Tim Drake: Robin, Red Robin, Appreciation 2022

[ChangingStation]

I will say can't say I'm too impressed

That's a little confusingly put.

[Crabble]

So here

https://soundcloud.com/geeksplainedp...han-fitzmartin

This is an interview Fitzmartin did recently about Tim. Skip to 1 hour and 49-50 minutes to see her talk about Tim and Stephanie specifically or 2 hour to see her process on say picking Bernard....

I will say can't say I'm impressed like at all.

Wait, if Ms. Fitzmartin thinks "Stephanie deserves someone better than Tim", then Tim must have done something something wrong while in a relationship with her. What moment in this pair's history could she talking and thinking about here?

I hope she follows up on that. It'd be a good opportunity to highlight Tim's imperfections as a boyfriend and have him be a "better" one.

[ChangingStation]

Wait, if Ms. Fitzmartin thinks "Stephanie deserves someone better than Tim", then Tim must have done something something wrong while in a relationship with her. What moment in this pair's history could she talking and thinking about here? ...I hope Tim isn't suddenly "the perfect boyfriend" while with Bernarnd.

I personally think it was some kind of excuse so she can justify their breakup. A pretty weak one though, given she didn't even attempt to do it organically.

As for Tim and Bernard, I think it's more Fitzmartin is trying to make Bernard "the perfect boyfriend" in their relationship.

[NOCTPHOENIX]

Wait, if Ms. Fitzmartin thinks "Stephanie deserves someone better than Tim", then Tim must have done something something wrong while in a relationship with her. What moment in this pair's history could she talking and thinking about here?

I hope she follows up on that. It'd be a good opportunity to highlight Tim's imperfections as a boyfriend and have him be a "better" one.

For the last 5 years since Rebirth the two of them were pretty solid and moved past most of their imperfections in their relationship such as communication which was shown in Bendis YJ and Detective Comics Rebirth. Her talking about Stephanie 'deserving better' is hollow as she ignored all of that and broke them up off screen and wrote Tim as an ******* to her and completely inorganic contrast to her claim of liking organic writing.

[Crabble]

For the last 5 years since Rebirth the two of them were pretty solid and moved past most of their imperfections in their relationship such as communication which was shown in Bendis YJ and Detective Comics Rebirth. Her talking about Stephanie 'deserving better' is hollow as she ignored all of that and broke them up off screen and wrote Tim as an ******* to her and completely inorganic contrast to her claim of liking organic writing.

When you explain it like that... Yeah. It doesn't make sense (or doesn't quite fit) when you factor in Rebirth's portrayal of TimSteph.

Maybe she meant to have Tim break-up with Steph like that. Could be her way to reinforce the "Steph deserves better than Tim" sentiment. Though, if you're gonna have that be a flaw then Tim should still become "better" (not doing that when he breaks-up with someone else, unlikely). Flaws are inconsistent in comics.

[WebLurker]

Wait, if Ms. Fitzmartin thinks "Stephanie deserves someone better than Tim", then Tim must have done something something wrong while in a relationship with her. What moment in this pair's history could she talking and thinking about here?

I hope she follows up on that. It'd be a good opportunity to highlight Tim's imperfections as a boyfriend and have him be a "better" one.

If nothing else, his dumping her like a load of bricks would qualify (it certainly convinced me that she deserved someone better, whoever that may be).

Kinda weird, seemed like awhile back, the popular opinion was that Fitzmartin hated Steph. However, in practice, Tim is the one who's seen treating her badly and being in the wrong.

For the last 5 years since Rebirth the two of them were pretty solid and moved past most of their imperfections in their relationship such as communication which was shown in Bendis YJ and Detective Comics Rebirth. Her talking about Stephanie 'deserving better' is hollow as she ignored all of that and broke them up off screen and wrote Tim as an ******* to her and completely inorganic contrast to her claim of liking organic writing.

All writers have their off days, so I'd find it plausible that Fitzmartin wants to write organically but doesn't always pull it off (like now showing how Tim and Steph's relationship self-destructed so badly that Tim apparently now thinks it was a mistake from day one). Suppose when we can see the big picture of the run in full, we can assess things more, but it is what it is.

[WebLurker]

All the discussion r.e. Tim, Bernard, and Steph and the disconnect between how his relationships with them are handled across writers reminded be of this video I stumbled on a few days ago.

[godisawesome]

Fitzmartin’s interview sounds more like an attempt to extrapolate a Watsonian reason for these story elements when there isn’t one, but the Doylist reason isn’t going to stand well enough on its own as an explanation.

Nothing wrong with that in practice, it just means there isn’t really an in-story for the story to exist currently.

[NOCTPHOENIX]

If nothing else, his dumping her like a load of bricks would qualify (it certainly convinced me that she deserved someone better, whoever that may be).

Kinda weird, seemed like awhile back, the popular opinion was that Fitzmartin hated Steph. However, in practice, Tim is the one who's seen treating her badly and being in the wrong.



All writers have their off days, so I'd find it plausible that Fitzmartin wants to write organically but doesn't always pull it off (like now showing how Tim and Steph's relationship self-destructed so badly that Tim apparently now thinks it was a mistake from day one). Suppose when we can see the big picture of the run in full, we can assess things more, but it is what it is.

I mean it's clear she does hate Stephanie as she was the one who wrote Tim being an ******* to her and gave little weight to it and only focused on Tim's perspective.

Nothing Fitzmartin has written has been organic, and is the result of off panel buildup, ignoring character development/growth, forced drama, etc.

[NOCTPHOENIX]

Fitzmartin’s interview sounds more like an attempt to extrapolate a Watsonian reason for these story elements when there isn’t one, but the Doylist reason isn’t going to stand well enough on its own as an explanation.

Nothing wrong with that in practice, it just means there isn’t really an in-story for the story to exist currently.

Gonna need you to explain this in more a laymen's term.

[ChangingStation]

If nothing else, his dumping her like a load of bricks would qualify (it certainly convinced me that she deserved someone better, whoever that may be).

Kinda weird, seemed like awhile back, the popular opinion was that Fitzmartin hated Steph. However, in practice, Tim is the one who's seen treating her badly and being in the wrong.

Because Fitzmartin is writing him to do that, and due to how abrupt it feels, and Tim continues to make strangely nasty remarks in his head even when they apparently make up, it feels more like the work of the author than Tim naturally acting like that. The poor build up makes it difficult to separate the actions of the character from the opinions of the author, same as with Fitzmartin and DC Young Justice.

It's pretty blatant that Fitzmartin wants us to accept that Tim and Steph are done forever and it's right to move on, but she's done it in such a way that it feels like the only reason it's over is because the author says its over. As such, while I want Tim's behaviour to be addressed and him to make up for it, I also want their relationship to return.

Especially given that Stephanie should be the one to decide whether she deserves better, if that was Fitzmartin's intention, rather than Tim suddenly breaking up with her and then becoming quite nasty about her.

All writers have their off days, so I'd find it plausible that Fitzmartin wants to write organically but doesn't always pull it off (like now showing how Tim and Steph's relationship self-destructed so badly that Tim apparently now thinks it was a mistake from day one). Suppose when we can see the big picture of the run in full, we can assess things more, but it is what it is.

I haven't really seen much organic character writing from Fitzmartin so far with Tim. Most of his new supporting cast, don't really feel like their relationship with Tim developed naturally, because we never actually see the relationships and are instead told about them.

Take the Detective, we do see his introduction to Tim, but even with that, Tim suddenly trusts him a whole lot without taking the time to really focus on why he developed that trust in him, even a small acknowledgement to his words of advice having helped him out would have done wonders. Instead, the story focused on Tim just trusting the detective to care.

Darcy was suddenly somebody that Tim knew and trusted enough to work as his partner, and while sometimes that can work, it's pretty explicit that they grew close completely in-between issues.

[godisawesome]

Gonna need you to explain this in more a laymen's term.

Doylist - “This story element happened because I wrote it in the real world, like I’m Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the real world writer behind Sherlock Holmes.”

Watsonian - “This story element happened because of these in-universe reasons, like I’m Doctor Watson, the fictional character writing his ‘memoirs’ of Sherlock Holmes in-universe.”

Examples:

Doylist explanation on why Batman resembles Zorro so much - “I, Bill Finger, picked up that Bob Kane was basing a lot of his bad Batman designs of Zorro, so I did that too.”

Watsonian explanation on why Batman resembles Zorro so much - “I, Bruce Wayne, became a fan of Zorro as a small child and watched the movie the night my parents were murdered, so my vow to pursue Justice in their memory was shaped by that.”

In the case of Fitzmartin’s comment on Stephanie and Tim, she could say “Tim and Steph broke up because I wanted them to so I could writeTim and Bernard,” and that would be accurate but not really an in-universe reason for it to happen, so her attempts to say something like “Tim wasn’t good enough for Stephanie” or “Tim never felt right with Stephanie” don’t actually give a reason in-universe, more just an excuse to not be questioned.

[NOCTPHOENIX]

When you explain it like that... Yeah. It doesn't make sense (or doesn't quite fit) when you factor in Rebirth's portrayal of TimSteph.

Maybe she meant to have Tim break-up with Steph like that. Could be her way to reinforce the "Steph deserves better than Tim" sentiment. Though, if you're gonna have that be a flaw then Tim should still become "better" (not doing that when he breaks-up with someone else, unlikely). Flaws are inconsistent in comics.

If she meant that to show Stephanie deserves better well that is just forcing things for the sake of plot as again Tim WAS doing better with her and Fitzmartin ignored that. Not to mention she barely gave Steph any voice or agency in the whole thing so trying to act like she broke them up for Steph's sake is hollow and ridiculous.

[ayanestar]

I feel like they should have let someone like Steve Orlando handle Tim's coming out. He is male, bisexual and a good writer with experience.

[ChangingStation]

I feel like they should have let someone like Steve Orlando handle Tim's coming out. He is male, bisexual and a good writer with experience.

I'm pretty sure Fitzmartin was the one to suggest the idea of Tim becoming bi, so we were going to get her regardless, she probably could have consulted some bi people though. Of course there's a chance I'm wrong about Fitzmartin being the one to come up with the idea.