insisted, anakin had been destined for something larger than tatooine– a calling, and to never blame herself. this and cliegg's comfort, helped in keeping shmi from carrying what would could have been a much heavier weight.

everyone loves Tim Drake

got the bat brain worms

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

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

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

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

okay, wait, how about this!

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

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

okay, wait, here we go--

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

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

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

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

he dropped out of 12th to go on Brucequest:

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

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

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

I might translate this article later today. This one was the most complete one, even in Italian news it's not talked about that much.