Editorial And Writing Reasons Aside, I Still Think Its Hilarious How So Many Heroes Want To Be In The

Editorial and writing reasons aside, I still think its hilarious how so many heroes want to be in the Justice League, but don’t get the chance, or are only in one roster for like a month and never come back. And then there is Nightwing, who has been canonically offered a JL membership multiple times and a spot on the active roster and he sort of is expected to lead it in the future. But he is like “nah I’m good” but still sometimes has to begrudgingly accept because Batman is missing or some other nonsense. 

Corny and I Widowmaker'ed Dick, and I am having a lot of feelings.

Because I'm 99.9% sure Dick Grayson would rather die than have his own emotions and passions ripped away from him so he could be more easily controlled with his own pre-existing adrenaline addiction.

I want to see something where Dick clarifies that he is non-lethal by choice. Not because he was trained that way.

Because he was trained to kill people. And he was trained to be ruthlessly efficient. And yeah, Batman was always obsessed with them not killing, but Dick draws the line earlier than that.

It's not that he's against killing, per se. It's wrong, sure. But there are circumstances that necessitate it, and even then, there are worse crimes than murder. He's forgiven plenty of people for killing.

He's lived a life of violence and he's thrived in it.

But he hates it.

He'd rather be performing, using his body for art, not as a weapon.

No one else ever sees it that way though.

Since he was a child, they've only ever seen his potential. His potential for death and chaos and destruction. Not for love or joy or kindness.

It's why he worked so hard to make Nightwing gentle and approachable. It's why he's spent countless hours shaping his technique into something less terrifying and lethal than an owl's talons.

It's why he uses escima. Although he was trained to kill with it, it's easier to modify than any style that utilized a blade.

Dick Grayson does not want to be, has never wanted to be, a weapon.

Every person he's ever met, it feels, wants him to be one. It's weird, he thinks, how much other people care whether or not he kills, or tortures, or beats people into comas.

Diana, and Donna too, they came from the same culture after all, had had a saying about not using more force than necessary. He liked that. He understood it. It made the goal helping people, instead of merely gaining power.

People mocked Batman for the lack of extremes in his methods. But Nightwing used even less force. Even less violence.

That wasn't by accident.

It was a conscience decision on his part, just like how Superman refused to kill so that people would trust him, Nightwing refused to use more violence than necessary.

So yeah, I'd like to see him aknowledge that.

Why "doing something relaxing” does not help your anxiety

A lot of the time when people give advice intended to relieve anxiety, they suggest doing “relaxing” things like drawing, painting, knitting, taking a bubble bath, coloring in one of those zen coloring books, or watching glitter settle to the bottom of a jar.

This advice is always well-intentioned, and I’m not here to diss people who either give it or who benefit from it. But it has never, ever done shit for me, and this is because it goes about resolving anxiety in the completely wrong way.  

THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO when suffering from anxiety is to do a “relaxing” thing that just enables your mind to dwell and obsess more on the thing that’s bothering you. You need to ESCAPE from the dwelling and the obsession in order to experience relief.

You can drive to a quiet farm, drive to the beach, drive to a park, or anywhere else, but as someone who has tried it all many, many times, trust me–it’s a waste of gas. You will just end up still sad and stressed, only with sand on your butt. You can’t physically escape your sadness. Your sadness is inside of you. To escape, you need to give your brain something to play with for a while until you can approach the issue with a healthier frame of mind. 

People who have anxiety do not need more time to contemplate, because we will use it to contemplate how much we suck.

In fact, you could say that’s what anxiety is–hyper-contemplating. When we let our minds run free, they run straight into the thorn bushes. Our minds are already running, and they need to be controlled. They need to be given something to do, or they’ll destroy everything, just like an overactive husky dog ripping up all the furniture. 

Therefore, I present to you: 

THINGS YOU SHOULD NOT DO WHEN ANXIOUS

–Go on a walk

–Watch a sunset, watch fish in an aquarium, watch glitter, etc.

–Go anywhere where the main activity is sitting and watching

–Draw, color, do anything that occupies the hands and not the mind

–Do yoga, jog, go fishing, or anything that lets you mentally drift 

–Do literally ANYTHING that gives you great amounts of mental space to obsess and dwell on things.

THINGS YOU SHOULD DO WHEN ANXIOUS:

–Do a crossword puzzle, Sudoku, or any other mind teaser game. Crosswords are the best.

–Write something. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. Write the Top 10 Best Restaurants in My City. Rank celebrities according to Best Smile. Write some dumb Legolas fanfiction and rip it up when you’re done. It’s not for publication, it’s a relief exercise that only you will see. 

–Read something, watch TV, or watch a movie–as long as it’s engrossing. Don’t watch anything which you can run as background noise (like, off the top of my head, Say Yes to The Dress.) As weird as it seems, American Horror Story actually helps me a lot, because it sucks me in. 

–Masturbate. Yes, I’m serious. Your mind has to concentrate on the mini-movie it’s running. It can’t run Sexy Titillating Things and All The Things That are Bothering Me at the same time. (…I hope. If it can, then…ignore this one.) 

–Do math problems—literally, google “algebra problems worksheet” and solve them. If you haven’t done math since 7th grade this will really help you. I don’t mean with math, I mean with the anxiety. 

–Play a game or a sport with someone that requires great mental concentration. Working with 5 people to get a ball over a net is a challenge which will require your brain to turn off the Sadness Channel. 

–Play a video game, as long as it’s not something like candy crush or Tetris that’s mindless. 

THINGS YOU SHOULD DO DURING PANIC ATTACKS ESPECIALLY:

–List the capitals of all the U.S. states

–List the capitals of all the European countries

–List all the shapes you can see. Or all the colors. 

–List all the blonde celebrities you can think of.

–Pull up a random block of text and count all the As in it, or Es or whatever.  

Now obviously, I am not a doctor. I am just an anxious person who has tried almost everything to help myself.  I’ve finally realized that the stuff people recommend never works because this is a disorder that thrives on free time and free mental space. When I do the stuff I listed above, I can breathe again. And I hope it helps someone here too. 

(Now this shouldn’t have to be said but if the “do nots” work for you then by all means do them. They’ve just never worked for me.)

LUTHER, WATCH OUT!

Guys, I’m really really...I Don’t understand this whole discourse about Tim having *more* of a say over the Robin mantle because he established something “unique” about it?

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 90% 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://knight-on-the-rise.tumblr.com/post/626836604006350848/from-buttas-for-when-dick-became-more

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:

😐

Some of you are living your BEST LIVES in an alternate universe. And some of us are worried.