ruminating

helloooo :] • im 19 • they/them • comics enjoyer but in a tortured soul kind of way • disclaimer: abnormal about slade wilson xoxo •

[ruetherightday]

dickbin misbehaving continually to get a reaction out of bruce so bruce, having tried everything else to get him in line, gives dick a spanking. midway through bruce realizes its turning him on. and dick is feeling squirmy and uncomfortable and frightened and it hurts but it's also making him feel.... warm and tingly? but bruce suddenly stops and quickly leaves the room. and dick stops acting out after that because honestly that was scary and weird but as their relationship continues and bruce Grooms him more the next time bruce considers spanking him again dick is like "don't threaten me with a good time"

[ruetherightday]

one day dick offhandedly mentions that he got spanked by bruce as a punishment once when he was a kid and whoever he told (another one of the bats or maybe one of the titans) is like dude. what. thats not normal. and dick goes haha you wouldn't get it bruce just didnt know how to deal with kids back then and i was honestly provoking him on purpose anyway lol. and then whoever he told this tries to press the fact that Bruce Abused You Dick Why Can't You See That???!?! and it causes this whole argument that ends up with dick running back to bruce in the end anyway

[ruetherightday]

dickbin misbehaving continually to get a reaction out of bruce so bruce, having tried everything else to get him in line, gives dick a spanking. midway through bruce realizes its turning him on. and dick is feeling squirmy and uncomfortable and frightened and it hurts but it's also making him feel.... warm and tingly? but bruce suddenly stops and quickly leaves the room. and dick stops acting out after that because honestly that was scary and weird but as their relationship continues and bruce Grooms him more the next time bruce considers spanking him again dick is like "don't threaten me with a good time"

[kissed1996]

Found family loveless marriage . Found family child abuse

[baotam-ng-blog]

Dick Grayson aka Nightwing

[Batsons Strip collection]

[lesser-flamingo]

I love the old timey phrase "you forget yourself". bro that was so impolite like do you even know who you are rn

[wormbraind]

slade wilson and his emotional support vulnerable teenager

[wormbraind]

grooming children is valuable enrichment for him

[keysmashslushy]

I think if you mistook Dick and Bruce for father and son Dick would immediately correct you like it was a weird assumption, but if you mistook them for lovers he’d feel a slight sense of pride and kinda let you believe that depending on the circumstances. Bruce would do the opposite

[sun-moon-talia]

the ppl who want deathstroke grooming tara to be retconned are so ridiculous to me. “i sure do love mr. pedophile man i just wish he wasn’t a pedophile! :(” that’s how you sound

[wormbraind]

besides the ridiculousness of it all, i know so many people who relate to tara specifically because she was groomed, and taking that away from people who don't get to see themselves much in media because it makes you uncomfortable is actually just shitty. being told that one of the few pieces of representation you have for one of the worst traumas of your life should be erased is a terrible feeling.

side note but usually it's tara who gets referred to by her alias and slade who gets called by his civilian name. i love the switch up OP

[ifiinvadelaconiaishallturnyouout]

TFW When tiger kisses dicks temple tenderly. And unexpectedly

[residentwordsofaffirmationdealer]

barbara gordon patron saint of girls who are always right

[officialpenisenvy]

new comic announced "brudick year one"

[officialpenisenvy]

we have received news that "brudick year one" is just a reprint of "scarecrow year one"

[hmmbarkbark]

[ruetherightday]

the thing abt brudick is that dick was never really a child and bruce was never really an adult. the opposite effects of #trauma

[astrovvitches]

bird's eye view

[biggugusu]

Sith obiwan and his apprentice

[torchwood-99]

"I love you but you're doing wrong in a way I cannot condone" and "I hate you but you're being wronged in a way I cannot stomach" are top tier and I need more of them.

[keysmashslushy]

Brudick ask: I can definitely see the codependency, the enmeshment and the emotional incest but where do you see csa (+ I think grooming, but another blog might have said that)? And how does that relate with dick having intimacy issues (that one might be because I’m stupid tbh)

(Genuine question btw)

Okay. So. I regret to always pull out the Batman #600 panel when I get asked about this-

But genuinely. “Bruce canonically sees Dick as something at least akin to a romantic partner” is huge. I genuinely don’t know how this was published. And a lot of little things add up with them, too, like jokes like this

And Dick being paralleled with, say, an abused wife

Or. This one is a bit more out there but I cannot summarize in a few panels just how much Dick’s feelings in Robin and Batman 2021 resemble what it feels like to be in the middle of being groomed. That series is 3 issues long and it (and Scarecrow: Year One) are in my opinion like. Essential reading for this topic.

As for Dick’s intimacy issues- he has trouble in close relationships. We all know this. He’s the ‘has trouble in close relationships’ guy, who has trouble with relationships. You get it. And things like this?

Prior to the Liu retcon (which I do not like for many many reasons that I’ve talked about before) this stuff was always explicitly a result of Bruce.

His trouble being close to people, his feeling that he needs to ‘pay’ people for emotional support with sex- this has all been connected back to how Bruce raised him and taught him to act. Every time I can remember this coming up, someone, often Dick himself, has been there going “hey this is probably because he grew up with a man who taught him this”. We all know that difficulties in relationships is a very common aftereffect from childhood sexual abuse. Especially when your abuser was your parent figure, and especially when he had a habit of discouraging Dick from acting too much like a friend to his friends.

(Robin and Batman 2021 is an elseworlds, but imo it heavily reflects Bruce and Dick’s relationship in canon, and it bears consideration when discussing them)

So. Yeah. That’s an incomplete explanation for why I’m so sold on Bruce having sexually abused Dick. It just… makes sense to me, and ofc I’m biased, but I can’t really see them any other way at this point.