#ppl keep making him so surface level like stopppp

[strawberrytalia]

did my daily little scroll through the duke thomas tag and while i did see a lot of bullshit like always, i also found a couple of gems (aka posts that actually talk about duke himself)

but one thing that’s annoying is when people know the bare minimum about duke, and then in order to combat the “you write him as being boring” accusation, they go full send and write duke as being very chaotic, silly, absurd, etc.

don’t get me wrong, duke is definitely a snarky, witty, funny character. at appropriate times ofc.

but his story and character aren’t completely sunshiney in comparison to everyone. his parents are completely mentally gone. he was forced to move around from foster home to foster home. every time he’s awakened his meta human powers, it was through force and a loss of autonomy. literally in BATO 2019, duke is depressed and has ptsd from the karma incident and it affects him so much, and then he goes through another traumatizing experience of getting his shadow powers awakened by force, without his consent or knowledge.

what i’m trying to say is plsss just look at duke as a person and character. he’s not an innocent doormat, and likewise, he’s not just the funny silly guy messing around all the time. just like every other bat, he’s been through so much shit and he very much struggles with the mental burden of his job just like they do. if you understand addressing jason’s death or damian’s childhood, then think of duke as someone who deserves the same attention.