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ectonurites · 3 years

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My least favorite type of fic!Tim is when he’s portrayed as depressed/very mentally and emotionally unstable, but also at the same time as someone who is like lauded as being super dangerous/the most skilled or something like that?? Those fics where Tim is chugging caffeine and barely sleeping, but characters are still like “oh I wouldn’t wanna piss off Tim he is Dangerous” and that’s annoying enough but then there are fics that at the same time as that portray him as like on the edge of a breakdown. It’s very irritating even if I’m not sure I can articulate exactly why, it just really rubs me the wrong way. Like, I definitely do think Tim has some issues with depression and stuff, but in fics like those it’s treated more like a quirk sort of instead of a serious issue

LMAOO I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT i’m not a fan of that either. I’m apologizing in advance if I sound mean in any of this critique i’m about to give of that fanon version of him. I want to preface this by saying that people can write whatever the hell they want, like, they’re allowed to! And I’m not referencing/calling out any specific works here. Just trends. But I’m gonna bitch about some things I’ve noticed that annoy me, personally. (so again, not saying other people can’t enjoy this stuff! just. not for me)

so like sorry if im mean but this is just me ranting and also this is my blog anyways so:

(nobody take this as an attack on them please because it’s really not)

The problem is a lot of those fics seem to interpret Tim’s behavior in Red Robin (& especially like that last whole arc of his Robin run also by FabNic) as if that’s his normal, rather than the result of a few years of CONSTANT traumatic incidents pushing him to a breaking point (because while all the shit he went through with his Dad, Steph, Kon, Bart, and then Bruce dying was spread out over several years for us as readers, it’s regarded as like within two years in canon! It all happens when he’s 16 and 17. According to the Batman comic right after War Games, Jack was murdered only days after Steph died.

(Batman #634)

That’s a LOT to process for one kid jesus christ)

I love Red Robin honestly, I do, but it is about Tim at the lowest points in his life. It’s the grand finale of Tim’s story, and everything crumbles, that’s kinda the point! The end leaves him in a position to either rebuild himself or fall apart. It’s all about how he chooses to continue after this point!

(Red Robin #26)

The way he acts and the things he does in that comic should be regarded as such. He can’t live the way he does in Red Robin forever or he will literally burn himself out/become something unrecognizable, like, jesus it’s kinda even acknowledged in the comic when he thinks about what his potential futures would be if he keeps it up like he’s doing:

(Red Robin #25)

He sees himself as dead, as Batman (which he has countless times said he doesn’t want to be and at this point in his history almost every time he’s seen a future he became Batman in he had become a killer), or needing to retire and taking over an Oracle-esque role, likely because he exerted himself too much to continue.

When you look at him around this same timeframe when he’s not isolating himself/too deep into the mission and is instead working with his friends back on the Titans, you can see that he is starting to heal and work in a more positive direction. He’s choosing to work on coming out of this rough period by being together with his friends who he loves.

(Teen Titans (2003) #100)

Not to say that you can’t write about situations in which he doesn’t start to come out of it, but if you are doing so it’s something you should be taking seriously because that’s the idea you want to explore, not just acting like it’s perfectly okay or normal? (And again, there are a lot of works that do explore it in good ways, there’s just also a LOT that don’t)

Like, so much content I see just make any sadness and depression and tendency to over-work himself that’s rooted in his traumas (which! those do have a basis in canon!) into a quirky personality trait rather than a response to trauma. Acting as if he’s always been this way and it’s normal for him. That’s what bothers me. If people want to seriously explore the effects of all these incidents and how that plays into his ability to do his job as a hero, then hell yes do it! But when it all gets brushed off as ‘oh thats just tim, he just doesnt eat or sleep or feel any happiness but like its fine he’s just always been like that’ I feel my blood boil.

This also often strikes me as related/tied to fanon’s seemingly never-ending quest to make Tim into this victim of so many things he really wasn’t. They make his childhood 10x worse than it actually was (yes he was lonely because he was sent to boarding schools rather than having his parents around, but he was NOT just left home alone all the time as a child.

(Batman #441)

He snuck away during a school vacation week to follow Bruce one (1) time and to then track down Dick. This is established in his introduction story! PLEASE read Lonely Place of Dying!) and it just... going with those fanon assumptions as being true changes so much of how people characterize him!

Some people will also (not to call out tim/kon shippers especially because I literally am also one but) vilify the shit out of Steph and make their relationship out to be some abusive thing rather than just... a messy teen relationship between vigilantes because they had really complicated lives and baggage with one another? Which they both acknowledge they made mistakes in!

(Red Robin #10)

Or people will vilify the shit out of Dick in regards to the situation at the start of Red Robin, or literally just make anyone who Tim ever had a disagreement with out to be the bad guy despite the actual situations always being way more complex and multi-faceted than that.

And then on top of all that, aside from making him into this ‘im broken 24/7 and not doing anything to fix it also everyone around me is terrible to me’ type of character, because he’s a lot of people’s favorite, they also want him to be as cool and strong as he is at his high points. So they’re projecting all this stuff onto him that makes him what should be a barely functioning person but then also act like that’s fine and he’s able to be a dangerous badass on top of it.

Like I’m sorry but someone who is going out and actively acting as a vigilante like that which is incredibly physically taxing is NOT surviving on coffee alone and no sleep. That’s literally not possible, he’d fucking collapse. (And like, again, if you want to explore him pushing himself to that point, that’s one thing! but acting like he can manage all of that for more than a few days at a time/maybe while working on one really tough case is nuts!) and like, even canon can be a little guilty of this type of thing particularly since the New 52 (Detective Comics 2016 had more than a few references to him barely sleeping, but at least they also made references to him eating normally/healthily and he wasn’t completely self isolating or anything) (and also that comic had him be so self sacrificial he was ready to die to save everyone and only didn’t die because of Mr.Oz’s interference, he’s definitely not in his best place there) but usually it’s still within some realm of possibility.

Also like. The fanon ‘chugging coffee to survive thing’ just annoys the shit out of me because, like, yes there’s a few moments in canon where he’s under a lot of pressure and pushing himself further than he normally would and had some coffee (one of the only times I can even remember him having it on panel is... oh... during that last Robin arc I just mentioned a little while ago shouldn’t be where you source your normal characterization of him because it’s a very difficult situation that pushes him further than he normally would go! huh!) But the thing is like, people play it off for laughs, or like it’s a normal thing he would do at any time in his life! If you want to explore him pushing himself and using coffee as a crutch, like, there’s ways you can write it that takes it seriously, but almost every time I see it come up in fics it is like a core part of his personality and just ‘oh haha silly tim always with his entire pot of coffee he must chug every morning or he’ll die :^)’ And that bothers the hell out of me.

In general it’s just... people treat Tim so weird. They want him to be so many different things that he’s shown himself to be at different times for very specific reasons, except they want him to do all of it at the same time which just doesn’t work. A person can’t function like that, and it’s not even close to who he is in canon.

Again, people can do what they want, and this is just my opinion obviously, but yeah. My two cents on the matter. Read Lonely Place of Dying, read Young Justice, read his Robin run. Read his comics and get a feel for who he was before all the rest of his trauma, and see how he canonically reacts to it along the way. I know reading comics can be tough for some people but so much stuff just echo chambers and becomes barely recognizable in this fandom and it’s just... a shame when it happens with a character ya love.

#Anonymous

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