#miss you!! ♥♥♥

[mokolat]

[bscgirl99]

JOHN B. ROUTLEDGE & SARAH CAMERON Outer Banks 4x01 | The Enduro

[sysig]

Ah, childhood memories (Patreon)

[bonyato]

꒰♥️꒱» Funny Poor Boy eat a Pepsi Funny Cola.

Extracted from this specific moment from one of WayneRadioTV'S Chulip streams bc it lives in my head rent-free.

[lonesomedreamer]

LEONARD NIMOY as Gregg Sanders in The Lieutenant, “In the Highest Tradition” (1964)

I said that we were aware of the facts, lieutenant—I don’t tell you how to run your platoon. Don’t tell me how to make pictures.

The Lieutenant was Gene Roddenberry’s first, short-lived television show.

[bunnieswithknives]

Every once in a while I will look through my animations folder and remember the basically finished ONE animatic I made that I now feel it is far too late to post ♥

[shineemoon]

0408 ✨ Happy Birthday to our precious Jjong 💖

[zeroducks-2]

This is quite random sorry but has Dick ever acknowledge (or as close to it) that a lot of things that Bruce did to him are abusive? (this is for a fic I’m trying to write)

Yes and no!

Dick knows Bruce is an assholes and WILL yell at him to stop being an asshole, or at least he used to. Dick would call him out on his BS and wouldn't let him get away with a lot of things, but this was once upon a time, before they rebooted everything and erased decades of character development. The closest he gets to that post reboot is after Forever Evil - everyone thinks Dick is dead, and Bruce wants people to keep thinking that, hence he forces Dick to join Spiral and become Agent 37.

Dick is, as you can imagine, not thrilled. He yells and fights and Bruce beats the everloving shit out of him in a very upsetting sequence, where Dick is half naked and Bruce is wearing most of his gear while he keeps hitting him to the point of leaving him bleeding on the floor of the Batcave.

Dick begs and tries to appeal to everything he can including the "things can never be the same between us after this", to which Bruce essentially replies that it's a sacrifice he's willing to make. Ha. I say that this is especially upsetting because Dick went through a horribly traumatic experience during the events of Forever Evil, in which among other things he was tortured by Thomas Wayne Jr AKA Owlman, who wanted to turn Dick into his own sidekick after losing his Talon. The way Bruce beats and humiliates Dick is drawn in a way which creates a clear parallel between Thomas and Bruce's actions towards Dick, in a way that suggests they're "not that different after all", but this narratively goes nowhere and I don't get why they fuck they even came up with that. But anyway.

All of this gets forgotten soon enough. Despite his own warnings Dick forgives Bruce after a very short time, pines for home and tries to communicate with Bruce in any way he can because he "misses his dad", which to be honest made my guts churn and my bile rise after Bruce nearly beat him comatose. Essentially the story forgets Bruce did all of that and so does Dick, but for the brief time Dick was allowed to be aware of it and angry about it, he was indeed aware that he was being abused even if he never used the word abuse.

This is the case for lots of stories in which similar instances happen, as I mentioned before especially pre-reboot. Dick does call Bruce out on his bullshit - especially if Bruce is being an abusive asshole to someone else, since Dick is way more prone to defend other people than he is to defend himself, like here

or here

But despite being obviously aware that there are issues in the way Bruce does things, to put it mildly, he never uses the word "abuse" (which is sort of a prohibited word for DC standards, kind of like "rape". They're way more likely to say non consensual than rape because it's a less upsetting word apparently).

There is an instance of this post reboot, and it's during a conversation Dick has with Tim. I believe it happens in the Pride comics of 2022, but I don't have the panels on hand at the moment. Basically Tim asks for advice on how to please Bruce, being the man demanding and prone to bad moods, and Dick flat out replies "I spent a very big part of my life trying to please him, and I left when I realized it was impossible" which to me is so interesting since it's the textbook reaction of a former Golden Child who fell from grace and became a Scapegoat (please note that tumblr's definition of Golden Child is completely arbitrary; golden child doesn't mean "good kid", it means a child who the parent holds to the highest standards, on which there are the biggest expectations and the strongest pressure regarding everything the child does. Sometimes a parent lives vicariously through them and perceives them as an extension of themselves, but not necessarily. If you watched Encanto, Isabella is the Golden Child of the family).

Something similar happens during Nightwing's run from the 90s.

Dick lives in Bludhaven and at this point he's gone essentially no-contact with Bruce. Tim, being the new Golden Child, is trying to reel Dick back into the toxic dynamic because he genuinely thinks it's going to be good for both Dick and Bruce.

I'm pointing this out not to fault Tim in any way, he's just a kid what does he know, but to show you that indeed yes, Dick is aware that he's been abused otherwise he wouldn't have left, he wouldn't be on a no talking basis with his parental figure, and he wouldn't reply to Tim that he spent so much time of his life deluding himself into thinking that Batman actually needed him. Of course this also goes nowhere and their relationship isn't allowed to grow or heal (things are just conveniently forgotten after a while), but as I mentioned, Dick knows what's up.

That being said, I believe it's also worth noting that many many times Bruce abuses the fuck out of Dick and Dick doesn't really acknowledge it, just takes it. Sometimes he doesn't have the spoons to fight back, sometimes he thinks he deserves it, sometimes he just doesn't know how to react because Bruce strikes like an unprovoked viper (this happens especially when Dick was still a kid but already a Titan). A very good example of this is what happens after Jason's death.

Bruce doesn't tell Dick that Jason died. When Alfred offers to let him know, Bruce says "I will handle it", and he doesn't. Then there's Jason's funeral and Bruce doesn't tell Dick about it, again Alfred offers to inform him, Bruce says he will handle it. He doesn't.

Eventually Dick finds out for collateral reasons and has an emotional breakdown in front of the other Titans, which are powerless to help him. For reference, this is how he reacts when he has definitive proof that the boy is undoubtedly gone, if there was any doubt that Dick did care about Jason.

So Dick goes to the grave with Kory but then decided to confront Bruce alone, and Bruce, in the abusive feat of the century, blames Dick for not having showed up to Jason's funeral, despite having refused to 1: tell him about Jason's death AT ALL, and 2: refused TWICE when Alfred very gently suggested to inform Dick.

Dick of course argues that he didn't know anything, and so Bruce reacts by gaslighting him, telling him they he never cared about Jason and in fact he was angry that Bruce adopted Jason and not him. Which is not true, Dick just wanted to know WHY Bruce adopted Jason and hot him. Oh and also punches him in the face when Dick tries to argue that Jason was an untrained kid. Please note that when all of this happens, Dick is hurt and can barely stand on his feet, having one of his legs in a cast.

Cherry on top, Bruce explicitly saying that he never should have had a partner and never will again, essentially "our partnership up to this point meant nothing".

In this instance Dick is too neck-deep in his own self guilt to see that he's been through a sequence of extremely abusive behavior, and never really faults Bruce for that, using the easy-coming rationalization that Bruce was in pain, suffering for Jason's death, couldn't see reason etc etc (quick PSA: someone suffering isn't entitled to abuse and gaslight anyone. And even if we really want to enable Bruce cut Bruce some slack because he was grieving, it doesn't make his behavior any less abusive. Regardless of the reasons why, the way he acts here is very damaging towards Dick who in turn did nothing to deserve it, and is grieving Jason too).

See, the problem with Dick and Bruce is the sysyphean nature of comicbooks. Dick is doomed to be the original Golden Child who falls from grace, becomes the Scapegoat, but ultimately can never be completely free of the clutches of the relationship he has and had with Bruce, for better or worse. And since he can't ever truly get out and can't ever completely be independent, the abuse end up getting downplayed. If Dick never truly gets away from Bruce it's because it's not that bad, isn't it? Nay, it's because Dick cant. He is quite literally not allowed to, same as Bruce is not allowed to truly grow from his mistakes and learn to treat his former partner, sort-of-child and dear friend with the respect and love he actually feels for him, because despite all of this and because this is fiction, Bruce does love Dick more than it can be put into words and would set the world on fire for him. But, alas, he also is doomed to keep treating Dick like shit and never really learn from his mistakes.

So again, the answer to your question is yes and no. Dick is aware of how much of a difficult person Bruce is. He's aware of the domineering aspects of his personality. But he will ultimately brush it off in the name of the good that there is and there was between them, and he will keep answering Batman's call every time, because he's not allowed to ever truly grow apart from him. It doesn't matter how much he gets angry and how much Bruce hurts him, they're indissolubly tied in this dynamic and unless there is a huge shift in the way DC execs handle things, I don't see how this dynamic can change in the foreseeable future. Sadly enough, because I'd really like to see something new.

[hooked-on-elvis]

ELVIS' WAY TO BE THERE FOR LISA AFTER DIVORCING HER MOM This is an excerpt from Lisa Marie's book. If you haven't read it yet, please don't read this. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but I needed to share this beautiful feeling of Lisa's regarding her father because... well... you'll see. 🥹🩷

"Twenty minutes before my dad was due to walk onstage in Las Vegas my mom told him 'I'm leaving' and he still had to go out and perform. I was four when they split up but I remained so close with my dad. I knew how much I was adored. How much he loved me. I knew that he knew that I hated, hated, hated leaving him; hated, hated, hated going to my mother's new home in Los Angeles. Loathed it. He got a house there to be closer to me. When I was in L.A. he'd call all hours of the night to talk to me or just to leave a message on my phone." Excerpt "From Here To The Great Unknown" by Lisa Marie Presley (co-written by Riley Keough).

[flx-res]

Aggretsuko S1 - S5

[bethanyactually]

Nancy Drew + text posts (38/?)

4.08 || The Crooked Banister (2/5)

feat. @acesnancy ♥︎

[harundraws]

✨🌸 Taivan Secret Prom - AU 🌙✨

a more zoomed in version below!

A finished commission for @thehellcaster 💕

[fauchart]

My panel for the Meet The Director Redraw!

An awesome collab organized by @tf2heritageposts - go read the full redrawn comic here!

[sysig]

How much of me is me? (Patreon)

[maracllea]

MET GALA 2024 - Garden of Time - some of my favorites, no particular order after miss Z

[capn-twitchery]

18 and 22 for twitch and grace 👀

18. Do they view their relationship as temporary or permanent?

it takes a long time as in, a few years-- for either of them to either realise or admit it, but they do eventually view it as permanent!! the realisation was less of a positive epiphany and more of a moment of fear inducing panic for both of them tho.

between both of them being aroace, terrible at communicating, grace's "100 unpacked issues about victorian era marriage culture," & twitch's "got out of the cage gardens 5 minutes ago and has no idea how to navigate a relationship"???

yeah they both freaked it the minute they went from "i kind of like hanging around them" to "i could be around them basically forever." but they kept going back to eachother everytime anyway. 😌

22. When were they the most vulnerable with each other?

i guess this is obvious but for grace it's being pulled out of the arctic since, lowest point of his life Ever (though i guess he didn't have much choice in that one actually. hm)

and for twitch it's being looked after during their honey headaches, telling grace about their time in the cage gardens & taking their glasses off around him (which they Do have a choice in! and they chose grace)

for less obvious ones,,,i think they're unexpectedly reassuring to eachother. twitch gets frustrated fairly easily, and a lot of the time it's over their memory issues/inconsistencies. grace is the only person who knows the full extent of why, and so he's the only person who can really listen (or just sit with them while they calm down)

on the other side, grace has the exact level of trauma you would expect a guy who watched 80 people slowly deteriorate & die to have (a lot!). he has nightmares, triggers, recurring flashbacks & memories, he can't sleep. twitch isn't incredible at comfort (they're learning) but they try to reassure him, at least.

basically for two emotionally challenged guys who usually isolate at the first sign of distress, their biggest vulnerability is 1: being known and 2: letting themselves be helped (or comforted) about it

ask game from here!