The Studying Pearl~

Then what was this?!

@thesuperiorloki

Funny how it always works only one way, right?

When its about good things he did lets ignore post Avengers Loki because it didnt happen.

But when it comes to crimes lets count post Avengers events because that fits into the narrative we wanna present.

- no Lady Loki,Lokis even disguisted by the idea of female variant - "but Loki never called himself Lady Loki in comics"

- "maybe Tom didnt want to wear horns" from old interviews we know Tom was always super excited to wear them,he is a big child so this excuse is more than lame

- "but clothes dont make Loki" (never got the answer to question Then why is Sylvie wearing them? She didnt have to,to prove she was Loki because as you say,its not clothes that makes Loki a Loki)

- "they gave him ordinary clothing so people focus more on his human side" eehhm i didnt see his asgardian clothing ever stopped us from seeing his vulnerability or humanity or anything in his most emotional moments (vault scene, prison scene in TDW) he was in asgardian and we still cried with him

- "the asgardian costume must be uncomfortable" (then was Sophia forced to be in uncomfortable costume the whole series?)

- "he doesnt strut like before because asgardian armour was restricting Tom's natural movements before" That one is extra embarassing. I can give you 100 gifs of Tom strutting in casual clothing and he always walks just like Loki 2011-2017.

- "Im sure Mobius knows Loki was mindcontrolled but he kept it to himself to get a reaction he wanted from Loki". So you are admitting Mobius lied to manipulate Loki. And you still call it therapy and say he is Loki's friend. Amazing.

- "but Michael loves Loki". Bro. He called him asshole,said he is guilty of killing his mother (Kurse killed her not Loki) even said Odin killed Laufey. He didnt even watch movies properly.

- to Loki being able to read minds in Ragnarok but suddenly not in series Im told "but this is 2012 Loki. He hasnt learnt it yet." So a God thats 1000 years old just happened to not master this one skill in 1000 years,and learnt it only in that 1 year of his inprisonment in Dark world? Makes complete sense.

- "he isnt using magic against people Sylvie enchanted because he doesnt wanna hurt them". Sylvie clearly doesnt care if they get hurt in fight with Loki. And yet series still frames him as narcissist and villain.

- "She is blonde not dark haired because she wanted to wipe out all traces of her being Loki". Then why is she still wearing his clothes? Besides she escaped TVA in jumpsuit. Where did she get asgardian clothing and if chose asgardian,maybe to remind her of her home, why Loki colours if as you say, she wants to wipe out all traces of Loki identity?

- "but the series gave us bisexual representation" where? Im bisexual myself and I saw none other than few lights in background.

- (before the series) "the Loki logo represents Loki's shapeshifting abilities and different time periods he will visit in series". He visited almost none and used shapeshifting once for like 15 seconds so no, it was simply lazy logo.

And the biggest one

She’s Loki when she’s the main character of the show called Loki.

She’s Loki when she gets Loki’s clothes or the horns.

She’s Loki when it needs to be a metaphor for self love and acceptance.

She’s Loki when Loki being so lacking in magic is questioned (Sylvie can do it, isn’t she Loki?)

She’s Loki when people complain about genderfluid representation (this Loki’s a girl right?)

She’s not Loki when she says she’s not. Why was she so upset at being called Loki?

She’s not Loki when the self-love metaphor starts looking romantic and gets a little bit too weird for people.

She’s not Loki when the writers don’t really seem to like Loki, but Sylvie’s still cool.

*Deep breath* 

I think I’m finally calm enough to put into words exactly why I hated the finale and why I wasn’t completely surprised that I hated it. 

(Heads-up: this is really long and pretty negative. If you disagree, I would of course appreciate your point of view and love to hear it, but just thought I’d let you know in case this is the kind of post you would like to avoid.)

To me, it felt like every character on the show got betrayed in some way or another, but the main ones are Han Seo (devastatingly), Chayoung (obviously) and Han Seok (bear with me). 

Cha Young: 

She started out as a solid FL who annoyed some people for sure, but who had so much promise as someone unconventional and bold. The way her mother’s death affected her and caused a clear shift in her personality was a super interesting plot point that really never got explored. We have no idea how she came to sacrifice her morality in joining Wusang, just that she wanted to spite her father, which is a very superficial exploration. She gets cute idiosyncrasies in lieu of an actual character and an actual character arc. 

We also, halfway through the show, seem to forget that her father’s death was the initial trigger. Cha young does not suggest bold ideas or intricate plans, she doesn’t fill the gaps Vincenzo is incapable of filling (because that would require that Vincenzo have flaws, and that’s not something the writers can abide), and she’s literally victimized in episode 19 and bedridden in episode 20, and that is IT. 

Someone who started out supposedly as Vincenzo’s equal just became another piece in his chess set, no matter how important a piece she may be. 

So her role as a badass avenger is trashed. That leaves her role as a love interest. Now, as Vincenzo’s love interest, she was supposed to get kidnapped in like episode 5 or 6 at the most if the villain has any brains whatsoever (Han Seok may or may not, more on that later). We need a reason for that not to happen too early. Cue villain is somehow in love with her for all of 15 minutes or so throughout a 20-episode series because a love triangle is inconceivable with the show’s current structure and for its purposes. 

So, she spends 15 or so episodes making the first move on Vincenzo, every time, putting herself out there, creating cute moments, getting nothing in return, and then he leaves. No confession, nothing much, he wasn’t even going to say goodbye or give her the choice of coming with him. 

I’m sure more chayenzo-oriented fans have already expressed all the necessary outrage over this, so I’ll move on to the part that I’ve personally been way more emotionally invested in from the get go: the Jang brothers. 

Han Seo: 

I was among the minority that  hated the “Vinny hyung” angle from the get-go and I’ve ranted about it in another post, so I won’t get into it here in-depth, but basically it was because I felt like Vincenzo hadn’t earned it, so to have the last words Han Seo hears be “You deserve to be my brother” or whatever the fuck he was on about PISSED ME OFF. It’s VINCENZO who doesn’t deserve to be Han Seo’s brother and hasn’t done a single thing to earn it. He was a good ally. The situation he allowed Han Seo to be a part of was beneficial to him, but Han Seo’s attachment to him was neither healthy nor heartwarming, and it certainly wasn’t returned on the level he offered it.

Vincenzo’s disregard of his death didn’t strike me as odd because I never saw enough indications that this was a two-way street and Han Seo’s safety and well-being came second so often that I didn’t get the impression Vincenzo was doing much to keep him alive. This is what I meant when I said the show was glorifying a torture survivor’s trauma responses. Han Seo himself, as a torture survivor, meant nothing to them. He was just there to create one more contrived comparison between Vincenzo and Han Seok. Instead of recovering from the trauma, it’s simply employed to someone else’s favor. He doesn’t go to prison for Han Seok, he takes a bullet for Vincenzo, and we’re supposed to see that as so much better.

All of that might (JUST MIGHT) not have ruined the show for me if he’d died better. 1) It was narratively pointless and totally avoidable, 2) they could’ve framed it as heroic, but instead Han Seok’s hand patting his head is pushing it down, so he can’t even get shot with his chin up and his back straight, Taec’s already taller, so the angle’s fucked and the whole cinematography screamed “kicking an injured puppy” and most certainly NOT “survivor finally stands up to his abuser”. The final nail in the proverbial and literal coffin is that he is mourned by no one. They’re FLIRTING not 3 MINUTES LATER, it felt so tone deaf and left such a bad taste. As I said, I didn’t expect significant mourning from Vincenzo (gotta say, I didn’t expect no mourning, that was a shocker), and Cha young and the tenants had no real interactions with him and no reason to mourn him, which left only one person who could. 

Which brings me to Han Seok. 

Han Seok started out as a solid villain, clear goals, clear skills that help him achieve his goals and basically make him a villain worth defeating, and a very complex relationship with both his own psychopathy and his brother. 

Let me get it out of the way: I do not believe Han Seok is capable of killing Han Seo because he had every reason and every opportunity to do so in previous episodes and couldn’t do it (I say couldn’t because a certain degree of reluctance is in itself inability). Han Seo’s danger far outweighed his material value the minute he shot Han Seok and then completely lost any value once he came out to the world as the chairman and it became clear that the prosecution would be going after him if anything happened, and not his brother. But time and again, he’s proven he’s all bark and no bite when it comes to Han Seo (killing-wise, specifically). 

The scene where he asks him to beat Vincenzo to death could be interpreted as him wanting to give Vincenzo the “painful death” he would have given him, but honestly, I think he was way past that point. He just wanted him dead in the “You crazy? we have to kill him before he kills us” sense. To that end, killing off a key ally of Vincenzo’s, who betrayed you and almost got you killed a bunch of times, should take priority, but Han Seok’s priority is reclaiming Han Seo by forcing him back onto his side. Now, much like his “love for Cha young”, Han Seok’s keenness on not killing his brother was essential to the writers so that Han Seo can justifiably make it this far and still be useful to Vincenzo (he can’t help if Han Seok completely excludes him from all events, plans and management processes, so Han Seok needs to want to keep him on his side enough not to do that even when it’s more prudent). 

All of this isn’t to say it’s unbelievable that he would kill Han Seo, but it’s DEFINITELY unbelievable that he would stay the same man after killing him. Someone here (I’m sorry, I don’t rememebr who) once said that Han Seo had become, over time, far more of a foil to his brother than Vincenzo was. To me, this means that Post-Han Seo Han Seok would be out of balance (tilted screen), unhinged in a way he never was before. The Han Seok we see shrugs and “oh, well”-s and moves on in a flash, not really any different from the villain he was four minutes and a whole brother earlier. 

This is very consistent with the way the show has been de-humanizing him from the start. I’m not saying this to defend Han Seok in any way, he’s a serial killer, an abuser and a total maniac. But you can be all those things and still a human being. In fact, you can ONLY be those things if you’re a human being. The show used its villain vs villain idea to justify a lot, but in the end, Vincenzo had to be a protagonist. He had to follow up every “I’m a villain” with a contrived “but at least I’m not (insert something worse)”. 

On the level of humans:

1) Vincenzo is supposedly different because he doesn’t hurt children or women (unless the women deserve it, and shooting a parent in front of their kid doesn’t count as hurting.) 

But we never see Han Seok hurting women or children either. In fact, if we proceed with the “chayoung is the myung hee of the good guys” comparison, he hasn’t hurt any women nearly as badly as Vincenzo did. 

2) Babel vs Mafia 

Babel’s corruption is compared a lot to the mafia, with Vincenzo commenting repeatedly that the people are WORSE than the mafia…which is bullshit. Babel is a set of companies that provide goods and services, but use illegal means to maximize their profit, so they hurt/kill people in the process because they want more money and care about money more than ethics. The Mafia is an inherently criminal organization that functions PURELY on the basis of its criminality. Every single dime Vincenzo spends is blood money. None of it is clean. And while we’re on the topic, I find the whole “taking Miri under his wing” thing pretty unreasonable too because he tried to have her killed you guys, I cannot believe we’re just glossing over that. He had everyone who worked on that vault killed, just random fucking construction workers. And he’s not sorry. And the show tells you he shouldn’t be. 

3) Repentance

Han Seok says outright he won’t atone, and while Vincenzo says no such thing out loud he just…doesn’t repent, I guess. He keeps the blood money, he goes back to being a full-time mafia dude doing mafia things. He leaves the same man he arrived. 

So, if on the level of harm inflicted upon humanity, Vincenzo and Han Seok are pretty much equal (and Vincenzo might actually be worse), then why should we root for Vincenzo? 

Well, my friend, that’s where the dehumanization comes in! 

I was initially very excited to see their portrayal of a psychopath because of the very interesting ways in which the informal moral code and official justice system surrounding a psychopath/sociopath/narcissist affect their behavior and their chances of not turning out rotten, and the show looked like it was looking at corruption in general. 

But as the show went on, the villain vs villain thing proved not to be enough, Vincenzo has to be better in some way (or if you’re as obsessed with him as the writers are, then ALL ways), so it became a villain vs monster narrative. Vincenzo isn’t ethical or fair or in any way interested in having a remotely positive impact on society, but at least he’s A HUMAN BEING unlike SOMEBODY. So, the characterization goes to shit, Han Seok becomes a cartoon card-board cut out of a villain and emphasis is put on how pointless his violence is, as opposed to how purposeful Vincenzo’s is. 

This is dangerous on multiple levels (and I promise this is the last point I’m making). 

1) For people in general, dehumanizing abusers/murderers/etc. makes us very liable to forget that you don’t have to be “a monster” to cause harm, and it makes people complacent in their belief that they are “not bad people” since they aren’t total monsters. The Banality of Evil is a thing, and in this series, it goes completely ignored. No one is inherently incapable of good or inherently undeserving of humanity. 

2) For victims of abuse in specific, it’s dangerous to portray abusers (including serial killer and non-serial killer ones) as entirely bad and unlovable, because it poses the dual risk of making victims less likely to acknowledge their abuse if it comes from someone who cares about or loves them on some level because the idea that someone cannot both love and hurt you is so stereotypical. Your abuser can genuinely want you in their lives and need you and, on some level, love you, and IT DOESN’T MATTER if that love doesn’t stop them from hurting you. 

On the other hand, portraying the victims of abuse as capable of flipping an off switch and hating the abuser with no hesitation or second thoughts to the point of unapologetically and cheerfully helping someone kill them and having no mixed feelings about it sends the message that if you CAN’T do that, then are you really abused? Are sure you’re not complicit in your own abuse? Do you even want to get rid of them? 

Why when someone says things like torture is not therapy, or the characterization of Loki was radically off, or the plot was inconsistent or Sylvie was a Mary Sue, is this a reason to claim we support toxic masculinity, or hate bisexuals or women, or use the uwu thing to insult us and say we think Loki can do no wrong?  

The show sucked ass in my opinion. It stripped Loki of everything which made him Loki in the first place and it did this from the very first moment. In place of a complex and conflicted man with a rich and nuanced background, it substituted hair flips and crying and Tom’s face parroting lines from the other movies and comics without any understanding of what they meant. It slapped Loki’ s name and face on a terrible story that had nothing to do with him.

IF THEY HAD TREATED THE TORTURE MOBIUS PUT LOKI THROUGH AS TORTURE AND NOT “THERAPY”

IF THEY HAD FRAMED SYLVIE AS BEING A BAD PERSON INSTEAD OF JUST A #GirlBoss AND HAD HER CHARACTER ARC BE LEARNING TO NOT BE A SHITHEAD

IF THEY HAD FRAMED LOKI AS THE TRAUMA VICTIM HE IS AND NOT JUST SOME WHINY PRINCELING WHOSE ONLY PURPOSE IN THE SHOW IS TO BE THE BUTT OF EVERY OTHER JOKE AND A PUNCHING BAG

Its like….they WANT the dysfunction, actually….they just don’t want it to be the fault of whomever their personal fave is.

And sure, I mean, you could obviously point to my bias and say well its awfully convenient that it seems that your personal fave is the only one who’s never ‘really’ responsible and is always getting blamed for everyone else’s shit….except, I don’t really think its a matter of convenience or bias at all, when you consider that out of the whole Batfam, Dick is the only one of them who ever has any kind of reputation as being ‘the glue of the family’ or the one most often trying to bring them together or get them to cooperate or get along.

Soooooo……when people actually want to focus on the family dysfunction and write about them at odds…..that’s the character who MOST needs to be sidelined, have his credibility or effectiveness tanked, or made a source of the family’s dysfunction. Because otherwise, he’s constantly in the way of….an author keeping things largely dysfunctional.

And I think that’s the part that really bugs me….because there really isn’t any other character you can point to and showcase a history of trying to repair bridges in the family, other than Tim ‘getting Dick and Bruce to talk again’ when he first became Robin - which, as I’ve mentioned in the past, isn’t a take I personally adhere to because I think it de-emphasizes and devalues the fact that Dick is the one who had to shoulder the actual work and forgive Bruce for the shit he’d done or at least just let it slide, in order to be there for Tim. Bruce and Tim didn’t actually have to sacrifice anything, do anything all that hard, because Bruce was the instigator of the conflict with Dick, and Tim was at that point mostly just a bystander/fairly neutral third party. 

But my point is just…..its really frustrating being a fan of a character that even people who aren’t his fans tend to agree is the most invested in bringing the family together at various points….and so often see him turned into the stumbling block that prevents that from happening….while at the same time seeing most people insist that the ideal end goal for most fics is the family together, happy and healthy.

Like, if that’s truly the end goal, then why not just build on the foundation that’s already there in canon instances of Dick trying to pull his family together….instead of regressing him in ways he’s never acted in canon, just to have MORE issues in the way of this family finally all getting on the same page.

(It’s not like it was smooth sailing and all hugs and smiles, but at least it ended pretty well…)

Soooo, I have seen a lot of people comparing the way that Bruce replaced Dick with Jason versus the way that Dick replaced Tim with Damian. (This happened some on my Batfam Replacement Montage post [x], which is what first brought it to my attention.) For some reason, a lot of people come out of this comparison thinking that Dick was not only just as bad and insensitive as Bruce (if they even think Bruce was in the wrong at all that is) but even that Dick is somehow worse. This legitimately confused the heck out of me. I don’t know if people are reading the same comics as me (though honestly with all the retcons and nonsense going on maybe we aren’t reading the same comics), so I’m just going to break each replacement down for you here and maybe you’ll see where I’m coming from when I think that is completely out of left field. 

Let’s start with Bruce. These panels have Dick (as Nightwing) recounting how things between him and Bruce went down (I’ve rewritten the text just below the image if it is blurry): 

Batman #416 

So while I was still laid up in bed, you dropped the bad news on me. No ifs, ands, or buts…I wasn’t to play Robin anymore. You couldn’t continue to assume the responsibility for a child fighting crime. For six years you trained me to be a crimefighter, then denied me that role. Of course, you assured me that it was for my own good. I lay there with a bandaged shoulder and my life in ruins. You smiled. Kicked a great big hole in my life, then walked out of the room. 

Following an encounter with the Joker, Dick is shot in the shoulder and nearly dies. Instead of comforting Dick, Bruce decides to follow up this traumatic event by firing Dick from Robin immediately. Bruce calls Dick a child, disregarding all the time Dick spent training to become Robin and Dick’s own agency, and basically attempts to kick him out of crimefighting all together. This may not be clear because of the image quality, but Dick literally starts crying in that last panel. But it doesn’t stop there: 

I don’t see what option I had, other than to split. Alfred tried to talk me out of it. It was Alfred who forced money on me so I’d have something to live on. You couldn’t even be bothered to say goodbye. 

Despite his concern for Dick being the motivating factor behind the firing, Bruce doesn’t even seem to be aware that Dick is leaving, and so Alfred is the one that tries to convince Dick to stay in Bruce’s stead. And where is Bruce during all this you may ask??

Sorry, he was busy working on a case at the time. And people wonder why Dick didn’t realize Bruce was doing this out of concern rather than distrust of his capabilities. Anyway, Dick leaves, eventually joins the Titans, and becomes Nightwing. Eighteen whole months pass–a freaking year and a half–and not once does Bruce try to get in touch with Dick to sort things out. Then, Dick finds out about his replacement in the newspaper: 

Bruce fired Dick because he didn’t want a child sidekick. Then he goes out and gets a freaking child sidekick, and, even better, makes him Robin. Robin isn’t just a costume to Dick. In many comics, Dick refers to the Robin role as meaning family, and that’s because Dick specifically crafted Robin as a way to remember his parents. 

Robin Annual #4 and The Titans #16

It doesn’t get much more personal than using your dead mother’s nickname for you and your family’s colors (which across comics are pretty consistently some combo of yellow/green/red) as your hero persona. And Bruce, despite knowing the origins of the costume, felt like he could do whatever he wanted with it. And he didn’t even have the decency to be upfront about it. You can see why this drives me crazy. He spends the rest of the issue beating around the bush and not telling Dick why he adopted Jason and made him Robin, and, in the end, he once again kicks Dick out of the house. Nice parenting Bruce. 

Now with Dick. I’ve seen some people accuse Dick of not talking to Tim and just pulling the Robin mantle right out from under him, but that isn’t really what the comics show us: 

Red Robin #1

Dick tries to talk to Tim about it, and, unlike Bruce, he explicitly states his reasons for giving Damian Robin. He validates Tim, and tells him that they are equals. Even when Tim lashes out, Dick makes it clear that he still wants Tim around, even if it is not as Robin. And, once again unlike Bruce, Dick doesn’t proceed to just abandon Tim when things don’t go his way. He sends Tim’s friends his way and when that doesn’t work, Dick goes to find Tim and try to talk things out in person: 

Red Robin #4

So why doesn’t Tim just tell Dick his theory? That’s because, as much as people apparently want to believe that Tim had the whole thing figured out and it was everyone else’s fault that no one was listening, Tim had no actual evidence whatsoever that Bruce was actually alive. He was kind of in denial about Bruce’s death and all he had was a weak hunch.

Tim rides off without giving any explanations, leaving Dick to deal with all the fallout of Bruce’s “death” by himself. Dick had to abandon everything that he built (Nightwing, his various superhero teams, etc.) in order to take up Bruce’s identity. He had to deal with being Batman, running Wayne Enterprises, and raising Damian (a murderous brat who spent literally all his time insulting and undermining him in those early days), all while managing his own grief. And he had no one but Alfred for support. So maybe he didn’t handle Tim as well as he could have (I don’t really know what he could have done differently but hey if you want to let me know feel free), but I honestly think that under the circumstances he tried his freaking best, which is more than Bruce did for him. And when Tim returns, he immediately expects Dick to put everything on hold to help him, once again without explanation, and what does Dick do?

Red Robin #11

He trusts Tim and puts everything on hold to help Tim out. Even though Tim pretty much left him high and dry when he needed help the most. So yeah, I don’t see where people are coming from when they act like Dick somehow singlehandedly destroyed his relationship with Tim. I don’t understand how Tim could possibly trust Jason (ie the person who very nearly murdered him) more than he trusts Dick (ie the person who mentored and acted as a confidant to him for literal years) in such a short span of time.

Young Justice Secret Origins

I feel like one of the really horrible things about the Grayson’s deaths was that it was so public. Because then nearly everyone treated this tragedy that took the two people that Dick loved most in the world away from him, that utterly destroyed his life, like a spectacle. And so Dick’s parents’ deaths didn’t belong to Dick alone…it was all part of the show, hot gossip, public domain. And all these strangers  thought that they had a right to a piece of the spectacle, a right to do what they’d like with that story–rich women at galas, pinching Dick’s cheeks and cooing about this poor, orphaned boy, nosy reporters sniffing out the next big scoop, asking invasive questions, the whole crowd gasping and shouting and gossiping, spreading the news until all of Gotham knew. 

Let me go a step more, and add on the fact that it’s a spectator sport to the batfamily as well.

The way that Dick’s trauma is an experience that defines Tim, and in later retcons, Jason’s life, and we don’t really see Dick’s input about how that makes him feel in text. We get subtext. Or half looks away. Or beats of text that read quick but are never direct.

We see how much Dick’s parent’s death seems to be this major turning point, sending his brothers towards their respective destinies, giving them this intense and significant bond to the path that created the first Robin…and yet it doesn’t seem to bring them any closer to Dick himself, ya know the *actual* person this tragedy happened to…

THAT is the weirdest thing to me when it comes to any rehash about the Grayson’s death

It’s always been about what it did for Tim, and then eventually, Jason.

It’s almost like Narrative-wise they parasite off Dick’s own origin story…which…ew.

If this was Bruce’s trauma…we get a whole damn book dedicated to his thought bubbles. We get wreathes placed reverently in the site where his parents died. We get these panels with mournful tones, and the bat!fam pretty much all careful and tiptoeing and deferential…and MOST of all empathetic.

And yes, I know Dick has always been different than Bruce when it comes to his past tragedy. It’s what made him “move on,” whereas Bruce is always re-triggered and re-traumatized every second of the day. But “moving on” is different than being “completely over it.” And I wish other members of his family could be more sympathetic and mindful of this difference.

I know this panel comes from YJ, which is truly about Tim’s perspective.

But I’ve seen recounts of Bruce’s tragedy from Tim’s POV that has this sense of emotional respect given towards Bruce. It’s not about how Tim feels about the event, being that he wasn’t there. He’s reflective over what it means to Bruce himself, and how it’s affected his behavior, as well as The Mission…which is something no bat brother really does for Dick (if y’all can find it please lmk).

Which I find SUPER weird.

Sure, since Tim and Jason both saw the Grayson’s fall to their deaths, they probably have input, hell, they might even be a little traumatized themselves, but no…

Time after time it’s always about how it leads them to Robin. How it sorta binds them to that legacy, since they were there the night it began…

But is there any consideration for their brother…Nope. Haven’t seen it yet.

That’s just a weird omission. Among MANY omissions when it comes to Dick’s emotional headspace.

And it’s a pattern I’ve seen in repetition with practically EVERY ONE of Dick’s trauma’s.

None of his “family” members seem to care what these events mean to him. Only what it means to them, or effects them when they’re missing that HUGE functioning piece to the cogwheel that keeps the bat “family” running.

This is kinda the *worst* example to use.  Let me break down why.  Tim actually goes back into Dick’s origin story, because he intends to use it as a basis for how/why Dick could go hypothetically Dark Side.  No empathy points there.

The whole tone of the panels you’ve selected are very heavy handed, and aren’t about sympathizing with Dick, or trying to reach his perspective. It’s about bias.  Showing the way in which Dick’s “scars” lead him to being against the “chaos of circuses,” and about sending him on a path to Batman-like control (irony).

It’s a way for Tim to imagine Dick as a despot, maniacal Ruler of Gotham, who thinks only HIS way is the way to saving Gotham.

The irony of this entire issue…whoa.  It blows me away.

This is pretty much the issue where you see Tim actually on his way to becoming Bruce-lite, in Protest Of Course, but still, on his way down the Rabbit hole.

Did i mention the irony of this issue?

Throughout, Tim’s essentially picking apart ALL of his allies, wondering which one of them will be the one to go Dark Side and lead to the future DESTRUCTION of Gotham.  Why?  Well, timeline hand-wavy warnings from the FUTURE, ya know a future with a dead Alfred (lol another irony).  So, to save EVERYONE Timbo decides to come up with The RECIPE for DISASTER himself to show his allies.  And if ANY one of them is all “HELL YEAH” about it, well, he’ll know who the baddie is.

And Tim, admittedly, gets “Real into It.”  I mean he literally head bubbles, “I get into it–Way into it.  I have to.”  And he knows if he shows it to his buddies, the one who’ll get “hungry for it” is gonna be the one who’s gonna be all for the Ends Justify the Means, Do Whatcha Gotta do Because YOU HAVE TO Future Bad Guy ™.

Seriously, Tim.  You don’t see the irony?

Anywho, after the composition of his Evil Master Plan, he feels “dizzy, queasy, confused.”  But he’s ready now, to reread his MASTERPIECE to get “into his role” and “imagine [himself] a fanatic, seeing how each article could feed into [his] beliefs…”  (yeah, sweety, ya don’t have to imagine) and face his friends.

All the while, his paranoia eventually builds upon itself to the interesting thought bubble of OMG WHAT IF I’M THE REASON WHY MY BUDDIES GO DARKSIDE??!! What if ME showing this to THEM sends them on their Evil Destiny?

yeah. um.  yeah. he’s kinda going nuts here. i mean this whole thing is sending him somewhere No Bueno.

Oh but guess WHAT!

It was a ROBIN TRAINING EXERCISE©!!!!! Yay!!

Tim actually figures out a blip to the whole time-wavy warning, and realizes this whole thing was actually an Alfred-compliant set-up by, well, you guessed it…

BRUCE!!!  YAAAY.

Apparently, this was step one in LEVELING UP Tim’s Robin training.  And Bruce is PROUD.

He approves of Tim questioning and being suspicious of the “inner character” of his friends (his family), “his own preconceptions of the mechanics of TIME,” and the “reliability of his own memories”…wow.  yeah. um.

SHUDDER.

and like any reasonably sane person, Tim quits…

…for about a second.

His reasoning.  He won’t ever get to talk or interact or see Bruce or Dick ever again if he goes off to live a civilian life (sure Tim).  And he just HAS to follow down this particular Rabbit Hole…just because…he HAS to…? 

I guess he got “hungry for it” after all.  Sigh.

Robin vol 2 #120 (2004) RIP fairly normal Tim, and the rise of Bruce-lite.

(Also, here I am getting ever SO CREEPED out with the way fans always say Tim is The Best Robin, because of the way he’s so committed Bruce.)

COMMITED…yup.

I understand why this is a widely popular take. It’s been on-blast in our faces because of comics articles and creator/writers (who wrote storylines or arcs withTim as Robin) saying that Tim was a brand established “better Robin.”

But do the math with me guys...

I’m guessing y’all read Tim Drake as both Robin and Red Robin, and probably didn’t read Dick’s run as Robin because it’s 44 years of cross titles and issues and it’s dated and it’s a MASSIVE bulk of info...

44 years is A LOT of ground to cover (and it so happens to be 13 years MORE than the COMBINATION of Tim’s years as both Robin and Red Robin btw).

What did you guys think he was doing during that time?

There is a FORMULA to Robin.

Robin is a child who excels. A child who is a cut above other average children because he is filled with almost inhuman tenacity. He is way above average intelligence, a gifted prodigy. He is at peak, or beyond the peak of most athletes. He accompanies Batman, and is the Watson figure to Bruce’s Sherlock, acting as both sounding board and ego check, as well as student and family member. He’s also the humanizing factor to Batman, essentially symbolizing Light and Hope for Batman to keep himslef sane by (like the weirdo co-dependent figure Bruce is).

Now, Robin is ALL of this ONLY because Dick created this TEMPLATE and, the following is Very Important...

Because he WAS Robin.

(Remember we always say that Dick never needed a name or a partition in his ID because he was a different hero than Bruce, a person who is fundamentally himself regardless of what name he goes by, with a few instances of him having to dumb down his knowledge/skill sets because he needed to protect Batman’s secret ID.)

What? Did you think Dick’s version of Robin was only Puns and Sunshine?

Did you think Tim Drake exists in a vacuum that isn’t influenced/SUSTAINED by all these very qualities?

Tim was created to *be* Robin, ergo, he took on A LOT of characteristics/attributes already *established* by Robin/Dick.

Because-say it with me now-Tim follows the SAME template.

Seriously, he’s like an AU!Dick, if Dick was some rich kid who happened to watch the Grayson’s fall to their deaths, and happened to see the quad flip performed that night and then happened to see Dick!Robin do it too, and through his (really overinflated) “Detective Powers of Observation” decided a very obvious 1 plus a *very* obvious 1 equaled a VERY OBVIOUS 2.

(It’s really not as amazing as Retcons makes it, but that’s A WHOLE OTHER THING.)

Tim happened because Bat Offices wanted a Dick/Robin-like character to fill the Void. And they wanted a character type that was similar enough that it wouldn’t shake the boat so much in that oh so iconic Batman & Robin Duo we luv so much.

(Seriously, why else do you think Tim survived so long? There was a Robin Recipe already established 44 years before he came along.)

Dick was OG NERD ROBIN. Chemist. Scientist. Accordion-playing, jingle-singing, intense, brooding, focused, no-nonsense, Mathematical GENIUS. Detective...etc.

Is this all sounding familiar? Well, it *should*

44 years of it ain’t a thing to handwave away. Dick Grayson established about 70% of what is TEXTBOOK Robin traits.

And the thing that Tim reaaaaally brought to the table...

Was the fact that he wasn’t Perfect.

Being *such* a goofball HOT MESS (tm), doing the Robin gig with 50% MORE INSECURITY...

That made Tim oddly endearing and unique as a Robin.

And his Intelligence and Methodology and ways of expressing both, as well as his own personality was hella Unique compared to poor Jason Todd pre-Crisis who was a Carbon Copy of his Bro.

Tim Drake was flighty, nervous, not quite self aware but trying to be and sincere about his exploits and insecurity playing/acting the Hero. It didn’t come to him naturally.

He was the HARD WORKING, Robin. UNIQUE and unto himself...

For all of 17 years until they switched his personality with his brother, Dick (conveniently in time for Infinite Crisis where Dick was “supposed” to have Died).

Read this for further elaboration of this Swap:

https://dark-heir-apparent.tumblr.com/post/626836604006350848/um-yeah-so-when-did-dick-and-tim-swap

So then he spends the next 14 years predominantly as this weirdly unhealthy version of Dick (with maybe a few offshoot instances where he’s back to being himslef again). And during these years he gets the Titles of “Best Robin” and “Second Best Detective,” and it sells this idea that he brought something to the table that is way way waaaay more Valid than anything that his brothers ever brought to the table...

And I’m over here just 🤭 at the basic Uninformed, Dissconnectedness of it all, while kinda wondering at the kind of Bias that goes into NOT putting these threads TOGETHER?!!!!

Seriously? SERIOUSLY?!!

GOLDEN AGE FIGURE do you NOT get what that means?!!!!

It ain’t even competition, my dudes. Dick MADE Robin, and every child that comes after him is essentially working off the Template he first established 80 YEARS AGO.

THAT needs to carry some weight. I mean it’s even beyond the argument of favorites or bias. Those are behavioral archetypes that are offshoots of what Dick himself established.

So saying Tim has more say in where or to whom Robin goes because he made it “unique” is like saying the guy who copied from a blueprint gets more say over the bloody Inventor.

Seriously...Tim is textbook nepotism if I ever saw it. Young hero team made up of sidekicks ringing any bells?

(Oh no but Young Justice was *Totally* different...yeah totally).

(Yeah and then he “graduated” to Teen Titans)

(But...that’s just development)

(Uh huh)

Hell, Tim was himself for 17 years only. Uniqueness stopped in that moment. So he didn’t even get a chance to Reinvent Robin properly.

And the weird version of him that came after turned him into The Most Unhealthy little Meglomaniac, that would eventually devolve into Gun-toting Batman so...

Unless y’all were going for that sorta “reinvention,” in which case the position of murdering ex-Robin has been filled lol.

YAY UNIQUENESS...?

And time itself nerfs Dick’s exploits as Robin just because the gadgetry and aesthetics of the times doesn’t really translate how aesthetically and technically sophisticated fictional storytelling has gotten...and y’all get distracted by the bare legs and pixie boots but don’t acknowledge him yeeting the Joker off a scaffold at 8-9, or standing up to Blood’s mental torture at 17, leading the first group of young heroes against demons, would-be gods, inter dimensional conquerors...etc

Oh and the very FACT they LET A CHILD BE A SUPERHERO IN THE FIRST PLACE WAS BECAUSE HE WAS SOOO GIFTED!!

But I assure you, if we see a faithful reinterpretation of HIS Robin, set in slightly more modern times, there’s a reason why he not only made the Mold but Broke it when it came to BEING Robin, because that’s who he was. (And why authors and creators seek to recreate it with their Mary Sue self-insert ‘OC’)

And why Dick Grayson, above all the others that came after him, has MORE of a right to say where Robin is needed.

And if canon told us anything, any decision Dick makes (while written in character) is always going to be the Most Selfless and Heroic one, because that’s who he is.

Seriously, if you don’t believe me. Ask yourself. Which choice between Tim returning to and having a greater say over Robin, and Damian keeping the mantle, produced the MOST Regression of character development?

(I am cackling at seeing Tim as a 12 year old again. Hope this time they keep him In Character for longer than 17 years).

Oh but yeah Tim “made the mantle his.”

“Oh it was soooooo a part of him that he went by Red Robin because he couldn’t move beyond it!!!”

Lol first off...Multiversal Nepotism thy name is Tim Drake. Just the fact that title was some AU Dick’s automatically made it FREE REALESTATE for Tim (and Jason)

I’m like...guys, wake up and smell THE UNHEALTHY PATTERN here?

My OTP is Dick/ground breaking growth and sense of autonomy. What’s yours?

“Oh it’s parasiting off of Big Bro’s pre established character traits and or identities, and ANY and ALL his exploits, and then pretending as if THAT is not occurring, and giving full credit and favoritism and Bias to my fav...but it’s TOTALLY different. Totally.”

Me:

😐

“Tim is obviously the smartest except for Barbara and also Bruce but also Jason is smarter than Dick because he likes to read and let’s all collectively presume that Cass is so obviously the least smart of all of them she never even ranks when talking about the Batfam’s intellects even though this is a girl who became fully socialized within like two years after previously having spent the first fifteen years of her life in varying forms of complete isolation with her education deliberately stunted until she began thriving at literally the FIRST opportunity she got to actually be afforded resources for expanding her mind”…..

So yeah, my official stance is and always will be every single member of the Batfam is a LITERAL genius and when you’re talking intellects of that level its pointless trying to rank them, like, they’re all smart as fuck, who needs them numbered past that point?

So I have no interest in trying to present any of them, whether Dick or anyone else, as SMARTER than the rest, but I do still have plenty of gripes about how often he’s marked for comparison and singled out to be specified as not AS smart as Tim or the others…..when literally the only thing that people ever actually point to - other than Dick’s own self-image and self-assessments - as for why Tim’s obviously so much smarter than Dick is like….Tim figured out Batman and Robin’s identities based on the fact that he saw Robin do a move that he’d previously been situationally aware of Dick Grayson doing. That’s it. That’s like…..the essence of plot convenience. Even WITH Tim’s obvious intelligence, if not for Tim having happened to be at the circus to see Dick Grayson perform that flip….he never would have been able to connect those dots, not because he’s not smart enough to, but because he simply literally wouldn’t have had one of the dots needing connection!

And also like, there’s also the fact that in plenty of Dick’s origin stories Dick is the one who figures out Bruce is Batman himself, Bruce doesn’t actually tell him….so…..why does that never come up as proof of Dick’s intelligence, y’know? Fair is fair, right?

But anyway, Dick Grayson speaks tons of languages, has hacked freaking alien spaceships, has also been called Detective by Ra’s al Ghul’s manipulative ass for whatever that’s worth but just as significantly if not more imo, is regularly shown BEING a great detective, in his solo titles, in Titans, on the Outsiders, as Batman….he picks up new skills like trying out a new hobby and had the equivalent of multiple college degrees while he was still Robin in terms of applicable know-how and understanding of science, criminology, history, politics and multiple other fields of interest. 

He’s tech savvy, creates most of his own gear and even machinery, and this really can’t be underscored enough but seems waaaaay too often glossed over - he’s considered one of the preeminent tacticians in the entire DC universe, that’s like….not a small thing. That IS intelligence! That’s like the very essence of it, not just knowing things, but applying things, figuring out the most optimal ways to piece disparate bits of knowledge and information together in actionable ways to achieve desired end results. Stop sleeping on Dick’s tactical brilliance, guys!

And again, NONE of this is intended to try and elevate him PAST any of the other Bat characters, as you’ll notice nowhere am I making any claims that he alone can be described in these ways…..I’m not saying these things are limited or unique to just him, I’m just saying….they very much describe him. So…..stop acting like they don’t, y’know? Don’t be a Tom Taylor! Be better than Tommy T! I believe in you guys!

Just…..I don’t think many people realize that they’re not actually saying what they think they’re saying when they stress how much smarter Tim is than Dick, for example, because like…..that’s not a proven quantity, and so it just comes across as like, needing to erase large aspects of Dick’s character just to prop up a personal fave and that’s the sort of thing that births the sort of negativity a lot of people remark on. 

Not that I disagree with the point you’re trying to make. But to be fair, Dick has kept on going to college, but usually not finishing, post-Crisis. In Batman vol 1 # 416, he tells Bruce:

And in Shadow of the Bat # 34, he reminiscences like this:

In Rebirth Nightwing # 39, he studied law for a while. (And probably something else, since he calls himself a student from Hudson University, taking a semester in Blüdhaven.)

And in # 80, he had suddenly managed to squeeze in a law degree into his busy life. (I’m not sure if this means he finished? Maybe it’s something you need to become a cop, these days?)

Why did people believe Dick was actually dead?

I’m not the most avid comic reader so maybe I missed something but it was always weird to me that everyone just accepted this especially given how Bruce was acting or should I say wasn’t acting.

This is a man when his child died another child had to come along and told him sir you are being too violent and emotional you need supervision. When his other child died he went all over the universe to bring him back to life because he knew it was possible ( which was happening at the same time), so why didn’t anyone think it was weird he wasn’t doing that for Dick. Can you imagine Dick really dying that soon after Damian it would be injustice Batman Version. You are telling me that Tim, Jason or Barbara didn’t think it was weird that Bruce didn’t also bring Dick’s corpse to the bring Damian back to life mission or mention it to themselves. Like what more likely Dick dead and Bruce is handling it well or that he fake his death to do something stupid and Dangerous after his partner/brother/ little bit my son the feelings are complicated died after he was knocked out and woke up to his corpse.

Oh man, this is like, the entire nature of my beef?

(Slight derail just to emphasize the fact real quick that Dick DID actually die, he was just revived quickly, but like, the trauma of his death was very real and its not like anyone was clued into Luthor having a resurrection backdoor built into his literal murder of Dick in the actual moment of it happening. So Dick’s death wasn’t fake, and additionally, he didn’t have anything to do with like, telling people about it, because he was literally comatose in the cave and recovering while Bruce was telling people....by the time Dick woke up in the cave, we already know that Alfred at least had already been convinced by Bruce that Dick was dead, so I have a kneejerk need to pushback against the Dick faked his death narrative by reminding people wherever possible that Dick had no agency in the spreading of that narrative. 

It happened without him being involved, and the only actual contribution he ever made to it was just not revealing he was alive before Grayson #12, after Bruce like.....emotionally, mentally and physically badgered him into accepting that doing so would be directly harmful to his family and he didn’t want to be the reason more people died when like, people had just died because he ‘let’ himself be captured and interrogated by Power Woman’s Lasso of Submission, did he?

SORRY TO BE PEDANTIC, just wanted to start this off on a clarification, even though I know the aim of your ask was very much in tune with the rest of my response. A lot of people don’t read the actual comics, so like, I’m never gonna skip over an opportunity to emphasize that the shorthand people use to refer to Dick’s death and the year he was with Spyral, is like, literally just shorthand for describing it. Its not actually an accurate description of how all that went down and who had the most hand in it).

BUT ANYWAY. BACK TO THE MEAT OF THE BEEF.

Okay so like, not only was the entire family and Bruce himself giving Dick shit for his death and Spyral, like, PAINFULLY egregious because it was literal victim blaming in every possible sense of the word....

None of it made a LICK of sense with ANY of their characterizations, and they ONLY all accepted it on face value because the Plot Demanded It, and when you're like, no, as a reader I say The Plot Demanded It is not a good enough reason for me to be like well sure, that makes sense......looking at the characters ACTUAL actions at face value pretty much just makes them all look like assholes?

Like, Tim has never gracefully accepted anyone's death. Ever. This is core characterization for him. He will go to the ends of the earth for his loved ones and to bring them back, prove they're not dead, refuse to let death be the final verdict for them. He was tempted to use the Lazarus Pit to bring his parents back to life. He refused to accept Bruce was dead long before he had any proof whatsoever of that theory. He tried to clone his BFF/future-husband Kon in his fucking basement like, dude was two whole inches away from going Full Dark Side in his quest to bring back a lost loved one no matter WHAT the cost.....and then you've got Dick unmasked onscreen, killed offscreen, and Bruce then reporting to the rest of them with zero inflection 'oh Dick's dead now. Its very sad' and Tim's just like, sure. Sounds legit.

I mean?!?!

And you're SO RIGHT ABOUT THE DAMIAN THING! Bruce LITERALLY LITERALLY LITERALLY went BEYOND the ends of the Earth, like, he full on chartered a fucking space ship to fly his whole family out to APOKOLIPS to bring Damian back from the dead by going to EXTREME lengths.....WHILE everyone else thought Dick was dead....

And not a single person looked at Bruce and was like, okay, not that we're not down to do this for Damian because we miss Stabby Smurf something fierce ourselves, but.....what the fuck is UP with you dude? Why aren't you displaying ANY hint of this same kind of energy in regards to your eldest son that you said you watched die right in front of you?

Like....I don't know that we were actually ever told that Dick's coffin was empty or had a fake in it, but like....this family of detectives who refuse to accept death, defy death, COME BACK FROM THE DEAD....not a single one of them said like, okay, if I'm gonna like, ACCEPT accept that Dick is dead and gone for good, I need to at least just see him one last time? That's literally all it would have taken for someone to realize hey something's a little wonky here. Where's the dead body, Pops?

Since when has Jason ever missed an opportunity to prove Bruce is a) full of shit, b) acting like an emotionless robot and all his kids deserve better especially when they've just like....died, c) just factually incorrect and wrong and jumped to a conclusion before it was conclusively proved, d) lying like a liar or e) all of the above?

Nobody even ASKED if Dick's body could be put in a Lazarus Pit? Yeah, Jason wouldn't necessarily recommend it himself, given what it put him through, but actually fuck that, I take that back, because I'm NOT actually of the opinion that Jason full on hates his life and actively spends every second of every day wishing he hadn't been resurrected, even if it had come with a huge buffet of additional trauma and pain.

And that's kinda what's implied when people just take it for granted that he would never be on board with any scenario involving using a Lazarus Pit to bring Dick back, because it suggests that based even just on his own experiences and feelings, he honestly believes Dick would prefer being dead and not have ANY further opportunities to be with his loved ones, his friends, help save the damn world again at some future point.....that Jason, projecting based just off himself, legit feels Dick would rather be dead than have another shot at life even WITH the downsides of Lazarus Pit usage? Nope. Sorry, I don't buy it.

Speaking of not buying it.....you know what was missing from all those soliloquies the others monologued at Dick about how they felt and were hurt and just devastated by his death, to such a point they can't seem to muster a single shred of happiness that he's NOT dead still -

(seriously, Damian was the ONLY person in ALL THE LANDS OF EMOTION-HAVING who expressed ANY kind of positive reaction to having Dick back. We were so fucking cheated of like.....ANY opportunity to have the characters show just how much they valued him by just being fucking HAPPY he was alive, no matter what else was involved....and then most of fandom compounded that by for years being like mmmm, no, Dick didn't get yelled at enough by his family for what HE put THEM through. Needs more yelling. More punching too. Bad Dick. Bad. This is the only way you'll learn not to die and get shipped off on a mission that you don't want but at least is to protect your family after being beaten into it by your dad whilst victim blaming you for dying in the first place. WHEN WILL YOU LEARN TO THINK ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE AND THEIR FEELINGS FOR A CHANGE, DICK?!?)

- But like, BUT I DIGRESS aside....you know what was missing from all those monologues about how hard DICK'S death and ensuing year of basically exile from his loved ones was for EVERYONE BUT HIM?

We never got a single line of explanation as to what everyone else officially thinks even happened to him in the first place?

Like, did Bruce straight up just say oh bad news kids, your brother umm. Expired. Spontaneously. There's no one to blame, he just keeled over, its all very sad.

Is that how that went down?

You're telling me that the explanation of Dick's death didn't come with a single pointed finger at someone for this family of blame-happy vigilantes to like, BLAME for the loss of this brother they all mourned oh so much, they just couldn't help but blame him for all the hurt it caused them?

The family that in every other fic is like OBSESSED with avenging and being avenged and all things vengeful and even tangentially vengeance-y....like didn't ask for a single detail on whomst the fuck deprived us of our brother-having?

Where were the attempts on Luthor's life by Jason (who I mean, yeah I know it was in a previous continuity, but erasing that timeline doesn't erase my awareness of the time Dick killed Jason's murderer so like.....mmm, just saying, woulda been nice)....where was the rage directed at the Crime Syndicate and references to how seriously and personally the Batfam took making sure that they were PUNISHED for all this and would never be free to wreak havoc on their world or their family again? What did they tell Damian when he came back to life, and how are you going to tell me that this fraternal little ball of fury didn't aim himself like a cannonball at whomever the fuck had DARED take HIS Batman from him when Damian wasn't around to have his back?

Not only does everyone else's desire to be avenged start falling really flat the second you factor in hey maybe Dick feels "mmm what about MY avenging" sometimes, and why doesn't anyone ever care about doing that for him.....but also, y'know what REALLY sucks about the ONLY person we actually SEE being blamed for Dick's death and ensuing absence being like....Dick himself?

Not only were his family all super keen on making all of this HIS fault and HIM the bad guy because of how it made them all feeeeeeel (and meanwhile fuck his feelings, am I right Batfam hfaklshfklahfkla).....

They somehow found a way to justify prioritizing this OVER ever even getting around to blaming some villain for his death in the FIRST place, in the entire year or so they thought he was still dead!

Like, you couldn't come up with a single target in all that time, but Dick's back two seconds, and you don't even give him a chance to EXPLAIN before you're punching him, shutting him down with 'I expected better from you' and turning away with 'I don't want to hear it, why am I surprised Dick Grayson disappointed me again'?

afshklfhalfhalfhla

Make it make sense!

And like, it won't, cuz it doesn't, and it never will, and like I said at the top, the ONLY reason it all played out this way is because DC doesn't give a fuck about character development and deemed it necessary to go down this way for the sake of the plot (which was totes worth it, I mean, glad we sacrificed characters for this A+ plot which was clearly the greatest plot of all time and definitely justified every story choice made or not made around it loooool).

BUT.

BUT BUT BUT.

The problem isn't JUST that DC is stupid, even though that is an eternal mood and quite the problem.

Its that the SECOND large parts of fandom decided to play along with DC and just accept the story at face value, only add to it and play into it exactly as it happened in canon with no significant deviations, and like, heaping on the LITERAL abuse from Dick's siblings while ignoring the LITERAL abuse from his father....

THAT....is when all of this becomes relevant.

Because the second people decided TO engage with the reasoning DC gave for what Bruce did and how and what Dick did and how and just not mess with any of that and have it all play out exactly like that...

The second people are like, okay we're FINE with not just dismissing this story as OOC writing that doesn't make any sense, and actually VALIDATING it to various degrees by engaging with it as is....

That's when 'OOC writing' stops being an excuse or explanation for alllll of the above gaps in character logic and actions.

Because its like, when you had abundant chance to REJECT this story and say nope, this was bullshit from start to finish and I'm not here for it, when you were just as capable of transforming literally ANY aspect of this story you didn't like into something that made more sense to you....

And you chose not to.

That's.....accepting it as valid writing. You were like, okay, I'm game to just treat this as a thing that happened, just like they said that happened.

For the chance to give Dick shit for it, see. For the angst, see.

And that's when I'm like okay cool, so when engaging with this story as is and accepting it on face value and just delving into the characters as they were SHOWN interacting with and around these events......for the angst or whatever....

You guys just all decided en masse to just hop, skip and jump over allllllllll the opportunities for angst inherent in examining even ANY SINGLE ONE of the above lapses in judgment or hypocrisy on the parts of the characters (who don't get to be excused by OOC writing if you're not going to call the story an example of OOC writing, whoops).

For the last time….

DICK NEVER THREATENED TO SEND TIM TO ARKHAM.

THAT NEVER EVER EVER HAPPENED.

People looooooove spreading around the panel of Dick wanting Tim to get help as proof that Dick ‘thought Tim was crazy’…..but then they just freaking PAIR that with this idea that Dick wanted to PUT TIM IN ARKHAM, when that literally never ever EVER was a thing.

See, the panel from Red Robin that people oh so conveniently leave out is THIS one….

Where Dick makes very clear that when he’s talking about Tim getting help….

HE WANTS TIM TO SEE A THERAPIST IN METROPOLIS.

And for the record, this is how that scene starts. Tim eventually attacks Dick because Dick grabs his arm when Tim starts to leave and says he’s not going to let go, but again, I can see how none of this meshes with the idea that Dick ‘kicked Tim out of Gotham’ and just ‘didn’t care about Tim anymore after making Damian Robin’ and all of that nonsense. Dick literally FOUGHT Tim’s leaving, lololol. 

Much like later with Spyral, Dick literally fought Bruce for the right to tell everyone he was alive, but that didn’t matter to fans then so why should this have mattered to fans now, lol. Yes, I’m aware I sound bitter, but that’s because we have had a decade of endless fics and meta and headcanons just trumpeting with gusto how Dick just definitively did not care about Tim in Red Robin, and he thought Tim was crazy and he wanted to throw Tim in Arkham, and NONE OF THAT WAS EVER EVEN A LITTLE BIT TRUE.

Can we just STOP with the Dick assassination already? You all only embrace this crap because it makes it easy to hate Dick and make him look bad, but YOU’RE THE ONES WHO MADE IT UP. You literally only hate Dick not because of what he actually did to Tim, but because you WANT TO and were willing to come up with any reason to back that up because it isn’t easy to influence new fans to make more of the kinda content you want when they think Dick is only hate-worthy not because of what he DID, but just because you decided to hate him.

And its really getting old.

Tim Drake stans : Yes I think this white rich boy obsessed with Batman is legitimatly a more interesting Robin than a little guy who had to live in the streets, a girl who had to take actions against her own father and a boy who had to acknowledge what is right or wrong and even how to be a child and show affection at 10 years old and I'm totally okay with one of them being replace by this same white rich boy once again. Now if you could just let me tie my shoes-

We all need a support system to not go nuts. Isolation causes crazy in humans, and is often used as a punishment by humans because of this.

No particular human is required to provide needed support to any other particular human. (Okay, parents are an exception I guess—though even they can legitimately excuse themselves in some limited ways, like “giving the baby up for adoption” and teh such, where they perform actions at the very least designed to ensure someone else picks up the dangling moral/social duty.)

This unfortunately makes things hard for people who don’t start off with a good group of social connections. Or for people whose mannerisms are offputting to a lot of people. I guess we coudl call that unfair.

But we can’t call it WRONG if we also want to say (as I do) that every human has the right to choose their social circle and assert boundaries.

Because if everyone has that right, then it may be SAD that Alice doesn’t support Billy just when Billy is so lonely he wants to die, but it *doesn’t actually* obligate Alice.

It’s like the violinist argument for abortion. Sure it would be GOOD to give your kidney to the dying violinist and we’d PRAISE YOU as selfless if you did! But it does not obligate you.

The one it obligates is actually Billy, whose choices (vastly oversimplified, anyway) are “go find a support system” or “die.”

It’s sad that Billy is thus obligated when he feels so shitty to begin with, but he stilL IS.

otherwise we don’t actually care about consent, we just mean “oh, you can refuse to support Billy if he’s NEUROTYPICAL, but not if he isn’t.”

And like… my neurotype, or maybe just my personality, makes me intensely unwilling to have people… involved? I guess is the word? in my business. I genuinely LOVE that city atomisation people worry so much about. I like being able to control to what degree I interact with other people and to what degree they know me and each other. Privacy matters to me enough that I find it nightmarish living in a small community. I’ve actually become more isolated since moving to a lovely connected small village because I straight up cannot deal with the fact that everyone here has a maximum of 3 degrees separation from my husband and nobody has any damn respect for privacy here.

This village DOES rely on mutual aid for a lot because we don’t have stuff like public transport, home care services, a mechanic, etc, etc. Which basically means, when my tooth broke, I had to sit in a car with a near stranger vaguely related to my husband for half an hour making small talk to get to the dentist in the next town. It also means that I can’t get home care in the form of a cleaning service, because I am (visibly) not disabled and I don’t want to have to give the whole town my medical information to persuade getting someone in to clean. Hell, I can’t even just fucking hire a cleaner without it becoming a town conversation topic.

And also, in my experience, the mere fact of community interconnectedness, makes communities vulnerable.

This is my repeated experience with community support in a crisis:

I’m part of a good and loving community or social group, which under normal circumstances has plenty of any resource you care to name and can take good care of all its members.

Then something happens. Every one is affected to varying degrees. When my Grandad died, obviously my Grandma and Mom were more affected than my Dad, but we were all impacted. So no one was running at full battery power so to speak. Unfortunately this creates a scenario where we all need more care than usual, while having less capacity to help anyone. So you triage. Which means if you’re a bit removed from the crisis but still affected… you get nothing, not because you’re being abandoned, or discriminated against, or anything like that, but because there’s just nothing left. When isn’t enough care/time/money/energy to go around you’re basically left choosing if its worse to kinda sorta fail everyone, or support a few central people who are really in crisis, and sort of hope everyone else has something to fall back on.

You can’t reasonably add community members in this situation, because no one has the energy, and if they do… like… “i need help! I can’t reciprocate on any sort of short timescale but I just desperately need help” is not grounds for a healthy relationship.

i’m sure i don’t need to trot out the point about how, if you’re dependent for support on your local village of fewer than 150 closely related people, and you happen to deviate in any of myriad aspects of nature, temperament, preferences, interests, etc from the social norms the fate lotto happened to land that particular community with (regardless of whether said norms are just or healthful or even work at all for most of the actual people in the community, much less for all of them; contra evobio trad essentialist instincts, the fact that a normative status quo exists is not prima facie proof that it is good. terrible community norms exist!) then you are at mighty high risk to find yourself shit out of luck when the time comes that you actually need help. you know what’s good to have in that situation? infrastructure. governance. nice, impersonal, public goods and services that aren’t allowed to say no to you for no reason other than that they just don’t like you.

being average, popular, and conformant to every arbitrary expectation of the nearest few dozen people should not be a prerequisite for receiving support in crisis.

Why would you abandon this in the tags

This is something I’d love to see discussed too because like. You think everyone’s “mutual aid community helper squad uwu” is gonna rush to help out people they don’t like? Just automatically, with no failsafe in place? I’ve never seen that risk addressed.

I work in direct patient care at a hospital and deal with literally dozens of people under serious stress – severe dementia, strokes, chronic pain, dying patients, psychotic episodes – every week, and while some of them are kind and gracious and recognize that nurses & aides are not there to be their emotional punching bags regardless of how scared/angry/upset/in pain they are, many are NOT. Unsurprisingly, people in crisis (whether acute or chronic) are not generally on their best behavior, even if they’re normally perfectly nice neighbors and community members! Under stress, people are frequently everything from rude to violent to entitled & demanding that we put our own safety at risk. (No, I’m not going to walk your 300lb self to the bathroom by myself when you’re here post hip operation and are so weak that your legs can’t even hold your own weight, no matter how much you scream at me and call me a bitch.)

Also, their behavior aside, I deal with a fair number of patients who hold political and personal views that I find abhorrent, and who I absolutely would not want to have any kind of mutual social relationship with.

But professional and legal obligations dictate that I can’t refuse to provide aid just because their behavior sucks or I don’t like them as a person. I can’t say “Go fuck yourself” to the patient who’s yelling that she’s going to kill me and that I’m going to Hell; I can’t leave some guy laying on a bedsore because his response to a news story on George Floyd he was watching was, “Hang them all!” I’ll be the first to admit that there are plenty of people who don’t adhere to those expected standards of behavior, and professionals abusing vulnerable people (out of stress, frustration, sheer nastiness) happens way too commonly! I’ve seen it and hate it and try to intervene. But at least these standards exist and are enforceable. I know that if someone crosses the line, I can go to my manager and get that person fired and potentially even report them to the licensing board.

Sometimes my job is really unpleasant. But I get paid for it and go home and I’m not expected to have genuine personal relationships with people who are cruel to me. While I don’t know this for sure, I suspect that most of the people who are super enthusiastic about mutual aid don’t actually work in caregiving or crisis aid fields. They work retail and complain loudly about awful, entitled customers and how they love it when they can pull the “I AM the manager lololol unreasonable request DENIED” on them, and then turn around and insist that mutual aid is the only thing that we can really rely on to provide us with nondiscriminatory respect and dignity in vulnerable situations.

And that’s the flip side of the caregiving / crisis aid coin. People under stress are frequently awful to people trying to help them. People who are awful to those helpers put those helpers under stress, and it’s human nature to lash out, especially if there are no consequences mitigating that impulse. How exactly does your mutual aid system deal with those providing “aid” who hurt the people they’re supposed to be caring for?

Yeah. Compassion fatigue is an actual, real thing, and… well, I’m not going to claim that social services jobs are *good* at supporting you through it or helping you figure out what to do. But… as someone who took last week off on very short notice precisely because I noticed myself becoming snippy and upset and angry, I really wonder whether the sort of people who think mutual aid works for every problem recognize it in ways that allow someone to just… stop for a while on fairly short notice, the way I could.

I grew up in the nonprofit social services world, and I heard the Starfish Story about a million and one times. For those who don’t know how it goes: a person is walking along a beach at sunrise where a lot of starfish are being washed up on shore. They come across a man who’s throwing starfish back into the ocean, even though every wave is stranding new ones on the sand. “Why are you doing that?” the person asks the man. “There’s always going to be more starfish. It doesn’t matter.” The man throws a starfish back out to sea and turns to the person and says, “It mattered for that one.”

It’s supposed to be a little parable about how aid work still matters even if it can’t solve all the problems in the world, but I think it’s actually a parable about the nonprofit world, and the perils of doing work-that-isn’t-work out of the goodness of one’s own heart. Because imagine how the story would change if the person encountered the man at dusk, and watched him throw one starfish back into the water and then turn and walk away as more and more starfish are being stranded in his wake. “What are you doing?” person #2 asks the man. “Why are you walking away?” “Well, I’ve been here for 8 hours already, and my shoulder hurts, and my wife and I are going to make breakfast for dinner and she got my favorite sausages,” the man says. “But they’re dying!” person #2 shouts, pointing towards the starfish on the sand. “How can you be so selfish as to prioritize fucking breakfast sausages over someone’s life?!“ “Because I’ve been saving starfish on this beach eight hours a day five days a week for ten years, and in order to be able to come back every day to save more starfish, I need to be able to walk away, even when they’re dying,” the man replies. “I care about starfish. But my shoulder hurts and I’m hungry.”

In the second story, the man comes off as… kind of an asshole! Not the sort of guy you’d want in your utopian mutual aid commune, because he can’t set aside his own fairly trivial needs in what is obviously a life-or-death emergency. Except that providing aid (medical, social, emotional, etc.) is a profession – case managing and nursing and drug counseling and elder care and all the other devalued emotional labor heavy jobs all require significant amounts of training, time, and experience to be good at them – and in that profession, every day could be a new life-or-death emergency. Maybe multiple ones all at the same time! (Which is not something that people who tend to have these emergencies tend to appreciate.) His mentality is what you need in order to be able to do long term care work while not burning out or turning bitter & hostile, and it’s exactly the mentality that most mutual aid hobbyists denounce, because you’re prioritizing your own comfort and privilege over other more vulnerable people’s survival. (You know the whole “if you don’t reblog this post, YOUR [X] PRIVILEGE IS SHOWING”.) Like, if you care about people, surely you’ll do the work, and if you don’t do the work, surely you don’t care about people.

And it becomes this weird dynamic where there are only two loopholes for burnout – pathologized trauma or toxic people doing an -ism. “I’m feeling really burned out and I just want to stay home and do the dishes that have piled up and watch Finding Nemo” isn’t an excuse to step back, but “I have depression and anxiety and C-PTSD from generational trauma and CSA and [xyz thing] triggered me badly” is (as long as you publicly divulge it), or “this group is full of toxic people who are racist/colonialist/homophobic/transphobic/ableist/classist/”pedophilic”/Morally Bad in some other way and I’m going to make a long callout post about it”, because the only way to exit an organization fighting the good fight while still being a good person is if everyone else in it is bad in some way.

As I mention above I’m *not* a social worker, but I still do strongly suspect that social workers (of various subtypes) will have some of the kinds of difficulty i and others describe in this monster of a post if a lot of the money is rerouted to them without a very robust program plan, as some things I and these others do overlap with things they do.

Consider the one thing in your suite of personal opinions that you absolutely feel you can’t budge on, whatever it may be. Now ask yourself, in a society that finds that opinion radioactive and goes out of its way to get people who hold it fired or blacklisted or shunned, could you survive?

Maybe not would you be HAPPY, but could you survive? Or would you have to pretend to believe things that make you feel profoundly wrong to ensure you get food, housing, medical care?

Mutual aid networks based on social capital instead of employed professionals funded by a institution paying cash run into the problem that social capital is not equitably distributed either. Historically, charitable aid societies and religious institutions were and are one of the big ways that humans start trying to distribute resources to needy people in crisis, and the reason we use social services now instead of relying on networks of charitably minded volunteers is that the volunteers preferentially help only the people they find it most rewarding to help, in the ways in which they find it most rewarding to help.

The starfish would be better served if we built a mesh moat to keep them from getting into the area where low tide strands them? If the guy tossing starfish out of the goodness of his heart finds it more rewarding to look at each individual starfish as he lobs it towards the waves, too bad I guess–the systemic problems that aren’t as heartwarming to solve tend to get ignored.

But there’s another really crucial thing about the 19th Century religious charity framework that I think liberal social organizers and mutual aid proponents need to reckon with: they weren’t enough. They failed! They were a drop in the bucket of the actual problems! The whole charity model could not effectively target the root of the problems, so they were stuck putting bandaids on gaping wounds!

First, let’s look at the 19th Century Social Progressive Christians. There was this widespread belief that through Progress and Christian Morality and Hard Work we could Save The World. Every problem is solvable, and if we all just roll up our shirts and pitch in, we can do it. The churches were huge proponents of this stuff. You see a problem, you create a ministry, you raise funds, you recruit volunteers, and voila! You solve the problem! And given the very high percentage of the population that was actively participating in Christian churches at the time, you could raise a shit-ton of resources, and you could do it reliably.

And it wasn’t enough. It was a drop in the bucket. Poor people still died of cold and hunger. Orphan children still lived on the streets. Living conditions for poor people were truly horrifying in most cities … and all that aid the Christian voluntary aid societies raised was not enough to fix that. It helped! In some places, it helped a lot! But even if you were one of the “nice” and “good” and “deserving” poor that charities loved to help, it was not enough. The amount of money that the average middle-or-upper-class Christian was willing to voluntarily give to charity per year was not sufficient to the amount of financial need that existed. And, frankly, even if it had been sufficient, it would have been a waste.

You know what people actually needed most? They needed a livable minimum wage. They needed occupational safety and health regulations to force their employers to give a shit about safe and decent working conditions. They needed housing regulations to force the slumlords to make their buildings safe and clean. They needed food safety regulations to ensure that the food they ate was safe. They needed protection for unions, so they could safely negotiate with their employers. They needed appropriate governmental regulation.

Once the government put those protections in place, their lives improved dramatically. All the “nice people doing good work” in the nation couldn’t do that.

And when it comes to mutual aid … I see a lot of the same issues, frankly. Take rides: sure, giving your neighbors rides when they need it is great, and there will always be a need for things like that. But for the most part, what will actually make a difference for the most people in the long run is a usable public transit system. Take homelessness: protecting camps from the cops and making sure they have fresh water and port-a-potties is great, but government-supported housing as a basic infrastructure would be much better. Take food insecurity: food pantries are awesome, and so is growing your own food, but neither can take the place of SNAP where you just get money to buy your own food. And in all these cases, a livable minimum wage and universal healthcare would make more difference than just about any other two things anyone could possibly do.

Not everyone can afford a house surrounded by trees that fits the Eurocentric cottagecore aesthetic, so is it really something we should be idealizing as the very essence of relaxation and simple living, or should we expand our idea of what beautiful simplicity is? And why is it that when we consider the idea of beautiful simplicity outside of urban centers, homes in the villages of countries like mine would never be seen as beautiful in the way the doilied, ginghamed, frog potteried homes of cottagecore content creators are?

Which goes back to a reflection I’ve been having lately about simple living and what it means to me, and how I can separate the feeling of living simply from the look of it, which is either super minimalist or super cottagecore depending on who you ask, both of which just aren’t very accessible. The people I know who live the most “simply”— lugging buckets of water for their bath on occasion, cooking on a fire outside sometimes, making food from scratch with food they collected themselves— are in the global South. But poverty and what’s viewed as under-development just isn’t romanticizable. Well, to most people. African authors have written gorgeous books that depict these manual aspects of their lives in ways that are so poetic and resonate so deeply with people from those countries. But the internet and social media especially are still largely very white spaces and so white voices are the tastemakers, and white experiences get the most attention.

If I make a post about the sheer glory of dumping the last of a bucket of hot bath water over yourself, a childhood experience of mine in my grandmother’s home where running hot water isn’t a thing in a country where bathtubs are rare, a handful of my thousands of followers will relate. If I make a post about having just picked passion fruit and papaya from my dad’s garden for my breakfast and get some aesthetic shots in, I promise you there will be reblogs.

Anyway, this isn’t me shitting on aesthetics because it’s human nature to seek out beautiful things that evoke certain feelings in you, I enjoy them myself, and most people are going to romanticize only what they can conceive. I think it’s also important to analyze why certain things attract us, which aspects of those attractions tie into greater conversations about things like capitalism, consumerism, eurocentrism, and classism, and how we can evoke those feelings we want in our lives without such a focus on how things look and decolonize our vision of beauty.

I remember the push awhile back for DA to be more inclusive. I was part of it, think I still am. But those of us who care have managed to include parts of our cultures in our versions of DA in a way that I haven’t seen when it comes to cottagecore and that I’m not sure I ever will. I think that’s in large part because cottagecore’s very spine is Western people’s fantasy to escape from the alienating cities they built and have replicated across the world through colonization. You can’t Africanize cottagecore because its core is white lace, and the wood board, dirt-floor homes in our countrysides just aren’t pretty enough for Western people to relate to and want a piece of, relaxing and minimal or not.

Disgusted by how Marvel and Disney would much rather make a self-cest relationship canon before a homosexual one? 

Otherwise salty about how immensely the writers butchered and retconned Loki's previous characterization?

Dreading the very idea of Season 2?

Desperately looking for fanfiction to soothe the wounds canon has left on your soul?

We've got good news for you! 

Announcing the Loki Series Rewrite Project, where we reject MCU canon and substitute our own, vastly better fanwrite, which features such great hits as:

A main character that is not depowered, humiliated, sidelined for a poorly-written Girlboss™ or otherwise clowned upon for cheap jokes at every turn!

Generally coherent worldbuilding!

Actual queer and neurodivergent rep written by actual queer and neurodivergent people!

Zero unnecessary romantic arcs, self-cest or otherwise!

Zero blatant racism, queerphobia or sexism hidden under the guise of performative progressiveness!

Heavy topics such as abuse, trauma, internalized-racism and authoritarianism treated with the care and respect they deserve!

Brought to you by: fans who care deeply about the character and generally possess some modicum of competence in writing!

Coming soon to Archive of Our Own!

taglist for crew: