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Words can really not express how much I love Jim Gordon as a character.

Jim Gordon who fundamentally knows that he is working in a corrupt system, in a corrupt city, but goddammit, he's trying anyway.

Who doesn't like Batman, really. But he knows that he can't fix everything from working inside a broken system.

Who looks at a strange little boy in a mask take down criminals that his grown officers run from, and every time, without fail, is reminded of his young daughter, and worries.

Who has committed himself to being one of Gotham's last bastions of hope by virtue of simply being a good man.

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I like to think that Lois Lane doesn't realize that Superman is Clark Kent because she is so busy that she never really looks at Clark's face. He's always trailing behind her, or just to the side, or he's just too damn tall and she can't be bothered to look up.

So like, she knows Clark. She cares about Clark. But, come on, she doesn't need to look at him. He'll always be there to look at, if she ever has the time.

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I just finished the comic Robin: Year One, and it was very very good.

But near the very end, there's a bit of Alfred's narration that's going to be bouncing around in my head FOREVER.

"I am in the service of lost boys struggling to be good men."

And I am just going to be over here chewing on the fact that that sentiment is applied to both Bruce and Dick simultaneously.

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One of the things that I will NEVER stop going feral for when reading comics is the general notion that

When Dick is young, Bruce focuses so hard on his work as Batman and his assertion that Batman is the truer and more important of his two identities, that he accidentally creates a Dick Grayson that thinks he is worthless if he is not Robin.

I was reading Robin: Year One and (SPOILERS FROM THIS 2001 COMIC) Dick gets fired as Robin after Two-Face nearly kills him. And once he has recovered, runs away, and he leaves a note for Bruce that contains the line "You don't want a partner. And you don't need a son. I'm sorry I failed you." and I lost my ENTIRE mind.

And to me, this always has to be a MAJOR part of why Dick is so hurt when Robin is stripped away from him permanently. Yes, it is his mantle, and yes, he thinks that his work as Robin is generally important, but ultimately, it stings so much because he is convinced that if he is not Robin, then he isn't ANYTHING to Bruce. Because Bruce doesn't need a son. Because if he's not Robin, then he has failed him.

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Teen Titans - Batman fic idea that mashes the teen titans cartoon with general canon and headcanon.

There's about two years of Dick Grayson's life where he was well and truly a ghost. At least to Batman. Bruce has detailed records of everything that has ever happened to any one of his allies, but after he was fired, after he escaped to Jump City, after he formed the Teen Titans, he managed to keep to himself. And maybe it was because emotions were raw, or maybe Dick was just particularly good at evading, but is the one time in his life that Bruce didn't manage to keep tabs on him.

And once Dick comes back... Bruce doesn't ask. The edges of their relationship are still too rough, and Dick seems to paint a complete picture anyway. He tells Bruce about his new friends, spins grand tales about their victories over H.I.V.E., and talks endlessly about all of the people they were able to help. He doesn't talk about everything though. Not quite.

Then it's years later, and that time is practically forgotten. Dick's an adult now, a member of the Justice League, along with his former team. He's taking on bigger and bigger assignments, and he's off world when the next series of events go down.

The league is trying to take down some hitmen, and they're coming up short. Even Batman can't find them. They need help, and they're running out of options, and eventually they call in an old favor and track down Deathstroke.

It's a controversial decision, to say the least, but there are a few League members that are acting irrationally. Bruce quickly pieces together that it's the old members of the Teen Titans. He tries to get to the root of it. They keep their mouths suspiciously shut. He digs, goes through the crime reports from Jump City, and he pulls up... nothing.

And it's not just that the Titans don't want to work with him. Starfire tried to blast the man's head off, consequences be damned. The others abandon the mission. And, yet, they all still refuse to say why. Bruce eventually determines that he'll have to interrogate Dick when he comes back.

And Dick does come back. A few days early, actually. And he's sent down from the watchtower and finds his father working with the one man he hoped he would never see again. And Dick keeps his mouth shut. He bites his tongue. Ignores the greeting of Hello, Little Bird from the voice that still haunts his nightmares, stifles his fear, forces a smile... because the mission comes first. He dodges Bruce's questions, avoids the other Titans, and stops Starfire from physically dragging him away, or from telling his siblings, or from telling Bruce himself. He's survived this long. He can manage.

It doesn't matter that managing feels like collapsing in on himself.

Later, Bruce blames how focused he was on the mission for not putting the pieces together sooner. He blames the Titans not telling him. Dick's silence. Deathstroke's trickery. Anything but the fact that he just didn't want to see the truth right in front of him.

He doesn't put the pieces together until they're ambushed. A fight breaks out, and Nightwing and Deathstroke fight together like they were made to. Dick follows directions like they're second nature, more so even than he ever followed Bruce's.

And, at the very end, Bruce grabs Dick's arm before he can stab an enemy through the neck, and Dick... breaks. He can't take the weight of the old memories, can't take the weight of the gaze of the monster that has haunted him since he was sixteen years old. The monster that he thought he has escaped.

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We joke about a bat family group chat so much as a fandom, that I was entirely taken off guard reading Nightwing: Leaping Into Light when finding out that it is an actual thing.

And also, apparently Cass has an emoji problem.

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I was thinking about Batfamily heights last night for some reason, so I present to you, my official Batfam height headcanons (based on literally nothing but vibes). Also, we're assuming adult Damian, in my heart he's always like 5ft tall and also 12.

Bruce: 6ft 1 Dick: 5ft 7 Jason: 6ft 2 Tim: 5ft 9 Steph: 5ft 8 Cass: 5ft 5 Damian: 5ft 11 Duke: 6ft

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I know Talia is usually drawn to be somewhere relatively close to Bruce's height, but I am currently having a fun time imagining a world where this absolute terrifying woman is approximately five feet tall.

Specifically within the implications that this has for Damian.

Jason: -holding Damian's sword above his head and out of Dami's reach-

Damian, 14 years old, solidly 5ft 4: One day I will be as tall as Father and then you will all see!

Tim: Uh... Damian, you do realize that Talia is shorter than all of us, right?

Damian, jumping to try and reach his sword: -disgruntled noises-

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Given you latest post, do you think you’ll ever write something related Bruce and Harvey in a romantic sort of way? The route of tragic lovers is commonly used but I’ve seen how you subvert expectations in a way that’s really beautiful so I’m curious about your thoughts on them

Tbh Harvey Dent was mostly just a name I pulled out of a hat in the moment, but I could definitely see myself writing something with them in the future. I mean, everything having to do with them is so just deliciously tragic. The idea of seeing someone you used to care about struggling, trying your best to help them, but still failing in the end, and then to have that person become one of the single worst enemies of your masked persona? I mean, that's just some great thematic juice to sink your teeth into lol.

I'm thinking specifically about how good the writing for the two of them is in the Batman the Animated Series episodes about Two Face's origin, and there's definitely a ton to work with there.

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In honor of pride month, I will be proposing my personal Batfam pride headcanon, which essentially boils down to

They are all queer (what type of queer is up for you to decide, i've specifically implied some sort of same-sex attraction for Bruce and Dick, but I love cycling through different queer and trans headcanons for characters), but due to them having a complete inability to communicate with each other, they all wholeheartedly believe that they are the only queer family member.

Dick never came out, but assumes everyone else just kind of knows. The Titans have known since he was fourteen and making inadvertent goo goo eyes at Wally West, and he didn't really come out to them either, so he just assumes that people, well... assume.

Jason didn't figure it out before he died, and after... well, there wasn't exactly any time for that heart to heart conversation. He's not exactly keeping it to himself, there are just so many more important things that need to get talked about first. He figures they like, know, and are just pointedly not bringing it up.

Steph, however, is keeping it to herself purposefully. None of those losers need to know her fucking business.

Cass just thought it was entirely unimportant. She is in know way keeping it to herself, it has just never organically come up in conversation and she sees absolutely no reason to go out of her way to bring it up.

Duke keeps meaning to come out! Really, he does. Maybe, if rogues stopped interrupting his plans, he'd actually have done it by now.

Damian only just realized, and he's keeping it to himself for now. He likes to figure himself out before he opens his mouth about it, but he figures that he'll tell Dick one day soon.

Bruce doesn't fully realize that sorta kinda having a thing for Harvey Dent in his teen years may have wider reaching implications, and quite honestly, the man does not have the time to think about it.

Tim is the first one to successfully come out, via the family group chat, and this causes some lasting ripple effects, mostly in that this causes them to one by one unravel the web that every single one of them thought that they were on the only queer family member, and that about half of them thought that everyone else already knew, all while Bruce slowly starts to wonder if he was somehow subconsciously adopting queer children all along.

Alfred knew. Alfred always knew.

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I see a lot of posts about the Titans seeing Dick as this serious leader at his core, while the Batfam know him for his jokes and easy-going attitude. And I love this, this is great, but I like to headcanon that it kinda goes the other way.

Like, on missions, Dick is straight to the point. Serious. Their leader, but the team knows that, ultimately, that's just a front. He's still their friend. He still lounges around the tower, plays video games with Cyborg and Beast Boy, lets Starfire paint his nails. He fills the role that he needs to, when he needs to, but the Titans have always known that it doesn't exactly come naturally.

Then they see him actually work with Batman, and he smiles... more. Almost manically. He fills the dead silences with quips, he hangs upside down, taunts villains and Batman alike. But that's not his smile, that's not his laugh, that's not him. It's an imperative. Rehearsed to perfection, but they've known him long enough that they can see cracks. He may be filling a role as their leader, but this is a performance. And it's terrifying, because they can't quite parse out the why, just that it is, and they can tell that, behind the performance, there is a creature that is far more serious - far more dangerous - than they ever thought their friend could be.

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Do you ever think that Dick feels like Jason died because he lived?

In that, if Dick had died while he was Robin, like he came so close to again and again - like he maybe should have - then there never would have been another? Jason as Robin was only allowed to exist because Dick was the blueprint for a Robin that worked, one that survived.

There was no reason that Jason should have been different. Unless Dick himself was the outlier. A false positive. A fluke.

Do you think that eats him up at night?

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Btw to any of my followers who are here because of my fanfiction, my computer charger has been broken for the past three weeks, so I have not been able to write anything, but I finally have a new one and I am attempting to finish the fic that I'm working on currently.

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I like to headcanon that one of the reasons that Damian feels so connected to Dick is because Dick is the first person to truly appear to him as human.

By which I mean

This is a boy who was raised to be a warrior. Taught his entire childhood that he is better than his humanity by a grandfather and mother who lost their humanity to the waters of the lazarus pit long ago. To him, they're infallible, all-powerful, and they teach him that he too is a prince with his head raised far above man.

Then he goes to his father. His father, who is practically a myth. More shadow than man, more Gotham than individual. A force of nature. Broken and raw on the inside, but Damian doesn't know that yet. To him, that becomes what infallibility means. And that is the position to which he should aspire. The next Bat, the only rightful heir, better than the humanity in Gotham's streets.

Then, his father is... gone. And suddenly Damian isn't a prince, or an heir, or a warrior. He's just another discarded son. And all he has in the world is a brother that he never wanted, who never wanted him. And Dick is... something that he doesn't quite know how to parse out at first. He's as skilled as his father, and after a few months, Damian has to admit, he might be better, but he's still... different. He's not a myth. He's not infallible. He is no prince. And he doesn't expect Damian to be one either. For the first time in his life, someone looks at Damian and sees a child. A child that is no different than Dick was when he traded his circus leotard for a cape and mask, and for the first time, Damian is told that to be a prince is to be lonely. To be human is many things, many unpleasent, but it is above all else, not lonely.

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Something I'm not sure I'll ever understand about fandom, especially comic book fandom, debates, is debates like the 'is Bruce Wayne a good parent' debate. And I am genuinely looking for an explanation and/or another perspective here.

Because the answer, to me, at least, is yes and no specifically because he is a fictional character.

Because, to me (I wish to specify that this is all my opinion and you could think way differently about this), characters do not essentially have to do what is best, they have to do what is interesting, and because comics are so wide and are contributed to by so many different writers, the idea of what is interesting can vary wildly.

So, yes, Bruce Wayne is a good parent in the comics where that is the most interesting choice. And no, he is not a good parent in the comics where that is the most interesting choice.

The fun thing about comics to me has always been being able to look at the wide array of events and characterizations and just picking what I like the most out of it. And what I like the most changes based on the context of the story surrounding them.

I see a lot of posts that are like "I don't like X character because they did this action in this specific comic" which is completely fair, but also I've always been of the opinion that comic lore is so wide (and, let's be honest, inconsistent) that you can hold multiple true things about a character at once because they are fictional. I just always find it weird when posts come across, again specifically to me, as blaming the character for the choices made for one story by one writer (or even a series of writers), when a bunch of other writers have written said character in a different way, and you can just decide which way you like best, and which way you like best can 100% change with the situation that character is in.

I hope I'm making sense? And maybe I'm completely making this up, who knows

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Something so interesting about Bruce and Dick's relationship, in that

Dick is convinced that, no matter what he does, he will never be good enough to meet Bruce's standards and thus will never be worthy of being his son.

and

Bruce, who is convinced that he, himself, is so deeply broken that there is something intrinsic about Dick Grayson that is better at its base level than he ever could have been.

(they are somehow both correct but more wrong than they could ever imagine)

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I am almost done with my Batman Identity Reveal fic, and after it I have an idea for a fic where something happens to Dick Grayson and he ends up with the Outlaws. However, there's two different directions I could go with this, and I would like y'all's input.

Dick Grayson is a Talon - This would entail Dick having supposedly died recently in the plot, and essentially showing up at Jason's doorstep as a walking corpse. Jason and the Outlaws then spend the rest of the fic trying to figure out how to cope with Jay's possibly dead, possibly now immortal, very fucked up older brother who doesn't remember much.

Dick Grayson is Renegade - this would entail Dick Grayson having been taken and trained by Deathstroke while he was still Robin. Jason would know of Dick's existance but would have never actually have met him. The story would then go in the direction of Jason contending with the fact that the brother he'd never thought he'd meet is still alive. This one would also notably probably feature more Bruce.

It should be noted that, if I have the time, I very well might just write two versions of this fic.