#don't think I really like what DC's been going for since the new 52 tbh even though I was 8 when that happened

[gerryrigged]

wait wdym dc didn't stick with Red Robin for Tim [and the de-aging thing?] what are they calling him if not RR?

He's been Robin again since 2019 😬 it's a bit more complicated but that's the gist of it.

Okay so Tim became Red Robin in the 2009-2011 series of the same name, back in the post-Crisis timeline. He was supposedly 17 at the time, by official records, and I believe he was still supposed to be 17 when the universe was rebooted with Flashpoint in 2011? (Although this doesn't really make any sense with respect to jamming the huge number of events that happened while he was Robin into like four years, if he was supposed to have become Robin at 13; he should probably at least be 18 if not 19-20).

The Flashpoint reboot took us into the New 52 (much beloathed), where nearly everyone was de-aged to some extent to keep Bruce Wayne and his generation from getting ~too old~, and also Tim Drake was mangled into a completely different character who had never been "Robin"; he'd been "Red Robin" right from the start of his vigilante career. He was de-aged to 16 for the New 52 Teen Titans series.

Teen Titans (2011) #0; as you can see, this version of Red Robin kept a version of the bandoliers and gave Tim a fancy new functional wing cape that he could fly around with.

Next, Rebirth in 2016 was a partial reboot that brought back some aspects of the post-Crisis timeline; tbh I'm not an expert on this period. What I do know is that Tim mainly appears in James Tynion IV's run of Detective Comics that ran from 2016 to 2018. During this period Tim was still called Red Robin, but he'd basically reverted to a Robin costume, with only the silly doubled "RR" symbol identifying him as not ~actually~ Robin winkwink nudgenudge, and as I understand it he was mostly back to functioning as Bruce's partner.

Tynion's run ends in Detective Comics #981 with Tim telling Bruce that he's going off to Ivy University. (He's totally lying, as Tim Drake does; Alfred notices that his tracker is going off in the opposite direction of the university, but Bruce is like "I trust him" and turns the tracker off. Yay, I guess?)

Anyway the important bit is this revealing that Tim is 'going-off-to-college' age. Which could still reasonably be anywhere from 17-19, and DC being DC, they ~refuse to confirm~

Tim as Red Robin on the cover of Detective Comics #934 (2016); as you can see, he's pretty much Robin again lol

Detective Comics #968 (2018); another shot of his "basically Robin" Red Robin costume

In 2019 we got the actual return of Tim as Robin (no "Red") in Brian Michael Bendis's Young Justice run, re-uniting the Core Four from YJ 1998.

Young Justice (2019) #1

As you can see, he no longer has the doubled 'RR', and he confirms that he's Robin - "Well, one of them!" I think he's supposed to be filling in as the Gotham Robin while Damian is running around the world having adventures and presumably getting into trouble, as Robins do? idk.

Tim also chases down his erased post-Crisis past at the beginning of this arc, having Zatanna magically restore (most of) his memories of the previous timeline, and, crucially, his forgotten best friend Kon, kickstarting some plot.

Tim, and all of the Young Justice crew, are notably young-looking for almost the entirety of this run. It varies based on the artist, but uh, yeah for the most part they are really damn baby-faced. This is a trend that continues with Tim and his generation of friends from this point onward, so fans have basically thrown up their hands like "is he 17 forever???? is he Edward Cullen from Twilight???? is he aging backward????"

We Just Don't Know

In any case, Bendis makes DC's next attempt to give Tim his own identity in short order, giving us the hilarious, ill-fated, and rightfully short-lived "Drake" identity.

Young Justice (2019) #10

He's back to being Robin by issue #18, hilariously switching costumes from one page to the next, although some time has apparently passed during the scene transition.

Young Justice (2019) #18; Jinny: "Is Drake back to being Robin?" Kon: "I think Batman and Spoiler made him go back to Robin. Don't bring it up. And say thank you because we didn't have to have the Drake intervention we were planning."

And as of the current date (July 13, 2023), Tim is still in the Robin identity, sharing it with Damian ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ God knows how old he's supposed to be right now. I certainly don't.

Batman (2016) #136; the most recent issue out to date, with Tim suiting up as Robin while filling Bruce in after diving into a bunch of parallel dimensions to bring Bruce home.

As you can see, it's a Mess. The Tim Drake's Vigilante Identity question is of course a hotbed of wank and infighting, as people are torn between (a) wanting him to continue as Robin and (b) wanting him to move on and "grow up" into his own identity again (and, importantly, leave Damian as the sole Robin again, lol).

It feels like most people are for option (b), but then nobody can agree on what his next identity and costume should be. Red Robin again?? Some other bird-based identity that doesn't share a name with a major restaurant chain?? Something else entirely??

God only knows what DC is going to come up with, especially after the Drake fiasco.

And there you have it, Anon! Hope that was helpful.

[incoherentbabblings]

Hellllooooooooo! :D Can I ask, are you writing anything at the moment? You said you have stuff for the new year?

Hi! I am indeed planning stuff at the moment. There are currently three wips I have on the shelf. All of them are meaty things, so they'll take a while to get through.

The first is a collab with @thatblondeperson. We've been trying to get one written together since April, so we're finally both got the time to get going and planning. We've been planning for a month solid. We're still planning tbh. So news for that will be next month, but I'm looking forward to sharing it. It's an au which I don't think many - of any - people have thought about. A story about parenting and abuse and finding your little corner of happiness.

In the new year there are two I want to do. The first will be looking at that road trip Tim and Steph took after the Rebirth Detective Comics run, because golly a lot happened to them in a short amount of time and I want to give them space to talk about it and - as I've mentioned many times before - I like their New 52/Rebirth characterisations. Different from before, but I think there's some interesting stuff there. Road trip fics are claustrophobic and emotionally volatile because you literally cannot get away from the other person and Tim and Steph went on one in canon and we know nothing about it what the fuck is up with that DC.

The third is College AU where Tim's parents never died and Steph became Robin instead. It's one where I really want to look and write about Tim's relationship's with his parents and Steph's relationship with the batfam. It would be Tim as a civilian and Steph as the hero and I want to do a love triangle (or two) and I have been watching You on Netflix which should tell you exactly where the third point of the triangle is heading and I want to write about Tim being bi (and Steph if that confirmation is upcoming?) because there's really no environment like uni to explore those parts of yourself.

...Yes. Fics. Planning. Writing.

[bigskydreaming]

Hey, any comic recs to ensure that I get Dick Grayson character right? Other batfam included, if you're willing. I'm trying to make sure I don't write a character completely ooc, because that drives me up the WALL when I read that. However, since I dubbed you the #1 Dick Grayson person, I thought I'd ask you to make sure I do him justice rather than a smear campaign or something lol! Thanks! ALSO TELL ME YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THE TITANS SHOW! That's all xD

LOL thanks I appreciate it, but while I’m good for the rants, for actual comics recs I would go to the likes of @northoftheroad, @hood-ex, and @nightwingmyboi because they’re a lot better than I am at knowing where to find specific stuff and comprehensive reading lists! I tend to jump all over the place in terms of my go-to comics for Dick.....I’m always on about Robin: Year One but I’m like eh Nightwing: Year One is pretty trash tbh. I prefer pre-Flashpoint continuity overall but I did enjoy some of the early Nightwing Rebirth stuff and before that the pre-Forever Evil New 52 stuff had some good beats. But for the most part, my favorite Dick Grayson tends to be him as a member of teams like the Titans....he shines most in ensembles, I think, because his strengths ultimately are that like...he gets people, he knows how people work, and he knows how to get the most out of the people he’s with, how to make people gel and get in sync and become more than just the sum of their parts.

(Speaking of nightwingmyboi, haven’t seen them posting in awhile, anyone know what they’re up to? Hope everything’s okay!)

Which brings me to the problems with the Titans show. There’s a lot I like about it - Anna Diop and Ryan Potter in particular - and a lot I was never gonna like about it - I’m heavy on the Ugh why must Dick Grayson be a cop ever why is that a thing make it stop. And so while I don’t think Brenton Thwaites does like, a bad job with the role or anything, there was always kinda a ceiling on how attached to or invested in his take on the character I was ever gonna reach.

But Season 2. Oof. Let’s talk about Season 2, and how so many of the problems with it are identical to the problems that surround Dick in the comics, but also aren’t limited to just his character or DC and just as equally show up in all kinds of media. Like, I could have (and probably did) offer an identical rant about the role of Scott McCall in TW’s S5.

The problem is one I’ve kinda taken to calling in my head “The Ensemble Lone Wolf Effect.”

This is when writers have a character they nominally want to be part of an ensemble....but that they repeatedly go back to the well of “this character should however spend most of their time on their own, or are more natural on their own, or just wants to be on their own, or also sometimes they just deserve to be on their own cuz they suck for Reasons we decline to specify.”

But its that thing of wanting it both ways....believing a character honestly NEEDS to be a loner or off on their own for the sake of their story, but also still wanting to utilize them as part of an ensemble, not willing to actually MAKE them a solo character, and so it kinda creates this never-ending feedback loop wherein they pay lip service to the character being part of an ensemble, but that’s never really on display, which creates a lot of unnecessary conflict among characters that’s to NONE of their benefits.

(And honestly in the comics, you could apply this to pretty much all the Batfam at times...not just Dick. They do it with Bruce ALL the time, they’re doing it with Damian right now, did it with Tim with Red Robin, Jason most of the time he’s not with the Outlaws and Cass most of the time she’s not with Babs or Steph or the Outsiders. As well as Babs herself at times).

Basically what I’m talking about here is like....so much of the drama in S2....and specifically the parts that most every fan I saw had issues with....came about not organically, because it made sense for the characters to behave that way, but solely in order to launch a specific plot, that the writers clearly wanted for S2:

And that was Dick Grayson off on his own, at his lowest, facing his demons on a solo journey of self-discovery the writers clearly deemed necessary before he could find himself as Nightwing and rise to his most heroic self.

Now the thing is....this isn’t inherently a bad plot or a problem. The problem lies in how they went about it.

Because rather than looking at the overall story and saying okay, that’s what we want to do with Dick Grayson, that’s what we want for HIS story, now how do we get that and where do we take it from there, rather than looking at that as just a STARTING point, and engineering a plot that grows OUT of that.....

The writers just started out by viewing that as an ENDPOINT, and reverse engineered a way to get Dick TO that point first and foremost....at the expense of so many characters who then basically turned on him and held him solely responsible for the things many of them also had a hand in....purely to get him off on his own and isolated.

But that was never necessary!

Because Dick’s character contains multitudes when it comes to guilt and self-blame, everyone knows that. He never needed anyone else to blame him for what happened to Joey because he blamed himself. So the second they conceived of the plot “Slade wants revenge for something Dick at least blames himself for”.....they had all the ingredients needed for Dick to decide proactively that the best way to protect everyone was to put distance between him and them, that he should try and hunt down Slade on his own, solve this between just the two of them.

And that should have been the STARTING point, for that narrative journey of self-exploration, not that journey resulting as an ENDPOINT in and of itself from Dick being FORCED into a kind of isolation by the others all blaming him.

Because now see what ripple effects result:

Now, the other characters are just as able to focus on their own individual storylines as they were in the show, with the additional concern of wanting to ACTUALLY find Dick and figure out what’s going on with him or tell him they still want to help....without this in any way needing to distract them from their own storylines, practically speaking, or cut into Dick’s narrative alone-time, because as part of the equation you ALSO have Slade, who has his own wants and agendas, not to mention tactics. And Slade’s perfectly capable of and willing to work with others, or utilize the long game, or engage in a game of cat and mouse as a distraction...there are numerous ways that you could engineer a plot FROM these motivations that allows him to keep the rest of the Titans distracted and even targeted individually, without allowing them to group back up with Dick or Dick to even know that they’re in danger and that his attempts to avoid that backfired.

You want the characters isolated and divided? The PLOT can do that for you. You don’t need the characters to do that to themselves.

IMO, most if not all stories are meant to advance characters, first and foremost. Take Characters A-Z and leave them different from how you found them. Move them to a different position in their lives as much as anything else, from where they began. The goal is character DEVELOPMENT.

What this means, in my book, is that the plot should serve the characters, NOT the other way around. The plot should grow FROM the characters and what they would or would not do....the characters should never have to be forced to FIT INTO a plot.

That’s backwards.

There shouldn’t be any need to reverse engineer a certain starting point, characterwise.

Just like....start the plot, plotwise....and from the moment you first introduce a single plot element, prioritize how would the characters react and BUILD from there.

The only engineering you should need to do is how to get to an eventual END point....which is still all about the forward momentum, not backing your way into anything.

Its one thing to have an endgoal for your plot, a point in character or narrative development that you want characters to reach. But its all about perspective. About keeping that what you’re working towards rather than something that you like, have to reach before you can even really BEGIN.

Which is what Titans S2 did. The real GOAL of the season in terms of Dick’s storyline, was his solo journey of self-discovery. But there’s a million different ways they could have LAUNCHED that journey, without it having to be the forced and contrived outcome of events and character decisions that literally only existed to initiate a journey that never required a forced initiation.

And so all this narrative energy gets utterly wasted and expended on stuff that it just flat out doesn’t need to be spent on in the first place....instead of just putting that same energy to use building forward-facing storylines for ALL the characters, that don’t require contrived spats of disharmony when the goal of such moments isn’t even the disharmony but rather just that they’re kept apart, the end RESULT of the disharmony.

Imagine what S2 could have built if instead of wasting time, characterization and energy on getting to a point they could have simply started from if they’d simply looked at it that way and chosen to just....start. If they’d applied all that to building across the board, everyone’s story in service to their own character first and foremost, no tangled feedback loops making characters regress or cycle through the same behavior or narrative positionings over and over again in order to not get in each other’s way or cross paths at a time when the show didn’t want them to cross paths....because rather than make all these characters work at cross purposes, they’re all on the same page, they still want the same things....you’re simply engineering from their own natural characterizations and organic decisions and reactions, ways the PLOT can be utilized as a TOOL, to keep them moving forward in their own respective chapters, WITHOUT their characters having to be bent out of their natural shapes or forced into niches that don’t really suit them, just to keep them, PREVENT them, from more naturally or organically making a choice or action that would ‘get in the way’ of the plot.

Bottom line......the plot is supposed to be there to advance the characters, because the characters are what we come to stories for. The characters are who we invest in, relate to, ROOT for.

The characters aren’t there to advance the plot. We’re not here to yell yeah, I really hope the writers do whatever it takes with characters, no matter how backwards or unnatural it seems, just to get that sweet sweet and oh so specific ending we want that is in no way dependent on how invested or not we ACTUALLY are in the characters by the time it arrives, in order for it to actually be effective or not!

Lol. Y’know?

So yeah, that’s my biggest gripe with Titans so far. I’m still eager to see what happens between Kory and her sister, and although I’m not thrilled it seems to be becoming Batfam Straight Outta Gotham rather than like, Titans: The Show, I admit I am curious about what take they’ll go with for Babs. As I still pretty vividly recall that weird as hell Birds of Prey show the CW or UPN or WB or whatever it was at the time did for one season, where Babs was honestly not terribly adapted despite the show otherwise bearing like, zero in common with any existing DC property or character (do not even get me STARTED on their takes on Dinah and Helena, no, blehrrible, those were bad, those were like super bad)....anyway, I’m kinda curious even if it wouldn’t have been my choice for what direction the show should take. Not that I have a specific one in mind, just, yeah. And I also kinda would not hate if we got a new Roy Harper now, to replace the not!Roy of Arrow, because I don’t know him, no seriously, who is that, its not Roy Harper.

[caspianxth]

hi em! again sorry abt the delay in asks haha hopefully i'll be able to send them consistently up til christmas though!! only a couple days left!! i read comics for a bit a year or two ago but kind of fell off haha. i read a couple batman stories and enjoyed them well enough, i just got a little distracted after a while and dropped it, do you have any recs? also great taylor lyric choices, she really is the greatest so i understand it's hard to pick!! also i've gotten many friends into her by sheer persistence so it can be done!! just keep being annoying!! some more random qs: what's your favorite color? favorite book? -🍒

hello!!! it's ok!!! I hope that things are calmer and that you can truly enjoy the holiday season!! I was way better at reading comic books in high school but I kinda fell off it too. but there's a couple I want to get like dark knights of steel, it's the dc heroes but in medieval times! seems fun! I haven't read it yet so I can't say for sure if it is but nico showed me smth from it and 👀. I also want to start reading the new wonder girl and wonder woman, yara flor and nubia seem fun too. I would say my biggest recommendations would be: batman hush (batman, 2 volumes) and blackest night (green lantern, 1 volume but like, all the justice league heroes of that time are in it). I didn't like brightest day as much (the epilogue to blackest night). also if paul dini wrote smth I am generally interested, he wrote my favorite episode of batman the animated series (heart of ice) with mr. freeze that I think about a lot. he had so much depth for a villain on a 22 minute show and batman beat him with a thermos of soup. I also liked the new 52 runs of the flash, green arrow, and wonder woman, but I only got to volume like 6 or 7 for them. as u can likely tell it's been a while since I got any bc new 52 was like 2011-2016 sjgjsldjgskakfjsxk

favorite color: tie between pastel pink, lavender, and pastel blue. pastel bi flag essentially!!

favorite book: you'll never believe what happened to lacey. I love amber ruffin she's so funny so I was so interested in reading her book and some of the shit that happened to her sister is absolutely *disgusting* and fucked up but she and her sister really are so funny in recounting it.

tbh I don't read a ton anymore because I like to write (mostly fanfics) in my free time (I probably have a modest 15 different works in progress, most all are titans fics, a couple works are original stories tho) so I mostly reread what I write bc I'm continually editing and reworking things. my longest work rn is a titans fic that has 24,341 words in the 'main' story then there's one part that I'm reworking that only has 2290 words bc it's being redone and has to get put back into the main story, then I have a big work of 'this will go somewhere in the main story idk where yet but I had this idea' doc that has 13,923 words so total my biggest work has 40,554 words as of today! I don't post my writings anywhere at least rn I don't, I mostly just do them for my own entertainment. mayhaps when I know who u are I can send u a part on discord if u wanted to read it (don't feel obligated btw, like only two people have laid eyes on a single part of a fic I've written, I really just do them for me. also dw there's nothing nsfw in anything I write bc I am not good at writing that stuff so I don't). I struggle with like, descriptions of shit so I want to work on that, a lot of my works are dialogue based esp with fanfic so that's a goal with my writing. I don't wanna drone on for pages like f. scott fitzgerald but a little more description would help things prolly. I say as I drone on for this ask lmaooo

[bigskydreaming]

Do you shipp bats and superman? Or bruce and selina or you don't ship bruce with anyone?

Tbh, I don’t have strong preferences on the matter of Bruce’s ships. Its not a matter of disliking them usually, so much as just not being super hardcore one way or another lol.

I would say probably my go-to is Bruce/Selina, just because I love Selina and there’s that opposites attract element to them that can be hard to make work, but when it works, ugh, it just WORKS, y’know?

I do ship Bruce and Clark for similar reasons, though this is actually more of a recent thing, honestly.....back before I first left DC fandom the first time around, probably around 2012-2013, I definitely would not have called myself a Superbat shipper at all, but that didn’t really have anything to do with not seeing their potential or not liking the characters together. It was more just a byproduct of like.....back then, I didn’t really like how Bruce and Clark tended to be written together? 

Like, a lot of that was probably due to the tendency there sometimes is with slash ships to not really write just two male characters from some show or comic and put them in a relationship together, but rather to just kinda take two characters and write them in such a way that they feel like this kinda generic cookie cutter relationship that has more to do with going down a checklist of characteristics/specific moments/themes/etc than it does with who those characters are and what they’re like normally.

But for whatever reason, since I started getting back into DC fandom stuff last year, I’ve found a lot more Superbat fics that are a lot more to my liking, or that just FEEL more like Bruce and Clark in a relationship rather than coming across as two characters who have little in common with them and just happen to share the same names. I honestly have no idea what’s changed in the time since I was last in fandom til rejoining it, at least in regards to this specific ship and how its written, or just as equally likely, something changed about my perspective between then and now that made me read it differently or be more open to it than I was in the past. *Shrugs* Who knows. So again, its like Bruce/Selina, I’m not opposed to it at all, have enjoyed several, but I just don’t tend to ship Bruce the same way or to the degree I have ships I’m more invested in, for most of his kids.

My one big caveat with Bruce and Clark is that like, its GOT to be respectful of Lois, she still should have a presence in Clark’s life and not have been just...erased or overlooked or killed off or just sacrificed on the altar of Superbat to make room for them to get together, y’know? Like I don’t have a particular preference here, like, they could have previously discovered they just prefer being platonic soulmates and just have a super strong friendship that’s not threatened or replaced or lessened by what Clark comes to have with Bruce later, they could have previously been married and are amicably divorced now for whatever reason and still successfully co-parent Jon now, who splits his time between living with his Dad and Bruce and step-siblings at Wayne Manor, and then the rest of his time with his mom and her new girlfriend or wife Diana, perhaps...whatever. Not picky on the particulars, I just need Lois to still be important to Clark rather than treated as though an obstacle in the way of Superbat’s true love.

As far as other ships go......I never got on board with Bruce/Diana even though they do at times have great chemistry.....I’ve just never seen that really successfully resulting in an actual relationship....unless Clark is involved as kinda a...not buffer, exactly, so much as a third complemetary piece needed to complete the picture. Same thing with Clark and Diana too, though, their brief New 52 relationship not working for me for the same reasons. The full Trinity together in every sense of the word? I can dig it. Just two of them though....Clark and Bruce is the only pairing out of the three of them that actually fits on its own, IMO, because something about Clark and Diana has always just felt a little too....forced, or artificial to me for some reason, like.....people always try too hard to emphasize how good a pairing they make on paper, that it just never FEELS natural or organic in execution, and I’ve never really felt any interest in trying to execute a version of it myself to have any idea how my own attempt would fare. *Shrugs* 

And then Bruce and Diana on their own, like.....I think Diana respects the hell out of Bruce and will always have a soft spot for him, but her bullshit tolerance does come with a ceiling, and I think for Diana, Bruce is one of those people where she does better with him in small doses, lol. Too much exposure to Bruce, too constantly, and for too longterm.....I think she would end up being like “this relationship is starting to feel too much like a Greek tragedy, and not even one of the good ones, I gotta go, bye” lololol okay so it wouldn’t really be like that. I just mean.....Bruce thrives off of structure and rigid discipline in a way that Diana would find stifling, I believe? 

Don’t get me wrong, Diana is incredibly disciplined herself and capable of holding herself firm and steady in anything with a kind of discipline few others could ever dream of, but its not her PREFERENCE, I don’t think. She’d rather default to a freer approach to and through life, whereas Bruce can do that at times to accommodate loved ones needing or wanting that from him too, but at the end of the day, I think he’s always going to rather scheduling in some time set aside for the both of them, as something to look forward to....rather than just letting it come when it comes and then when it does, obsessing over whether he’s neglecting something else as a result. 

So again...Bruce and Clark I think work, but Bruce and Diana or Clark and Diana - require all three working in harmony to be what all three of them actually need and want from that triad.

And then Bruce and Talia I’ve talked about a couple times before in depth, and I have hugely complicated thoughts on them due to the sheer bullshit writers have subjected Talia to over the years. I try to ignore Morrison’s take on Damian’s conception as much as possible, like, I never go with that angle or that particular taint on their relationship unless for whatever reason its absolutely relevant to the plot - and I’ve never come up with a plot where it is, nor do I think I’m likely to. And this is for a couple of reasons - the first is that while I’m always saying that any writer could make a case for any character doing anything, conceivably, Damian’s conception as written by Morrison just...destroys so much of the amazingly complex and multi-faceted character Talia often was before he wrote that, and recasts every aspect of her and Bruce’s previous love story as just...a painful, not funny joke. Its not remotely something I ever want to read into those two, even if I’ve never shipped them as endgame myself. 

But at the same time, because it did so unequivocally happen in canon, I can never really blame others for accepting it as the reality of their relationship by this point, for whatever reason.....I mean, there’s the simple fact that something like that is so hugely personal to read about and see yourself in as a survivor, for instance, for any survivors who read Morrison’s story and afterward had trouble separating that view of Talia from previous stories of her....like to me, no matter how much I think Morrison is bullshit for writing that story, especially since its hardly like he had any interest in writing or acknowledging Bruce as a survivor in its aftermath.....I fully believe Morrison was like “how can I make Bruce a biological father who owes nothing to the mother and has no obligation to share the child with her or fight over custody or anything like that.” 

Which is a shitty reason to do that particular kind of story. And why I don’t blame anyone for disregarding it, as I try to whenever possible, but neither do I blame anyone for finding their relationship kinda ruined in the wake of it, just because sometimes its physically/emotionally just hard to see PAST that kind of thing, even when you know the reasons for it existing at all are threadbare in the first place. 

(Its like how I do write and focus on Bruce’s abusive behavior with some of his kids in the past, not because I necessarily LIKE to, so much as it just being such a personal topic to me that from the second it was written into his character and dynamics, whether written WELL or PLAUSIBLY or not, it just became impossible for me to pretend it just never happened or I never read any of those stories, so I have to find some way to tackle it in my stories and takes. But because I do think that the reasons for writing Bruce act that way in the first place were always poorly thought through, and it is a disservice to a lot of the reasons others love the character, I don’t blame them for disliking it and disregarding it themselves, so long as they don’t shit on me or my reasons for not doing the same).

So yeah, I don’t tend to write that particular element into Bruce and Talia’s story ever, for all those above reasons and also one other specific one: it doesn’t just make Talia a rapist and Bruce a survivor, it makes Damian the child of rape. And he’s just had so much shit to deal with in his life with everything else alone, I never am comfortable heaping that onto him as well, because sooner or later it WOULD eventually become something he had to deal with, and no easy thing to deal with, so I’m just like....what if he didn’t have that particular issue to deal with ever.

NOW, all that said....Bruce and Talia still even without that have never really been an endgame ship for me, but rather something that’s kinda always been doomed to be a tragic romance, like they’re each other’s one that forever got away. And that’s because for me, unlike Bruce and Selina being opposite in just the right ways, Bruce and Talia are alike in the wrong ways. Its part of WHY they have the connection they do, and such a deep one....they GET each other, in ways I don’t think anyone else has ever truly understood them. They might not subscribe to the same beliefs, even have the same morals, they might not be willing to use the same methods, their ultimate goals aren’t necessarily the same....but their PASSION for their goals, their beliefs, their commitment to doing whatever each believes they have to do in order to see their goals fulfilled, to see that they never stray from what they believe is their duty, their reasons for existing....THAT is something I think they’ve both always understood about each other, that they have in common. Both believe too strongly in what THEY believe and value as most important, to be truly willing to give that up and follow the other to their goal or along their path instead.....and they get that, so they never truly ask that of each other, or at least aren’t surprised nor hold it against the other when they turn them down. I think they do love each other, and on some level always will.....and it might not even be that they don’t WANT to give everything else up to be with them.....its just, I don’t think either truly knows how to do that and still be them, like they know that even were they to make that choice, it would cost them too much of what makes them THEM, to ever truly do it.

And aside from that, even in an AU setting where Talia didn’t raise Damian in the League, where he wasn’t forced to grow up fighting the way he did, and say she spirited him away and into hiding at birth to hide him from Ra’s, but still never sought Bruce out til Damian was ten or so, even if only because Bruce is too easy for Ra’s to find or keep an eye on....basically, I just mean even in an AU where Talia was a great mom to Damian from Day One til the day Bruce met Damian, and she only kept him from Bruce for ten years or whatever for Damian’s safety....I think that would still destroy any chance of Bruce and Talia ever being together after that, just because in that kind of scenario, Bruce might absolutely understand why she did what she did, even agree with it....and still not be able to get PAST it, not to the degree of....trusting her with his heart again, even if they were perfectly able to coexist well for Damian’s sake. Bruce missed out on the first parts of all his other childrens’ lives because they were someone else’s first. The fact that Damian is the one and only kid of his that theoretically, there was nothing keeping Bruce from being a part of that from day one....like this is the one and only way I will ever accept Bruce having a distinct view of Damian as being different from his other kids in his eyes....its not about him being Bruce’s biological son, its about him being Bruce’s son that he never had to be second to come into his life, that there was nothing stopping him from being there from the start....the fact that Talia, for any reason, did keep him from that, even were it with the best intentions, IMO....that would be something that might not even be Bruce’s to ‘forgive’ per se, like that’s not even the right word to describe certain scenarios that might result in that.....but it would still just irrevocably change something between them I don’t think they could ever get back.

So except for AUs where Talia brought Damian to Bruce right after he was born and stayed with him to raise Damian together, I don’t see them ever working out longterm.....and I don’t really see Talia ever giving up her own beliefs as to how to live her life, shape the world, wield her influence....just to live in Bristol with Bruce and raise Damian with him, even as there is nothing really in that case keeping Bruce from still at the same time continuing to be Batman and do all of that the way HE prioritizes. But again, by the same token.....I also don’t see the inverse ever happening, where Talia finds a way to go where she needs to and do what she believes needs doing, with Damian in tow....and Bruce willing to give up being Batman to just come along for the ride and to help raise Damian. So yeah, ultimately, for me those two are the ultimate tragic romance of Bruce’s core ships, where love has nothing to do with whether or not they work out....just rather who and what they are getting in the way of what they are too each other.