yeah this comic book burrowed itself deep in my brain and its all i think about and it changed me as a person but that doesnt mean its "good". i wouldnt even say i like it

only peace, only love

Taking my son out for enrichment

thinking about that one trope where the hero is dying and reveals their secret identity at the last moment so they can die known and as the true person they were, not the hero name they designed. how, if dick were out as nightwing and were to be somehow in a life or death situation he literally could not see a way out of, and he was with a civilian who was comforting him in his final moments, he literally would have to die as nightwing and not dick grayson or else risk exposing the rest of his family. even if the civilian swore up and down and made a blood oath to never speak a word of this, dick would be unable to bring himself to allow himself the mercy of dying as dick grayson or hearing the name his parent's gave to him one final time

He looks like he's going to cry 😭.

The Flash #83

OKAY SO i have been rereading dustorange's wonderful post here about Dick in an UtRH-esque scenario where he dies & then comes back to life

AND I HAVE INCOHERENT BRAINSTORMING THOUGHTS:

so first, i think Robin!Dick would be just as hurt by the discovery that Bruce has a new Robin, and brood about it - but i think the shame of having died would stop him from confronting Bruce about it the way Nightwing!Dick does in canon.

and I do NOT think that he would expect Bruce to kill anyone for him (or even be upset that he doesn't? I just don't think this would be a consideration for Dick. he's gonna be fixated on "I failed." so he'll be upset about being replaced but not about the lack of revenge. and if Bruce did take revenge, i think he'd actually feel angry and betrayed about that because it'd feel like the choice was taken away from him, a la how upset he gets when he thinks Bruce has arranged to have Zucco killed - even if he intellectually knows that Bruce wasn't deliberately undermining himbecause he didn't know Dick was gonna come back to life.)

anyway so what WOULD he do??

what comes to mind is something along the lines of "Dick obsessively keeps an eye on Batman & Robin even while telling himself that he's not"

and then - say - if it's Robin!Tim (i feel like this has to be Tim because in the world where Dick dies there is no way that Bruce is voluntarily picking a new Robin), then maybe the moment when Dick steps in is when Bruce is in danger & he's furious / critical of Tim for not protecting Bruce well enough

and i feel like that's how he'd channel the hurt feelings - it'd all be deflected under shame and obligation, and then translated into the anger of "you replaced me & yet you're failing to do the job that you're supposed to do" (which is actually about projection/self-hatred because Dick would actually be mad at himself for having died & not doing that job anymore)

and Dick wouldn't want to see Bruce at all because of the shame over dying & subconscious fear that Bruce doesn't want him back, plus every little thing that Tim does differently would drive him NUTS because it implies that maybe the way Dick did things wasn't good enough for Bruce

i'm actually kind of fascinated by this now. because i am me and i have (1) obsession i am mostly invested in the dick & tim side of it sdfsdfds

so i'm picturing Tim very stung by whatever critical things Dick said to him & tracking this mysterious vigilante down, and then Dick doesn't want to spend ANY time with him BUT he's also subconsciously desperate for news of Bruce!!! so then something something Dick starts sorta training him a la Tim's various contacts with edgy non-batman-aligned vigilantes, and Tim's very defensive about how he IS a good robin so THERE but of course he's also defensive because he's secretly worried he's not good enough.

normally i would have tim Recognize dick since recognizing dick is tim's most basic skill HOWEVER i think it would be much more fun if tim doesn't recognize him so he can give dick a speech about legacy & the first robin: "i do x and such because that's how the first robin did it so it is Objectively Correct." which Dick will find incredibly infuriating but will be unable to counter since he cannot counter with 'the 1st robin was ME'

…hmmm i do think Dick ought to be angry about SOMETHING about batman's methods/attitude just because that's more dynamic? I feel like in order to make the adaptation work, there ought to be SOME kind of argument with Bruce right before he dies that he can still be mad about, a la the garzonas fight for Jason and Bruce. unsure what though?

okay let's see: I feel like Dick's main arguments with Bruce aren't about vigilante issues per se so much as they're about working in a team - so e.g.

1) Bruce being controlling/demanding, and 2) Bruce being secretive and doing stuff behind Dick's back, and 3) Bruce not allowing Dick enough autonomy, 4) just generally a perceived lack of trust.

SO maybe whatever The Frustrating Thing that bruce was doing when dick died is a thing he's STILL doing with this new robin, and dick is getting frustrated all over again sorta on tim's behalf but mostly on his own behalf because he never got to resolve this with bruce

but anyway that way when Bruce finally spots disguised!Dick, then they can have the fight again before Bruce realizes who he is <3

Tales of the Teen Titans #59

The way that Dick's help (or I guess Dick is speaking on behalf of the Titans here but still) is a given is sooo 😭. It's like when Roy asked Dick to help him and the CBI with Cheshire. Dick's immediate response was, "No problem, Roy."

Action Comics Weekly #613

Then there's the time when Roy went to Dick for help with KGBeast. Dick was too busy to personally assist him, but even though Dick couldn't help directly, he didn't leave Roy out to dry. He actively petitioned for some of Bruce's time for Roy's benefit.

Batman Plus Arsenal

Another time, Dick was talking to Damian on the phone, and while they were talking, he got a bunch of texts from Roy asking if he could help out with some business in Gotham.

Nightwing (Vol. 4) #43

We didn't see Dick respond to the texts, but he obviously agreed to help Roy right away because he then met up with both Damian and Roy in Gotham. Dick and Damian then proceeded to help Roy with his Cheshire problem. *cough* And while it's not totally relevant to this post, I'm just gonna drop Damian's snarky comment here because of the insinuation 😌.

Nightwing (Vol. 4) #43

I won't include the times Dick helped Roy without Roy even asking him to, but just know they do exist, and that Roy has done that for Dick as well, most notably through the Outsiders situation. Their willingness to help each other just makes what Dick said to Roy in Outsiders #11 hit so much harder.

"There is no one... no one I'd rather have fighting at my side than you."

honestly there's a lot of sophie's choice questions within the batfam for tim that are super interesting to me because. while tim would hate himself for having to make a sophie's choice and have to sacrifice someone, he has a very clear cut priority order imo that's like dick -> bruce -> steph -> helena -> babs -> damian...so on and so forth that wouldn't make the decision as difficult as it could be.

however. to me tim's most *interesting* sophie's choice scenerios would come from the idea of a batfam vs his dad. what if something happened while his dad were still alive and he had to choice between saving dick or jack. or bruce and jack. what if. what if.

You know I'm generally against Shiva being solely tied to Cass, but like...

Their rivalry is genuinely so fucking fun to read, man. 😭

Like it isn't even a rivalry where the two hate one another, it's genuinely just a "I'm better than you" rivalry and that's so refreshing compared to other comic rivalries.

That being said I'm an advocate for more Shiva stories outside of Cass, but like I don't mind them butting heads every once in a while, it's just really fun stuff.

Cass has THE most complicated relationship with femininity in my opinion. It wasn't a factor in her life at all until it was a smokescreen. Cain had her keep her hair long. He put her in pigtails and a red frilly dress. The cute little girl appearance was integral to her first kill-- it was literally weaponized femininity that got her sitting on her victims lap, close enough to rip his throat out. Appearing childlike and harmless and innocent was wrapped up with girliness for her and it was wrapped up with violence. She literally wore it like she wears masks in the future. In her everyday life, she wore skin tight all black-- assassin clothes, nothing loose that can be grabbed, nothing colorful that can be seen. That was her standard. That was a habit she kept even in designing her Batgirl uniform. Because the dress with the bright loose skirt was for killing. Her long hair disappeared as soon as she ran away. In her intro, she gets blood on her hands and freaks out, and the next time she's seen, her hands are clean and her nails are painted. Something that Barbara had to have done, to comfort her, to show her something different and create a new association. And down the line Cass does ballet. And the bright loose skirt is for twirls and telling a story with motion.

Cass has THE most complicated relationship with femininity in my opinion. It wasn't a factor in her life at all until it was a smokescreen. Cain had her keep her hair long. He put her in pigtails and a red frilly dress. The cute little girl appearance was integral to her first kill-- it was literally weaponized femininity that got her sitting on her victims lap, close enough to rip his throat out. Appearing childlike and harmless and innocent was wrapped up with girliness for her and it was wrapped up with violence. She literally wore it like she wears masks in the future. In her everyday life, she wore skin tight all black-- assassin clothes, nothing loose that can be grabbed, nothing colorful that can be seen. That was her standard. That was a habit she kept even in designing her Batgirl uniform. Because the dress with the bright loose skirt was for killing. Her long hair disappeared as soon as she ran away. In her intro, she gets blood on her hands and freaks out, and the next time she's seen, her hands are clean and her nails are painted. Something that Barbara had to have done, to comfort her, to show her something different and create a new association. And down the line Cass does ballet. And the bright loose skirt is for twirls and telling a story with motion.

Cass has THE most complicated relationship with femininity in my opinion. It wasn't a factor in her life at all until it was a smokescreen. Cain had her keep her hair long. He put her in pigtails and a red frilly dress. The cute little girl appearance was integral to her first kill-- it was literally weaponized femininity that got her sitting on her victims lap, close enough to rip his throat out. Appearing childlike and harmless and innocent was wrapped up with girliness for her and it was wrapped up with violence. She literally wore it like she wears masks in the future. In her everyday life, she wore skin tight all black-- assassin clothes, nothing loose that can be grabbed, nothing colorful that can be seen. That was her standard. That was a habit she kept even in designing her Batgirl uniform. Because the dress with the bright loose skirt was for killing. Her long hair disappeared as soon as she ran away. In her intro, she gets blood on her hands and freaks out, and the next time she's seen, her hands are clean and her nails are painted. Something that Barbara had to have done, to comfort her, to show her something different and create a new association. And down the line Cass does ballet. And the bright loose skirt is for twirls and telling a story with motion.

can i say something. i am kind of scared to say something bc dick ship wars kind of scare me even though i have absolutely no preference and care extremely little about dick ships. but. hm. the thinking about 80s and 90s medias as products of their time got me thinking a bit.

so. the interesting thing to me about dick-kory in the 70s and 80s vs dick-babs in the 90s and early 00s os how much each of those couples was entrenched in the media ideals of the time and what people were looking for in a ship.

so like, if you look at dick-kory, theirs is a larger than life love that is destined from the moment she kissed him to learn human language. and theirs is a dynamic and relationship dripping in the popular soap opera tropes that were very pervasive a the time. you can't actually divorce their tribulations (dick being kind of condescending to kory as the Man of the relationship, she's a princess who has to get married for political reasons and dick gets mad, kory gets mad at him for supposedly cheating when he was raped by mirage, the epic wedding that gets literally blown up by raven to name a few) from the media norms that were very popular. they fight passionately and make up passionately very frequently. this is a very common dynamic in the 80s, where soap operas were topping the charts. everyone was watching general hospital. *30 million* people tuned in to see luke and laura get married and their relationship started with him raping her (which was later turned into "seduction") and they were considered like THE couple ever. everyone was watching dynasty. dallas was hugely popular. falcon crest. knots landing. dick and kory's relationship mirrors a lot of what people were eating up back then in the soap opera type media the new titans was emulating. luke and laura. gary and valene. bo and hope. bobby and pam. dick and kory. can you really talk about dick and kory if you don't know what was going on with "bope" back then? for reference, here's what was going on with bo and hope:

anyways. enter the 90s and the soap opera fervor died down in a massive way. soap operas were no longer prime time material and their popularity died down in a massive way & actually people started more making fun of the overwrought storylines and soaps in general. the ideas of destined, one true love was suddenly far more unappealing to people who thought it was cheesy & tired. what people in the 90s were looking for was not true love that is constantly tested and put through the wringer--what was gaining in popularity was UST and will they won't they dynamics. enter dick-babs. and while i wholly disagree with the idea of diminishing kory's importance in dick's life just to uplift babs, i don't entirely disagree with the notion that kory probably wouldn't have really worked in batbooks, so i understand why batbooks wanted to focus on a loveline for dick for a character they had full control of and could work into the stories. and, hm. moving dick away from the destined one true love at the time that was kory allowed them to put him in the romantic situations that 90s audiences were vibing with instead. because you can't suddenly do a will they won't they with a couple who's been solidly dating for *years*. so with dick and babs you're able to do that. he's interested while she's dating someone else. he flirts with someone else for a bit while she's single. while the entire time they're still good working partners while circling around each other. will they? or won't they? and this was super common in late 90s/early 00s sitcom shows that people loved and were at the top of the charts. the x-files with scully and mulder. friends with rachel and ross. fran and mr. sheffield from the nanny. it's still very much playing to what people wanted to see back then.

anyways as someone who truly has no horse in this race i do think media norms of the time around couplings are interesting to dissect.

Yes Wally and Dick are best friends. But Donna is Dick’s FAVORITE (and Dick is Donna’s favorite). And Roy arguably knows Dick better (and has been closest to him through worse circumstances) than Wally.

[And Wally has other people in his life he’s closer to (notably Linda, Hartley (<3 ily Hartley) and the flashfam). He has people!! Dick is one person he loves and will fight for and trusts a lot but he isn’t his whole world!!]

Listen, I could talk about the fab five’s ever-evolving friendship dynamics for forever, it’s a topic I love, so let me tell you… NONE of the interesting interpretations are the ones where Donna (and also Garth but he isn’t a contender in the Who is Dick Grayson’s BFF? competition, sorry Garth) is inconspicuously missing or completely erased. NONE of the interesting interpretations are the ones where we pretend like Dick and Roy were never close. NONE of the interesting interpretations are the ones where Wally’s whole life revolves around Dick.

I love Wally West so so freaking much, you all have no idea, but I have to get this off my chest: if I am going to be perfectly honest, whenever I see Wally named as Dick’s #1 best friend over Donna I am overwhelmed with a mixture of frustration, despair, and rage

“Not a whispered word is said, or they’ll send the Talon for your head.” 🪶