My Turn To Reverse The Boys

My turn to reverse the boys

As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner// SPN 01x01// As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner// SPN 12x22// The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner// SPN 13x12// As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner// SPN 14x08

i’m sure someone has made this list before. but i’ve recently reread the robin (1993-2009) comics and realised how Batshit Crazy tim’s time as robin was. here’s a list of major events that happened during his tenure:

obeah man???: still not clear on exactly what happened here, but his parents are both poisoned, resulting in his mom’s death and his dad’s long-term coma.

knightfall/knightquest/knightsend: the iconic arc when bane breaks bruce’s back and azrael (derogatory) temporarily becomes batman then quickly goes off the rails and tries to kill tim, forcing him to go solo and work with huntress (hashtag girlboss) before bruce returns and handles azrael

contagion: the incurable Apocalypse Virus™ threatens to wipe out gotham city and tim naturally catches it and nearly dies before bruce returns with The Cure

the final night: a sun-eater tries to Eat The Sun. tim meets impulse! robin and spoiler defend gotham city on their own during the crisis! tim’s girlfriend’s crazy mafia uncle tries to kill him after finding them in bed together (not doing the sexy. but it looked like they were gonna do it.)

cataclysm: a massive earthquake levels half of gotham, throwing the city into crisis and causing some problems in tim’s personal life as his father relocates them to keystone briefly before tim’s misery convinces him to move them back to gotham

no man’s land (a personal favourite): gotham’s post-earthquake crisis worsens and the government decides that the best solution is to declare it no man’s land. shockingly, this causes Even More Problems. there’s a whole thing where tim’s dad realises tim snuck off into the city, and the news about it makes people sympathetic enough to gotham’s (cough a rich white family’s) plight that the government decides to actually help. cass becomes batgirl!

young justice/teen titans drama!: so much went on here. i don’t even know where to begin. the whole imperiex/our worlds at war apocalyptic crisis. tim quits young justice after the thing where the justice league discovers batman’s Super Paranoid Contingency Plans™ causes the team to distrust him. he returns to the team, which is disbanded after a team-up with the titans goes badly. the teen titans is formed. general fuckery involving tim’s civilian life!

unmasked: tim’s dad finds out he’s robin, confronts batman in the batcave with a gun and forces tim to quit. steph becomes robin and cuts off contact with tim. superboy tries to convince tim to come back to teen titans, but tim insists that he’s Totally Happy Just Being A Civilian, Kon. Really. He’s Less Stressed Now That He’s Not Dealing With Constant Crises! (lying)

war games: oh god. we all know this one. gang war! gotham in peril! steph dies! tim meets evil!future batman!tim who murdered the entire rogue gallery with the gun that killed bruce’s parents. tim seriously considers killing himself to prevent this future.

identity crisis: a Mysterious Villain begins targeting families of the justice league. because tim is not allowed to have anything remotely nice, his dad is murdered (by captain boomerang, which is frankly adding insult to injury). tim invents an uncle to avoid getting adopted by bruce (really, kid? really?). bruce finds out and helps him solidify the fake uncle’s identity (bruce no)

robin: to kill a bird: jason todd returns all crazy and nearly kills tim at titans’ tower (dressed in a version of his robin costume) and signs his name in tim’s blood. theatre kid much, jason?

infinite crisis: c’mon dc, you’ve done like four world-ending crises in the last decade. chill your goddamn tits. the teen titans, doom patrol, and justice society of america team up to take down superboy prime. normal superboy dies due to the fight, despite tim’s desperate attempt to find a cure. also bludhaven got nuked and tim’s stepmother gets a traumatic brain injury and is permanently hospitalised. then bruce, tim, and dick go on vacation and tim accepts bruce’s offer to adopt him! yay!

one year later: cass is briefly evil! the league of assassins tries to recruit tim, who barely escapes with his life after turning them down. then he goes a little crazy with grief, tries to clone kon, and has a brief relationship with extreme violence before deciding to break it off.

the resurrection of ra’s al ghul: damian arrives in gotham! and tries to kill tim multiple times! ra’s tries to seduce tim to the Dark Side with the promise of resurrecting his parents! tim refuses! ra’s tries to force bruce to sacrifice either tim or damian to become his new host body! tim tries to sacrifice himself but is convinced by dick to Not Do That at the last minute!

batman r.i.p.: bruce dies, but not really! fun times!

battle for the cowl: i like to pretend this doesn’t exist, because it is Stupid As Fuck. jason nearly kills tim again, but damian (!) rescues him.

red robin: dick makes damian robin. the end!

but not really

and then of course the whole red robin series (which i love) is just like. tim is passively suicidal! tim loses an entire important organ while working with the loa! tim becomes ceo of wayne enterprises then blows up the loa and ra’s almost kills him! tim is nearly raped by one of ra’s’ daughters because ra’s really wants tim’s babies! this is not dealt with at all!!! love that for him

Image: comic page, conversation between Bruce and Alfred: Bruce: Former mayor Armand Krol is dead. Alfred: After escaping the threat of the Apocalypse Virus? Bruce: He didn’t quite escape it. The symptoms of the clench recurred in him. But this attack was was more virulent. It killed him within hours. Alfred: But Master Tim was afflicted– Bruce: I know, Alfred. I know.

Tim’s voice from off-page: You won’t believe who I met tonight, guys–

Final panel is Tim in front of Jason Todd’s memorial case, alarmed. Tim: What is it? Why’re you looking at me like that?

Found it! On the subject of Jason’s memorial case as narrative device, noted in tags that the case is also used visually to indicate that Tim is in danger: no matter how improbable with the layout of the cave, they show it behind him when it turns out the Clench can be recurring.

Wanted to find it for reference. It’s the end page of Robin 1993 issue 31, the one where Tim & Ariana go to a car show and meet Ted Grant (Wildcat).

…oh huh skimmed through the issue looking for this and found this panel

Image: comic panel of part of a conversation between Wildcat and Tim: Wildcat: Call the cops? I thought you and the Bat jumped in where angels feared to tread and all that. Tim: Only when there’s no alternative. I got the job for my sense of caution…

They’re chasing car thieves who made off with a Waynetech prototype. After this Tim winds up jumping into danger anyway ‘cause Wildcat took the lead, but it’s interesting that Tim gets this line when the issue is going to end with a reminder of Jason’s death, and the virus Tim was exposed to while on the job as Robin.

do you ever watch videos of youtubers reading their own crappy wattpad x self insert fics and think to yourself man i would love to explain the sold to one direction trope to these kids, it would absolutely break them

Or water fountains, public washrooms, outdoors tables, etc, etc