jenniferrpovey:

memecucker:

memecucker:

What I think is really interesting about the papyrus account of the workers building the tomb of Rameses III going on strike to demand better wages is really fascinating to me because if you look at the description given by the royal scribe you see that there was an attempt to satisfy the workers by bringing a large amount of food at once but that was rebuffed by the workers who declared that it wasn’t just that they were hungry at the moment but had serious charges to bring that “something bad had been done in this place of Pharoah” (is poor wages and mistreatment). They understood themselves as having long term economic interests as a -class- and organized together knowing that by doing so they could put forward their demands collectively. It so strongly flies in the face of narratives that are like “in this Time and Place people were happy to be serve because they believed in the God-King and maybe you get some intellectual outliers but certainly no common person questioned that”. If historical sources might paint that sorta picture of cultural homogeneity it is because those sources sought not to describe something true but invent a myth for the stability of a regime.

Since this is getting notes here’s a link to a translation of the papyrus scroll and here’s an article that gets further into the economic situation surrounding the strike and giving an explanation of the events. The workers didnt just refuse to construct Rameses III’s future tomb, they actually occupied the Valley of the Kings and were preventing anyone from entering to perform rituals or funerals. Basically they set up the first ever recorded picket line

Again the workers went on strike, this time taking over and blocking all access to the Valley of the Kings. The significance of this act was that no priests or family members of the deceased were able to enter with food and drink offerings for the dead and this was considered a serious offense to the memory of those who had passed on to the afterlife. When officials appeared with armed guards and threatened to remove the men by force, a striker responded that he would damage the royal tombs before they could move against him and so the two sides were stalemated.

Eventually the tomb workers were able to win the day and acquire their demands and actually set a precedent for organized labor and strikes in Egyptian society that continued for a long time

The jubilee in 1156 BCE was a great success and, as at all festivals, the participants forgot about their daily troubles with dancing and drink. The problem did not go away, however, and the workers continued their strikes and their struggle for fair payment in the following months. At last some sort of resolution seems to have been reached whereby officials were able to make payments to the workers on time but the dynamic of the relationship between temple officials and workers had changed – as had the practical application of the concept of ma’at – and these would never really revert to their former understandings again. Ma’at was the responsibility of the pharaoh to oversee and maintain, not the workers; and yet the men of Deir el-Medina had taken it upon themselves to correct what they saw as a breach in the policies which helped to maintain essential harmony and balance. The common people had been forced to assume the responsibilities of the king.

[…]

The success of the tomb-worker/artisan strikes inspired others to do the same. Just as the official records of the battle with the Sea Peoples never recorded the Egyptian losses in the land battle, neither do they record any mention of the strikes. The record of the strike comes from a papyrus scroll discovered at Deir el-Medina and most probably written by the scribe Amennakht. The precedent of workers walking away from their jobs was set by these events and, although there are no extant official reports of other similar events, workers now understood they had more power than previously thought. Strikes are mentioned in the latter part of the New Kingdom and Late Period and there is no doubt the practice began with the workers at Deir el-Medina in the time of Ramesses III.

There was also a strike at one point where construction workers refused to continue until they were given sufficient “cosmetics.”

This was thought a highly strange thing until somebody deciphered the recipe for the “cosmetics” the workers were demanding and recreated it.

It was sunscreen. Sunscreen. 

Making that the first recorded strike over occupational safety.

hellenhighwater:

haikujitsu:

skycowboys:

A quick overview of the Sky Cowboys world from the perspective of the people who live there:

Chasms cut across the landscape, breaking the surface into “land islands” of all sizes. They range from a scant few hundred feet across to hundreds of miles wide. No one knows how deep the chasms are. The floors (if they have floors) are shrouded by mist, and everyone who’s ever ventured below the mist has never returned.

Only creatures with the power of flight can cross the chasms. Many animals evolved some sort of flight mechanism or adapted to live in the sky. Those that did not remain isolated and further adapted for their highly specific ecosystem.

The people of the world often live in humble dwellings made of timber or brick. The general technology level is that of the 1700′s of our world: steam, coal, iron, some steel. Pegasus feathers have also become a useful commodity due to their lightweight but sturdy properties.

Mankind tamed the pegasus so they could cross the chasms. Those who fly pegasi are called “pilots”. Pilots herd other creatures and carry goods/messages across the chasms. They are the center of trading between the “islands”. It’s considered a dangerous job. Most pilots are courageous, rough, wild, daring, and highly talented. They consist of both men and women.

Over the years, pilots and craftsmen have developed specific gear and specialized saddles with which to ride pegasi. Most saddles are narrow in front to rest between the pegasus’ wings with a high cantle in the back. The pilot’s knees rest on the base of the wings (they look like how a jockey sits on a racehorse). Heel slings strap around the heel of the boot to hold the foot in place. Most of the pilots weight in flight rests on the strap, rather than on the wings. Pilots don’t often use bridles. They rely on voice and leg commands to steer their pegasus.

As for the pegasi themselves, there are 3 main species:

The Broadwing Peagsus is the workhorse (har har) of the world. Most pilots ride these. Found all over the world, they’re sturdy, reliable, and robust. They’re based on quarter horses and mustangs or similar breeds. Their wings are comparable to eagle, owl, kite, and hawk wings. Broadwings are technically omnivores, though the vast majority of their diet is vegetarian. They are not considered predatory, and travel in flocks up to 50 strong. Like horses in our world, there is a clear herd hierarchy with a boss mare and protecting stallion.

The Longwing Pegasus is a coastal breed. They live largely solitary lives and roost/live on the cliff sides of the oceans. Based on lighter horse breeds like Akhal Tekes, Warmbloods, and Thoroughbreds, they are a bit more fragile but have more stamina than broadwings. They tend to be energetic, flighty, highly intelligent. Their wings are similar to gulls, albatross, and terns. They eat mostly fish by skimming the tops of the waves, or diving down into the water.

The Shortwing Pegasus is the draft horse of the world. They are generally flightless unless aided by intense winds. They’re steady, slow, and flashy. Based on songbirds, pheasants, ducks, and peacocks, they’re quite colorful. Often used for heavy farm work, or hauling over land. They eat seeds, nuts, and grasses. Untamed they also travel in flocks, but tend to keep nearby forests for the safety of tree cover from flying predators. 

Things I want to explore are pegasus competitions, the floors of the chasms, the coastal regions, towns in general, and clothing (flight and day clothes)

@anneriawings

This is gorgeous!

I only recently started getting into DC, and I love fanfiction with Jason Todd, Cassandra Cain, Damian Wayne, and stuff that involves the Fam interacting (yours especially). But I have heard that DC screws up their characterizations a lot, and there is so much material to chose from. What canon stuff would you recommend reading or watching?

audreycritter:

so here’s the thing. as a fan, i love to say DC screws up characterization. i really think a lot of the time they do, haha. that said, it’s also…canon? and often times fanon/fic pulls from a mixed bag. sometimes my FAVORITE details or bits of characterization aren’t from one solid comic series, but they’re the parts I cull from issues or storylines I either outright don’t like or am simply “meh” about. a good bruce and alfred moment can be the thing that makes reading an entire issue worth it, even if i’m ready to ignore the rest of the issue.

there is so much. there is so, so much. you can find rec lists all over tumblr, specific to character or era. i’m not great for that because I read all over the place, have scattered favorites, and don’t even read a ton of older stuff about specific batkids unless i hunt down a particular issue or story.

what i will say is this: enjoy fanfic. and then enjoy comics. what should you read? whatever you enjoy. i know that’s vague and doesn’t help you find anything, but honestly, when you do find stuff (check your library and used book stores and ebay), read for the things you love and don’t feel compelled to like everything.

i love batfam but it’s so rare to find good group stuff in canon that some of my favorite comics are actually the Legends of the Dark Knight stuff where Bruce is working mostly solo. I love the art, the insular stories, the themes.

I do rec Lil Gotham, Super Sons, the BTAS tie-in stuff (Gotham Adventures, I think? Paul Dini’s work). Early Robin issues. I love silver and golden age World’s Finest stuff, too, because it’s just FUN. Also, the 1996 World’s Finest miniseries has some fun dynamics in the background– Lois Lane buddies up with Alfred at parties, the Kents host holiday dinners with Perry White and Jim Gordon, with Barbara and Jimmy and Lois all there, too.

I’d watch Batman: The Animated Series. It’s fun and gorgeous and solid positive characterization (two caveats: older Dick Grayson can come across as a bit whiny sometimes, and once you move into the post-series material and Batman Beyond it falls apart as a batfam piece). 

Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go! are both a lot of fun, for different reasons (the first delves into more emotional connections and world-building over the series; the second is more punchy humor and less emotional stuff. genuine friendship development vs. an entire episode about real estate investment, that kind of thing). 

As for Jason and Cass, that’s so…hard. Jason, I def recommend the 1980s Batman stuff he appears in. He’s a FUN and sweet Robin. The first like, six issues of Rebirth RHATO were good but then it sort of fell into old and tired tropes. Cass shows up around NML and there’s a lot of really good stuff with her and Barbara early on, and then Steph and Bruce, but it’s mixed with a lot of eh writing throughout the era and then a very weird Evil!Cass storyline that we’d all like to forget. Expect in general to have to read far, far more piecemeal and cling to certain panels or flashbacks or tiny bits of canon for Cass and Jason and Steph.

I hope that helps! Anyone is free to reblog with recs.

(I only have preboot stuff for you. That’s the world that DC’s main stories were set in from 1986 to 2011. This is the continuity most, but definitely not all, older fans think of.)

If you love the Batfamily interacting, Batmanː Gotham Knights is always going to be my recommendation. Early Cass being too awesome to handle, Dick and Tim spending LOTS of time together, Alfred being the best – it has it all. First 40 or 50 issues are great, after that it’s kind of terrible, I think.

Cass had an entire series – Batgirl – that was wonderful. Babs is a major supporting character, Steph becomes one later on, and Tim shows up even later.

Cass later shows up in Red Robin to hang out with Tim in several issues. I love that series.

Batmanː Gates of Gotham has a lot of the characters together and is very well written.

Batman Inc. Has some good Cass and Damian, as well as an arc with Jason. I loved it until I hit an issue that reminded me that Morrison likes torturing kids and isn’t safe for Geckos (me). But if you don’t mind dark stuff, it might be interesting for you?

Batman and Robin falls in the same spot for me, except it’s MORE violent and creepy. But that’s where you get Damian and Dick. (I only got Damian and Dick when they showed up in Red Robin. It was safer.)

Jason has a really interesting arc in Countdown. Countdown is terrible, so you have to skip most or all of the other plot threads, but it’s a unique preboot take on him that makes him a lot more likeable in some ways, and less likeable in others. He reads as an obnoxious young teenager, rather than a young adult, and I like it.

Tiny Robin Jason shows up in most issues between New Teen Titans 19 and 31, back in the 1980s. He is adorable and wonderful.

Finally, I made a list of every time the Batfam have interacted. So if you want to know if a series has much of the family, you could check that out?

Writing Meme

galaxystew:

Tagged by @for-the-flail!

This little tag meme is an opportunity for writers to reflect on (and promote!) our own writing, but also to hear about the work of our fellow writers and to find something new to read!

Rules: answer the following questions about your own writing, whether fanfic or original. If you can’t/don’t want to answer a question, just put N/A. If you don’t have that many posted works, tell us about your WIPs or individual chapters/drabbles or even your ideas! Then tag as many writers as you like 🙂

AO3 name and link, if applicable: Galaxysoup

What’s your most popular fic, by whatever metric is most relevant to you (hits, kudos, comments, reblogs, some other trait)?

Hands down Amateur Theatrics, which not only blew up when I posted it (in 2012, sweet Jesus) but has proved to have incredible staying power. In fact, without having seen Infinity War yet, I was able to tell that something significant happened to Loki by the way this fic had a resurgence.

What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written?

Ooof, that’s hard – ‘favorite’ can cover a lot of ground. I think probably Parable, which I wrote for a Yuletide in 2011, and it’s one of my favorites because hardly anyone ever read it and I love an underdog. 😀 Looking back through my list, in fact, it’s usually the Yuletide fics that stand out to me, because writing something for a small fandom can often be a challenge and there’s a quiet pride that goes along with that. Hail Mary also stands out, though, because it’s the only WIP I’ve ever posted and it was such a wonderful community experience that I’m always going to love it.

What’s your best fic, and is it different from your favorite fic?

I think my best fic is probably Darkness, Flooded in Light, which is also one of the ones I’m proudest of. It was challenging to write from a technical standpoint and an emotional one, and I feel like it’s held up pretty well even as I’ve moved on as an author.

Do you have a fic whose popularity surprised you?

Amateur Theatrics, again – Avengers fandom was booming when I wrote it, so I was pretty sure it would be noticed, but it outstripped my expectations. Further back than that, The Legend of Daniel Jackson – also a kidfic with a slightly controversial ending, funnily enough. To really date that story: it’s the one I used to receive the most emails about. 😀

Do you have a fic you wish more people would read?

Not particularly? I’m pretty content with the amount of readership I get, and after mumblety-many years in fandom I’ve managed to get to the point where I don’t worry as much over comments and hit counts as I used to. But the quieter fics can always use some promotion, so I’d say Unseen, Unheard, The Invitation, or Intangible.

Is there a ship or fandom you haven’t written, but really want to?

God yes. Every Yuletide I discover at least ten of them. Also I’ve been writing an epic real-world-AU Robin story in my head for about ten years now which will never see the light of day… but sometimes a girl can dream. 🙂

Tell us a random fact about your writing process:

When I started writing, back in the dark ages, it was all about outlines. Every story I wrote had a corresponding word document where I kept track of plot, character beats, tidbits to include later, etc etc. These days I go for the spaghetti method more and more: just throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. 😀

Tagging: whoever wants to give it a go!

doughtier:

ricekrispyjoints:

nerdyqueerandjewish:

captainlordauditor:

jewish-privilege:

palominojacoby:

kazoobard:

Jewish mood

It’s almost that time of the year!

?חנוכה

?חֲנֻכָּה

Xanike?

xanike made me ascend out of the physical realm and into an astral plane

Honka and Xanike are on opposite sides of the spelling spectrum

the answer to “how do you spell Hanukkah” is “with a different alphabet”

Gather round, my children, and let me tell you how to spell this pesky word.

I’ll start by what everybody agrees on in the spelling: the vowels. Everybody agrees that they go -a-u-a- (I’m using the dashes to denote possibly missing consonants for now).

You may have noticed the 2 different spellings of The Word in Hebrew above:

  1. חֲנֻכָּה: the original word, in which the /u/ portrayed in 

    נֻ  (/nu/) is a short one. Biblical Hebrew distinguished between long vowels, short vowels, and half-sized vowels. Due to Biblical Hebrew syllable-structure shenanigans, the /u/ is short.

  2. חנוכה: the modern way of writing the word. The נו (/nu/) would have denoted a long vowel in Biblical Hebrew … but Modern Hebrew does not distinguish vowels by length.  
  3. The first /a/ (in 

    חֲ) used to denote a half-length vowel. Since vowel-length doesn’t mean anything anymore in Hebrew, both /a/ are equal.

Therefore, in Modern Hebrew, 

חנוכה = 

חֲנֻכָּה.

That covers the vowels. Next, the bits where everybody who knows even a bit of transliteration would agree on:

  1. There’s only 1 /n/. That means it’s -anu-a-.
  2. There are 2 /k/ after the /u/. That’s because the Hebrew is 

    כָּ. You see the little dot in the middle? That used to mean that the sound used to be geminated. We don’t really observe gemination in Modern Hebrew anymore, except that in some letters (v, f, ch) the little dot (dagesh) denotes something very important.

    • In case you don’t want to double the K, because the language that you’re using, AKA English, that doubling means absolutely nothing, you can skip it.

This leaves us with -anuk(k)a- as a definite spelling so far.

This is where things get murky. Because you see … this is when the transliteration rules start falling apart by way of a long tradition of transliteration as well phonology rules across several languages in the duration of about 2000 years.

The beginning

ח: is it h, kh, or ch? Frankly, it could be any of these.

  • KH: This is the transliteration of a sound in Hebrew that no European language has or has had. Standard Modern Hebrew doesn’t have it anymore, but it’s still considered an acceptable, very common variance of the consonant ח. In linguistics, it’s written as [

    ħ

    ], and in Semitic studies, it’s written as

    ḥ (an h with a little dot below it). You can listen to it [here on Wikipedia]. This is the classical, old-fashioned, origins-faithful spelling … which looks very very wrong: Khanukka-. Weird, right? Still correct.

  • If you listened to the recording, you might think it sounds between an /h/ and an /x/ (as in ‘ch’ in the Scottish Gaelic word for lake ‘loch’), depending on which sound you preferred.
  • H is how the Greeks transliterated the letter ח in the Bible (such as in the second h in the word ‘Bethlehem’)
  • CH is how Standard Modern Hebrew pronounces via the Ashkenazi pronunciation of Yiddish.
  • So if you spell it with a KH, you’re an out-of-date traditionalist; if you spell it with an H, you’re faithful to the name of the holiday in your own language, and if you spell it with a CH you’re faithful to the Standard Modern Hebrew pronunciation (and probably have family who speaks either Hebrew or Yiddish).

Possible, correct options so far:

  • Khanuk(k)a-
  • Hanuk(k)a-
  • Chanuk(k)a-

Which leads us to the very last dash! Is there an H at the end? Should there be an H at the end?

  • This is where it gets the most complicated, because it requires some background in Hebrew noun-noun constructs.
  • The word ‘

    חנוכה

    ‘ is an actual word in Hebrew that means ‘inauguration, dedication, consecration‘ according to morfix.co.il (the Hebrew-English-Hebrew web translator). Since Hebrew is a gendered language, The Word is a feminine noun. A lot of feminine nouns in Hebrew end with what can be directly transliterated as ‘-ah’, or, in Hebrew, a word-final ‘

    ה

    ‘ (the name of this letter is either He or Hey, depending on how much official Hebrew education the person had).

  • This Hey is silent. It hanging around does not mean there’s an /h/ sound in the word. All it does is tell the user of the language that they should pay attention to this word, because in noun-noun constructs, the Hey becomes a Tav (or Taf). This was ‘inauguration of [noun]’ is חנוכת-בית (khanukkat-bayit in pefect translit; ‘bayit’ is ‘house’ or ‘home’).
  • So, it’s really up to you whether to add that last H or not.

What you should be careful of, probably, is mix-and-matching. Khanuka is just outright weird, because you’re mixing a bunch of translit styles – going from extreme translit mode (KH) to mild mode (one K, no H). Chanuka also looks strange, because the CH is also somewhat strict-ish translit.

This all means that these are all the correct spellings in English, from a Hebrew standpoint, from most-strict transliteration to the most permissive:

  • Khanukkah
  • Chanukkah
  • Hanukkah
  • Chanukka (h is silent, double-k still serves a phonetic purpose that I didn’t bother going much into)
  • Hanukah
  • Hanukka
  • Hanuka (as much as it makes me twitch)

You’re welcome, and may you all confuzzle everybody you come across! 

🎉

naxzella:

finding out people dont usually add numbers by first adding something to make a ten (for example 7+6= 7 plus 3 is 10 plus another 3 is 13) & that its actually an adhd thing is the WILDEST shit literally ive lived like 10 years (or however old i was when i learned to add and stuff) thinking thats how everyone does it. what the fuck

prompt or question, whichever you please, how did tim and tim figure out that the younger ones are tethered to the older ones in The Till-Then? (“It’s us younger ones that are tethered… in chapter 8) (nightwing’s curiosity stirred my own)

whetstonefires:

Thanks, this is a great ask! It turned out to be really challenging for me to write because I had to work through my hangups about Tim’s characterization before I could resolve it to my satisfaction.

Everyone who I owe fics to, I promise it’s an ongoing process! orz Getting this out of my mental queue should help. ^^;

Normal
0

false
false
false

EN-US
X-NONE
X-NONE

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

Tim lowered his binoculars. The
fight he’d seen shaping up along the waterfront had resolved itself, which was
nice to see but meant he really needed to get back on patrol. He and Steph and
Bruce were out tonight, which was enough force to handle anything short of a
major crisis, but that didn’t mean he could slack off. There was always more to
do.

He always missed Gotham when he went
away, but sometimes he wondered why, when he came back.

His patrol route for tonight swung
west, out of the stockyards and into the industrial area, and then back toward
residential. It was sort of grueling in the wintertime because it covered a lot
of ground without much in the way of chances to warm up, but it wasn’t usually
challenging–there were little scuffles like the one he’d almost intervened in
and other minor problems sometimes, but mostly there weren’t many people out
here at night, so anything you did find tended to be serious. Complex schemes
and major villains, hiding out.

That was why they patrolled
this area, because otherwise there’d be no one to notice when an old warehouse
turned into a headquarters or a factory was converted for some nefarious
purpose. But if you didn’t run into any of that, odds were you wouldn’t run
into anything.

It made it hard to keep up any sense
of urgency on this route, but if you maintained a sense of urgency at all times
you’d just go crazy. Dick wasn’t actually wrong about that.

The next roof west was only three
feet higher than this one, and ten feet away. Tim bet himself he could make it
without a grapple. He’d just give himself a bit of a run-up, and….

Nailed it.

“Guah!”

Tim spun, staff telescoping to full
length in his hand, at the startled sound, coming from much closer than
anyone had any business being when he’d thought he was alone. To find a small
figure mostly covered in a black cape, having evidently fallen facefirst over
the decorative cornice at the far side of the roof he’d just left. Flashes of
color showed from under the cape–leaf-green, blood-red, canary yellow.

Robin.

There was only a split second where
Tim’s brain told him it was Damian–snuck away from his special bonding time
with Dick to harass Tim, a stupidly plausible and profoundly infuriating
scenario–followed by another split second of wild seesawing emotion at the
revelation that after three years, he now equated Robin so completely with
Damian that he expected anyone in a Robin suit to be the little monster, no matter
how firmly all other cues spoke against that.

Then he put all that behind him and
focused on what was. A dark-haired child, stealthy enough to watch Red
Robin from a hidden spot on the same rooftop, clumsy enough to trip, goofy
enough to make a ridiculous noise when he did so.

Brash enough to stalk a Bat while
dressed up as a Robin.

Tim’s chest hurt, and he clenched
his teeth and set that aside too. It had been over a second. The kid was
pulling himself together, hands under chest, about to get up.

“Maybe go back to gymnastics class.”
He planted the butt of his staff on tar paper. “The position has been filled.”

The kid popped upright, onto his
knees, outrage written all over him.

Tim recognized the costume before
the person.

That was ridiculous, possibly, but
they were over a hundred feet apart, and the boy was wearing a mask, and he’d
studied and memorized the costume with much more attention than he had the
face.

My suit, he thought, a possessive clench going through him because
he’d labored over that design, him and Alfred, practical adjustments and
stylistic embellishments, everything it took to make a Robin that was his,
was Batman’s partner without trying to step into Jason’s place.

The green tights were especially
distinctive. In retrospect they looked a little garish, but considering what
they’d been replacing they’d been a pretty square choice.

“Yeah!” the Robin in his costume
said. “By me!”

And Tim did know the voice.

He didn’t believe it
instantly, but he listened to himself more carefully than he looked, and he’d
heard recordings often enough to compensate for the difference outside your
head.

He squinted. He opened his mouth,
slightly. Closed it again.

He wanted to say, this is a trick.
But who would bother with this kind of trick? A tolerable number of
enemies had some knowledge or suspicion that Red Robin had been the Robin
before the crazy stabby one, and most of the Justice League knew exactly who
Tim was. Most of them hadn’t met him at this age. The list of people with the knowledge
and capacity to do this was very short even before you looked for motive.
But why impersonate Tim to Tim? He of all people obviously knew it
wasn’t him.

The way their lives worked, a
prepubescent version of someone popping up and being endearingly childish might
very well be able to convince everyone he’d been de-aged, and that might
actually be a good dodge in some circumstances for getting in an infiltrator,
since being the wrong age could cover for a variety of errors that might ruin
an attempt at a more subtle replacement, and natural protectiveness would bias
adults in the ringer’s favor.

But it didn’t make sense to try that
against the party being replaced. And if you were going to use one of the
former Robins get close to Batman, you wouldn’t pick Tim.

Tim sharpened all his senses,
scouring the nearby roofs for any of the signature hints of hologram technology
or concealment devices. It was always possible the child himself was the entire
ambush, of course.

He wasn’t close enough to do much
ambushing, unless he pulled a gun, though who knew what was under the cape. The
kid had folded his arms now, so he could be palming practically anything.

On the other hand, he’d just fallen
flat on his face, but too much caution was usually better than too little.

“Who are you supposed to be?” The
boy was doing his best to sound authoritative. His best was pretty good,
considering he was about thirteen, but it gave Tim retroactive embarrassment
anyway. He remembered Shiva roasting him, on that ridiculous adventure they’d
wound up on when he was just starting out, for being a typical arrogant white
man. She’d been letting him off easy; she could have pointed out he was a
precocious little boy merely attempting to be a typical arrogant
white man.

He snorted softly. “Guess.”

The Robin’s masked eyes shuttled up
and down, stuck on the hawk’s-head insignia, and back up at the cowl.
“Batbird?”

Tim snorted again, this time trying
not to laugh.

The child’s mouth twitched, and he
moved froward a bit across the roof, enough that they could speak at a more
reasonable volume. “Seriously, though. Batman doesn’t have a lot of patience
for freelance vigilantes in his town.”

“He knows better than to try to stop
me.” It was a joke, but it was true, too.

Robin put his eyebrows up. He was a
really good mimic.

“You make it sound like I should’ve
heard of you,” he said, “but man, if I should have heard of you I would have
heard of you.”

“Why don’t you call Batman and ask?”
Tim said.

Robin scowled, suddenly. “You know I
can’t.”

“I do know,” Tim agreed. “But I’m
kind of surprised to hear you admit it.” If he was going to pretend to be Tim
to Tim in the first place, why stop?

“What’s the point in pretending I
haven’t noticed you’ve jammed my radio?”

And…that was even more surprising.

If he hadn’t been the spitting image
of Tim at that age, Red Robin would have taken this for a real child who
urgently wanted to be Robin and might have some actual talent. It sort of hurt.

“Like I said, go practice some
more,” he said. Aggravating someone into breaking character was a tried and
true method. “You can’t have a Robin who trips over his own feet.”

“I didn’t trip!”

“Mm-hm.”

That was the weird part, honestly.
Because Tim wasn’t egotistical enough to pretend he’d never fallen flat on his
face in his life. He was very aware he didn’t have Dick’s natural grace or
Jason’s ridiculous reflexes, or for that matter Damian’s weirdly acute
proprioception. Let alone Cass’ perfection of motion.

But he wasn’t a klutz, either, and
he’d snuck around Gotham spying on Batman and Robin without getting himself
noticed for a while without any formal stealth and maneuver training. A perfect
replication of himself in his first year or so as Robin shouldn’t have tripped
over itself like that. But otherwise he hadn’t noticed any flaws.

“I didn’t.” The tiny Tim Drake
narrowed masked eyes up at him. “Are you going to come clean or am I going to
have to beat some truth out of you?”

Red Robin couldn’t help finding this
funny. “I’d say I’d love to see you try it but you know what, I have a patrol
to finish.”

And just to see what the little
mystery did about it, he turned and sprinted toward the far end of his roof.

“Wait, no-!” The mystery kid
shouted, with such real alarm Tim glanced back over his shoulder as he went. In
time to see Robin pitch straight over the edge and into the ten-foot gap
between buildings, arms pinwheeling desperately.

It made him a sucker, he was aware,
but he dashed back anyway. Made it to the edge in time to see his tiny
doppelganger finish using a desperate combination of kick-flips back and forth across
the gap and his own telescoping bo staff to slow his descent enough to hit the
ground seventy feet down in an uninjured crouch.

He stayed there, seemingly gathering
his breath and affirming that he had actually survived, before standing up and
tipping his head back to aim another look at Red Robin on the edge of the
building above. “How are you doing that?” he demanded.

…Tim was starting to believe this
was not a nefarious infiltration scheme. At least, not one the kid knew about.

He threw out a grapple and dropped
down to join Robin on the ground. “You said I was blocking your comms,” he
said. “What did you mean?”

Robin studied him, trying to decide
whether to treat it as a serious question. “I tried to contact Batman after you
popped up. It didn’t go through.”

Hm. Experimentally, Tim engaged his
own comm. “Status?” he asked.

“Clear,” grunted Bruce in his ear.
It sounded like he was in the middle of a fistfight, though evidently not a
serious one, so Tim left him alone for now. The important thing was that he was
still there. He closed the comm line. Looked down at the boy, and his dubious
expression.

Of course, if this was time travel
he wouldn’t be able to get through to anybody. They updated their
encryptions regularly. They weren’t even using the same comm system anymore.

Tim asked, “What about Agent A?”

Robin shook his head. His posture
had changed, because Alfred’s code name wasn’t bandied around enough to be
known about much outside their own circles. Red Robin had just tagged himself
either an insider or a truly dedicated stalker, not just a random interloper on
the cape scene.

“Oracle?” It was Barbara’s night
off, he shouldn’t be able to reach her, but if anyone was impersonating
her to this little Robin it was possible they didn’t know that.

“Who are you?”

Red Robin planted the end of his
staff in the dirt, mirroring Robin’s stance without even having to make an
effort to imitate it, because that was still one of the most natural ways for
him to stand. He was more than a foot taller, and he’d filled out a little
more, but really, he hadn’t changed that much. Even with a cowl over his hair,
it wasn’t impossible to tell. “Do you really have to ask?”

Gazing up at him, Robin shook his
head very slightly—another person might have wondered whether this meant no,
you’re right, I don’t or no, I
don’t believe what you’re suggesting, but Tim knew it was both.

“How much did you notice?” Red Robin
asked. “I’m surprised you didn’t head straight back to the Cave when you
couldn’t connect.” At that age he’d still been anxiously, justifiably worried
about Bruce’s wellbeing, and concerned about making sure Bruce didn’t
have to worry about him, which hadn’t exactly made him careful but had
occasionally made him protectively clingy.

Not that keeping eyes on the person
he suspected of nefarious intent didn’t sound like him, too. He wouldn’t have
wanted to lose track of the suspect.

“Prove it.” That grip, that shift in
his weight—Robin was prepared to unleash the full extent of his abilities in
the attempt to neutralize him the second he decided he was a threat.

He still had that bad habit of
leading with his left foot even when it weakened the strike, because when
people weren’t expecting it, it gave him better odds of getting through their
guard. Not a bad tactic, but bad to fall back on every time. His gauntlets
weren’t optimized for gripping the staff yet, either. Tim knew exactly how to
disarm his little self in one move.

“Shiva didn’t teach you all there is
to know about staff work, you know,” Tim told himself. Both because she hadn’t
had time, within the scope of their training, and because she didn’t know it
all herself—it was hardly her specialty, as incredibly skilled as she was at
combat.

Of course this did not constitute
proof. It wasn’t widely known the third Robin had studied under Shiva, but it
was hardly a secure secret—Shiva herself could have told anybody, for one
thing.

He sighed.

“Before I gave Dick back the
pictures I stole from his album right before I became Robin,” he said, “I made
copies.”

Robin’s mouth twisted, and Tim kept
talking.

“I still thought it was going to be
a one-time thing then, stepping into my heroes’ lives to convince them to look
after each other with Jason gone. I wanted a souvenir. That was why I took them
at all, instead of just snooping to track him down, which was maybe wrong but
done with good intentions. I don’t have any good excuse for that part. It was
selfish.”

He’d always been selfish, he knew
that. Wanting his parents to change their lives and personalities to
accommodate him. Seizing the opportunity to live a childhood daydream, when he
realized his plan to get Dick to help Bruce through his grief wasn’t going to
work out even if they reconciled, and he didn’t know anybody else to ask.
Giving everything he had to being good enough as Robin because he couldn’t bear letting anyone down.
All that time trying to get Steph to stop risking her life in the field because
he’d blame himself if she got killed, and he’d encouraged her. Trying to clone
Kon just to have him back. Expecting Dick to forgive him for pressuring him
into becoming Batman, and be his partner. Selfish.

Even when he risked his life for
people he cared about, wasn’t he secretly hoping that if he proved himself
enough times he’d deserve to have them care just as much? Wasn’t it just a ploy
for attention, at heart?

He hated that childish, needy
self-centered core of him sometimes, especially the way no matter how
disciplined and logical and impartial he tried to be it wormed its way back in
and started affecting his decisionmaking, but here and now he found he couldn’t
hate the thirteen-year-old kid on the cusp of the true challenges of his life,
staring up at him. Couldn’t even hate that need in him.

It was okay, wasn’t it? For a child
to want to be taken care of? That was forgivable, wasn’t it. And seeing this
new-minted Robin from the outside, he was so clearly…just a child.

“You could have figured that out,”
said the little Robin, who had never told that to anyone. “The copies are with
the other stuff, under my bed.” Not exactly the Fort Knox of hiding
places, it was true.

“Do you think I did?”

The child Tim had a thinky face on,
lips pursed and dragged to one side. “…no,” he admitted at last.

“Okay,” Tim said, and then waited,
because he obviously wasn’t done.

“But, hey. Pop quiz time.” The Robin
with his voice was grinning, a wicked teasing thing that looked a lot goofier
but also a lot more charming than he’d always figured he did. “A few years
ago—my time, obviously—I used to sneak off into the attics at boarding school
for alone time sometimes. What did I do with the big stuffed great horned owl
somebody’d stored up there on top of a grandfather clock?”

Tim closed his eyes, longsuffering.
He wasn’t actually all that embarrassed. He wouldn’t even be embarrassed, really,
if people found out—he’d been ten, it was the kind of thing a ten year old did. But heaven forbid Damian learned. He’d been the kind of ten-year-old that
casually dismembered his enemies and spat in death’s eyes.

“I used to pretend it was Batman,”
he said. “I’d reenact scenes from action movies. Or imagine Batman was in
trouble and Robin couldn’t help, so I had to step in.” He’d felt bad about
those games, a few years later, when Jason really
couldn’t help. But not so bad he hadn’t fallen back on their premise when he’d
run out of other ideas, and Dick and Bruce’s comms went out in an exploding
building.

There had been a few times he’d seen
them in need of a hand in reality, even before what had happened to Jason,
during summers and other vacations back in Gotham, when he started following
them on patrol. He’d never stepped in like he had in his attic pretend games,
with a grin and a one-liner to bask in Batman’s gratitude, because he wasn’t stupid. He’d been entirely aware that
putting an eighty-pound eleven-year-old with a white belt in karate into the
middle of a fight would pretty much always
pose more of an obstacle to Batman and Robin than it would to anyone they were
fighting.

“What did I do that time I saw
Batman go down to Killer Croc while Robin was out of town?” he asked, a final
test.

Robin was grinning again. “In real
life? I threw a brick through a window.” That momentary distraction had been
all Bruce needed to turn the tables. “And what did I do that time Batman and
Robin both got caught trying to infiltrate Poison Ivy’s lair?”

Tim realized he was grinning back.
“I called the cops. And you’re in that suit now because Batman…”

“Needs a Robin,” finished the kid,
with all the grounded certainty of saying something he both knew and believed.

Red Robin put out a hand, and little
Robin in his softer glove took it. “Welcome to the future. Let’s go get to the
bottom of this.”

!!!!!

AHHHHHHHH!

I, I, I, WORDS. I need WORDS. It’s Tim-centric, it’s by YOU, it’s part of Till-Then, it, it, it is TOO GOOD Kieron! I want to run around flailing but Eldest isn’t in bed yet and I’d need to explain and that would be too much work. There is much hand-flapping happening, as I try to calm down enough to write this.

They ENJOY EACH OTHER! Tim needs to be with people who enjoy him. You threw in that HORRIBLE bit about how he thinks he’s selfish. I want to punch you for that – it is too in character and I hate it. But he was able to enjoy his other self, and be charmed by the younger version’s charm, and trade stories about Owl Adventures. I am so HAPPY.

Small whine about food:

  • Gecko struggles to motivate herself to eat and to cook, but LOVES cooked food, especially if it is full of delicious meat, strong flavours, and variety
  • Husband is willing to cook a few foods he knows and would happily eat the same thing every day
  • Eldest is now a vegetarian, but is otherwise very flexible. He loves almost everything
  • Tiny struggles with texture, flavour and appearance. Most cooked and/mixed foods bother him, so he prefers raw ingredients and familiar appearance

We could work with any two, or even three of these issues. But all four? Keeping us fed is a challenge.