#but one thing i strongly dislike about n52 and onwards is that they cut out all the actual development

[mothemotics]

i agree that bruce and dick have a very complicated dynamic which resists being fit into a single unambiguous label, but that does not mean that the parental element of that relationship is not explicit textual canon. again, ship whatever you want! but, like, here are some random panels that come to mind:

(Tales from the Teen Titans #50, Batman #438, Robin #13, Gotham Knights #21. i think the first might actually technically be pre-crisis depending on when it was published? its in that weird transitional phase where the distinction is a little blurry)

so my point is that if you want to ship bruce and dick, in post-crisis canon, you have to accept that you also ARE shipping a father and son. maybe in the 1950s this was one of many ways to read a dynamic in a comic book series, but since crisis it's a textual canon aspect of their relationship. (if not earlier, but i have not really read pre-crisis comics, so i won't comment on that)

early post-crisis as a breakup phase is fine, but it's framed within the context of the narrative as a breakup in a relationship with heavy parental overtones. to frame that as romantic is a transformative reading. to remove the parental overtones is just ignoring canon

(also i know devin grayson has talked about shipping brudick before but like tbh given her established tastes i dont really think her writing them as father and son and shipping them romantically are in contradiction lmao)

I agree that there was shift in Bruce and Dick's relationship that made it more father/son. I never said there wasn't. but that shift is far more recent then you're trying to say. to my knowledge, Dick did not call Bruce dad until this most current continuity. he acknowledges that he is Bruce's adopted son in post-crisis, but that is different.

i feel like in the context of canon it's pretty clear that dick does not call bruce dad because he already had a person in his life he thought of as "dad," and bruce respects that. like you see above there are pretty clear instances of the two calling their relationship that of a parent and child. usually this is vocalized by bruce, because dick has complicated feelings about the idea of replacing his parents, but as you can see in the prodigal and gotham knights issues dick is very evidently and visibly pleased by the comparison. i also think you could find some more explicit internal narration in the issue of nightwing where tim tells him bruce wanted to adopt him and he turned him down but i don't remember the issue number right now so i can't search for it.

you can read all of Bruce and Dick's interactions as platonic father/son if you want, never said you couldn't, but I will repeat that using a recent push as the end all be all for other people as well is erasing part of queer history.

like i said, there's a difference between acknowledging history and ignoring what has been a very solid part of modern canon since at least the mid 80s, where we are point blank told repeatedly that their relationship is parental. what parental means is very complicated to two orphans, but it is parental, canonically. what you do with that in fanon is up to you, but at some point we have to acknowledge that the text is what it is if we want to transform it. and it pretty decidedly is not an example of same-sex adult adoption without a father-son dynamic in GK

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