Ruminations @autumngray - Tumblr Blog

Finished reading this amazing fic by the even more amazing @autumngray, so I've decided to post the sketches I made of my fav scenes

I'm planning to do a more rendered thing because the ending was 10/10 and I need to create something inspired by it, I just need to find the time.... soon.....

autumngray

These are incredible, I love them, thank you!!

#batman fanfiction #I love the play of gloom and lighter gloom #also Stephanie’s face is brilliant so perfect for the her who lives in my head #I am probably bad at tagging #Apologies for that #artwork

A lot of DC characters get cheered for not taking crap from Batman and calling him on his bullshit –– especially Alfred, Dick, Barbara, Stephanie, and Clark. But it seems like Bruce is graded on an endlessly unforgiving curve if he refuses to take crap from his friends or, even worse, kids. If he calls them out on anything at all, or even just refuses to substitute their point of view for his own, it's like he's automatically in a yellow zone of, "Trying to be a good parent/friend but maybe pretty close to failing because, ya know, he's being bluntly critical or arrogant or rejecting of them which, ya know, not good."

Clearly he has issues with being a jerk and communicating poorly and forgetting to empathize. Except, people are extremely bluntly critical of him to his face on a regular basis, in comics and especially in fanon, yet they're still advertised to be "good friends" with good communicating skills, etc. or far more sensible kids who love him despite his flaws, so? Like?

Is he supposed to be aware of the double standard here? Is it just the case that getting scolded is good for his soul, whether the criticism is helpful, emotionally intelligent, or not?

Honestly, I'd avoid people and minimize opportunities for conversation, too, if I was regularly treated this way, because it would quickly become obvious there was no "succeeding" for me. There was only getting through with as little fallout and drama as possible.

#it's fine if you want to write Bruce Wayne as bad at feelings and communicating #I personally just cannot handle it when he's far from the only one #but everyone else just mysteriously gets a pass #because they're not as stick-in-the-mud #quiet #serious #easy to poke fun at? Dramatic?#in such a position of authority?#Is Bruce the only person allowed to realize he was wrong about something and needs to do better in the Batman fandom?#character analysis #Batman stories

Hello. I'm currently reading Patriarch and I love how you write Bruce(and all the others) Any advice on how to write Bruce? I love him but I find him really hard to write from his pov/writing something Bruce-centric. Would love some advice. Thank you🫶

Hello – I know you! I believe you've commented on Patriarch? Unless your little picture and name is a baffling coincidence.

I tend to write the same way I bake –– using recipes as guidelines that I have to really think to pin down –– so, I'll do my best here, but if it doesn't resonate, there really are so many ways to write and I think the old, basic recommendation to "read good books" (controversially, books, not fanfic, it really does make a difference) and "practice writing what you love" is best.

It's also really important to focus on having fun, I think, especially if like me you tend to be perfectionistic.

For Bruce, I know/cherry pick who I think he is essentially and then I decide what circumstances or storyline structures will bring out the parts of him (and often other characters) I most want to highlight/explore/enjoy.

Personally, I love to incorporate (and defend, I guess, by refusing to let the narrative pass judgment, though certainly, other characters are allowed to) the dichotomies he embodies: his seeming aloofness, even coldness, and the fact that he's an incredibly observant, compassionate person who will quietly do an insane amount of small to enormous things for people if it's within his power; his ruthlessly strategic and practical mind on the one hand blended with an often understated humor and appreciation for impractical things, like adding wings to the Batmobile or a gigantic t-rex in his Cave or a bat-pattern in the sole of his boots. He's the sort of extremely serious, withdrawn, slightly pathetic person you'd never expect to be silly like he often is, and yet his silliness in no way undercuts the grim way he experiences and pushes back against a hard, difficult world. He cannot "get over" his griefs, he cannot stop seeing tragedy everywhere he turns and feeling called to address it, and so, he can't "get over" being some people's idea of a stick-in-the-mud, and I personally deeply relate to that. I don't even think he should "get over" any of it, and a lot of my stories are about how, it's actually ok that he's like that. It doesn't make him toxic or childish or inhuman or impossible to live with. It just makes him a complex human being with strengths, faults, limitations, and issues who dislikes and weaponizes superficiality and distractions, who's incredibly difficult to get to know, but also incredibly dependable.

Getting into his head is fun for me, because I really enjoy finding tailored inner voices for each character and he's a dramatic comic book guy –– he can get away with literally thinking, I'm a monster, without making me roll my eyes. Instead I get to take him seriously, which I have increasingly enjoyed after dipping into the wider fandom world and finding it's actually somewhat unusual for people to give him the time of day (outside of just, you know, sports team-like chanting that Batman's the best fighter and smartest ever, rah rah)? Even fans who love the more complex characterization he can have don't often seem to *respect* him; instead, they seem to find him ridiculously overdone in the ways that I personally think can be most compelling? So, I tend to focus on those aspects of him. The challenge for me is to tell his story in a way I think still resonates with truth but also makes it easier to see that, yeah, actually, that guy *is* endearing –– heroic –– sad –– gentle –– competent, with thick skin and a grown-up interior life.

Overall, an excellent person for this kid or crisis or situation.

Tbf, as a kid, I loved the serious-loner-tragic characters who never got enough credit in my sulky opinion, so I'm used to such characters being the butt of jokes, and I have a lot of theories for why they tend to be used that way, some of which is fine, but I *love* them. I think being flippant (using humor to cope) and light-hearted and gregarious are overrated, actually. I think being withdrawn and thoughtful to even a melodramatic degree and refusing to soften those aspects of oneself can be incredibly healthy for a given individual as well as human society overall. People like that can hold our collective toes to the fire, refuse to agree even just in the way they live that reaching for distraction as the world goes to hell is ok, that distraction will somehow generate better mental health or personal resilience or courage. People like that can remind us that looking reality in the eye can sometimes mean you won't laugh as easily anymore, that you won't be as funny and comfortable and chill.

And I don't think that's necessarily a problem at all.

#asks #Batman character analysis #writing #fanfic #thanks and I hope I didn't get too carried away in responding but I thoroughly enjoy this stuff

beardedmrbean

autumngray

Listen, I would legitimately get so cozy and hungry reading about these feasts.

supreme-leader-stoat

I'm thinking again about the modern conflation of the concepts of "redemption" and "repentance" and "atonement" and how bleak of a picture it all paints when the definitions are homogenized.

What a lot of people mean when they talk about a person "redeeming themself" or (in fact and fiction) "redemption arcs," are actually repentance and atonement.

Repentance is the act of feeling regret for past behavior, of trying to change so that you can (and will) act differently going forward. Contrary to what you may have heard repeated in certain Christian circles, the literal meaning of the Ancient Greek word μετανοέω used in the Bible is not "to turn around wand walk the other way" (though that does provide a handy mental image). The elements are "change" and "to perceive with the eyes;" essentially, it means "to change your perspective." Or, more closely to how we would say it, "to have a change of the heart."

Atonement, on the other hand, is the process of actively trying to make up for wrongs and offset the bad you've done with good. Etymologically, it cleaves closely to 'uniting' and 'reconciling'—atonement is about mending what you've broken. If repentance is the inward change and the shift in personal behavior, atonement is about the active changes you make in how you interact with the world. (As a tangent, it's for this reason that I like to privately refer to what most people call characters' "redemption arcs" as "atonement arcs," simply because in the absence of a higher power that's actually much closer to what they are. But I get ahead of myself.)

Both repentance and atonement are good, noble, crucial things. And by virtue of being, respectively, an internal change and a set of actions done under your own power, they don't require any outward validation. In this, critics are wrong to say "some people are beyond redemption" in cases where they are, in fact, conflating it with repentance and atonement; it is somewhat ludicrous to make 'being sorry' and 'striving to do good' contingent on the acceptance of others. A person may be unrepentant. A person may refuse to atone. But in both these cases we are speaking of "will nots," not "cannots."

True "redemption," is contrast to both repentance and atonement, is not something that comes from within. "Redemption" speaks to an exchange, to a 'buying back'—by its nature, it appeals to a higher authority. A prisoner cannot absolve himself of his crimes, but he can (in an ideal system) be redeemed in the eyes of the law and of society by serving his just sentence. If I wrong my sister, I can atone by lowering myself and seeking her forgiveness, and in so doing find redemption. I can (if you'll allow me a small joke), redeem a coupon for a free sandwich, but I cannot simply will the coupon to be a sandwich by virtue of my being hungry. In all cases, redemption is something I must seek out and be given by an outside party. I can (and should) strive for it, but I cannot earn it—it is out of my hands.

But what of cases where there is no higher authority? What happens when I kill a man and no amount of private grief or public good deeds can bring him back or lay his accusations against me to rest? What happens if I seek forgiveness from my brother and am not given it? In a material framework, we must give up on the hope of redemption. If a man kills my friend, I may forgive him for the pain he has caused me, but I am not a high enough authority to forgive an attack that was committed against someone else. None of us are. The poor sinner remains trapped. In this, the critics (now actually speaking of redemption itself) are correct about some people being "beyond redemption."

It is only when we step outside of the secular viewpoint and present our penitence to, as C.S. Lewis says, "the party chiefly concerned, the person chiefly offended in all offences"—the one whose moral laws we have broken and who suffered personally as a direct result of our crimes—that we receive our answer. "I forgive you; now come, walk with me." In this, once again, the critics are proven wrong; no longer because they are conflating redemption with repentance or atonement, but because they themselves are not a high enough authority to forbid it. None of us are. The sinner remains freed.

#art imitates life #Analysis #sigrid Undset’s “The Faithful Wife” takes this consideration #And applies it to romantic partnerships and parent/child relationships #In a thought-provoking way

your writing is so amazing. i came across your ao3 at the beginning of this year and i think ive reread patriarch like... 5 times already. you are so skilled and you capture character voices perfectly.................... You are amazing! i am so glad i have the privilege to read your fics!!!

Thank you for this kind note! I’m glad you enjoyed that story, I had a good-difficult time crafting it — and I like the way it turned out quite well myself.

Have a lovely day!

#Asks

autumngray

I've come across a few posts about the importance and sweetness of the relationship between Stephanie and Damian in the Batfam, and while I don't disagree that them having a close brother-sister thing going is good, I think the characterization of it as: "Stephanie is so good with Damian because she just treats him like the snot-nosed, bratty, good-hearted kid he really is" is… strange. Because Damian isn't just that. That description of him is a kind of erasure, a kind of going partially un-seen, which most people don't actually take to kindly in the longterm. I mean, people can enjoy media and characters however they want, obviously, this just taps into a certain way of imagining trauma that bothers me. It usually goes: Character A is treated like they're volatile, damaged from growing up in a cult, fragile, you know –– whatever it is –– until Character B shows up and ignores all those obviously real factors, and somehow, it just works. Because apparently, that was the sort of "authentic connection" Character A really needed to heal.

I get the necessity of not reducing someone to their struggles or history; to seeing them as a whole person with agency. But that’s why pretending the hard issues and facets of them don't actually exist is an overcorrection in the other direction.

It happens a good bit in books and movies, as well as what I've seen in the Batfam fandom, especially if the story or take is contrasting how Bruce treats his kids vs almost anyone else, but very often the Kents or "Good Sibling [insert Batkid]". And there's some truth to it –– Sometimes, someone new is what a person needs. That unfamiliar space without baggage or just absent anyone who really Knows them. But then it usually isn't that the earlier approaches were "wrong", it's that sometimes, people will open up to strangers in ways they simply don't want to open up to others who have made themselves perfectly available for years.

(I'm aware Canon Bruce has not done this with Damian in all versions. In fanon stories or posts, he sometimes is prioritizing the kid, however, and because it isn't a perfectly tailored approach that everyone else can see isn't perfect because everyone except Bruce has some magical emotional acuity that can read Damian's mind and heart from moment to moment, apparently, he usually only gets push-back, eye-rolls, and "Let me draw it in crayon for you" talk-through's on How To Parent, often from Dick or Alfred, which I personally find infuriating. This isn't limited to Damian, of course –– this is often just how Bruce's attempts to "be a better parent" in fanon go.)

It just bugs me when characters are struggling to address actual issues someone has, and then the narrative just hands what it calls "emotional intelligence" to some other person who helps that same character heal in a shockingly small amount of time, with minimal effort, inconvenience, or cost. Like, Bruce is struggling with Damian, right? Then Damian visits the Kent farm or goes on a halfway forced shopping trip or cozy movie night with Stephanie and, without having to endure the distance, lashing out, difficulties, and undeserved scorn and defiance that *should* still characterize his reactions to someone attempting to get close to him, albeit in various ways, Ma Kent and Stephanie just… do it. By ignoring those sharp edges, and like a kid covering their eyes during hide and seek, assuming that means you can't see them either, those sharp edges just… go away? Damian feels seen and safe and understood, valued for who he is –– and boom! Instant strong ties and vulnerability unlocked.

Despite the fact that important parts of who he is, for good and for bad, just went completely ignored.

Stories have time constraints, sure, and sometimes, perhaps, people just want to see the pay-off, feel-good moments; but it just rubs me the wrong way when "gaining trust" is made comparatively effortless if you just "do it the right way," which usually means being highly verbal and a bit “respectifully” pushy, when actually? That's not how that works with most people, and most especially not traumatized kids. You need a sensible approach — and time. You usually have to go through a lot of tedious (not even necessarily intentional) evasion, misery, and hard stuff before you get to trust, and it can be one step forward, two back, sometimes for years. Often, you have to be willing to be kept at a distance, run around, and maybe even (seemingly randomly) hated here and there for a while.

****

To be fair, I do also just get sick of the "Bruce Wayne is bad at feelings" and "Bruce Wayne is bad at communicating" tags when, in fact, in the actual stories, he often isn't bad at either –– *everyone* involved is just in the process of learning about each other. (Or sometimes, in my opinion, the writer has everyone be bad at these things, but decides the characters are going to react as negatively as possible to Bruce specifically while reacting positively to each other –– which is fine, they can do that, but then the in-story events are not actually due to Bruce being 'bad at feelings' etc.)

Bruce could do something that nobody would mind at all if it came from Dick Grayson or Ma Kent, but *since it is Bruce*, they will kick up a fuss. And that is a real thing, with (especially traumatized) young adults bristling at authority figures or mentors or anyone "charged" with "taking care of them". Getting angry at that guy alone for doing things they wouldn't mind coming from someone else.

It doesn't mean Bruce has the emotional range or intelligence of a spoon. It means he took in traumatized kids.

fancyfade

I like the analysis here on how oftentimes people prioritize the more 'neurotypical' like interactions (the "pushy" verbal thing) in a way that often ignores how traumatized kids actually act, because it is spot on.

But I've mostly seen Stephanie contrasted with Dick, who wasn't doing what Bruce is doing in canon (trying to work as a father for damian with damian being a traumatized kid), but dick was kind of just. not doing what bruce was, so the idea I've seen is steph treats Damian like a kid (as opposed to Dick), rather than as opposed to Bruce, who does treat him like his son. I think Damian might have more overt friction with Bruce on page for reasons similar to what you outlined (bristling at authority figures), and fandom takes that to mean Bruce is doing something wrong*. When he does have interactions where Dick has no patience for him or assumes the worst of him he often kind of brushes it off or snaps back rather than it becoming a huge thing, because I guess either he doesn't care as much or he just kind of expects it in his 2009 era situation.

It does sound like a really annoying fanon trope for Dick to explain to Bruce how to parent Damian, when Dick definitely was not doing that in canon.

Sorry if this reply was weird. I like your analysis. I was just trying to explain that I could see Stephanie used in contrast to Dick more logically than in contrast to Bruce and in that instance she would be the first one who treats him like a kid in the batfam. I am assuming the Ma Kent thing is a purely fanon trope thing tho.

*which like. he's not perfect, I'm thinking of b&r 2011 where the writers were actually trying to develop a dynamic with the characters and not whatever fuckery was going on in the recent batman run tho

autumngray

This makes sense, especially with a more canon-based analysis. I've seen it a lot with Bruce, myself, where Stephanie isn't the first to do it, but Dick had the complication of also being Batman to Damian's Robin, etc., so it's like she's the first to be able to treat Damian as *only* a "normal kid."

Probably just the luck of coming across this or that pattern of examples in a whole sea of various fanon takes and canon? To my knowledge, the Ma Kent thing is only fanon, but I'm also not that well-versed.

The idea that, in general, if a kid reacts with anger or sadness to something their parent does, the parent messed up somehow, seems deeply entrenched? I think maybe it assumes that, if a kid feels safe, they're never going to feel bad with that safe person? And if they do, it must be that adultier person's fault? It kind of makes no sense at all to me. Like, conflict is part of life? Kids reacting agreeably is not the shining, eternal confirmation that someone is parenting well? Sometimes, it's a sign that what you have is a spineless, permissive parent who can't stand not being their kid's "favorite", even if that means allowing or even facilitating developmentally harmful things.

#batman analysis #emotional intelligence is not about feeling the “positive” emotions as often as possible #and the “negative” ones a little as possible #hello I hope I am replying correctly I'm very new to Tumblr

There are sensible ways to spoil, too; and in at least some of canon, Bruce is quite good at some of them:

Spoil by giving genuine attention, without letting necessary and good personal matters go undone. There's that metaphor attributed to Nora Roberts (though I'm not sure if it originates with her or not, there's certainly plenty of similar wisdom from all sorts of cultures and times) that in life, everything on one's "To-Do List" is a ball. Some are glass, some are plastic. We are gonna drop balls sometimes. The key is to prioritize well so that we drop as few glass ones as possible.

Spoil by giving physical affection or verbal affirmation that may seem excessive or silly, as long as it's genuinely what that individual person *needs* –– and wants. Not everybody does at every stage of their life. For some, it's miserable and overwhelming and will only feel fake. For others at other times, they actually need to develop the mental resilience to push through hard times and self-doubt without primarily outsourcing the uncomfortable effort to someone else.

There's that episode in BTAS when Robin is fear-gassed for the first time, and he's terrified of heights to the point that he freezes when Batman needs him. Batman's fine, but Robin is crushed. He says things like, "I'm useless to you now," and I've seen some commentary that this is one example of Bruce fumbling being a parent, because he missed an important opportunity to provide parental comfort and support, because he doesn't contradict Dick in this moment or explain that Dick doesn't need to be "of use" at all.

I can see this interpretation. It makes sense. But I actually disagree, even so.

Because Dick is in college and already quite mature, independent, and brave. He's overcome a lot, is thriving, and they trust each other. Know each other quite well. Dick mostly knows all these things that Bruce could say, even if he sometimes forgets; and Bruce is quietly supportive and gentle, not addressing Dick's miserable emotional state directly, but still contradicting his fears by acting contrary to what they suggest. And I think that's ok. Sure, we could say it's because he's not good at being direct, but it could also far more legitimately be because he believes Dick can work through this on his own. And he knows that's important. Look at everything Dick can do! He can manage some self-doubt here. In fact, it's important that people be able to manage their own inner life without *needing* external affirmation –– or, in this case, perhaps, a repetition of how important Dick is to Bruce regardless of Robin. In BTAS, that theme isn't nearly as present as in later canon –– with Dick being dramatically insecure on that point. It's just not as operative. And support is there, in this episode. Bruce doesn't just walk away or ignore his shaky state, he's present. He just also gives Dick the space to manage the heart of the problem, and Dick does.

Robin works through it by the end, just like Batman trusted he would, and Dick even saves the day.

Spoil by listening but not pretending to agree when we don't, just note when it doesn't matter –– it's not the end of an interpersonal world to have a difference in opinion about many things. Some are more important, but learning how to manage conflict about those? Life skill.

Major. Life. Skill.

Spoil by showing we can't be scared off, that we will care even when we have to stand on opposite sides of an argument and find a way through; or when caring actually means telling someone we love that, yeah, actually, they could do more to reach their full potential or –– the horror! –– they are doing something *wrong*. Always being in someone's corner, always having their back, does not mean protecting them from every bad feeling. It isn't insisting they are right or could never have done wrong or better. It means we prove they do not have to always be right or good in order to be loved and supported, including in fixing their mistakes.

This goes times a hundred if we are the adult or person responsible for a dependent in the situation.

#good parent Bruce Wayne #but an analysis of one specific trope #healthy “spoiling”#discussion of fictional characters without erasing in-genre conventions

"Spoiling" kids is actually a horribly unhelpful thing to do depending on what you mean by the word. It isn't being a good caretaker or nurturing influence, and I lose my mind a little every time I see a #good day Bruce Wayne post that has him "wrapped around his kids' fingers" or completely blind to the depths of their manipulative, mischievous behavior, because… no.

We're thinking of "dumb and bumbling but good-hearted, sitcom dad" here, maybe?

Actual goodness (including in parenting) has teeth as well as velvet tenderness. It wants what is genuinely nourishing for the other person, what will help them flourish and manage life's inevitable difficulties. It isn't tyrannical, flattening all argument or feedback without listening. It is also not permissive, caving at the first whiff of conflict or tears.

I have actually seen the "#good parent Bruce Wayne but he's actually just a doting pushover, haha, so cute," happen in real life, minus all the money and fame, and have read and heard about so many other tragic cases. The fallout is almost always awful, I've only ever known it to be awful, especially because the spoiling and overprotecting was done from a place of what seemed like self-sacrificial care, but it still made everything so much harder and uglier for everyone –– especially the kid(s).

Like, this seems like it should be obvious, but: We do not help anyone become happy, healthy, or responsible by giving them nearly whatever they want almost whenever they want while making next to no demands on them, just because maybe we're privileged or strong enough that we can. We do not help anyone mature or understand what unconditional love truly is if we only ever give this sort of frenetic pampering. Giving, giving, and giving more while rarely facilitating age-appropriate opportunities for kids to respond… to practice loving and doing hard things in return… erodes "spoiled kids' " sense of their own agency and understanding that other people also matter, not to mention the caregiver's sense of their own value and personhood. It takes responsibility for the kids' actions and emotions in a way that isn't sustainable so that when, eventually, the kids –– often grown by then –– have to take back the management of their own feelings and lives, they've had so little practice and experience with it that it feels like an impossible, crushing burden.

You wanna know why many parents who are abused by their adult children don't think it's abuse? Because this is generally true of many people in any sort of abusive relationship. They have the broad strokes of this mentality. It only feels natural to them to give, give, and keep on giving no matter how resentful it makes them and how much misery they have to bury, no matter how unfair and unsustainable on one level it seems to them. Because on a deeper level, they feel responsible for the other person's emotional state and wellbeing. Many people hope to earn love in return by providing this, by being *needed*, but parents and caregivers are in addition told by this incredibly loud, callous, dumb school of thought that they owe their dependents this unconditional care even if they receive nothing in return. Not even a thankful glance. That they are only doing what is expected of them, what they "signed up for."

What do they want? An award? "Nobody forced them to have kids anyway."

#good day Bruce Wayne posts/fics that have him leaping to soothe any ruffled feeling his kids have (insane how often it's Jason being blatantly if understandably manipulative, leveraging his tragic death like literally nothing else on Earth should be more important to anyone than compensating him for it or they never loved him, no other options, pick one and only one), or collapsing in the face of "puppy dog eyes", or allowing Robin simply because "how could he say no to that face??" –– From context cues, I'm guessing many people find these ideas harmlessly satisfying in some way or cute-funny, which, ok, that's fine. Fun is good.

But can we just acknowledge in the real world that this is not what a good dad looks like? A good dad wouldn't allow any of that –– both for his own sake and even more importantly *for the sake of his children*. Bruce may be so self-hating he lets it slide, especially with Jason, but that is actually *not good.* And honestly, I can't even handle the whole, "He just couldn't stop a 9 year old from being Robin, he was stuck enabling it or letting the kid die!" Like, maybe in some canon, that's true? I don't know. But if anyone wants me onboard with the genre of child heroes, then Batman saw it was *good for the kids he trained to be Robin.* He's not tagging along behind their "feral" selves, wringing his hands with worry and constantly going against his own better judgment here. This man has canonically defied Alfred Pennyworth (and often Leslie Thompkins, too) since he was himself a child. He can out-stubborn Dick Grayson at 9, like, come on.

His self-loathing hinders his ability to parent well. It's why he'll often frame everything in terms of, "But maybe I *did* manipulate this. Maybe it wasn't actually good for them, maybe it was just what I –– monstrous being that I am –– did to them, because I'm horrible and broken." Most crucially, his guilt-complexes are not something that give him the "right" nudge to be "lovingly there" for people when they're guilt-tripping and manipulating him.

#good dad Bruce Wayne #except an analysis and critique of one certain trope #wanna have fairytale fun?#ok but it's very fairytale and it's always gonna make me wince and hurry on #I only ever feel horrible for everyone involved in those posts #they make me so sad #this is one version of spoiling #the same word is sometimes used for better and healthier behaviors too

Hi hello fellow BTAS watcher. Just finished "Old Wounds" from TNBA and I'm so PISSED because of what they did to my boy Bruce. He would NEVER interrogate someone in front of their family >:((

Aside from the flat affect (love an autistic king unmasking), I don't like what they did to his character in TNBA :////

What's your opinion on the episode if you watched it? Do you think it's a good characterization?

Hello, hello!

I haven't watched it, though I have seen some of it (including that episode) in comic form? My kids and I didn't quite make it through the fourth season of BTAS, to be honest, when Tim and Nightwing are introduced. Something just felt really off about how the writing started weaving the stories around this idea that Bruce is somehow manipulating people into helping him with his war on crime. That he cares less, has this vague "darkness" inside him, and is obsessed more. Flaws are good for characters, but when a hero starts to look less like an even voluntarily good, self-sacrificial person and more like mental health issues and stubbornness on legs, who just happens to do good things on a citywide scale, sometimes, my family at least loses interest.

I don't know if the actual episode is like the comic version, but I assume it's close? And it was one of those stories I just sigh over and move on, because, no, I don't think Bruce would ever be ok traumatizing a family for the sake of expedience in a case. He wouldn't weaponize a family's distress just to get the data faster. Like… he's pretty intimidating himself. You know? I just don't even think it would be faster anyway, the whole "cold logic" vs empathy angle doesn't even work.

#asks

I've come across a few posts about the importance and sweetness of the relationship between Stephanie and Damian in the Batfam, and while I don't disagree that them having a close brother-sister thing going is good, I think the characterization of it as: "Stephanie is so good with Damian because she just treats him like the snot-nosed, bratty, good-hearted kid he really is" is… strange. Because Damian isn't just that. That description of him is a kind of erasure, a kind of going partially un-seen, which most people don't actually take to kindly in the longterm. I mean, people can enjoy media and characters however they want, obviously, this just taps into a certain way of imagining trauma that bothers me. It usually goes: Character A is treated like they're volatile, damaged from growing up in a cult, fragile, you know –– whatever it is –– until Character B shows up and ignores all those obviously real factors, and somehow, it just works. Because apparently, that was the sort of "authentic connection" Character A really needed to heal.

I get the necessity of not reducing someone to their struggles or history; to seeing them as a whole person with agency. But that’s why pretending the hard issues and facets of them don't actually exist is an overcorrection in the other direction.

It happens a good bit in books and movies, as well as what I've seen in the Batfam fandom, especially if the story or take is contrasting how Bruce treats his kids vs almost anyone else, but very often the Kents or "Good Sibling [insert Batkid]". And there's some truth to it –– Sometimes, someone new is what a person needs. That unfamiliar space without baggage or just absent anyone who really Knows them. But then it usually isn't that the earlier approaches were "wrong", it's that sometimes, people will open up to strangers in ways they simply don't want to open up to others who have made themselves perfectly available for years.

(I'm aware Canon Bruce has not done this with Damian in all versions. In fanon stories or posts, he sometimes is prioritizing the kid, however, and because it isn't a perfectly tailored approach that everyone else can see isn't perfect because everyone except Bruce has some magical emotional acuity that can read Damian's mind and heart from moment to moment, apparently, he usually only gets push-back, eye-rolls, and "Let me draw it in crayon for you" talk-through's on How To Parent, often from Dick or Alfred, which I personally find infuriating. This isn't limited to Damian, of course –– this is often just how Bruce's attempts to "be a better parent" in fanon go.)

It just bugs me when characters are struggling to address actual issues someone has, and then the narrative just hands what it calls "emotional intelligence" to some other person who helps that same character heal in a shockingly small amount of time, with minimal effort, inconvenience, or cost. Like, Bruce is struggling with Damian, right? Then Damian visits the Kent farm or goes on a halfway forced shopping trip or cozy movie night with Stephanie and, without having to endure the distance, lashing out, difficulties, and undeserved scorn and defiance that *should* still characterize his reactions to someone attempting to get close to him, albeit in various ways, Ma Kent and Stephanie just… do it. By ignoring those sharp edges, and like a kid covering their eyes during hide and seek, assuming that means you can't see them either, those sharp edges just… go away? Damian feels seen and safe and understood, valued for who he is –– and boom! Instant strong ties and vulnerability unlocked.

Despite the fact that important parts of who he is, for good and for bad, just went completely ignored.

Stories have time constraints, sure, and sometimes, perhaps, people just want to see the pay-off, feel-good moments; but it just rubs me the wrong way when "gaining trust" is made comparatively effortless if you just "do it the right way," which usually means being highly verbal and a bit “respectifully” pushy, when actually? That's not how that works with most people, and most especially not traumatized kids. You need a sensible approach — and time. You usually have to go through a lot of tedious (not even necessarily intentional) evasion, misery, and hard stuff before you get to trust, and it can be one step forward, two back, sometimes for years. Often, you have to be willing to be kept at a distance, run around, and maybe even (seemingly randomly) hated here and there for a while.

****

To be fair, I do also just get sick of the "Bruce Wayne is bad at feelings" and "Bruce Wayne is bad at communicating" tags when, in fact, in the actual stories, he often isn't bad at either –– *everyone* involved is just in the process of learning about each other. (Or sometimes, in my opinion, the writer has everyone be bad at these things, but decides the characters are going to react as negatively as possible to Bruce specifically while reacting positively to each other –– which is fine, they can do that, but then the in-story events are not actually due to Bruce being 'bad at feelings' etc.)

Bruce could do something that nobody would mind at all if it came from Dick Grayson or Ma Kent, but *since it is Bruce*, they will kick up a fuss. And that is a real thing, with (especially traumatized) young adults bristling at authority figures or mentors or anyone "charged" with "taking care of them". Getting angry at that guy alone for doing things they wouldn't mind coming from someone else.

It doesn't mean Bruce has the emotional range or intelligence of a spoon. It means he took in traumatized kids.

#musings on fictional characters #especially regarding mental health/trauma #Do we have to take it seriously? No #But then I'm not gonna take the feel-good stuff that seriously either #also the idea that only seeing the good or neutral in someone is “seeing the real them” is super problematic too

Excerpt from "Breaking Bread with the Dead", by Alan Jacobs

However, these insights [about how useful it is to read old books], though powerful, are not what this book is about. I will not try to convince you that a knowledge of history will protect you from the propaganda of tyrants, or sharpen your political judgment, or even help you to identify fake quotes online –– though I believe that a knowledge of history will indeed produce all those good things. I am going to try to convince you that the deeper your understanding of the past, the greater personal density you will accumulate.

I take that phrase from one of the most infuriatingly complex and inaccessible of twentieth-century novels, Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. Fortunately, you don't have to read the novel to grasp the essential point that one of its characters makes. That character is a German engineer named Kurt Mondaugen, and his profession perhaps explains the curiously technical language he uses to express his core insight. Here is the passage in which we learn about "Mondaugen's Law":

"Personal density," Kurt Mondaugen in his Peenemünde office not too many steps away from here, enunciating the Law which will one day bear his name, "is directly proportional to temporal bandwidth."

"Temporal bandwidth" is the width of your present, your now…. The more you dwell in the past and in the future, the thicker your bandwidth, the more solid your persona. But the narrower your sense of Now, the more tenuous you are. It may get to where you're having trouble remembering what you were doing five minutes ago….

We might add, in light of our earlier discussion of social acceleration, that insofar as that acceleration traps us in the moment, the more weightless we become. We lack the density to stay put even in the mildest breeze from our news feeds. Temporal bandwidth helps give us the requisite density; it addresses our condition of "frenetic standstill" by simultaneously slowing us down and giving us more freedom of movement. It is a balm for agitated souls.

In other words, this is a self-help book.

I don't mean that as a joke. The whole idea of self-help has a bad name among intelligent people, for two major reasons. First, what we call "self-help" is often a kind of self-soothing, a collection of banal reassurances that you might need to adjust a few things but you don't really have to make major changes. That "Archaic Torso of Apollo" was surely exaggerating, then, when it told the poet Rilke "You must change your life." Second, much self-help operates according to a listicle model of help: These Ten Tricks Will Change Your Life! Which might work if you didn't have enormously powerful social and technological forces pushing you in directions you don't get to choose. And if you weren't so light, so lacking in density, that you can't retain your place when the winds start blowing, even if you want to.

The German sociologist Gerd-Günter Voss has outlined the development, over many centuries, of three forms of the "conduct of life." The first is the traditional: in this model your life takes the form that the lives of people in your culture and class have always taken, at least for as long as anyone remembers. The key values in the traditional conduct of life are "security and regularity." The second model is the strategic: people who follow this model have clear goals in mind (first, to get into an elite university; later, to become a radiologist or own their own company or retire at fifty) and form a detailed strategic plan to achieve those goals. But, Voss suggests, those two, while still present in various parts of the world, are increasingly being displaced by a third model for the conduct of life: the situational.

The situational model has arisen in recent social orders that are unprecedentedly dynamic and fluid. People are less likely to plan to be radiologists when they hear that radiologists may be replaced by computers. They are less likely to plan to own a company when whatever business they're inclined toward may not exist in a decade, or may undergo some kind of transformation we can't currently anticipate. They are less likely to plan to have children when they don't know what kind of world (in terms of climate as well as society and technology) they will be raising those children in. They might not even want to plan to have dinner with a friend a week from Friday, because who knows what better options might turn up between now and then?

Though the situational conduct of life is clearly distinct from the strategic model, it's a kind of strategy all the same: a way of coping with social acceleration. But it's also, or threatens to be, a kind of abandonment of serious reflection on what makes life good. It's a principled refusal to ask, with Horace, "Where is it virtue comes from, is it from books?" or "What is the way to become a friend to yourself?" You end up just managing the moment. Therefore you certainly won't ask whether your life will be driven by "hope and fear about trivial things, / In anxious alternation in your mind" –– because what else could possibly drive it?

#literary quotes #and analysis #how does the way we entertain ourselves impact the way we live?#why is this connected to Batman fanfiction? mostly because #some narrow pop-contemporary judgments about “good dad”/“bad dad”#mental health and family dynamics and goals-of-living expectations are applied as if they were universal truths #when they are very much and highly interestingly Not #I say pop-contemporary because if you dig into some of the literature #it doesn't agree with a lot of the way fanon pictures “good dad Bruce” either #in a lot of those tags he'd be a permissive parent #which is actually no better for a kid's development than being an authoritarian tyrant

thats-ee

Happy overly-philosophical Life Day

eobe

✨🤩 Ooooh I love this! Beautiful artstyle and those facial expressions! Now I'm convinced that Vos decides in that very moment that he needs locks. Very much 🤪

autumngray

I chuckled.

I also identify with Qui-Gon here, so ––!

autumngray

Hi hello big fan of your writing! You always manage to make me cry with the emotional climax in your studies T.T

Also was reading some of your comments Do Trousers Matter? and what you said about the way fandom caricaturates the characters into their basest form really resonated with me :))

I really feel like fandom people could exercise more empathy(?) when writing the characters, even when it's about memes or comedy. I don't mean thinking of the characters as real people, but like, taking the time to think about how found families and adoptive families really work or different ways in which people that aren't verbally affectionate (or conventionally affectionate, because Bruce is a deeply affective person in my humble opinion ☝️) show their love in real life yk? I think some creators don't try to put themselves in the shoes of the characters they are writing, or simply just don't have enough life experiences or research that lets them understand what the characters they write are going through????

And it shows even in comedy and memes because some posts breach an event horizon in which it doesn't even feel like a case of "he would not fucking say that" to "this person's understanding of how people communicate is equivalent to that of an dry rock"

Sorry for the weird English and invading your ask box with this rant/ramble! ❤️❤️❤️

Hello, and thank you! I love rants, rambles, and discussions. :)

*whips out a soapbox with a flourish* O Listen, I definitely have this frustration a lot! I understand, people are often just having fun and certain ways of writing fics or enjoying media are the equivalent of "venting" about stuff, not to be taken too seriously. And some of that is fine. It's just not how I'm wired, and my personal controversial opinion is that we (in general) tend to do too much of it.

Kids at play with their goofy dolls are having fun and it ain't that deep, but also, they are doing things that matter for their development and understanding of the world; and I think the way we "bigger kids" choose to tell stories and entertain ourselves does, over time, have an impact on how we think and feel in a similar way. Like a feedback loop. It's difficult to draw lines about this, I get the pushback against "censoring" and "just letting people enjoy what they enjoy", but still. I think it's clear that if we repeatedly choose to engage with media defined by certain judgments and views, no matter how light-hearted it claims to be, we are likely choosing to develop similar thought patterns and opinions that can easily become a personal "echo chamber". It's the same old cant about being careful who you choose to be friends with, because you will start to resemble them over time.

Our imaginations need a balanced diet, just like our bodies –– and what will nourish each person at various times in their lives is going to vary, right, there's no one size fits all here –– so, while we fans certainly don't *have* to make the effort to take things more seriously or engage with more empathetic curiosity, I do think something precious and important is lost when we don't.

Happily? Encouragingly? We can't find a more low-risk environment in which to meaningfully explore characters and viewpoints that bring up hard or complicated thoughts and feelings than in fictional stories! Do we have to do it all the time or even most of it? No. But maybe we would benefit from doing it a bit more than we tend to. We can always put the hard stories down and never pick them back up, or just take a break and come back when we're ready again –– to write or read.

No feelings will be hurt if we do so.

What better place to continuing learning how to tolerate and even maybe understand characters, worldviews, and themes we don't instantly like or even get? We don't have to approve anything. We don't have to agree or change our minds about anything either. We can just safely, at a distance, accept that life can be very complex and hard but still good? We can come to know others and ourselves better, maybe. To research, become intrigued, reconnect with history and rabbit-hole our way through some of the thousands of ways human beings are and have been? To lean away from over-identifying with traits/characters/times we prefer and oversimplifying the ones we don't?

I love tales that allow me to do all this, and so, even when I am honestly primarily having fun, those are the kinds of stories I try to write. Even if they're just Batman fanfic, it's still both fun and engaging for me!

autumngray

One book I *love* that helped me articulate some of my thoughts along these general lines and gave me a ton to chew over that I'd never considered is "Breaking Bread with the Dead," by Alan Jacobs.

Just in case anyone's looking for a cozy book full of interesting literary thoughts, especially like how "real life" and reading matter to each other!

Also! Do you base your characterization more around BTAS or the comics? :3

Definitely BTAS. I am only patchwork informed on comics, I only skim bits here and there because the few times I dipped a little deeper, I just didn't enjoy the inconsistent storytelling and characterization that is natural to the way comics are. Literally a "not my cuppa" situation. :)