#All these things people project onto Tim for some reason actually happened to Damian and I don't see tons of fanfictions about that

[wesavegotham]

These fanon Tim Drake takes/fanfictions that paint him as the ultimate victim during the Morrrison era were always annoying, but if you're looking for a character to write fix it fanfictions about because they got abandoned by their family when they went through a lot of losses and lost themselves in the process, ran away from everything and only had the batfamily try to bring them back home ages after they had already run away and only after first blaming the kid and then not prioritizing bringing that kid back, then Damian from 2018 to 2020 is right there?

Where are my 1000+ fanfictions about that?

[batricide]

i’ll drop this on my blog here too actually bc it’s Important to how i play damian and also let me yell about the fact that ij’s bruce is not a good person and the reason why so many people hate damian is because they somehow miss that.

so! here’s a warning for: tyrannical totalitarian regimes, child abuse, abusive fathers, emotional manipulation, evil superman, character death & also random he-man. please note that this is about injustice and its characters, which are not a reflection on their mainstream counterparts or how i view them.

there’s tension between damian and bruce from the get-go in injustice, and we’re never really told why. if we take cues from the game (though that entire scene doesn’t make sense) then it’s because bruce didn’t save jason, which fits in with my reordered robin theory in which tim and jason were switched, and jason has only recently died.

now, we don’t know whether jason is running around as red hood right now or not. but i’m inclined to say he isn’t, as his injustice 2 ending makes a big deal of him becoming red hood. and damian is close with jason in injustice 2, close enough that jason listens when damian tells him that he’s a lot more than bruce thinks he is and drops the shitty batman costume. close enough that during the (extremely weird, extremely out of alignment with the comic) scene in injustice 2 where damian betrays bruce for clark, jason is the name damian throws at him with the most vehemence. regardless of the robin ordeer, bruce’s failure to save jason is seems to be an incredibly sore point between them.

so it’s interesting that bruce is already counting damian out before injustice even starts. he’s comparing damian to jason - someone who he apparently no longer considers part of his legacy. 

the kicker is: damian in injustice is actually probably the most morally centered version of himself. he shows open compassion and care for other people more often than he does in most of the mainstream runs. damian’s sense of right and wrong is solid, but what he wants is to break the cycle that gotham is trapped in. which from his perspective, is something bruce doesn’t seem to want to do.

injustice’s version of bruce is someone who truly believes that the ends justify the means - which means he’s apt to do some heinous things to people until they see his side of things. he seems to view people questioning as an act of betrayal, so instead of ever explaining himself he resorts to things like installing viruses in cyborg, kidnapping hawkgirl and replacing her, beating allies within an inch of their life - all of it is fine to him so long as they’re not dead. 

but it’s not fine to damian.  damian is constantly horrified at the lengths bruce will go to.

damian is afraid of his father. 

so, this is about a specific scene.  let’s get to that scene. its just important to note the difference between them, and emphasize that he’s not going with any intent to fight. if he was going to do that, he wouldn’t be doing this:

or respond like this:

or this:

he’s there to make amends, or at least try to. he still loves his father and he wants to be forgiven, and this is something that will carry on ten years later in injustice 2. damian made the choice to oppose bruce’s controlling nature but damian didn’t choose to abandon him and the bat family permanently. that choice was made for him. damian wants to come home. 

and he’s terrified of his father. i cannot stress that enough. bruce at this point has already shown that he knows how to hurt his closest friends if they oppose him.

damian is a highly trained fighter, but he’s also a  thirteen year old boy who knows he can’t overpower a man twice his size and weight.

and bruce?

bruce’s entire argument really hinges on ‘you, my thirteen year old son, didn’t take my side in this argument’. because, i have to put this in bold, the league was not executing the criminals they were removing from arkham. they were just transferring them to a more secure facility. something which is actually sorely needed, especially given what has just happened to metropolis. arkham isn’t fit to house them. and as far as damian sees it, bruce doesn’t like it because it’s removing an element of his control.

now, bruce isn’t wrong about how things will escalate. 

but damian’s not wrong about his motivation here.  i think there’s a conversation to be had about how bruce’s methods in trying to stop the regime actually drove it to further and further extremes. bruce never tries to talk to clark - or anyone, really. he just starts playing mind games to make them do what he wants.

it harkens back to the conversation bruce and dick have in the batplane. that bruce doesn’t talk to people, he doesn’t explain himself. he’s either right or you’re wrong and he won’t explain his stance. there is never room for debate. he’ll just stop talking and leave until you agree.  there is no option where he sits and listens to an open and honest dialogue, no scenario where he entertains that he might be in the wrong or maybe things aren’t black and white.

and that’s why injustice bruce is not a good guy. 

even on prime earth, damian had to bend over backwards to prove to bruce that he wasn’t a monster. it was damian who spent months digging through the sewers for martha’s pearls. damian who had to prove he was capable of loving titus. damian who constantly had to show that he was capable of empathy and thinking of others - bruce did none of the heavy lifting in that father-son relationship, he made damian climb the entire hill and still continues to put little effort into it.

and injustice bruce is even less empathetic and expressive than prime bruce.  

which is why you get a confrontation like this:

this goes beyond dick’s accident and ties back into what clark said about bruce not tending to his son’s who are grieving because they lost friends in metropolis.  damian’s fed up with never meeting bruce’s expectations. but more than that, he’s fed up with his feelings coming second to bruce’s. 

bruce has already made a judgement on who and what damian is. damian has the potential to be dangerous and requires work to fix, and so he’s not interested in getting to know him beyond that. he tells dick that he’s “worried about  damian being seduced by darkness” but never talks to damian himself with him about it.

but clark has looked at damian and and decided that damian is good. damian has problems, clark can admit that and does, but damian is good. like bruce himself.

and ultimately why when dick dies, clark is the one that reaches out to him because he sees damian for what he is: grieving child who just made a terrible mistake. it was an accident. damian didn’t mean for this to happen. meanwhile, bruce feels as though he was proven right. damian was dangerous and now his real son is dead. bruce will later admit, once he stops trying to manipulate damian, that damian was dead to him the moment dick died.

going back to year zero for a minute, they subtly show that damian is doing his best to be like bruce. baby damian idolizes his father. so i imagine a lot of bruce’s own feelings towards damian stem from self-hatred. from bruce seeing himself in his son and not liking the reflection it forces him to confront. injustice bruce projects a great deal of his own insecurities and shortcomings onto his youngest. damian is his worst what-if.

even though damian doesn’t deal with his grief the way bruce does. there are similarities, he puts his feelings into his fists and hits. just like bruce. but unlike bruce, and most likely because of dick, he does try to communicate. come injustice 2 he even talks about his feelings.

that doesn’t justify any of the violent outbursts. and he has a lot of them. he has significant issues with controlling his anger and struggles with lashing out, verbally and physically. it both worsens and improves as he gets older.

damian knows that he’s more than his grief, his loss, his anger. he’s also compassionate and capable of incredible feats of kindness. we see that in the flashback chapter in injustice 2. people aren’t pawns for damian, they aren’t a means to assuage his own guilt and validate himself as a good person. he wants to be good for those people.

damian’s relationship with heroism isn’t built on an intrinsic need for control or power, nor is it a means of validating his self worth.

people just need him. they’re suffering.  and he wants to be there for them.

but again, we’re not there yet.

so, alfred reaches out to touch damian. damian asks him repeatedly to let go. when alfred doesn’t, damian tries throwing him off, not realizing how much strength he now possesses.

damian  has a thing about being touched when he’s wound up tightly. it almost always ends with him lashing out at someone. which, tying back into why he felt comfortable coming back here, probably goes into his expectation that he’s going to get the lights knocked out of him. because again, damian did not go to the cave to fight or hurt anyone. the pill is entirely for his own defense.

from what we know of damian’s childhood in both prime and injustice, violence is the expected retaliation for misbehavior. toeing out of line is grounds for getting the shit beaten out of you, and while things should be different here....

from how bruce reacts he’s not wrong to expect it.  note that bruce dodesn’t run to alfred to see if he’s okay, he goes after damian for hurting him. it’s damian who runs to alfred after he’s thrown bruce away from him.  

( granted, yes, he threw bruce into the penny and it almost crushes alfred )

damian apologizes and he means it.  alfred’s first question is to ask for bruce.  

“”hawkgirl”” intervenes to try to end this fight before it can escalate further.

damian deduces that this isn’t hawkgirl and blows some stuff up.  bruce calls after him probably - not to have a serious heart to heart with him about what just happened, or what happened in arkham, but to try to manipulate him into taking bruce’s side or in the very least stop his ruse from being uncovered.

this is a theme moving forward. bruce will dangle forgiveness in front of damian, but only when it benefits him and can be used to control him. eventually he’ll stop and will use the guilt he knows damian feels to wound him.

and here’s the second theme it introduces: damian is scared shitless of his father. he’s not afraid of bruce’s violence, as after this he charges straight for him time and time again, but he is utterly terrified of the lengths bruce will go to get his way.

this is also where he takes dick’s suit. i think this was his way of telling bruce that he didn’t deserve to use dick’s memory the way he uses his parent’s death - as justification for what he does.  this comes up in injustice 2 later down the road, damian will bring up that bruce uses his pain to justify how he brutalizes the people around him. damian does the same thing -- but we also see damian grappling with his conscience about it. he wants to be better. he doesn’t want to be all his violence and loss.

back to the topic at hand, damian doesn’t do anything with dick’s suit. unlike bruce, damian doesn’t wear his grief and guilt in plain sight. he puts it in a box and doesn’t look at it, he covers the wounds with anger and as he gets older, develops a death wish and basically begins seeking a noble death in order to make up for what he’s done. it isn’t until dick passes the mantle to him in an attempt to steer him back on the right path that he even looks at it again.

damian isn’t the one that ended his relationship with bruce. bruce did. damian is very willing to reconcile if bruce genuinely wants it, but bruce doesn’t bother with damian outside of combat or when he needs something. damian actually keeps up visits with alfred, he gets him birthday presents, they meet up often and despite their opposing viewpoints, they get along just fine. damian even listens to what alfred says. he still loves his family.

damian himself is a mess. this line resonates because damian, too, is afraid. afraid of bruce, afraid of being what bruce thinks he is. there’s only so far he can bury it under the anger.

by the next issue of year one, after the confrontation at the manor, damian’s discarded any notion that bruce is a good person or justified in anything he does. everything he says on this page is true.

he’s not wrong. he’s more than bruce has even given him credit for being. injustice bruce sorts people into boxes impossible to climb out.  damian made his attempt at reconciliation and instead, found out that bruce has kidnapped and replaced one of his friends to spy on all the rest. in that split second when bruce came at at him, he saw the disgust and anger in his eyes. he’s seen how bruce sees him and wholeheartedly rejects it. 

he doesn’t want to be bruce. he will not be bruce.

batman was supposed to be better than the league. it was supposed to be a new way. instead he just found a new, different means to brutalize and control, and a new way someone justifies causing harm. and he doesn’t want it.

this isn’t to say that damian is a saint. he’s a very flawed, very broken person. he went from one abusive parental situation, to another, to another, and has the damage to show for it. he’s got bad habits from all of them, many of which he isn’t aware of or doesn’t think are a problem. 

but unlike his two dads, damian doesn’t close himself off to what he’s feeling completely, nor does he decide to rush towards external solutions for his pain. he’s, again, very aware that something is wrong. he doesn’t hold to his convictions the same way bruce or clark do, he questions.  he’s deeply unhappy with who he is and what he’s doing. 

but damian is seeking answers using a very limited toolset, and there’s a very limited pool of people he can ask that won’t give him a biased answer or try to manipulate him for their own means. one of the people he confides in does just that.

the other gives him the honest truth.

his relationship with selina is fraught and she’s often one of the very nastiest people towards him, but it’s because of that  he ends up opening up to her. she isn’t going to bullshit him and just say what he wants to hear.

and this is what makes damian different from them. both of them.

because he stops, because he questions, he’s still connected to reality. to his own humanity.

injustice’s bruce is a bruce that has quietly let his humanity die. he’s completely given over to the cold logic of batman and the idea that whatever he does to the people around him, no matter how morally dubious, is justified so long as it means protecting lives. he might not kill, but he really stops just short of that. he just doubles down on his beliefs and takes anyone who doesn’t agree with him as a traitor. he will go out of his way to rationalize how a largely guilty person is innocent (harleen) and how a largely innocent person is guilty (damian). and so he uses damian’s “betrayal” - ie, damian standing with clark instead of him - as justification for icing him out. that way he can ignore all the people who have reminded him time and time again that it was an accident.  

bruce also can’t stand that damian won’t do what he says. bruce will ignore damian unless it benefits him. bruce will go on to frequently weaponize how badly damian wants forgiveness against him. there are multiple instances where he says “just do as i say and i’ll forgive you, son.”

and then in the next breath, he’ll tell damian that he “can’t forgive the deaths”, all the while he has harleen as his new sidekick.   it’s fine that harleen helped with the scheme to blow up metropolis, killed jimmy olsen, and countless others. it’s not fine that damian did something he did all the time to dick - something dick himself shrugged off, because the expectation for this behavior was that dick would catch the baton - and it ended in tragedy.

because harleen listens to him and damian doesn’t. bruce cuts damian neatly out of his life and only really cares about him again when he’s a corpse.

damian, meanwhile, never stops trying to earn bruce’s forgiveness. in the canonical bad end (or well a comic offshoot of the canon ending) damian essentially dies begging bruce to forgive him, admitting that he always cared. he launches an absolutely insane rescue mission to save his father from clark’s torture and it costs him his life.

( but it’s worth mentioning - it takes damian showing bruce an image of kara for bruce to acknowledge him. )

even before this, damian was looking out for bruce in other ways. he was the reason selina got involved with the regime. because he offered her the chance to join and save bruce. damian’s anger towards bruce is less that he wants him dead, and more that bruce won’t stop unless he’s killed.

and damian is willing to kill him if bruce poses a threat to his ‘new’ family. he’s not going to watch bruce hurt the people he loves.

but his new father sucks just as much as his old one.

talia and bruce were more obviously abusive parents. they were controlling and sometimes asserted that control and obedience using physical violence and intimidation. in obvious ways you can point to and see abuse. 

damian doesn’t recognize clark is using him until he sees clark discard kara, who should be everything to clark and is someone important to damian. before that, he has inklings that they’ve gone too far, but clark has been such a paragon of good that when he tells damian not to worry about it, he doesn’t. he hides all his darkness behind that  smile and tells damian he’s good and worthy of people loving him, that they’re saving people and they won’t let another metropolis happen. clark talks to him and still (seems to) accept him even when they disagree.

damian misses clark’s equally as abusive tendencies because they hidden under the guise of a fatherly concern. 

clark is manipulating him into divulging more than he wants to. a boundary damian set is being broken without damian even realizing it.  damian’s uneasy. his body language goes from very easy and relaxed to overtly uncomfortable and almost submissive. it’s also very subtle but clark actually rises higher off the ground to intimidate and loom over him.

damian, who has only known bruce’s stormy silences in moments of disagreement, doesn’t recognize this for what it is.  clark doesn’t take the slight out on him. clark doesn’t stop talking to him because he dared to question.

instead, he loops an arm around damian and praises him, rewards him for being honest and makes it seem like this is an open dialogue and not an interrogation. which it is. i wouldn’t call it gaslighting, but i would call it lovebombing. damian doesn’t realize that there was anything off about the encounter, or if he does, he’ll tell himself he’s just being paranoid.

after all. this ended amicably, not with him standing alone wondering what he did wrong, or being thrown across the room. clark basically stops just shy of ruffling his hair and calling him sport. 

he was rewarded for honesty. and so any discomfort he felt was imagined.

 i think a thing that a lot of fans miss is that injustice’s damian is a forthright person. he doesn’t lie or deceive much, and later on it will bother him that he’s keeping secrets from kara for ‘the greater good’. he loathes that bruce does it and works hard to not fall into that trap. he wants to be honest. he’s glad when he’s rewarded for that honesty. 

because injustice’s damian doesn’t want to be batman. he wants to be superman. he wants to be good.

but injustice’s superman is not a good man. 

clark keep secrets, many terrible secrets, and often hurts people and justifies it to himself. he just hides it far better than bruce does.  clark is even more controlling and cruel, but he leans harder into his humanity and emotions to hide it. it’s easier to see bruce being cold and calculating and miss the way clark subtly uses what you want to get what he wants out of you. and you never really see it coming when he lashes out. he’ll apologize for it, of course, and if you’re not dead you’ll forgive him, because it’s clark. he didn’t mean it. right?

bruce manipulates overtly and grandly using intimidation, clark manipulates subtly using emotion. damian only recognizes one of these things when they happen.

so clark gives damian what he wants - a parent who loves him, someone he can talk to and even show a little vulnerability with - and then uses that against him. 

the worst thing -  the very worst thing - is that bruce and clark love damian. he knows this. both seem to genuinely consider him their son. and he knows this.

in injustice vs motu, bruce snaps fully into awareness just as diana snaps damian’s neck. he’s awake just in time to watch his son die.    and when clark is brought onto the scene, clark falls to his knees and mourns damian and laments his role in driving him to this.

but they weaponize this parent-child bond he wants against him and each other. frankly, neither of them were very interested in him for who he was. nor for helping him be better and master his anger. damian’s body isn’t even cold before bruce uses it against clark, failing to acknowledge his own part in damian’s all too early demise.

he’s another chess piece on their board. one clark can use to wound bruce. one bruce can use to wound clark.

the person damian is when away from both of their influence is a more complete damian. he’s the very best of both of them.

the damian here is still curt and sometimes rude, but he laughs and bonds with the people around him. he values people’s freedom and seems to strive for honesty and communication. meaning no one is in his war to reclaim the world doesn’t want to be, and he makes no move without everyone knowing.

when he recruits adam,  he tells them their story and what they’ve gone through and gives adam the choice to join them or stay in eternia.

anyway, all of this is to say that even all these years later, i continue to be so sad about injustice damian wayne. 

edit:

now, there’s actually one other thing i want to bring up because i totally forgot about it.

so. issue 8 of injustice 2.  

if we’re going with the idea of the reordered robin theory, which is what makes the most sense to me considering jason’s age and the friction between bruce and damian, this before jason dies. and if i’m wrong and the robins don’t have a different order, then this is before some enormous event that broke the slowly building trust.

there’s none of the undercurrent of hostility and distrust that shows up in year 0, which is immediately before year 1. we’re not given a timeframe for when this occurs, either, it’s just happier times.

but what’s really hard to ignore is that the dynamic between bruce and damian is completely different here. maybe tom taylor’s just settled more into writing the two of them, but i don’t think so. year zero comes after this. 

he even acknowledges damian’s anger earlier in the chapter. but it’s less of a condemnation of his character and more a concern that he might not be ready to be on his own. alfred is the one advocating for caution, asking if he’s ready, bruce is the one saying yes, he is.

it’s a complete reversal.

and his trust is rewarded with a night of damian abandoning the “”mission”” he was given (get home from the furthest point of gotham in three hours) to help everyone along the way. which was the real goal all along, it was a test to see if damian’s compassion would win out over his want to win. and it does. bruce is proud of him.

so... what happened between them? what caused that shift? 

i’m kind of worried we’re never going to know. like, i’m so glad that tom taylor is dc’s new golden boy and they’re just letting him build a million different aus. i buy every book he writes. 

but also i’m dying because IJ2 was clearly planned to go on a lot longer than it did and i have questions that i know netherrealm doesn’t care about answering.

[foxydivaxx]

The Robins Chapter 1

Ok now I remembered that I promised to post this on here. Anyways, onto the story. I have once again edited stuff. Now what would this remind you guys of? Also FYI: This is not a Robin bashing story. It is an AU story where the boys were once a band and disbanded because of drama. I am saying this because of a certain someone on here.

Once upon a time, there used to be a band that shone so bright that not only were they the envy of millions, they also paved the way for other younger stars to follow though their light still shone the brightest. They were known as the Robins. The group’s journey began when a sextet of brothers from Gotham city auditioned for famous music mogul Oswald Cobblepot.

Legend has it that Cobblepot who was a friend to Grayson’s father Bruce Wayne visited Wayne Manor one day and overheard Grayson and his five younger adoptive brothers singing from upstairs. Impressed, he signed them up on the spot.

The boys were the first group to debut under what was known as Project Titans, a project to create highly successful idols and they were tasked to sell at least 100,000 copies of their first single. They not only sold up to said amount, they broke the record by selling times five of the amount.

Thanks to the hardwork of these boys, the idol phenomenon was born and soon paved the way for other Titans to follow.

They broke every record known to man, sold albums and sold out shows and won every single award. They were living the dream life many wish they had. But sadly that dream came to a crashing halt after a series of setbacks and tragedies and internal struggles. The final nail on the coffin came about on when on 6th July 2010, Terry McGinnis, the youngest member of the band released the folowing statement via his Instagram page:

   The world came to a standstill once they saw this. Millions of hearts were broken worldwide and many more were outraged, demanding answers to this situation. The thing that even shocked others was the fact that it was Terry that made the announcement and not Dick their leader but then again, considering the fact that said boy went under the radar as of late and that the others started promoting without him recently and even threw not so nice jabs at their brother who chose to remain silent, one shouldn’t be surprised. 

Rumours have been swirling about some drama within the group for years though the boys have each denied it. But now, it seems more and more obvious that the boys had been slowly drifting apart.

In fact many suspected that Dick may have either been kicked out of the group or chose to walk out due to a public argument between Dick and Jason that the paparazzi caught on camera last year. The other members soon followed with statements of their own on various social media outlets, all except Dick of course.

But their responses, whilst confirmation of the news came across as a bit well...subpar as one would expect them to all individually address the fans. But considering the fact that Tim was on set for his latest movie the night of the announcement, Damian was with a relative in Morocco and Jason had been having health issues, many fans gave them the slide. In fact one could argue that it was the current management which is presently not run by Cobblepot who had since resigned as CEO of the label around the time of the Barbies and Bad Boys Club’s departure that posted on their behalf.

   Many remembered Leviathan’s statement on Dick’s  status and soon fans, various media outlets soon turned into detectives and began to dig into the surface to figure out what was going on. 

Someone under the username wingxx1 who is actually Alfred Pennyworth, the Wayne family butler in disguise posted on a Robins fan forum about Dick’s situation. 

Guys I am someone that knows the Robins very well and I was as concerned as you guys were about Dick so I spoke to Dick, the other Robins and other related parties and discovered that there was a terrible argument with all the Robins over Dick outselling his brothers during their special solo album project and thus got more promotion than the others and released two more albums. Ironically the other Robins also released some solo albums of their own too. As a result, the remaining Robins chose to kick Dick off the Team and have since been continuing without him. I was angered by this and felt that it was appropriate to share this news with all of you.

Almost immediately, this causes an uproar all over social media. Fans went to the other Robins accounts and began to bombard and throw hate at them.  Soon the hashtag #JusticeForDick and #RobinsOverParty start trending as a result.

The other Robins watch the fallout in shock. “Wow...” says Jason. “Told you guys didn’t I? Getting rid of Dick would do us no favours. Sure he overshadows us but what’s a band without the very face that made it famous in the first place!!” says Terry.

“Yeah but we cannot take it back now.“ says Damian with a sigh. “I am sure they will get over it.” says Terry.

“I highly doubt it.” The boys all froze in their tracks as a certain someone makes his presence known. 

“B-Bruce?” says Jason whilst the others gulped. If there was someone that was greatly unhappy on the way things turned out, it would be Bruce and for good reason. Afterall he is their dad. 

“I hope your kids are happy with the mess you have created because there is absolutely no way you guys would be able to recover from this. Besides, I have decided not to interfere in your business anymore after you sent me that scathing letter telling me not to get involved in your lives and basically firing me as your manager simply because I actually told you guys the truth about your terrible actions. Anyway, I do not have anything left to say to you boys other than to wish you luck on your future endeavors.” The future endeavors part came out in a very bitter yet sarcastic way. It is with that that Bruce left the house, leaving his sons stunned. 

Meanwhile, Barbara Gordon was observing the drama online with glee. “Finally those Robins are getting their just desserts.” She then gets up and smirks. “And poor little Dickie is in hiding.” Everyone knows about her and Dick’s breakup now. However most people do not know how said breakup happened. Might as well let the cat out of the bag.

So what do you all think? I am not satisfied with how this turned out tbh. The next chapter which will kick start the story proper takes place in five years later. As for how old the boys are here: Dick is 18, Jason 17, Tim 16, Damian 15 and Terry 14. Now I made a mistake with the previous social media posts so I will change the dates and reupload them again.

[bigskydreaming]

seekingxanadu. tumblr. com/post/188448401716/ Unrelated, this I see sometimes from some D&d stans or Bruce-is-abusive campers, the need to replace Damian's bad punchy dad Bruce with good cuddly dad Dick. What's your dig on that? Like I get the need I have trash dad too, Dick has already done So Much for Dames, B still doesn't fight a whole lot to love his son.. Ignoring Ric completely, even if D was to adopt d, would B/ d allow it? Would T/S/J/C be his uncles n aunts? Is it legal? B's alive 😵

Okay, to preface this, the one thing I would kill for this fandom to have is like……chill when it comes to gooddadBruce/baddadBruce.

Because the thing is, there is no right or wrong answer here because this topic is always going to be deeply personal to pretty much everyone. Who doesn’t have issues with their parents to some degree, y’know? So with Bruce being one of the longest-existing and highest profile dads in comics, period, let alone an adoptive father of a found family anyone and everyone can kinda project themselves onto or imagine themselves a part of to varying degrees…..everyone kinda looks for different things from him, and his relationships with his family.

So some people just don’t want to deal with canon revolving around Bruce’s worse behaviors or fandom extrapolations of it…..because they came for good dad Bruce. That’s why they’re here. Whether or not they have good or bad relationships with their own parents, for one reason or another, they WANT the good, loving, doting Bruce Wayne who is an exemplary father to his kids, and they don’t want to touch or acknowledge canon that makes him otherwise, and that’s perfectly understandable. Forcing them to interact with abusive Bruce canon or fanon is kinda an asshole move, just because y’know….some people need the example and story of the good dad Bruce.

BUT.

At the same time, the reverse holds true. Some people are here for the rest of the family, not Bruce himself, and project themselves on his kids, and relate to the worse dynamics Bruce has with them, for whatever reason. And that deserves to be respected every bit as much as the former. Its equally an asshole move IMO to INSIST on good dad Bruce being the ‘only true Bruce’ because like it or not, the worse behaviors are canon too, and people are equally valid in acknowledging those for their own reasons, as others are in not wanting to interact with those parts of canon. That last part is key - I think its totally understandable and fair for people to not want to INTERACT with the parts of canon that have him being abusive…..but that is not the same thing as just flat out denying those parts exist and are valid for people to write about, or insisting that anyone who does so is just looking to bash or smear Bruce’s character.

Like, I get being defensive of a character, obviously. I get it in a BIG way….but there’s a way to do that without trampling over legitimate issues that people have with a character, even if they stem from writing that you yourself don’t particularly care to acknowledge. 

Because the thing that drives me up the wall on this subject is not people having radically opposite views of Bruce - because I get WHY people adhere to those radically opposite takes. No, the thing that drives me up a wall is when in order to adhere to their take, people engage in abuse apologism or kinda trample all over people who are just trying to work out their own issues with parental abuse via these characters as proxies.

For a fandom that talks as much about respecting peoples’ rights to write dark sexual fic as a coping mechanism, there’s a HUGE lack of respect for peoples’ right to write Bruce being abusive as a means to cope with and work through their own history with abusive parents. 

And that bugs. A SHIT TON.

And abuse apologism takes a ton of forms. Sometimes overt, sometimes not. Like, I’m all for people wanting good dad Bruce, like I said….and am more than willing to respect when they just don’t want to interact with something like Bruce punching one of his kids……but it becomes something totally different when they DO choose to interact with certain scenes of abusive behavior….and explain away or attempt to mitigate the wrongdoing by Bruce in those scenes. That’s abuse apologism, and its not cool, and I’m always going to call it out when I see it, because a lot of times people don’t even realize that’s what they’re doing and they need to. Abuse apologism is never acceptable IMO, and it always deserves pushing back against.

BUT then there are less overt forms of it too. And one of the biggest ‘subtle’ form of abuse apologism, and thus one of the more insidious, is blame shifting. And this is why you see me constantly harping on things like Spyral and also the Dick and Jason dynamic pre-A Death In the Family. 

Because see, Bruce was abusive to Dick in getting him to go undercover at Spyral. Plain and simple. And if people want to never write about that storyline or Forever Evil at all because of how Bruce was written there, I get that. The problem becomes when people DO still want to write about Spyral, DO still want to talk about Dick’s death and undercover operation AND his siblings being left in the dark (which only happened on Bruce’s insistence DESPITE Dick’s clear and active resistance to this idea)…..and DO still want to write about the cold reception Dick got from his family when he returned.

All without ever mentioning Bruce’s role in any of this, even though he had the DEFINITIVE role in this….because there’s no excusing his behavior, and people are aware of this….so they choose just not to acknowledge it, even mention it….WHILE still writing and touching on all the canon fallout that Dick was faced with….DUE to Bruce’s actions.

And this is blame-shifting. And it is a form of abuse apologism, because it basically shoves all of Bruce’s abuse under the carpet while Dick is left holding the bag that BRUCE should be stuck with…..and never will be, as long as his abusive actions aren’t acknowledged and addressed.

Basically, nobody in the story or the comments is even talking about Bruce and what he did….because everyone is busy focusing on what Dick supposedly did, and his role.

And as I’ve mentioned before….it doesn’t have to be this way. People can still write about Spyral AND avoid interacting with Bruce’s shitty writing in all that…..just….don’t shift the blame. Take out the parts where the rest of Dick’s family is left in the dark, just include a scene or two of him and Bruce bringing them in on the secret before Dick departs undercover without Bruce’s abusive manipulations forcing him into it….and bam, you get to keep most of the same story, you just don’t have to interact with Bruce’s abusive behavior…..you just also have to….not interact with the fallout and blame that was heaped on Dick BECAUSE canon refused to acknowledge Bruce’s abusive behavior either.

And I mention the Jason and Dick dynamic before the former’s death as being a case of this too, because I do believe the extreme EMPHASIS on how shitty Dick supposedly was to Jason back then, is unconsciously or not, an attempt at blame-shifting. Its one thing if people wanted to write that take here and there as a genuine attempt to explore the idea of ‘what if’ Dick had resented Jason instead of just resenting Bruce’s actions there, and taken it out on Jason, and that resulted in a strained relationship between the two brothers. Even though we never really saw anything like that happen in canon beyond like, the first two pages Dick and Jason ever interacted, where Dick actually made peace with him and gave him his blessing by the end of that very issue. Again, like, people have their own reasons for exploring different family dynamics, and maybe someone wants to work out their issues with a strained sibling relationship via Dick and Jason. That’s valid.

But the extreme insistence on that specific take on Dick and Jason back then, throughout almost all of fandom, for years and years on end, without any canon backing any of that up AND all of that at the same time that the REASONS for Dick’s resentment and strained relationship with Bruce are barely even acknowledged in these same stories…….that’s when it starts to look a lot like abuse apologism to me instead.

Because its like the Spyral thing. Blame-shifting shifts focus. Nobody’s gonna be talking about the shitty things Bruce did to Dick in all of that, that someone who adheres to a ‘good dad Bruce’ take doesn’t want to interact with or address…..when everybody is busy focusing on the shitty things Dick supposedly did to Jason in this fanon take instead. See? 

And voila, Bruce taking away Robin from Dick, giving it to Jason without even asking Dick or acknowledging what it meant to him, adopting Jason even while Dick remained estranged and at arm’s length and with Bruce making no attempt to close that gap or take any initiative there….all of that conveniently gets swept under the rug, because all of that is sympathetic to Dick, and nobody’s really looking to be sympathetic to Dick when they’re busy examining how Dick wasn’t sympathetic to Jason’s situation in all of that. 

To be fair, you can split hairs and argue about my use of abuse apologism here as Bruce’s actions at that point aren’t as definitively abusive as moments like where he punches one of his kids, though I still argue he was at least emotionally abusive at that point in time. But I maintain its still all the same basic mindset and approach to keeping Bruce in the good dad camp, and thus I include it here. 

Perhaps a better example would be when people acknowledge the distance between Bruce and Dick after Jason’s death, and how and why Tim had to be the one to ask Dick to come back…..but never addressing the fact that in canon, Dick DID come back after Jason’s death, despite the fact that things were still very tense and strained between them even just before that happened….and Dick DID take the initiative in reaching out to Bruce and closing that gap between them so they could be there for each other, grieve together….and the only reason he was so distant and removed when Tim sought him out was because Bruce was literally abusive in response to Dick reaching out….he blamed Dick for Jason’s death, punched him and kicked him out. THAT was why Dick was a city away while Bruce was enacting a slow-burning deathwish in Gotham…because Dick had already TRIED being there and Bruce threw it in his face in a definitively abusive way that Dick had every right and justification in retreating from…..

So again….it becomes a kind of blame-shifting when you elevate Dick as being equally responsible for the distance between them at that point, that Tim bridged…..while refusing to acknowledge WHY that distance existed, and that Tim’s bridge wouldn’t have been needed if Bruce had just accepted Dick’s attempt at peace between them when he came to mourn Jason with him, instead of responding with abuse.

And this is my big gripe with fandom on the good dad Bruce vs bad dad Bruce score, and always will be….the various forms of abuse apologism it concocts to avoid ACKNOWLEDGING Bruce’s abusive moments in canon rather than just saying “I don’t wish to interact with this because its not what I’m here for, its not what I look for in stories about Bruce and his family.” Especially when this is further alienating to people just trying to examine the abusive dynamics for their own personal reasons, as people assume or insist that they’re really just attempting to smear or bash Bruce or diminish other peoples’ liking of his character.

Because again, like with Spyral….none of the blame-shifting is necessary, if the only true aim is just to avoid interacting with abusive Bruce canon, and adhere to the good dad take on him. 

Apologies to @goldkirk for bringing them into a post they might not want to be connected to, and I’ll happily edit out if requested, but I bring them up purely because I think they’re an excellent example of an ideal way to handle this…..their Tim-centric series on Ao3 involves Dick as Nightwing and Jason as Robin still, is set firmly in that time period…..and yet handily avoids interacting with any of the negative writing around Bruce at that period and writing him as a pretty exemplary dad…..BUT AT THE SAME TIME…..feels no need to shift that blame anywhere else, in an attempt to sweep all that under the rug. Bruce, Dick and Jason have a great relationship in that series. There’s no need to point the finger at anyone, because in that series’ canon, nothing blame-worthy ever happened on ANY side. There’s no conflict between Dick and Jason because there’s no NEED for conflict between them, to distract from conflict between Bruce and Dick….because none of that exists either. Its all just….snipped out of the tapestry, and it works, because THERE’S NO REASON FOR IT NOT TO.

And it really is that simple. But people make it a lot more complicated than that, and that’s where abuse apologism creeps in, and when a lot of the people writing and reading bad dad Bruce stories and headcanons are only doing so not because they want to hate Bruce and hate on him, but because they’re trying to legitimately explore and work out various feelings about abusive parent/child relationships……seeing constant abuse apologism paired with script-flipping that puts them on the defensive as they’re kinda grouped together as just ‘not getting the real Bruce/Batman’ or ‘just wanting to bash his character’……like….yeah. That’s gonna result in divisiveness.

And now, bringing it back to your actual question…….the point of all this is I imagine my answer probably isn’t the one you’re looking for personally. The thing is, I write a lot of extremely critical stuff about Bruce…..but that doesn’t mean I actually want a cutting of ties between him and his kids, or Dick adopting Damian because its better for Damian than being with Bruce. That take is valid, for people who want to explore it for whatever reason. Its not the take I want though, and that’s not to say its right or wrong, or I’m right or wrong for that….its just….personal. I view a lot of Bruce’s actions and behaviors as abusive, and think his kids deserve better…..but I focus on all of that because I want Bruce to BE better for them. To BE what they deserve. I want to examine and explore how he can get from some of the shitty things he’s done to them, to a place where he learns and grows and apologizes and DOES BETTER.

Like, my TMI self has not been shy about the fact that yeah, I grew up in an abusive and neglectful family and I did cut ties with them, like….well years ago, now, at this point. And I’ll never get closure for that because its not really….closure. Its just a choice I made to protect myself when I realized nothing was ever going to change, but it was never what I WANTED, it was just….the end result of a lack of other options. Of better options.

With fiction, with the Batfamily…..I can take a story that’s somewhat similar to mine, and give it a different ending. The ending I wanted, but could never get, because ultimately I only had control over my own actions and choices. With fiction, I can control the actions and choices of a character I relate to as a proxy, like Dick…AND those of Bruce, the ‘problem element’ in their relationship. I can write him seeing his actions as abusive, acknowledging this, addressing this, GROWING, putting in the work on himself, his own actions and mindsets, and dedicating himself to being the parent his kids deserve, the parent they want him to be….because they don’t actually WANT to cut ties with him. 

I can see how that story unfolds instead, of course….but its a story that unfolds only when Dick thinks there’s no other options left for giving Damian the childhood he deserves. Its a story worth telling, certainly….its just not the story I want to tell. And there’s no right or wrong there, its just a matter of shaping the story to be what you need it to be, to give you the ending you need to read or write or imagine.

So that’s my big long spiel that’s been a long time coming, about my over-all stance on good dad Bruce or bad dad Bruce, and what it takes to give his kids like Dick and Damian, the happy ending they deserve. *Shrugs* It just comes down to your personal preference, as to the form that happy ending takes, and just….finding a path to it. For me, I can’t really headcanon the direction your ask takes, because its not the happy ending I’m looking for, for them. 

Doesn’t make the Dick adopts Damian and they go live elsewhere while Jason and Tim and Cass are Damian’s aunt and uncles slash siblings and its messy and weird but it works…..like, it doesn’t make that happy ending invalid or impossible, or even unlikely. 

Its just I have specific things that draw me to this family, personally, and the ending I’m looking for and need is the one where Bruce owns up to his worst canon behaviors and puts his kids first and dedicates himself to becoming the father they deserve with the same drive he used to make himself one of the premiere superheroes on a planet populated by superhumans and gods.

But to get there, the actual abuse needs to be acknowledged, ADMITTED TO, and addressed. There’s no hop, skip and a jump straight to the magical land of good dad Bruce, for me personally, because that would defeat the point, be contrary to what I’m looking for. But acknowledging and even focusing on the abuse doesn’t mean that I’m looking for an UNHAPPY ending for Bruce, or a parting of the ways between him and his kids…….bottom line, its all messy, and complicated and nuanced and PERSONAL…..and that is what I desperately wish for this fandom to get on board with.

There is no good dad Bruce and no bad dad Bruce, because there’s just Bruce, the fictional character who does what he’s written to do, for whatever reasons his writers write him doing those things. And people aren’t doing it wrong by focusing on the opposite camp of whichever one we fall into personally…..its just that what’s right for us isn’t necessarily right for them, and vice versa.

AND THAT’S OKAY.

Just as long as people….like….LET it be okay, and just find ways to be okay with it.

Anyway, lol, that’s my take on all of that, which at least was part of your ask, soooooooo…..enjoy the rest of the spaghetti I threw at this wall here, I guess? LOL.

[bigskydreaming]

Why does nobody talk about Tim being sexist in Robin and literally kicking Steph in the stomach in Red Robin? I see so many Ohh but this One thing a poc Robin did that majes them the Worst of the Worst but for him it's silence? I really don't like the fandom's biases, it's very blatantly elitist and racist, willful ignorance isn't easy to hide.

Yeah, I mean, tbh the reason I don’t mention stuff like that is just like....at the end of the day, ALL the issues that are ever raised about these characters essentially just come from writer bias.....they’re inserted into the narrative or a characterization by canon writers who just flat out don’t even realize that what they’re depicting is gross fucking behavior. So its like, never there because it HAS to be, y’know? These characters don’t HAVE to be portrayed these ways. And that’s pretty much WHY I focus so much on the fandom side of things - because none of us have any influence on canon writers and where or when they insert these things into the narrative or fail to recognize the problem....but when it comes to fandom, there is really no excuse for why that stuff can’t be pointed out and acknowledged for the problem that it is.

And for my part, like, I’m just so focused on pointing out where the fandom narrative has become extremely skewed in regards to Dick because....it really is just all the double standards and hypocrisy that bug me, you know? I honestly do not need Dick to be everyone’s favorite character, or hailed as the best Robin, or anything, I just like....want people to stop writing him as this petty resentful asshole just because they think oh we need to give him flaws to make him more real when like, I honestly can not for the life of me think of another character I ever hear people saying “we need to GIVE him flaws to make him more real” y’know? 

The guy has existed for 80 years, he’s got enough material to be REAL, you’re not giving him flaws or overemphasizing his flaws because he’s just two dimensional without them, like, there’s just no material to write him as a well-rounded character without that....you’re just doing it because you WANT to. Like, that’s all it comes down to, its that simple, but so many people just flat out refuse to own that.....and IMO, it so often is BECAUSE of how quickly we tend to default to using comparisons as our basis for judging how ‘good’ or not a character is, if that makes sense?

So like, for me, I don’t focus on talking about Tim’s flaws or Jason’s flaws beyond the obvious references like “it drives me batshit how people can view Jason TRYING TO KILL TIM as something Tim more easily can forgive than like....Dick giving the mantle he himself created to Damian in an effort to....keep Bruce’s last son from running back to Murderville, Population Him.”

And that’s purely because.....they’re just not my focus characters, and I don’t really feel a need to go into them in depth the same way I do with Dick, and like....at the end of the day.....pointing out things they do that are worse, don’t actually do anything to improve Dick’s standing, you know? Like, to me, it shouldn’t be about oh Dick is a good character because he’s a better person than Tim, see, he’s never done anything like THAT (cites this or this or that)....that’s just not that productive to me, and more importantly, its one of those there but for the grace of God things, you know? With every character who hasn’t ever done something another character has, its usually just....honestly a matter of luck that they never got saddled with a writer who thought “oh this character doing this horrible thing to that one is a brilliant idea, lol,” quoth a dumbfuck who wouldn’t know good characterization if it kicked him in the face.

Again like, I’ll make a big deal about blatant double standards, like....I rant endlessly about making Dick punch Jason or Tim in fic or having Jason or Tim or Bruce punch Dick in fics without it being seen as a big deal, because.....Dick’s been punched in canon by all those characters without it being seen as a big deal and never done the same in return, so that’s a HUGE, glaring double standard where its like “why do so many of you think its cool to paint the one guy who actually RECEIVES this kind of treatment like...flipped entirely around to be the perpetrator”....like, that I’ll never stop being pissed about because its like....a direct one to one comparison, y’know? Its two almost parallel examples of mostly the same situation, so its pretty clear cut when people are regarding one as ‘nothing to be upset about’ and the other as ‘we must write him doing this all the time and never fail to crucify him for it in the comments as though like, this is just who he is.”

And with things like times Bruce has been abusive in canon, I don’t overlook or ignore those and focus on them a lot because like....they happened, I’m not focused on them as a way to make Bruce look bad, I’m focused on them because they HAPPENED, period, and I want to explore that for personal reasons that relate to why I project onto Dick Grayson so much.

But beyond that, when it reaches the point of like.....’people shouldn’t claim Dick is terrible for doing stuff like this, when Tim is over HERE doing stuff like THIS”......that’s when I kinda bow out and circle back around to focusing on more direct comparisons, you know? Because those just feel more productive. At the end of the day ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are pretty subjective (I mean, obviously not talking about the difference between hey this character is genocidal and this character is not), and given how interpretative comics are in general, and how many writers most characters go through....like, ultimately there’s just no real ‘ground’ to be gained by arguing that certain characters are ‘just as bad’ or ‘even worse’ than others, IMO. If that makes sense?

So since I’m not really just...trying to yell just for the sake of yelling and I really do want at least some people to kinda....hopefully end up more aware of stuff like “hey yeah, it IS weird that we’re always talking about Dick’s temper tantrums when its usually everyone AROUND him that’s breaking shit when they’re mad”....aka, that thing where the EXACT SPECIFIC thing held against Dick is actually way more commonly perpetrated by characters nobody blinks twice at for doing that stuff......like, that’s kinda where I start and stop my focus. Specific, done in one examples that are directly comparable to an equivalent thing in another characters’ narratives or trends in how they’re perceived or treated by fandom.

The wider net, while I don’t fault others for being annoyed that fandom so completely glosses over pretty sizable displays of poor behavior in certain other characters, like.....its just not for me, personally.

[foxydivaxx]

Dick and the Robins Chapter 1

Ok now I remembered that I promised to post this on here. Anyways, onto the story. I have once again edited stuff. Now what would this remind you guys of?

Once upon a time, there used to be a band that shone so bright that not only were they the envy of millions, they also paved the way for other younger stars to follow though their light still shone the brightest. They were known as the Robins. The group’s journey began when a sextet of brothers from Gotham city auditioned for famous music mogul Oswald Cobblepot.

Legend has it that Cobblepot who was a friend to Grayson’s father Bruce Wayne visited Wayne Manor one day and overheard Grayson and his five younger adoptive brothers singing from upstairs. Impressed, he signed them up on the spot.

The boys were the first group to debut under what was known as Project Titans, a project to create highly successful idols and they were tasked to sell at least 100,000 copies of their first single. They not only sold up to said amount, they broke the record by selling times five of the amount.

Thanks to the hardwork of these boys, the idol phenomenon was born and soon paved the way for other Titans to follow.

They broke every record known to man, sold albums and sold out shows and won every single award. They were living the dream life many wish they had. But sadly that dream came to a crashing halt after a series of setbacks and tragedies and internal struggles. The final nail on the coffin came about on when on 6th July 2010, Terry McGinnis, the youngest member of the band released the folowing statement via his Instagram page:

The world came to a standstill once they saw this. Millions of hearts were broken worldwide and many more were outraged, demanding answers to this situation. The thing that even shocked others was the fact that it was Terry that made the announcement and not Dick their leader but then again, considering the fact that said boy went under the radar as of late and that the others started promoting without him recently and even threw not so nice jabs at their brother who chose to remain silent, one shouldn’t be surprised. 

Rumours have been swirling about some drama within the group for years though the boys have each denied it. But now, it seems more and more obvious that the boys had been slowly drifting apart.

In fact many suspected that Dick may have either been kicked out of the group or chose to walk out due to a public argument between Dick and Jason that the paparazzi caught on camera last year. The other members soon followed with statements of their own on various social media outlets, all except Dick of course.

But their responses, whilst confirmation of the news came across as a bit well...subpar as one would expect them to all individually address the fans. But considering the fact that Tim was on set for his latest movie the night of the announcement, Damian was with a relative in Morocco and Jason had been having health issues, many fans gave them the slide. In fact one could argue that it was the current management which is presently not run by Cobblepot who had since resigned as CEO of the label around the time of the Barbies and Bad Boys Club’s departure that posted on their behalf.

Many remembered Leviathan’s statement on Dick’s  status and soon fans, various media outlets and other celebs soon turned into detectives and began to dig into the surface to figure out what was going on. 

Someone under the username wingxx1 who is actually Alfred Pennyworth, the Wayne family butler in disguise posted on a Robins fan forum about Dick’s situation. 

Guys I am someone that knows the Robins very well and I was as concerned as you guys were about Dick so I spoke to Dick, the other Robins and other related parties and discovered that there was a terrible argument with all the Robins over Dick outselling his brothers during their special solo album project and thus got more promotion than the others and released two more albums. Ironically the other Robins also released some solo albums of their own too. As a result, the remaining Robins chose to kick Dick off the Team and have since been continuing without him. I was angered by this and felt that it was appropriate to share this news with all of you.

Almost immediately, this causes an uproar all over social media. Fans went to the other Robins accounts and began to bombard and throw hate at them.  Soon the hashtag #JusticeForDick and #RobinsOverParty start trending as a result.

The other Robins watch the fallout in shock. “Wow...” says Jason. “Told you guys didn’t I? Getting rid of Dick would do us no favours. Sure he overshadows us but what’s a band without the very face that made it famous in the first place!!” says Terry.

“Yeah but we cannot take it back now.“ says Damian with a sigh. “I am sure they will get over it.” says Terry.

“I highly doubt it.” The boys all froze in their tracks as a certain someone makes his presence known. 

“B-Bruce?” says Jason whilst the others gulped. If there was someone that was greatly unhappy on the way things turned out, it would be Bruce and for good reason. Afterall he is their dad. 

“I hope your kids are happy with the mess you have created because there is absolutely no way you guys would be able to recover from this. Besides, I have decided not to interfere in your business anymore after you sent me that scathing letter telling me not to get involved in your lives and basically firing me as your manager simply because I actually told you guys the truth about your terrible actions. Anyway, I do not have anything left to say to you boys other than to wish you luck on your future endeavors. Good thing I kicked you brats out of the Manor.” The future endeavors part came out in a very bitter yet sarcastic way. It is with that that Bruce left the house, leaving his sons stunned. 

Meanwhile, Barbara Gordon was observing the drama online with glee. “Finally those Robins are getting their just desserts.” She then gets up and smirks. “And poor little Dickie is in hiding.” Everyone knows about her and Dick’s breakup now. However most people do not know how said breakup happened. Might as well let the cat out of the bag.

So what do you all think? I am not satisfied with how this turned out tbh. The next chapter which will kick start the story proper takes place in five years later. As for how old the boys are here: Dick is 18, Jason 17, Tim 16, Damian 15 and Terry 14. Now I made a mistake with the previous social media posts so I will change the dates and reupload them again.