was talking with alea about this and i think what makes talia’s rapist retcon additionally so insidious and racist is how it blatantly ignores her own origins as a really young brown girl who grew up in a cult and was so vulnerable due to that upbringing that she latched onto the first white man who expressed kindness and an interest in her and who was theoretically around a decade older than her. like i think about it sometimes and it’s crazy that she got married to bruce twice within the first two to three years of them knowing each other and how that was followed by a distanced five or six years where they crossed paths on occasion but under usually pained circumstances where bruce got to return to his support system (regardless of how much he actually relied on them) while she returned to her father, who used her repeatedly as a pawn. and i just can’t imagine how damaging that entire experience was: of being passed back and forth, vesting her self-worth in the hands of two men, and wishing for some kind of escape, all while she was in her early to mid-twenties at best. i’m not trying to imply that bruce was a predator or whatever like he’s fictional and this was all clearly a product of racist writing that lacked self awareness or the willingness to acknowledge the orientalist optics of talia’s relationships with bruce and her father, but it’s Astounding to me that after her going through all of these experiences and trauma where she was clearly at the lower end of a power imbalance, a writer decided to turn the tables and assign so much power to her as to make her the predatory figure in her relationship with a much older white man. it reeks of so much racism, misogyny, and ignorance that i truly, truly cannot stand when people underscore the depth of morrison’s “mistakes”. bc it really is about so much more than just turning her into a rapist (and this doesn’t even get into the optics of her relationship with damian lmaooo)
The fact that Kaiba is an angsty jerk shounen rival whose life goal is to build a theme park is beyond parody. motherfucker is literally edgy teen walt disney with dragons instead of mice. laughing maniacally and wearing leather pants while he furthers his heartless plot to…bring joy to small children? who wrote this. cursed.
imagine there’s this guy, right? and he’s checking every box labelled “supervillain” like his life depended on it. he’s rich. he’s a ruthless corporate scion. he’s a teen super-genius hacker inventor. he has an angsty tragic backstory and a reason to hate the world. he wears high-fashion trenchcoats with shoulderpads and unneccesary spikes. he makes dramatic speeches about how love and friendship are useless ideals that get you nowhere and you should depend on yourself alone and value only crushing your enemies. obsessively stalking our heroic protagonist in order to “defeat” him.
So what’s he doing? Where’s his doomsday device? His world domination plot? No, idiot, he’s just building roller coasters. because he really likes them.
His adopted father was a war profiteer. Kaiba’s villain origin story is taking over his father’s trillion dollar weapons company and turning it into edgy teen Disneyland.
sitting here sobbing thinking about the day dick realized damian was taller than him
it might have been during patrol, on one of the rare occasions dick would slip into the old, familiar cesspool of gotham city, wading into the stripped-clean people and clockwork crime that made up his childhood. despite the time stretching between when they'd patrolled together, trained together, fought together, dick and damian still slid effortlessly into a rhythm, a powerful thrum of dual sound waves permeating the smog. dick landed on the ledge of a rooftop, toes pointed and calves tensed and grin alight with sheer euphoria that free-running gave him. damian was only a hair behind him, his landing a bit wobbly as he tried to overcompensate for his newly-acquired height and bulk. damian straightened up to toss his own smirk back at his mentor (his father, his brother, his batman), wicked sharp and curved and almost as striking as the instrument strapped to his back in a sheath. and dick would beam right back up at him, before tumbling headfirst in the realization that his neck was craned slightly up to do so.
or it could be during a holiday dinner, because despite very few of their family members actually being religious, alfred's old british tendencies shone through in his insistence for christmas dinner. texting often and sending pictures would never replace having a warm, living, breathing person next to him, though, and dick could draw upon reserves of patience to make it through the night. light and laughter and love dripping from the chandelier would more than make up for it. dick unwrapped his scarf, threading it through his fingers as he rolled his shoulders out from alfred's guiding hands on his jacket, and he turned with a smile ready to greet whoever stood at the stairs. then, his grin would drop, because candlewax dripped and plants blossomed under persephone's touch and the sun took bow only to perform an encore once again, but dick never understood that time had passed until that moment. there damian was standing, arms loose at his sides, passively ready to reciprocate a hug. his hair was longer and his shoulders were broader and he was standing a good couple inches over dick and it seemed as though the boy had more of bruce's genes in him than dick remembered.
or maybe it was in the field, on a titans mission. damian and his hodgepodge of handpicked company he called a team had proven themselves more than competent, just like the generations of titans before them. but there were times when dick and roy and donna were simply needed, garth's expertise was required, wally's power was essential. it was the thrilling sort of cacophony: fire blasting, weapons flashing left and right, people flinging themselves off rooftops with outstretched arms, knowing without a doubt their teammate would catch them. and somewhere in the midst of the fray, dick ended up back-to-back with his old robin, the two of them trusting each other to watch their six after all these years. it's not that dick ever doubted a younger damian's ability to cut down anyone foolish enough to attack batman from behind, but right now, there seemed to be a lot more back to lean against. he turned to see damian twirling his sword like the flip of a ribbon, deflecting a blast that would have hit straight on.
it hurt, no matter what the situation was. dick wondered if this was what bruce saw, fifteen or twenty-odd years ago. if bruce blinked and suddenly zephyr had spirited his precious, precocious little child away, leaving a long-limbed and hard-eyed stranger in their place. dick wondered if there was any pride mixed in with the melancholy wistfulness at all. supposedly, bruce had sung his praises to his league, but all dick ever saw was the encompassing shadow of an outstretched palm reaching out to guide him where bruce thought he needed to go.
looking at damian, dick understood. damian was childish complaints wrapped up in eloquent language, dust floating through the air over an old violin, animal treats crumbling out of pockets, spray-paint on fingers that no number of large hoodies could hide. damian was not muscled arms swinging a broadsword with ease, damian was not green and gold accents without a hint of red, damian was not a calm, mature twinkle in an eye.
it's not fair, dick thought. damian's youth wasn't allowed to blow away on the backs of dandelion pappus. it's not fair.
but dick could muddle past that, because the set of damian's shoulders was relaxed in the way only true confidence could bring. he let his team make decisions and he took time off to visit his family and he stuck his landings the way dick had taught him, a couple years and a couple lifetimes ago. the only time i feel pride is when i look at nightwing, bruce said once, dick wasn't sure if what he was feeling was pride or love, but he was beginning to believe bruce's words.
(pride in others and love for others were too wrapped up in each other, too utterly intertwined, for them to be distinct anyway.)
“I knew I would never see him as an old man. No, he’d leave us in a box, with jet black hair, and the only lines on his face would ones brought on by injury. You knew it wouldn’t end well. Despite all the training. All the brilliance. All the strength…Under it all there was just flesh, blood and bone. And a man who never feared death. You know as well as I do he was frightened by a great many things, but his own mortality barely made the top hundred list with him. I just…I…I just wasn’t ready to lose him.”
Y’all remember that time when Bruce stood in one of the empty rooms in the manor and talked about how it would have been Damian’s playroom if he had been able to raise him since he was a baby?
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