#Khiorants

[khionefr0st]

im gonna put this here bc at this point this acc is just me screaming into the void and sometimes the void screams back

I’m gonna preface this with the fact that what anon did here is wrong even if what they say isn’t. Just stop barging into other people’s spaces, or going into their askbox/interacting with them when you know they disagree with you and trying to convince them of a different viewpoint in fandom.

Anyway, to the point - if the nature of two characters’ relationship hinges on technicalities like whether they call each other brother/sister in canon, or the batfam wiki, or their adoption papers by the same dude instead of the actual nature of their relationship, which for some of them, does not fit siblings at all, then you could hardly call them siblings, even by the standards of canon itself.

Like someone could just as easily make the argument that since Jason died, his adoption papers under Bruce are no longer valid. He isn’t any longer adopted by the same dude because those papers were never renewed – and they never had to be, because Jason was already pretty much an adult by the time he decided to show up in Gotham again. In the same comic where Bruce adopts Tim as his son, he admits that he didn’t adopt Dick as a son, but a ward. Does this make Jason and Dick any less of brothers? Does it make Dick any less of a son to Batman?

And some would respond to this with “well, technically-“ and it would be an argument about technicalities all over again, and it would still be the wrong damn basis for judging the nature of any character’s actual relationship.

Take Jason and Tim. They did not grow up together. On the contrary, Jason has done things to Tim that would drive any two people apart – and at that time, they barely had any connections to each other besides Jason’s resentment towards Tim, and Tim knowing Jason as Robin but never really knowing him. And then the reboot happened, and none of it was ever addressed properly. We didn’t get an arc where Jason apologized to Tim. Just a throwaway line in a N52 comic where Jason acknowledges that Tim is kind of similar to him, and he realized he wasn’t his enemy. They bond more in the N52 RHATO run, but none of it is especially in a familial way. At best, in canon, they’re amicable coworkers for the same dude, no matter how many times they call each other brother or how you argue that Bruce still has their adoption papers.

Same can be said about Tim and Damian – sure, they have the same dad. Does it make them siblings? Not by a long shot, because the nature of their relationship needs more development than mere technicalities for it to happen. And for the love of god please realize that having the same father figure does not make people tantamount to siblings.

Because that’s the problem with some of you – it’s that you force them into these boxes of typical nuclear family dynamics, like since this is the dad, all his kids are siblings, and because some of them share the same siblings, that means they all see each other as siblings! When the batfamily is a found family and fundamentally does not fit into conventional family relationships.

At best, the “batfamily is a traditionally nice, good, loving family” is a headcanon with surface-level canon content to support it (like WFA, or some moments in Nightwing). But looking at their actual, genuine interactions with each other in the past? The actual moments that relationships should be based on?

Some of them are hardly siblings, no matter how hard you try and force them to be.

Plus, Babs can definitely see Bruce as a father figure. She can definitely be a mother figure and/or a sister figure to Steph and Cass. This doesn’t mean she can’t date their sibling, Dick. Stephanie doesn’t have to be adopted by Bruce to see him as a father figure, and you can definitely think she does see a dad in Batman. Steph isn’t any less of a sister to Cass or Duke. Doesn’t mean she can’t be shipped with their brother, Tim. Doesn’t mean someone can’t reinterpret Steph and Cass’ relationship as a romantic one, either. Because, again, they do not fit conventional nuclear family dynamics.

The reason Tim doesn't have to accept Damian or Jason as his brother is because the fundamental difference that separates found families from nuclear families is that they are not born into the relationship - the relationship happens because they make it work. Their bonds are not forged by a link in blood - they are forged by choice, and with effort. Without those things there is no relationship, no matter how many parental figures or siblings you share.

So yes, Jason is still Bruce’s son, not because of any damn adoption papers or because he called his other kids bro/sis, but because Bruce loved him like a son and Jason loved him like a father, and they've both put in the time and commitment in the past to prove that to each other.

I’m not doing this to justify shipping, because the justification for that is do whatever the hell you want in fiction. I don’t care if you still see them as siblings and neither should anyone. Fiction is held to different standards than reality, and fanworks are held to different standards than canon. It is a waste of time to make it your business to form an opinion on what everyone personally ships and doesn’t ship in a spin-off of a universe that doesn’t exist.

I’m saying this because I need people to understand that happy, conventional batfamily is hardly canon. They are complex, and yes there is love and family to be found there, but their familial connections don't limit them. I think it’s a disservice to the narrative and the inherent versatility of their relationships to pretend like the batfamily is founded on traditional family dynamics. And yeah, also because “Actually, in canon-” has been used again and again to attack people who choose to make them have romantic connections instead of familial ones (including DickBabs and TimSteph shippers somehow), and half the time, like in the post above, they’re not even right because they ignore nuance and actual canon history for the sake of trivial and arbitrary criteria.

And even if it was canon, it’s not something you can weaponize against people who choose to see their relationships in a different way from you. Nothing is stopping anyone from rewriting canon either and choosing to say “Well in my headcanons and works they’re not related.” Canon or not, nobody has the authority to barge into that space and yell “Actually they’re siblings!” (And nobody has the authority either to barge into someone else’s askbox and say “No they aren’t!”) I promise you, it does not matter. If SPN, GoT and Greek Mythology didn't normalize incest some batfam slashfic between two members of a found family certainly isn't going to do it. Stay in spaces you’re comfortable with and do away with those you aren’t.

Last P.S. if you really want to read healthy and good canon family dynamics, read Flashfam.

[khionefr0st]

You honestly think people will stereotype gay sex as nonconsensual or dirty because of... yaoi? Do you have other stereotypes you're concerned about?

People don't need excuses to see sodomy or queer sexual encounters in media as immoral or impure. No matter how consensual or clean or whatever standard you hold it to, people are not seeing gay sex as wrong because it's nonconsensual - they're seeing it as immoral simply because it's not straight. If you want to address stereotypes about queer sexual representation, address that, because I guarantee yaoi is not the current problem in any capacity.

Also no it is not usually straight people making yaoi, there's a whole genre of yaoi made by gay men (geikomi, formerly known as bara) made for gay men.

And yaoi has a whole audience filled with queer readers. Queer readers who are also people of color from a whole other continent. Not just cis women.

The problem with the whole "fetishist" argument that happens because someone from a different gender is reading about sexually arousing content about another gender is this:

And yes, non-con and many problematic things are extremely prevalent in many yaoi comics, including geikomi.

Just as it's prevalent in heterosexual media, and in many, many straight media before yaoi was allowed to be as prevalent as it is now. Many adult books with "bad boys" include problematic themes of consent.

Yaoi is about as diverse as straight media is - there's soft, loving yaoi, and there's dark, dramatic and disturbing yaoi. Diverse media with a vast audience caters to all sorts of kinks.

But surprisingly, you don't hear this kind of "fetishist" generalization about straight media, especially western heterosexual media.

You, ironically, are the one stereotyping an entire Asian nation's gay representation as negative representation because you are clearly only familiar with western representation. You among many others.

If you truly want to address problems of non-consent, address problems in real life. There are so many ways to directly address that problem instead of wasting your energy on things like representation in media meant to cater to queer sexual kinks, which, in an ideal world, would be allowed just as heterosexual kinky media are.

this is the best sentence ever typed

[khionefr0st]

This June we're seeing less companies openly express support of the lgbtq+ community possibly because they're caving in to right-wing demands and it sounds like a canary in the mine.

Because I'm gonna be honest with you I didn't give a single shit if the companies were changing their logos to rainbows or making queer products because they were "performative" or because they had a "better" reason. In the end it was a net good and had an overall positive impact on the queer community because we were receiving mainstream support and people were getting more used to seeing us. Every June the pride flags are everywhere. Every June we are normal.

What happens to us when that support starts to slowly disappear because not only do we refuse to encourage it, we're also talking about how performative it is instead of addressing actual issues?

You really want to critique companies? Criticize them for their working conditions, their refusal to pay their workers right, their outsource of labor to underdeveloped countries that employ children and exploited people and pay them pennies. Again. I literally cannot give less of a shit if the company having a rainbow pride flag logo for June and only June is performative or whatnot. Rainbow Capitalism is some of the most useless and most online discourse I have ever encountered.

You really want to help the queer community? Talk about sexual discrimination in schools, lack of queer resources and the active suppression and banning of books about us, about how we are still socially and in many places LEGALLY persecuted for being queer.

Discourse about harmless performativity is often performative in itself because in the end it talks about things that are not issues. It is frustratingly pointless and I hate the way some of you spend so much time talking about it compared to other issues out there. You speaking about how performative they are has less of a positive impact for the marginalized community than their performativity. I'm gonna say this - seeing companies cater to, accommodate, and yes, MARKET AND CAPITALIZE AND ADVERTISE TO QUEER PEOPLE, JUST LIKE CISHETERO PEOPLE HAVE ENJOYED FOR DECADES, is what some people have been wanting and fighting for for years. Until very recently, it was a win. Now we might be slowly losing it and all some of you can say is "good, I didn't want their performative support anyway".

There are people who want us dead. I'd rather we talk about that and all the reasons behind it rather than about why some companies only have pride logos during June.

[khionefr0st]

the freshest idiocy on twitter pissed me off and made me realize something because people are genuinely getting thousands of likes tweeting "omg pregnant women shouldn't be in these situations" about spiderverse which yeah! fucking obviously! what is it you hope to achieve by pointing that out?

twitter brainrot is real

anyway - The difference between virtue signaling and being properly, IMPACTFULLY, critical of media is knowing when and which parts of media to critique. There are people who analyze the deep-set prejudices that lead to how a creator chooses to represent certain societal roles built on their own subconscious perceptions of social construct.

And then there are people who would be conservatives if that was still the status quo because they attempt to look critical without actually thinking critically about the shittakes they see, so their stance is just reactionary despite utilizing progressive rhetoric.

Yes, women are given a difficult time by society in ways men are not. Yes our rights for maternal leave and reproductive healthcare are suppressed by overarching systems designed for oppression.

But can we think for a second - are we really, seriously making a difference by dying on the hill of "pregnant women in fictional franchises shouldn't be fighting because it's dangerous for the baby"? Like are you serious? Why? Are you protecting the fictional baby? Are you helping women in real life? Did you stop someone from going out to be a masked vigilante while they were pregnant because they watched Spiderverse 2 and got that bright idea? Who did you manage to protect?

If we want to help the issues of reproductive healthcare for women then we can talk directly about systems of patriarchal and capitalist oppression. "We can do both" but are you? I guarantee with 100% confidence that all the people who have time to tweet about reproductive oppression because of pregnant women fighting in a cartoon have not talked half as much about trying to increase maternal leave.

There's not much point to this post besides that bit about virtue signaling and media critique. Full disclosure, I was just pissed off. It's pretty clear some of you "leftists" or whatever are just budding reactionaries who bastardize and appropriate the use of progressive language because it's convenient for you, not because you actually care about those issues.

[khionefr0st]

woah. do none of these people read comics or interact with other comic circles outside of reddit? this is such a far cry from my own perception of both fandom and canon.

Cass has been a prominent member in many, many Batman stories and events since No Man's Land. That's a pretty wild claim to me. Batman and Robin Eternal. Batman Eternal, I think. The Joker War saga. Batman: Night of the Monster Men. Batman and the Outsiders. Just to name a few. She's been part of the family for kind of a decade now. But then again I'm a recent fan of comics so I mostly read recent titles, so idk what constitutes "Batman's most celebrated and iconic stories" but from a recent batfam fan pov she's definitely been there, even if she wasn't in titles like Hush. And "lacks an immediate connection to Batman"... what? His adoptive daughter? The strongest enforcer of his no-kill rule amongst all his children?

Also I'm pretty sure both fandom (reinforced by canon) considers 9 core members of the Batfamily - Bruce, Dick, Babs, Jason, Cass, Tim, Steph, Duke, and Damian. I mean, she's definitely there, from what I've seen.

All the rest of the points in this thread besides the one about legacy characters are one surprise after another because they're just... not true. Like Shiva... she's a pretty well-known member of Bruce's Rogue Gallery, as well as always being name-dropped as having trained this or that Robin when someone brings up their fighting ability, because she's one of the best fighters in the world.

All these people clearly know about Cass is that she's a strong fighter and Shiva's her mom.

"Why isn't cassandra cain popular outside of the comics? Why are WB like 'Nah Babs is the GOAT.'"

I see reddit is asking the real questions and the comments answering this are very interesting. Just a few under the cut:

"Not an iconic core batfamily member. This may sting for Cass fans but sadly she’s not who you immediately think of when you think batfamily. When people think that term usually you think of the robins, Alfred and Babs. Cass is more on Azreals tier of popularity if not slightly less so."

"Damian Wayne allows you to do the “child assassin reformed by Batman” storyline, but with a more straightforward connection. He’s Batman’s natural son. His mother is Talia al Ghul, daughter of the Demon. By contrast most folks don’t know who David Cain and Lady Shiva are"

"Legacy characters who rely on other legacy characters are hard to adapt. Popular media adaptions like movies, TV shows, cartoons, video games, etc. can only adapt so much. Especially since they’re usually just trying to tell a story about Batman. If you want to do a faithful adaptation of Cassandra, you have to also adapt Oracle, which adds more things to explain. It’s the same reason why the Robins often get combined with each other or some are omitted."

"Cass lacks an immediate connection to Batman. Barbara is the daughter of Commissioner Gordon and that will always connect her to the heart of Batman’s world."

"Outside of the massive No Man’s Land crossover, Cass doesn’t appear in any of Batman’s most celebrated and iconic stories"

"While i agree that Barbara shouldnt have been made Batgirl again, cassandra Cain and also stephanie brown are just not that interesting. The only interesting thing cassandra Cain has is her fighting skill, thats it."

Some true shit right here

[khionefr0st]

then block me lmfao

this is the best sentence ever typed

[khionefr0st]

yes and I'm addressing the issues you gave, if you don't personally have a stake in this convo why did u bring it up?

again you have no understanding of what yaoi actually is, or who even makes it, regardless of who consumes it. Like I gave you other reasons besides who consumes yaoi, did you even read them? Did u read about the fact that geikomi is produced by gay men?

And the fact that you just generalized media in japan again lmfao. "Japanese media has these problems" so does the west bruh.

Again when you refer to yaoi you're generalizing and stereotyping a whole ass diverse genre besides whatever you have issue with.

Anyway I don't think you're interested in actually learning about other people's culture or representation despite criticizing it. See ya.

this is the best sentence ever typed

[khionefr0st]

so block me??? or just ignore instead of clicking on the notification? how hard is that lol why are you spending so much time on this than you claim to be invested in. im gonna ignore u now watch how ez it is

this is the best sentence ever typed

[khionefr0st]

@depressedstressedstillblessed I'm going to put this here, since my long response won't fit in the replies. Answer can be kinda messy cos I just had school and I'm tired.

But the short answer is yes - that's why I said some of them are hardly siblings. I didn't say all of them were hardly siblings. What I did say is that, all of them, in general, are hardly this big, happy family. They're more like a friend clique - some of them are obviously closer to others, and some of them are, for the most part, linked by their mutual bonds with the others in the group rather than with a specific member themselves.

The long one is that your criteria for their being siblings is not as technical as it is subjective, and still the wrong basis for judging the nature of a relationship. I already tackled why having the same parent figure is not tantamount to making them siblings, but you offered another argument for why they should, so let's talk about that.

I, for one, don't think that growing up under similar contexts in the same place with the same mentor/father figure and forming the same principles is what makes 2 people siblings. I also think 2 people can forge a sibling bond without having grown up under similar contexts in the same place with the same mentor/father figure and principles. Because, again, the basis for their connection should be that connection itself; their interactions with each other and how they treat each other, and the place they regard in their lives. It is not about the circumstances of their upbringing or the number of found family members with whom they share a mutual relationship. It's like I said - the beauty in found family is the delibracy, the intentionality, in choosing who they have a connection with. It is not about being born into a role you are predicated by obligation to fulfill because of certain societal labels (i.e. you are his child, so you have to treat the rest of his children as your siblings). Nor is it about being chosen to be in the same shoes someone else was before you, like since you're Robin and have been raised by the same mentor/father figure with the same principles, and because you have part of your mentor with you in some way, all who have been raised this way must be your brothers. Steph was Robin too. She was also Batgirl. She's been raised and trained under the same mentor who raised Tim and Cass. Sure you can interpret them as siblings, but again, the point is that they don't have to be. They are not limited to that. The ambiguity of found family relationships is a beautiful thing.

There are other examples - but I wrote them haphazardly lmao it's also hard for me to read. But anyway, even with your criteria, many of them did not grow up together. You can say that somewhat on a surface level, but they didn't really do much of their growing up with each other. Cass was already 17 when she met Batman and became Babs' student. Her solo mostly fleshed out her relationship with Babs, Steph and Batman, and somewhat Dick and Tim. But right after that they made her a villain, and there are comic panels out there where she picks at the seams of Tim and Bruce's relationship. She also hurts them quite a bit. (It's been retconned, and honestly many of us just pretend it never happened, but, well. If canon is going to be your basis someone can just as easily argue that Cass doesn't deserve sibling titles either.)

Jason hardly grew up with any of them, save for maybe Dick. Even then he was only Robin for a few years before his death, and it was only after he decided to come back to Gotham for good that he met practically everyone after him. Cass was already an adult when they met. The relationship between them is also hardly developed.

Duke is pretty new, and honestly, many of them are done growing up. But thus far only his relationship with Steph and Cass really has some real weight to it in canon. There are interactions between him and the other brothers, but I wouldn't say he's grown up with them either. In Batman vs. the Monster Men (?) Tim "dies" and although Duke knows the weight it has for Bruce, Dick and the others, he also somewhat acknowledges that he doesn't know the pain they're going through because he doesn't have that same bond they do.

Jason and Damian also arguably had similar upbringings, having both gone through Talia and Bruce's tutelage. That didn't automatically qualify their relationship for sibling status - in fact, in one of their first meetings in Battle of the Cowl, Jason injures Damian quite a bit. So I stand by the fact that that is not what made them brothers. Even though I want them to be brothers, there's still room to improve their relationship in canon as well.

Cass and Damian have potential, but they still have a long way to go if you really wanna develop their relationship. DC barely lets them interact. Like I said, they're more like a friend group - some closer to others, some bonded by mutual bonds, but not defined by them.

And yeah, even though Jason didn't grow up for long with Dick, and even though Jason is probably the furthest Robin from being Bruce, I still think they're brothers because of how they interact with each other. Even though Cass didn't grow up long with Tim and in the past also committed actions that drove them apart, I still think they're siblings because of how they treat each other now. I love Duke and I'm rooting for him forming bonds with all of them, but right now, it's going to take more work than having the same ethics, morals and mannerisms as Batman, or "growing up" (honestly right now it's just passively existing) with his current family to really make him feel like a brother to the other Robins.

At best, and this is already admittedly true for many of them, having the same mentor and morals/mannerisms from the same father figure can be a catalyst for a connection. But it cannot stand on its own as one. It does not make them siblings. Because again, that's in the choice and the work they put in to make that connection happen.

im gonna put this here bc at this point this acc is just me screaming into the void and sometimes the void screams back

I’m gonna preface this with the fact that what anon did here is wrong even if what they say isn’t. Just stop barging into other people’s spaces, or going into their askbox/interacting with them when you know they disagree with you and trying to convince them of a different viewpoint in fandom.

Anyway, to the point - if the nature of two characters’ relationship hinges on technicalities like whether they call each other brother/sister in canon, or the batfam wiki, or their adoption papers by the same dude instead of the actual nature of their relationship, which for some of them, does not fit siblings at all, then you could hardly call them siblings, even by the standards of canon itself.

Like someone could just as easily make the argument that since Jason died, his adoption papers under Bruce are no longer valid. He isn’t any longer adopted by the same dude because those papers were never renewed – and they never had to be, because Jason was already pretty much an adult by the time he decided to show up in Gotham again. In the same comic where Bruce adopts Tim as his son, he admits that he didn’t adopt Dick as a son, but a ward. Does this make Jason and Dick any less of brothers? Does it make Dick any less of a son to Batman?

And some would respond to this with “well, technically-“ and it would be an argument about technicalities all over again, and it would still be the wrong damn basis for judging the nature of any character’s actual relationship.

Take Jason and Tim. They did not grow up together. On the contrary, Jason has done things to Tim that would drive any two people apart – and at that time, they barely had any connections to each other besides Jason’s resentment towards Tim, and Tim knowing Jason as Robin but never really knowing him. And then the reboot happened, and none of it was ever addressed properly. We didn’t get an arc where Jason apologized to Tim. Just a throwaway line in a N52 comic where Jason acknowledges that Tim is kind of similar to him, and he realized he wasn’t his enemy. They bond more in the N52 RHATO run, but none of it is especially in a familial way. At best, in canon, they’re amicable coworkers for the same dude, no matter how many times they call each other brother or how you argue that Bruce still has their adoption papers.

Same can be said about Tim and Damian – sure, they have the same dad. Does it make them siblings? Not by a long shot, because the nature of their relationship needs more development than mere technicalities for it to happen. And for the love of god please realize that having the same father figure does not make people tantamount to siblings.

Because that’s the problem with some of you – it’s that you force them into these boxes of typical nuclear family dynamics, like since this is the dad, all his kids are siblings, and because some of them share the same siblings, that means they all see each other as siblings! When the batfamily is a found family and fundamentally does not fit into conventional family relationships.

At best, the “batfamily is a traditionally nice, good, loving family” is a headcanon with surface-level canon content to support it (like WFA, or some moments in Nightwing). But looking at their actual, genuine interactions with each other in the past? The actual moments that relationships should be based on?

Some of them are hardly siblings, no matter how hard you try and force them to be.

Plus, Babs can definitely see Bruce as a father figure. She can definitely be a mother figure and/or a sister figure to Steph and Cass. This doesn’t mean she can’t date their sibling, Dick. Stephanie doesn’t have to be adopted by Bruce to see him as a father figure, and you can definitely think she does see a dad in Batman. Steph isn’t any less of a sister to Cass or Duke. Doesn’t mean she can’t be shipped with their brother, Tim. Doesn’t mean someone can’t reinterpret Steph and Cass’ relationship as a romantic one, either. Because, again, they do not fit conventional nuclear family dynamics.

The reason Tim doesn't have to accept Damian or Jason as his brother is because the fundamental difference that separates found families from nuclear families is that they are not born into the relationship - the relationship happens because they make it work. Their bonds are not forged by a link in blood - they are forged by choice, and with effort. Without those things there is no relationship, no matter how many parental figures or siblings you share.

So yes, Jason is still Bruce’s son, not because of any damn adoption papers or because he called his other kids bro/sis, but because Bruce loved him like a son and Jason loved him like a father, and they've both put in the time and commitment in the past to prove that to each other.

I’m not doing this to justify shipping, because the justification for that is do whatever the hell you want in fiction. I don’t care if you still see them as siblings and neither should anyone. Fiction is held to different standards than reality, and fanworks are held to different standards than canon. It is a waste of time to make it your business to form an opinion on what everyone personally ships and doesn’t ship in a spin-off of a universe that doesn’t exist.

I’m saying this because I need people to understand that happy, conventional batfamily is hardly canon. They are complex, and yes there is love and family to be found there, but their familial connections don't limit them. I think it’s a disservice to the narrative and the inherent versatility of their relationships to pretend like the batfamily is founded on traditional family dynamics. And yeah, also because “Actually, in canon-” has been used again and again to attack people who choose to make them have romantic connections instead of familial ones (including DickBabs and TimSteph shippers somehow), and half the time, like in the post above, they’re not even right because they ignore nuance and actual canon history for the sake of trivial and arbitrary criteria.

And even if it was canon, it’s not something you can weaponize against people who choose to see their relationships in a different way from you. Nothing is stopping anyone from rewriting canon either and choosing to say “Well in my headcanons and works they’re not related.” Canon or not, nobody has the authority to barge into that space and yell “Actually they’re siblings!” (And nobody has the authority either to barge into someone else’s askbox and say “No they aren’t!”) I promise you, it does not matter. If SPN, GoT and Greek Mythology didn't normalize incest some batfam slashfic between two members of a found family certainly isn't going to do it. Stay in spaces you’re comfortable with and do away with those you aren’t.

Last P.S. if you really want to read healthy and good canon family dynamics, read Flashfam.

[khionefr0st]

@depressedstressedstillblessed

This will be my final reply to you, because I think you misunderstand me more than you think I misunderstand you.

I thought you replied to me because you had an issue with my statement about how "Some of them are hardly siblings, no matter how hard you try and force them to be." And I've already said the reason why I say that - because I dislike putting labels or passing judgement on their relationships based on technicalities rather than their actual bonds, and the reason I dislike putting labels is because it forces them into these stereotypical familial roles. Setting two people up to be labelled siblings from the start specifically because they share the same father figure, or they have adoption papers under the same guy, ignores the versatility found family relationships can have - and as I said, is a disservice to the narrative, because they are a found family. They are family by choice and effort. Without those, there's hardly any bonds formed, so even if you put a label on two people's relationship based on sharing the same parent figure, it will be basically meaningless.

And yet you're here, not necessarily to contribute or address any of that, but to argue with me about the technicality of labels like "sibling" and how they should be acknowledged by the label "siblings" because of conditions that hinge on the technicality of them being adopted by Bruce when I specifically said that is not what I use to judge/label relationships. This post is about more than the terms/labels we use for them. You know it and I know it. Do whatever you want, see them as siblings, label their relationships with whatever - the point of my post is that if you're going to pretend the label of "sibling relationship" has weight for them in canon, then you have to acknowledge the foundations they were built on, or the lack thereof - because I need people to see beyond stereotypical family dynamics to the found family the bats are, why them being a found family is a good thing.

You even name the one example where found family is inapplicable, and then act like it leverages your argument. Of course Bruce and Damian are different - they are linked by blood. That is the difference between found family and nuclear families. Damian was born into the role of being Bruce's son - unlike the others, who were chosen (there was a choice) and who worked and committed to the nature of that relationship (there was effort). That was what made them Bruce's sons/daughters. Not because they were born from his blood and therefore obligated to be his sons. Unlike them, Bruce is obligated to take care of Damian because he is his son.

And yes, I still stand that even though Damian was not initially connected to Bruce like the rest of them were, what makes Damian Bruce's son most of all is not that he was born of his blood or that Bruce is supposed to take care of him - what makes Damian his son most of all is what makes the rest of them his sons. It's in the fact that Bruce loves Damian, and Damian loves Bruce. Their father-son relationship is not hinged on a technicality. NONE of Bruce's relationships with his kids are. He is not their dad because he holds their adoption papers - he's their dad because he loves them. I never denied that, either, and Damian's and Bruce's relationship is not at all an example of judging a bond based on a technicality. And even if they were linked by a technicality because of unavoidable circumstances, there are still better ways to assess their current relationship as father and son.

You can define siblings however you want. I have no issue with that. But unless you're here to talk about the actual content of my post, I'm not going to respond to further comments.

im gonna put this here bc at this point this acc is just me screaming into the void and sometimes the void screams back

I’m gonna preface this with the fact that what anon did here is wrong even if what they say isn’t. Just stop barging into other people’s spaces, or going into their askbox/interacting with them when you know they disagree with you and trying to convince them of a different viewpoint in fandom.

Anyway, to the point - if the nature of two characters’ relationship hinges on technicalities like whether they call each other brother/sister in canon, or the batfam wiki, or their adoption papers by the same dude instead of the actual nature of their relationship, which for some of them, does not fit siblings at all, then you could hardly call them siblings, even by the standards of canon itself.

Like someone could just as easily make the argument that since Jason died, his adoption papers under Bruce are no longer valid. He isn’t any longer adopted by the same dude because those papers were never renewed – and they never had to be, because Jason was already pretty much an adult by the time he decided to show up in Gotham again. In the same comic where Bruce adopts Tim as his son, he admits that he didn’t adopt Dick as a son, but a ward. Does this make Jason and Dick any less of brothers? Does it make Dick any less of a son to Batman?

And some would respond to this with “well, technically-“ and it would be an argument about technicalities all over again, and it would still be the wrong damn basis for judging the nature of any character’s actual relationship.

Take Jason and Tim. They did not grow up together. On the contrary, Jason has done things to Tim that would drive any two people apart – and at that time, they barely had any connections to each other besides Jason’s resentment towards Tim, and Tim knowing Jason as Robin but never really knowing him. And then the reboot happened, and none of it was ever addressed properly. We didn’t get an arc where Jason apologized to Tim. Just a throwaway line in a N52 comic where Jason acknowledges that Tim is kind of similar to him, and he realized he wasn’t his enemy. They bond more in the N52 RHATO run, but none of it is especially in a familial way. At best, in canon, they’re amicable coworkers for the same dude, no matter how many times they call each other brother or how you argue that Bruce still has their adoption papers.

Same can be said about Tim and Damian – sure, they have the same dad. Does it make them siblings? Not by a long shot, because the nature of their relationship needs more development than mere technicalities for it to happen. And for the love of god please realize that having the same father figure does not make people tantamount to siblings.

Because that’s the problem with some of you – it’s that you force them into these boxes of typical nuclear family dynamics, like since this is the dad, all his kids are siblings, and because some of them share the same siblings, that means they all see each other as siblings! When the batfamily is a found family and fundamentally does not fit into conventional family relationships.

At best, the “batfamily is a traditionally nice, good, loving family” is a headcanon with surface-level canon content to support it (like WFA, or some moments in Nightwing). But looking at their actual, genuine interactions with each other in the past? The actual moments that relationships should be based on?

Some of them are hardly siblings, no matter how hard you try and force them to be.

Plus, Babs can definitely see Bruce as a father figure. She can definitely be a mother figure and/or a sister figure to Steph and Cass. This doesn’t mean she can’t date their sibling, Dick. Stephanie doesn’t have to be adopted by Bruce to see him as a father figure, and you can definitely think she does see a dad in Batman. Steph isn’t any less of a sister to Cass or Duke. Doesn’t mean she can’t be shipped with their brother, Tim. Doesn’t mean someone can’t reinterpret Steph and Cass’ relationship as a romantic one, either. Because, again, they do not fit conventional nuclear family dynamics.

The reason Tim doesn't have to accept Damian or Jason as his brother is because the fundamental difference that separates found families from nuclear families is that they are not born into the relationship - the relationship happens because they make it work. Their bonds are not forged by a link in blood - they are forged by choice, and with effort. Without those things there is no relationship, no matter how many parental figures or siblings you share.

So yes, Jason is still Bruce’s son, not because of any damn adoption papers or because he called his other kids bro/sis, but because Bruce loved him like a son and Jason loved him like a father, and they've both put in the time and commitment in the past to prove that to each other.

I’m not doing this to justify shipping, because the justification for that is do whatever the hell you want in fiction. I don’t care if you still see them as siblings and neither should anyone. Fiction is held to different standards than reality, and fanworks are held to different standards than canon. It is a waste of time to make it your business to form an opinion on what everyone personally ships and doesn’t ship in a spin-off of a universe that doesn’t exist.

I’m saying this because I need people to understand that happy, conventional batfamily is hardly canon. They are complex, and yes there is love and family to be found there, but their familial connections don't limit them. I think it’s a disservice to the narrative and the inherent versatility of their relationships to pretend like the batfamily is founded on traditional family dynamics. And yeah, also because “Actually, in canon-” has been used again and again to attack people who choose to make them have romantic connections instead of familial ones (including DickBabs and TimSteph shippers somehow), and half the time, like in the post above, they’re not even right because they ignore nuance and actual canon history for the sake of trivial and arbitrary criteria.

And even if it was canon, it’s not something you can weaponize against people who choose to see their relationships in a different way from you. Nothing is stopping anyone from rewriting canon either and choosing to say “Well in my headcanons and works they’re not related.” Canon or not, nobody has the authority to barge into that space and yell “Actually they’re siblings!” (And nobody has the authority either to barge into someone else’s askbox and say “No they aren’t!”) I promise you, it does not matter. If SPN, GoT and Greek Mythology didn't normalize incest some batfam slashfic between two members of a found family certainly isn't going to do it. Stay in spaces you’re comfortable with and do away with those you aren’t.

Last P.S. if you really want to read healthy and good canon family dynamics, read Flashfam.

[khionefr0st]

@privatecrab2 I'm gonna be honest, I stand my ground that being able to talk about "rainbow capitalism" is a privileged and useless take. I am not blaming the pulling back of support of companies on queer people, despite my initially angry words. Of course it is not our fault. I am primarily criticizing privileged (especially american/european) queer people for not focusing on what is important - the very reasons it was easy for hate groups to threaten companies back into silence. The problem was always bigger than "performativity" of corporations whose goal was always to make a buck. They just happened to be given the niche and profitable opportunity to cater to queer people. The fact that that is what people seem to have a problem with is what I have a problem with, because we can't have a productive discussion about this unless we fully acknowledge capitalism as a fundamentally flawed system but ultimately the system we have to use. Companies cater to people when they are marketable. That's what they do. It affects everyone, everyone is marketed and capitalized on, 24/7 365 by these corporations, not just queer people.

But we also have to acknowledge capitalism as the reality, the status quo we live in, and the system we have to play by if we want our community to rise in equality in comparison to our cishetero peers. So, acknowledging this, we ought to remember - companies sponsoring pride, openly advertising queer rep, performative or not, was a good thing. It is what we want more of if we want to keep up the progress. It was a good status quo to strive towards, irrelevant of whether companies were doing it legitimately or not, because of course they weren't. It's capitalism.

My goddamn problem is how people (again, ESPECIALLY the privileged who already have explicit laws and rights and representation in their countries) ride on the reactionary bandwagon so easily. They don't know what exactly they're fighting for but they'll make noise as long as they have something to fight against. And these people frustrate me because it's clear they don't know what they want - no matter what happens, they are unsatisfied, and therefore directionless. They have no ideal status quo in mind. They wallow and are performatively distracted by non-issues online while in reality, the status quo has already regressed into recycled oppression for their country peers, and worse in underdeveloped countries. My problem with this whole rainbow capitalism discourse is that is exposes how some people are too comfortable to nitpick at irrelevant details when there are more impactful issues that need attention right now and yet. Here we are.

You don't want companies to sponsor pride for legitimate reasons instead of "performatively". Companies don't do that. They are fundamentally performative. You really want to have discussions that force us towards change?

Criticize capitalism. Criticize homophobia and transphobia. Enough with this stupid rainbow capitalism discourse.

This June we're seeing less companies openly express support of the lgbtq+ community possibly because they're caving in to right-wing demands and it sounds like a canary in the mine.

Because I'm gonna be honest with you I didn't give a single shit if the companies were changing their logos to rainbows or making queer products because they were "performative" or because they had a "better" reason. In the end it was a net good and had an overall positive impact on the queer community because we were receiving mainstream support and people were getting more used to seeing us. Every June the pride flags are everywhere. Every June we are normal.

What happens to us when that support starts to slowly disappear because not only do we refuse to encourage it, we're also talking about how performative it is instead of addressing actual issues?

You really want to critique companies? Criticize them for their working conditions, their refusal to pay their workers right, their outsource of labor to underdeveloped countries that employ children and exploited people and pay them pennies. Again. I literally cannot give less of a shit if the company having a rainbow pride flag logo for June and only June is performative or whatnot. Rainbow Capitalism is some of the most useless and most online discourse I have ever encountered.

You really want to help the queer community? Talk about sexual discrimination in schools, lack of queer resources and the active suppression and banning of books about us, about how we are still socially and in many places LEGALLY persecuted for being queer.

Discourse about harmless performativity is often performative in itself because in the end it talks about things that are not issues. It is frustratingly pointless and I hate the way some of you spend so much time talking about it compared to other issues out there. You speaking about how performative they are has less of a positive impact for the marginalized community than their performativity. I'm gonna say this - seeing companies cater to, accommodate, and yes, MARKET AND CAPITALIZE AND ADVERTISE TO QUEER PEOPLE, JUST LIKE CISHETERO PEOPLE HAVE ENJOYED FOR DECADES, is what some people have been wanting and fighting for for years. Until very recently, it was a win. Now we might be slowly losing it and all some of you can say is "good, I didn't want their performative support anyway".

There are people who want us dead. I'd rather we talk about that and all the reasons behind it rather than about why some companies only have pride logos during June.