#aubergine posts

If that’s the case, then arguably Stephanie has a similar kill count thanks to being the person who deliberately kicked off War Games.

I usually just block and move on with stuff like this, but since she's been an ass to me & others over Bat fandom content and harasses people over political issues, I figured this time I would do a brief heads up, to lower the chances of someone stumbling over her posts, comments, reblogs, etc, through fandom content, and being fucking smacked in the g*d damned face with the real world crap.

[after Nightwing walks in on two YJ members’ mothers having a fistfight and coated in cake frosting]

Red Tornado: And that is, in essence, what happened.

Nightwing: Well, that certainly accomplished a lot. We’re suppose to be here to talk about the kids, not act like kids.

Bonnie: Are you Robin’s father?

Nightwing: Well, no...

Bonnie: Then you couldn’t possibly know what it’s like.

Nightwing, using deliberately intimidating body language: Lady, every morning when I drift to sleep, I hear the screams of the loved ones I didn’t save. Don’t you dare lecture me on what I know.

Nightwing, physically backed away again and dismissive: Now... can we get back to business?

Was very influential on my formative views of Nightwing as a character.

Plus, having some personal childhood experience in performance art. Dick Grayson may have used his mom’s off-stage nickname for him to create his first vigilante person, but he also used his family’s show-colors. Robin the Boy Wonder is a character that Dick is playing.

The puns, situationally dissonant laughter, the big smiles, those are a performance. They come from Dick, he creates them, he crafted Robin and not from the ether. But assuming they’re even the majority of his personality, let alone the totality, is a mistake.

Nightwing is also a performance, drawing some of the same pieces as Robin but a lot of very different ones too. Created at a different point in Dick’s life, to play a different role.

...You know, now that I lay it out like this, I think that might be a big reason why being Batman is such a miserable experience for Dick. He didn’t craft that character. Dick created Robin & Nightwing. He didn’t create Batman. He didn’t build the role from the inside out, never saw the scaffolding, just the surface. He has to take someone else’s character and try to back-engineer it.

Whereas Tim stepped into Robin comfortable with it being a role someone else created, and gradually let more of his own personality in over time. Not being the creator wasn’t a problem for Tim. He also hates being Batman, but it’s for different reasons.

DC was blatantly trying to shoehorn several characters into specific roles and plot paths at that time, and did not do so gracefully. They left a lot of things unsaid, skipped over, probably because a lot of this was contradictory to earlier established characterizations, and detail might’ve invited nitpicking (nevermind that fans prodded at the OOC’ness anyway).

In the post-crisis pre-universe-resetting era, the common fanon version of Tim & Stephanie’s post-break-up friendship is based on Cassandra & Stephanie’s canon friendship. But often declawed.

Tim & Steph’s relationships have never been stable. They both zig-zag in how they treat each other, how they feel about each other. They had a lot of real-time years for this to happen in. After Stephanie comes back from the presumed-dead, they don’t have a lot of positive page time together before the universe resets. There really isn’t a lot there for fans who want to write a positive friendship to work with.

By contrast, Cass & Steph’s friendship is stable, probably because it’s relatively short. Cass’s Batgirl run is from 2000-2006, comprising of 73 issues, Stephanie isn’t introduced right away, and she ‘dies’ partway through with the run ending before her return. I haven’t spotted a lot of on-page interaction between them after Stephanie returns to Gotham.

Cass & Steph are equals who give each other crap while also opening up emotionally.

Cass introduces herself by breaking into Stephanie’s house to ask her to read a piece of evidence aloud, Stephanie immediately takes advantage of Cass’s disability by refusing to unless Cass brings her along on the case. On a later occasion, when Cass doesn’t need help and thinks Steph would get hurt if she came along, she uses a nerve-strike to immobilize and ditch her (she does this to Barbara once too!).

Stephanie asks Cass to train her, Cass likes showing off; whether Cass is a good teacher is up for debate, but they both have fun.

Stephanie isn’t used to other people having villain dads like she does, so she assumes Cass can’t relate, then frames it as a competition when she finally thinks to ask after Cass’s dad and learns he’s an even worse villain. But after that, she shifts gears to commiserating, and they laugh together over their terrible childhoods.

Cass taunts Stephanie about Steph always losing at rooftop tag!

When Stephanie is presumed dead, Cass hallucinates her under high-stress or near-death situations.

They’re a pair of teen girl vigilantes who can be inconsiderate of other people’s feelings, who’ve found someone who sometimes super gets where they’re coming from, but other times can’t understand each other at all. They become important to each other fast.

Batgirl 2000 let Cass & Steph be messy, imperfect people with a messy, imperfect friendship, and it felt realistic. I found it pretty satisfying to read! Cass’s relationships with her supporting cast are honestly one of the really enjoyable parts of her book.

It also provides a potential model for Stephanie’s platonic relationships with fellow teen vigilantes. So I can see why fans pick it up for a post-break-up friendship between Tim & Steph.

A lot of fic sands off the rough edges, though. For all of the characters’ relationships. I don’t see a lot of fic where I can imagine Cass nerve striking a friend to keep them out of the way. Tim is rarely allowed to really yell at people when he thinks they’re in the wrong (outside vent fic). Fanon Steph might try to hold evidence hostage to get what she wants, but she’s more likely to give up after a couple refusals and say “Ugh, you owe me one!” instead of sticking to the extortion.

but don’t say anything about all the fanworks where Talia is blamed for things she did not do in canon (example, having it be her idea for Jason to attack Tim), and don’t encourage people to choose the continuities/retcons where she’s canonically not a sexual predator over the ones where she is (thanks, canon, for that double whammy of sexism and racism),

and don’t say anything about all the fanworks where Janet Drake is a worse parent than Jack despite her limited canon page time showing her to at worst be just as neglectful, and in fact more empathetic,

Then I do not, in fact, consider you to be a feminist fan bravely railing against fandom sexism. You’re just a stan of one particular character, who’s picked up some social justice language to harass other fans with.

It’s fine to like Stephanie and wish canon treated her better.

It’s not fine to accuse other fans of sexism just because they don’t stan your favorite.

Tim is seventeen in Red Robin. This is canon. I don’t care if the the math from the preceding years of comics doesn’t add up. If we tried to count every school break or holiday celebration Tim had on-page he’d probably either be in his early 20′s by the end, or have had to have started his Robin career as a preteen (and Dick would be well out of his twenties).

It is a canon plot point that Tim has to become emancipated to thwart Ra’s plot with Hush. That can only be necessary if Tim is under eighteen. And that’s almost halfway through the run. Which means regardless of any other time markers, Tim has to be under eighteen at the start of Red Robin too.

So, yes, it actually is Dick’s job at the time to take care of Tim, unless he relinquishes guardianship to someone else. Or Tim becomes emancipated.

Bruce might not be legally dead, but the hero community assumes he is. Adult siblings probably don’t automatically become legal guardians in the event of parental death, but we see Dick taking responsibility for Damian, and considering “contingencies within contingencies” is the Bats’ modus operandi, it would be downright bizarre for Bruce not to have some kinda of guardianship papers prepared.

Either Dick is responsible for neither Damian nor Tim, or he is responsible for both of them.

And you know what? Cassandra Cain is 18 during her first Batgirl run, and she does get legally adopted before Bruce ‘dies’. If Dick wanted to absolve himself of responsibility for Tim, while keeping things within the family instead of reaching out to other heroes, he could call her up and arranged a guardianship transfer.

But no. He doesn’t. He just brushes off all of Tim’s concerns to the point Tim runs away from home.

Is Tim running away part of a comic book adventure plot to save Bruce? Yeah. Is Dick probably not legally responsible for Tim in-universe because Hush is impersonating Bruce so Bruce isn’t legally dead? Yeah. Does this put Tim and Damian in a weird custody limbo? Yeah.

Point all that out. Argue against Tim’s decisions and in favor of Dick’s all you want.

But don’t fucking claim Tim was older than he canonically was because you want an easy out for Dick.