Evidently a large number of fanon enjoyers are now upset and claim that even calling out racism on a joke post, no matter how gracious and civil, is bullying and violent behavior that makes fandom unenjoyable.
His Romani parentage is a retcon from about 2000. Dick have always been blue eyed and fair-skinned. He’s never been fluent in a Romani language, he’s an American citizen with English as his first language.
And it’s one Romani parent, which one has varied between writers. Currently it’s his mom, who grew up in France. The court of owls storyline introduced that his dad’s grandmother was from one of Gotham’s richest families.
Hi, Angloromani gal here (as you may have guessed from the url). Just a couple of things:
Light skinned, blue eyed, even blonde fully Romani people exist, especially in Northern Europe (and current canon suggests Dick’s mom was French). I myself have lighter brown hair and blue eyes, and I’m very pale, even whilst most of my family is quite dark.
As for blue eyes, in the North of Europe, the stereotypical Romani look (even amongst us) is usually considered to be dark curly hair, olive skin, and blue eyes. Blue eyes are a really common feature in Romani people.
Also in the north of Europe, it’s very rare for any of us to have true fluency in Romani. It’s just not how the language works here anymore. English is my first language too. (This is apparently different in Romania, but even there, not everyone is completely fluent either, and it’s increasingly common for people to learn more than the basics we’re mostly taught as children once they reach adulthood.)
And whilst his being Romani is a retcon, it’s not exactly one which came out of nowhere. Gypsies have long been associated with fairgrounds and circuses to the point where there is a whole cultural group called Showmen who are gypsies from the fairground/circus (fun fact: I am one). So whilst it’s only been official for a couple of decades, it’s definitely possible to read a gypsy identity in Dick from day one - especially since a lot of Dick’s moral hang ups are very in line with gypsy culture.
This one’s just my opinion, but I really think we need to stop the stigma against retcons. No one really questions the validity of retcons such as Jason Todd being from Crime Alley, and other retcons (e.g. Talia and Damian’s conception) are surely an improvement. Whilst not all of them are great, I don’t really see the harm in using them to add more depth to characters. Whilst it is annoying that writers can’t seem to decide which parent is Romani (honestly, I don’t even think that current canon wherein Dick’s paternal grandfather is ethnically a gorja really stops him from having Romani heritage on both sides - who’s to say that Dick’s paternal grandmother wasn’t Romani, making John a diddakoi?), I personally will take any rep we can get. In all honesty, Dick Grayson is one of the best examples of Showman rep we have.
CHUCK!!! come to the denny's parking lot I just wanna talk, i was kidding before, i'm not gonna fight you with my bare hands or anything, come ooooon chuckie d it'll be fine.
You know what’s a super-interesting thought I just had?
(I mean, unless its not super-interesting thought at all and is actually quite mundane, in which case, lol, can’t believe you suckers fell for that. Wow. How embarrassing.)
But no, I’m just kidding, its actually super-interesting, I might be a genius, waiting on confirmation. So the thing is, there’s one really specific trope that I’ve probably seen used in fic for pretty much every fandom I’ve ever been in…..but that I’ve never seen used in a Dick Grayson fic.
The trope of which I speak is ye olde time travel fix-it trope. Wherein the main character wakes up in their ten or fifteen years younger body or whatever, and like, uses foreknowledge to avert personal tragedies or losses of loved ones.
Now first off, I think there’s something intriguing about the relative lack of this trope in a fandom where things like time travel are literally canon and things the characters are aware of being like ‘so this is a thing that happens, and if my friend/relative woke me up one day and said hey you’re not gonna believe this but I actually have all the memories of me from fifteen years in the future, I would be like no for sure, I totally believe you dude, that happens all the time.’
That right there is already a twist on the usual time-travel fix-it stories, which tend to take place in fandoms where that ISN’T the norm and so the protag is like I must make with the hush-hush and keep the vault of my secret knowledge zipped up tight lest someone book me a nice staycation at the nearest fandom-specific equivalent of Arkham.
But then I ALSO started thinking hmmm, were one TO apply this trope to Dick Grayson in particular, like…..what point in his past would you even PICK as the point in time he returns to, hoping to use his foreknowledge to make play out differently?
Like….would you go all the way back to his parents being killed, and make them check the ropes again? How about before Bruce fired him from being Robin and the estrangement that led to between them? Or before Jason dies? Or maybe before Brother Blood brainwashed Dick that first time, or before Terra betrayed the team, or before Mirage, or before Joey got possessed and the events of Titans Hunt……how about before Blockbuster, or before Donna and Lilith died in Graduation Day or when Bruce was thought dead in Final Crisis, or when Damian was killed by Heretic or before the events of Forever Evil?
THERE’S TOO MANY FIX-IT POINTS HOW DO YOU EVEN PICK?!?!?
But THEN I got to thinking, well…..one of the other things particular to Dick Grayson’s tragedies is how often they’re inextricably tied to later things he doesn’t view as tragic or something he regrets or wants to avert. So its like…..how CAN he go back and avert his parents’ deaths, without giving up the family he later goes on to build with Bruce and all his siblings? If he travels back and repairs his fractured bond with Bruce before being fired as Robin, is it going to be a given that Bruce still meets Jason or feels compelled to take him in? If Jason never dies, does Tim ever join the family? Does Joey ever even join the Titans if Terra never betrays them? Without that time Bruce is thought lost and dead, do Dick and Damian ever form the bond they have in canon? Etc, etc.
So that narrowed it down considerably for me, and I ended up with just a couple key points where I’m like, okay, I could see Dick still ending up back at this time and thinking yeah there are things I want to change and feel safe about changing without undoing other key parts of my life.
1) Blockbuster - This era is I think one of the biggest tragedies of Dick’s life, and because of how….scattered the aftermath and fallout of it was, and the in-story examinations of it, it remains fairly disconnected from the rest of Dick’s life and thus something that he can alter to fairly sizable degree without like…..altering the overall shape of his life after that point in ways he would be averse to. The lives Blockbuster took when blowing up his apartment building, Tarantula, the destruction of Bludhaven as a whole…..all of these are things that Dick, armed with foreknowledge and also strengthened by his growth and development in years long after all this, could tackle and change all on his own.
And one of the key things about this for me, and the appeal of this flux-point as an area of focus…..is that it would be an opportunity for Dick to change things for the better for HIMSELF. Where the focus would be on yeah, saving all those other lives, but just as much like…saving himself, averting a tragic period of his life for his OWN sake rather than just….because of how it’ll change or improve the lives of friends or loved ones of his. Self-sacrifice is kinda built into so many of his stories and dynamics, that its just like…..very appealing to not deny that this is the case, but rather just hone in on a time and place where he gets to put himself first and be like, I am changing things, I am making things better for ME, because *I* will benefit from this and I deserve to.
I think that’s a neat premise for him, personally. You do you, boo. Get that healing.
2) The Last Laugh - Okay, because I am me and I can’t just like, NOT be obsessed with this story and the implications for Bruce, Dick and Jason, ugh, how OOC would THAT be, like excuse me but I am no Scott Lobdell, I choose to stick with established characterization THANK YOU, next…..
Soooooo, I also got to thinking, what if future Dick were to wake up the morning of Last Laugh’s events and be like, wait why am I here back on THIS day and then also with his knowledge of how things like Jason’s return played out and how much the Joker being alive played into that…..what if he’s like…..y’know what, now that I actually KNOW that whatever else happened if I killed the Joker, at least one person would actually be really fucking beneficially impacted, with potentially large ripples on the rest of the family (like Jason never going full crime lord or attacking Tim in Titans Tower if he were less inclined to avoid his family before all that)….and of course add to that all his awareness of later shit the Joker definitely very much did do and that are not hypotheticals for him (bonus points if this is a Rebirth/pre-Flashpoint continuity mashup and thus Duke’s in the mix here too and Dick’s like, hmmm, one dead Joker means two less Joker-ized Duke parents)…..
And so the end result is Dick is like, hmmm yeah, I think actually I’m just gonna kill the Joker again, but like, with intent this time. And Just Say No to Bruce making with the CPR like this is a D.A.R.E. infomercial or something. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
(Because I’ve always maintained that Dick never actually regretted killing the Joker per se, what he regretted was that in losing control and just reacting to the Joker’s taunts and going full pell-mell with the fists of fury, like, he gave the Joker exactly what he wanted and let him ‘win.’ But what kind of quandary is afoot when you have Dick be like….actually, I’m NOT sad about it and I DON’T want Bruce to ‘fix’ this since it doesn’t actually fix what it breaks between them in the first place, and they didn’t ever get past it so much as they just never even talked about it again, so IS it really that much worse if you have Bruce be like GASP, Dick no! You can’t just be OKAY with killing the Joker! and Dick be like GASP, Dick yes! I can, I will, I AM okay with killing the Joker on account of duh, its the JOKER.
And thus you set the stage for all kinds of DIFFERENT fallout than the first time around, Dick deadset on believing he made the right choice, and Bruce not able to reconcile WHY, and then even if and when Jason DOES return in a much, hmm…’softer’ way than in canon and like, never makes with the attempted fratricide or patricide or any kind of -cide, really, and Dick - who let’s be real, can count as one of his more obnoxious qualities his tendency to be a V. Smug Bitch when he’s feeling particularly ‘I told you so’ about stuff - is like Hah! I told you so! and feels all vindicated and validated about his particular choice of….choices, back then, and Bruce would be like What are you talking about you told me NOTHING, and Dick’s like oh right, I did do that. Vault of secrets thing. Hmm. Well if you’d just TRUST ME that I know what I’m doing which you never do…..
And blah blah blah you get it.
But yeah. That’s my interesting thought. Please feel free to sound off with past-points you’d pick for Dick to return to and try and change things, and perhaps why.
Or, y’know. Don’t. That’s cool too. The power is yours.
"Devin Grayson wrote some things that were problematic and racist", "She has written some actually good runs and is one of the best writers for Roy" and "The way the fandom reacts to her like she is a literal monster when male writers did the same thing or worse (Tom King was part of the CIA !! Wolfman actually created a self-insert and married him to a 19 year old Donna and was responsible for Liu and Mirage when Tarantula being a self-insert is false) is extremely sexist" are three statements that are not mutually exclusive.
Actually so devastating to me that in almost every single instance Dick says, “I’ve been there”. And he really has, regardless of situation or event it’s most likely it has happened to him. Whether it’s death, resurrection, betrayal, lost love, or an entire list of traumas. Dick Grayson has been through something like that.
I can’t remember if I’ve said this before but I think that if you make a Batman 1920s AU then you have to take into account that Bertie Wooster often spent time living in New York and Gotham City is just New York Noir and Bruce Wayne would probably cultivate the acquaintance of Bertie Wooster because Bertie is exactly the sort of person Bruce wants people to think he is, so it’s both birds of a feather camouflage and because he wants to observe Bertie for behavioural ideas.
Bertie, ray of sunshine that he is, thinks Bruce is jolly good fun and really quite barmy, but he already has a friend called Barmy and he can’t manage two Barmies so he affectionately dubs him Batty.
Consequently Bruce exists in a state of nagging uncertainty as to whether Bertie is the golden-hearted silly ass he so transparently appears to be, or is in fact one of his villains, knowing who he is and taunting him.
Jeeves would get to feel a little smug toward Alfred. He's not judging the violent vigilante justice or the obvious need for therapy (much). But he thinks the batsuit is ugly af and the fact that Alfred let's him go out in public like that is rather embarrassing. Alfred agrees.
Ok so might accidentally end up doxxing myself with this one but here we go…
The Himboification of Dick Grayson, and Why It Sucks From A Gypsy Perspective
Warning: this is a long one! Also tw for brief mentions of Dick’s canonical SA/rapes, and discussions of purity cultures.
And disclaimer: none of this is intended to slut-shame anyone, so hopefully it doesn’t come across like that. I’m just hoping to explain the weird sexualisation of gypsies in the media, vs our more conservative attitude to sex. This also isn’t meant to shame anyone or tell you how you must imagine Dick Grayson - if you like dark skinned, more-fem Dick, then you keep on enjoying that! This is just what I’ve noticed as someone who is a gypsy, and some patterns I’ve seen in how Dick is portrayed and received.
So, I have a lot of problems with the depiction/perception of Dick Grayson, and particularly the hyper-sexualisation we see. I am not alone in this, and I know it’s something which has been discussed a fair bit in the past.
Honestly, I don’t even know where a lot of this came from? It’s only really in the past decade or so that we start to see it emerge properly in canon; prior to this, whilst it was agreed that Dick is good looking, he was kind of able to get around as a normal guy, and was praised a lot more for his capabilities and athleticism than for his looks. But with the New 52, there seemed to be this shift where Dick is really reduced to his looks. The Grayson/Spyral comics are particularly guilty of this: so many times we see Dick called an idiot (even if somewhat affectionally), sexualised (even by teen-aged girls when he is in his twenties), and reduce himself to his looks (Dick himself even says something along the lines of ‘It’s a good thing I’m pretty’). You can argue that the whole point of Spyral is that Dick was undercover, but it’s something we still see today (I’m thinking the 2025 Valentine’s Day Damian storyline). We can dismiss this as being ‘out of character’, but with how it’s been a gradually accepted part of DC canon over the last decade especially, I don’t know how long we can reasonably make that excuse.
The gypsy perspective isn’t necessarily the main reason I hate this, it’s just one which I feel capable of offering. (if you’re new here, hi, I’m a traveller/gypsy/showman/whatever you want to call me from a fairground and circus family in the UK. I’ve always stuck to fairgrounds myself but a lot of my family were/are still with the circus so I’m not an idiot and it’s all closely related anyway. I also grew up speaking Romani so there’s that.)
Other reasons I hate it include: the double standards of objectifying Dick being treated as almost acceptable because Dick is a man; Dick as an SA/rape survivor; and the fact that it’s bloody stupid because Dick is a highly competent vigilante and detective - a partner of Batman, then Batman himself, who even on his sick days is solving cold cases for fun. He is a genius ffs.
But anyway, onto the potentially doxxing gypsy perspective.
I know that Dick’s ‘gypsy rep’ has been a bit touch and go over the years. Grayson’s run is quite infamous for her handling of this (the whole internalised racism she gave him during his Tevis mob era, and Bruce’s stereotyping in Gotham Knights still makes me feel icky), and it’s only recently that it’s really been discussed again, mostly being ignored by writers in between. However, I’ve also mentioned before that to me, the writer with the most accurate representation is ironically Morrison (because he wasn’t trying). The thing is, even if writers have kind of circumnavigated the whole ‘gypsy’ thing (a term I use because it’s common in the UK, and is one Dick uses himself, alongside ‘carney’ which is the American English version of the British ‘showman’, a subtype of “gypsy”), it’s been canon since Day One that Dick is from the circus. And due to how circuses work, especially with the hereditary nature and how it was more common for the gypsy family who ran the circus to perform in the 40s when Dick was introduced, even if it wasn’t explicitly stated, Dick Grayson has kind of canonically (or at the very least, subtextually) been a gypsy since his introduction.
So now that bit of house keeping is out of the way, why does the himboification of Dick Grayson really annoy me, as a gypsy/showman/carney myself?
So, the first issue I have is really the exoticism. There’s been a large push especially from fan-artists (though it has been very subtlety reflected in canon) to have Dick portrayed with darker skin, to more “accurately” portray him as Romani (spoiler: this is not accurate). There is a fantastic post which explains this further, but it’s actually kind of colourist to say that Dick Grayson is whitewashed. I’m a full gypsy, not a diddakoi or anything, and I’m pasty as fuck. Sure, my dad was often mistaken as South Asian in his youth, as his family are all very olive-skinned and tan dark in the summer, but my mum is white as a sheet (much to her own father’s annoyance) and I take after her. This is the case for a lot of us, especially in the North of Europe. And yet, I am still ethnically a gypsy. Dick does not lose his ‘gypsy card’ for being white. And the fact that many of the fandom view it as necessary for Dick to have a darker complexion to fit this perception of what a Romani person looks like (especially since this perception largely comes from gorjas who’ve never knowingly met a gypsy before in their lives) is not only inaccurate, but kind of problematic. I don’t mind seeing a darker Dick Grayson, but it’s how people act like he has to be dark skinned to be Romani which is frankly just incorrect.
This is doubly problematic when people use his being Romani to exoticise and sexualise Dick. Like with Esmerelda in the Hunchback of Notre Dame, I’ve often seen the fandom (and even canon, to some degree) use Dick’s heritage to make him seem other, and almost remove some barriers for proper conduct (i.e. be overly affectionate, etc). We see this kind of sexualisation with a lot of non-white characters, like Talia for example, and I think that the push for a visibly non-white, exotic Dick Grayson does fall in line with the same kind of racist hyper-sexualisation we see there. Alternatively, maybe this idea of a ‘sexy gypsy from the circus’ has its roots somewhat in real life, but actually results from major misunderstandings: until the sixties, it was common for circuses to have peep shows, with girls outside advertising it in their underwear; the misunderstanding comes in that these girls were not gypsies themselves (see my next point) but hired gorja staff who worked for or alongside us. It’s not unreasonable, then, that a child visiting the circus (and thus shaping their idea of what a circus is) up until the 60s might misinterpret this as being related to gypsies ourselves (songs like Cher’s Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves, also add to this misconception that we’re the ones in the peep shows when we are not, even if that song is a bop) - if that child then worked for DC or was in the fandom, as writers/artists/fan-fic authors/fanartists in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, from the 80s to the 2000s, they might have mistakenly thought this was part of our culture, and not a business running parallel to ours (I hope this makes sense?). This is just a theory, but one of the only places I can think of this stereotype coming from, besides just plain racism?
Anyway, this hyper-sexualisation is ironic because a big part of our culture is actually that it is a purity culture, with equal expectations on both sexes to maintain modesty and virginity prior to marriage (of course, it’s a bit more relaxed nowadays but the expectation is still there, even if you’re in your 30s and unmarried!). This is drilled into us from a very young age, so even if Dick was removed from his culture by the age of eight, in a real life situation, he would likely already be well versed in this aspect of our culture. As I mentioned earlier, even before Dick was explicitly stated to be a gypsy, I think it’s definitely possible to read a gypsy upbringing into his character, even if unintentional, as written pre-Grayson - there’s one discussion Dick has about his anxieties about moving in with Kory whilst unmarried (I forget which comic this is from), and I cannot help but feel this resonate with me as a gypsy.
Then there’s the element of dress. TV shows like ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’ have done a lot to convince people that we all dress immodestly, but first of all: MBFGW focuses on another subtype of gypsy, Irish travellers - not showmen/circus like Dick is portrayed to be; and secondly - it’s such a small percentage of the population who do dress like that, that it cannot be taken as truth. I’ve a fair few cousins who are half-Irish traveller, and none of them dress like that. You’re far more likely to find a gypsy man wearing a shirt, a jumper, a pair of jeans, and boots than any of the gelled hair and vest top combos you see on there.
It’s a big thing that Dick has some questionable fashion choices (which are often featured as justification for his supposed ‘himbo-ness’), and this is definitely true in canon (Discowing, that one polka dot shirt, the mullet era… oh Dick, you disaster), but I’ve seen a lot of people correlate that directly with his growing up in a circus. As someone from that background, let me tell you that is just a Dick thing. It has nothing to do with being from the circus, we all dress rather normally - I’m sat writing this in a blue T-shirt, a pair of navy jeans, and a pair of boots - aka the kind of thing Dick wears more often than not in later not-the-80s canon! The thing is, this kind of presumption is something I’ve experienced myself in real life. I was doing some charity work, and there was a press element - when the journalist found out I was a gypsy from a circus family, and that I had horses, I was told to come to the photoshoot in my ‘little pink sparkly dress or whatever it is I ride in.’ I ride in jeans and a T-shirt btw. They just presumed because my family owned circuses, I must do vaulting and perform and I don’t - I worked in the kiosk or on the rides. The point is, people make a lot of presumptions about us just because we’re from the circus, and it’s not accurate.
Then there’s also the fanon effeminising of Dick: often giving him softer, feminine features, make-up, etc, to make him ‘pretty’. Like with the skin-colour issue, draw Dick however you like. You do you. But don’t use his being a gypsy to justify that. Tbh, the vast majority of gypsy men I know are extremely masculine: physically, the cis-men of our community tend to be quite tall, stocky, with calloused hands and broad shoulders, by virtue of the fact that we have to build up everywhere we work, and that’s a lot of physical labour. In Europe, there’s a big drinking culture, and playing football, etc. Men also tend to dress quite masc and practically for blue-collar work. And whilst I am sure that there are some more gender-fluid gypsies out there (I have quite a few gypsy friends who are openly queer, or trans), I have seen so many posts on Tumblr with Dick presented as being quite soft and feminine looking, with make-up etc, and when people in the notes ask why he’s drawn like that, the artist replies ‘He’s Rom!’ and I just want to facepalm. You can be a gypsy and masc-presenting. You can be a gypsy and fem-presenting. However, being a gypsy ≠ being feminine, and I’m really sick of seeing it. As someone who studies ancient Persia (like, I have a degree in it and am writing an academic book), the similarities are so obvious with how the Greeks portrayed the Achaemenids as effeminate, and like with the Achaemenids, it’s just not accurate. Again, if that’s how you headcanon Dick, then that’s great, but let’s not pretend that Dick being a gypsy has anything to do with it.
So I’ve now discussed the sexualisation aspect of Dick’s character a bit (I’ve probably left something out but oh well), and now I’ll speak a bit about the ‘dumb’ part. This is a far more recent thing, I think, and I suspect it might be because: a) people have weirdly tagged Tim as the Smart!Robin (they’re all geniuses) and thought this somehow means the rest must be dumb?, b) because of how sexualised Dick is, they’ve gone full himbo (see: Dick in the Grayson comics saying ‘at least [he’s] pretty’). However, from a gypsy point of view, this really annoys me as well.
When travelling with the fairground/circus, it is difficult to get a stable education. We tend to go to school in the winter months, but in the warmer months, we are more homeschooled (maybe using education packs from our normal school), or at larger fairs/events, a special teacher may be present. It used to be common that if we were at a ground for two weeks or more, we’d be enrolled temporarily in a local school for that time, but this isn’t really realistic today. However, it is also true that traditionally, our schooling was quite halted. Whilst less common, it’s still fairly normal for us to leave school early - for example, I left school entirely aged 13 to work full time on the fairgrounds (yes this goes against child labour laws but nobody actually cares). As a result of this, a lot of us have very limited education (illiteracy is not unheard of in the older generations), so it’s not uncommon for people to mistake this for us being stupid. But the thing is, this isn’t true. My dad left school aged 11, and eventually got a gorja job in his late 30s - he is now the top in the country at his job. I left school when I was 13, but decided I wanted to go to university, so I sat my GCSEs without studying, got into college, and whilst also working a full time job, got my A Levels and got into what is ranked the number one university in the world. When I got in, people really could not believe that someone of my background could do it, so it was on national news and television. It’s not that other travellers/gypsies are incapable - for the most part, we just don’t see the point as we’ve got a job and a culture wrapped up in one which we want to keep alive and successful. The point is, it’s so common for us to be underestimated, and part of what I loved about Dick’s character is that he is unapologetically clever. But over the last decade especially, Dick is once again being reduced to just a pretty face. Now, growing up, it was a cultural expectation to take care of your looks, and whilst I think I always looked ok (washed hair every day, showered, ironed matching clothes), it was not my primary interest in the same way that it was for a lot of my peers. So having a character who was from the same background as me and allowed to be intelligent and respected for it in a way I sometimes wasn’t was really special. So to see that intellect being taken away from Dick, somewhat, does strike me. If Dick is reduced to just being pretty and flirty, that’s as stereotypical as it comes in my community, and I love it when he can be more. I’m not saying that Dick has to be super serious all the time (that’s what makes Dick’s character so great, even if he is a bit more serious in canon than in fanon, though to be fair that’s probably because canon is a lot harder on him than fanon), but he can be hot and flirty without being dumb and overly objectified.
I hope this makes sense and I also hope that none of my relatives or uni friends see this and immediately work out it’s me - there’s a reason I started a whole side blog to separate my silly little nerdy interests from anything my friends might see - but Himbo Dick Grayson is something which I can’t get behind. Let him be smart. Let him be hot but not overly exoticised.
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