Once you see how race plays a part in shipping wars and etc you can’t unsee it. I’ve noticed this for years and I’ve considered really studying it and writing about it. You have to talk about race when it comes to Dick and shipping. A trend I noticed too is that predominantly a majority of DickBabs fans are white so when the questions of race or how other Dick ships are treated in comparison you start seeing how certain fans talk. But the thing that really captures my interest is that the defense that comes to defend Barbara is very loud, but when other characters like Koriand’r or Helena or Shawn or Bea etc need defending suddenly those Barbara defenders are very quiet and those who do defend said characters are seen as silly or are “mean” about it when the majority of those fans are poc. And this might piss off some people but the way Catalina Flores was created by a white woman and portrayed her the way she was WAS offensive because white DC writers have repeatedly made woc r*pists while also making the hero’s love interest at the time a white woman.

Oh yeah! I see it too! Ive complained about it multiple times. Both Dick and Babs have had POC love interests and have been very happy with them. Babs herself has been with Luke Fox TWICE and even married a Black Man in Batman Beyond. But the Batgirl fans are sooo silent about it. They hardly even acknowledge it. The writers even go out of their way to embarrass these relationships like having Babs OOC break up with Luke or forcing Dick Babs moments in the Batman Beyond comics. And the same with Dick. Having the villain tell Helena that Babs wa prettier than her. Even comparing Helena and Babs during the rebirth era was racist AF in BOP. They practically turned Bea into stepping stone for Dick Babs having her tell Dick to return to the Batfam. And I notice a lot of Kory fans have been acting strange since they hired a black woman to play Kory. DC has a habit of doing the worst shit possible to their WOC characters. When they race bent Catwoman in the comics, she became a stripper/prostitute. And you know what makes it WORSE with Barbara Gordon? IS that she literally WAS created as a way for the white male protagonist Batman TO NOT date the new black female Catwoman in the 66' yup? Babs was created soley because of racism and the network at the time being anti-interracial relationships. Needless to say, DC has a habit of using Babs to make sure thier stoic white men never fall in love with WOC. Tim Drake dated two black girls. Both are hardly remembered by Tim Drake fans and when they do bring it up, they are extremely negative about it. Batman himself has dated two black women, i mean he fell in love with them. But the writers LITERALLY, had her committed to a mental institution for the rest of her life because she used so much of her power to save Bruce, that it mentally caused her to be a like a 3 years old forever. And then Jezebel Jet literally betrayed him and then had her head torn off by freaking Talia al Ghul. So unnecessary. Talia Al Ghul was turned into a rapist that nobody liked. It's just tired at this point. And don't even get me started on how Young Justice creators made a point to say that Dick Babs or Dick Zatanna happened on and off screen, but Dick Rocket was only mentioned in passing, if at all, after that on screen. They never had Dick Rocket interacting like Dick Babs or Dick Zatanna, despite the fact he dated her for a while too. And then they thought I wouldn't notice that 90% of the villains in season 4 weren't black lmao you thought Young Justice. Despicable.

I even low key believe that the depiction of Amanda Waller is racist as well.

I really want Dick's end game to be with a black woman or black, biracial woman just to see the fandom fucking seethe.

He might be a coward death eater in canon but in my heart he is a sassy little shit.

CanonvsFanon

Damn my style rlly changes colorz

Canon Ash and Fanon Ash meeting and, instead of getting along like you'd expect, they actually don't. (Canon due to how brutal Fanon is to people like Goh) (Fanon due to how Canon can walk away without being "damaged" from their adventures)

I would write this but I can’t write actual canon Ash for the life of me 😅

Canon and Fanon of how Levi and Eren see each other . . . Sorry for my art skills . . . #erenjaeger #levi #snk #attackontitan #sketch #canonvsfanon https://www.instagram.com/p/B_PIcX3ArIZ/?igshid=1luwwrumnyzew

You know 99% of all Nightwing fan’s problems can be fixed by literally allowing Dick to grow past his previous editorial decisions and allow him to explore new friend groups, new love interests and create his own unique family. That way we continue the trend of Dick growing into a better more stable person while looking back fondly on the stepping stones that got him there.

This constant relying on stories, love interests and side characters that debuted like 20-30 years ago has got to end. It’s literally turning the fandom into something so toxic that even I considered leaving Nightwing. Pandering to nostalgia gets you nowhere. Let Hollywood show you how well pandering is looking for them! The MCU was successful because of NEW content!

Both Marvel and DC have a history of their best content being content that is new and novel. Batman didn’t get popular until he underwent multiple major changes. The Batman today isn’t the same Batman as he was 20-30 years ago. So why is it that Nightwing is the character where he has to repeat his greatest hits instead of growing past it.

We say we want Nightwing to be Alist and that we want Nightiwng to be up there with Superman or Spider-Man, but then at the same time we don’t allow him to have any other friends, stories or love interests outside the titans or Batfam. And now it’s become a war between both franchises. Dick can’t even get stable elseworld content. He was with both Kory and Babs in Future state, main continuity and in DCAU all so they can appease the fandoms. It’s ridiculous.

Young justice was a breath of fresh air before that got overtaken by fandom demands. You know for all the problems the Batman Arkham Games had, it probably for me had one of the better representations of Dick because he simply got to be Dick Grayson. No ties to anyone but Batman and Robin. That’s what I want. I want more of Dick Grayson being free from restraints and making his own content away from titans and batfam. I don’t want Titansfam or Batfam. I want Nightwingfam.

Idc if Dick has to join another franchise to do it. Idc if DC has to start his own editorial to do it. I just want them to DO IT! It’s so sad to see a once great character with so much potential become the laughing stock of the entire community all because writers, editors and fans can’t behave and care more about their head canons and fanfics than they do good content.

More Fanon vs Canon

Nightwing being into redheads came from writer Gail Simone which is because she herself is a redhead. Nightwing has dated more WOC with dark hair then he has redheads.

Tim Drake isn’t a coffee addict.

Barbara Gordon never thought of Jason Todd as her little brother.

Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown have lives outside of each other.

Jason Todd was happy to follow Bruce Wayne’s orders more so than Dick when he was Robin.

Of course it came from weird ass gail Simone. She always rubs me the wrong way ever since she did both Huntress and Dinah dirty. She writes a very bad Nightwing and her Convergence story was pretty much just Babs Oracle with Dick Nightwing as a stepping stool.

Facts about Babs and Jason. She also never really looked to Bruce as her father either lol. Funny how fanon changes things. She has however looked to Dick as a little immature kid.

Cass and Steph are like idk why I just don’t enjoy them together? They don’t mesh well and I prefer Cass with Teen Titans (or was it young justice?) crowd.

Jason Todd was happy to be Robin after he settled into it. He didn’t want to be Robin, but he came to be open to it. For me, The main issue between Bruce and Jason is that Jason feels Bruce doesn’t care about him enough to see him for who he is. Jason wanted Bruce to be the father figure he always wanted, but Bruce just wanted to replace Dick out of spite.

Tom Taylor writing a confession between Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon

Dick: You’re incredible. I love you.

*cutest joke is inserted here*

Batman Eternal writers writing a confession between Jason Todd and Barbara Gordon

Jason: Look I’m not good at this kind of thing, Barbara...but I just...I can’t help but feel like there’s something here. Something between us. I don’t think either of us expected it, but I mean, it’s there. You’re incredible. And working with you, it’s made me want to be better. A better friend, a better ally, a better person...but maybe...I don’t know...maybe.

*at home hugging her dad and telling him how Jason helped her realize thing about her self*

/END/

I’m with you on wanting Bat members to date outside of the Bats, but if I had to choose between Barbara dating Dick or Jason I would choose Jason. There’s so much more potential and it is a much more interesting pair to read about if we are being honest.

It’s so cheap! You are right. Taylor can’t write that well and most of his content is heavily HEAVILY lifted from other sources. If I had to choose between dick and Jason for babs I’d choose Jason too but only because she and dick are just too toxic together. But in a perfect world, babs deserves neither of them lmao i just hate how Dick’s character and mythos consistently changes just to fit Babs but never the reverse. It’s so annoying. Let them all be free of the batfam chains that bind them!

The one thing that has given me peace about the current Nightwing is that relationships don’t last long in DC. So when Dick and Babs break up it is going to be messy and I don’t know how they could ever get back together after that. Unless DC does decide to marry them but I can imagine a very negative pushback happening because of that and since DC has no direction for Barbara Gordon any more they might just actually do it.

There is proof from both Tom King and Devin Grayson that DC never truthfully cared enough about Dick Babs to push it. It's really the writers pushing their preferred ship. It's not anywhere near the same as DC pushing Lois Clark or Marvel pushing Spiderman Mary Jane.

I don't see anything positive coming from an engagement or marriage for Nightwing period. Ive said it before, but Nightwing should be single and if we do have him in a romance, it should be with someone who he hasn't been romantically involved with before and have it be a VERY LONG buildup similar to Superman and Lois Lane (40 freaking years of buildup is WHY Lois and Clark lasts as long as it does).

Also, like I said before, Dick Babs getting married after what they did to Dick Kory's potential marriage is just rubbing salt on an obviously open wound. Like you're literally having Dick marry the character who was retconned into his life and never treated his ex-girlfriend with respect. And then really DC Dick Babs already got engaged once it ended. It's over. The same way y'all say Dick Kory is over, so is Dick Babs.

Nightwing getting married to either Babs or Kory will be soley the result of shipping fandoms having control over a narrative they shouldn't have control over. Your ship doesn't get to define canon nor does it get to take precedence over actual good content. You wanna know what kills good ideas/concepts? Bad writing, direction and pandering to fanon. That is what kills great characters like Nightwing.

If you want Nightwing to grow as a character, it's time to let the past be the past and move him on to new, fresh original ideas.

Old school comics used to have Barbara Gordon say that circus people were freaks. Apparently she has always felt strongly about the circus.

Yeah! A lot of the writers in DC kinda make fun of Dick’s time at the circus. I wish they would embrace it and have some fun with it though! And maybe stop always destroying Haley’s circus. I just think the write up Babs did was highly disrespectful to both Dick’s parents and the Titans lmao

I figured out who Jason and Barbara remind me of and why their relationship dynamic/personality are so fitting. They are Kat Stratford and Patrick Verona from 10 Things I Hate About You. Barbara fits into the ‘extremely high standards for herself and everyone around her and is all about individuality’ type like Kat would while Jason fits the ‘follows his own sense of logic’ type. They also aesthetically fit the style of the characters.

I’ve enjoyed seeing your posts in the tags. What do you think most fans get wrong about Jason?

That’s exactly what it reminded me of too! That’s why I low key approved it haha but now I’m just not wanting the batfam members to date each other at all.

I think for me, it’s making Jason friendly or wanting to be with the batfam. I think Jason has always been at arms length and preferred to do his own thing. Like dick, Jason is a character that doesn’t like being talked down to or being over controlled! So actually seeing him back down to anyone in the batman mythos is kinda off putting.

I really want Jason, Steph and Dick separate from the batfam. Because the have the most understandable reasons for not wanting to be there unless of course Bruce dies or something.

I just came to the realization that Jason’s nickname for Barbara Gordon is Beegee...as in Batgirl BG...or Barbara Gordon BG...and that’s so cute. Jason should be called by his full name Jason Peter Todd at all times. He has a good name and if they ever changed it in any adaptation I would cry.

Lol tbh I love the fact that Jason and Dick both have substantially fleshed our character bios. It really helps to make the characters pop and come alive. It just sucks that DC writers refuse to use it. Instead we get half baked batfam stuff nobody asked for and retcons after retcons.

DC’s biggest crime was insisting that Barbara and Dick Grayson had so much history together. DC loves to talk about how much they respect the history of comics but changed everything about Dick and Barbara to make them work. It happened gradually in other comics like Cassandra’s Batgirl and Stephanie Brown’s Batgirl so that you have a Batfamily fans believing the retcons. They have completely retconned the way they felt about each other, to dismiss their other real relationships, and repeatedly tell the audience how much they loved each other so that readers can say that they were always meant to be or that they gone through so much together that they deserve a hea. It’s terrible if you have to repeatedly change history to say what besties they were as Batgirl and Robin to prove how in love they are. It’s just terrible.

It’s more of a crime from comic writers than DC as a whole! If you actually look at it, most Nightwing content doesn’t even include Babs as a love interest. It’s really just writers pushing their beloved ship which is fine but it starts to become jarring and not fine when that ship is ruining other characters, plot lines and storytelling by forcing them to be together. Dick Babs wouldn’t be so bad if it was organic and wasn’t born of 1739473 retcons, but it’s hard to root for a couple when you don’t get to see them grow together and everytime they do get together it’s at the expense of another perfectly fine relationship. And especially when the past three times Babs has been pushed, dick was in a relationship with a woman of colour and I’ll never forgive the writers for that and I can never support Dick Babs because of it.

Barbara Gordon’s relationship with Dick Grayson is still fairly new by comic standards but is considered a relationship that has always been permanent for unknown reasons. Even in the 90s they had a scene here and there and then an issue would be released and suddenly Dick is Barbara’s boyfriend and when they do become a couple they always quickly break it off. It is a tiring relationship to read about.

Hey I like totally get it! I do think Dick Babs is fairly recent in comic standards. I don’t think it’s been permanent since it’s hardly been adapted and it’s only really a comic thing. I think they always break it off because Dick Babs are too different from one another and their books and content never sync in an organic way. It’s hard to keep them together because tbh Babs doesn’t mesh well in his mythos and feels very forced. Dick works in Batgirl, but then that limits what he can do. I still think BOP Nightiwng is one of the worst versions of him. He really does suffer under ANY Batman related title because he shouldn’t be there. It’s a tiring relationship because it’s forced and makes no sense lol Atleast to me.

I think that because DickBabs is shoved into everything it is starting to ruin the experience of just reading comics in general. Before you could easily ignore it if you didn’t like it but now they are freaking everywhere and act little children. It’s extremely annoying. And I loved Dick and Babs as their own characters and now I wish they would just die off because I’m so tired of both of them and their relationship.

Yeah. I think in the past; I was able to stomach it because both characters had their own lives outside of each other. But you can really tell when writers/editors start to force it. Like in Grayson and Burnside era. Or during the Ric Grayson/Castelluci stuff. Now again with Tom Taylor. It's annoying because it's Nightwing Solo. I want Nightwing SOLO doing his own stuff with his own cast. The constant Batfam stuff is really boring. Tom is just a really big Dick Babs shipper and the way he is writing it feels really unprofessional because we know the reason why he is doing it is that of the ship, not because it progresses either character.

I really don't like JaySteph and think that they are similar in background but too different in personality and interests to really get along. I think Jason would find her really annoying, but honestly people are more open to JaySteph than they are to other bat related ships and it makes you think if it is because Stephanie Brown is more feminine and acts more acceptably. Same could go for modern interpretations of Barbara Gordon and especially Tom Taylor’s Nightwing. Barbara is said to be drawn more beautiful and more inviting than her previous adaptations, but all that means is she is more feminine and acceptable for what women are told they are supposed to be and look like. It was why her Burnside revamp was so inviting and popular among many people, she was cute and purple and not the rough and tomboyish Oracle. Admittedly there is also pure misogyny disguised as woke culture when the hatred for these ships are because they can't stand a woman dating someone who was close to their ex. It is pure misogyny disguised as woke culture. You can dislike something but only disliking something because of that is misogyny. Same with the hating JayBabs stuff. “Barbara has dated everyone within the Batfam” while also conveniently leaving out that Dick himself has slept with Helena Bertinelli (and Wayne), Selina Kyle, etc. in different adaptations as well. But we don’t have to talk about those of course because we can easily ignore those but won’t for Barbara.

I don’t care for most 99% of ships mainly because it’s comics and most of it will get re-written at some point. I will pick on certain ships because really if it’s forced in my face I’m gonna have a reaction to it you know?

As for the misogyny complaints, I do see it I honestly do however I don’t think that is the main reason people call out Dick Babs. For me, I single out Babs as a character because I think she is mostly written as a mean person and I just don’t vibe with her character at all. I enjoyed her silver age content much better. It’s just I hate the way writers write her ever since the 90s, it just grinds my gears. I could care less how she dresses. Babs herself has been misogynistic and catty towards other female characters and that’s why I don’t like her and part of the reason I don’t like Dick Babs because I refuse to believe Dick would date someone like that.

But I will say that Nightwing ships tend to have more misogynistic complaints lodged against it whether it’s Kory being a slut or Babs being a bitch or Harley being a villain or Helena being murderous. His love interests get waaaaay too much hate and childish behavior flung their way and most of it is by other women. But the behavior of the fandom doesn’t absolve criticisms of characters or the people who write them. A lot of people have valid complaints about whatever they don’t like and they deserve to have their voices heard and respected. It’s only when those voices are used to cause malice and drama that it’s a step too far. Ship wars are misogynist mix in nature and I believe it’s a large reason why Nightwing fandom has a bad reputation.

I also think the difference between Babs and Dick is that Selena and Huntress are not consider proper batfam. Most of the women Dick has dated are from outside the batfam. It’s unfair to compare the two when your comparison is Babs dating his father figure Bruce, his brother figure Jason and his other brother figure Tim. Babs has dated three people assumed to be a part of Dick’s immediate family whereas Dick has not. If it was just kept to Dick, Luke and Bruce then I think the complaints would have died down. But adding both Jason and Tim to the mix makes it muddy. Dick is portrayed as a manwhore and I’m oddly ok with that. Just like I’m ok with Babs dating Dick and the Dating Jason further down the line and I would never consider Babs in any way a slut. What I’m not ok with is comparing the two situations as if they are the same when they are not. I think my beef with how Nightwing romance is portrayed is more about the sexual assault he receives.

Also i don’t think Babs is written as prettier or more feminine now. In fact I think that is more opposite. She is largely portrayed as tomboyish and wearing baggy clothing. I personally believe that it’s to contrast Dick’s other love interests as Babs is the only one outside of Shawn who is portrayed as such. One thing I don’t like about the way Babs is portrayed now a days is that for some reasons certain writers and people love having her be “not like other girls” and the comparison. That because she is not like other girls that makes her somehow better when in fact it makes her worse as a character and makes the writing even more misogynistic (and racist). See again how TomTaylor is writing her in his run.