something i’d love to see more of is angsty rebellious teenage dick grayson. i don’t know why i enjoy the trope but the image of dick “golden boy” grayson getting plastered with roy as he slowly sinks into depression before somewhat getting his shit together is an interesting picture
also he just seems like the guy to get impulsive piercings. dunno why
oooh yeah that fantasy's a guilty a pleasure of mine.
I am 1000000000% an enforcer of Dick was not an angry robin. And he wasn't because the comics show just how happy his demeanor was and how fun he is. But angsty teen Dick? 16/17 year old Dick?
I LOVE IT.
Again throwing a little bit of canon in
"When we started this you were open and encouraging. You were my father...but these last few years...all you've been doing is trying to control me even more."
This is so loaded.
The anger Dick feels when Bruce is trying control him, trying to lock him in a cage in the batcave because of worry, has so much ao3 potential.
Like angsty teen dick is so complicated to think about because Bruce acts a bit like an alcoholic father and Dick's compartmentalization issues come from his parents' death. So what would this result in?
I have no fcking clue.
Because Dick would totally get wasted with Roy, hazy blue eyes staring emptily into space, watching with a flushed cheeks as his short black hair fans out on the back of a beaten blue couch at Roy's place, just breaking down quietly as Roy rants and screams about life's injustices in the background, slinging an arm around Dick and jostling him.
Or maybe he and Roy would also go bar hopping, both of them sloppy drunk, laughing and crying at the same time while they max out their daddies' credit cards and then crash somewhere in someone's pool. Maybe they end up inadvertently on Katy Perry's Friday Night music video.
Or maybe Dick would be a hurricane of disaster, lashing out with knives of sharpened words stabbing the deepest, sorest spots of pain in people, his anger alighting a fire in all. He would be magnificent, ferocious, and catastrophic.
He could be any of these three and all three at once.
He would feel the need to act out if Bruce was becoming more controlling.
BUT AT THE SAME TIME, Dick raised Bruce and that perpetually sense of responsibility he's instilled into himself from a young age as well as his self-sufficiency is never erased so one night he would be blacked out from the excessive alcohol but next morning 6'o clock his body's walking up and he's going through his morning routine like a machine and out the door to work. He just keeps going like this day and day until he collapses and the titans intervene or Bruce drags him back to the manor, screaming in love and fear and Dick screams back and the cycle begins.
Nightwing (1996) Issue #135
Like canonically Dick ran away from home at 16, got a job, got caught up in a major anarchist group, and did a whole freaking investigation while Bruce sulked in the cave because Dick ran away.
There's so much angsty dick potential that could go in so many ways because he's such a complex character that all of them apply.
LOL!!! I totally think he would get impulsive piercings too. Maybe when he's drunk and pissed and then the next day he would wake up be like wtf. He'd sit in turmoil and a little regret for a while and then be like whatever because these piercing are freaking cool.
Bonus: no one (except the og titans and Alfred bc Dick never keeps anything from Alfred and the titans are family) ever find out about the piercings and it's kept a tightly guarded secret until a decade later when he does something in the batcave and one of the batkids notice and they're like, "DICK YOU HAVE A PIERCING?!" The rest of them just about break their neck whipping their head around to look at him. Dick just shrugs nonchalantly because time has tempered him and goes, "oh yeah. I guess. I forgot." Bruce passes out and wakes up on the floor to Dick hovering worriedly over him while the rest of the family watches in amusement at his predicament and also half brokenly because their golden boy big brother has piercings. Plural.
Bruce gasped out a pained breath, "Piercings?"
Dick stared at him silently, gemstone eyes holding his gaze as the quiet of the cave melted the seconds into hours. His eyes slowly slid from Bruce's to where the rest of the family was standing, watching them with bated breath for his answer, before they met Bruce's hopeful ones again.
"No." Bruce, with all the strength left in his body after recovering, raised a questioning eyebrow as Dick continued, "I don't have any piercings and never did."
"Hmn." But he swore he could've seen-
The kids erupted in protests.
"Dick, come on!" Jason hollered, pushing forward. "We clearly saw it there-"
"Where?" Dick asked, spreading his arms wide and invitingly, offering them to see for themselves.
The piercing they had all gotten the barest glimpse of was gone from where they had seen it on Dick.
"But you said you! You said, 'yeah. I guess so. I forgot.'" Stephanie put her hands on her hips, "Admit it Boy Piercing!"
"Boy Piercing?!"
"Fess up, pretty boy!"
"Steph," Dick visibly bit his lip to keep from laughing, "I was joking. You guys should've see your reactions - they were so funny!! Dick has a piercing. OMG. You people were hilarious."
Damian clicked his tongue. "Enough Richard! Did you implement metal into you skin like a heathen? Richard, how could you?! Who dare touch-"
"No Dami!" Dick quickly interfered to prevent a possible murder on his behalf, "I was just kidding, okay? Besides, did you guys even really see it? Like full on?"
Harper crossed her arms. "Close enough."
Dick quirked his eyebrow at that. "But you didn't actually see it right? You thought you saw something shining and turned to look. C'mon you guys know what it is - peripheral vision hallucinations. Things you see in your peripheral vision that aren't real because you are tired," He pinned a look at each other, emphasizing the words, "and stressed."
Dick pressed his lips together and folded his arms. "Time for bed. Now. I know you all haven't been sleeping for the past few days so you all are going to bed. At the manor." Dick finished, shooting Jason a look when he tried secretly shuffling toward his bike.
The rest of them were unmoved for a moment but quickly caved under Dick's patented "I'm mom-ing you."™ stare as Jason liked to call it.
They trudged upstairs while Bruce and Dick watched in companionable silence.
Bruce turned to look at Dick as the sounds of their bickering and footsteps faded away.
"How did you do it?"
Dick hummed distractedly and tilted his head to look down at Bruce still sitting on the floor. "Do what?"
Bruce growled, impatience, annoyance, and apprehension swimming in his voice, "Don't lie. To me. How did you hide it? Now. And for so long?"
Bruce watched tensed as the tip of Dick's tongue ran over the ridges of his top row of teeth, the first sign of anger he had seen from him in weeks. The pink flesh of his tongue barely avoiding cutting itself on the slightly too sharp canines that Dick loved to call his vampire teeth since he was little. He had even threw a veteran-dentist-scaring-tantrum in the dentist's office when the man suggested shaving them down once.
Bruce watched warily as Dick crouched down, balancing on his balls of his feet like a cat on a fence, and forcefully tamped down the sudden urge to pull out a hidden batarang when the boy grinned, eyes lighting with the wild fire of joy and madness from his robin days that still had Bruce on edge for decades.
"How did you it?" He asked again, not sure if he really wanted to know anymore but the principle remained. There was no way Dick's activities could be hidden for so long. He didn't invest in his detective following skills for something like this to escape his observation. But at the same time Dick had evaded his tracking skills when he was seventeen and ran away from him. But something so obvious as a piercing would never escape his notice. But a whole 17 year old boy also shouldn't have escaped his notice. However, Bruce had improved. He had gotten better at his job and his skills. Right? Right, of course, he was the best in the world. Dick definitely did have a piercing. But...on the off chance...what if he really had just seen a flash of light? Sweat on a body? The edge of a birdarang? Peripheral vision hallucinations? "Do you?"
"Do I what?"
You already know what I'm asking. Bruce thought, frustrated with Dick for lying. Frustrated with himself for not knowing if Dick was lying.
"Do you have piercings?" Bruce ground out.
Dick laughed, his voice echoing like choir bells in the spacious cave and bouncing off the stalactites to create a ringing, haunting melody as he leaned in closer to Bruce.
"C'mon, B! You know every showman's got his own tricks," Dick grinned brightly.
And you're the whole damn circus. Bruce hissed viciously in his mind.
Dick's eyes twinkled back at him.
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Was the Darkling that much of a liar as the fandom makes him to be?
Because it's literally one thing for a character to truly lie every other page and another for the reader to have been tricked by the narrative that he's a compulsive liar.
If we thoroughly search and find his lying moments in the Grisha trilogy then it would be these:
“I don’t want to answer you.”
“Oh.”
Then he sighed and said, “One hundred and twenty. Give or take.”
After a moment, the Darkling said, “My great-great-great-grandfather was the Black Heretic, the Darkling who created the Shadow Fold.”
“How?” I pleaded. “How am I supposed to do that?”
“By helping me destroy the Shadow Fold.”
“What’s Baghra’s power, anyway?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I think she was a Tidemaker.”
“Because every day we don’t find the sea whip, I’ll peel away a piece of her skin. Slowly. Then Ivan will heal her, and the next day, we’ll do it all over again.”
“Where are they? ” I screamed.
“They are safe. For now. They will be on my skiff when I enter the Fold again.”
“As hostages,” I said dully.
He nodded.
So in the whole trilogy the Darkling lied six times. Four if you count the scenes before he was revealed as the "evil guy".
His first real conversation with Alina is considered both by the protagonist and the fandom as manipulative and shady. He lied about his identity, age and true goal. Now let's take it from the beginning.
The fact that he lied about his age and identity wasn't something personal against Alina. This is the exact same lie he had been telling the world for four hundred years as a means of survival and staying as head of the Grisha. Also, did we really expect him to say "Yeah, I was the one who created the Fold. Hehe what can you do?☺️". We would be lying too if we were in his place.
Another thing that needs to be understood here is that the Darkling was testing her. He was trying to see what her personality is like, how does she feel about her newfound powers and, most importantly, what has she heard and how does she feel about him. I'm pretty sure that he was kinda sure that Alina would have been influenced by the people's views about him. And he was right. Alina was afraid of him thanks to the rumors and superstitions that surround him. If she also knew who he truly was then she would run from that barn ASAP.
Now let's see the next lie that the Darkling spat out. The one where he told her that he needs her to destroy the Fold. This was another test. Trying to see how she would react if she knew her true purpose as the Sun Summoner that everybody expected.
Apparently she failed that test as well:
Alina panicked when she heard that the realm's future lies on her shoulders, when she understood that she would be the one to destroy the Shadow Fold. Imagine how she would react if the Darkling said "Okay look. I need you so I can use the Fold against some nations, not destroy it". Yup, she would scream and run.
There's no way the Darkling would say the truth to her, especially since he saw how frightened and prejudiced she was about him and how clueless she was about the whole economical and political situation Ravka was at this point.
He was waiting for the Sun Summoner to be born and emerge for centuries. He would never risk losing her now because of her narrow views and some brutal truths. It was a matter of life and death for him in order to protect his country. And this girl was too young, too naive to understand.
So no. He didn't do it because he had something personal against her or to seduce her. He did it for the good of his country so this girl would stay no matter what.
Sadly, it's evident that in the end the Darkling's suspicions proved to be right. She run away. And when he found her he chastised her about her selfishness and her inability to see the bigger picture.
“Did you deserve my trust? Baghra whispers a few accusations in your ear, and off you go. Did you ever stop to think of what it would mean for me, for all of Ravka, if you just disappeared?”
“You didn’t give me much choice.”
“Of course you had a choice. And you chose to turn your back on your country, on everything that you are.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Fairness!” he laughed. “Still she talks of fairness. What does fairness have to do with any of this? The people curse my name and pray for you, but you’re the one who was ready to abandon them. I’m the one who will give them power over their enemies. I’m the one who will free them from the tyranny of the King.”
The Darkling was right, she did have a choice. I once heard a line from a show that said "In life we always have a choice. But sometimes it's easier to think that you don't" and it applies to Alina here perfectly. She had a choice but she said to herself that she didn't. And by doing so, she only proved Aleksander right. She can't handle the truth.
Now the next lie is when he lied about his mother's powers. Don't have to dwell here because it's the same thing as before. It's the same lie he tells everyone "I don't know. I'm not sure". The Darkling (publicly) has distanced himself from his mother and keeps that relationship a secret. It's just part of his persona (just like his age, his identity etc.). Again nothing personal against Alina.
The next one is just some clever emotional manipulation. When he made clear to Mal that he would curve Alina's skin he knew that the threat was just enough. He has seen them act all cutie-cutie and being sacrificial for the sake of each other to a disgusting point so he took advantage of that (I say good for him).
And the last one is just my personal favourite if you ask me. That strategy he displayed there was my most favourite that he ever showed. Since he knew again how the threat would be enough for Alina to come to him like fish on a bait. He embraced his villainous persona and pretended that he would hurt those children if she didn't surrender to him. But he knew better. Mindless heroism would just bring her right into his net and again he was proved right until everything fucked up and died.
In his own words:
“I know what you thought, what you’ve always thought of me. It’s so much easier that way, isn’t it? To puff yourself up with your own righteousness.”
Just some delicious shit actually.
So, in conclusion, no. He wasn't a compulsive liar. But when he needed to lie he did and only for (as he saw it) selfless reasons. In fact, he mostly either evaded the truth or spoke truth. So misinformation just spilled that man's reputation lmao.
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