pxrpleh0e - Tumblr blog

pxrpleh0e · 4 months ago

Text

Thinking about dick graysons canon hallucinations and his also very canon (though not explicitly stated) BPD today. About how he was 100% in the throes of an extended manic episode during a lot of the older titans comics from right after Jason’s death. How even in the current day he struggles so horribly with all his huge pent up feelings that are constantly changing and just doesn’t know how to deal with, but has forced himself to learn how to hide them until they blow over. He has to hide them. He has to be the mature one. He has to protect the other kids from the chaos and pain that is this life.

Dick, who has to hallucinate the child brother he barely knew because that’s the only way to cope with his death. The only way to make his brain think he hasn’t been “abandoned” by another person he cares about.

How, when Roy had to take over the titans, all dick could think and feel was that Roy didn’t trust him or care about him anymore and that none of the titans wanted him here. That he was being rejected. That they didn’t love him. That this was just like when Batman fired him as robin.

It isn’t like that. It never WAS like that. But dick does not always understand that.

As he’s gotten older, he hasn’t quite “mellowed out”. He’s still the intensely emotional, struggling person he was in the older comics. He still has deeply impulsive thoughts and constantly tries to put the perceived needs of others above himself, over and over and over. But he’s learned that he cannot show these feelings to others. That he HAS to keep them in, because if they see that he’s struggling, the rejection will just be worse. That he’ll ruin more relationships, that he won’t be able to be there to protect those people when they need him.

And then there’s Jason after he’s returned. Jason who always feels that dick is judging him, now. How he thinks dick is always looking at him as if he’s about to blow up, about to have some crazy plan that will get others killed. Because, well- that’s what dick DOES expect. Because he saw Jason, with the “same” big feelings that dick had at that point in his life, but Jason “never” hid them. He went out there and expressed his rage as red hood and got it all out, and dick never really did that without immediately regretting the consequences and having to fix it.

I think, in dicks perspective , everybody else has these same huge feelings he has all the time. The constant back and forth, the constant fear of rejection. He sees Jason being angry and violent and thinks- “why can’t he just hold it all in like I do?”. He doesn’t get that this is a different situation, different feelings. That dick holding in all this violent anger and need for reassurance isn’t good for him, that Jason learning to do that wouldn’t be good for him either.

I think, as much as dick probably wouldn’t want to admit it, he projects onto his family a lot like Jason does. Jason and his comments about how the other kids only ever became Robin so that Bruce would love them. Sure, there’s some truth in it when it comes to damian, who had no connection to Gotham other than it being where his father lived. But there’s more nuances to that that Jason doesn’t understand about his siblings because he’s not in their head. Just like how there’s nuances to all of their feelings and trauma and reactions to things that dick will never understand.

He’s forced himself to mature, to grow and bury these feelings because he knows he has to be the responsible one. He has to do what his family and bludhaven and Gotham and his team all need. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still have those feelings of anger in him. That doesn’t mean he stops looking at Bruce sometimes and thinking- “god, I think he’s a monster” after seeing everything Bruce has done to the other kids. That also doesn’t change that dick looks at Bruce and thinks “he’s my father my mentor my hero, my brother, my saviour, my partner, my everything- my god. I’d die for him. I will never be him. I will never be good enough for him. I need him to be better for everyone else.”

Dick will never stop feeling these constant sways of emotions. They’ll always be a part of them. He’s just had to bury them. Until Bruce fucks up too bad again or someone hurts one of the kids dick’s sworn himself to protect. Until he has no choice than to let it all boil over.

Dick isn’t the angry robin. He isn’t the happy robin. Boiling him and Jason down to either one of those characteristics is just damaging to their characters and what they’ve been through.

Dick is bright and happy and loving and charismatic. But he’s so angry. He’s so tired. He wants to be loved and he wants to be safe. He wants to protect others. Needs to protect others. Needs to be the one whose always there to do it because he trusts nobody else to handle it all. He has to handle it all. He doesn’t want to handle any of it. He’s so tired. He’s so angry. He loves so strong and it’s killing him.

He spends so much of his time seeing how being Batman is killing Bruce. How much of his life Bruce has given to the thing that will kill him.

I think dick refuses to accept that being robin, being nightwing, is killing himself too. That he’s not immune to this. That pushing himself harder and harder and trying to “prove” himself that he CAN handle everything over and over again doesn’t mean he should. That he’s torturing himself in ways even Batman cannot see.

367 notes · View notes

pxrpleh0e · 4 months ago

Text

Arkham Prince - Masterlist of Posts

I've linked the major asks below with a preview (edited for length) below, grouped by subject/theme and rough chronological order of how I received them. Additional shorter asks/clarifying questions, as well as shorter bits of commentary are at the very bottom.

The very first post:

I have been thinking about the idea of Bruce going insane without being Batman, about Batman being his coping mechanism, and that reblog that was like "he would definitely have ended up in Arkham if he didnt make Batman." Now I'm thinking of an AU where that is exactly the case, and maybe Clark expands his interest towards Gotham a bit, as much as he doesnt like heroing there, because it is the neighbor city of Metropolis. It's like his backyard. And maybe he wants to understand the problem of Gotham at the root, so he goes as Clark Kent, reporter, to interview the patients at Arkham, and there meets Bruce Wayne. Maybe falls in love. Maybe its angsty as fuck because this Bruce is 10 times less adjusted than the Bruce we're used to, but of course, equally as brilliant. (Maybe he could escape any time he wanted but thinks he would murder people if so. Maybe he doesnt trust his anger.)

Expanding Asks:

the idea of arkham patient bruce wayne has burrowed into the depths of my mind. this is SUCH a fascinating thought and changes so many things…how does the justice league fare without batman? how does alfred? i’d assume alfred is given bruce’s guardianship when he’s institutionalized, and i could even see him taking in the robins – finding and helping these children who remind him so much of his own boy, trying not to fail them as he failed bruce. how bruce himself does in arkham is so interesting to consider…is he kept on the same level of security as the real supervillains? is he moved there after Events?

Clark, realizing the League has a problem, a trap from someone like Lex they don't know how to unknot, something which requires finesse and strategy which is a little beyond them... taking that stroll (flight) down to Gotham, feeling insane himself for seeking advise here of all places... but the Arkham Prince delivers. Clark explains the situation, answers questions that he had no idea related to the issue, and Bruce hands him the solution in the span of 10 minutes, while the League had been brainstorming and going in circles over this for days...

Clark Kent and the Arkham Prince Finding Common Ground:

clark’s first attempt to interview the prince of arkham go about as well as you might expect, given that he’s a reporter with sunshine all but seeping out of his pores. the first time bruce doesn’t even talk to him, too furious at the gall of this metropolitan newshound to interrogate him for the sake of some gruesome, sensationalist op-ed obviously about the tragedy of the family wayne and the irredeemable mire of gotham to do anything more than death-glare at him for the entire length of the meeting. but clark, unsatisfyingly, doesn’t give up after that. if bruce doesn’t talk to him, he sure talks to bruce, and with each subsequent interview the questions…change. no longer trying to establish facts about bruce’s life or his crimes, not asking about his experience in arkham, not even going for the low-hanging fruit of why’d you train for years to kill those people, but seemingly random and unrelated things. he wants bruce’s opinions on emissions policies (need to be stricter and more tightly enforced, especially in gotham, jesus, there’s a reason lung cancer and asthma rates are through the roof) and lex luthor’s keynote speeches (unprintable, wiped from clark’s tape recorder in case luthor somehow finds out) and whether or not clark should buy a new suit (why bother, it won’t be any less tragic than every other polyester abomination he cruelly forces bruce to look at every time he stops by). clark slowly and stubbornly makes himself as much a part of bruce’s routine as visits with alfred and lucius and the doctors, and all the while superman is playing a high-stakes game of mental chess with the sinking suspicion that bruce wayne has already won in more ways than one bruce figures out kent is superman about three hours after the first time big blue gets namedropped during an interview. he commences with a plan that is part honeypot, part campaign of psychological warfare, and part genuine bid to get this midwestern alien who holds the safety of his city in his hands to try and give a damn like a proper gothamite would, like no one but bruce ever seems to.

Clark, whose one of his grestest fears is being constrained, treated as a threat, dissected, studied, as the alien specimen he is. He has to pretend. He had to be so careful. Every day or he won't have a life to live.

Clark asking the Arkham Prince to Consult for the JL:

i would kill to have clark-as-supes get some kind of special dispensation to bring arkham prince bruce to the jl hideout (the watchtower doesn’t to be without batman’s engineering/logistics knowhow and WE funding, at least not until bruce is more formally considered a consultant) for help on one of lex’s more convoluted and immediate threats. it’s just not possible for bruce to solve the problem in isolation without the league’s resources, so instead of bringing league missions to bruce superman has to bring bruce to the league mission. i started imagining the team’s reaction to their unwitting reliance on criminally insane mass murderer bruce wayne and then i remembered oliver exists and now i feel only sadness thinking about that particular reunion

Just wondering how regular JL universe would react to meeting this au, meeting Batman and seeing Bruce Wayne's potential Would they realize that their Bruce is limited by what he can do inside Arkham, but that this Batman is also limited by his own rules and codes. Would Ollie be crushed at what his former friend could have been, thinking maybe if he had stepped up and been a "better friend" Bruce wouldn't be in Arkham, he could of been working beside him instead. Can imagine Batman saying "I don't kill" and Bruce just smiling in what should have been the brucie smile and replying "but I do"

The crossover is so funny in regards to Supes. Like here's Arkham Prince AU Clark, terribly in love with a version of Bruce who is so unavailable to him on so many levels, aching with it every time he dares think about it, staring at Regular Universe Clark in complete and utter disbelief. (expansion of "regular JL universe" ask above)

Your take on Prince of Arkham's level of influence on JL members, at the top being of course Clark. And also: first time he is taken into the JL base, does he hack into their systems?

OMG arkham bruce and clark have gotten closer and maybe clark makes bruce promise not to kill again after bruce gets out of arkham so he can join the jl but then someone is killed and theres evidence it was bruce but bruce swears it wasnt him ( bc it wasn’t him ) but theres so much evidence that even clark is starting to doubt bruces innocence and the jl has to kick him out and hes taken back to Arkham or for interrogation and then ANGST BRUCE BEING TORTURED FOR CONFESSION BUT HE STILL SWEARS HE DIDNT DO IT until its proven that he didnt do it

@bat-chik's Harvey Dent Visits Bruce in Arkham

"We can't even claim self defense," Harvey continued. "You-" "He has cancer." Harvey blinked at the non-sequitur, "What?" Finally, the orphaned Wayne turned and faced him, face blank, unconcerned about how much more this action would add to his sentencing. Unconcerned except for the steel eyes seething yet holding back so much hurt. Harvey remembered once again, with a small pang, why he had gotten a crush on Bruce in their college days. "Nygma. He has cancer. The only way to get medical care in Arkham is by ending up in the hospital wing." Bruce moved with all the weight of the world on his shoulders and sat in the bolted chair across from his lawyer, and life long friend.

Where are the Batkids in This?

pls consider. a dick greyson who gets tossed in arkham after tracking down and torturing then killing killing his parent's murderer. tiny and lost now that what was driving him is done. a bruce wayne who hasnt been in That long yet, not long enough for people to see him as a threat rather than just an oddity, who takes one look at that angry little kid and says "oh. oh that ones mine" and spends as much time with the kid as he can. and bruce Loves gotham, thats his whole drive. but to dick, gotham is nothing but the place his world crumbled. and i think this bruce never sat with his feelings of grief either. i think he always needed a cause. and i think he saw dick having lost his cause and tries to help him find another (id like to put forth escaping as a hobby, managing to get into Any part of arkham that he pleases especially with his athleticism and small size)

It would be funny if in the Arkham Prince AU, since all the kids are in there for being um - gremlins and down with murder - that Jason in this was the pacifist?

Re: Jason being the pacifist: "I will follow you forever because you killed him." Endlessly devoted Jason my beloved. If you give him one (1) positive attention he will light himself on fire to keep you warm. I love him so much. Self destructive king.

Tim committing a crime just to end up in Arkham and study the famed insane Bruce Wayne is actually startlingly in character for him...

Clarifying Asks:

when do you see him as getting committed? was he already batman? did he already have any of his kids? if not, what *happened* to those kids who never had bruce to fight for them?

Okay, but since Bruce is the Prince of Arkham, whats stopping his kids from being in there with him?

Oh I am sooooooooo curious about what Clark thinks about Arkham Bruce having a gaggle of prison murder children.…you ever think he’s asked Dick to give Clark flowers during one of his escapes????? Or is that too corny for them.

I've seen some Arkham Prince asks and responses referring to Bruce still being rich, but would he still be?

Additional Thoughts:

i am torn between the other Inmates Hating bruce (hes the picture of those who hurt them. a rich man who is just like them but gets Way less pain for it) and adoring him

Picture this, Alfred goes to see Haly's, sees another black haired blue eyed child losing his parents at just about the same age. Another feral child with murder in his eyes.

it’s extremely important to me to consider arkham prince bruce with longer, shaggy hair and a perpetual three-day beard

The smut in the Arkham Prince AU would be INSANE.

This Arkham Prince AU has folks in a choke hold but ya'll forget one thing. The Joker and Harley Quinn.

god i am just exploding thinking about bruce and sex in the arkham prince au. there is absolutely no way he’s not accustomed to exchanging sex for favors, information, anything he wants or needs. (additional thoughts on how Clark fits into this/Superbat)

Okay hi so my main source of Arkham knowledge is the Penguin show so I’m gonna ramble a bit about factions and divides and stuff. (Sofia Falcone expansion)

continuing my thoughts on Sofia Falcone coming off your great opinions to my last ask.

There is a parallel thread between Bruce and Sofia

627 notes · View notes