#dick grayson didn't ping his gay partner's gaydar and he doesn't ping mine either

[87dvhnk]

i skip around, reading comics. for example, i skipped forward from huntress to the second appearance of deathstroke, basically, and then doubled back before shit got real with blockbuster. it's fine. however, it does shuffle things around in my head sometimes, so i can get things wrong. however. you know when i was writing about how bafflingly homoerotic venn diagram was, i didn't fully grasp the context of dick's new partner being a gay man, which is why he broached the topic of dick's potential "dads." which. which if you look at it in context, doesn't invalidate anything i wrote about the scene where dick sees slade; however, it does add something. a note. a texture. to dick. okay, so dick really walked in on his partner (malloy?) being old-fashioned bush-era gay bashed in the locker room by other cops. he stepped in and rescued him. it was made expressly clear that he knew why his peers were attacking when when he is accused of being gay/being with his partner, and he's like, "and so what if i am?" then he gets his ass chewed out by his partner because he's really tushy tender about being gay in the climate. (the vice president shot a friend in the face and made him apologize live on tv for having been shot by the vice president hurting the vice president's reputation. this doesn't have anything to do with homosexuality per se, but you have to understand.) also might have had a concussion. and that's it for a while. until venn diagram. his partner has had time to calm down and adopt a more charitable view of dick's motivations. he wonders why dick stuck his neck out for him. until one day he overhears him calling a man "mom," assumes (hopes?) that dick stepped in because he has gay family, and the scene unfolds exactly how it did before:

okay. right. so. if i'm understanding this correctly, this is the conversation they're having: partner: so are your parents gay? dick: nah, but gay family structures are inherently funny partner: .... dick: nobody's gay. partner: i'm gay. dick: .... partner: you literally interrupted my gay bashing in the locker room. dick: the locker room? at the station? our station? there's a gay person in the bpd? partner: ....there is one (1) gay person in the bpd, yes. dick: sounds fake. brb.

like. that is what happened, right? and then dick went off to have one of the most intensely homoerotic romps i have ever seen in my life. this means dick a) had no idea why his partner was being assaulted and may have not even understood the question and the "so what if i am?" was like smiling and nodding when you don't understand what's being said just to move the conversation along, or b) he understood why his partner was being assaulted and is simply unable to take a theoretical reality (someone in his daily life being gay) and firmly root it in reality (my partner right here is a gay man living with his gay boyfriend in their gay house on this here gay earth) and thought the cops were attacking his masculinity, which is, of course, rendered void by homosexuality, so they were gay bashing him for rhetorical effect. neither of these options are anything less than hilarious. turns out, his partner was right to want to beat his ass for virtue signaling or moral grandstanding or whatever. i mean, that's not what he was doing. in retrospect, i don't even think he knew what he was doing. still. what the fuck, dick.