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invisibleanonymousmonsters · 4 years ago

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All Men Have Limits - X

Character: Dick Grayson x Reader x Bruce Wayne

Summary: A certain bat believes that Y/N is in way over her head, that she’s too naive to act in her best interest. So, whether she wants it or not, the vigilante family is going to help and protect her before she gets herself killed.

Word Count: 4,100+

Previously on…

The next three days were one of the darkest periods of Dick Grayson’s life.

He was thrown back into the past to the moments after his parents were murdered. This felt the same but somehow worse. Because he was convinced he had the power to stop it, to keep Y/N safe.

Why did everyone he love have to die?

Was he cursed?

Was he responsible for their deaths?

He hadn’t even been able to tell Y/N how he really felt. He’d been holding back all this time, terrified that his truth would just push her away and make her decide to close off from him.

Now Dick wished he could go back in time and confess everything to her. If she had pushed him away, he would found his way back to her somehow. He sees that now – now that it’s too late.

He looked at Y/N sleeping peacefully in her bed at the manor.

Is it a miracle if conjuring was used to fight back at fate?

Dick doesn’t even remember what he said when he contacted Zatanna. He must’ve sounded hysterical and utterly desperate. His vision had been blurred from the tears he couldn’t control.

He already blacked the whole thing out.

Zatanna told them that Y/N would sleep for a few days. Even if her magic saved her life and Y/N wouldn’t even have a scar to prove she had died, her body was still exhausted from the trauma of it all.

But even with Zatanna’s reassurance, Dick hadn’t left Y/N’s side, absolutely terrified that she was still in danger, that she could still leave them forever.

When Y/N started to shift, Dick sat up straighter in the chair that he’d pulled close to her bed.

Y/N winced before her eyes fluttered open.

Dick didn’t want to overwhelm her, so he just waited for her to fully wake up.

Y/N seemed confused when she realized that she was back in her room at the manor.

Then her gaze moved to Dick.

“Bruce, is he–”

“He’s fine,” Dick cut her off before she could get herself into a panic.

Her entire body relaxed and she let out the breath she was holding in without realizing it.

“He has a concussion and he’s a little beat up. But he’s had worse,” Dick elaborated.

She raised a brow. “You tend to say that a lot.”

Dick shrugged.

But it was true: Bruce had been in much worse condition.

“You saved his life, Y/N.”

She seemed uncomfortable hearing that and didn’t meet his gaze.

“I did what anyone would’ve done,” Y/N mumbled.

“Not everyone would be that brave.”

A silence settled between them for a few moments.

“How am I here?” Y/N finally asked Dick quietly.

But they both knew she was really asking, ‘How am I alive?’

“I’m not sure you really want to know all the details…” Dick had been dreading this conversation.

“I’m assuming you called in another favor with your magic friend,” Y/N thought aloud.

“Zatanna,” Dick confirmed. “And, yes. Something like that.”

Y/N gave him a look that told him she wasn’t going to let it go so easily.

“She used a spell that reversed your injuries. She…” Dick had to pause and clear his throat and get rid of his emotions that were threatening to spill. “She used your blood to write a spell, making it far stronger than most she’s cast. It saved your life.”

Y/N watched him for a moment.

“That must’ve been scary,” she whispered, truly understanding what she had put him through.

She simply could not imagine had it been the other way around. The idea of watching Dick die was something she hoped to never live through.

“He hadn’t left your side until Alfred basically secretly drugged him and scared him to get his own bedroom.”

Y/N moved to get out of bed.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Dick panicked as she stood up to stop her.

“I feel…” she thought about it for a moment.

“Like you were stabbed to death?” Dick offered darkly.

“No. I feel…I feel fine.”

He could tell she was telling the truth.

“Perks of magically being healed?” She offered innocently.

“Guess so.”

She moved out of the bed and realized she was wearing cotton shorts and a baggy t-shirt that she most definitely didn’t die in.

What had happened while she was asleep? How long was she dead?

Y/N went to the window and looked out at the grounds of Wayne Manor.

“What happened when the cops showed up?” She asked quietly, almost in a daze.

“You’d have to ask Tim for details. I was preoccupied with…” Dick’s words died out.

Y/N turned away from the window to look at him.

She may have survived, but that was never going to make talking about that night any easier for him.

Luckily, she understood what Dick couldn’t put into words.

Dick took in a deep breath and crossed his arms, “We got them, Y/N.”

It almost seemed to good to be true. They’d been at this for months. It took them weeks just to plan their final blow.

Y/N didn’t realize how hard it would be to believe that it was truly over.

It didn’t help that there was no returning to her old life. Too much had changed.

“With the evidence you gave the FBI, there’s not a lawyer in the world that can save them. Even if a member’s hands aren’t dirty, the public shame will be enough to neutralize them for good,” Dick added with a bit of optimism.

But he could tell by Y/N’s face that she was having trouble accepting the truth.

He took a step toward her.

“If there’s members of The Court that slipped out from underneath us, if any of them try to come after you, it’ll just prove to the world that The Court of Owls is still operating. And exposing that will be the last thing they’ll want.”

She tried to force a small smile and nod, but it was unconvincing.

Dick closed the space between them and grabbed her hands.

“Y/N, you did it.”

“It’s really over,” she whispered, staring into his deep blue eyes.

He gave her a reassuring smile and nodded.

Then Dick’s focus shifted. He looked her up and down. “Y/N, you should really get some rest. You’ve been through a lot.”

Y/N sighed. “I think I’m gonna take a shower.” She smirked, “Get all that death off me.”

Dick frowned. “Not funny.”

“Jason would think it’s funny,” Y/N teased as she walked to the bathroom.

He playfully glared at her. “I’ll give you some space. But I’ll be down in the cave if you need me.”

Dick only got a few steps before Y/N called his name as if she’d forgotten something and rushed to him.

He looked at her expectantly.

Y/N stepped forward and locked her arms around Dick and buried her face into his shoulder. She closed her eyes and tried to control her breathing.

“Thank you,” she mumbled as his hands rubbed her back soothingly and he pulled her closer.

Dick wanted to tell Y/N that she didn’t have to thank him. He saved her life and he would do it again and again and again, and he would never expect gratitude for it. Because Dick knew that it was just as much for him as it was for her.

So instead he just held her in silence and felt the warmth from her body – the same body that had been ice cold and lifeless just days before.

When they finally pulled away, Dick was studying her face to make sure she was alright to be left alone.

He gave her one last look before leaving her.

Y/N took her time in the shower, making the water as hot as her skin would allow without giving it burns. There wasn’t a single bruise or cut on her. Her fingers traced over the place on her abdomen where the katana had been shoved through.

There was nothing.

She wondered if there was a price to pay for such magic. Would she be held accountable? Or would it be Dick’s friend who faced the consequences?

Y/N didn’t know how long she’d been showering, but when she finally walked out, the bathroom was filled with too much steam.

She quickly put on sweatpants and a t-shirt when her stomach started growling. She couldn’t even remember when her last meal had been.

Y/N moved to her door after deciding that going straight to the kitchen was quite necessary.

But she stopped as she heard footsteps walking past her room in the hall.

She froze, thinking it was Bruce.

What would she say to him? Would he be angry with her? Would he not react at all to her resurrection? What would hurt her more between the two?

But it wasn’t Bruce.

Tim and Damian were walking down the hallway.

“How much longer do you think he’ll stay?” She heard Damian ask.

“I don’t know. I heard the Titans have been bugging him to come back,” Tim answered. “I’m sure Kori misses him and has been texting.”

Damian just hummed in acknowledgment.

Y/N realized her hand was suspended over the doorknob.

And she had a realization: she was safe to leave.

But more importantly, she wasn’t the only one that could return to their “normal” life: so could Dick, so could everyone else in the family.

Soon, Tim would go back to his condo in the city. Jason would stop working so closely with the family he tried to disown and he’d probably stop coming around manor so often – if ever. And Bruce…Bruce would move on to new cases and return to the usual patrolling.

Y/N turned and looked at the bedroom that had become her new home in the past few months. Her personality was nowhere to be found inside. It wasn't actually hers. She was just one of its many visitors.

Y/N grabbed her duffle bag from underneath the queen-sized bed and started throwing her belongings into it.

Ten minutes later, Y/N had her jacket and shows on, and all of her belongings were packed in her bag.

She still had to deal with all her equipment that was sitting in the cave. But that was a problem for another day. Right now, she didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with it. She needed to leave – before she changed her mind.

Y/N was just yards from the front door when she heard his voice.

“Y/N?” Dick asked just loud enough to catch her.

She froze in place.

While her back was still to him, she closed her eyes in grievance from the failure of being spotted.

She slowly turned around.

“You trying to sneak out of here?” Dick asked.

It was meant to sound teasing, but she heard his disappointment loud and clear.

“It’s about time I get out of your hair.”

“We’re not exactly kicking you out…” Dick tried to joke.

“You said so yourself: it’s safe for me now.” She sighed and walked closer to him. “Look, I just…I need some time alone.”

Dick took it a bit too personally. Were they really that exhausting to be around? He thought she had started to see them as her own family. He thought things were OK.

“At least let me drive you,” he offered quietly.

“I called a cab. It’s waiting for me outside.”

Before Dick could say anything else, she quickly turned and made her escape.

Y/N knew what she was scared of. She was scared he’d tell her he was leaving Gotham now that the case had been solved. But she was even more scared that he’d tell her he was staying.

She wasn’t ready to deal with either scenario.

So, Y/N did what she did best: she ran.

————————

Y/N stared at the wall of her safe house.

The silence that she had once grown used to long ago was now irritating.

Y/N hadn’t realized how accustomed she had become to the chaos of Wayne Manor until she had torn herself away from it. Even when it was quiet there, she could feel the presence of everyone.

Now she was left only to her thoughts.

And just she was about to escape the silence and go grab food at a nearby diner, there was a knock on the door.

Y/N knew for a fact that this safe-house hadn’t be blown yet – and that included with the Wayne family. It was exactly why she chose to come here instead of the one where Bruce first found her and dragged her to Wayne Manor for her own safety.

Which was why Y/N grabbed one of her guns and checked to make sure it was loaded and the safety was off before she tiptoed to the door.

She looked through the peep hole and her stomach twisted when she saw Bruce Wayne was on the other side.

She knew he could sense her presence on the other side, and there was no hiding. So she opened the door quickly.

Bruce eyed the gun in her hand. “This has become a habit of yours.”

Y/N ignored his comment, uncocked the gun, and carefully placed it on a table near the door.

When she was finally able to take Bruce in, she noted that his face was covered in bruises and small cuts. To be honest, Y/N expected more damage after being a witness to his near-death beating.

“May I come in?” Bruce asked softly.

She blinked rapidly, realizing she had yet to invite him inside.

This was all reminiscent of that night.

And Y/N didn’t appreciate the memories and feelings Bruce was stirring up.

An awkward silence settled between them. The silence of her apartment was doing nothing to help.

“Are you okay?”

Y/N knew the question was sincere, but Bruce still managed to ask it without showing any ounce of emotion – as if he wasn’t personally invested in the matter.

“I’m fine,” she answered quickly. Her eyes softened. “Are you okay?”

He simply nodded.

Silence again.

“You can never do that again,” Bruce declared.

“Do what?”

“You risked your life to save mine. The boys refused to tell me what happened, but I saw the footage. You threw yourself in front of me.”

Y/N remained calm as she said, “You did the same for me.”

Bruce shook his head. Because they both knew it wasn’t the same thing.

The truth was that Bruce woke up to find Dick crying over Y/N’s dead body. And then a few minutes he had watched as Dick begged Zatanna to help him.

And Bruce? Bruce had been unconscious when Y/N had needed him the most.

He had protected her all these months – with his own family and his own home – just to be useless in her final moment of need.

When Bruce finally woke up recovered to find out that Y/N had fled the manor, he knew he needed to go to her. He needed to make sure she never did something so stupid as risking her life to save him.

But now Bruce stood before her and he knew he needed to tell her so much more than just that.

“What are you doing here, Bruce? Did you just plan on lecturing me again?”

But Bruce wasn’t realized he couldn’t use any words tonight.

Ever so slowly, he stepped into her space, putting less and less space between their bodies. Y/N could feel the heat coming from him. And she sucked in a gasp from his proximity. She breathed in his cologne that she’d grown to love so much that it instantly relaxed her.

Her heart beat faster and faster as his eyes shifted down to her lips, hesitating in a way that was excruciating to Y/N. But it gave her time to resist, to allow her to shut this down before it could continue.

But Y/N didn’t want to do that.

Bruce brushed her hair away from her face, then his hands shifted slightly to cup her face. His touch wasn’t soft, but insistent.

He pressed his lips to Y/Ns. Brisk and determined.

The tension finally snapped and pushed them to a passionate kiss that was long overdo.

Was this only going to cause them both more pain in the future?

Or was this what they should’ve done long ago?

Bruce pushed Y/N against a wall.

And then everything became a blur.

Bruce picked Y/N up and wrapped her legs around his waist for her, silently instructing her.

Clothes were unzipped and unbuttoned, and thrown around the apartment without thought.

Their breathing was heavy and reactive to the way their hands raced across each other’s now naked skin.

For never being at this particular safe house, Bruce found his way to the bed with ease.

From the movement of their bodies and obvious desire for one another, one thing became clear: they were never meant to only share one night together.

————

Y/N had tried with all her might to stay awake – even if that meant pulling an all-nighter.

She was trying to break the pattern. And even though Bruce had exhausted her body to no end, she didn’t want to wake up to find his side of the bed empty.

But she was shocked to open her eyes and find not only that Bruce was still in her bed, but that she had been sleeping on his bare chest with his arms wrapped tightly around her.

Y/N could feel that he was awake. Apparently he was much more disciplined than her.

Little did she know Bruce hadn’t slept at all, not wanting to miss the feeling of her against him.

Y/N slowly lifted her head, “Hi.”

He smirked at the sleepiness in her voice.

“Hi."

“Didn’t expect you to be here still,” she admitted quietly.

“I can leave if you want.” And he meant it, even though it would hurt.

“No,” she scolded him in a breathy gasp.

The tension in his body released.

Y/N shifted off of his chest

“And where do you think you’re going?” Bruce questioned.

She shifted so she was no longer resting on his chest, but laying on her side beside him so she could see his face.

“I just wanted to look at you,” she whispered innocently.

Bruce smirked at her answer.

Y/N made sure the bed sheet was successfully covering her nudity.

Bruce seemed amused with her sudden modesty, but said nothing of it.

“How did you find me here?” Y/N asked him.

It had been the first thing she’d wanted to ask when he showed up to her door last night. But Bruce hadn’t exactly given her a lot of space to speak last night.

Bruce’s jaw tightened, which was a message in its own.

“Bruceeeee,” Y/N pushed back with irritation.

“You aren’t going to like the answer.”

She glared at him. “Did you put a fucking tracker on me, Bruce Wayne?”

“Your phone.”

“When?” She asked.

“After you tried to turn yourself in to the Talons.”

Y/N sighed, clearly annoyed by the answer.

They both knew she could easily disable it now that she knew about it. Even if he hadn’t confessed it, she would’ve figured it out on her own eventually.

“You’re upset,” Bruce observed.

“How would you feel if I did the same to you? But it’s…you. And I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Need I remind you that we only met because you blackmailed me and threatened to expose my identity to the world?”

“You know that wasn’t the same,” she shot back as she rolled her eyes.

“You’re right.” Bruce sighed. “I promise I will deactivate it.”

“No,” Y/N surprised him by saying. “But I will make you a deal…you can always know where I am if I can know the same for you.”

Bruce knew this was a test. Because Y/N expected him to immediately shoot down such an offer. Couldn’t such information be used against Batman?

“Deal,” he agreed.

Y/N was so shocked by his compliance that her overwhelming emotions forced her to lean into him and capture his lips in a kiss.

“Should I make us breakfast?” She whispered to him after barely pulling away from his lips.

She lightly bumped her nose against his.

Bruce nodded with a grin.

But before Y/N could ask what he wanted, a knock at the door interrupted them.

Her heart raced at the thought of another intrusion – and a less welcomed one.

Bruce frowned, but remained calm.

“Stay here,” he warned before placing a light kiss on her bare shoulder.

Before she could argue, he slipped out of bed.

He put his boxer briefs on, but didn’t bother with a shirt or pants.

Even though Bruce told Y/N to stay put, she still figured a mysterious knock on the door was a sign to put clothes on.

She practically threw on her underwear, but couldn’t find a single piece of clothing she had on yesterday. Yet somehow she found Bruce’s white button down and quickly buttoned on to give herself some semblance of decency.

Bruce looked through the peephole.

He held his breath.

Bruce would’ve rather it been an attempted attack on Y/N than…this.

“Y/N, I know you’re there,” Dick called from the other side of the door.

Bruce knew she couldn’t hear him. But he knew there was no other choice than to open the door.

Bruce looked apathetic as he faced his first protégé.

But Dick knew Bruce well enough to see that there was guilt hidden underneath.

He took in Bruce’s attire – or really, the lack there of.

Dick huffed out a laugh, “Of course. I should’ve known better.”

He shook his head and turned to leave.

Bruce slammed the door shut and rubbed his face in distress.

Before he could even think of something to say to Y/N, she rushed past him and threw the door open again.

“Dick! Wait!” Y/N called to him and caught him in the hallway.

By some miracle, Dick stopped and turned to her.

He looked her up and down, lingering far too long on the white button down she was wearing that so clearly belonged to Bruce.

“Needed some time alone, huh?”

Throwing Y/N’s own words back at her was meant to come out harsh and cold. But it ended up sounding heartbroken and betrayed.

And, honestly, that was worse to Y/N.

She have any idea what to say to him.

What would even make him feel better?

So, Y/N just watched Dick slowly walk away.

She stepped back into the safe house with tears in her eyes.

Bruce immediately moved to her.

“Y/N–”

But Y/N shook her head, stopping him from saying anything more.

“I should go,” Bruce told her.

He couldn’t help himself as he reached to wipe her tears away.

“I should probably give you your shirt back,” she said between sniffles.

Had the situation been different, it would’ve sounded funny.

But there was no humor here.

Bruce’s innocent touch of wiping her tears away made it hard for Y/N to concentrate.

So she escaped into the bedroom and quickly changed into her own clothes.

When she walked back out, she had all of Bruce’s stuff in her arms.

Once Bruce was in his clothes again, he didn’t know what to do or say next.

It was hard for Bruce to leave Y/N when she was so visibly upset. Dick wasn’t here to make Y/N feel better this time...and that was all Bruce’s fault.

“I’m not used to saying bye to you,” Y/N finally broke the tension.

Bruce’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

A sad look flashed across her face as she processed her thoughts. “Usually I wake up…and you’re gone. You don’t even give me a chance to.”

Bruce bowed his head in shame. “I shouldn’t have done that to you,” he finally admitted to her.

Y/N nodded slowly, agreeing with him.

“But you did,” she whispered.

Her voice sounded congested from all the tears she just shed.

“And all this time, I let myself think it was OK or even that I was the one who had messed it all up.”

Bruce quickly shook his head. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Y/N.”

Her eyes darkened. “Why did you have to make it so hard to stay away from you, Bruce?”

An he knew he deserved that. “I’ve been selfish,” he confessed.

Bruce hesitated before giving her a slow kiss on the cheek.

It was the first time Y/N had ever seen him unsure of himself.

Without saying anything more, he turned and left.

“Goodbye, Bruce.” Y/N whispered long after he could still hear her.

----------------------------------------

Part XI

Did I ruin your life? Let me know 😂

#all men have limits part 10 #dick grayson x reader #bruce wayne x reader #dick grayson x reader x bruce wayne #bruce wayne x reader x dick grayson #batboys #batfam #dick grayson reader insert #bruce wayne reader insert #nightwing x reader #batman x reader

410 notes · View notes

bigskydreaming · 3 years ago

Note

If you were editor of Nightwing's book ever since at least the start of Rebirth to today and you were given free reign, what would your story mandates?

Oh no, this is dangerous. LOL. Hmm, I have no idea what to shoot for here, so I'll try to keep it to ten. That's reasonable right? Ten is good. Yeah. Is fine.

Okay, so, in no particular order:

1) Let Dick be competent 101. None of this him having to play hype man for every other character to pop up in HIS title bullshit. Nope. That's not what they're there for. He's the lead man, LET HIM BE THE LEADING MAN. Like sure, everyone has their areas of expertise, he doesn't need or have to be the best at everything, blah blah blah.....but its about the nuance. All of that is kinda lip service because the thing is, you don't go into MOST comic books and NEED to be reminded of that because the lead characters of those books are all constantly getting saved or shown up or chastised by every guest star in their books, you know? This is a very weird, very niche phenomenon very specific to Dick's character, and I'm super over it. I'm here to read about the guy who has literally been doing this longer than most superheroes twice his age. The guy who's been doing this since before he hit double digits. The born acrobat. The destined ultimate warrior or whatever of Gotham's Ornithological Society Of Murder and Pretentiousness. Gimme that guy. And that guy doesn't need to be 'humbled' every other page, because the thing is, he's not some egomaniac to begin with so the everpresent need to humble him doesn't actually come off as humbling! It just comes off as pandering and not even to actual fans of the actual character, so its like.....wyd DC.

2) Let other people take responsibility for their own crap with Dick rather than always just expecting a mea culpa from him. I'm so unbelievably tired of the words I'm sorry from Dick. I love personal accountability, so I never thought I'd have to say this about a character, but enoooooough. They have made it completely in character for this dude to apologize to everyone ELSE for being brainwashed, getting amnesia, being KILLED, like.....the amount of things he's groveled for forgiveness for when he didn't actually do a damn thing wrong or worse yet, was the ACTUAL victim of is like....pretty damn staggering. And meanwhile, there's nary a peep of apology from the people who regularly insult or belittle him, get physically violent with him, take advantage of him or take him for granted, etc, etc, etc. Its entirely too one-sided and imbalanced, and the pendulum needs to swing the other direction, like YESTERDAY, and in a fairly big way, IMO.

3) None of this Baby's First Social Justice Awakening 101 crap. I'm sorry, but no. Especially not when you go out of your way to acknowledge that Dick is Romani, only to then turn around and act like he's only JUST had his eyes opened to an awareness of like, classism and poverty and the real struggles people face day to day? Sorry not sorry, but especially for other white writers out there, do not use people of color as self-inserts for dipping a toe into Learning To See Past Privilege. And especially when talking about a character who has a history of being actively abused and hurt by the system and institutions of power, or hell, even leaving out that particular origin story, who has still been out on the streets helping people since he was a literal child. You can not tell me that this is his first face to face experience with social issues, or the first time he's had the inclination to try and address those head on. (And its also particularly egregious that the people second-guessing Dick in his own title and giving him reality checks or acting like they have more of an awareness of all this than he does like, happen to all be white? OPTICS. LEARN ABOUT THEM. COMMON SENSE. GET SOME.)

Know what would actually be a better way to approach this? Flashbacks. Show us Dick running into situations that make him think back to a case when he was still Robin, when he and Batman had started fighting over their approaches to things, actually SHOW us those conflicts and how their viewpoints had started diverging, and how much of that was due to Dick not having the same experiences as Bruce, or the same standing in society, no matter what house he lived in. THEN you can jump BACK to the present, with the reminder/awareness that this is something that isn't NEWS to Dick, but that he in the past felt he was forced to make his peace with as something he wasn't in a position to do that much about....only NOW, he's in a very DIFFERENT position, and suddenly it just hits him how he's still acting like he did when he was limited in resources or in having to be part of a chain in command or having to factor other responsibilities into things....now he ACTUALLY has the power and the resources to make meaningful change in the ways he ALWAYS wanted to, but maybe just needed time to figure out HOW.

Like you know what would have made Shawn Tsang's story arc so much better? If Dick didn't just remember her as the Pigeon's one time teenage sidekick he'd briefly fought as a kid, but like.....if he remembered her as someone he and Bruce had FOUGHT about. Because he didn't agree with sending someone to juvie for defacing public property as a form of political protest, when it was someone's LIFE who was going to be irrevocably damaged by that while the damage to the city could be fixed with a check, and what made Dick any more deserving of Bruce's leniency and faith in his potential or underlying goodness than Shawn?

But he was still a kid himself back then, and when Bruce responded with his usual conviction, talking about the importance about rule of law and etc etc, Dick just didn't have the words to get through to him then, to get him to understand that this wasn't just Dick not getting it because he was too young, it was BRUCE not getting it, that Dick was literally just saying well he wasn't too young to have been in juvie himself, and of the two of them, he's the one who has experience there so why was Bruce's opinion on whether this was the punishment that fit the crime the one that got to hold more weight here? When Dick's the one who knows what that punishment actually LOOKS like beyond the abstract, for whom it was a reality that still haunts him in ways that even defacing a few statues of some rich old fucks doesn't deserve?

Or hell, go back FURTHER than when he was Robin. Idk where any of those posts are, but I've always wanted to see something where Dick maybe runs into someone he remembers from his time in juvie, maybe a guard who is like, the source of the reasons Dick mistrusts figures of authority and is so hung up on independence and not being under anyone's thumb, or maybe someone who was in there with him, another kid who looked out for him when he didn't have to, etc. Gimme Dick tackling head-on his firsthand awareness that there's no rehabilitation to be found in a jail for kids, when most of those kids don't even need rehabilitation in the first place and only did what they did in order to survive or escape from worse situations or like, were there purely because of racist cops, etc. Let him go after THAT system, driven by personal experiences and memories that maybe only hit him in full after recovering his memories from the Ric Grayson arc, like they're things that he put in a box in his mind a long, long time ago because he didn't have the spoons or reserves to deal with them when he was a kid still so traumatized in so many ways, like, something had to give and so he put all those memories away for another day and just....never got back to them because life kept hitting him with new and fresh trauma every week.

But now something has him thinking back to those early days in Gotham, and reminding him that not everyone had a Bruce Wayne willing and able to give them an out from that place or acrobatic skills to escape it on their own, and like. You want to do something about the cycles of violence in Gotham and Bludhaven? Why not start with the places that literally MANUFACTURE cruelty on an institutional level, that teach kids that no matter what they did to get put there, even if that was nothing at all, they're all going to be treated the same way and given no reason NOT to do whatever it took to be top dog in a dog eat dog world by the time they got out.

There's SO many better approaches to social awareness in the Batbooks than what we're seeing, and like. Sheesh. The bar is way too low.

4) On a related note, if I'm editor of the Nightwing book, the FIRST thing I'm doing is making it a priority to find a writer of color for that book, ideally someone of Rom descent. Its waaaaay past time to let a Romani writer take the reins on Dick, Wanda, Pietro or Doom, aka some of the only prominent Romani characters out there? You can't tell me that there aren't talented writers who identify as Roma who would be more than willing to add their perspective to Dick's archive of narratives, and if an editor's gotta go looking for them? Go fucking look. DC and its fans have milked a lot of mileage out of the idea of Dick being Romani with very little in the way of nuanced storytelling to show for it in the past twenty years, and if DC wants to trot out little reminders that Dick is Romani every couple years, like in the form of a freaking line that has no follow up or expansion to any degree and is offset by an internal monologue that otherwise reads as incredibly privileged, the least they can do is TRY to expand on that with the narrative perspective of someone they claim to be representing via that character.

And no, this isn't gatekeeping, this is prioritizing. Its not about preventing other writers from writing this character, like just for the hell of it, its about being proactive about finding a writer who can write specific aspects of this character that have long gone unaddressed or poorly represented. And like. Okay. Its not easy breaking into the comics industry for anyone, but its particularly not easy for marginalized writers. Most every major comic book company just recites 'make your own stuff first and then show us that' but when you're a writer specifically, finding a compatible artist to partner with on creator-owned indie stuff first, when those artists are in the same position as you are and apologetically and understandably tend to have to take paying work over yours if you can't pay except on the back end, like....there are a lot of hurdles to getting your start in comic books, and while there are more and more marginalized writers in comics these days, DC and Marvel kinda fucked up, because you know what?

After being told 'make your own first, then we'll talk,' writers DID do just that....but then found out that well, due to the ease of online distribution and access these days, for any writers who CAN find an artist to partner with, its a hell of a lot easier to get their content out there these days WITHOUT a major publisher behind them.....and for a lot of marginalized writers in particular, its worth it to keep full creative control in exchange for smaller circulation. Especially when they don't have to deal with editors 'softening' their work to make it more palatable for audiences that quite frankly aren't necessarily their primary target. So yeah, marginalized voices are becoming more and more present in comics, but Marvel and DC for the most part are keeping the same voices centered they always have, and what these voices have to say is becoming less and less relevant and outdated. Because much like this arc from Taylor, even when they DO dip their toes into story matter that's of interest to wider audiences, they're doing so to a degree that still puts them years behind the conversations everyone else is having.

5) The same holds true of disability representation. I stopped reading Taylor's run for a lot of reasons but his way of responding to people unhappy with his depiction of Babs was a key one. If I'm editor on a book, and someone tweets at one of my writers that their depiction of a disabled character was hurtful because it feels like they're doubling back on everything Babs has ever said about not being defined by or ashamed of her disability and now its being treated like a dirty little secret, and that writer's response is essentially to just laugh at them and say there's nothing wrong or ableist about their writing of a disabled person, TO a concerned disabled person? That writer's ass is getting fired. Full stop.

Either you give a shit about this stuff or you don't. Don't pay your readers lip service about how important social issues are to you and how much you care about using superhero narratives to inspire people on these matters if you're gonna turn around and show your ass the second you don't feel comfortable and prioritized by the conversation, like it wouldn't exist without your oh so valuable contributions. ESPECIALLY if you don't identify as sharing the same identity of the marginalized character you're writing. You are a guest in someone else's lived experiences at that point, and you think you've got the right to belittle and talk down to the people who LIVE THERE? Fuck off, my dude.

6) Re-center Dick as someone who the superhero community RESPECTS. I love seeing Dick depicted as someone who has an awareness of his own limitations and an appreciation for what others bring to the table, and so I'm not opposed to him calling on others when he needs to.....but I also would like to see more of the opposite. But not in the way we usually see it these days, where he's asked to come help with a crisis and then usually second-guessed the whole way, and then sent back home without so much as a thank you when its done. Yawn. Sorry. I've read that story by now.

You know what story arc I freaking LOVED as a kid, back in the 90s? In Green Lantern, when Kyle Rayner first became the sole GL, one of his very early arcs, before he ever joined the JLA or anything....was him realizing how little he knew about being a superhero. He was like, my predecessors all had a full fledged CORPS to teach them everything they needed to know, but I had a few lines of exposition from a funny little blue guy in a red pillowcase and then I was off to the races. That's not good enough. There's so much I don't know about being a hero, I don't even KNOW what I still need to know.

So he went on kinda a superhero training roadtrip. He went to Metropolis to ask Superman for advice, he went to Batman to learn from Batman and Robin (Tim at the time). He went to Wonder Woman, Sentinel (Alan Scott, the first Green Lantern), etc, etc. And in the end, Kyle very much became his own kind of hero who wasn't just a pastiche of all those other heroes and the advice they gave him, but like....this put him on the road to that.

And I'd love to see something like that happen in Dick's solo title. We've seen him train in a team setting, we've seen him train the other Robins.....I'd love to see like, young superheroes from OTHER books, not ones created by the title, but like names people actually recognize from other franchises, like, guest star in Nightwing's book to learn from HIM, specifically. I wanna see something where Wally looks at the latest speedster and is like, you know what, if you really wanna be the best hero you can possibly be, then Nightwing's who you gotta go to, because there's no one I trust to make a better hero out of someone than him. I want the newest kid on the JLA block to worry that people aren't taking him seriously because of his age or experience, and he's always hearing them talk about Nightwing and how young he was when he started and so if anyone knows something about how to gain the respect of your older superhero peers, that's the guy to talk to.

Gimme Dick's couch being crashed on at various times by a half dozen new or upcoming young superheroes who all heard or figured out that if they really want to up their superhero game, Nightwing's the guy to see.

7) Bring back Bea. There's no long paragraph expansion on this, its really simply. Bring back Bea. She was one of the freshest breaths of air in Dick's supporting cast in ages, most of the current run is based off her character direction in the first place, she's literally the best suited TO help Dick in this venture, and the reasons they gave for writing her out of Dick's life were all bullshit and they just wanted to focus on his previous relationships, which would be fine if they didn't fall into the same two endless cycles of bring back up, go nowhere with, awkwardly avoid each other for years, rinse and repeat. Like. Bring back Bea, please and thank you, the end.

8) Focus on new villains. Heartless is meh, but the idea of new villains is still better IMO than rehashing Blockbuster, Zucco, etc. Like, nostaglia ain't it. If I want to read Blockbuster fucking up Dick's life, I can do that. They're called back issues. The thing is, love it or hate it, the Blockbuster arc WAS iconic. It left its mark. And anything that doesn't leave just as much of a mark, if they're going to bring him up again, is just gonna be a waste of time, you know? It'll just dilute his overall presence when like, what he was - worked fine as is. We don't need Round Two.

The trick to good villains, IMO, is they have to speak to a fight that needs fighting.

What I mean by that is....the best villains are those who resonate on a more instinctive level because they embody something that already exists in a reader's mind as a conflict that needs fighting. Like, if superheroes exist, if the embodiment of larger than life presences and forces devoted to protecting the world from various things are real....then their villains need to embody the kinds of fights or conflicts that NEED larger than life figures to combat them, at least on a one to one level.

Look at Superman and Lex Luthor. Superman at his core embodies the strength of community. He's the ultimate hero of the people, his essence is that he was the last survivor of a doomed race who was raised by two honest, hard working people to see the beauty in just being ONE of them, in using what he had on behalf of all of them and not just himself. In contrast, Lex Luthor is basically the embodiment of capitalist greed, of excess, of the entitlement of being able to have anything with a snap of your fingers and thus assuming that gives you divine mandate to make the kinds of choices that he sees as only his right to make.

He hates Superman, ultimately, because Superman is the WRONG savior of the people. He wants their only savior to be HIM, half the time he honestly believes he's saving the world FROM Superman, but just as often he's perfectly content to be the villain and not shy about it....because Lex Luthor's ultimate motivation is he wants everyone to know when he's dead and gone that LEX LUTHOR WAS HERE. He genuinely doesn't care WHAT his impact or legacy is at the end of the day, just that it exists and it overshadows most everything else...because all that really matters to him is the irrefutable proof that HE mattered. And thus at their cores, Superman and Lex are perfectly opposed. Ideally situated to eternally be in conflict, their own forever war, because their core natures are incompatible. They CAN'T compromise, without compromising themselves and essentially ending up as someone totally other than who and what they are already.

And you can go down the list. The Joker is the chaos to Batman's order, while Mr. Freeze is the stagnancy of that order taken too far, he's what you get when you freeze everything in your grief and refuse to let anything go on, anything new grow, because that would mean having to admit once and for all that what you're mourning is really gone. Two-Face is the ultimate embodiment of Man vs Self, a once good man at war with his own worse nature, and reminding everyone who looks at him how easily they could fall to the same fate.

And so on and so on. What Dick needs, is more of the same. Like, as much as I'm not a huge fan of Talon stories, I maintain that the Court of Owls were a great foil for him - just they tend to be poorly used in canon as well. But I also think how poorly they come off in canon has a lot to do with canon not really touching on WHY they're such a perfect foil for Dick....and that's Dick's history with being outside the system, mistreated and even exploited by the system. Because the Court, their core concept, is they ARE the system. They are entrenched, enfranchised, institutional power, passed down through generations, dynastic control that is a perfect counterpart to the dynastic power of the Wayne family, embodied in its youngest generation in the form of Bruce's FOUND family, the children he adopted regardless of whether or not his peers found them deserving of that honor. The Court, and their entire....thing...about the Gray Son, is the entitled fury of those denied something they deem theirs simply because they WANT it, and who will burn the whole world down rather than admit defeat or let someone else have it instead.

And that resonates. It could resonate a lot MORE if DC would actually lean into those concepts and allow Dick to explore how the Court are nothing he's not used to, they're literally made up of the same people who have looked down on him ever since he came to Gotham, but now they're actually a face and a name put to all those attitudes, something he can literally FIGHT BACK AGAINST. The Court are literally human-sized embodiments of everything and everyone who's tried to confine Dick since his parents' deaths, tried to define him without his permission, tried to make him other or lesser than who and what he is.....and who thus now exist in a form that Dick can literally BATTLE. So that he doesn't HAVE to just take this stuff lying down.

Thanks to the Court, he doesn't HAVE to just passively accept it, that this is just how life is, that some people are going to view him this way and think this about him and there's nothing he can do about it. He CAN do something about it, in superhero stories. He can kick its ASS, in the form of the Court of Owls and everything its members think about him and intend for him. He can refuse to bow down to them, to accept their mark on him. He can say lol, no, and then blow their shit sky high, ideally with a little help from his family. He can BEAT them, in this incarnated form, and in doing so, even though he can't beat everything they stand for and represent, that victory still matters, still means something symbolic to readers it resonates with.

And that's what we need more of. Villains created specifically to embody concepts that are diametrically opposed to Dick and what he represents. The system, yes, but also villains who embody the kind of tyranny and control he fights back against in his constant battles for autonomy and self control. Villains who embody the 'new hopes' of a second generation just like Dick himself is the focal point of the hopes embodied by the second generation of heroes. I'm actually not the hugest fan of multiversal constant Dick Grayson, but I might like it more if he had an opposite number there, someone he was specifically contrasted with. Idk.

But you get it.

9) Dick having a social life. Gimme the Titans and his siblings showing up JUST to show up. We have room enough for at least a couple pages every other issue where we just get to see these characters having some breathing room, taking a beat to stop and be something other than just a superhero, to be human as well. There's more to life than 24/7 fighting, even for them, and that's largely been lost in modern superhero comics, which kinda sucks, because that was what made most of the more iconic and lasting dynamics between various characters like, STAND the test of time. The larger than life battles between good and evil might be what many of us come to superhero comics FOR, but the relatable back-and-forths and ups and downs of their private lives spent with friends and family tends to be what keeps most of us coming BACK. And lately its all just mission, mission, mission, and I'm like blah, blah, blah and its like, meh, meh, meh. Y'know? Give the guy some down time, and let his friends come spend it with him.

10) Boone. This is purely self-indulgent, but if you know anything about me, you know my obsession with Robin: Year One, Dick's brief time at Vengeance Academy, and the hate/hate relationship he has with his brief frenemy from that period, Boone aka Shrike. This character has SOOOOO much potential to be Dick's true archnemesis and rival, and like. *Sobs* I can't get into it all again. Its too much. I can't do it.

Okay, I absolutely can. And will, probably. But like. Later.

BONUS ROUND:

Other thing I would absolutely insist upon if I were Nightwing editor....

GET THAT FUCKING MEME SHIRT ABOUT BRUCE SLAPPING DICK THE FUCK OUTTA HERE.

Like. Seriously. WHAT THE HELL. Why would you double down on THAT? Why is Babs STILL wearing it? (Last I checked, like I think I saw it in a scan from last issue? I'm pretty sure its still there? If not, forget this entire rant, and I am very embarrassed. Okay not that embarrassed. I don't really care if I'm wrong here but like, in case I'm not)...

WHY. Who thought that was funny? No, seriously, on behalf of any other abuse survivors who like me are SERIOUSLY not amused, who the FUCK thinks its FUNNY to have one of Dick's best friends sporting a shirt that no matter what it represents IN universe, to readers OUT of universe, is always going to call to mind the fact that this meme only freaking EXISTS because of all the times DC has obliviously and without acknowledgment written Bruce abusing his children, including the BFF that Babs is literally wearing that right in front of.

Like omg do you hate her, DC? What other possible reason could you have for thinking that would be a cute, funny thing for her to wear around the guy getting SLAPPED, by his DAD, in your shirt's iconography.

Okay I'm done.

LOL.

Sorry, that last one was brewing for awhile. Deep breaths. Woo.

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biblio-bitch · 4 years ago

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Titans (2018): Post S1 Thoughts pre-analysis

To add some variety my pre-written Detroit Evolution posts, have a slightly pre-written Titans post. This isn’t a liveblog simply because I already watched a whole season and I only wrote things down in a groupchat so once I rewatch I’ll write something out.

As usual, spoilers under the page break!

I need y’all to understand my love of the characterization. Seriously. Finally we have a show that understands the underlying rage in Dick Grayson and the general no-fucks-given attitude that surrounds Jason Todd.

Dick! Is! The! Angry! Robin!

Dick is the OG angry Robin y’all coming at Jason but he learned it from Dick “Moved cities and became a cop to avoid Bruce because he was pissed at him” Grayson

Dick “Started a fight with Hank Granger in front of the kid he just impulse kidnapped/adopted because they both have anger issues and won’t address them” Grayson

Jason “Likes classic literature and was only mad because he got killed and Bruce couldn’t be bothered to avenge him and was also affected by the Lazarus Pit” Todd isn’t angry he’s just grieving. (In case you haven’t seen the show and just give zero shits about spoilers, Titans Jason and Comics Jason have two different timelines as of S1, C!Jason died at about 15 and then the whole Red Hood thing happens, T!Jason is 19 and thriving so any mention of Jason’s death is entirely about the comics.)

Jason “I’m Robin and Robin gives me magic” Todd came from the streets and fought for his happiness and then was murdered he’s just the OG dead Robin

Dick “I’m a cop because I don’t want to be Robin and I’m estranged from Bruce except I’m still going into the streets because I’m angry” Grayson and Jason “I love being Robin and I idolize the original boy wonder except he doesn’t really like me and also I really hate cops for a really valid reason” Todd

Ok now that I’ve rambled about Jason and Dick, let’s talk about Rachel for a hot friggin second. I haven’t watched the original Teen Titans so don’t come for my ass about this. It’s on the watchlist I swear.

Rachel in this is a kid. Straight up a child. Raven in the original TT as far as I know is kinda an ancient demonic being who knows. everything. I really like the Rachel & Dick dynamic though. More of a mentor dynamic than the Teen Titans thing. I hope Dick is the Teen Titans Robin. There’s so many of them I just can’t tell.

In any case, I like that we get to watch Rachel learn to use and be confident in her powers a little bit. It’s a nice character arc that I like seeing.

Starfire? What a queen. Koriand’r is such a cool character and I love seeing her played by a darker skinned black woman. Also her hair? Beautiful. I love that we see her go from this angry, mostly indifferent, slightly out of control woman who literally only wants to know who she is to a slightly less angry woman who wants to protect the kids she and Dick surprise adopted and began to build an identity away from who she was without completely giving up on finding out who that is.

The Dick/Kori thing? Beautiful. I love that there’s a moment where they address that it’s not a great time for them to be in a relationship because Kori still wants to figure herself out and Dick has so many issues a therapist would cry. Not to mention that he was still clinging to the last bits of Robin. It’s a nice message I wish I had known because goddamn that would’ve been helpful.

Garfield Logan is a wonderful being. He just wants to help, y’all. Seriously someone give him a hug he looks like a lost puppy. 10/10 would literally die for him. I will never forgive the show for 2x07 (which I skipped ahead to watch for fanfic purposes) where he has like two lines and they don’t show him caring about Jason at all even though the Gar I know would be by his side the whole time. He’d notice Jason’s absence before Mr. Dick “I’m hallucinating but won’t tell anyone because I blame myself for everything” Grayson, don’t try to bullshit me DC.

Donna Troy? I love her. I have no background comic knowledge of her but I am in love with her. She could break my spine and I wouldn’t care. Also? She calls Dick out on his bs. Good. He needs it.

Dawn and Hank. I have literally nothing about them. I think Hank is angry for good reason but I haven’t seen a lot of them interacting with the team so I’ll refrain from judgement until I have. But Dawn is played by Minka Kelly, aka North from DBH and she’s very pretty. That’s all I got for now, will revisit in S2′s analysis.

Also, honorable mention to the fact that out of the three adult women in the show, Dick has slept with at least two of them. Honestly I think that’s awesome but I wouldn’t ask for relationship advice from him because A) I’m ace and B) His relationships don’t seem to last very long beyond that. Maybe he should get therapy and come back when he’s mentally stable.

Overall I give S1 a 9/10, I will never give anything DC makes a full ten simply because DC’s canon is so screwy. Seriously. I adore the show but this is a whole other DC canon I’m trying to keep straight. I haven’t even finished Red Hood and the Outlaws yet ok it’s not easy.

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idontgiveaflyinggrayson69 · 6 years ago

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Keep Each Other Safe

Author: Nat / @idontgiveaflyinggrayson69

Requested: Yes – Anonymous

Tagging: @thisismysecrethappyplace @phoenix-fire-fangirl @itsgirl17321 @starryrevelations @aw-hawkeye

Fandom: Titans

Relationship: Pre-Established; Dick Grayson x Reader

Summary: The Reader is attacked and Robin comes to the rescue.

Word Count: 1.7k

Warnings: Major Character Injury. Woman attacked by multiple men (Robin saves her).

Comments: Sorry it took so long, I had to be in the right mindset to write this.

It’s not hard to get a crush on a person you don’t know. People do it every day in the form of celebrity and fictional crushes. There was nothing out of the ordinary about these feelings, one could even say it was something that made people human.

You were a reporter, so it wasn’t hard for Dick to know who you were. Your face was plastered across Gotham news every night. People in Gotham had mixed feelings about he and Batman, but you always defended him to your co-workers and that was one of the things that first things that drew Dick to you.

You were kind and thoughtful, but also brave and fearless. You put yourself into harm’s way in order for other people to know about what was going on in Gotham. It impressed him and his little crush on you started to grow.

It was fine in the beginning, but Dick wasn’t one to deal with his emotions well, which was why, as the months went on and his crush got bigger, that he didn’t handle it so well.

He wouldn’t stalk you, per se. But, if he happened to be out on patrol and he saw you, he would follow you from the roof tops to make sure that you got where you were going okay. And you had no idea that you had a little birdie watching over you.

Well, you didn’t know until you were forced to find out.

You had been out late with some friends at a bar down town. Everyone had had some drinks, but you were the best off in comparison to the rest of your group, and your place was just a few blocks away. So, when it was finally time to call it a night, you decided to walk home. It was something you had done countless times before. But, tonight ended much differently than normally.

You were about halfway home when you noticed the two shadows behind you. You felt your heart rate pick up and you started to walk faster. The men behind you also picked up their pace. You, slightly intoxicated and scared, focused on the men behind you, which was how you didn’t notice a third man come out of the alley you were crossing in front of.

You only noticed him when he grabbed you and pulled you into the alley, his hand covering your mouth so you couldn’t scream. The two men who were following you entered the alley after you.

If you were scared before, you were absolutely terrified now. Your heart was beating so quick, you thought it was going to burst in your chest. You hoped that it would burst. You knew what men like this were capable of and you weren’t going to be one of their victims.

You bit the hand that was covering your mouth and stomped your foot down as hard as you could on his toes. The man yelped and let go of you. You tried to make a run for the alley opening, but one of the other guys grabbed you by your arm and slammed you against the wall.

Your face bounced off the brick from the amount of force and you were gifted with an instant headache, your eyes a bit out of focus. You shook your head a little to regain focus and noticed blood on the wall before you.

My nose, you thought.

You were so focused, or so unfocused, that you didn’t hear the men talking to you.

“Listen to me you stupid bitch.” He yelled before throwing you down onto the alley ground.

His foot followed soon after, colliding with your stomach, knocking all the air out of your lungs. In that moment, you thought you were going to die in that alley.

That was when you heard the loud bang come from deeper within the alley.

Dick had been on patrol when he saw you, or, more accurately, he saw a woman being attacked in an alley. He didn’t know it was you until he dropped down into the alley and got a better look at your face.

His anger intensified at the same time his heart dropped. Men who picked on women got under Dick’s skin and he would make them pay, but it wasn’t just any woman being attacked, it was his crush.

“Let her go.” Robin said harshly.

You knew that voice, it was Robin. You rolled over from where you were on the ground, afraid to get up. And you were right. Standing a few feet away from you was the boy wonder himself. You had a lot of respect for him and Batman, the way they would so selflessly gave themselves and their bodies up to help others. But you had never seen either of them in person. You thought you never would.

The men around you didn’t seem fazed by Robin, instead their eyes were scanning the rooftops, no doubt looking for the caped crusader himself. But, Batman wasn’t with Robin.

You met Robin’s eyes and you saw the anger and the ability. You couldn’t help but laugh. One of them men looked down at you and you shifted so you could look up at him with a smile. “You guys are so fucked now.”

You pushed yourself off the alley ground and as soon as you were out of the way, Robin jumped into action. You quickly moved to stand against the wall, out of the way. It didn’t take much for Robin to take the men down. A few punches and kicks later and they were all unconscious on the alley ground.

He gave the man who had kicked you in the stomach a harder kick to the gut before walking over to where you were resting against the wall.

“Are you okay?” He asked you in a softer voice than you were expecting from a man like himself.

You nodded, you hand holding your nose. By then, blood had run down your face and neck and you were fairly certain it was broken.

Robin grimaced and pulled a glove of his hand, bringing it up to your face. “Let me see.”

Robin gently pulled your hand away and tipped your head to the side. “Yeah, that’s broken. You’re going to have to go to the hospital and get that re-set.”

You nodded and let your eyes moved across him, taking in all the details about him; but, mostly you took in his eyes. Everyone in Gotham had heard stories of Batman and Robin and you would have expected the eyes of one of them to be harden by what they had seen and what they had done, or permanently reflect anger, like what you had seen in Robin’s eyes just moments earlier.

But, that wasn’t the case. Robin’s eyes were soft, they reflected a kindness you wouldn’t have expected to find in a man like him.

You knew many people who were afraid of him and even more who hated him; but, standing there with him, you couldn’t understand how anyone could hate him, let alone be afraid of him.

You brought your hand up to lightly touch the ‘R’ on his chest. “Thank you.”

Robin nodded with a small smile. “I’m always here to help.”

He torn his glaze away from you to look at the three men still unconscious in the alley. “I’m going to tie these guys up. You call the cops. Then, I’ll take you to the hospital.”

You nodded and when he stepped away to tie the men up, you searched the alley for your purse. It had ended up a few feet away from you. You did what Robin asked you to and called 9-1-1. And, surprisingly, Robin was still around after he had tied the men up.

You had done a lot of reporting on Batman and Robin and they were never one for sticking around, especially when it was smaller crimes like what had happened to you.

But Dick couldn’t leave you. He wanted nothing more than to take you to the hospital himself, which was why he had let those words slip from his mouth moments earlier, even when he knew he couldn’t. And since he couldn’t do that, he would at least wait for the cops to show up so he would know you were safe.

“Why are you still here?” You asked him.

Robin’s shoulders fell and he turned around to face you. “I have to know that you’re safe.”

You nodded slowly. “You don’t normally stay. I’ve spoken with a lot of girls you have helped…”

Robin sighed and he stepped closer to you. “You’re one of the good ones, one of the people who understand why I do the things that I do. (Y/N), I promise you that I will always be around to make sure that you’re safe.”

You swallowed. That was the last thing you were expecting.

Sure, you knew Robin. You reported on him and had done way too many profiles of him in your free time, trying to understand the man behind the mask. But, you would have never thought that he would know who you were.

“You know who I am?”

Robin smiled. “How could I not?”

You felt yourself blush at his words.

“You watch out for me out there on the news, and I’ll watch out for you out here, okay? We’ll keep each other safe. I promise.” Robin said, his voice off a bit, but you couldn’t tell why.

Truth was, was that Dick had a lot he wanted to say. He wanted to take you to the hospital and then take you home and make you some tea and make sure you were okay and taken care of. He wanted to have some sort of relationship with you. And knowing that he couldn’t, at least not right now, knowing that he would have to walk away from you in a few minutes while you were hurt, it hurt him.

You nodded to him with a small smile, though you were sure with all the blood, it did not come off as welcoming as you were intending. “We’ll keep each other safe.”

Robin nodded to you and the two of you could hear the approaching sound of sirens.

Robin stayed with you in that alley until the cops showed up, then he disappeared back into the night.

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jcmorgenstern · 5 years ago

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@superohclair oh god okay please know these are all just incoherent ramblings so like, idk, please feel free to add on or ignore me if im just wildly off base but this is a bad summary of what ive been thinking about and also my first titans/batman meta?? (also, hi!)

okay so for the disclaimer round: I am not an actual cultural studies major, nor do I have an extensive background in looking at the police/military industrial complex in media. also my comics knowledge is pretty shaky and im a big noob(I recently got into titans, and before that was pretty ignorant of the dceu besides batman) so I’ll kind of focus in on the show and stuff im more familiar with and apologize in advance?. basically im just a semi-educated idiot with Opinions, anyone with more knowledge/expertise please jump in! this is literally just the bullshit I spat out incoherently off the top of my head. did i mention im a comics noob? because im a comics noob.

so on a general level, I think we can all agree that batman as a cultural force is somewhat on the conservative side, if not simply due to its age and commercial positioning in American culture. there are a lot of challenges and nuances to that and it’s definitely expanding and changing as DC tries to position itself in the way that will...make the most money, but all you have to do is take a gander through the different iterations of the stories in the comics and it’ll smack you in the fucking face. like compare the first iteration of Jason keeping kids out of drugs to the titans version and you’ve got to at least chuckle. at the end of the day, this is a story about a (white male) billionaire who fights crime.

to be fair, I’d argue the romanticization of the police isn’t as aggressive as it could be—they are most often presented as corrupt and incompetent. However, considering the main cop characters depicted like Jim Gordon, the guys in Gotham (it’s been a while since I saw it, sorry) are often the romanticized “good few” (and often or almost always white cis/het men), that’s on pretty shaky ground. I don’t have the background in the comics strong enough to make specific arguments, so I’ll cede the point to someone who does and disagrees, but having recently watched a show that deals excellently with police incompetence, racism, and brutality (7 Seconds on Netflix), I feel at the very least something is deeply missing. like, analysis of race wrt police brutality in any aspect at all whatsoever.

I think it can be compellingly read that batman does heavily play into the military/police industrial complex due to its takes on violence—just play the Arkham games for more than an hour and you’ll know what I mean. to be a little less vague, even though batman as a franchise valorizes “psychiatric treatment” and “nonviolence,” the entire game seems pretty aware it characterizes treatment as a madhouse and nonviolence as breaking someone’s back or neck magically without killing them because you’re a “good guy.” while it is definitely subversive that the franchise even considers these elements at all, they don’t always do a fantastic job living up to them.

and then when you consider the fetishization of tools of violence both in canon and in the fandom, it gets worse. same with prisons—if anything it dehumanizes people in prisons even more than like, cop shows in general, which is pretty impressive(ly bad). like there’s just no nuance afforded and arkham is generally glamorized. the fact that one of the inmates is a crocodile assassin, I will admit, does not help. im not really sure how to mitigate that when, again, one of the inmates is a crocodile assassin, but I think my point still stands. fuck you, killer croc. (im just kidding unfuck him or whatever)

not to take this on a Jason Todd tangent but I was thinking about it this afternoon and again when thinking about that cop scene again and in many ways he does serve as a challenge to both batman’s ideology as well as the ideology of the franchise in general. his depiction is always a bit of a sticking point and it’s always fascinating to me to see how any given adaptation handles it. like Jason’s “”street”” origin has become inseparable from his characterization as an angry, brash, violent kid, and that in itself reflects a whole host of cultural stereotypes that I might argue occasionally/often dip into racialized tropes (like just imagine if he wasn’t white, ok). red hood (a play on robin hood and the outlaws, as I just realized...today) is in my exposure/experience mostly depicted as a villain, but he challenges batman’s no-kill philosophy both on an ethical and practical level. every time the joker escapes he kills a whole score more of innocent people, let alone the other rogues—is it truly ethical to let him live or avoid killing him for the cost of one life and let others die?

moreover, batman’s ““blind”” faith in the justice system (prisons, publicly-funded asylum prisons, courts) is conveniently elided—the story usually ends when he drops bad guy of the day off at arkham or ties up the bad guys and lets the police come etc etc. part of this is obviously bc car chases are more cinematic than dry court procedurals, but there is an alternate universe where bruce wayne never becomes batman and instead advocates for the arkham warden to be replaced with someone competent and the system overhauled, or in programs encouraging a more diverse and educated police force, or even into social welfare programs. (I am vaguely aware this is sometimes/often part of canon, but I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s the main focus. and again, I get it’s not nearly as cinematic).

overall, I think the most frustrating thing about the batman franchise or at least what I’ve seen or read of it is that while it does attempt to deal with corruption and injustice at all levels of the criminal justice system/government, it does so either by treating it as “just how life is” or having Dick or Jim Gordon or whoever the fuckjust wipe it out by “eliminating the dirty cops,” completely ignoring the non-fantasy ways these problems are dealt with in real life. it just isn’t realistic. instead of putting restrictions on police violence or educating cops on how to use their weapons or putting work into eradicating the culture of racism and prejudice or god basically anything it’s just all cinematized into the “good few” triumphing over the bad...somehow. its always unsatisfying and ultimately feels like lip service to me, personally.

this also dovetails with the very frustrating way mental health/”insanity” or “madness” is dealt with in canon, very typical of mainstream fiction. like for example:“madness is like gravity, all it takes is a little push.” yikes, if by ‘push’ you mean significant life stressors, genetic load, and environemntal influences, then sure. challenge any dudebro joker fanboy to explain exactly what combination of DSM disorders the joker has to explain his “””insanity””” and see what happens. (these are, in fact, my plans for this Friday evening. im a hit at parties).

anyway I do really want to wax poetic about that cop scene in 1x06 so im gonna do just that! honestly when I first saw that I immediately sat up like I’d sat on a fucking tack, my cultural studies senses were tingling. the whole “fuck batman” ethos of the show had already been interesting to me, esp in s1, when bruce was basically standing in for the baby boomers and dick being our millennial/GenX hero. I do think dick was explicitly intended to appeal to a millennial audience and embody the millennial ethos. By that logic, the tension between dick and Jason immediately struck me as allegorical (Jason constantly commenting on dick being old, outdated, using slang dick doesn’t understand and generally being full of youthful obnoxious fistbumping energy).

Even if subconsciously on the part of the writers, jason’s over-aggressive energy can be read as a commentary on genZ—seen by mainstream millennial/GenX audiences as taking things too far. Like, the cops in 1x06 could have been Nick Zucco’s hired men or idk pretty much anyone, yet they explicitly chose cops and even had Jason explain why he deliberately went after them for being cops so dick (cop) could judge him for it. his rationale? he was beaten up by cops on the street, so he’s returning the favor. he doesn’t have the focused “righteous” rage of batman or dick/nightwing towards valid targets, he just has rage at the world and specifically the system—framed here as unacceptable or fanatical. as if like, dressing up like a bat and punching people at night is, um, totally normal and uncontroversial.

on a slightly wider scope, the show seems to internally struggle with its own progressive ethos—on the one hand, they hire the wildly talented chellah man, but on the other hand they will likely kill him off soon. or they cast anna diop, drawing wrath from the loudly racist underbelly of fandom, but sideline her. perhaps it’s a genuine struggle, perhaps they simply don’t want to alienate the bigots in the fanbase, but the issue of cops stuck out to me when I was watching as an social issue where they explicitly came down on one side over the other. jason’s characterization is, I admit and appreciate, still nuanced, but I’d argue that’s literally just bc he’s a white guy and a fan favorite. cast an actor of color as Jason and see how fast fandom and the writer’s room turns on him.

anyway i don’t really have the place to speak about what an explicitly nonwhite!cop!dick grayson would look like, but I do think it would be a fascinating and exciting place to start in exploring and correcting the kind of vague and nebulous complaints i raise above. (edit: i should have made more clear, i mean in the show, which hasn’t dealt with dick’s heritage afaik). also, there’s something to be said about the cop vs detective thing but I don’t really have the brain juice or expertise to say it? anyway if you got this far i hope it was at least interesting and again pls jump in id love to hear other people’s takes!!

tldr i took two (2) cultural studies classes and have Opinions

#wow this was a hot fucking mess #i tried to be organized but my thoughts weren't coming out super well #again anyone interested please feel free to jump in or correct me at any place you feel like #i die on the ''jason todd would be treated horribly by fandom if he were a character of color' hill tho #i could go on about 1x06 until im blue in the face but that's the uhh overview. the executive summary.#dc titans #i need meta tags and shit for this show #god help me in too deep #finding the meta side of fandom was a GIFT tho i love this shit #so excited

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thebatmarino · 6 years ago

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The DCEU’s next Batman should be played by Dick Grayson

Batman and Robin. Words that have gone together like Peanut Butter and Jelly for around 80 years. Everybody in the world knows that Batman’s younger sidekick is Robin. Many know that Robin is Dick Grayson, fewer know that Dick grew up to become Nightwing, and even fewer still that he has spent time as Batman. With the recent activity in DC film, I want to talk about my favorite superhero, what makes him great, and most importantly, why I believe Dick Grayson is the answer to the DCEU’s Bat situation. To start, we’re going to rewind to 1940, when Robin was introduced to the world in Detective Comics #38.

Batman was created in 1939. A grim figure of the night, Batman spoke very little, a trait that has held through to this day. At the time however, legend has it that Bill Finger and Bob Kane were tired of drawing thought bubbles for him, so they needed to give him someone to talk to. But who? Well, Batman was a Sherlock Holmesian figure, it was Detective Comics after all, so they needed to give him a Watson. A character who’s intelligent, capable, and a proxy for the readership so they can join Batman on his adventures. The readership at the time (target readership, we know girls love and read comics too, but this was 1940) was 12 year old boys, and who might they look up to? Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn came out in 1938, he seems pretty cool. And a Robin keeps up the motif of flying animal that Batman started. And there you have it, Robin the Boy Wonder was born.

The creation of Robin is also the birth of the Teenage Sidekick. Since then, every teen sidekick from Bucky to Kid Flash owes a debt to the creation of Robin. As more and more sidekick characters populated the comic scene, something happened at DC Comics in particular that is one of my favorite things about the brand: the idea of Legacy Characters.

Consider the Justice League for a moment. Let’s look at the big 6: Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Flash, and Aquaman. These characters are the Greek Gods reborn. They are iconic, they are mythological. Each one of them proudly displays a symbol that they adhere to. “I believe in love and equality”, “There is hope for everyone”, “I will drag myself through Hell for justice”, “by force of will, I will overcome all fear to save the world”, “I will always make time to help people”, “I will be the great uniter of disparate people”, or whatever you interpret the thesis of these characters to be. They are perfect embodiments. The problem with perfection is that real people can’t attain that. We can try. We can stumble and fall. And that is exactly what the Legacy Characters attempt to be. These characters are absolute representations in ways that humans are generally not. They are aspirational. That’s why there’s merchandise out the wazzu (do people still say that?), so you can see a person on the street with that Green Lantern symbol and know that person wants to overcome fear.

Dick Grayson was the first. For many years Dick was happily Robin, going on strange adventures with Batman and friends, whupping ass in green short pants. He even formed a team of sidekicks, known as the Teen Titans along with Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, Aqualad, and Speedy. All teenagers struggling to live up to their “parents”. These perfect people who’s symbols they have taken as their own and sworn to uphold. Then something interesting happened. In 1984, in Tales of the Teen Titans #44, Dick Grayson debuted his Nightwing persona.

Dick Grayson had been growing up. Which is a thing yet again, never done in comics before. For some time now, a rift had been growing between the Dark Knight and his Squire. Dick had gone off to college, formed his own super-team, and was going through the typical growing pains of a young person trying to step out on their own. No longer feeling the identity of his 12 year old fancies were fitting, he picked an adult, darker name that still reflected and honored where where he came from (the origins of this name are toyed with and retconned, but the connections between Bats and Wings of the Night cannot be denied).

As Nightwing, Dick Grayson was his own man, ran his life and heroics how he saw fit, and most importantly, didn’t answer to Batman. Until Knightfall happened. In the events of this story, Bane broke Bruce’s spine, resulting in Bruce choosing a man named Jean-Paul Valley as the new Batman. Jean-Paul went nutso and nearly killed Bane and begun a reign of hyper-vigilante terror in Gotham, so Bruce badassed his way back to walking because comic books, and whupped his ass. Before restoring himself as the one true Batman, Bruce asked the one man qualified in all the world to take up the mantle to do so: Dick Grayson. Yet again, we have a comic book first: a legacy character fulfilling their legacy. This didn’t last long however, Bruce did what he had to do, and Dick dutifully (and reluctantly) filled in as long as required.

Nightwing then got a brilliant solo series by Chuck Dixon and Scott McDaniel, which to this day is probably the most influential run on the character. Before we move on in his publication history though, I think it’s important to understand WHO Dick is, and WHY he is. After all, what makes this 12 year old boy so special that he becomes Batman’s right hand man in a war on crime?

Richard John Grayson, aka Dick, was born to John and Mary Grayson of the legendary Flying Graysons of Haly’s Circus. The reason they were legendary was because they flew without the safety of a net. Dick grew up on the trapeze with no net. No fear, no cares in the world, except being a child star performer. After a mob boss tries to unsuccessfully extort money from the circus, they murder the Graysons by tampering with the trapeze before Dick’s very eyes. The young orphan was observed by another orphan in the crowd, Bruce Wayne, who took him in. It wasn’t really successfully explained why a 12 year old seemed okay to take out fighting crime until the two part episode of Batman: The Animated Series, Robin’s Reckoning. Like a young Bruce, Dick was consumed with his parents’ murder. Each night, unfulfilled by the guardianship of an absentee Bruce Wayne, Dick would sneak out and try to track down leads on his parents’ killer. Eventually he got in over his head and Batman bailed him out and returned him to the Batcave. This boy knew no fear. He would return to the streets night after night. He would get himself killed. Unless he was trained how to not die by a certain… bat themed expert at not-getting-killed-by-criminal-scum. Bruce revealed his identity to Dick, which also explained why he was busy so much of the time, and in the Batcave, Dick swore an oath by candlelight to uphold justice and everything Batman stood for. The training was gruelling. Probably inhumane. But eventually Dick was allowed to accompany Batman on the streets as his sidekick.

Dick Grayson was saved by Bruce Wayne. Where Bruce was in uncharted territory sorting his rage, vengeance, and pain, Dick Grayson had a guide. A Mentor. Someone who had been exactly where he was, and could keep him from being consumed by darkness. And that’s reflected in their uniforms. The bright boy and the dark man. Adding to that, the Wayne’s murderer got away. There will be no vengeance or justice for Batman, just a gaping wound. Dick got justice for his parents. He saw that what they did worked, and that he could keep doing it for other people. Whereas Batman is driven by a desire to hurt those who hurt others, Dick is here to help. That’s something Tom King wrote into his character over and over during his run, the words “how can I help”. And if you look at the jobs he’s held down since striking out on his own: Police Officer, Guidance Counselor, Personal trainer, even bartending at a cop bar where he could give these guys relief (as well as pick up some leads) are all acts of service towards others. Which when the time came, made him a very different Batman.

The time eventually came. Bruce Wayne was “dead” (as dead as anyone is in comics), and Gotham City was in chaos. Initially Bruce left instructions for Dick not to become Batman. Because Nightwing was strong enough. He was his own man and Bruce believed in what he was doing. However, Gotham needs Batman, the symbol. And for the first time truly, not just putting on the cape and cowl, but deep in his bones, Dick Grayson became Batman. Fulfilling the legacy. He is not Bruce Wayne, just like we cannot be Bruce Wayne, but he can do his best to live up to what the symbol of The Batman means to him, just like us. Which brings me to where Dick Grayson is the future of the cinematic Batman franchise.

Over the last few years, we are experiencing a massive shift in how our male heroes are percieved. In the 80s which gave birth to Dark Knight Returns, a huge influence on the DCEU Batman, we saw a trend of hypermasculinity in our heroes. They were JACKED, strong, fearless, .50 Cal from the hip, Macho Men, stoic badasses that were too busy punching out teeth and blowing shit up to feel sissy-ass feelings. And that is where Batman has lived for years in comic continuity. He doesn’t say I love you, he doesn’t hug, he doesn’t feel feelings, he’s a rage-powered badass dressed all in black that kicks in criminals’ kneecaps because he probably kind of likes it. At the end of the day, you read enough of these comics and question whether or not Batman is actually a good man. Is he doing this to save the day, or inflict pain? Probably some of both.

As we survey the current landscape of masculinity, of heroism, of feminism, it’s important to question our heroes. It’s important to question, is this the ideal that we want people to strive for? In Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice, we saw that Frank Miller Dark Knight Returns in all his glory. In my opinion, Ben Affleck’s portrayal of Batman was my favorite thing about that film. He was deliciously brutal, he was stubborn in his righteousness, he was extreme in his methodology, he was....murdering people? He was losing himself. He was so caught up in his need for violence, his need for war that he attempted to murder superman with a freaking spear. I suspect Justice League was intended to have a more redemptive arc for the demon he had become, but in any case, he has still become a monster. He has dwelled in hell so long that he has become the very type of devil he sought to destroy.

The best thing for Bruce Wayne would be to leave this life behind somehow. Pass the cowl on to the man who he trained for this very purpose. A hero that exemplifies modern healthy masculinity. Who can say “I love you”, who wants to seek justice more than vengeance, who can maintain healthy friendships and relationships, who believes in kindness, friendship, and laughter. I think it is time for Dick Grayson to take his place in cinematic history as Batman.

That doesn’t even touch upon the fact that the DCEU Batman is around 45 years old. While incredible and imaginative, they’ve set him at a natural age to retire from jumping off rooftops and withstanding repeated head trauma. If you look at Batman as a pro athlete, you simply do not see them at his age and doing tremendously well. Which when your sport is dodging gunfire and acting as bait for super aliens so other super aliens can clobber them, is not great. I think DC Entertainment is looking for ways to have a more youthful Batman, and I believe Dick Grayson is part of that natural path.

And that doesn’t mean we won’t have Bruce Wayne stories. As the news has just dropped, Matt Reeves is telling his own young Bruce tales. But as far as the Batman that stands shoulder to shoulder with Wonder Woman, and Superman? Here we have a young man in Dick Grayson coming into his own as a hero on the world’s stage, just like Diana and Clark. A young man with the strategic mind of Batman, the physical training, the gadgets, resources, but without the blinding rage, pain, and cynicism. A superhero that looks at the world and wants to genuinely help people. Not out of a deep psychological need to harm those who harmed him, but because he was broken and then saved, and he can do that for other people. Being a good person is all the superpower you need. As a culture, I believe those are the heroes we need right now. And as for Dick Grayson, he’s a born showman, and I think it’s time for him to take the stage.

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bigskydreaming · 4 years ago

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what are your favorite and least favorite tropes in fanfiction regarding dick grayson?

Most of these I feel are probably a given with me given that I am apparently physically incapable of being subtle and am donating my body to science upon my demise so that this phenomenon may be studied. For Science.

(But also like, the funny thing about me is as much as I rant about a few specific topics its only so frequent because there’s actually only a few specific things I gripe about its just that they’re eeeeeeeeeeverywhere.)

Thus, in no particular order, my least favorite Dick Grayson tropes in fanon and in canon because I can’t read apparently OR AT LEAST I CHOOSE NOT TO FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS EXERCISE, JEEZ, LEAVE ME ALONE....

1) Police officer Dick Grayson

2) Dick hated Jason pre-death and/or judges and is incapable of understanding or empathizing with Jason post-his return

3) Police officer Dick Grayson

4) Dick’s loved ones and friends all making jokes and insults out of the nickname he keeps in memory of his parents and Dick being all like lol this is fine, this isn’t debilitating to my self-esteem at all hahaha oh man that was a good one, I AM a Dickface, you nailed it!

5) Police officer Dick Grayson

6) Dick’s loved ones and friends all punching Dick every time he puts a foot out of place and then everyone both in-universe and in-comments being like NO PROBLEMS DETECTED, and also WOW, CHILL OUT DG, TEMPER MUCH?

7) Police officer Dick Grayson

8) Dick fired Tim and callously kicked him out of his home and the city UMM METHINKS THE FUCK NOT

9) Police officer Dick Grayson

10) Only addressing conflicts between Bruce and Dick when using the framing device “when you think about it though isn’t it still like at least half Dick’s fault that Bruce fired him and kicked him out of his home and hit him and guilt-tripped him into doing what he wanted.”

11) Bonus round - sub Dick Grayson. Like, I barely ever read smut in this fandom because I’m like ‘mmm, no thx and also hard pass’ to rape and incest as fetish or porn, and its like....hard enough to find any mature content with Dick that doesn’t overlap with at least one of those so I just kinda stopped looking ages ago, but even just when glancing my eyes past tags while browsing, I just DON’T GET THIS. I tend to be a variety is the spice of life kinda guy and thus usually can make a case for any character going any which way in any number of things, but this is the one character where I’m like, I do not see any angle in which he has a submissive bone in his body. Yeah he has control freak tendencies and there’s that trope about people who spend most of their time in charge wanting to give up control and let go at times, buuuuuut that only actually works with people who don’t fully WANT to be in charge or control to begin with, not people like Dick whose control freak tendencies IMO are directly born of how rarely he gets to be in control of even his own personal life in the first place. Just doesn’t compute for me.

And in no particular order, top ten most favorite Dick Grayson takes in canon and fanon, with these weirdly just being the direct inverse of things I hate because I mentioned the Not Subtle thing and also the Not Actually As Picky As I Often Come Across As, right?

1) Anything other than police officer Dick Grayson

2) Dick and Jason being bros who get along and confide in each other about the stuff they can’t/won’t share with anyone else because they understand each other in ways most others never will, and also also them having Secret History as Brothers BECAUSE THEY ARE BROTHERS WITH HISTORY BUT I FUCKIN’ DIGRESS

3) A Tim who respects and appreciates Dick’s contributions to his life and happiness and the amount of time and effort Dick has put into being there for him often at his own personal expense, even if there have been like one or two times in the grand scheme of thirty years of comic book content when Dick wasn’t able to put Tim first because he felt he had to put someone with directly competing needs to Tim’s first in this particular time and place instead, just like he had so often before put Tim’s needs ahead of others who had competing needs at the time

4) A Bruce who acknowledges his fuck-ups with Dick and actually apologizes instead of just being like “I am going to look at you solemnly with my Apologetic Eyes but its on you to read the Apology clearly present in my Apologetic Eyes cuz that’s the only one you’ll ever get as I am a genius and a renowned playboy but I do not do the words good except for when I am being genius-y and renowedly playboy-y and not Apologetic.” And who also puts in actual work to actually fix things with Dick when he fucks up in that over-the-top-I GOTTA BE THE BEST THERE EVER WAS, POK-E-MON!! kinda over-achieving way in which he does everything in life.

5) An extended Batfamily and hero community who actually ACT like Dick is someone they respect and appreciate and are in awe of for his position and accomplishments in the hero community and the fact that he’s been out there risking his life day in and day out for people almost as long as any other hero out there, and who has in fact been doing this for a FAR greater percentage of his lifetime than any other hero, period. Rather than an extended Batfamily and hero community who just SAY that Dick is respected and appreciated by everyone and this is why actually they resent him and think he’s over-rated, with no actual sign or evidence of Respect, Appreciation and/or Awe on display anywhere at any time ever.

6) A Dick Grayson who is allowed by the narrative to be as hyper-competent and intelligent and multi-skilled as any member of the Batfamily, without feeling a need for qualifiers about him being second best or a good acrobat but not as good at the detective stuff as the others, etc, etc. Noooooope. Nerp. Nuh-uh. Someday I will rise from my death-bed amid my death-throes one last time just long enough to gasp out “The Batfamily’s entire high concept is that they are a family of literal Mary Sues and thus all of them are every bit as intelligent and hyper-competent as the plot demands and its stupid to try and rank them and telling when Dick somehow always ends up ranked bottom last despite being the kid whose very existence as a hyper-competent little genius troll boy is what jumpstarted the kid hero trend in universe in the first place, which is the kind of thing that could ONLY happen if he was impressing and making second-guessers of nay-sayers left and right BUT I FUCKING DIGRESS, GOOD NIGHT NEW YORK, AND SCENE!” At which point I will expire, my work here done.

7) A Dick Grayson who is allowed to get mad and yell when people DO FUCKED UP THINGS LIKE HIT HIM AND BLAME HIM FOR SHIT THAT ISN’T HIS FAULT without this being viewed as a “flaw” and him Being Dick Grayson Badly. Extra points for a Dick Grayson who is allowed to stay centered in his own traumas and tragedies without everyone else around him somehow making it out to be that they’re MORE victimized by the things he is most directly the victim of.

8) A Dick Grayson who eats more than just sugary cereal because he was literally raised from birth even pre-Bruce as a world class athlete and show me one single person that description matches who doesn’t know how to actually keep to a nutritious diet. Yes, by all means have him eat the occasional sugary snack as a treat, that’s fine, but when the take is that this is all he exists on or would be the only thing he exists on if not for the intercession of Actual Adults being like eat your veggies, Dickie, like.....mmmm, but whatcha doin’, fic?

9) A Dick Grayson who doesn’t actually even HAVE to get mad and lose his temper when people do fucked up things like hit him and blame him for shit that isn’t his fault or do nothing but mock and insult him and make him feel bad, because there’s actually other friends and family present who make a point to be like WHOA, HOW ABOUT I SHUT THIS SHIT DOWN LIKE AN INTELLECTUAL, BECAUSE THIS SHIT IS NOT OKAY? I’m just saying, how is it that every single fic and their grandma posits the existence of a swear jar because Alfred will not tolerate uncouth language in his domain, but it coooooooompletely flies over everyone’s head that Alfred of all people would be okay with people casually disrespecting his eldest grandson for the sake of a yawn-worthy punchline every single time someone opens their mouth to say “Dickhead” without even any kind of “Swear jar!” follow-up, let alone a “I don’t know who gave you the idea it was alright to disrespect Master Dick’s memories of his parents, young sirs, but I assure you most assuredly...‘TWAS NOT I.”

10) The existence of literally any other plot for Dick Grayson than one involving or relying on brainwashing. Like, just spitballing here but maybe people would have less trouble acknowledging and remembering the hyper-competence and skilled and genius qualities of the first Batkid if he was able to more often put those things on display instead of just running around 24/7 either brainwashed or brandishing pom-poms in enthusiastic commemoration of the hyper-competence and genius of everyone BUT him.

11) Bonus round - literally any other career choice besides being a cop.

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bigskydreaming · 5 years ago

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What are the best standalone dc comics you can recommend to someone who just knows the main few jla heroes, the existence of multiple robins, and only a few of their actual names? The less grimdark the better, I've already got Li'l Gotham, Kami Garcia's Raven, Superman's pal Jimmy Olsen in my list. Anything with Dick?

With the ironic exception of the 90′s Nightwing solo series, which I will never recommend as it contains all of my least favorite staples of his character lol, from cop Dick to ‘let’s systematically destroy his life because that builds character’ which uh, is NOT the point of angst or conflict IMO, lol.....

Ahem, anyway, except for the 90′s Nightwing solo series, I personally would recommend going back to the 90′s comics for fun stuff. First off, back then the titles were a lot less interconnected, it was a lot easier to read just one book and not inevitably need to rush over to another one to get any context for what was happening, and like....I think the 90′s (at least for DC) gets an undeserved rep. It was dark at times, definitely, but not the unending grimdark of some of the more recent years, and there was a definite focus on younger heroes - for instance, a lot of the names I bring up in my posts about the lineup I’d use for Jason’s Titans, those come straight out of the 90′s versions of those characters. Like The Ray, Damage, Anima, etc.

So the 90′s Young Justice book, Superboy, etc. The Flash, because Wally and Linda Park are a hugely underrated DC couple and were so great together, and the Rogues were at their best in the 90s, I think. The JSA title from back then was a TON of fun at times, with a lot of characters you’ll rarely see anywhere else, unfortunately, but definitely deserve all the love.

And the 90′s Robin book! Maybe unexpected given my posts about Tim and his fandom these days, but a huge part of my issue there is that fanon Tim and Red Robin Tim are just....the ANTITHESIS of everything Tim was originally, and why I loved him. In the beginning, 90′s Tim was the Robin Who Shouldn’t Have Been. What I mean by that is he wasn’t this exceptional prodigy whose rise to heroism was inevitable - his discovery of Batman and Robin’s identity was as much a matter of luck and fanboyism than anything, certainly not Tim being this child-sized Batman who was every bit as competent as his older counterparts with none of the training.

Tim was the Robin who made no sense, and that was the point - he didn’t have Dick’s lifetime of dedicated athletics or Jason’s street-smarts or self-preservation instincts (Jason died because he followed his understandable desire for family rather than his instincts, it was never because he was this reckless kid with no sense of danger, he KNEW how to protect himself and keep himself safe and alive...the tragedy of his death was it happened because he didn’t CARE in his desire to believe the best of Sheila and try and save her).

The point of Tim, originally, was he became the hero he was for one reason only - sheer stubborn determination to live up to the example of the Robins before him and be the partner he believed with all his heart that Batman needed. Tim, ironically given how he’s portrayed today and viewed by fans - was the everyman.

Yeah, he was wealthy, but that wealth wasn’t portrayed like he was Bruce Wayne Jr., but rather just that he was a well-off kid who skateboarded and played video games and had the luxury of going off and doing what he wanted. It wasn’t emphasized the way it is now. And yeah he was something of a loner, but that was by choice - because he was this kid who was obsessed with his hobbies that by their very nature required secrecy. But he had friends, he was just selective about them, and his only hurtle to making friends later with his teammates was the secrecy demanded by Batman. And he was never this socially awkward, maladjusted loner who was a lonely outsider constantly looking in - Tim has probably had more casual girlfriends than any of his brothers, he was awkward but never exceptionally so, and his social issues or problems fitting in at times at school were always portrayed as like....teenage growing pains, rather than any kind of true outsider status.

Tim Drake, originally, was just your average kid who became a hero because he loved heroes and believed in them, and he saw a void that nobody else was filling, and said well if nobody else is going to do it, might as well be me.

And he was the Robin who had everything set against him and no reason to expect he’d actually work out....because he wasn’t an innately exceptional athlete or genius, he HAD lived a relatively sheltered and privileged life (at that point, though they emphasized and upped the tragedy and neglect of his family circumstances more and more in later years)....but initially, the point was....he had no reason to have the skills or the drive of either of the two previous Robins....AND YET HE SUCCEEDED ANYWAY.

For one simple reason:

He was determined to. He refused to give up. He powered through despite all odds. THAT was the point of Tim Drake.

He was the underdog. That was why we rooted for him!

And that’s why the modern version and the fanon versions of him are so dissatisfying to me personally, because they’ve taken ALL of that away from him and made him into this entitled, inevitable HEIR to all the talents and instincts and toils of everyone who came before him. He doesn’t have to work for any of it, it all just comes naturally to him. From his first appearance in most stories, he’s already the equal of all of his predecessors, able to play cat and mouse with Bruce and Dick and Jason without any of them gleaning on to the fact that he knows more than them, and he’s like....the puppet master secretly helping them all from behind the scenes because they apparently need his help and were incompetent until he came along and that’s not Tim Drake to me and completely the opposite of why he was so great! Now in fanon he’s as wealthy as Bruce and as tragic as Jason and as athletic as Dick and as smart as Babs and I know I’m always saying the Batfamily is a family of Mary Sues and that’s their entire concept, but there’s this insistence on Tim being the MOST Mary Sue of them all and THAT’S his niche, like if he isn’t the most special or talented or smart then what’s even the point of him and its like......STUBBORN TEENAGE HERO IDEALIZATION! THAT’S THE POINT OF TIM!

Modern and fanon Tim Drake is this dark, brooding, cynical pragmatist, when 90′s Tim was the kid who was so hopeful and optimistic he brought a smile back to even Dick Grayson’s face when Dick Grayson had stopped smiling!

Ahem.

Anyway.

Yeah, 90s Robin is a good series. So is the original Batgirl series. I’m a sucker for Kyle Rayner of course, so I’d recommend his solo Green Lantern title, but even though his debut happened in Green Lantern vol 3 issue #50, I’d start around #60 to be honest, because the early issues are when women in refrigerators was coined with the utterly gratuitous murder of his girlfriend Alex deWitt, and its truly an albatross around that book’s neck that never needed to happen and IMO added absolutely NOTHING to his character or the title, so skip it and don’t do that mess the courtesy of even reading or acknowledging it.

Hmm, what else....the Captain Marvel/Shazam stuff from back then was excellent of course, as was Wonder Woman and her supporting cast. The Titans were honestly not at their best in the 90s though there were some good minis here and there.

After the 90s, my recs are sporadic - I’d read the Ryan Choi as Atom series, Jaime Reyes’ Blue Beetle books, the Jason Rusch Firestorm, etc. I really have very little modern or current DC recommendations as IMO the entire New 52 was an unnecessary miss and Rebirth has done very little to course correct, though I do think the early Rebirth Nightwing title was pretty good and had some fun stuff.

Anyone else got anymore/other recs for anon?

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bigskydreaming · 6 years ago

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thatninja replied to your post:

I know I’m usually that guy who’s always...

Gambit is 100% riding on his charm and looks. Plus Rogue could punch a hole through just about anyone that could argue that, which is prolly some kinda factor.

someothermonstra replied to your post:

I know I’m usually that guy who’s always...

isn’t… isn’t that canon?

LOL it actually varies pretty wildly depending on who’s writing him. I mean, good luck finding consistent characterization with any popular comic book character that’s at least three decades old, but all kidding aside, I do love the guy and Gambit in particular is a frequent target of character assassination. There’s even a trope named after him, though I forget its specific name at the moment.

But its basically the idea that certain male characters who end up more popular with women than male comic book writers expect, or understand - like as in they don’t understand what about them appeals to female readers so much, or misunderstand the basis of that appeal - there’s this weird trend where some of them basically take it out on the character and kinda...do their best to sabotage them? Idk, its like, it frustrates certain dudes who have rigid expectations of what women want in a ‘ladies man’ type character, that when faced with characters who get that reception not because of how these writers WOULD write them, but for reasons they just...can’t put a finger on.....they basically get butthurt about it and are like ‘well what’s so great about this guy anyway.’

I mean for sure, being jealous of a comic book character - let alone one you yourself are getting paid to write - is pretty pathetic, buuuuuuut lbr, that describes a lot of dudes in that industry and I mean....there’s a pretty obvious and proven track record of characters like Gambit and Nightwing and the other well known ‘lotharios’ of the Marvel and DC universe regularly getting tanked in various runs and written as vapid airheads or thuggish jerks (not to mention cheaters), in ways that really don’t make any kind of sense from even a basic storytelling perspective and really seem to only exist to make them look bad.

One writer that always stood out in this regard for me with Dick Grayson was Chuck Dixon, who wrote his Nightwing solo comic for a long time in the 90s, as well as adjacent titles. And to be clear, it was always pretty obvious that Dixon WANTED Dick to be received by readers as a ladies’ man.....but for reasons and ways that Dixon wanted. Like Dixon was a pretty right wing, conservative d-bag at the best of times, (and also the one who made Dick a cop, which tells you all you need to know about what I think about him, lmao)....and so its not hard to guess what he THOUGHT an ultimate man’s man, macho but suave lady-killer James Bond kinda guy SHOULD look and act like, and how female readers were meant to like...swoon at his take on him.

Except....that’s not remotely Dick’s appeal, and why he’s so popular with female fans. If anything, that’s pretty much the exact OPPOSITE of the times he’s most popular with women, and like....you can kinda see throughout the course of Dixon’s Nightwing runs where that just baffles and frustrates the hell out of him....and with him then all of a sudden throwing curveballs into his OWN long-term character work and storylines, just to be kinda like ‘well what do you think of him NOW, huh?’ In particular, I’m thinking of this one infamous stand-alone issue, I think it was an annual or whatever, and it was a flashback issue that was written late in the 90s but meant to take place right before Dick was supposed to get married to Kory back in his Titans days. And it involved Dick going to see Barbara one last time before his wedding, and talking about their romantic history together and hand delivering to her the invitation to his wedding with another woman....and then she’s like wtf....and that somehow led to them sleeping together.....and then him waking up the next morning in bed with Babs and being like, well that was great, I’m off to go marry Kory now!

Seriously. That actually happened. That issue was thankfully considered non-canon by most readers and other writers and never referenced again (outside of occasional references to Dick being a cheater, but as I’ve talked about before, that BS existed long before that story and stems from the crap with Mirage).

But like....it made ZERO sense. In story, in context of the characters, in terms of how Dixon HIMSELF usually wrote both Dick AND Babs, which he’d done a LOT of....like he also wrote Birds of Prey for a long time? With Babs front and center in that? And forget about Dick even for a second, in what universe would SHE sleep with someone who was about to go marry another woman?

Like, it came absolutely out of NOWHERE, and made zero sense whatsoever, and tbh, Dixon didn’t even really try and justify it within the actual narrative, it was kinda a wham bam, well here you go, this happened, DEAL WITH IT. That story’s only purpose really was to make everybody in it look bad, b/c Dixon’s the kind of dudebro to throw a temper tantrum within his own work b/c his female readers don’t like Dick for the reasons HE thinks they should like Ultimate Ladykiller Fantasy Man Dick Grayson, but for reasons that don’t make sense to him and he CAN’T replicate because of that.

Its the same trope with Gambit. And it actually kinda originated with him, even though Dick is a vastly older character, because don’t forget, a good fifty years of Dick’s history was as a preteen and a teenager. He was only growing into that persona of the character with mass romantic/sexual appeal at the time that Gambit was created.....and right from the bat, Gambit’s creation and reception kinda threw writers for a loop.

B/c Gambit, as Claremont initially conceived him, was not SUPPOSED to be sexy. Like, he had really longterm, complicated and convoluted plans for Gambit originally, and how he was connected to Mr. Sinister and other characters, but like....in Claremont’s own words in past interviews, he’s basically said that like....Gambit was supposed to be more obnoxious than charming. Like, he kinda meant for him to be taken as this greasy, weaselly kinda sleazebag who was only ‘charming’ because of something to do with his mutant power, that much referenced but little canonized ‘charm’ ability he’s always been rumored to have in addition to his kinetic energy powers.

Except....between how artists throughout Gambit’s early years actually portrayed him, and the ways Claremont and other early writers wrote him and the things they had him saying all being taken entirely differently than they intended....Gambit was pretty much an instant hit, with female readers in particular....and just like Nightwing in later years to follow, this frustrated the SHIT out of certain writers, because they just DID NOT GET IT.

And so with Gambit, just like with Dick, half the time you have writers who are total fans and just want to show off those characters (and other characters that fit this particular niche archetype) to the best of their abilities, highlight just how competent and skilled and intelligent they are....with fans of course usually being very receptive to this and upholding these particular runs as iconic and fave portrayals, enjoying the characters here for the reasons they’re ‘naturally’ appealing to a lot of fans, etc.

Which of course, in turn, just kinda frustrates and annoys that Certain Dudebro Writer Type all over again. And thus the next time one of THEM gets their hands on these characters, there’s all these little digs built into the stories and the characters making mistakes that ‘reveal’ them as the kinda insensitive assholes they are, the jerks who don’t deserve the kind of acclaim they get, just like....Those Popular Jocks That Don’t Know How To Treat Women Right, Not like A REAL Nice Guy Like Me Would, and are really just kinda dumb airheads anyway and why do people even like them, ugh.

Anyway. So yeah. That’s definitely a thing that’s stood out for a lot of fans and readers over the years and been noted and talked about pretty extensively, with again, there even being a trope named after Gambit because of it. This weird, self-defeating obsession some guys have with making sure that like ‘Well if women aren’t going to like these Male Power Fantasy Characters for the reasons WE think they should like them, then we’re gonna make sure they just don’t like them at all.’

#thatninja

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