#him or treat him like an alienable object bc he didn't raise him himself and was turned into an animalistic assassination is just

[roobylavender]

one thought before i disappear again but i really fail to understand damian fans' logic or interaction with canon on any level like your entire engagement with him as a character relies on a bastardization of every person around him. i don't see what worth there is in comparing how dick and bruce are comparatively written as parental figures in damian's life when your primary basis for analysis is canon from a writer who believes (1) dick shouldn't be in a relationship with kory bc he's happy-go-lucky and hates drama; and (2) bruce's life as a hero naturally culminates in fascism. neither of these are good faith takes on the characters involved so how can you place any value in how either of them are portrayed to interact with damian by way of that. and obv this doesn't even get into the plethora of talia issues which i have essayed about to the point of exhaustion. like idk i get that i can't make people hate a character obv lol and for many damian fans that attachment is there bc they read about him when they were young but i still don't really understand what there is about damian to be invested in once you're an adult who realizes he is holistically built on character assassination and racist stereotypes that he is inseparable from. like you can't really analyze his interactions with anyone without the context for those interactions being shoddy writing of someone else and i know that can happen in comics a lot but it happening in isolation is different from it forming the entire basis for a character

[stranger-rants]

Honestly the way fans treat Steve made me dislike him tbh.

He objectively is the most privilaged character but he constantly get baby-fied whereas other actual abuse survivors get trashed.

So, Steve gets to 'change' and can be seen as a good guy after his bullying, sexism and homophobia but Billy is the most evil person in the world who doesnt even get to redeem himself bc he is that evil and bad and beyond redemption and he 'had it coming' even after the abuse he's suffered?

Objectively Steve doesnt have an abusive life or a family condition. He is not poor, he is not alienated. That is why the fandom comes up with made up stuff to make Steve seem 'oppressed' in some way.

The hypocrisy is real. People do not like abusive survivors. They want fabricated abuse survivors or ''good'' abuse survivors.

Billy was just a teenager who didn't hurt or kill anyone. People saying shit like ''He actually enjoyed being an abuser in S3'' seem to be missing the point. Even if you do not like Billy as a character/person, the fact is that he was abused, his mind and body were used against him to kill other people. Despite everything he still showed courage to fight and save the teenagers and you gonna say he would actually run over and kill them with his car? THE DUDE LITERALLY SACRIFICED HIMSELF he wasn't going to run over the kids with his car for real!

I think people confuse hyperarousal and the addiction to violence that comes with PTSD, with enjoyment.

I had a coworker whose research was in PTSD and gang violence, and I can't explain it very well but in her research, she talked about how when someone is raised in a violent environment, their brain starts to associate violence with excitement and there's this addictive, hyperarousal that occurs whenever they're put in a violent situation. The brain prepares them for the violence. For fighting.

I've experienced something similar. I have to consciously calm myself because my natural reaction to violence is to get "excited." That doesn't mean I enjoy it, though. I think in his fight with Steve he was in that state of excitement, and it started with his dad abusing him. It already put him on the edge. It doesn't mean he enjoyed it. It does mean he actually needs therapy to cope.

This is also what I mean when I talk about how the way we talk about people with PTSD can be pretty ableist. You don't have to justify a person's violence, but you sure do have to understand that the brains of survivors don't necessarily work the way that they should and it's not a simple matter of choosing to be better. It takes a lot of therapy and institutional supports in general to cope better.

I still don't think Steve has had much character growth. I think his redemption comes from privilege - his ability to buy his way into acceptance. I don't think they truly gave him the opportunity to cope better, but considering how classist the D Bags have been with their characters, it's no surprise that they treat redemption in a very classist manner.

I don't hate Steve. I don't think there's a problem with exploring the possibility of neglect and/or abuse with Steve. I do have a problem with the way people ignore how privilege plays a part in their judgement, and I do have a problem with people making ableist statements about bad survivors.