Dick Grayson Ships In Order Of How Toxic You Should Write Them As Adults In An Established Relationship

I love how the search function on this site is absolute garbage. I can look up a post word for word and I will NEVER find it

Dick Grayson being a fox in beast world is wrong

(Working with actual animals instead of the furry ones in the comic bc I can)

I disagree okay

Dick Grayson is 1000% a massive dog that’s like 99% wolf dna 1% dog dna. Massive terrifying ass canines with the slightly slanted reflective wolf eyes that look like satan himself came down and designed the Grimm okay. He also is the massive dog that behaves like he’s a Pomi sized puppy stereotype

My evidence for this

- have you ever seen big dogs jump 10 feet in the air to go cuddle their owners. Dick 100% does the big dog defying gravity for sake of human affection and also too see if can vibes big dogs exude

- he is very very sweet but also if he crashes out he’ll rip you esophagus out with his teeth (90s nightwing)

- he absolutely scruffs cat!Damian with his teeth

Follow up to this:

Tim is a Robin

Damian regularly tries to eat this Tim

Steph is 100% a Goldie (best girl)

Jason is the chihuahua that thinks a big dog as Robin

Jason RH is a rottie

Cass is a lil friendly church mouse (silent, adorable, can bring down the plague) or a rlly pretty rainbow snake your choice

Babs is a cat bc she and cats both sleep as close as humanly possible to computers

Now some of you might be like “Bruce is a bat, Bruce is a Great Dane” wrong

Bruce has been herding around the league and his collection of tiny bird themed children that’s a whole as Shepards dog

Sometimes you find a piece of tumblr history and you have no choice but to preserve it

Slutshaming women is not ok Slutshaming Alexander Hamilton is totally ok Tumblr logic

I am hijacking this post to rant about my fave one sec

AND this is why Batman’s greatest success in his opinion is Nightwing.

Because Dick Grayson is whoever you need him to be at that moment. While Batman can switch from a chemist to a physicist to a professor to a doctor to a billionaire. Fundamentally his character is the same he will not change or accommodate for anyone even his children. He is rigid in character if not skill. And he accidentally raised his oldest son to fill in those grooves, to alter himself perfectly to fit into the position required of him.

It’s why Nightwing as a hero is so revered. Because he is a leader, solo hero, spy, teammate, brother, father figure, son, support. He’ll erase the gaps that are flawed in the dynamic by changing his tone, behavior, skill set etc.

Superman needed to train his son he went to Dick Grayson

They needed to soften the assassin characters (Cass and Damian) dick was either a support or main presence in their initial development.

He’s the de facto leader of any of the second gen teams

It’s why he can still work well with his siblings bc while he won’t accommodate Jason’s killing he’s willing to work with him at a middle ground. Him and Tim have almost always had a phenomenal relationship because Nightwing is trained to cover up the gaps and the in between. The nooks and crannies of character compromises the other characters wouldn’t either bc of stubbornness or bc of simple inability to do so.

It’s why his undercover runs are so interesting

Bc he’s a chameleon character

Bc he needed to accommodate for Batman his entire life (ahh parentification our old friend)

The thing about “Good Dad Bruce Wayne” and “Bat-Dad” is….that’s the dream. I love any and all depictions of Bruce Wayne that prioritize him DOING THE WORK to be a good father to his kids.

I never look for reasons to criticize Bruce or his parenting. My frequent bitching and moaning about him and how he’s written comes from one place and one place only:

IMO a lot of the time, instead of writing Bruce putting in the WORK to be the PARENT, people just write him being 70% of the problem and only 30% of the solution and call that ‘good enough.’ Because hey, at least he’s trying to be part of the solution and fix his mistakes and be better for his kids, and isn’t that the most anyone can ask for?

Well, no. Its not. Especially since with the exception of Damian, Bruce chose each and every one of his kids with full knowledge of what he was doing. He doesn’t GET to do the bare minimum, even when his kids require more effort than the norm, like the situations with Jason sometimes are beyond the ordinary. There’s no quota to parenting. 

The thing about Bruce Wayne is he is pretty much the most competent individual in the DC universe. He has more resources available at his disposal than any other parent can dream of. He has excelled at every thing he’s ever put his mind to….

Except, often times….being a parent.

And parenting is not somehow inherently more impossible than saving the world every other week. Its just not. It literally is just: put your kids first. 

And that is what Bruce is written as failing to do, time and time again. That is almost unilaterally where every single one of his conflicts with his children come from.

When he puts his own fear of rejection over Dick’s fear of abandonment, and refuses to reach out to Dick, beg him to come home, ask him to stay.

When he puts his own moral choices over Jason’s need to be understood, to have a father who can coexist with him and his choices when that very same father has at many times reconciled working with heroes with vastly different moral codes and even body counts of their own.

When he puts his own discomfort with emotional conversations and expressions of affection over Tim’s need for concrete gestures and reassurances that his parent needs and wants him in his life.

And so on.

These things are all actionable. They are all based on choices Bruce can make, and at many times just chooses not to. They all demand one thing and one thing only, the one thing that is expected of parents who take on the responsibility of a child that they and they alone are responsible for the wellbeing of:

Put. Them. First.

And falling short of that, when there’s every opportunity to do the work…is Bruce’s failure. It just is. Its not on his kids. He is the parent. Always and forever, with each and every one of them. That is what he signed up for. THEY did not. Kids don’t have the same power and choices about where they end up as the parents do when deciding that where they end up should be with them. And that can’t be disregarded. Bruce’s kids, as much as they love and appreciate him, are not ultimately the ones who arranged to be tied to Bruce for the rest of their lives, even if they all accepted that and wanted that in their own ways. He was the one with the actual power to make those choices, and to quote DC’s competition:

With great power comes great responsibility.

Bruce’s kids will always have less power than him purely in the context of their relationships with him, because the yearning for a parent’s approval exists on a wholly different level than anything a parent can need or get from their child - especially when they have multiple children but those multiple children each only have the one parent they’re all desperately hoping for the approval of. As well as when each of those multiple children arrive in Bruce’s life already burdened with issues born of abandonment and abuse and neglect that aren’t Bruce’s fault….but from the second Bruce stepped up and volunteered to be their parent, still very much became his responsibility all the same.

Bruce’s kids will always, always, always have more to lose, when there’s any conflict between them and their father.

And the thing that frustrates me so much about how Bruce is written in both canon AND fanfics….

Is how often the narratives cut corners and emphasize the blame and responsibility of his children and make them settle….for just ‘good enough’ from him. For ‘well at least he’s trying.’ For ‘he’s not perfect.’ 

He doesn’t need to be perfect.

But he needs to be the parent.

And personally, I will never be satisfied by narratives that feel like they make more attempt to coddle him and say its okay to just do the bare minimum, as long as he’s making an effort…than they do to make him step up and do the work, put his kids before his own issues.

He’s not the child. So stop treating him like one. Stop writing his kids being more mature than him. Stop saying his children are ‘equally at fault’ for him refusing to make them a priority and any issues of insecurity and abandonment and hurt they feel because of this. Stop expecting his oldest children to act as buffers for his younger children and do the parenting he refuses to do at times, and stop only treating them like his equal when it allows for them to victimize him in some way, with the story treating them like the aggressors and him the misunderstood recipient of their emotional harm and neglect.

Bruce Wayne has more social power and resources and skills and intelligence than just about any other human in the DC universe….his children included. Please can we just start holding him to the standards that kind of power should entail? Instead of looking to his children to always make up the difference for the times he refuses to be accountable, or a narrative refuses to hold him responsible for his own behavior and poor choices?

I WANT Good Dad Bruce Wayne.

I’m just tired of seeing ‘emotionally stunted surly teenager who makes his family’s lives far more difficult than they need to be and then awkwardly hugs them and grunts out an apology in the last paragraph to make up for it’….and being told: that’s Good Dad Bruce Wayne too.

No. Its not. I know what actual Good Dad Bruce looks like, and that ain’t it. Do better. Make him do better.

some of y'all fundamentally misunderstand my favorite characters but im being sooooo normal and mature about it. i haven't even killed anyone yet

Broke: Dick has no degrees and dropped out young

Woke: Dick has like 7 fully completed bachelors bc he keeps taking college courses to keep busy/ learn new skills as nightwing and ends up just having a fuck ton of credits. He simply doesn’t tell Bruce to make Bruce sad that none of his kids have graduated college.

they are eating all my brain cells

it's so wild to me that you absolutely cannot force a hyperfixation to happen. like you'll watch the most perfectly tailor-made-for-you content that everyone says you'll love and feel absolutely nothing, and then the thing you watch on a whim to fill time will reach through the screen and put its damn fingers in your brain and start rearranging the neurons right in front of you and every single time you're like THIS??? THIS??????? and this happens like every 6-12 months forever

do you think dick and steph could be close ?

100% and they have been in canon and should continue to be (never as much as like Steph and Cass or Tim but still barring those too I like to think her dick and Damian have their own lil trio)

YES YES YES THIS EXACTLY THIS!!!

Also people forget that when you fuck with Dick Grayson he doesn’t just take the hits and go well they’re family I love them.

He leaves

Not permanently, never permanently.

But if you lash out at him he’ll bow out of your story.

Quintessentially he’s a character who exists to fill in flaws or missed edges (Robin was literally invented to keep Batman talking so comic books would be more interesting) and Dick is also a performer at heart

He knows when he’s losing the audience and when to go for intermission.

And the people he works with know he’s always right there if they need him urgently but that subtle support he provides will be absent until his wounds are sufficiently licked.

And give me a story where the characters know deep in their bones he will always answer their calls even if they no longer speak but not wanting to use it outside of an urgent situation because they understand how he works and are trying to respect that he will always come when called even if he really really needs to be away from them.

Like a respect for his autonomy as a person as well as a hero.

And only the brutality aspect it always annoys me as a lover of both canon and fanon when in fanfictions people will have Dick bring out Red Hood as a way to scare criminals.

I feel like this did bleed into Tom Taylor’s canon story but now that Dan Watters is writing again… yeah no

Mr “I’m putting my foot down better hope it doesn’t land on your neck” Grayson doesn’t need his little brother to come in and scare his cities criminals.

I genuinely love how in batfam fanfics….

Dick is like: little D (Damian), Timmy Tim, little wing (Jason) I’m on my way my baby bros!!!

And then in canon….

Dick: *perpetually perturbed by his codependent siblings but knows he’ll never not answer cause who else is gonna pull their dumbassses out the gutter*