#not denying that bruce can be abusive in canon but

[brucewaynehater101]

The number of times I've seen people argue that Bruce is a decent father and that he is not abusive absolutely blows my absolute mind.

Yes, you can hc whatever version of Bruce you want. You can even blame it all on bad writers or reject canon. You can claim comic!Bruce isn't your Bruce and main a different version of him. Those are all valid.

However, you can NOT say that he has ever been justified for hitting his kids. There is no excuse for him willingly laying his hands on his kids. It doesn't matter if the person is drunk, drowning in grief, lost in emotions, whatever. Hitting kids is not okay.

Continually, the physical abuse is a very obvious sign of Bruce being a shit dad in the comics. On top of that, there is so much emotional abuse and manipulation as well. He's shitty as fuck to his kids and there's no reason this is okay. He may love those kids, but that doesn't excuse his behaviors.

Anyways, reject canon Bruce all you want. There's certain aspects of other characters I reject, and DC stands for Disregard Canon. Feel free to have whatever version of Bruce you desire.

What is NOT okay is excusing or accepting canon Bruce's actions/behaviors as acceptable.

[aingeal98]

Bruce and Cass are so interesting to me because their canon dynamic in batgirl 2000 shows aspects of both a loving, caring father and a toxic one. And for me they hit that balance perfectly in a way that rings true to Bruce's characterisation of that era while also being more engaging than his usual macho patriarch nonsense. And then in fanon you can play around with that balance. Many people twist it all the way to loving WFA girldad which I understand. But it's also interesting to think about a Bruce and Cass dynamic that twists the dial the other way. Take Bruce's canon projection onto Cass and how he isolates her because it's what he/she needs to be the best Bat, and make it even more messed up.

A Bruce that projects so hard onto Cass but won't listen to Barbara at all and isolates Cass from her too. Cassandra understands him, Cassandra IS the Bat. Anything else is only tying her down. She doesn't need friends, she doesn't need Barbara. She is the Bat, she is him. And all she needs is him. Everyone else around them growing more and more uncomfortable with how Bruce denies Cass any sort of social life but he ignores them because they don't understand. No one does expect the two of them, isn't that right Cassie?

The au potential is fascinating to me because unlike say, Dick or Tim, Cass doesn't have a reference for a good parent. She's never known parental love that WASN'T dehumanising and toxic. Bruce is literally the upgrade from Cain no matter what he does and how he treats her because he understands her conviction against killing. When you think about just how fucked up and abusive Bruce could get without Cass realising he's Wrong and breaking free it's both horrifying and heartbreaking

... Good thing this is him in canon!

[galaxymagitech]

The Symbol of the Bat

For @casscainweek Day 4: Quotes | Comic Panels

Inspired by the panel/quote above where Cass says she's loyal to the Bat symbol, rather than Bruce.

Summary: After finding out that Dick is alive and undercover at Spyral, Cass confronts Bruce.

Characters: Cassandra Cain, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson

Warnings: Some canon-typical violence (a punch and a shove, mentions of blood), referenced abuse

Technically this is Part 2 of a series, but you don't need to read Part 1 to understand what happens.

You can read it here or on AO3!

Dick left hours ago. Cass knows she should stand, but she can’t seem to find it in her. Instead, she sits on her tattered couch, bare toes digging into the soft, faded fabric, and stares at her plaster walls.

Dick left hours ago, but just before that, he returned. Cass had thought her older brother was dead, but it was all a lie. All Bruce’s lie. Because there Dick was in Hong Kong, doing business with an organ trafficking ring on behalf of an organization he was infiltrating. He moved wrong, like a flightless bird, and his face was too fuzzy to read. But underneath the weights on his limbs and the technology Spyral used to obscure his identity, he was Cass’s big brother.

Cass is thrilled that Dick is alive, but she can’t ignore what his body showed her. The hurt, the desperation, the fear. Dick did not abandon his family. Not by choice.

He made her promise not to tell anyone. Said that no one could know he was alive, for the sake of the Mission. Cass had agreed. But Bruce already knows. And Bruce is the one who hurt her brother and—she grasps for the word—coerced him into going on this mission.

Sliding to her feet, Cass shuffles over to the drawer where she keeps her phone and pulls it out, scrolling to Tim’s contact.

I need a favor, she types.

It’s shortly after noon back in Gotham. Tim responds almost immediately.

sure

im going to regret this aren’t I

Cass smiles. She doesn’t think he will.

***

Tonight in Gotham, there are two Batmen. One is Bruce Wayne, the man who saw a bat fly into his window, the boy who made a vow to his father. The other is Cassandra Cain.

She follows Bruce, sticking to the shadows but allowing him to perceive her presence. He ends his patrol early and leads her back to the cave. Then, he turns to Cass, body blank. “Explain.”

Cass removes her own cowl and stuffs it in her bright yellow utility belt. The cowl fits perfectly—Tim must have gotten someone to tailor the suit he stole on her request.

Following Cass’s lead, Bruce removes his own cowl, holding it in his gauntleted hands. Cass wonders exactly how things went down. Dick didn’t give her specifics. Didn’t even confirm Cass’s guess that Bruce hurt him, but she knows that she was right. After all, Dick didn’t try to deny it, knowing he couldn’t lie to her.

Was Bruce wearing gauntlets when he fought Dick? Or were his fists bare? Was that cowl still on? Did he speak, or did he just strike, again and again and again? 

And he did fight Dick. There’s no doubt about it. Alfred had told her that Bruce had wrecked the cave in his grief. But Cass knows now that Bruce was not grieving. She can put the story together.

There was blood on the glass shards of Jason’s memorial case, Alfred said. Bruce wouldn’t show him the injury. He’d worried that this was self-destruction, was Bruce inviting infection.

Cass knows better, now.

“Why are you Batman?” Cass asks.

Bruce grunts. Cass looks at him expectantly until it’s clear she wants a real answer. “To wage war on Gotham’s criminal element.”

Cass nods. “Why did you become Batman?”

“To wage war on—”

“No,” Cass interrupts. It’s not a lie, but it’s not a truth either.

“I took an oath to clean—”

“No.”

Bruce pauses this time before he speaks. “To help.”

“Why?” Cass asks.

“Because I cared,” Bruce says. “And no one else did.” Good. He’s finally listening. “What is this, Cassandra?”

Cass reaches into her utility belt and pulls out a batarang. She runs a gloved hand along its sharp edge, tilting it consideringly and watching as it reflects the Cave’s artificial light. It’s an interesting weapon. Bats don’t kill, but if used incorrectly, a batarang could be lethal. It almost has been. “I am a Bat,” Cass says, tapping the batarang. She waits.

“Hn.” Bruce’s body signals agreement. Cass is a Bat.

“Are you?” Cass asks.

“I’m Batman.”

Cass swallows. Her gaze slips to Jason’s memorial as she replaces the batarang in her utility belt. She remembers what Alfred said.

“Why aren’t you in Hong Kong?” Bruce asks.

“I met someone there,” Cass says. Her blow is swift—one moment she’s standing across from Bruce, hands down, and the next Bruce is raising a hand to his cheek in shock. Blood on the shards of glass. Cass can almost see it, even though Alfred meticulously cleaned the Cave floor. “You hurt my brother,” she says. “You hurt Dick.”

Cass clocks the moment Bruce realizes, when his surprise turns to tension and horror. And then, those too are gone, replaced by cold indifference. “I did what was necessary.”

“What about family?” Cass asks. She doesn’t understand how the man who taught her so much has forgotten all of his own lessons. “Care? Love?”

“I love Dick,” Bruce insists. The indifference is cracking, though. “I love all of you.”

Cass believes he believes it. He used to, at least. But nowadays, Batman is more myth than man, more shadow than substance. He is an idea—unkillable, but emotionless too. “He lies for you,” Cass says. “He would die for you. But you’re…not real.”

She places a hand on Bruce’s chest, just over the Bat symbol.

“And you’re not a Bat,” Cass whispers. “Not anymore.”

Bruce’s face twists, and he rips her arm away. Cass lets him. At least it’s an emotion. “I hated it,” Bruce admits. “But I did what I had to do. If Dick doesn’t do this, people will die.”

Cass shakes her head. “Didn’t want to go.”

“It was necessary!” Bruce takes a strong step forward. Cass doesn’t flinch, just tilts her head up to meet his eyes. “It was for the Mission!”

There’s a fire in him. It scares Cass. “Blood on the glass,” Cass snarls. “You hurt my brother. Batman would not do that.”

“I needed to know he was ready! And this Mission—it’s bigger than me or you or Dick. I wish I could have done it any other way, but I couldn’t!”

“You made Batman to give,” Cass says. “This…you did not give.”

“I gave my son!” Bruce shouts hoarsely. “I sent my boy away!”

“No!” Cass shoots forwards, slamming her body into Bruce’s and forcing him back. “Not yours to give. You wanted, so you took.”

“I’ll tell you what I told Dick, when he insisted on playing this game.” Bruce warns. “You got your one free hit.” Cass remembers that. Remembers standing to the side with Tim as Bruce and Dick fought over Bruce’s attempt to abandon his civilian identity. Maybe Cass should have seen something then, but she was still new to the Bats. And the way they fought—there was still care there. Still love. Bruce was still her Batman. He isn’t, now.

Cass lets her lips curl into a smile. “Good,” she says, raising her fists. “Let’s fight.” Cass does not want to fight. The thought of fighting Bruce for real twists her stomach into knots of grief. She fights to stop and to understand. But she already understands. And even she can’t get Batman to stop with force alone. “You hurt my brother. Hit. Beat. There was blood on the glass!”

“It was necessary,” Bruce argues desperately. “And he agreed, in the end. He—“

Cass cuts him off. “Dick isn’t good at saying no. But this time…he did. And you—,” Cass points her words straight at Bruce’s heart, “—ignored him.”

Bruce freezes for a moment, like he’s deciding what to think. Buffering, Barbara would say. “What do you want?” Bruce asks, eventually. He sounds tired. Put-upon. Like Cass is asking something of him. Like she is exhausting him. “To hurt me, like I hurt him? I’m not proud of it, but I did what I needed to do, and I’ll accept the consequences of that. But you can’t tell your brothers. Not about this.”

He's not listening. He’s making this about him. About his pain, his punishment. This is about Dick—and the symbol. Luckily, Cass knows how to fix that.

She lunges forwards, gripping Bruce by the fabric of his Batman suit and forcing him against the wall. Cass is over half a foot shorter than him, but Bruce has the good sense to look wary. She withdraws her batarang and slices the Bat symbol from Bruce’s chest. Then, Cass releases Bruce and steps back, holding the fabric in one hand and the batarang in the other.

“You forgot,” Cass says. “I told you. I am loyal to this. Not you.”

Bruce holds one hand over the hole in his suit, like Cass tore out his heart. His face is twisting into a strange mix of pain and grief. Cass told him he hurt his son, but this is what breaks him.

Batman, as Cass knew him, is gone. She hopes Bruce can find him again.

“You used to fight for…compassion,” Cass says, clenching her fist around the Bat symbol. Her chest aches. “Love. You don’t now. You were…a protector. Now, you hurt your children. You used to be good. You lost that. You…are not Batman.”

“Gotham needs a Batman,” Bruce says quietly.

“It has me.” Cass turns away. Let him attack her. She does not want to read the anger-grief-despair in his body. The emotions she has caused. “You will tell Dick’s brothers. Or I will.”

“Cassandra—”

Cass spins around, pointing straight at Bruce’s chest. She tries to think of something to say, something that will show Bruce what he did. But nothing comes to her lips. Slowly, she turns until she’s pointing at the cases where all of Batman’s spare suits sit.

Each and every one of them has the Bat symbol ripped from its chest. And it’s only now that Bruce notices.

(Cass doesn’t think Bruce has been Batman in a long time. Not really. Not in his heart.)

“It’s over,” Cass says. “We can fight. But it’s over.”

Bruce’s shoulders slump. He does not lunge forwards. He does not open his mouth to speak.

Cass turns around and walks towards the stairs up to the Manor. Bruce doesn’t call out to her as she leaves.

***

Cass will go to her brothers. They will welcome her home with open arms. She will try to smile.

Bruce will lean against the wall, sliding down until he’s sitting on the Cave’s cold floor. He will stay there for a long time.

Eventually, Bruce will stand, walk towards Jason’s memorial case, and run a hand over the smooth glass. He will imagine the daggers of it digging into Dick’s back. And then he will realize that he does not have to imagine, because he saw it. He did it.

Still later, Bruce will tell his family that Dick is alive. Jason will punch him in the face. Bruce will say he deserves it, and Cass will shake her head, because that doesn’t do any good. At dinner, Bruce will announce that he is retiring. No one will believe him except for Cass, who will be clutching a slip of fabric with a Bat symbol under the table.

That night, a new Batman will be seen in Gotham. One who you never see coming until it’s too late, who is never caught on film, who is only spoken of in hushed whispers. He is a demon, they will say, not knowing that the girl beneath the cowl spends Saturday afternoons playing videogames with the older brother she single-handedly rose from the dead.

Dick will try to see Bruce. His siblings will try to stop him, but they will fail, because nothing can stop Dick Grayson. He will stand across from Bruce, and neither of them will know what to say.

“Not yours,” Cass will say solemnly, slipping her hand into Dick’s and turning away. They will leave. And still, Bruce will not call out.

He will leave Gotham the next morning.

[brw]

Okay, I've finished every Alpha Flight volume, all the limited series' and the one-shot, and most of the cameo appearances, and can I just say, I have truly no idea what the fuck people are on about when they say that Aurora and Sasquatch's relationship is uniquely awful, or abusive, or incredibly toxic, and I can't tell if it's because I have a uniquely high tolerance for weird and toxic relationship dynamics in comics (I have fun reading a lot of Ant-Man and Wasp comics, I love Vision and the Scarlet Witch, I'm a ReedSue warrior, etc), or if everyone else had Alpha Flight be their first 80s comics, because Sasquatch hasn't done like, anything! And I know she's my favourite, so I'm naturally inclined to be more gentle than most people, but even with that context, I feel like I'm usually pretty good at recognising when my faves do something messed up. I'm a Hank McCoy fan, I know how to criticise a blorbo for war crimes. but Sasquatch doesn't even do that very much until the last 20 issues of the series, and it wasn't Aurora. Because, okay, here are Sasquatch's crimes in Alpha Flight;

Attempted to calm Jeanne Marie down by explaining the relationship between Langkowski and Aurora. In this, the narratior dialogue literally says that Jeanne Marie does not feel the disgust she would expect of herself for learning of her altar's sexual activities, and that's what makes her react like that. It has nothing to do with Sasquatch's actions, and everything to do with Jeanne Marie's complex and negative feelings about her own sexuality, of which Sasquatch was kept in the dark about by Mac until this issue. Alpha Flight V1 #4

I've seen people say that Sasquatch persuing a relationship with Aurora after this fact was wrong, and I can see where they're coming from, but it does feel deeply infantilising, frankly. Would you say that about Betty Ross and her relationship with Bruce and Hulk? What about Marlo and Joe Fixit? Aurora clearly was interested in Sasquatch and was determined in pursuing that relationship, and I don't think Sasquatch is a bad person for returning those feelings and that desire any more than I think like, Janet van Dyne is a bad person for loving Hank still when he was Yellowjacket. This isn't an uncommon dynamic in cape comics, especially in the 80s. I don't know what to tell you. Acting like someone continuing to pursue someone with dissociative identity disorder is an awful person is just a really odd take to me, particularly again with the context that this is not an uncommon plotline in the remit of 80s comics. Is everyone who ever dated Moon Knight getting cancelled now, too? Or is it only women with D.I.D. who are too mentally ill to be capable of relationships and of consent? I'm not denying that the way this was written was ableist, and misogynistic, but acting like Sasquatch is awful for being romantically involved with a woman with D.I.D. while not being incredibly informed on D.I.D. is bizarre to me because you can say that about SO many comic book characters with dissociative identity disorder!

Camouflaged Aurora's x-gene when she asked Sasquatch to change her powers to be no longer reliant on Northstar. I've seen some people act like this entire situation was non-consensual, but no, Aurora went out of her way to ask to be changed to not rely on Northstar's powers with her light ability. Alpha Flight V1 #17

I don't think like, nonconsensual body experimentation is a good thing, but again, this is small potatoes to me. I'd understand it if it was Sasquatch changing Aurora's powers without permission, but the only thing she did was mask the X-gene, and I'd like to remind everyone this is the universe where they canonically have giant genocidal murder robots. Like I'm sorry but I just simply do not think this is the worst thing someone has ever done to their partner in comics! And granted, when Reed did the same thing to Franklin in the most recent FF vs X-Men, I also didn't care and I was on his side, so I might just be built different, but some of you people would not survive reading 70s Avengers comics. Is it a great moment? Of course not, but I think it's an understandable action in the universe where mutant genocides come monthly, and I do not think this holds water as proof Sasquatch is an awful abusive person, particularly when the reason for Aurora wanting to no longer be connected with Northstar came after multiple instances of Northstar assaulting Aurora, purposefully endangering her, slut-shaming her, being very controlling towards her regarding her relationship with Sasquatch as if that was not a choice she was making, and even after when Sasquatch was dead, continuted to be incredibly ableist to both her and the disabled man she was involved with, Roger Bochs. Like, I appreciate and I KNOW that their relationship has grown and has gotten much better, but at this point in time, frankly, Aurora was right to want to be separated from him, I think, because he was not a good brother to her.

And in any case, the mutant gene thing, the actual issue and the actual symbol of non consensual body modification, almost immediately gets forgotten. Writers have since talked about and discuss the way her powers were altered; none of them in the main Alpha Flight series have ever acknowledged her X-Gene being masked, so outside of this one issue, it literally does not come up and is never framed as an issue. I think you could, and I'd be interested if they did, but I do not think altering Aurora's powers WHEN ASKED to distance her from her brother, who at this time, was a distinctly controlling, cruel figure in her life, was a bad thing to do. The sense of ownership over her, the justifiying mutant bigotry, sure, that's messed up, but I've read every single fucking issue after that, and it does not come up again, so you're going to have to try harder to convince me.

And after this, that's sort of it? Like, I'm trying to think of anything else that happens in any of these runs, and nothing's really coming to me. They don't get back together after Sasquatch comes back, and don't get back together for the rest of the run.

I guess there's the bit where Sasquatch helps instituionalise Aurora in that random issue of Wolverine (#173), but like, I'm really sorry, you'll have to forgive me if a random issue of a Frank Tieri comic that only happened to set up Frank Tieri's Weapon X series which is universally hated by Alpha Flight/Aurora fans isn't something I'm gonna sit here and call core characterisation. It happened because Tieri wanted Aurora in that series so she could get sexualised and abused, and to my knowledge he has never written Sasquatch or Aurora before or since his Weapon X series, so again, you'll have to forgive me if this, to me, feels like the equivalent of pulling out Bendis' Avengers Disassembled as a core piece of Wanda Maximoff characterisation. Like, no. That is ridiculous. What are you talking about.

Look, alright, look. I'm aware, as I've repeated, that I have an unnaturally high tolerance for comic book nonsense. I like 60s comics a lot. I read all of Force Works, and Silver Sable and the Wild Pack recently. You think Byrne was weird in Alpha Flight? Try reading his West Coast Avengers. So it makes sense that some people would read these moments, and see them as unforgivable, because they aren't deep in the weeds of what nonsense comic books can be. They haven't sat down and read Avengers #200, one of the most infamously awful comics ever. They haven't followed the trajectory of Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne's relationship up to it's divorce, and afterwards, and seen how misogyny, ableism and saneism all combined in a very odd 15 years of comics. They haven't read fucking Force Works. Or Silver Sable and the Wild Pack. Or Super Soldiers. Or any of the other obsucre, awful comics from the 90s I've been reading. Fine!

But what I don't understand is the volume of people who have read all of Alpha Flight who think these are completely unforgivable, awful actions, when they barely rank a D tier to me in the grand scheme of comic book crimes. Like, okay. In issues #59 and #60 of Marvel Team-Up, Spider-Man teams up with Yellowjacket and Wasp, and over the course of those issues, we learned Hank injected Janet with like, extra Wasp DNA to make her powers stronger while she was sleeping as a surprise anniversay present. And when Janet finds out, she's like, "😊 You're so thoughtful", and you're telling me the worst thing you've ever read is someone agreeing to change someone's powers very slightly to not be reliant on the twin brother she has an incredibly fraught relationship with, a twin brother who purposefully tried to force you into a wild bloodlust to scare his sister so he could be the sole person she trusted??? That's the worst thing you've ever read????And I was under the impression that only weird people who read a lot of comics and are naturally used to this sort of thing read Alpha Flight, but I guess not??

Whatever. I guess I just expected a lot more and a lot worse in the grand scheme of comic books from the way people were talking about them and this relationship, but while I don't like, think these two are good for each other, or should stay together, their relationship at most just seems like regular John Byrne shenanigans, and I've read too many John Byrne comics for that to phase me. Did you guys go from reading slice of life webcomics to Alpha Flight with no in between? Sasquatch doesn't even leave Aurora to die in the Antarctic like Rogue did with Gambit (Uncanny X-Men #350)....

[crazysandwich]

MCU Fic Recs #1

Welcome to my very first rec post! I’m hoping to make this a weekly thing. These are my personal favorites from what I’ve read recently. It’s a mix of old and new, because let’s be real, there are some tropes and relationships I’ll never get tired of. I constantly find myself going back to fics from years ago that still hit just right. 

Hope you enjoy these as much as I did. I definitely recommend checking them out!

going round and round (back to where we started)

Relationship: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson

Relevant tags: Fix-It, Communication Spoilers for Movie: Thunderbolts (2025) Light Angst Hurt/Comfort

Summary: The phone call is going even worse than Bucky’d thought it would.

“C’mon, Sam, just work with me here,” he begs, metal fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. His phone’s speaker rasps an approximation of Sam's heavy sigh. It’s not a very promising sound.

Something Rude

Relationship: Robert "Bob" Reynolds/John Walker (Marvel)

Relevant tags: Internalized Homophobia, Bi-Curiosity, Shame, Bipolar Disorder, John Walker Being an Asshole, Redemption, Closeted Character, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Fighting, Eventual Romance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Forehead Kisses, Non-Sexual Intimacy

Summary: As much as John wants to deny it— there’s no denying his twisted feelings.

Or;

John is a very closeted man.

Love and Liberty

Relationship: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark

Relevant tags: Fluff, Getting Together, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Tony Has Issues, tony is a father, Kid Fic, Misunderstandings

Summary: Tony became a father. It was Complicated. Her name was Libby--Liberty for you, thank you very much. She was perfect and that was all he would say on the matter.

And then, he met Steve.

Dreams of The Future, Memories of the Past

Relationship: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark

Relevant tags: self-destructive behaviour, Depression, Steve Struggles with The Future, Happy Ending, Pining, Post-The Avengers (2012), Romance, Recovery, Feels, Optimistic Tony

Summary: Tony’s got a pretty serious crush on Steve Rogers, how could he not? Dude is smoking hot. So when he invites Steve to come live at the tower with him and Bruce after the Chitauri, he’s expecting it to be all fantasies, flirting, and How It’s Made marathons. Instead, he finds himself with an unhappy, angry Steve on his hands, and it isn’t long before he finds out that the object of his affection is hiding a worrying secret.

Eigengrau

Relationship: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark

Relevant tags: Captured Together, Kidnapping, Hurt/Comfort, Temporary Blindness, Steve gets temporarily blinded, Sharing a Bed, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Civil War Fix-It, Mostly Tony's PoV, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Getting Together, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark

Summary: Tony is captured; he doesn't know by whom, or why. He doesn't know how much time has passed since. What he knows is, he can now hear something in the adjacent cell, and that 'something' sounds a lot like Steve Rogers.

Tear Down These Walls for Me

Relationship: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark

Relevant tags: Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Aftermath of Torture, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Kidnapping, Captivity, Hunger and Injuries, Hydra (Marvel), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, developing feelings, Misunderstandings, Huddling For Warmth, Self-sacrificing Idiots Alert, First Kiss, Happy Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, not team Cap friendly

Summary: It was mostly embarrassing, really, to be snatched off the streets by Hydra’s unwanted leftovers and tossed into a dark, cold cell without so much as a by-your-leave. Tony thought the worst of it would be the mind-numbing boredom while he waited for days for his chance to escape, or the stale, gray mush these goons dared call “food”…

…or the guards tossing an unconscious, beaten body right into Tony’s own cell two days later and Tony realizing it belonged to the very same Winter Soldier Tony hadn't seen since their fight in Siberia.

A Beast That Few Can Master

Relationship: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark

Relevant tags: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Misunderstandings, Love Confessions, Modern Royalty, Tony Stark Has a Heart, Near Death Experiences, Enemies to Lovers, Contracts, Repaying Debt, Fluff and Angst

Summary: When Bucky offers to take Steve's place and work off his debt to a reclusive prince, he has no idea just how much his life is about to change.

A Prosthetic Heart

Relationship: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark

Relevant tags: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Prosthetics, Fluff, Angst, Smut, Enemies to Friends to Lovers (sort of), Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Has a Heart, Hurt Tony, Canon-Typical Violence, Mentions of non-con, Abuse (domestic & child), Panic Attacks, 

Summary: Beggars can’t be choosers, and all that. However, somehow his bigger worry is if he’ll be able to put up with Stark long enough to even get the upgrade, you’ll have to, Barnes, you can’t keep going with this hunk of scrap metal for much longer.

Bucky only just managed to bite back a curse after moving into a certain pose, and knows his thoughts, for once, are right.

Visiting Hours are Nine to Forever

Relationship: Clint Barton/Tony Stark

Relevant tags: POV Clint, Getting Together, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Clint is a Walking Disaster, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Car Accidents, Meet-Ugly, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Lonely Tony Stark, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Attempt at Humor, Fluff and Humor

Summary: Look, Clint didn't mean to hit the guy, it just sort of happened. He was distracted, and the guy was distracted, and then things were a little bit out of his control. And even if it wasn't completely his fault, he still feels pretty bad about it. He had to go see the guy, didn't he? It was only polite, so yeah. He'd do that.

And look, he doesn't mean to start fake dating his accident victim either, but sometimes life is weird that way. You just gotta go with the flow when it happens, and learn to be the best fake boyfriend ever.

the road to hell is paved with good intentions

Relationship: Harley Keener & Peter Parker

Relevant tags: Alternate Universe, Child Abuse, Protective Harley Keener, Hurt Peter Parker, Whumptober 2021, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Peter Parker, Prequel, Anger Management

Summary: Harley will take the beatings if it means keeping Peter in a warm home and ensuring there will always be food in his stomach.

Then, Harley comes home from school one day and finds a handprint on Peter's face.

[glitter-stained]

this is me dropping it and also coming off anon: i've been toying around with the idea of a teen team for jason primarily comprised of the few teen heroes who actually were present/active during the early/mid 80s, and one of the characters who literally has No dynamic with jason canonically but has crazy potential to is wendy jones (aka windfall). walk with me here

windfall is a former villain (member of the masters of disaster. side note i love all the gimmick villain groups barr introduces in outsiders comics theyre so fun) being abused by her sister, new wave. she eventually switches sides to fight alongside the outsiders towards the end of the outsiders vol 1. where i start arguing for the basis of a relationship with jason is that around this time, they seem to be of similar age? halo is introduced precrisis and towards the end of the volume is still in high school. i read her as being 17-18ish? and wendy definitely seems like she's being drawn and written as slightly younger than halo, but still high school aged, so like, from 14-17, during a time when you can argue jason as being anywhere from like 13-15. so they really can be like. The Same Age or quite similar!

and THAT fact sets up the potential for an interaction in that towards the end of outsiders vol 1, bruce REJOINS the outsiders. and is hanging out with them. in california. across the country from gotham. it's not inconceivable to me that jason could have tagged along during one of these visits and had a convo with her. additionally, during postcrisis jason's time as robin, batman's return stint on the outsiders, and wendy's time with the team, millenium happens, which basically gathers 3 of the existing hero groups in or near L.A. at the time (green lantern corps have a citadel there, infinity inc are based there, and the outsiders had their base there)+ the justice league international, and for the first issue, we SEE all the heroes there... except wendy and jason. i personally hc them as having a convo somewhere up in the rafters or in a different room or something. and then because of millennium, the outsiders break up.

i dont think they COULD have been besties because opposite sides of the country, and also isolation being such an important driving factor in jason's decisions that lead up to his death. BUT. i think the bones are there for them to be somewhat ACQUAINTED with each other prior to jason's death.

TW for SA on this paragraph: eventually she leaves the outsiders, and goes to college. she gets sexually assaulted by members of a fraternity and is denied legal justice, so she kills them in retaliation, goes to jail, ends up on the suicide squad, and dies. this is still all in post-crisis continuity, so i Do feel like she could be out there somewhere in rebirth. and i feel like she and jason could have an interesting dynamic going and i feel like it could really give her a popularity boost!

Extremely based, immediate addition to the roster!!! I love you so much Wendy Jones 😭 also love Windfall as name especially for an ex-villain who's killed people i love it so much

[fatexflipped]

"you should know better by now. fate has chosen... and cannot be denied."

idris elba  +  cis man  +  he/him  ✧  welcome to new york,  harvey dent  (two-face)  !  as a  fifty year old  villain  you’re no doubt itching to get back to  meeting with your lackeys  —  but first, if you could repeat your story for the record. you woke up on new year’s day with  a double-headed coin  beside you, right  ?  and you were dreaming about  cross-examining himself for the acquittal of james gordon  ?  thank you for your answers, and we’ll be in touch soon.

canon: new earth with some batman: the animated series thrown in!

AT A GLANCE:

full name: harvey dent alias: two-face age: 50 birthday: assigned may 30th by me ( dc says it's either january 1st or march 30th but. calendar man in the long halloween arc keeps saying harvey dent is a gemini so <3 he has a third birthday now <3 ) gender: cis man pronouns: he/him sexual orientation: bisexual romantic orientation: biromantic career: lawyer... and also gang leader? notable traits: i mean... half of his face fell victim to an acid burn, so... that's pretty notable. threat level: medium

SCRATCH IT:

affiliations: my manz is barely even affiliated with himself !, injustice league unlimited (past) abilities: toxic immunity weapons: handguns, double-headed coin strengths: genius level intellect, law, hand-to-hand combat, kung fu weaknesses: biiiiiiiiig instability

DIG DEEPER:

*all following connections are liable to change depending on muns ! positive personal connections: ... complicated personal connections: bruce wayne/batman (i just... really love them...), gilda dent, duke thomas/the signal (albeit, that's prime earth, but jic he's brought in!), pretty much all of the major rogues negative personal connections: himself, sal maroni, thomas elliot/hush, renee montoya/the question, most of the robins...

DIG REAL DEEP:

* expansion will be offered through task ! ( the double-headed coin is very important, mhm. ) mother: deceased (suicide) father: christopher dent, professional poor excuse for a human being brother: murray dent, deceased (burned alive ; inadvertently killed by a very young harvey (on accident!)) cause of 'ability' manifestation: sal maroni splashing him with acid during a questioning ( although it had been building up through a slew of ignored mental disturbances and the ignored trauma of his father's abuse - that was just the straw that broke the camel's back )

ABILITY & WEAKNESS EXPANSION

toxic immunity: it's never explained how (not to my recollection, at least), but harvey is unfazed by ivy's kiss, thus implying he's immune to toxins.

handguns: harvey is proficient in... a bunch of weapons, but his weapon of choice is the handgun. more specifically, he's known for his double-barreled gun -- big surprise there !

double-headed coin: not a conventional weapon, but he literally uses the coin to make, like... 85% of the choices in his life. it's always had a dark past, having been a coin his father would use to trick him into thinking there was a chance he wouldn't be beaten (see: he'd say if it landed on tails, harvey would be fine... but it's double-headed, so...), but the darkness amplified when half of it got scarred by the acid attack. shiny side, you get harvey. scarred side, you get two-face.

genius level intellect: my manz is brilliant, idk!

law: due to his career as a lawyer, harvey has an in-depth knowledge of the law... and the loopholes.

hand-to-hand combat: he can hold his own in a fight.

kung fu: ...

-

'biiiiiiiiig' instability: sure, all rogues are unstable, but very few are quite as unstable as ol' harvey! i'd argue that even the joker is more predictable since he doesn't rely on the flip of a coin.

[throwntothevoid]

Writing for the Al Ghul Family is so difficult. For Example I want to write Damian as a character who struggles with right and wrong. Like he does frequently in canon. Then I also want to write Talia as someone who is morally grey and compassionate. But it's difficult to write a kid who is so angry and entitled but then deny how a large part of that is because of how the Al Ghul's raised him. How can I write a caring, compassionate mother Talia al Ghul when her kid is struggling with so much, let's be honest, abuse.

But then I fall into the trap of making it sound like Batdad is a great parent when in a lot of cases he isn't. Like I'm making Talia Al Ghul to be an evil parent just to make Bruce sound like a good parent. I despise the whole Batfamily is good and the Al Ghul Family is evil, black and white nonsense. Especially when the Batfamily has also fucked up with their own quite frequently.

Not to mention if you make the argument that raising your kids as assassins is bad then how can someone make the argument that Bruce training kids to fight crime around the ages of 10-12 years old as any better?

I just want to write morally grey Al Ghul family but I keep on falling into the trap that is called canon and it is really hard to get out of it. At this point it's difficult to write the Al Ghul's as anything but evil.

Anyways thank you for listening to me vent my internal struggles.

My condolences to any other writers out there who are suffering the same fate.

[littledead-ridinghood]

Ollie Queen and Jefferson Pierce are in fact what batfans pretend Bruce is and both of them should be much more popular than they are now

They should be more popular! I haven’t read Jefferson Pierce yet but he (and tatsu) is on my really long reading list of character to get to, so I won’t speak on him yet but he seems really cool

Anyway: I just…I keep seeing “Ollie is so mean and hates his kids thank god Batman is here to save them and also yelling and berate Ollie for being such a horrible dad” content. And man…thank god I’m so good at keeping to my “just keep scrolling” philosophy

Like Bruce????

The man that continuously hits his kids with no repercussions, manipulates them, calls them “his soldiers in his war on crime”, never lets his kids think they’re doing good enough, projects all his insecurities, traumas, & prejudices on to them—

Without ever a “sorry” or working to be better? Like people love to flaunt Snowbirds but do you know how many years of effort Ollie put into his relationship with Roy to make it better again? So many. And he let Roy make the decision rather than forcing him back into the folds.

Furthermore. ollie is usually the one that tells Bruce to shape up (in politics and as a family man):

Infamously about Dick:

(Which Bruce follows up with “he’s more than that. He fights by my side…” but like it really just reads as bruce parentifing the hell outta him [Dick] and, by extension, the rest of the children he’s brought into his home)

And also infamously Jason:

(I’ll do an analysis on this story one day…one day)

Here you can see their differences as people and how they view theirs and the other’s family by how they differentiate between Jason and Mia. Where Ollie considers Bruce Jason’s father because Ollie sees himself a father as he took these kids under his responsibility, Bruce denies Ollie’s role of being a father because he doesn’t take responsibility for the role of bringing children into this life (especially because he very often does not see his children as children).

If you want a super politically outspoken man, someone who continuously gives back to his community, someone who actually hates cops…guys! Ollie’s right there!

Frankly, I don’t like playing into the “this is the character people should be liking rather than who they think they like” because it’s been done to me so many times and I Hate It. But when the character who is actually like this (Ollie) is given the role Bruce canonically fulfills (usually specifically to be used as a prop to uplift “good dad Bruce”) I lose it. I think I lose it specifically because in other aspect it’s about more so trivial things, differences on how the media was consumed and interpreted, or just haven’t read as much as the character as the fan has, but I’m Bruce’s case, so few people want to acknowledge the abuse he enacts on his kids (and co-workers) in lieu of playing happy family at the expense of the children’s characters

[apopcornkernel]

i dont mean that bruce is a perfect parent nor do i mean that they (or you) should just ignore the shitty things he's done. it's always very hard to talk about bruce characterization esp wrt parenting because a lot of things he's done are very shitty and sometimes ooc and ALL of them are irreversibly canon

but the fact remains that these people love him. you may hate him for things he's done, but these people love him. you may not be able to forgive but these people have—or even if they haven't, well, they still love him. love doesn't mean they're always happy, or that they're soft and warm and cute found family. love is chains too. love is knowing the best and the worst, and choosing to love the best and the worst

idk. i just find it really sad when i stumble upon people who love a batcharacter, who also completely hates bruce, like absolute hatred and thinks he's an irredeemable abuser. first off, dc comics will forever burn for how frequently they assassinate his character to the point that he hits his kids.

second off, and again what i said earlier—you are missing out on SO MUCH without that love between the batcharacter and bruce. you have to accept that im afraid. as a jason stan (he was my gateway into comics <3) what makes him and uth so tragic is how much he loves bruce. there's anger, and there's hurt, and all that only exists because he still loves him. it makes me feel so extremely unwell. and imo you can't understand jason as a character without understanding why and how he still loves bruce, which means you need to understand bruce

it's the same with dick especially—he's quite literally the blueprint. him and bruce have got the longest relationship of all the bats and to deny that devotion takes away a HUGE part of his character. that man raised him for a good portion of his life, mentored him, was his partner for years on the field. of course bruce has done shitty things and like i said we can argue all day about whether it's ooc or not. but the fact is that IN CANON dick still loves him, dick has always loved bruce and it's reductive to erase that

the third example i put in my post up there was cass. i notice a lot of people like to put cass as the voice of reason. (if she's not just. token silent asian that is.) it's very strange to me. i do think cass can recognize bruce's flaws but at the same time she is quite literally the most loyal person to him i feel like. especially to the concept of batman, she is loyal to that before bruce. her and bruce are so alike that it hurts my heart; they're like a cycle of inherited violence and the yearning and hope for justice despite despite despite. they would give everythinf for the mission. cass of all people would be the most understanding when bruce acts like bruce about vigilante things

i just—i cant fathom ppl ignoring all of this and just reducing batcharacters' relationship with bruce to the typical abusive parent thing. like not only is it grossly ooc for bruce to do those things in canon, it just removes all the beautiful complexity in their relationships. idk. its 3am and i just drank coffee even tho im sensitive to caffeine. its whatever

ngl idk how u can stan dick or jason or cass—or, just anyone in that family who loves bruce—without u urself loving bruce

[floof-writes]

Officially Declaring War On The Canon V Fanon Debate in DC (it's fundamentally flawed, they are interdependent)

"Actually in canon" "fanon always gets this wrong" "Dick's the golden child" "Jason's the golden child" "In canon Alfred's an enabler" "Actually Bruce is abusive" "Hate when people pretend Tim cared about Jason as a kid"

Look, if being in the DC fandom has taught me anything, it's that canon has so many retcons and reboots that they made up an in-universe mechanic for when the world resets. Why are we pretending that Fanon is anything less than another branch of this world? Golden Age, Silver Age, Pre-New 52, Fanon. Who are we to say that if Superboy Prime punched reality hard enough or Flash fucked up enough, we wouldn't end up here anyway? Comics as a medium are messy and worked on by hundreds of people across the decades.

DC comics is almost a century old. The Justice League wasn't always called that and Batman wasn't always part of it, there's a Batman rogue named 'Condiment King' and one of his most recent appearances was in a fucking LEGO movie, Dick is named Dick. These characters and their stories are living artifacts- time capsules of decades long gone, but also undergoing constant and soul-deep change.

Moral of the story: If DC canon is your golden standard then you're measuring against a piece of cooked spaghetti.

And we expect canon to evolve, to be inconsistent. When they made Dick they didn't know about Jason, when they made Jason they didn't know there would be a Tim, and when they made Tim they didn't know Jason would come back. These characters are inherently fluid because they weren't created with each other in mind, so when the Batfam is all together today, their characterizations are adjusted to make them a more interesting group for the given storyline and genre. Canon has always just been an attempt at expanding on and experimenting with what has already been built, and it has always been influenced by the fans of the time. The most famous example being the phone in vote on Jason Todd's death that literally defines canon today. Characters are killed and resurrected and given comic runs based entirely on popular demand. Fans and fanon have power- and rightly so.

DC canon is simply the constant interpretation and reinvention of the work of hundreds of artists and writers over the years, all compiled into this conglomeration of Stuff- and guess what? That's exactly what fanon is.

"Fanon loses their mind when they see actual complexity" Guess what? Storytelling is based on archetypes. Fanon isn't a 'dumb it down' machine- it's a purifier. It boils things down to their essence. It takes the contradictory, awful, beautiful mess that is canon and turns it into something usable. Fanon characters tend to be an approximate average of all the different interpretations, and they separate the characters into the parts that people find the most compelling. It identifies the pieces of a character that define it to the audience and gives canon something reliable to work off of the next time they decide to rewrite the universe.

And yes, often times Fanon doesn't make it out without a heavy dose of optimism. The erasure of certain abuses, the resolution of certain arguments. Because let's face it: moral grayness is Uncomfy. And people engage in fandom largely for comfort- that is one of the main functions of all entertainment. In other forms of media, problems are given finality. Complexity is given a rest with an ending, happy or not- but comic books don't do that, and in the next run with the next writer they may just ignore it happened at all. Fanon's rose tinted glasses aren't always rose, sometimes they're a sickly green- it's just that to write the next story with nuance you have to have a solid starting point.

I'm not denying the power of working within the restraints of a predefined timeline, nor the power of something being officially canon. Returning to the source material can inspire new nuance, new details, new opportunities- but using the source material to disqualify nuance made by fanon is counterproductive and frankly dumb. We're all building off of eachother- why are you retconning something that existed only as an experiment? It's important to acknowledge that an audience is half the art, and once something is published, there's no way to take it back and make it definitionally pure again. It is the property of all those who consume it.

TL;DR- 1. Canon is absolutely fucked anyway. 2. Fanon and canon have always been and will always be intertwined and interdependent.

[incoherentbabblings]

What do you think of Bruce as a father? I understand that he’s not perfect, but I’m incredibly uncomfortable with the way he’s written as a parent. A lot of reproachful, unkind behavior gets brushed aside as “that’s just the way he is” or “he was under a lot of stress”. I don’t know, I wish the writers would take a lot more care in writing this part of him because it honestly makes me somewhat dislike his character as a whole 😔

Abuse discussion content warning below.

I have a lot of contradictory feelings towards Bruce. I think he loves his kids more than anything. I think he loves Dick more than anything. I think he has moments where he goes above and beyond the duty of any parent for their child. I think his reasoning for helping his kids is genuinely alturistic.

I also think Bruce is abusive, and I don't think it's one off tone deaf writers 'getting it wrong'. It's a consistent part of his character and goes back decades. And just as in real life, it's hard to reconcile the idea of a parent loving their child whilst also being abusive. It's not an easy thing to write about, so if I'm crass here, or get things wrong, I am sorry.

But I think the best example I can give is that Lemire's Robin and Batman is my favourite depiction of Bruce and Dick's relationship in years. It unequivocally writes that Bruce: A) Loves Dick very much. B) Is abusive. I'm very grateful for the fact that the book never side steps this fact.

I don't know. There's a lot of uncomfortable and difficult to explain things regarding Bruce's behaviour. It's all well and good to say the abuse stems from ptsd and trauma but then, is that just stigmatising mental illness, which is something that Bat comics (or superhero comics in general) do all the time? Do we really want to perpetuate that? And I'm not sure about the answers to any of that! I think the writers intent matters in these cases, and the thing that kills me is that there is no intent. Most of his writers genuinely have no clue what they've done, creating such a realistic cyclical depiction of an abusive parent. And a lot of the time, I really don't know how to feel about it all.

And yeah sure there's a lot of contradictions in his approach to his kids, but things that crop up again and again is denying them agency, unrealistic expecations, and a resulting coldness for when they fail to match them. I have seen, and I agree I think, that the very concept of Robin is abuse, and no not in the vigilante dodging bullets way, but in the Fear needs Hope Batman needs a Robin way. Placing the emotional stability of an adult as a responsibility of a child.

It's not just the hitting - of which there is plenty over the last fifty years to see - its the lack of communication, the financial control he exerts, the rejection and withdrawl of affection based on the kids having to hit impossible targets, the lying and manipulation... it goes on and on. Bruce ticks every box when it comes to parenting his kids. I don't blame people for wanting to scrub it, and they will have very sympathetic reasons for doing so. I get a little antsy however as that doesn't mean the actions and words are actually gone. Bruce smacking Tim was awful. I've seen arguments about its ooc nature and how it should be ignored and forgotten etc... but Bruce still hit Tim. I can open a book and look at it right now. Ignoring it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

I don't mind reading or writing fics where Bruce is decidedly not abusive, I do it all the time certainly, but in canon, I think the whole #NotMyBruce is well intentioned but also a bit dangerous. People seeing their own abuse reflected back at them, and how in many ways that can actually be quite affirming, only to have someone come along and be like 'that's not the real him' or whatever long essays they write about BtAS (which... he's still abusive in that I'm sorry but he is) being the 'their' Batman doesn't really help.

Abuse survivors don't want to read an iteration of such things versus those who in one way or another take comfort from it. The needs of one don't cancel out the needs of the other? I hope that makes sense. It's a very complicated thing to try and put into words. Many blogs have written about it much better than I.

I just think, the abuse is still there on the page, saying it 'doesn't count' because it was ooc (it's not) doesn't make it go away, and I think its dangerous to ignore it. I think it's important to draw a distinction between looking at what is shown on the page, and how that fits into a pattern of other instances, versus what you want Bruce to be, and how there may be contradictions about the abuse portrayed in other pages.

[zeroducks-2]

There is a brake in people's heads that stops them from recognizing/admitting that the protag of a story, the one hailed as a hero by the narrative, is a toxic person and/or did despicable things.

This happens because of moral panic, because if Character does something bad means they're a bad person, which also means that "I cannot like them because they're a bad person, I can only like good and morally upstanding characters". And it also happens because it's easier to "go with the flow" of a narrative that gives you the instruction manual on how to feel about this or that character. They say you should hail Batman as a hero always and every time and that he's always justified for his actions, and so they do exactly this without questioning it.

Then you present them with a number of evidence for the fact that no, Bruce isn't always justified for his actions, that he's a deeply flawed human being who's entirely capable of abuse (and that it essentially depends on who's writing him). And so they have to defend their post and make him look good by comparison, like what happens with Tim's parents (that from neglectful in canon material turn into violent monsters so that Bruce can swoop in and save poor little abused Timmy). Or they just flat out deny it, and say that the comics where Bruce abuses the fuck out of the kids do not count because "X reasons".

It doesn't help that in order to have their Wholesome™ slice of pie, people will go to ridiculous lengths. I had literal "I don't like the comics where Bruce hits Dick so I pretend they don't exist", and "Bruce is a good dad in my head so for me the only canon comics are those in which he's a good dad". Like, fuck. Why don't you fucking go read another story, one in which the patriarch is actually a benign gentle giant, and stop shoving Wholesome Tired Sitcom Dad Bruce down my throat.

(I feel like it's important to say this every time I talk about this topic and I have no qualms repeating it: I have ZERO issues with people who write their wholesome Batfam fanfiction, or draw their Sleep-deprived Dad Bruce fanarts, and what have you. I'm strictly talking about the BRUCE IS CANONICALLY A GOOD DAD AND I WON'T ACCEPT ANYTHING ELSE!1!! crowd of folks. Which, coincidentally, very often tend to be antis and will get nasty once they find out what you ship, at least that's how it tends to go down in my personal experience)

Thinking about Batman fans and the tendency to ignore or excuse Bruce's abuse of his kids while painting every other non perfect parent character as one-note child abusers. Almost seems like. Projection, mayhaps? "No, my fav dilf isn't abusive, YOURS is." "He didn't abuse [Jason, Tim, Damian, etc] because their old parents were totally way worse." And the fics that write other parents as being so cartoonishly evil so they can have Bruce swoop in and be absolutely perfect in comparison. I'm not even mad/upset about it anymore. I'm just kind of rolling my eyes at the immaturity of it.

[dyslexicandakeyboard]

Made this post before but child superhero does NOT equal child abuse.

Why?

It ignores real actual cases in the DC universe of children being forced (important key word) into the masked world and focuses on situations that would not qualify. Think Cass or (in some retrospects, he wasn't a child I think) Steel. There is a big difference between Tim forcefully asking Bruce to train him and make him Robin and what Cass went through which was abuse.

It is a fricking convention (convention just means something that is usually done which can include writing style or topics used in a piece of writing, it's kinda like a trope) of the genre. It's even in the Incredibles and no ones arguing that that's abusive. It's ingrained into superhero comics, especially Batman related properties, as writers wanted to attract younger readers. (Dick's first appearance reads like those wattpad stories ngl).

It devalues the agency of the characters. Basically, if you read most accepted or highly liked origins of the Robins/child partners, most of the origins give the children a lot of choice in the matter. It was their choice. I'm not arguing that it's a smart choice or a healthy choice. Nor am I denying that it allowed for them to have a well-adjusted adult life.

Forgets that the comics went through massive tonal, social and even genre shifts. Early comics were not meant to be serious and they have all the acceptable social attitudes of the day such as sexism. Early comics were not looking to write a study on the effects of a child being put into highly violent, high-pressure situations. They were looking to entertain children, where was their target audience. I think that modern comics are more critical of child heros, but it's kinda like saying that parents that put their children into ballet are inherently abusive/looking to give their children body issues. It's not that simple.

Weirdly enough, devalues other batfam characters that are not the Robins and the very independent natures of their origins to say that they were abused and forced into the role of a superhero.

I think it's good that there are fanworks that look critically at their childhoods and the effects of crimefighting. I love reading works that actually write Bruce as how he is shown to canonically parent/mentor (Not a physical/emotional Abuser nor that overly doting kissy-kissy-huggy unrealistic parent) and shows his mistakes. It's great that people are giving tropes and concepts a critical eye. However that would mean Clark's an abuser and Lois is an enabler which, obviously, is not right.

DC is set up in a particular way where one can train a child if they treat the child acceptably (ie not abusively). It's wrong to look into this setting and say that it's inherently child abuse.

Also, lots of tension between Bruce and the Robins due to Bruce barring them from patrol or taking away their mantles if they got hurt. It was a common trope in loads of fanfiction on ffnet to ground a Robin from patrol when they were hurt or the villain was very danguous, especially in the Young Justice (The TV show) fandom. It happened to Dick, Jason, Tim and Damian. Bruce has set limits on Cass, such as her not fighting metas, for her safety. If Bruce was actually written to be abusive and to not care for the safety of his partners (I understand that there are times in which Bruce has been abusive. I'm talking generally) this wouldn't be such a common occurrence.

So, in my opinion, child superhero ≠ child abuse

[autisticcassandracain]

I've seen multiple people say now that writers, rather than ignoring the writing in which Bruce is written as abusive, should confront and work through it. And I get why; not acknowledging the abusive actions and simply writing sweet scenes while those actions are still canon re-frames those scenes as an abuser having good moments with their victims, rather than genuine good parenting. Not acknowledging those scenes as abusive also makes it easier for people to deny those scenes were examples of abusive parenting at all, which is potentially dangerous. And in general, when writing abuse, you should be acknowledging it as such, rather than pretending abusive actions aren't abusive actually. So I get it. But I disagree.

First of all, it is important to acknowledge that the writers of abusive!Bruce do not recognize they are writing him as abusive. I think there are very little writers who would write cornerstone superhero Batman as abusive, and DC editorial would not allow it if they realized that's what they were doing. This means that, barring a change in editorial to staff that knows how to recognize abuse in writing, there is absolutely no reason to believe that a) a writer would be allowed to re-frame Bruce as abusive, or b) that any redeption arc for Bruce would actually stick. There is a very high chance that, even if a writer acknowledges Bruce's behaviour as abusive and has an arc working through it, the next writer will simply ignore it and revert Bruce's behaviour. This is something we've already seen in writers attempting to address Bruce's manipulative, emotionally closed-off nature, only for him to continously revert back to it when written by other writers. I would even argue that this is part of what can make him read as abusive in canon; none of his apologies or promises to do better ever stick. Why would an arc addressing his behaviour as abusive be different? In fact, if they have that arc, and later he ends up acting abusive again anyway, it'll look like that arc was nothing more but another entry in a series of false abuser apologies.

Second, there really wouldn't be a satisfactory way to write that arc to begin with. Any kind of redemption arc would, by nature of this being Batman comics and this being too important of an arc to contain to only one comic run/series, frame Bruce, the abuser, as the main character over his children, the victims. Prioritization of the abuser's feelings over that of the victims is a real epidemic in media (and real life), and this arc, no matter how well-intentioned, will play into that trend.

Secondly, in my opinion, the only proper way for abuser redemption arcs to end is for the abuser to go straight to jail, do not pass go, do not collect 100$. Anything less than that shows, to me, that the abuser is unwilling to face the consequences for their actions. And Batman's not going to jail for child abuse and serve out his sentence, it just isn't going to happen, so.

But even if you disagree and believe there are satisfactory ways to end an abuser redemption arc in a way that does not end with the abuser in jail (or like, dead I guess), I think it's very reasonable to say that abusers should not be superheroes, even if they are reformed. If nothing else, an abuser redemption arc for Bruce should end with him realizing he isn't fit to be Batman if he can't even keep his children safe from himself. This means that this arc would have to end with a permanent change in status quo, either ending Batman as a character or having someone else (likely one of Bruce's children) pick up the mantle of an abuser. That second one would have to be done exceedingly delicately. But either way, this change in status quo is simply not something that's ever going to happen, not permanently. This leaves us with an arc where the absolute best case scenario ending is 'Bruce apologizes to his children and goes to therapy, but ultimately doesn't stop being a superhero or face up to any real consequences even though he is a self-admitted child abuser'. Is that really a satisfactory end for anyone? It isn't for me.

All this is without even bringing other people into it. If we were to do a proper arc addressing Bruce's abuse, we'd have to address the presence of other adults in Bruce's life who should've stopped the abuse as well. Alfred, while often disapproving of Bruce's actions, has never attempted to stop the abuse long term, making him an enabler. Once she hit adulthood Barbara carried a responsibility to stop the abuse as well. As someone who has never been a victim of Bruce's abuse, and someone who was in a pretty safe position from him and, as a superhero, should know how to recognize abuse, her non-involvement is hard to justify. Especially since, as Oracle (while diminished in the new continuity) she would be in a near-perfect position to gather evidence or, if all else fails, blackmail, to stop Bruce. That is, unless she didn't know the abuse was happening, which, considering how often Bruce has hit his children while in capacity as Batman, is extremely unlikely.

And that's not getting in to the superhero community as a whole. Did none of them notice? Not even Clark, with his superhuman hearing? Did none of the teams of the various Robins notice? If so, okay, people often overlook and don't notice abuse committed by their friends and colleagues, and this doesn't make it their fault. But it certainly stretches my suspension of disbelief if nobody noticed, since, again, Bruce often hit his kids in capacity as Batman, and it's literally these people's job to notice these things. But ignoring that, it would shake the foundations of superhero society to find that one of their cornerstone members is an abuser, and none of them noticed. This would affect pretty much all other superhero books running at the same time as Bruce's arc. This isn't to say that would be bad or impossible to handle (though involving so many writers would definitely make the chance of one of them fucking up higher), but I included this to illustrate how big of a deal this arc would actually be. It could not stay contained to just Batman books. And afterwards? Would the Justice League still be willing to work with Batman? If they are, that's a really, really bad look. If they aren't, they should stop Bruce from being Batman, which, as we've established, wouldn't stick.

Like, this arc would be extremely complicated, and there's basically no way it's going to be done well. There are too many complications, too many pitfalls, too many comic book-isms getting in the way. It's just not going to work.

[batricide]

You know, I went through the injustice 2 again and I was confused by Bruce's reaction to that moment at the beginning of the game, when he and Dami ejected and Dami hit the roof. He is a trained assain, but limped after the fall! Looks like he was in pain and Bats just said he needed to improve his skills! So I want to ask you: Did Bruce even love his son in inj? Did he take care of him until Dick died?

okay slapping this under a readmore since it's rather long and deals with abuse and manipulation.

also just. gonna say it while i'm here and i'm still mad abot it - the movie did not understand any of the characters or the story, and made a mess of the entire series plot.

So, this is just my interpretation! I'm not an expert in IJ Bruce and all his nuances, but I think he does love Damian - in his own very conditional, emotionally stunted way. He just only likes Damian when Damian is listening to him, and Bruce only affords his concern to the people he likes.

Their relationship seems very stiff and formal even at the best of times, while Damian is much more relaxed and himself around other people. Which is to say - Batman is mentoring Robin, Alfred (and most likely Dick) are the one raising Damian. Bruce only has his read on Damian as the heir to the league of assassins, he almost entirely neglects to consder who Damian is his own person.

I think that comes through really strongly in the comics, especially in the flashback to Bruce's "Test". Where Bruce presents a task to Damian - get home from the edge of Gotham, and insinuates that there is a time limit he needs to meet or else he fails - to test whether or not Damian's compassion will win out over his desire to win. And it does! And Alfred is kind of pissed that Bruce did this, because the intended test was to see how Damian handled protecting the city without Bruce there. There wasn't supposed to be an additional psychological component on top of it.

Injustice's Bruce is a man who deals in absolutes. He doesn't really get that people are complicated - they're either victims or villains, and there's not a lot of room for anything in-between. He is constantly testing Damian, poking and prodding him to see what it takes to make him break - because he's already decided Damian will break. We see this in his conversation with Clark in Year 0! Where Clark is the one who steps in to say Damian is a good kid while Bruce is like "nah that one's probably a lost cause".

Damian basically lives in that liminal space between Bruce's definition of good and evil, and Bruce can never get a proper read on him because he's filtering his son through his own perceptions and traumas. And a lot that strips away the fact that Damian is a child - there are multiple instances across Batfam media where Bruce actually denies that he is one, and someone has to jump in and say no he just wasn't allowed to have a childhood. And like most things, this is upped to the nth degree in Injustice.

He views him as a weapon that needs to be reconfigured, not a child who needs love and attention. He's frequently dismissive of Damian's needs - physical, mental, and emotional - unless he's using them as a reign to regain control of him. In many ways Bruce only sees the blood on the hands Damian reaches out to him with, and the fact that Damian is constantly questioning him really gets under his skin.

He doesn't take the time to explain anything to Damian. Ever. He only wants blind obedience from him and is getting frustrated he's not getting it. So he reverts to the way he deals with literally every problem he has - he beats the hell out of it.

It's only when Damian's down that he fully recognizes that he's gone too far and that he just kicked the shit out of his son, who is not an invincible weapon he needs to brute force into obedience, and is very clearly hurt. Who, granted, had just killed a man (again this scene is NOT CANON COMPLIANT and makes NO SENSE with lore established in the game itself and actively contradicts the comic lore) but is still a child (who should be 13, with the character model of a 23 year old man because what the FUCK injustice 2).

He starts to apologize, but Damian lashes out at him, and Bruce shuts down and stops trying. Rinse repeat. That's their relationship. Damian will argue against Bruce, Bruce will literally beat him into submission, Bruce will then offer Damian his love and support if Damian will just listen to him, and Damian will refuse to submit and make Bruce angrier.

They do love each other. It's just in the way a child loves a parent who they can never please & a parent loves a child they think is fucked up beyond repair. There's always the hope that they can reach each other but its ruined by the fact that Bruce refuses to have a conversation with his child.