#Anyways I hate him

[zh4rkbyt3]

I hate him with all that I am

[seleai]

woah holysmokes it’s a certified FREAK!!

[passive-nightmaresans]

Have this short disgusting rat like squid creature who has dementia. I hate him sm. Just look at that disgusting face. <33

This creature by Comyet

[electricmilkshakes]

He's at a work party

[i-am-the-egg]

I love this and agree, but please note: USPS is not funded by taxpayer dollars. It has to be a self sufficient organization, just with laws governing more of its day to day operations than a business typically would have.

i love you USPS I love you NASA i love you taxpayer funded services that actually contribute positively to society i love you libraries i love you public transport

[puppppppppy]

abogagos……..

[lotus-pear]

nothing can best the bond between a boy and his cat (ref)

[chalkrub]

smorkin

[thebrisingamen]

#while I agree with his pandering to commercialism being the final warning shot on the rise of anti-intellectualism#the fact that he dismisses women being taught alongside 'the greats' sends me into a rage#he had a valid thesis and then his 'evidence' only showed how anti-intellectual he himself is if it isn't the 'right kind'#like sir your gatekeeping is what caused anti-intellectualism and the 'dumbing' down of society

These tags are great and exemplify what I have been trying to say about this op-ed. While I'm sure Harold Bloom contributed a great deal to his university, and some of his opinions here are not wrong in a technical sense he ultimately fell to his own ego and it shows.

The misogynistic and racist undertones in absolutely refusing to acknowledge the contributions of women in the Western Literary Field, or acknowledge the contemporary and growing field of writing beyond the 19th century and trying to keep it on the straight and narrow is what contributes to this problem.

Everything is taught to be 'educated enough to pass a test' in the good ol' USA. Where are the discussions of literary techniques in poetry and writing?

Where are the phonics in LEARNING HOW TO READ? They've been chipped away by the anti-intellectuals, and continuing to show us the only people who speak out are like Bloom; he paints a picture of smug superiority, with the added bonus of just enough veneer to claim 'I'm not a misogynist, but' or 'I'm not a racist, but' But what, Bloom? You are the example everyone thinks of when they think of a literary snob, and that's what you were.

It's clear every time you spoke that you detested the poor, the uneducated, women and POC and I'm sure I can figure you also hated the Alphabet Mafia, because exclusion means anyone who doesn't fit into your sense of being 'enough' of culture, of importance, of influence in the literary world.

Here’s the original Harold Bloom op-ed (from 2003) mentioned in the Harry Potter post made by @mollyyoung. (Spoiler alert: Bloom goes off on Stephen King, too.)  Update on 3/19/22: I’m going to post the text of the article in case the online article is ever removed.  Dumbing Down American readers By Harold Bloom, 9/24/2003 THE DECISION to give the National Book Foundation’s annual award for “distinguished contribution” to Stephen King is extraordinary, another low in the shocking process of dumbing down our cultural life. I’ve described King in the past as a writer of penny dreadfuls, but perhaps even that is too kind. He shares nothing with Edgar Allan Poe. What he is is an immensely inadequate writer on a sentence-by-sentence, paragraph-by-paragraph, book-by-book basis. The publishing industry has stooped terribly low to bestow on King a lifetime award that has previously gone to the novelists Saul Bellow and Philip Roth and to playwright Arthur Miller. By awarding it to King they recognize nothing but the commercial value of his books, which sell in the millions but do little more for humanity than keep the publishing world afloat. If this is going to be the criterion in the future, then perhaps next year the committee should give its award for distinguished contribution to Danielle Steel, and surely the Nobel Prize for literature should go to J.K. Rowling. What’s happening is part of a phenomenon I wrote about a couple of years ago when I was asked to comment on Rowling. I went to the Yale University bookstore and bought and read a copy of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” I suffered a great deal in the process. The writing was dreadful; the book was terrible. As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character “stretched his legs.” I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Rowling’s mind is so governed by cliches and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing. But when I wrote that in a newspaper, I was denounced. I was told that children would now read only J.K. Rowling, and I was asked whether that wasn’t, after all, better than reading nothing at all? If Rowling was what it took to make them pick up a book, wasn’t that a good thing? It is not. “Harry Potter” will not lead our children on to Kipling’s “Just So Stories” or his “Jungle Book.” It will not lead them to Thurber’s “Thirteen Clocks” or Kenneth Grahame’s “Wind in the Willows” or Lewis Carroll’s “Alice.” Later I read a lavish, loving review of Harry Potter by the same Stephen King. He wrote something to the effect of, “If these kids are reading Harry Potter at 11 or 12, then when they get older they will go on to read Stephen King.” And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you read “Harry Potter” you are, in fact, trained to read Stephen King. Our society and our literature and our culture are being dumbed down, and the causes are very complex. I’m 73 years old. In a lifetime of teaching English, I’ve seen the study of literature debased. There’s very little authentic study of the humanities remaining. My research assistant came to me two years ago saying she’d been in a seminar in which the teacher spent two hours saying that Walt Whitman was a racist. This isn’t even good nonsense. It’s insufferable. I began as a scholar of the romantic poets. In the 1950s and early 1960s, it was understood that the great English romantic poets were Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. But today they are Felicia Hemans, Charlotte Smith, Mary Tighe, Laetitia Landon, and others who just can’t write. A fourth-rate playwright like Aphra Behn is being taught instead of Shakespeare in many curriculums across the country. Recently I spoke at the funeral of my old friend Thomas M. Green of Yale, perhaps the most distinguished scholar of Renaissance literature of his generation. I said, “I fear that something of great value has ended forever.” Today there are four living American novelists I know of who are still at work and who deserve our praise. Thomas Pynchon is still writing. My friend Philip Roth, who will now share this “distinguished contribution” award with Stephen King, is a great comedian and would no doubt find something funny to say about it. There’s Cormac McCarthy, whose novel “Blood Meridian” is worthy of Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick,” and Don DeLillo, whose “Underworld” is a great book. Instead, this year’s award goes to King. It’s a terrible mistake. Harold Bloom is a professor at Yale University and author of “The Western Canon.” He wrote this column for the Los Angeles Times. © Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

[kagoutiss]

i’ll take care of everything

[jinaxxo]

to whom do i surrender my heart?

[hwanghyunjinenthusiast]

BURNIN' UP. - h.js

you really were just trying to enjoy a cool treat by the pool on a hot summer’s day. honest. 

pairing : joshua x fem reader. content : plotless smut. MINORS DNI. (smut tags utc) wc : 3.1k notes : not proofread. intentional lowercase. hoping this gets rid of the insane josh!rot i've had the past few weeks. i'm very sorry. (i'm not that sorry)

nsfw tags : swearing. making out, manhandling, choking, oral sex (m rec), face-fucking, hair pulling, dacryphilia, big cock!josh. he has a bit of a gagging kink. cum swallowing. meanie dom joshua. degradation (use of the word slut), exhibitionism/semi-public sexual acts in that they could have been walked in on at any time (but they weren’t). PLEASE let me know if i've forgotten anything. notes 2.0 : this is for my sensitive gag reflex gang. i see you. i hear you. i am one of you. i would still let joshua hong violate my throat, anyway. 🫶

he’s such a gentleman. 

each time you’ve introduced joshua to one of your friends, they’ve all said the same thing. he’s so nice. he’s so sweet. he’s so caring. so dreamy… a real gentleman — you don’t find many people like him, anymore. and each time, you’ve rolled your eyes. each time, you’ve dry-heaved for dramatic effect, pulled a face, waved them off, told them to shut up. because yeah, whatever, you know he’s a nice guy. you know he always pulls your chair out for you and walks you home when it’s getting dark. you know he’s the first to offer his coat, the first to ask if he can get you a drink. 

seeing them all get hearts in their eyes over him makes you feel kind of squicky, though. because you’ve never, not a day in your life, looked at him the way your friends all seem to. 

at least… not until today.

not until he tugged his hawaiian shirt off his shoulders and dove gracefully into seungkwan’s swimming pool. not until he surfaced, grinning brightly, pushing his hair back off his forehead. not until the swell of his shoulders glistened in the summer sunlight, broad and tanned and decorated with droplets of water from tip to tip. not until he locked eyes with you as he waded through the pool with hansol on his back, engaging in something of a jousting contest against mingyu and chan. (not until they won said joust and joshua threw hansol off him to celebrate their victory, and it looked like he was shrugging off little more than a bag of sugar.)

not until now, as he rests his forearms on the side of the pool and calls your name. as if he needs to do anything to get your attention from where you’re laid out on the sun lounger. as if he hasn’t had it for hours.

“are you getting in?” he asks, raking those thick fingers through his dripping hair again, slicking a few stray strands back. 

now, submerging yourself in the water sounds unbelievably tempting — it’s such a hot day and your skin is slick with sweat even as you relax in the shade. but there’s a lot of splashing going on in there right now and you could really do without a six foot two man-puppy trying to use you as a human shield, so…

“nah, not right now,” you say, shaking your head. 

that brilliant grin is replaced by a playful looking pout. still, he’s all honey-voiced when he asks, “later, then?” 

“sure, yeah. maybe later.”

“i’ll hold you to that,” he says, cupping water in his hands and squeezing them so that it shoots straight at you. a squeak escapes your lips at the chill when it hits your bare legs; joshua kicks away from the wall of the pool chuckling to himself and swims back over to where his friends are still playing around without him, leaving you to stare slack-jawed at his toned back as he retreats. 

half an hour later, you’ve moved to sit at the edge of the pool and you’re kicking your feet slowly through the water. an intense game of marco polo is well and truly underway when seungkwan appears at one shoulder, offering you a popsicle; you take it gratefully, unwrapping the treat and having a taste, sighing blissfully at the frozen cola flavour that melts onto your tongue. 

the host sits down beside you for a little while and you talk comfortably while the fun and games continue. he stays for a while, laughing and joking and catching up with you, before he disappears back into the shade and leaves you to your own devices.

and at some point during all this, joshua takes notice of you. he sees the way your lips close around the ice pop. he sees the way your eyes flutter closed at how sweet and refreshing it tastes. he sees how your cheeks hollow out around it, how your tongue sweeps over the tip, how you hold it so gently between your teeth and giggle at what seungkwan’s saying to you, how you wipe your lips with the back of your hand to clear the stickiness…

so when you glance over to him, after saying goodbye to the host, joshua’s eyes are already on you; his jaw is tense and his eyes are dark as he stares from the opposite side of the pool. chan is slowly edging towards him but he doesn’t seem to care all that much. all it appears he can do is look at you and watch as your throat bobs with each swallow you take. 

so, in the spirit of giving him a good show, you suckle a little more of the popsicle into your mouth with your gazes locked firmly together. and a little more, and a little more. just a few moments later with his lips locked into a tight line and a bead of sweat on his forehead, joshua silently lifts himself out of the water, beckoning you with one tweak of his fingers to tell you to follow.

you lift your feet up out of the water and pat your legs dry with the towel you’ve been sat on, heading inside while trying very hard not to think about the fact that the man you’re about to run into is the sole cause of the ache between your thighs. 

you toss the stick to your popsicle in the trash on your way through and no sooner have you crossed the threshold into the hallway, one of joshua’s devastatingly large hands finds place on the small of your back. with hardly any pressure at all, the contact stops you in your tracks and you find yourself turning to face him. 

“that was quite the… performance,” he says quietly. if you strain, you can still hear the fun being had outside, but the quiet surrounding the two of you in the house makes it so that every syllable that comes from his perfectly shaped lips shoots straight through you.

“i don’t know what you mean.” you shrug, acting as unfazed by his fingertips grazing over your bare skin as you wish you could be. 

joshua gives a soft chuckle by way of a response, his other hand lifting up to your cheek, thumb and forefinger toying with a couple of the baby hairs right in front of your ear. “you don’t?” he asks, and you shake your head at him, playing down the slight stutter in your breathing. he isn’t fooled. “i had no idea our little y/n was so brazen.”

“brazen,” you scoff, pressing one hand against his chest. he’s scorching hot (no doubt a symptom of having been in the sun all afternoon), but you double down anyway, curling your fingertips against his skin. “josh, i wasn’t even doing anything.”

“sure.” he pauses, moving to press his thumb to your bottom lip, feeling the slight chill on your skin from your treat before. “if sitting in full view of everyone and eye-fucking me with that popsicle halfway to your throat counts as ‘not doing anything’, i guess you’re totally innocent.”

this choice of phrasing from your supposed most gentlemanly friend reduces all of the thoughts between your ears to mere static. you can probably count on your fingers the number of times you’ve actually heard him curse, but you’d run out of cogitable numbers before adding up the number of occasions he’s told others to mind their language. shit, it’s so alien on him, but… it’s so hot. in his slightly lower register, quiet and hushed and only for you…

you’ll drench through your bikini bottoms any minute if you aren’t careful.

“totally,” you mumble, the word only half-audible beneath the pad of his thumb. with your eyes as wide and sweet as you can make them, you do what is about the only reasonable thing you can think to do (even though it’s not actually very reasonable, at all). you purse your lips slightly before parting them and sucking the tip of his thumb into your mouth. his jaw tightens, throat tensing as you swipe your tongue across his skin, but his own lips lift up into a twisted sort of smile after a moment anyway . 

“all talk,” he breathes, sliding his thumb out of your mouth and gripping your jaw a little harshly. “all talk, no action.”

“is that right?”

“feel free to prove me wrong.”

joshua turns you both around so that he has you pressed against the wall behind you. with one forward push of his hips, you can feel his cock hard and prodding at your abdomen. a gasp escapes before you can do anything about it, and the metaphorical envelope bursts open. the line is crossed. there’s no turning back – and god, are you pleased about that.

the first move is completely on you. when you push up onto your toes and press your lips to his, it feels as though your whole body catches alight. you don’t waste time with pretty kisses, either – you go straight in, parting your lips, licking against his own. his tongue meets yours, his hands tighten around your waist – it’s messy, sloppy, feverish; you grow lightheaded and dizzy, but whether it’s because you don’t come up for a proper gulp of air for several minutes, or because the man whose arms you’re currently occupying is kissing the life, death, rebirth and repeat out of you… you’re not sure. regardless, you feel like you’re making out with him on the surface of the fucking sun. 

his hand drops from your jaw to your throat and his fingers squeeze in just the right place to trigger another rush of heat between your legs. your pussy tightens around nothing and you get out a quiet whine, lips stilling completely; joshua pulls away from the messy kiss smirking at you, tightening his fist a little more. 

“so you can take my tongue down your throat,” he says directly into your ear, his usually delicate voice hardly more than a low rumble. it sends shiver after shiver down your spine. “but is that all, pretty girl?”

you shake your head as much as his hand will allow and the pressure from his fist starts to push down against your collarbones, weighing you towards the floor. you obediently drop down to your knees, straightening your back until you’re eye level with his cock. all the while, your gaze stays upwards at his face, lashes fluttering when he eventually has to relinquish his hold on your throat. 

“i’ve always thought you had the most beautiful eyes,” he sighs, cupping your chin before sliding his hand around to the back of your neck. his cock twitches against his swimming shorts as you shuffle on your knees to get a little closer to him. “never thought i’d see them like this, though.”

“never knew you wanted to,” you say, lifting your hands up to his sides. they find the waistband of his trunks and start to tug at them playfully but joshua swats them away.

“behind your back,” he tells you. he fucking tells you, and it flashes through your mind briefly to take the bait and snip back at him. you don’t take instructions. you don’t take commands. but there’s a very real fire in the way he’s staring down at you and lord, it’s so hot that you think it’s actually scalding you. 

maybe you can bend your rules, just this once. just for him.

so you clasp your hands behind you and watch as he tugs his cock free from his shorts. when he holds it in his palm, strokes up and down the length a few times right in front of your eyes, you’re stuck trying to figure out if maybe his hands aren’t as big as you thought or if his dick is actually just huge. either way, you can’t stop staring at it; your lips fall apart and he chuckles down at you, swiping his thumb over the tip, smearing the bead of precum collecting there. he just about manages to suppress a shudder.

“open,” he says. 

you don’t hesitate.

your lips part and almost straight away, he presses his tip into your mouth. the weight of him on your tongue makes your pussy flutter and you close your watering mouth around his shaft, massaging your tongue over every inch it can reach. one of joshua’s hands comes to rest on the wall above your head to keep him steady; the other returns to the back of your head, fingers pressing into your hair, tugging at the strands already.

the first thrust of his hips takes you entirely by surprise; he slides through your spit-slickened lips all too easily and he hits the back of your mouth much quicker than you’d expected him to. you feel your throat constricting in a gag, muscles squeezing around his tip, and joshua lets out a deep, animalistic grunt at the feeling that shoots all the way into his gut. 

“fuck, baby,” he groans, eyes falling closed as he pulls at your hair hard enough to sting. “that felt so good.”

you take a couple of breaths and regrasp your hands behind you, preparing yourself for it to happen again. you know you can take him – you’re sure you can. he just caught you off guard. 

but he presses forward for a second time, bumping that super sensitive spot in your mouth, and you gag around him again. and again, and again, and again. your throat takes a beating, but joshua is relentless and he doesn’t stop fucking into your mouth, swearing and moaning with each strangled sound that his cock successfully muffles from you.

“poor little slut,” he groans, teeth gritted in an attempt to keep as quiet as he can manage. he continues to use your mouth like a damn fleshlight and all the while, he keeps talking, curling his fingers into the wall for stabilisation. “can’t handle me, can you? bet you thought you’d be able to take it so easily. fuck, you keep gagging like that and i’ll come right down your throat.”

your eyes are wet and streaming from the corners when you pull off him to catch your breath, chest heaving deeply, forehead slick with sweat.

“so fucking big, josh,” you gasp, swallowing around nothing. your jaw aches already from the exertion but you miss having him in your mouth, even if he’s right. even if maybe it is too much. even if you can’t handle him without choking a little, without your eyes dribbling with tears. you don’t care. you want – no, you need to taste him again, you need to feel the sheer heft of his cock on your tongue.

“look so pretty when you’re cry over it,” he tells you, bending a little and grabbing your face with one hand, pinching your cheeks so your lips purse. “think you can take a little more?”

you nod even though you really aren’t sure, technically speaking, if you can. but your cheeks sting deliciously from the harsh press of his blunt nails and you’ve managed to suck a little bit of air back into your lungs, so you open your mouth again and joshua lets go of your face, letting you lave your tongue over his cock for a moment first before he rams straight back into your mouth. 

you groan and whine and whimper as he continues his assault on your throat, trying to relax the muscles to make the slide a little easier but it never seems to let up. your clit is throbbing, neglected, sore, but pressing your thighs together only makes it worse, and though you’re sort of morbidly curious as to what joshua would do if you were to start touching yourself right now, you also think that he’s far more likely to help you out if you behave.

“gonna let me come in that beautiful mouth?” he asks, straining for every word, and just the thought of him shooting ropes of his climax straight into your throat has you about ready to collapse. you try to nod, but his eyes are clamped so tightly shut that he quite obviously doesn’t see you. as clearly as you can, you manage a quiet ‘mhm’, and the vibrations of your hum makes him swear. loudly.

“good little slut, – shit.” his hips start to stutter and you hollow out your cheeks, sucking at his cock for all you’re worth. “fuck, keep doing that. m’so close–”

the vein that runs down the underside of his length throbs against your tongue and you feel him release as he stills completely, grabbing the back of your head forcefully, holding you in place. all you can do is swallow around his shaft, let your throat massage all the cum out of him, whine and moan and let him empty himself until he can barely stand.

he taps the back of your head once he’s completely spent and you swallow one last time before gently pulling away from him, not standing to your feet yet but lifting one hand to rest it over his own. he squeezes your fingers, laughing drily and shaking his head before he gets a little bit of his strength back and tugs you up to your feet.

“i really didn’t know you had it in you, y/n,” he says, both his hands resting on your shoulders and gently massaging them. “are you okay? didn’t hurt too much?”

your throat is burning and all your muscles in your jaw feel like they’re going to seize up any minute, but you shake your head anyway. some pains are worth the gain.

“m’okay,” you assure him, pressing your back against the wall and sighing out at how cold the tile feels on your skin. “just… fuck.”

“yeah?” he asks, thumbs working magic on your skin. 

you nod. “never been this turned on in my life,” you groan. “you’re hot when you’re an asshole.”

“feel free to get used to it,” he grins, slipping one hand down and pressing his fingers into your tit instead, the thin material of your swimsuit offering little barrier from the pleasure he’s already sending through you in shockwaves.

“yeah?”

“yeah. especially if you’re gonna act like that in front of everyone.”

you roll your eyes at him, sucking your front teeth but you can't quite stop the devilish grin that settles onto your face as he slips beneath the fabric of your top. “i don’t know what you mean,” you tease, echoing your own words from before. “i wasn’t even doing anything, josh.”

thank u sm for reading!! likes, reblogs, comments + feedback are all always so greatly appreciated.<3

[prlssprfctn]

Jason Todd doesn't say "I love you" because he finds it hard to make these words leave his mouth. But that doesn't mean he is not showing it anyhow else.

Jason doesn't say that he loves Bruce, but he spends some extra time preparing rubber bullets when they are on the mission together, and tugs him away when they accidentally stumble across the dead family in the Alley of Crime.

Jason doesn't say that he loves Dick, but he knows when his brother is close to the meltdown, so he musters some courage to appear in his doorway, pretending that he needs some company, because Dick would never admit that he himself needs someone to have his back.

Jason doesn't say that he loves Tim, but knowing how overworked he can be, and how little he cares about his nutrition or the mess in the house, he sneaks out in his apartments to clean it up and prepare food in various lunch boxes, for the week.

Jason doesn't say that he loves Damian, but he drags him around the "unbecoming, childish and immature" places, because Damian is still a child, who needs to have fun, but he is too shy and too unexperienced to admit it.

Jason doesn't say that he loves his parents — all of them, Catherine, Sheila, Willis — but he makes sure to visit their graves and speak with all of them a little.

Jason doesn't say that he loves Gotham, but he makes sure to use money he has on anonymous donations here and there.

Jason doesn't say that he loves the Alley of Crime, but he does his best to protect it as the Red Hood and often volunteers to teach kids some basic educational stuff as Jason, earning being called "Big Brother" on the streets.

Jason doesn't say that he loves himself... Because, honestly, he doesn't.

But when a little ghost of second Robin sometimes visits him in his sleep, Jason teaches himself not to be mean and spends time with the boy, reassuring him that it was never his fault.

Jason Todd doesn't know how to say "I love you" to people, but when someone finally tells it to him, he breaks down crying.

He can't remember the last time someone said it to him.

[sevrinve]

bedtime

[riddleturner]

he's an apostate. he's a grey warden. he's on the run from the law. he's bonded body mind and soul to a spirit of the fade. he practices one of the rarest and most taxing magical diciplines known to mages. he's a cat dad. he was put in solitary confinement for a full year. he saves lives daily and asks for no payment. he's a massive bitch. he's personal friends with the hero of ferelden. he hates the church. he's hopelessly in love with you. he writes and distributes his own manifesto. he was forced to kill his own ex boyfriend. he doesn't see a way out. he's fucking blonde.

[justsomestuffreally]

I think the Batkids reaction to a Bruce who isn't de-aged to 8 but rather 29 (pre-Jason death, post his adoption) would be fascinating. 

Their reaction would vary wildly:

Dick: Oh. Bruce is soft again. Bruce calls them ‘chum’ and ‘buddy’ and gives head pats for no reason. He still isn’t perfect, his communication skills are still a work in progress, but compared to his future self? Without actively dying Dick is hugged plenty. Bruce asks him to go to the zoo, unrelated to any case, just to spend time together. Dick is hit with more nostalgia and longing for the past than he knows what to do with.

Also notable: his dad is younger than him. That is something. Second, holy existential crisis Batman, his dad is younger than him and already one adult and one teenage kid??? Dick is not ready to feel this old yet. Third, Dick has absolutely no idea how Bruce managed to stay patient through his no-pants years. He is going to thank reason every day from now on that Damian wears full protection.

Jason: After his death and League he clung to an image of Bruce. One many tried to beat out of him, but he still kept it somewhere close to his heart, buried deep enough even he couldn’t see it. When he came back Bruce wasn’t like this idea of him. How stupid of him to believe the mind of a traumatized kid. Trying to create one good thing before the kid drew his last breath. Making up memories that never even existed.

But they did. Every smile and hug and even his words reflect the image tugged safely against his still-beating heart. His dad very clearly, very deeply loves him. Which is so much worse. Because he can understand why a Bruce, who never cared, didn’t kill the Joker. But he cares. So why the fuck did he not kill the Joker?

Tim: The reason he joined the family, the reason why he became Robin in the first place was because he saw a problem when Bruce started self-destructing and thought ‘Someone needs to fix that!’. Therefore he went and collected Dick, who didn’t seem keen on fixing it. So, the job fell to him to fix it.

He thought he did a good job, he thought he fixed the problem. Except now he sees who Bruce was, and he knows he failed. Their Bruce is less soft, less affectionate, less like he was before. Batman needs a Robin and Tim didn’t manage to be good enough of one to save him. 

[Or: Tim has a guilt complex a hundred miles wide and blames himself for things that aren’t his fault part 52]

Steph: Jason and she are very similar. Both come from the Narrows, both have a mother addicted to drugs and a shitty father. The differences start when Steph keeps waiting on the roof of their apartment for Batman to whisk her away, while Jason tries to steal the tires of the Batmobile and is taken in.

When Steph started out as Spoiler Bruce tried to keep her off the field, and obviously this one would too (even if he would probably be less paranoid about it), but she knows this Bruce would have also taken her in. This Bruce would be the father she always wished for when she sat on their roof and couldn’t see any stars. 

And she didn’t get to have this because Jason went ahead and died. (Of course, she knows she isn’t fair to the guy. Dying isn’t fun… And she knows the only reason she lived is because he died. When Batman rescued her from Black Mask she was in such terrible shape that Leslie managed to convince the World’s Greatest Detective that she died. If Jason hadn’t died Bruce wouldn’t have been as paranoid, wouldn’t have noticed her missing so soon, wouldn’t have been as urgent in his response. Would have been just a minute slower, a minute which would have killed her. Just as it had Jason.)

For her, this Bruce is a distorted mirror into a past which never was. 

Cass: This Bruce and B are not the same person. They don’t move the same. In a fight, this Bruce is younger, faster, stronger. Doesn’t compensate for a previously broken spine. Less experienced. Still one of the most experienced she knows, but less. 

He still moves differently, outside a fight, less pain. More likely to engage in physical affection, more likely to hug and pat and talk. He talks more than B. B knows what she means without words. This Bruce doesn’t.

She likes this Bruce, warmth, and softness. But not as much as B. He knows what she means, when she wants a hug, when she tells him ‘I love you’ without words. B doesn’t need words. This Bruce doesn’t know her, doesn’t communicate like her. She wants B back.

Damian: At first, when this version of his father seemed uncanny and oddly familiar, he assumed it to be due to the stories of his mother. After all, she always told him tales about his father. He simply did not have the frame of reference to understand the kindness she spoke of. Clearly, the clash between the ideals of the League and the ones of his father causes these feelings, just as they did when he first entered the manor.

He presumed this to be the case until one day on patrol Batman laid a hand on his shoulder and told him he did a good job after no particularly impressive fight and he nearly called him ‘Grayson’. Because the stories of his mother may have painted the picture of this version of his father, however, it wasn’t what made it familiar; no, he knew this kindness. These hugs and compliments one would bestow upon a child. Compliments which, despite the indignity, still warm him. Because Grayson learned how to be a… caregiver from his father.

His father used to be like Grayson, used to be until his grief hardened him. Damian could have had this. Damian could have a brother and father who would- But he doesn’t because of Todd. He loathes Todd. Loathes him for ruining the life he could have had.

Why did he die anyway? Damian certainly wouldn’t have a problem escaping bonds created by the Joker, Damian would have disarmed the bomb in time, Damian would have never thrown this life away like he did.

[Or: Damian is a child who was raised by assassins and has unreasonable standards for fighting abilities and also is a child who needs to focus his rage on someone.]

Duke: He was neither there before Jason died nor in the aftermath [according to my math he was around 4 when Jason died] he joined the family when Jason was already back for 4 years or so. He mostly skipped all the drama. For him, Bruce is the way Bruce is because he is Bruce. It’s weird to see him so different, to see how grief shaped parts of Bruce which Duke assumed were just Bruce things.

He’s glad this Bruce is brighter, or not because it just highlights how much that light will dim? Who knows, certainly not him. 

What he does know is that, with their Bruce, he has a distance which, with his parents still alive, he appreciates. With this Bruce, he can understand why Dick struggled so much whether he wants to be his ward or son, how he doesn’t want to replace his parents but still have this Bruce as a dad. It definitely explained the ted talk Dick tried to give him after Bruce officially took him in as a ward.

He likes this Bruce well enough, but he doesn’t necessarily want him to stay this way. Yes, their Bruce is less happy, less open but he did heal, he did grow. Duke met a Bruce who tried to learn from his mistakes, learned to communicate better, and learned when to pull and when to push. For Tim, Damian, Dick, and certainly Jason there is too much baggage, too much history in their relationships, it’s difficult for them to ever move past- anything really.

Sure, when Dick and Bruce are on the same page they are essentially invincible but then the past catches up again and they don’t talk to each other for months. And honestly? Apart from Cass, Duke’s pretty sure he has one of the best relationships with Bruce simply because he got to know him at a better time.

Duke doesn’t mind this Bruce. But their Bruce loved Jason, cared for him so deeply the scars still show to this day. And he still chooses to open up again even if just a bit by bit. Even if just Duke can see it. He is used to being the only one that can see.

And maybe knowing this care extends to him, this love even grief can’t shake? Maybe it makes him feel just a little bit safer, a little bit warmer, a little bit brighter.