Tim Drake has a weird fucking function
The thing about Tim that I find unique is that his life became SO MUCH WORSE after joining the heroing thing. Everybody else had a mid-to-shit life before becoming a hero/living with Bruce and mostly everybody (except Jason who LITERALLY DIED) had their life improved by being a hero/being Bruce's kid (or at least it is typically portrayed as such.
Tim had the exact opposite trajectory. His life wasn't perfect before he became Robin, but like...multi-millionaire/billionaire (canon is unclear, but he's within Gotham's upper-strata) kid with both natural intelligence + charisma and a bright future ahead of him and parents who were emotionally neglectful but nothing really beyond that (which is also a form of trauma, but all of the info we have indicates that the Drakes were no Arthur Brown or David Cain) and he still had other people he could rely on outside of them. He went to boarding school, which could be something horrible OR something amazing depending on your own thoughts/experiences. I grew up having a commute where we'd drive past a really pretty and rich af boarding school that literally everybody in our area DREAMED of going to, so to me the idea of going to boarding school sounds incredible but mileage may vary. Tim seems like the type of kid who would thrive in that though. Based on what we know in canon atm, his pre-robin life was fucking amazing.
And then he starts being the sidekick and working towards becoming Robin. His parents immediately get kidnapped and poison themselves through drinking tainted water; his mom dies and his dad is in a coma. This is not the fault of Robin, but Tim himself muses about the idea that Robin and dead parents are linked: to become Robin completely, you must lose your parents. And with how fate/destiny/canon events can operate in comics universes, maybe he isn't that far off. Once his dad wakes up, their relationship becomes strained as the man grieves the loss of his wife and realizes that his son has been doing vigilantism as a hobby. It is unclear exactly how good of a parent Jack was before the incident, but the results of Tim's involvement with the Robin mantle has definitely made things worse between father and son. Jack will also die within quick succession of 2 of Tim's best friends, his girlfriend, and his other father. He will also effectively lose like 1/2 his loved ones in the fallout of all of that mess including: his older brother, his other friends (both civilian and superhero), and the stepmother with whom he shared what I would argue is his best parent-child relationship (Dana also may have died, but it's left unclear). He has stopped pursuing higher education (the moment he even applied for college he 'died', and it seems he hasn't made another attempt since) and if he wasn’t a major focus of the media before he sure is now. He tries to quit briefly (in fact he initially was planning on quitting once someone more suited came along) and cannot bring himself to do so. Even when he does manage to get away for a while, his superhero life impacts the pre-robin life he is trying to go back to. Leaving is an impossibility, this is all there is for him now. He also isn’t allowed to make mistakes anymore, not when lives hang in the balance. The one who enforces that impossible standard the most (besides Bruce depending on who's writing) is himself. He’s got TRAUMA now and people want to hurt him constantly. He is constantly questioning his own sanity and morality and place in the world. He almost dies like every month. Tim grows colder and less grounded, he is becoming both a better and a worse version of himself at the same time. He’s saving lives in the same few issues as he’s setting up a Saw movie plot for the man who killed his father. He is haunted by the ghosts of his past and the looming figure of his future. His life becomes SO MUCH FUCKING WORSE after he becomes Robin. Some of it is the fault of others, some is the fault of circumstance, and some of it is due to his own actions. But basically all of Tim's worst traumas and life-changing moments are either tied to or caused by Robin. Dick's parents would still be dead, Jason would still be living on the streets, Stephanie would still have Arthur Brown for a father and a lot of other things that deserve their own posts/IDK if they've been retconned, and Damian would still have been raised in the eco-cult where death is a constant. Those are life circumstances that occur without the involvement of Robin, the only one who even needs Bruce involved at all in their series of events is Damian. But Tim? All of what is considered his 'worst' moments occur after he assumes the role.
This idea is what I find the coolest and most fascinating about Tim as a character. Being a hero is usually portrayed as either an outright awesome thing or a righteous duty that one must fulfill or (maybe in a grimmer and/or more grounded story) a sacrifice to your interpersonal relationships/mental health that is made for the greater good. For Tim, being a superhero actively ruined his life (both because of the general circumstances surrounding being a kid vigilante and the choices he made as part of that role). It's never portrayed that way in canon because we need to come out of issues going 'wow being a superhero is so cool! I'm gonna buy the next issue!', but when you just look at Tim's life literally everything really bad that we know of occurred after he became Robin.
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at this point they could've just cut the first three episodes and told the entire story chronologically. I mean, what's the point in a flashback if it's not there to enrich the main storyline? I feel like whoever wrote the script for The Untamed didn't really think about why MDZS was told in the way and the order it was.
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thinking about the dog we almost adopted earlier this year. she would be with us by now if that did go through. i'm still not sure i understand the logic behind what happened with that rescue, i try to be objective when thinking about it but being given crucial information at the last moment along with their final, negative, decision did sting.
point is, there's been no update to this dog's information on their website. still says that "other dogs are fine" when what we were told in that last email from them (and at no point before that!) was that she had apparently shown reactive and aggressive behavior towards other dogs at the shelter. and like, i dont get it. why withhold information like that but then give it at the last moment and turn down people because of it without giving them the option or time to think or talk about it?
im fine with not having adopted her, i want to say it's probably for the best because our initial plan was always to get a dog from a breeder and that's what we'll do. but i worry about how long she's going to stay in that environment. i mean, old (8yrs) overweight malinois with a last minute "oh hey btw she's aggressive!" surprise ? good luck finding a "good fit" for that.
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feeling very weird about the last two episodes of Miss Scarlet (3.3 and 3.4), because I... actually really loved them?? and I know it was largely because of the absence of William.
which I find odd, because I actually DO like him!! he's a complex and interesting character, he and Eliza's spark off one another is really fun (and also lbr, infuriating, and that's a large reason why this show works; hence the title), and I just... genuinely do like the character. he's irksome as all get-out, he can be entirely insensitive and a touch misogynistic and sometimes I really do wanna break his nose. but I still like him! he has a part to play in this story and I understand that for what it is within the narrative, I really enjoy it!
and yet... I've felt like these last two episodes were some of the most genuinely well-written and especially well-character-written ones for a good while.
I guess it's just because, with the Duke out of the picture, other characters aren't constantly being held up to him in one way or another. Moses, Detective Fitzroy, Mr. Nash, Detective Phelps--they're all given a chance to be developed as characters in their own right, instead of just supporting William/William and Eliza's relationship. and even Eliza grows and is a far more multi-faceted and, I think, genuinely enjoyable character when she's not reduced to simply her reactions to and against William.
I'm intrigued, to be honest. I know he's back in his usual spot as the second lead in the next episode, and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens given the ~revelation~ in the very last scene of episode 3.4... but I'm already kind of sad that the rest of the characters I've so enjoyed getting to spend more time focusing on are going to once again be cast in the shadow of 'Miss Scarlet and the Duke'. despite that literally being the entire point of the show.
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Not what I usually post about and I’m not sure why I’m frothing with rage over this on a random Monday morning but here we are.
Malignant (James Wan) was one of my favorite movies of 2021. I like watching movie reviews on YouTube after I’ve seen a movie to see what other people thought and holy shit the film bro reviewers were even more annoying than usual over this film. “I just can’t tell if this is genuinely bad or if it’s trying to be over the top” this film could literally not be more clearly camp. The opening scene concludes with a doctor in a cartoon-level gothic hospital saying “it’s time to cut out the cancer” then it smash cuts to the credits playing with a bad rock song. It’s camp. “I guess it’s good if it was supposed to be an homage but it’s bad if it wasn’t” what a fucking cop out how bout you do your job and make an informed assessment about what you think the films intentions are and stick to your guns about whether you think it’s good or not.
Even worse everyone was like “James Wan’s work is solid otherwise but this was a total flop.” I don’t totally hate the conjuring universe or insidious or whatever but those films are formulaic, uncreative snooze fests that everyone goes nuts over for some reason I can’t decipher. At best they’re fine. Malignant was fun. It was brave. It was wild. It was hammy. It made me feel something why do people hate fun.
Also lots of people compared to Malignant to The Room which strikes me as completely absurd. Even if you think Malignant is bad, The Room isn’t the only other bad film ever made and there are very few comparisons to be made between the films. Let’s stop comparing every movie we think is bad to The Room 2k24.
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