#dickbabs kid

[lambergeier]

dick and babs are good because they both have insane insane control issues. dick needs to be able to be help all of his loved ones at any time any place any day of the week or he’ll feel like his life is spiraling out of control. and if any of babs’s loved ones try to help her with anything for any reason, well, you’ll never guess how she’s planning to feel about that

[casscainmainly]

as much as it's fun to play around w the kids' different relationships to bruce in fanfic, I pretty much agree with your assessment as far as canon goes. im sure at some point there'll be variations because there's so much that goes under the umbrella of canon but yeah, so far your graph makes sense. (also despite the fact that I love 'batfam' fics, fandom has a habit of taking "found family" literally and applying familial labels to every relationship, even though like you said, duke and steph's relationships to bruce are more friendship and mentor/mentee-esque)

Yeah I don't mind people messing around with the dynamics, especially in AUs, but I just have my own preferred takes. Bruce being Duke's dad is just a pet peeve because I think a lot of people believe that's their canon dynamic, when that erases Duke's real dad and also a lot of his personality. But I've read great Duke fics with Bruce as a father figure too, so it's all about the execution.

HEAVY agree on the 'applying familial labels' to everything. I think the main problem (and this is in canon too) is trying to tie everyone to Bruce. That's why we have the belief that Bruce is Steph, Babs, and Duke's dad, because that's the easiest way to be 'in' the Batfam. But this is so much less interesting than having a character's relationship to the Batfam be inherently messy and non-nuclear-familyfied.

Like, my ideal Duke dynamic is him being the brother of Cass and Damian, but not being Bruce's son or Tim's brother. Just like Cass is Babs' daughter and Dick's sister, but Dick and Babs are together, and Babs is also somewhat Tim's older sister, but she's not Jason's or Damian's sister; Damian sees Steph as a sister figure, Dick is kind of a father/brother/everything figure, but Bruce is also his dad; etc etc. I don't think these are incompatible, and when people try to narrow down the Batfam into 'mom' 'dad' 'children', it loses a lot of what makes the Batfam interesting. (Even I'm simplifying the relationships a lot here).

Honestly it's not a problem if people prefer different familial dynamics to the ones I like. It's only the insistence that they have to be a certain type of family that rubs me the wrong way, because then we get things like 'TimSteph and DickBabs are incest', which is just a complete misreading of what the Batfam is.

[violent138]

Tim: "Aw, does someone have a crush?"

Damian: "Silence, Drake, there's only one love of my life--"

Bruce, wincing as he remembers his past experiences when Dick was around that age, and really hoping he doesn't have to be embarrassed in front of multiple colleagues again:

Damian: "--and it's my katana."

Tim: "Good God, you're lame."

Bruce, nearly collapsing from relief:

[azuree1733]

Why are they low key trying to convince him to have a kid

[scarletlunarosa]

Welcome to the Nightwing Lover Club

[humblefryingpan]

(Please don't ship him with the other batkids or bruce those are his siblings and his dad)

[frogaroundandfindout]

Nightwing arrives at the tower and is briefed by Garth on the situation with the kids. Dick then meets Epsilon and jokes about him kissing up. Soon Jesse arrives with news of an issue at STAR and Nightwing sends the titans to go deal with the escaped experiment. He and Donna stay behind with the kids and dick has them fingerprinted so Oracle can run checks on them. Donna overhears his conversation with Babs and says she’s happy for him when he blushes. Titans #28

[squirtle-path]

Sometimes I want birdflash, sometimes I want dickkori, and sometimes I want dickbabs, but the one thing I know I'll always want in all these ships is a bottom Dick

[casscainmainly]

Liking DickBabs but reading Batgirls... why did they write them like that. Why did I have to read this with my own eyes. Why did no one warn me.

I swear the pairing is good when they're written like adults instead of weird horny teenagers :((((.

[trexiejan]

Friendly reminder that DC and Dickbabs writers are gaslighting you into thinking Dickbabs are childhood sweethearts that are always in love with each other since day 1.

Dickbabs is the most superficial manufactured by retcons ship.

Babs was deaged for this crap to work.

Here is Original Barbara Gordon working as a congresswoman in the Senate when Dick was just the little kid Robin.

She was much closer to Bruce and Clark's age than Dick's.

Barbara refers to Dick as a "kid" and "little brother.

Dick had a small puppy crush on her but it was seen as a precocious crush. It was controversial when they first kiss (to make Dick shut up) because it involved a grown ass woman kissing a teenager.

Dickbabs was hated the same way modern Brucebabs is hated today.

Even the writer of that book admitted he never intended for them to become a couple.

Babs was more into older guys.

- she was viewed as an equal love interest to Batman

- she went out on a date with Superman

- then got engaged to her coworker Jason Bard.

Dickbabs shippers always try to deny that Babs was deaged and her history was altered for dickbabs in an effort to defend their ship.

They say it's not true because according to them Babs has been deaged long before dickbabs became a couple.

Here's the thing though:

Babs has been deaged twice.

Just because she wasn't deaged to be with Dick in her 1st deaging doesn't change the fact that she was deaged to be the same age as him in her 2nd deaging which happened in dickbabs content.

The 1st time she was deaged was in Crisis on Infinite Earths, it was so Jim could be younger but they only decreased her age slightly because she's still written as older than Dick, here is a panel from Secret Origins #20 that was published in 1986 exactly 1 year after she was first deaged in Crisis on infinite earths (1985) she said Dick is too young for her and that batman is always the one on her mind. So Dickbabs during this time still couldn't work because they still have that age gap and Babs was still into Bruce.

The 2nd time she was deaged is in dickbabs comics and tv shows where she was finally made the same age as Dick so dickbabs can finally work as a romantic pairing.

Instead of being older, she's now written as a part of Dick's generation.

From a congresswoman to a young girl who went to highschool prom with Dick.

Even Tom Taylor had the two first meet when they were young little kids so he can also portray them as childhood sweethearts in his run.

Tom Taylor claims Barbara still has a law degree but isn't it sad how instead of using that degree to find an actual job, she wasted her time following Dick around like a dog in Bludhaven ?

She has no job of her own, no friends of her own, no hobbies of her own outside of Dick.

She's just Dick's clingy lovesick girlfriend who is a total standby for him in his solo books.

Dickbabs shippers who deny this and get mad at people who point this out are the people who don't care about Barbara Gordon as an individual.

They don't care that Barbara lost her PHD degree, lost her own career, lost her own agency, lost her history, lost her self identity for the sake of shipping.

Their only concern is defending dickbabs and making it look better.

Because if they truly like Barbara separately from Dick, all these valid anti-dickbabs criticisms wouldn't bother them.

What's even funnier is that they are the very same people who accuse Starfire of being reduced into Dick's love interest despite the fact that Starfire hasn't been in a relationship with Dick in the comics for 20+ years due to the fact that dickkory's history was ignored and erased in favor of dickbabs. NASTY HYPOCRITES.

At least Starfire wasn't deaged to fit Dick and you can never see Starfire following Dick around like a dog in his solo books 💀

[mysterycitrus]

admittedly im not even a dickbabs fan (my ideal dynamic for them is snarky flirty exes ala batgirl 2009) but are dc aware that they’re also like…. friends. like they care about each other platonically and there’s genuine foundational respect in their relationship? like they both have separate support systems but they also like…. like each other? outside of dating? they were two uniquely powerful and connected people that had more influence than bruce like that’s an interesting character beat, no? they were sharing custody of three kids and a worldwide network at one point like give me something to chew on here outside of substanceless banter and hammering in that babs is batgirl ffs

[frownyalfred]

Ooh question if you could ship one ship for each of the batfam who would it be 💗anon

Gun to my head? Because I love lots of ships for them all and I’m not usually dead set on one, for the record.

Alfred — Pennywaynes. Duh.

Bruce — Superbat, full stop.

Dick — Dickbabs. I just haven’t read a lot of Dick/Kori, that’s on me.

Jason — him and Roy 💜

Tim — TimKon

Damian — DamiJon, but I don’t love the kid versions. Young adults trying not to be their parents, I love.

Steph — no opinion. She’s fine with Tim if I had to choose one.

Cass — I haven’t seen many ships with her.

[were-wolverine]

dickbabs are the kind of best friends that dated when they were kids before realizing they work WAY better as friends and evolving into a sibling-like relationship where they cringe and fake-gag whenever someone brings up the fact that they dated

tim: hey remember when you two dated-

dick & babs: 🤢

babs, glaring: we dont speak of that dark time, timothy.

dick, in tears: how could you bring that up baby bird? i trusted you 💔

babs: see, look what you did. you monster.

tim: jeez okay, sorry. you guys are so dramatic.

dick & babs: *high-five as he walks away*

[stephaniebrownthespoiler]

okay i know dickbabs is controversial because they are everywhere right now and a lot of people hate it

BUT

Their relationship (platonic or romantic) means literally everything to me

like they have known each other so long that regardless of if they are dating or not they are always going to be so important to each other because no one else will ever fully understand what it's like. They were the first of many and feel uniquely responsible to look out for the next kid who gets roped into Bruce's quest and they are the ones who hold each other responsible in acting too much like their mentor.

DC just let them have fun together and stop removing Babs independence just let her be Oracle again it was the best time for her AND their relationship i beg of you