I understand being disappointed with timkon content. I like the ship, but so much fan content uses t-shirt wearing 2003 Teen Titans Kon, and I find the personality that version of the character has boring. 90s Kon had a lot of spunk and clashed with Tim in interesting ways in 1998 Young Justice.
And I get it. 2003 Teen Titans had the cloning and Lex Luthor DNA drama. But on a pure character level, it doesn't hit as much for me.
oh yeah, teen titans '03 is a run that's like 80% dogshit and 20% IM CHEWING WOOD THIS COULDVE BEEN SO GOOD IF IT WAS GOOD UGHHGHGGHGNGGNGNGHRGHHGRHGHHH!!!!!!!!!!! which is to say that it's SUCH a tedious slog most of the time but god if it doesn't have the bones of a story that could've been riveting.
i am a loud hater of the luthor retcon, though. i hate it so much. it added nothing to kon's character and actively detracted a lot. and frankly, geoff johns's characterization of lex luthor is really nothingburger and boring to me compared to mid-triangle era/90s luthor, who was layered and complex and fascinating. like he absolutely sucked shit as a person but in much more interesting ways than geoff johns's heavyhanded shithead luthor who sucked just for the sake of sucking, in my opinion. i loathe this retcon and it will never be real to me. <3
i do personally think that people often overblow how much tim and kon clashed in yj98, though. they definitely butted heads early on, and they had their huge blowout fight on apokolips, but i also have noticed a lot of the panels people trot out to point at them arguing or majorly having issues are actually from when match was impersonating kon to sabotage the team from within. i also think peter david just had a generally kind of mean sense of humor when writing friendships - like there's the issue where cassie, bart, and cissie set anita up with lil lobo as a joke, and kon tells them off for it, or the issue where the girls go to the wendy filming with cissie despite how desperately kon wants to go because it's his favorite show, and that's played for laughs too. kon and cassie get into a brawl that demolishes an acre of forest, like, just because they started bickering over who was the better fighter.
like, with all the relationships in yj98 being kind of Like That, i do feel like people put too much weight on it re: tim and kon comparatively. especially when we look at them later in the run - when tim comes back to the team, kon is immediately excited to just call him "tim" because he knows his name now, and then they immediately start clowning on poor ray together. they don't really have any major conflict after owaw ends, and that conflict was majorly predicated by tower of babel over in jla. by graduation day, they're very close, to the point of winick's infamous closet scene.
i will say i think my perception of their relationship is also colored by having read superboy '94 before i read yj98; in sb94 and wf3, they do bicker some, but they also establish a healthy respect for each other quickly. tim tapes wendy for kon when he's off in hypertime. when kon loses his powers, tim is his second or third choice when listing potential teachers for nonpowered combat. there is also, of course, the alternate universe where tim died and kon took up his mantle and costume, and the issue where kon scares himself with his own powers, and the person he turns to about it is tim - he shows up to annoy tim, who sees right through him and is about to get the truth of what's wrong out of him before the plot of the issue hits. and then after owaw, kon talks to linda about how he misses tim even though he doesn't regret what he said, and tim cameos in his nightmare sequence in #92 when kon is lamenting that tim is his ex-best friend. so to me their relationship has always had that strong foundation of mutual trust and respect and fondness, even when they bicker and banter.
