#sorry he's a dick as always

[hook-and-chains]

You need a change of fashion, DESPERATELY. -weavesouls.

"Oh but I have, Queen of Ruin."

The ghostly facade coalesces into his new form as the fire reveals flesh above the skeletal visage. His grin tightens into a rictus still getting used to the feeling of it after a millennium without it.

"It's so much more freeing this way I think. To go back to the root of everything that Erlok Grael was. To think I missed this. Though I guess it is fitting to be king now that your beloved has disappeared. Aren't you glad I kept a piece of you within my lantern for so long?"

@weavesouls

[fanaticalthings]

Jason being the easiest kid is super funny. Bruce looking at Jason and remembering Dick at 18: “we can work through this. He’ll come around if I don’t give up on.”

Bruce, watching over a freshly street-snatched Jason: Why is he so calm

Having Dick as the rambunctious, feral, and unhinged first child must've given him SO much whiplash once Jason entered the picture. Lil guy just vibed in his own world. Just reading books and doing schoolwork. Baby Jason hurt nobody.

Bruce will just be going over the ground rules of the manor, remembering all the chaos Dick brought upon the household.

Bruce: No swinging from the chandelier.

Jason: ?? I wasn't planning to?

Bruce: No murder.

Jason: What? That never even crossed my mind-

Bruce: And please, for the love of God, don't sneak out and try to beat up the nearest criminal on our block

Jason:

Jason: WHO is responsible for these rules being created??

Bruce will just come home from a long day of work. He's tired and just wants a nice, quiet evening, but he's subconsciously psyching himself up to prepare himself for the chaos he'll witness once he enters the manor

but then Jason's just quietly doing his own thing, maybe even helping Alfred with some chores, reading, or just lounging about in the manor. In general, just causing no trouble and Bruce just turns to Alfred, all worried like, "Is he sick? I don't think children are supposed to behave this way."

[gumdefense]

I think kind of an underrated element of gumshoe and Edgeworth’s dynamic is that gumshoe didn’t really like him at first

And in general, that gumshoe isn’t blind to Edgeworth’s flaws. We all joke about about gumshoe worshipping the ground edgeworth walks on (for good reason not denying that) but he’s perfectly aware edgeworth isn’t perfect. Which I think makes his devotion realer and sweeter

And he definitely pokes fun at him too

[bruciemilf]

I wonder how many times Clark and the batkids + Alfred revived Bruce with the Lazarus Pit and just never told him abt it

[silverwhittlingknife]

So you're a go to source for all things Dick&Tim bros and you tend to write primarily from Dick's POV. So, odd question, but if you were to summarize their relationship from his POV in FIVE panels which panels would you pick? Keeping in mind that one specific aspect of their relationship that you love needs to be clearly represented by each panel (loyalty, trust etc). I hope this is a fun challenge and not an annoying question so if you don't want to answer that's cool! Have a wonderful day!

No more talk. The same thoughts run through two minds... (SotB 29) / You're my equal. My closest ally. (RR 1) / I can't stop thinking how much I rely on him. (GoG 3)

25 Feelings Dick Has About Tim

This was such a kind ask & a cool challenge which I totally failed; here are TWENTY-five panels of Dick's POV on Tim sdfdsfds Look, I got carried away! Marcia and Cindy! The boys!!

OKAY SO BEFORE I GET TO THE PANELS A FEW NOTES:

WARNING THAT THERE ARE SOME NEGATIVE EMOTIONS IN HERE because I love conflict but but but you gotta remember those are not the final word!! They are complicated people and sometimes they get mad at each other BUT ultimately their relationship is so hugely important in both their lives & they love each other and rely on each other so much -!!! <3

Also I have CONCLUDING THOUGHTS at the end about what Dick's POV leaves out (mostly: a lot of Dick defending & protecting & supporting Tim, which Dick does instinctively but isn't very self-aware about most of the time)

I have loosely organized my list into 5^5 format (5 categories with 5 examples each!), so if you want to skip to a relevant one, here are the categories!!

Below the cut:

I hate him and find him infuriating (#1-5)

On second thought, he's endearing & fun (#6-10)

Grief is complicated & he's all tangled up in mine (#11-15)

I love him & think highly of him (#16-20)

I rely on him & though it's hard for me, I trust him (#21-25)

I hate him and find him infuriating (#1 - 5)

1) He thinks he’s so smart and can psychoanalyze me and Bruce, but he doesn’t know me at all, he should get lost (New Titans 61)

2) He thinks he’s so smart and can psychoanalyze Bruce but he doesn’t know Bruce at all, he should get lost (Gotham Knights 26)

3) He is so nosy about stuff that is MY business (Robin 0)

4) He sounds like an insincere suck-up half the time... but okay, fine, if you push him he's got a sense of humor about it (New Titans 65)

5) I'm sure he's a better vigilante than me. It's my fault for being a failure, but I resent him anyway. (Nightwing 9 - Dick's having a nightmare)

On second thought, he's kinda endearing (#6-10)

6) He worries too much and gets anxious so easily, but it makes him fun to tease (Robin 67)

7) I'm not that competitive - okay, so maybe I'm a little competitive, I gotta make sure he doesn't get a swelled head (Prodigal)

8) I'm supposed to be his favorite! It is not cool for him to be fanboying over my not-girlfriend's not-boyfriend!! (Birds of Prey 19)

9) We have fun together. I can kick back and relax when it's just the two of us. Plus I get to boss him around a bit. (Prodigal)

10) He’s always trying to reassure me, and I guess it's a little comforting, but also he doesn’t really get it. Or me. He makes excuses that he shouldn't, because he doesn't understand that I suck. (Nightwing 64)

Grief is complicated and he's all tangled up in mine (#11 - 15)

11) He reminds me of everything I try not to think about. Sometimes the memories are so strong it hurts to look at him. (Batman 441)

12) WHY IS HE BEING IMPOSSIBLE ALL OF A SUDDEN??? THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING (Nightwing 139)

13) We're the same. He says all the things I don't let myself think about. It's like arguing with myself. (Nightwing 139)

14) He thinks he gets to tell me what to do but he doesn’t, fuck him (Battle for the Cowl)

15) Life sucks, so what. I sucked it up so he should too (RR 1)

I love him and think highly of him (#16 - 20)

16) He’s the closest thing to a brother I’ll ever have.  If someone hurts him I will hurt them harder. (Nightwing 6)

17) I can't handle the idea of losing him. (Nightwing 97)

17) He’s so good and I’m not. I'm afraid I’m bad for him. (Nightwing 110)

18) He’s better than me, and it’s kind of a relief because I know no matter what he’ll be okay. (Gates of Gotham 3)

19) In my head he’s the responsible one.  (Gotham Knights 10)

I rely on him, and though it's hard for me, I trust him (#20-25)

20) I know I have to trust him but I'm afraid he'll make the wrong choices and get hurt (Nightwing 139)

21) I'm sure I know what he should do because I see myself in him - not that I can take my own advice, but he should (Blackest Night 3)

22) I trust him.  When I’m losing my grip on things, he pulls me back. (Gotham Knights 10)

23) I want him to trust me (Red Robin 12)

24) He can tell when I'm lying. Sometimes he sees my weaknesses better than I wish he did. (Detective Comics 874)

25) He’s always there when I need him. (Teen Titans / Outsiders Secret Files)

Final rambling thoughts:

TIM: Uhh, okay, so I'm just skimming this list - do you really trust me? you're not just saying that? - but anyway, I'm confused because you left some stuff out? Like some stuff that's kinda important? DICK: No? I think I got everything? TIM (starts counting on his fingers): The time I was having a bad day but then I called you. The time I got captured by Two-Face but then you saved me. The time I fell off a train but then you saved me. The time I fell off a building but then you saved me. The time I fell off a different building - DICK: I feel like you're trying to make some kind of point but I'm not sure what it could be.

SO THE THING IS, I put 25 panels in here and not a single one has Dick catching Tim when he’s falling!!! But I think that's a central motif of their relationship from Tim’s POV, not Dick’s. I love Dick, but in some ways I think he is spectacularly un-self-aware.

And I think he especially has a lot of blind spots about Tim. He kinda intermittently gets that Tim admires him, and he enjoys it in a playful I-get-to-boss-you-around way. But Dick tends to consistently underestimate all of his own good qualities & skills, and he meets Tim at a point in his life when he's especially down on himself & his abilities. And so he's unable to see his own influence on Tim, & therefore unable to fully understand a lot of Tim's priorities and loyalties and motivations, because you can't actually understand Tim without understanding Dick's impact on him. There's a fascinating moment in Bruce Wayne: Murderer when Dick's completely blindsided & upset to discover that Tim doesn't entirely trust Bruce, even though this has been a definitive fact of Tim's whole thing ever since he showed up with his Batman needs Robin theory, and Barbara has to actively remind Dick of the obvious-to-everyone-except-Dick fact that a lot of Tim's loyalty is to Dick, and Tim loves Bruce but feels free to be more wary of him. (And to give Bruce credit: this is not something he ever begrudges.) But anyway Babs points this out, and Dick manages to sorta process it for about five seconds, but he cannot actually accept it into his worldview so instead he discards it at the speed of light and goes off and has an argument with Tim instead sdfsfdsf

All of Dick's virtues - Dick's kindness at the circus and Dick's determination to fight through grief and Dick's rigid sense of morals and Dick's vigilante skills and every time Dick has ever backed Tim up or listened to him or protected him or saved him from something or just been casually kind to a stranger in Tim's presence etc etc etc - all these things loom really large in Tim's mental story of Who Dick Is, and What Dick And Tim's Relationship Is. Tim meets Dick before he meets Bruce, trusts Dick more than Bruce, aspires to be Robin instead of Batman. And so in Tim's default version of the story, Dick is the super-special and admirable hero and Tim is... nobody in particular, a tagalong outsider who's barely managing to be a hero, not part of Dick and Bruce's family and not part of their story, who, if he's VERY LUCKY and tries REALLY HARD, might be able to fight his way to proving himself and offering something to Dick that Dick will value, if Dick doesn't get fed up with him first.

But that's not Dick's version of the story!!!

Dick's version of the story is almost the exact opposite, a story where Dick's an outcast failure black sheep who's screwing up everything he tries, and meanwhile Tim is The Sudden New Perfect Robin Who's Better Than Me And Probably Bruce Loves Him More And Probably They Gossip About What A Loser I Am, mixed with a complicated edge of Tim Thinks He's So Smart But He Doesn't Know Me/Us At All. Dick gets much more attached to Tim over time, and Tim gets unnervingly better at the know-it-all psychoanalysis so then Dick gets to have complicated feelings about him being right instead of just annoyance at him for being wrong, plus Dick's relationship with Bruce improves a lot, so Tim stops feeling so threatening. But Dick never fundamentally changes his basic theory of their relationship in which Tim is highly impressive and capable, and Dick is not so much.

And so asking Dick about Tim is kinda like if you asked George Bailey to tell you about Harry Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life; like, you'll be there for five hours while he tells you how great Harry is, and how accomplished Harry is, and how he doesn't really get how or why Harry does the things he does, and maybe George does feel a little resentful or jealous sometimes, but that pales in comparison to all his admiration and trust for Harry who he loves so much, who's better than him in so many ways, and he's not gonna openly gripe but secretly he can't help but feel sometimes like he's such a failure in comparison to Harry, a perfect person who emerged fully formed from Zeus's head with all the virtues and also all the accomplishments, etc. etc. etc. --

-- and he will not actually remember the part where he changed and saved Harry's whole entire life unless you literally send him to an alternate timeline in order to force him to remember it. <3

[were-wolverine]

“dick grayson is the favorite child”

let’s be real here, the eldest child is never the favorite. they’re just the one saddled with the most responsibility.

[leagueofbats]

i think i know the reason why bruce has problems with all of his children when they grow up:

bruce decided who he was and what his moral code would be when he was 8, and that has never changed after that. so i really think he just does not believe that people CAN change because HE never did...

but most people, most children especially, change a whole lot. and children who live through a lot of trauma can change very very much.

so for bruce, who - after seeing his parents die, yes- had a rather normal childhood (no fighting crime, no getting tortured, no dying, etc).. he cant relate to them. at all.

look at the oldest two:

dick started being robin at 9 i think? that man is trauma central. no wonder he and bruce got i to fight after fight when he was a teenager.

jason got tortured, DIED, woke up in his grave, was taken and brainwashed by a cult, got dipped into the lazarus pit... there was NO chance of him being the kid he died as.

Bruce is unchanging, but all the batlings are growing up, changing a lot, changing all the time. and he does not understand that thats normal - to him they are either doing something wrong or they ARE wrong somehow.

[petermurphysmugshott]

Why are Ballister's eyes so big? So he can see men better??? Thats kinda gay.

[aingeal98]

Thinking of Cass and Damian got me thinking of the New 52 and how the dynamic between Batgirl and Robin there is even more proof of the travesty that was Babsgirl. She's been the longest running Batgirl to Damian's Robin, has witnessed most of the events of his life as Robin and yet their dynamic is just... A nothing burger. She's there in batfamily group reactions in the New 52 as the most heinous use of the Smurfette Principle I've seen in a long while. Tim isn't Tim, Dick isn't fully treated as Bruce's son, Jason exists mostly to say funny one liners, and yet despite the shallow characterisation there are still moments and events you can point to and say look. This happened. They interacted with Damian and it meant something. With Babsgirl? Nothing. How can there be anything when they're shoving a grown woman into a role she's outgrown for years now and forcing her to be the Batgirl of a preteen Robin? Her original Robin gets his own mantle, gets to be an adult with a legacy. She's shoved back into this role she doesn't fit in and because they know damn well she doesn't fit in it and they're just doing it for misogyny, they don't even try to make Batgirl and Robin a thing. Any interaction they had during the new 52 was so unremarkable and flavourless, devoid of character and heart, that I've never seen a single panel of the two of them in my 16 years as a DC fan.

Steph had a 24 issue batgirl run where she interacted with Damian a few times. Cass got even less than that with a six issue miniseries to bond with him. And yet the characterisation, writing and dynamic created in those stories was interesting, entertaining and impactful enough to last in the fandom for YEARS when Cass and Steph got erased. When you think of Damian's big sister you think of Steph, Cass, Maya etc long before you think of Babsgirl.

It's just infuriating to me. All those years of potential Batgirl and Robin stories wasted on a duo with as much cultural impact on the Batgirl and Robin team up as the James Cameron Avatar movies had on the word Avatar. All so they could erase the women of the batfam and reduce the sole one remaining down to The Girl Bat. Yeah whatever she was there in Damian's life when Steph and Cass weren't why am I supposed to care when her standing there gave me nothing to work with emotionally compared to a single conversation Steph or Cass had with Damian back in 2011. Compared with them or even Oracle Babs, I care about Babsgirl and Damian's dynamic and bond as much as DC and it's writers do. Which is to say, not at all.

[candlecanoe]

hey im the #1 simmons fan of all time remember that.

[cassandracain52]

Dick gave Robin to Jason

Ok so I was reading up on some of Jason Todd’s original origins (I couldn’t remember a specific detail) and it was all stuff I was very familiar with

Until I got to Batman 1940 issue #368

Where we see Jason Todd wearing not the classic Robin uniform but this

Which first of all

He had pants

And second of all what those two are doing in this panel is discussing what new name Batman’s partner should have instead of Robin. Because when Jason first shows up as Robin in Batman 1940 issue #366, it wasn’t Bruce’s decision

Bruce is surprised to see him (mostly because at first glance he thinks Jason is Dick but I digress)

and more than that he actually gets upset that Jason put the costume on in the first place. Because it wasn’t his to take

Bruce proceeds to explain that he refuses to allow Jason to steal Dick’s identity because Robin belongs to him

Hence the need for a new identity

It’s in the middle of them discussing this that Dick shows up with a box in hand, asking Jason how he’s doing and starts talking about how he felt when he first became Batman’s partner. He then tells them he saw Vicki Vale’s photo of “Batman and Robin” stopping the Joker

Jason immediately apologizes, saying that it was never his intention to try and steal Dick’s identity. But it’s Dick that stops him and tells him that it’s ok because he’s no longer Batman’s partner and that he’s done trying to be like Batman

He talks about how he’s the leader of the Titans and that it’s time his name reflected the fact he was no longer Batman’s partner

It’s then he finally opens the box that he came in with to reveal the Robin uniform

He proceeds to then give it to Jason and more than that tells Jason that he deserves to be Robin and that he explicitly gives Jason permission to use his identity

He then leaves saying he has to get back to the Titans and that he has to figure out what he wants to be next

but not before calling Jason “Robin”

There was no big betrayal or fight, nothing was stolen(permanently anyway).

Dick gave Robin to Jason and then left on peaceful terms

Now obviously this version of the story has been long since retconned and rebooted a dozen times over, but I still found the fact that Dick had originally given the Robin mantle to Jason very interesting

[casscainmainly]

I feel like people underestimate how down Alfred is to participate in The Mission. He’s not some put upon old gentleman who’s on the sides going “I know I can’t stop you, but maybe I can keep you alive, sigh”. He’s like, “I’m not going to stop you, I’m going to help you because I have opinions about how things should be done”. Pretty sure in his first appearance he basically invited himself into Bruce and Dick’s life like Sophie Hatter in Howl’s Moving Castle, and personally I think that busybody character trait makes Alfred much more interesting, even with his updated version of being with Bruce since the beginning

Alfred is interesting because he definitely loves Bruce the most, sometimes to the detriment of everyone else. I agree that busybody Alfred is super interesting, but I think even put-upon Alfred is complex - there's a sense in which he adopts helplessness to absolve himself of the responsibility of what Bruce has become. Particularly with Leslie as his counterpart/foil, when you see what happened when she did go against Bruce, Alfred is kinda right in thinking that the only way to retain a relationship with Bruce is to enable him.

And it's important that Alfred did quit at least once (not an Alfred expert so can't say how many times). In the one I'm thinking about (Nightwing: Alfred's Return), he quits after the events of Knightfall, and Dick convinces him to come back. There, he calls Bruce and Dick his sons; he is definitely an enabler, but he does truly love them, and it's a bit of a Catch-22 for him.

This turned out way more Alfred-defensive than I expected. I really dislike the idea that Alfred is infallible and pure, but I also think he isn't horribly evil for enabling Bruce and the Robins. He's a flawed individual making choices in a flawed environment. I think he's heavily misunderstood because he's rarely a main character, so we filter him through his actions to others (and he is, to be fair, The Adult in a lot of situations). I just think he's a lot more nuanced than people give him credit for.

[necrotic-nephilim]

for the recent ask game, i’m really curious about your take on 7 + 8 :P

for the choose violence ask game!

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how the fandom acts about them?

i'll be so honest: Jason Todd. i know there's a lot of argument of "who has the worst fans" and i think that question is flawed and impossible to answer, but i will say Jason fans irked me so deeply. because i read mostly 90s era Batfam, i admittedly didn't have a lot of exposure to Jason for a while, expect for his New-52 runs i'd read years ago. and since i never liked him based on those runs, i could not understand *what* his fans liked about him, or where they got some of their headcanons/ideas from. i've never been more baffled. it ranges from "oh i don't agree but you do you, i guess?" to "what character are you talking about i am BAFFLED". and it soured me on Jason for so long that i actually hate read *most* of his pre-Flashpoint appearances just to understand what on earth people liked about him. and now i can say, i love him dearly, but i can also say, i still don't know what character his fans are talking about sometimes. and i hate the fanon version of Jason who feels almost, Deadpool-ified? with this self-aware slapstick humor but a sad soft interior but also sassy and will kill a man it's just. it feels very hollow to me and it has made me almost tempted to block his character tag more than once over the years bc sometimes certain takes make it difficult to even like him. i just have to tune it out or yell about it for hours.

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

i'm going to get particularly saucy with this one: that Dick Grayson has Eldest Daughter Syndrome. or more generally, that he was parentified. not a single ounce of Dick's backstory indicates him as being parentified. to be parentified you have to be a child taking care of other children either emotionally or physically because your parents are not fulfilling that role. and Dick was *never* a child at the time that another child was under Bruce's care. he has been an adult for the entirety he has known every other Batkid. and even then, the *only* one he was something you could akin to being a parent figure to was Damian, and Dick *chose* that. Dick was a grown-ass man in his late 20s who had the facilities and capacity to make the decision to be Damian's primary caretaker. he's never been parental toward any of the other Batkids, nor has Bruce ever forced upon him the role of having to raise them. did Bruce do a sort of questionable job with Dick? yeah. but i would argue Bruce did the best job with Dick of all the Batkids, and even if he was shitty with Dick, he couldn't parentify Dick bc there was no one for Dick to be parenting. and Dick wasn't parenting Bruce either. they just had a normal relationship of loving and caring for each other.

as for Eldest Daughter Syndrome i just.. i Do Not Like calling any male character "female coded" or "female rage coded" or "eldest daughter coded" because they're *not*. especially not in *this* medium. these are male characters, created by men, written by men 90% of the time, and written to be *male power fantasies*. nothing about Dick or Jason or any Batboy is female-coded bc they exist to be badass men. just because they show emotion and have complex relationships with Bruce doesn't make them suddenly women. Dick shows his anger in a very destructive, stereotypically "masculine" way. even if we strip it of gender, Dick doesn't exhibit most traits of Eldest Daughter Syndrome. he easily makes relationships with people his age, he has no issues telling Bruce no, he did not have caretaking responsibilities forced onto him by Bruce, he's not even really hyperindependent. Dick has a support system outside of the Bats, the fandom just ignores it. does Dick force caretaking responsibilities onto himself sometimes? can he be an overachiever? absolutely. but these are internal complexes that just come with making a character a superhero, it's a complex they all have. if i have to hear one more fan call him Eldest Daughter Syndrome-core or say he's a victim of parentification, i think I'll explode a little bit.

[kheprriverse]

Y’all thinking about an older Ares has RUINED me

[regular-theodore]

you can let gay people be terrible btw. you can see a character who is queer or queer coded and leave them as they are without changing their character to become more palatable and have a secret softer side. gay and trans characters can also be pieces of trash and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

[krizariel]

For whatever reason I keep going angsty routes…

(Jaytim engame with unrequited jaydick)

Jay who had a crush on Dick that went from admiration/jealousy to big ass crush that persisted even after he came back from the dead, guns blazing and angry. Once his anger and frustrations about Bruce settled down his crush for the first Robin remained strong even though Dickie just saw him as a little brother. Still, he knows he’d do anything for him. Anything to erase that sad frown on his face. Even go, apologize to the replace- ahem, Tim, try to make amendments and at least befriend him, keep an eye on him and help Dickie get closer to Tim again. Dickie feels guilty for taking Robin away from Tim but he did not have a better option, Damian needed him….problem is, Tim needed him too. He knows that now. He wants to fix it… but he doesn’t know how to get closer to Tim anymore, not with the animosity between Damian and Tim on the way.

So, seeing Dickie so heartbroken about how his relationship with Tim has deteriorated after he gave Robin to Damian, then the Bruce Quest and then Tim being mostly on his own base of operations, Jason offers to help. How? The hell if he knows he just knows he hates seeing Dick that way and the replacement needs to understand the demon brat needed guidance. He is an assassin yes but still a kid.

So, Jason, the good samaritan he is(?), walks in to make amends with Tim…he owed him that much to be fair, try to befriend him and find a way to make a bridge between Tim and Dickie. Problem is he made a few miscalculations: it was somehow easy to approach Tim, easy to get to know him if you actually tried (the man wasn’t hiding, no one cared nor took the time to look), easy to understand how unfair it all was for him as well, easy to fall for his little quirks, easy to realize how similar they were at the fundamental level.

Would’ve been nice if he realized Tim had a crush on him before he went and absolutely smashed Tim’s heart when he realized Jason had a crush on Dick and only approached Tim in the first place because he wanted to help Dickie get his other little brother back.

It would also have been nice if he realized earlier how hard he had fallen for Tim.