#Budgie—goofy and the 99% of the US has never even heard of a budgie.

[benbamboozled]

i am partial to "Crow" being Tim's new identity after reading one very convincing post so now i am imagining Martha making up some fucked up story of why crows are associated with funerals or why a group of them is called a murder which Bruce tells to Tim after Tim came back from attending 80th funeral of a dearly departed loved one

See, “Crow” doesn’t work for me as a name for two reasons.

The first is this guy—

The second is that (and this is a problem I’ve had with pretty much all fan-names I’ve seen, and several “official” hero names)—it’s just not punchy enough.

It just kinda…thuds. And like, crows are cool! I love crows! But just “Crow” is…it’s just not enough.

A good hero name (or villain name, even), IMO, has to have a good mouthfeel and a good brainfeel.

“Good mouthfeel” meaning it needs to flow, it needs to feel good to say it. (Probably something to do with syllable endings and iambic pentameter or something idk.)

“Good brainfeel” meaning it has to have an interesting set of connotations behind it that are a complementary match to the hero (or villain) who’s using it. Also, IMO, it should be pretty self-explanatory. (People would ask wtf a “Corvid” is.)

Like—Robin. In the words of Ghost-maker, not even a scary bird! But it has a good mouthfeel and when combined with a chirpy lil kid sidekick, it works.

I think a lot of people go with “good brainfeel” and they neglect the “good mouthfeel” aspect. Even the comics do it—I’m convinced that Owlman hasn’t caught on more because it sounds awkward as hell!

(“Talon,” otoh…that name fucks.)

Anyway, I do very much like the idea of Bruce waxing poetic about weird shit his mom told him to Tim about crows. I’ll take that!

#ask answered #Tim Drake #and the subject of names #some fan names I’ve seen that I did not like: #(not specifically for Tim btw just ones I’ve seen) #Cardinal—too awkward and bulky. #Budgie—goofy and the 99% of the US has never even heard of a budgie. #Corvid—mouthfeel isn’t too bad/brainfeel is okay BUT nobody would know what it meant. #I’ve seen some based on parrots…no. #people also like bringing in Flamebird for the Nightwing connection but nah it’s awkward as hell. #anyways that’s just my opinion. like what you like! what do I know? i keep pitching clone babies and DC keeps not answering my calls.