#I still don't know how I feel about Battle for the Cowl tho so I tend to nitpick that a little

[fancyfade]

I like your insight in Damian's related thing but I don't quite understand how you see Dick and Damian's relation. Would you expand more on it?

For me it was most of a parental figure (not exactly a dad)/mentor while Bruce was away and after he came back it went more to older-younger brothers/still mentor

Ok so how I see dick and damian's relationship:

Dick is definitely responsible for Damian, and he feels responsible (he like. directly says so in battle for the cowl #2). he also starts out generally... like... annoyed by Damian. He thinks in resurrection of ra's al ghul "all this trouble for Damian? The kid no one can stand?" and says out loud something along the lines of "saving him makes us feel good" to Tim, then we have even in Batman and Robin 2009:

and like just to be clear, this isn't me doing a "dick #cancelled' thing or whatever, just pointing out how the dynamic starts. it does start with Dick feeling mostly obligation and annoyance towards Damian.

I don't think Dick ever was trying to be a parent when he was Batman and Damian was Robin, and that's okay! Like some posts already reblogged there (link to discussion, link to post about rules, link to my guess on dick's thought process). I think Dick was in survival mode. He was dealing with becoming Batman, Gotham Underworld being in chaos, now suddenly in addition to the responsibility of being Batman, which he did not ask for and feels obligated to fulfill, he has to take care of Damian*, which is another responsibility he did not ask for but feels obligated to fulfill. His main concern with Damian seems to be making sure Damian is safe (as in rescuing him if/when he gets in trouble) and b) making sure that Damian is not going too far in the field, ex: killing someone (he's worried Damian will kill Zsasz, even tho Damian didn't try) or torturing someone**. Once those big concerns are done we see Dick trying to flesh out Damian's Robin training, in the Batman series he gives him various clues to work on as he works a case (ex: medicine to analyze) so that Damian learns detective skills.

I think part of the reason why parental probably sparks so much discussion is because... well parental is going to be different for everyone. some of the recent analysis in the convo i've been having has been about dick's lack of consequences, but well... there are parents who don't do consequences, or who do but make them inconsistent enough that they seem arbitrary and meaningless***. I'll also point out that in general, parentalness from Dick is not something Morrison cared to put in the comic, and that's what we're going off mostly. Like we do see hints that the characters clearly care about each other as their dynamic gets closer, but we don't see an authorial investment in a parental dynamic, and it's hard to just say 'imagine that happened behind the scenes'. heck, part of what I like about Dick and Damian's dynamic is how gradually they slowly grow to tolerate and then trust and care about each other.

I think Dick's role for Damian when Damian is Robin and he's Batman is very much a mentor role, more involved than if Damian didn't live in the same house as him, but not doing everything a parent would be expected to do for a child, especially since we don't really see dick caring about what Damian does in his off of Robin hours :P Obviously it's possible to extrapolate/guess, maybe Damian was in homeschool (I know that's how I interpreted it in my fanfic) but it doesn't mean we actually see it happening and can say it's canon (if I'm wrong, please correct me). and I think that the fact that Damian is pretty independent**** does probably contribute to this, because I think if he seemed more needy Dick would be like 'oh yeah I guess I should do get him something to do during the day'. and eventually, yeah, their dynamic gets more big brother/little brothery.

I guess I could ask you a follow up question, which is what makes it seem especially parental to you?

*because Talia is being written terribly

**damian does beat information out of someone in batman and robin #2... I know I got on a long conversation on another about how this comic makes a big difference between physically torturing someone and what Dick does, which is intimidating people by making them think they will die, which is treated as totally OK within the text. I personally think that either option is not good

***this was my parents :P

****which makes sense for him in both pre new 52 canon -- with him having inconsistent primary caretakers and not having known his parents, presumably he's used to not expecting much of them, and post new 52 canon, where he just got done on a year long extremely challenging mission in the form of the Year of Blood, often with adult supervision in the form of assassin minions, but we also do see them die and him carry on the mission w/o them sometimes, or him working alone.

[batfamfucker]

💀

In the canon in my mind I ignore all the deaths and revivals and retcons and pretend that Jason was the only one to die because every time they kill another batfam member off only to revive them later, it loses its meaning in general, but especially because it's kinda like a slap in the face for Jason's arc every time it happens, as well as for why his relationship with Bruce became so strained. Bruce's grief from losing Jason is one of the most defining arcs of his character. Going from Professional but Warm to Cold and Distant and almost Brutal, being closer to the 'No killing' line than ever, only to be pulled back into the light and forced to open up again when Tim came around.

It goes unsaid that it's defining for Jason, Red Hood, ect. How his views on the afterlife would've changed, how his value of self was affected and relationships strained, how there's likely gaps in his memory.

I hate that every time they do a cheap kill for shock value it completely overshadows the trauma and affect on these characters that was caused by Jason's murder, that deserves to be explored, and that I personally want to see them actually, properly reconcile and heal from.

I would say Damian is the only other member to actually die but it was during his childhood with the League, and I doubt it happened only once. There was a headcanon somewhere about how he had brown eyes but they turned green because of the Pit and the family didn't realise Damian had ever died until they found old baby pictures of him and saw the colour change. I personally really like that idea too. So essentially they didn't know until much later.

Anyway, that's the Batfam storyline headcanon in my mind.