Thinking About Cass Being Shunted Off To Hong Kong And Having All Sorts Of Feelings About It Again.

tim drake childhood living situations

#1 robinson park penthouse apartment

batman #480

the first named downtown apartment, the robinson park penthouse is the home that jack wanted to move into with tim following his coma. given that my guess would be that this was jack's personal favorite of their places given this is where he wanted to go

#2 the city apartment in mooney towers

robin #3

now, this one isn't necessarily a *confirmed* childhood home--honestly the way he calls it his dad's city apartment could also maybe imply that it's an apartment jack got to following their move out to bristol (as he notoriously had a lot of trepidation about the idea moving out to the country/bristol/drake manor, as detailed in batman #481--seriously them moving out to the house in bristol was enough of a plot point it got an issue where it explicitly happened. jack gets swooped by a bat immediately. ~symbolism~) so that he had another place down in the city to stay in if he had stay overnight there for whatever reason after moving out to bristol. but that's also not confirmed, so it's fair to include this also as a possible tim drake childhood apartment location. as for where in the city it is, i believe it's never specified but he explicitly mentions it's closer to ariana who at the time is living in little odessa. my best guess would be that little odessa is a bit adjacent to the upper east side, given the connection with helena & her presence there in cry of the huntress. therefore i'm inclined to place mooney towers somewhere in the upper east side/coventry vicinity.

#3 the downtown condo

the condo that jack, dana, and tim end up in following drake industries going bankrupt is stated to be one of their previous properties, and the only one they keep after selling everything else. we know this was a childhood stop of tim, as he mentions they wouldn't go their often, but they'd use their downtown place when they had certain plans in the city where the condo would be closest--mentioning art, galleries, operas, etc. so he likely didn't live here a ton but it is a possible place. it just says location downtown, but given it's within walking distance of those places and the opera house is on the southwest part of the city per the NML map in the area it says is the upper west side, i would assume the condo is there.

#4 boarding school

batman #445, robin iii: cry of the huntress #4

unnamed, but there are implied to be various. (fernwood is the one in metropolis that jack wants to send tim for a bit, but he obviously never goes).

and that's it for confirmed/named places. as far as any other places they may or may not have had, the sky is almost the limit tbh. tim mentions moving around a lot as a kid, so you certainly don't have to limit yourself to these 3, but you're far more likely to find him in gotham proper vs anywhere else. drake manor is out as they explicitly buy it in batman #481 after tim is robin. during jack's coma era, tim is fostered with bruce.

I think there’s a good distinction to be made about the main batboys and murder

Dick: Has killed, could kill again under horrible circumstances, would never want to kill again

Jason: Has killed, could kill under his normal moral code, will definitely be killing again

Tim: Has killed, couldn’t kill again without a major break, doesn’t want to kill again and is willing to kill himself before he does that

Damian: Has killed, couldn’t kill again if people (cough cough DC) respected his growth, and never wants to kill again outside the rare fantasy for especially horrible people

Like all ideas for media this is subjective but I think pretty accurate to these characters as I’ve read up on them and as I understand their characters

Jason and Cass' opposing views on murder is so interesting. Their conflict is not purely moralistic - that is to say, it's not purely that Jason thinks murder is okay, and Cass doesn't. It's their identities, their original and most fundamental worldview. Jason is a murder victim and Cass is a murderer. Yes, Jason kills people as Red Hood, and yes, Cass dies multiple times, but this never truly erases how they see themselves. Jason will always have been murdered, and Cass will always be a murderer. They are unable to fully extricate themselves from those roles, and thus will never approach life or death the same way.

Jason Todd will cockblock himself if he thinks you can’t give 100% informed consent.

A few too many drinks at a gala and you’re drunkenly trying to make out with your gorgeous boyfriend. He’ll stop kissing you once he can taste the champagne on your lips, notices the glassy sheen to your eyes. Jason folds your roaming hands back into your lap and makes you promise to be good. He’ll take you home early and get some water into you before tucking you into bed. He’ll go so far as to sleep on the couch, door open to the bedroom so he can hear if you need him.

Jason remembers what Catherine looked like, coming off of a high and not remembering what day it was. The fear in her eyes and the shake in her voice when she asked if anyone else had been in the apartment.

Jason remembers the early days after the pit. When he’d wake up after blacking out in rage and not remember what his body had done. Seeing the blood on his skin and not knowing where it came from.

Jason never wants you to wake up with that same fearful not knowing. So he’ll sleep on the couch and make sure you’re safe. In the morning he’ll cook you breakfast and kiss you silly. But you’re going to have a talk, the two of you, once you’re sober enough to have a real conversation. Establish boundaries and plan consent for if you do want to fool around if one of you is impaired, or how you want to handle it if you don’t. But it’s not tomorrow yet, and Jason’s tired. He can sleep soundly though, knowing that nothing’s going to happen to you.

time travel fanfic idea where Jason comes back to before he was adopted, him and Batman still meet and he still ends up being adopted by Bruce Wayne, but he just refuses to acknowledge Batman and Robin, he acts like a civilian boy, he has over thirteen extracurriculars that Bruce does his best to keep up with. He regularly works out and trains all the fighting he's learned over the years, he goes on a gap year before college to recuperate the all blades and pretends to be the civilian in a family of crime fighting vigilantes.

He's doing pre-med and keeps nagging his siblings to go to college too (Cass, Tim), Duke is the one who spends more time with him bc everyone else is nocturnal and sleep through the day, but Jason likes to drive Duke to his classes and pick him up so they can have lunch together, Damian had a hard time at first, because Jason speaks every language that he speaks and all bat related things have to stay at the cave, his league training didn't prepare him for a civilian brother.

During an attempted kidnapping during one of the Wayne galas, Jason's whole plan almost gets blow up because one of the guys has taken a woman hostage and his Red Hood fried brain just pounced on the dude with all his might, wrestled him for the gun and kept him stuck under his boot with the gun pointed between the guys brows.

He had to pretend to be scared when Batman came to the rescue and act like he didn't know how to handle a gun.

+ Alfred 100% thinks Jason was on a children gang and that's why he's so good with knives, guns and rifles, but who's he to say anything about people's past

More Star Sapphire Jason from the batfam lantern AU because you gotta feed the hounds:

Jason: *makes a gun construt*

Jason: *makes a shotgun construct*

Jason: *makes a machine gun construct*

Jason: Okay, fine. I understand the appeal.

*****

Jason: *passive aggressively drops a detailed rendition of the Joker's severed head as a construct at Bruce's feet.*

Bruce: And who exactly is fueling your emotion to maintain such a complex construct?

Jason: It's called self-love.

Bruce: Now see, that I will not believe.

****

Jason plays Go Fetch with Dog using construct balls and sticks as practice. It works great, because Jason loves Dog.

***

Jason: hey Kyle, you don't have to look at them like that, you know I don't have tasers there in that uniform right? I really tried, but the space magic won't let me incorporate most of my Red Hood suit features into it.

Kyle, who definitely was staring at Jason's uniform's boob window : What? I wasn't looking, why would I be looking- wait, your other uniform has tasers where?

*****

Jason: *tries his best to make a flamethrower construct, cannot construct the necessary chemical reaction*

Jason: *tries to make a construct of a book he has been wanting to read but hasn't gotten to yet, the pages are blank.*

Jason: *tries to construct himself a cup of tea and drink it, fails.*

Jason: *tries to construct an actual living breathing cat. Obviously fails.*

Jason: I think God hates me.

*****

Jason, beating Bruce up with a baseball bat construct made out of his love for him: So, my relationship with my dad is going great-

_____

Alternate Lantern Lore explained in this post:

I had a Batman AU thought that I wanted to share involving eldritch?sentient!Gotham. Gotham is alive, old and deeply rooted magic of ??? origin (that doesn't appreciate being poked and prodded so attempts to discern what she is have ended badly), and she is... mercurial, to put it diplomatically. She can favor or sabotage people on a sliding scale of intensity - basically good or bad luck on the lower side of the scale (finding a $20 bill vs stepping in a gross puddle kinda thing), and on the higher side it's things like a bullet missing when it shouldn't or a piece of building falling onto someone. She also has boons, things she grants certain people - primarily Bats, but there are a few Rogues that have their own boons because again, mercurial. Boons bind someone to Gotham, make them always find their way back and eventually need to come back, but if you're close enough to Gotham for her to offer a boon, it's probably your home.

Batman is her... warlock? Paladin? He's pledged his life to protect Gotham and is in tune with her, and he protects the city and keeps it in balance, and she grants him her favor constantly and has given him a powerful boon (able to hide in whatever shadows there are, even slight ones, and virtually disappear in them even if you're watching him). When he takes Dick in and Dick creates the Robin mantle, Gotham loves it, and Dick gets his own boon (able to land where he intends to, can't be killed/seriously hurt from a fall).

Jason though is her absolute favorite son, her pride and joy. He's born of Gotham, steeped in the city, of it and for it, and he loves Gotham and when he becomes Robin he fights to make her better and bring light to her. She gives him the boon that he knows every part of the city instinctively. He can move through it easily, knows the streets and buildings by heart, knows on some level what's happening in different places (not always exact, usually gut feelings), and he can always hide in it when he chooses.

Then he dies. (Away from Gotham, because if he'd been in Gotham she never would have let it happen.) Gotham and Batman are a wreck together, they're angry and grieving and losing it, everything is coming apart and it's Bad. (The Joker had a boon from Gotham, because he's also of Gotham, and she's not good or evil but simply is. However when he killed HER favorite son, she tore the boon and her favor from him and wrecked what was left of his mind. He still feels chained to Gotham and Batman, but this is no longer a city that loves him.)

This is when Tim pushes to become Robin, and both Gotham and Batman hate it. They both want to lose themselves in the rage and grief, but Tim won't let them. Batman/Bruce comes around first, but Gotham is still seething, and she sabotages Tim at every turn: things that should hold his weight break or creak loudly, shadows never seem to hide him, evidence gets lost or trails go cold when he tries to follow them, buildings constantly crumble around him, goons always seem to get hits on him that he should be able to dodge or avoid, he gets pitched into the harbor CONSTANTLY.

It gets to a point that Bruce is seriously considering firing Tim purely because it's notably more dangerous for him as Robin than it ever was for Dick and Jason (even though he and Dick both try to convince Gotham to calm down and lay off). Tim eventually tracks down the best place to communicate with Gotham directly (much as she tries to deter him) and they get into a fight (reminiscent of Tim getting into fights with Bruce to make him get his shit together).

Tim argues that if he hadn't stepped in, Bruce would have either gotten himself killed or crossed a line he couldn't come back from, and it would have destroyed him AND the hope left in Gotham. He would have been considered a criminal and likely would have become a Rogue, with no 'Batman' to step up and stop him. He argues that Batman needs a Robin to fight for and protect, and without one he'll backslide and get worse again, and if that happens, Gotham will be torn to shreds. Tim points out that Jason loved Gotham and fought for her, and it's disrespectful of his love and his memory to let everything fall to pieces after he fought so hard for her.

It's enough to convince Gotham to back off on her sabotage, though she's still hurt and sulking. Bruce still isn't sure about Tim not having Gotham's favor, much less a boon of his own, but Tim argues that he'll get good enough to keep up with or without Gotham's help - which he does.

Over time though, Gotham watches Tim fight to protect Gotham and Batman, and she admits she was wrong in how she treated him. She slowly starts to extend her favor to him and eventually approaches him and offers him a boon. Tim, however, turns her down. He's seen how badly Jason's loss and Gotham's grief and anger affected those closely connected to her, and he knows taking the boon will tie him to Gotham permanently. He believes those connected to Gotham and Gotham herself need someone who can be more objective and keep a level head, and he's secretly kind of worried that if something happens again, if Bruce and the Bats eventually tire of him and don't need him, he'll be trapped in Gotham. He also just doesn't totally trust Gotham even though he loves her.

Gotham's hurt, obviously, but she understands and doesn't lash out, recognizing it's her own fault. She does give him her favor though and swears to never rescind it, even when she's upset with him. Tim's gotten this far without her favor or a boon, but it's nice not to have to worry about getting dunked in the harbor for the third time in one week anymore (though she hasn't done that in a year or so).

Then Jason returns, and Gotham is having THE BEST time. Her baby boy! Is back! He's bigger now, and he's a lot angrier and hurt in a lot of ways, but he's! Back! She's a little worried about how angry he is at Batman and the other Bats, but Jason is her favorite and she can't turn him away or deny him. She still favors him, she just... makes sure she favors the Bats enough too to keep them all on an even playing field. They'll work it out. Tim managed to get her to calm down, so she's confident her current Robin will help the family again.

Then Jason goes to the Titan Tower after Tim, and initially she assumes they'll talk and things will be better, but when Jason comes back she sees that he went and ATTACKED Tim.

It's the first time she's ever been angry at Jason, and she drops a brick on his head (while he's wearing his helmet, he's still her favorite), and she threatens to collapse the ceiling of his apartment. They get into a fight. Jason came away from his fight with Tim thinking Tim was impressive as Robin, but he doesn't want him in the suit so he still went through with beating him unconscious. He DID notice Tim doesn't have Gotham's boon, so he doesn't understand why she's so upset he roughed the kid up.

Gotham is pissed and a pissed Gotham is hard to communicate with outside of raw emotion, so eventually after suffering several indignities of light sabotage, getting caught yelling at the street or a building while the manhole cover or windows rattle angrily, Jason goes to find Tim and ask "hey what the FUCK" (haven't fully figured how this changes Jason's interactions with the rest of the Bats, but he is begrudgingly impressed that Tim made it through the start of his tenure with Gotham actively sabotaging him, then argued an eldritch city into behaving, then turned down her boon and STILL came out of it with her undying favor).

(Gotham, in this AU, is NOT a fan of the al Ghuls at all. Primarily Ra's, at first, because he wants to purify Gotham/control her, and she is NOT a fan of that thanks. He's tried attacking her (destroying parts of the city), threatening her, trying to determine the origin of her magic, enslave her, trying to bargain with her, seducing her, and she is having NONE OF IT. Going into Gotham is a nightmare for anyone with the League, because while it can be difficult for her to get a hold of them, once she does she sabotages the HELL out of them. Getting cut on rusted rebar, falling off ledges, sinkholes opening up under them, one of them managed to get bitten by a rat and catch the bubonic plague. Ra's has, on one memorable occasion, been knocked into an open manhole and then almost drowned in sewer water that carried him out into the harbor where something (possibly Croc) tried to eat him, and he broke his arm while climbing out.

Talia got a reluctant pass since she seemed more interested in Bruce than Gotham and Bruce reciprocated, but Gotham doesn't appreciate Talia's attempts to lure Bruce OUT of Gotham. When she finds out Talia kept Jason away? AND convinced him to go after Tim? Talia is on the permanent shit list too.

When Gotham finds out about DAMIAN, Talia can't set foot in Gotham without having SEVERAL chunks of building being dropped on her from above.

Though when Damian DOES show up, Gotham is quick to claim him and offer him a boon. He's the son of Batman, he's a future Robin, and if he's given a boon, he's tied to Gotham and can't easily return to the League (mostly Talia and Ra's). Win win!

Except then he attacks Tim, and learns VERY swiftly that it's not good to piss off the sentient eldritch city you accepted a boon from. He's laid up with a migraine and all kinds of awful symptoms of an illness (nothing fatal but definitely awful) until Tim recovers, and then Tim gets to play mediator between the Bats and Gotham AGAIN as he tries to explain to Damian the nuances of Gotham as an entity and what being one of her favored/booned actually means, AND lecturing Gotham about sabotaging another Robin/giving him a boon without making sure he understood what he was accepting.)

HI 👋 Fabulous AU you've got here.

I particularly enjoy how complicated Tim's relationship with Gotham is. In fact, Tim's later years could be misunderstood by the Bats as Tim being her favorite (hear me out).

If Gotham never states who her favorite is, all the Bats see is that Tim, despite not having a boon, has Gotham on his side against the other Bats (really, Tim just isn't attacking/harming the others like they are to him, but it's about perspective).

It's also kind of heartbreaking that Tim has an additional condition that sets him apart from the Bats. He's the only one to be immediately hated by Gotham. He doesn't have a boon (though later that's a choice). He is consistently reaching out to Gotham to actually communicate and fix their issues.

Might I add an additional part for extra angst? We'll take the fanon idea of Tim stalking his heroes from a young age.

Gotham sees that another being idolizes her paladins and grants him the small boon of his camera never making a sound, being unnoticeable, and the flash never being visible unless Tim wants it to. Tim is okay with being stuck in Gotham due to his parents never taking him abroad with them

After Tim forces his way into Robin, though, Gotham rips this away from him, destroys any need for him to stay (she wants him to leave her alone to her own rumination), and actively sabatoges him.

Because it was taken from him once, because he's felt the pain of that loss, because the sudden emptiness was a gaping hole he had to spend years coping with, he never wants a boon again. He doesn't know if he'll be able to handle the sudden deprivation once more.

This is the start of him not trusting that anything lasts (especially since a retracted boon was so rare it's only been rumored in the past [since Gotham doesn't care for "good" or "evil" it's harder to get on her bad side]).

I'm curious what all of the boons alloted to each person are (very curious if/what Commissioner Gordon's)

Most interdimensional entities that humans consider horrifying demons and eldrich horrors actually consider humans pretty dangerous unless they're actively trained fighters. Your average extraplaner being isn't used to dealing with a species that evolved to hunt in groups, and developed to survive in violent scenarios.

Most final girl situations happen because young entities deeply underestimate that humans have such a strong will to live, and are willing to fight back agasint a stronger foe. Most older entities keep at bay for this very reason, which is why you just see them stranding around being creepy.

That pale long limbed cryptid you spotted in a subway station moved so quickly because it doesn't want to end up near you. That shadow person whose hovering over you in the woods is trying to observe you, but it will teleport away if anyone comes near it for a good reason.

And that doppelganger that's standing by your door at night just wants to observe you too. He was smart to try to copy your roommate's face, but he doesn't realize how good humans are at recognizing eachother's faces, and that his copy will be disturbing to any human who sees it. And he got way to reckless with his movements and bad attempts to imitate human speech. Trying to trick the human who he wants to study into coming to his dimensions is an even bigger mistake, especially since he didn't realize how quickly the human would catch on. He's soon going to learn things he should have read up on before hand: humans will try to attack things they're afraid of if they can't run away, humans can use almost any hard object as a weapon by holding it and swinging, and that those decorations on your wall are called 'swords' and were not originally designed as decorations...

Rewatching the live action Transformers Movies and a reoccurring theme is that the Cybertronians are NOT sneaky. Like, at all. Bumblebee literally chasing Sam down the sidewalk in broad daylight, the whole crew 'hiding' by turning into cars on Sam's lawn, Mudflaps and Skids in pretty much every scene they're in, Mirage setting off a car alarm trying to peek into Noah's window, etc. and I've come to the conclusion that the only reason they are so bad at being sneaky is because they're not from Earth.

On Cybertron, they're very sneaky. The tactics they were using would 100% work. But Earth has different things that make different noises and everything is sized differently and it's more delicate so their usual tactics don't work anymore. Bumblebee was a fucking scout, Jazz is canonically head of special ops. Mirage is a spy! They are sneaky bastards! But Earth shit is so fragile and small and random things have alarms that they're out of their element. It means that none of them can go on stealth missions anymore because even if they can learn how to work around everything being small and fragile, 16+ foot robots are pretty hard to fucking miss.