#I am batman says bruce

[roppiepop]

Who’s coming to the cookout?

[theerurishipper]

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First <- Part 18 <- Part 19 -> Part 20

Masterpost

[littlefankingdom]

Seeing all those posts and fanfics where the batkids, especially Dick, calls Clark "uncle Clark", made me think.

If Dick calls Clark "uncle Clark", he probably started doing it BEFORE he ever referred to Bruce as his father. After all, another uncle doesn't erase any existing one, but accepting Bruce as his father was erasing John Grayson in Dick's mind, for multiple years. It makes sense for Dick's confused feelings about his situation to call Clark "uncle" before calling Bruce "dad".

So, I present you: Bruce being envious of Clark because Dick refers to him with a family's title but Bruce is just "B".

And in the same continuity: Dick being envious of Jason calling Bruce "dad" so easily.

For Dick, it feels as if the word is stuck in his throat. He can say it to joke around with others ("let's steal dad's car" he tells Jason), but to Bruce's face? He's afraid the world would end.

[eveningdawn222]

people who act like batman isn't "judge jury and executioner" because he doesn't kill people are like. genuinely so funny to me because. they're very obviously thinking of "executioner" as like. the stereotypical guy with axe who chops people heads off, and not, yknow, the literal definition of the idiom itself, which is about someone who has the ability to judge and then subsequently punish someone unilaterally. which is quite literally what batman does.

he has the ability to decide what is a "crime" to him, he is the one who decides whether people are guilty of those crimes, and he is the one who executes their punishment. the severity of the punishment doesn't matter - he is unaccountable to anyone else, and indeed is allowed to commit as many crimes as needed to reach his arbitrary ideal of "justice."

the ideal of batman is this: a man who is so fundamentally changed by an act of senseless violence that he takes it upon himself to fight back against the rot and corruption in the world. he does this not through political activism, not through ridding himself of his wealth in favor of a greater good, not through community outreach, but through an individualistic fantasy of being a hero.

and you'll say: charlie, but he does do that !!! he donates his money all the time, he funds social programs, hospitals, orphanages, gets people jobs -

and i will say this: so why don't things get better?

because here's the base of it. gotham, at its core, can't get better. no matter what bruce wayne does, there will always be more crime, more villains, more death, more people for batman to beat up in back alleys. because that's what sells.

reoffending rates don't matter in gotham, prison reform doesn't matter in gotham, what actually causes crime doesn't matter in gotham because that doesn't sell books.

and so here it is; dc has unintentionally created a world where batman can't win, but can't be wrong, and where thousands of nameless, faceless, only-created-to-die civilians must be pushed into the meat grinder that is gotham, to fuel bruce wayne's angst and vindicate his constant, tireless, noble fight against the forces of evil.

and then: a new robin, who is poor and who's parents are dead or gone because of this cycle; who is happy go-lucky and hated by editors and fans for being robin, for not being dick grayson, for being poor.

and this robin is written, unintentionally or not, to be angry at the ways in which batman's (the narrative's) idea of justice is detached from its victims. bruce seems perfectly fine to allow countless unnamed women to be at risk from garzonas in his home country, yet robin is the one who is portrayed as irrational and violent.

this robin is not detached from gotham in the way bruce wayne is: this robin is a product of gotham.

(and here's the thing. you can't punch aids. you can't fight a disease with colorful fights and nifty gadgets. and how would robin dying from aids add to batman's story; it would call into question the systemic changes that haven't been made in gotham. how does a child get aids, in batman's city?)

so robin dies, and then bruce (the narrative) spends the next couple of decades blaming it on him. it is jason's fault; he was reckless, he just ran in, he thought it was all a game. if only bruce had seen what was coming, if only he could have known that jason wasn't rich enough or smart enough or liked enough to be robin.

batman gets a little more violent, a little more self destructive. he hurts people more and almost (!!) kills a couple guys. this is bad because it's self destructive and "not who he is." it is not bad because batman should not be able to just beat people up when he's angry.

and then he gets a shiny new robin - who is all the things jason "wasn't": rich and smart and rational and he doesn't put who batman is into question. batman and robin are partners, and jason is a grave and a cautionary tale, and (crucially here) never right.

the joker kills thousands and it doesn't matter because they were written to be killed.

batman beats up thousands and it doesn't matter because they were written to be criminals.

and then jason comes back, and nothing has changed. there is a batman and a (shiny! rich!) robin and the joker kills thousands. (because it sells)

and jason is angry - he has been left unavenged - his death has meant nothing, just as willis' had, just as catherine's had, just as gloria's had, just as -

thousands. ten of thousands. hundreds of thousands. written to be killed.

but one of them gets to come back.

and he is angry - not only at the joker, but at bruce (the narrative) - because why is the joker still alive (when thousands-)

here is the thing - jason todd is right. not because the death penalty is good, not because criminals deserve to die, not because of everything he says -

but because of what he calls into question. why is the joker alive?

because he sells books.

and dc has written a masterful character, through no fault of their own, because jason knows what is wrong, and he knows who is at fault - batman. (the narrative)

so the argument that bruce can't kill because he's not judge jury and executioner; the argument that jason is a cop or that jason is insane or that jason is in the wrong here; they hold no weight.

batman can't kill the joker because the joker sells comic books.

and jason can't kill the joker because the joker sells comic books.

so he will beg and plead and grovel - he will betray everything that is himself, he will forsake his family and his city and kill himself - just so that bruce (the narrative) will let the joker die.

he was condemned to death by an audience, and after he came back he has spent his whole life looking us in the eyes and screaming, asking, pleading; why is the joker still alive?

why are thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands (the number doesn't matter, see, because they're just a number. not people. not real.) why are we expendable for his story? why did i have to die just for nothing to change?

and the answer is money. and the answer is the batman can never be wrong. and the answer is shitty writing. and the answer is -

nothing jason can ever change.

which is the worst of it all. he is a victim with no power, and no one else in the world can see it. he is raging and crying and screaming at his father and his writers and you - and it doesn't matter. jason doesn't matter. and he knows it.

[versasfanficwastedump]

Bruce sparring too rough, accidentally knocking his brand new Robin on their ass, and immediately going “oh my god please don’t tell Alfred i’m sorry you can hit me back harder oh my god don’t cry shh shh oh my god please don’t tell Alfred”

[preciousthingsareprecious]

With volume 2 of Wayne Family Adventures freshly released, and as your local librarian and Batman nerd, I feel the need to let everyone know that Wayne Family Adventures has at least 2 more volumes set to come out!

So if you love this series as much as I do (and I mean, come on look at that family) go get volume 2 if you haven't, then pop volumes 3 and 4 on pre-order! It's a great way to let DC know just what content we love and want to see more of, especially in print! Also if you can't swing the books yourself, ask your local library to order them! It'll help share the amazing adventures with a whole new set of readers!

You can find all the associated pre-order links here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/2289628/crc-payne

Now go forth and enjoy some fantastic family times!

[dukeofthomas]

I find the fact that the confrontation at the end of UTRH is often summarized as Jason asking Bruce to kill the Joker for him fascinating.

Because that's not what happened.

Jason holds a gun up to Joker's head, gives Bruce another, and tells him that if Bruce doesn't do something (shoot Jason), he will kill Joker.

Jason doesn't give the gun to Bruce so that he would shoot Joker. He isn't expecting Bruce to pull the trigger on the clown. He's asking Bruce to do nothing. To be inactive. Because that will still be a choice, and despite having done nothing, everybody clearly agrees that Bruce would still, at least in part, be responsible for Joker's death.

...And to me, this moment is a kind of- microcosm, of the rest of Jason's point. Because after being captured and carted off to Arkham, the villain will escape again, and will kill more people. The only way to truly prevent that from happening would be to kill them; Bruce refuses to do so, and I respect his right to choose such a thing for himself, but it is still a choice, and if we agree that Bruce's inaction during the confrontation would leave him at least partly responsible for the Joker's death, then we must also agree that his inaction in permanently preventing the Rogues from killing more people means he is also, partly, responsible for all of those deaths.

[chamiryokuroi]

Thinking about the Mob AU and, what if I make Darla flirt with Stephanie?? Yay or Nay? I say yay

[que3rduckling]

Hey ever think about how Nightwing is Batman’s greatest success and how Dick Grayson is Bruce Wayne worst failure? About how crazy that is? No? Just me? Okay…

[casscainmainly]

Got an ask about my feelings on Cass being Bruce's favourite that I accidentally deleted so I'm gonna answer here.

Firstly I'm in the 'Dick is canonically Bruce's fav' camp (see fantastic-nonsense's post here), but I do believe Bruce has a special bond with Cass. So I don't think 'Cass being Bruce's fav' comes out of nowhere, especially since she is the closest to having his moral code, and he is definitely not normal about her.

However, this is the kind of statement where who is saying it matters. Comic fans can say Cass is Bruce's favourite because it's grounded in a genuine understanding of their dynamic. But when people who haven't engaged with comics say it, particularly as a rebuttal to one of the Batboys being Bruce's fav, it comes off like Cass is some 'other' option. She's allowed to be the fav because they don't see her as a real character, or because they view her as some paragon of perfection. This is where I really dislike the headcanon.

Because Cass being Bruce's favourite should be a bad thing. Bruce doesn't adopt her until 2008, and for me it's largely because it takes him that long to see her as a person. Early Bruce-Cass, where most of the 'Cass being Bruce's fav' moments come from, is marked by Bruce seeing Cass as an extension of himself. She is his model minority and there are racist undertones in him calling her perfect. His love gets less toxic over time, but this corresponds with his disillusionment over her (see him firing her in Batgirl #48; Cass, in the same issue, is becoming disillusioned with him).

The arc in Bruce and Cass' relationship is them recognising and deconstructing the pedestals they've put each other on. So when people say Cass is Bruce's favourite without context, it misses all the complexity in that dynamic. Personally I prefer what should be their endpoint: where Cass knows she doesn't need to be his favourite to be loved.

[zahri-melitor]

Tim suffers from a situation where he occasionally commits thought crime (thinks about how killing someone would be easier/how he would like someone to be dead/plans out how to kill someone) but does the right thing in person, and doesn't kill people and will act heroically to save even the lives of villains and people he hates. Which gets him cancelled as lacking in morals and being 'two seconds from killing at any time'. While someone like Jason, who commits actual crimes in person but validates the reasons for doing it in his head, gets lauded for why killing drug dealers is excellent and should be morally correct.

Maybe it's a bit law and justice and rules follower of me, but thinking the bad thoughts and still doing the right thing is a better approach than doing the bad thing while telling yourself it's for the right reasons actually.

Actions are more important than what you say in the privacy of your own mind. That's the bit other people can see and interpret.

[thesulkycroissant]

Superbat headcanon I'm actually pretty fond of: Bruce's love language is gift-giving. And like. That means he's really good at it. Money is no object obviously, but also he's the world's greatest detective with killer recall, especially for people he loves. This man gives EXCELLENT gifts. And he doesn’t limit himself to holidays/birthdays/occasions. He can’t ✨️say✨️ the words, okay, but he can say it through gifts!!

It's actually a big problem for Clark (I go back and forth on this, but I think his love language is probably acts of service) who is a) uncomfortable with Bruce’s wealth anyway, b) feels bad??? because he's actually a terrible gift giver like what do you get a billionaire ANYWAY, and c) has no room for this stuff, Bruce seriously, he lives in an apartment. But the gifts ARE good and Bruce seems so happy to give them and Clark just... doesn't know how to approach it

[rmbunnie]

Hey actually now that I'm talking about the Hush Jason retcon: I feel like it’s a kinda divisive (maybe??) one but honestly I really do love it, because the actual contents of the Batman combined with the stuff implied in that batman annual/lost days results in just the most balls to the wall miscommunication scenario known to man. And not in a bad way! In the best way! Both Bruce and Jason have absolutely valid (to them) reasons for acting the way they do and said reasons grate on each other perfectly to create just the perfect storm of nobody being happy. It's honestly amazing.

As of the retcon, Jason shows up in a graveyard acting as a miraculous fake apparition version of himself, intentionally flinging around the most hurtful cutting accusations of abandonment that he doesn't even believe (for the most part) specifically because he wants to taunt Bruce into giving him a reaction. To him, if Bruce visibly reacts pretty much at all to the fake acted-out Jason who died blaming him and feeling abandoned, the Jason he'd be most likely to get emotional over, that means that some, just any, part of Bruce is sad about it all, and misses him and valued their time together, or even feels just a tiny shred of Bad about how it all went down, and the fact that Jason went through the effort of staging all this indicates that it meant enough to him to search out confirmation of Bruce's... not even grief like he's aiming for just slight regard for what happened! that said confirmation very likely could have changed things! And as of Hush proper, Bruce doesn't give him an INCH of reaction because he was so sure in every moment that this was obviously an imposter, and he was sure of this because he "knows" that Jason (who is actually putting him through a trial of "does he actually love me" in the present moment) would NEVER doubt that Bruce loves him, and the idea of someone puppeting his beloved son's memory around just infuriates him (said puppeteer is Jason himself,) so there's no reason to be sad or say anything loving to his son's ghost or emote because all it would do is give this sick and cruel villain satisfaction after going for low hanging fruit (totally not because he's repressing his trauma.) So Jason leaves this whole mess having definitively proved to himself that he never meant anything to Bruce and ready to carry out Under the Hood, Bruce walks away completely secure in the idea that Jason ALWAYS felt EXTREMELY loved and cared for with him, having stoically acted properly in the face of that dirty trick and primed for some quality brooding monologues, and neither of them ever figures out what went down!

[bigskydreaming]

Imagine looking at a character whose entire premise is that in every stage of his life, he's made every version of himself into someone that inspires people to such a degree that EVERY SINGLE VERSION OF HIM has people wanting to literally follow in his footsteps in some way or another.....

And coming to the conclusion that like.....the most important things about him are the sum of all his trappings. His entirely homemade developed from scratch could not exist if not for what he already was and brought with him BEFORE crafting this newest version of himself trappings, with his greatest trait throughout all of it being his adaptability; his ability and willingness to roll with the punches and not try to simply weather any opposition or changes to his life but instead reshape himself as needed to better fit INTO whatever new shape his life and the world around him takes. All while managing to carry the most innate, fundamental and necessary aspects of himself from one version to the next. Thus every single version of himself is different but simultaneously every single version of himself is also undeniably the same person.

The strength of this character, to me, will always be that he can be so many versions of himself, he can become so many things, all without ever actually losing or discarding any of the aspects of himself he considers most essential, the things he's not willing to lose or give up just to keep going. Finding that road not taken by most, usually because most never even think to look for it as an option. But one that he's always able to find because the one trick he's mastered in his tumultuous life is threading that needle of not just digging in his heels in an unproductive way but rather being selective about when and where he makes a stand and decides "this is not a thing I'm willing to compromise about" but here are places and ways I can and will change and evolve and adapt in order to make it possible for me to hold onto these parts and keep them as they are.

And that's why its always so mind-boggling to me that so many writers can't seem to think of anything else to do with Dick Grayson other than invent some new reason for him to just....not be that person, or to like just take the character whose most basic fundamental trait he's NOT about to compromise on is willingly giving up his spot in the driver's seat of his own life.....and make him just a passenger in his own life and stories.

Dick Grayson at age nine....at age nineteen...at age twenty nine....the one core thread running through all versions of him is the only way he's standing back and letting you call the shots for him or putting him on the sidelines in some way is over his dead body.

HOW he goes about that, what that looks like, who he becomes and what aspects of himself he plays up at some times and what traits he lets fall by the wayside at other times when they offer less in service to his primary goal here....that changes constantly. He changes constantly.

But those changes are almost always (or at least they used to be/should be IN MY OPINION) made with the intention of keeping certain things about him or his life as consistent as possible.

That's the duality of Dick Grayson that I'm here for. The inherent contradiction of him that COULD allow for endless conflict and breaking new narrative ground in all sorts of ways if mined properly:

His eternal willingness to compromise....but only ever in pursuit of doubling down on the ways he's not willing to compromise.

Forever walking that tightrope in ways that only a kid born and raised in a circus could ever hope to.

[cluescorner]

A Batman who kills people is a bad Batman. Except for Terry because he is my special boy. Terry can drown a man it's ok. He can literally shatter a woman it's fine.

[notfeelingthyaster]

like i get bruce won't kill joker or whatever (boooooooooo 🙄) but doesn't new jersey or gotham have death penalty? if not, there's no way for joker to be tried by federal justice after how many war crimes this man committed? and then promptly executed, bc i don't think the insanity plea holds to multiple accounts of mass murder, serial killing and premeditated kills