SuzyBlue

35+ Ace

[lurkinglurkerwholurks]

Is the good Dad Bruce protection squad actually a thing? How do I join?

It is a thing because I say it is. To join, acknowledge that being a Good Dad means trying, not necessarily getting it right but Doing Your Best. Good Dads may make mistakes, but they love and protect their kids. They also give excellent hugs and forehead kisses.

[three-semicolons]

This is such a minor sticking point, but I feel a lot about it.

We are presented with this panel. Our conundrum is that Bruce, on account of civilian and Batman responsibilities, is only getting about four hours of sleep a night, and is suffering from it.

Lord help me, but this is so refreshing.

In the modern day, every character hasn’t slept in three days and won’t for another two. Every character forgets to eat for two days at a time. Every character lives on coffee and spite because it’s so quirky and so cool to live in unlivable conditions, yet basic self care is also presented as optional because these characters do not experience any consequences from that lifestyle.

Somehow these characters never eat but never lose muscle mass or experience energy deficits. Somehow these characters never sleep but never experience significant detriments to their reasoning or awareness unless it’s directly plot relevant. They just get the aesthetic eyeshadow-looking eye bags and the assignment of “sleep-deprived” as a fun personality trait.

By contrast, four hours a night seems almost luxurious by modern Batman standards. It’s almost human levels of sleep. And, because we acknowledge Bruce is human with human limitations, this still isn’t enough to maintain his highly active lifestyle. A normal human needs 7-9 hours of rest a night. You cannot Main Character yourself out of nightly rest, especially with such an intense lifestyle, without consequences.

Honestly, I didn’t realize how much I was driven up the wall by how modern comics treat self care (or lack thereof) until I read a more realistic expectation for human limits. It’s not even that the plot is about exhaustion from Batman-related obligations. We’ve gotten those since. It’s that the limitations presented are themselves grounded.

This isn’t Bruce fainting after staying awake for two weeks straight. This is Bruce experiencing natural exhaustion from a lack of sleep that isn’t overdramatic but is nonetheless insufficient for real people.

Going multiple days without food and rest and other basic necessities constantly, is not sustainable. Even four hours of sleep a night is still a deficit. You cannot maintain yourself on willpower alone.

[lurkinglurkerwholurks]

I am convinced that Bruce Wayne dies of old age. Not on patrol, not in some disaster or crime spree or brutal accident, but peacefully, at the Manor, in his own bed. He gets to be happy. He gets to be at peace. He gets to live a long life—80s or even 90s maybe. It’ll still be a surprise when he dies. Death always is a shock, even when you know it’s coming.

The only person who won’t be surprised by the call is Clark. Which isn’t to say he won’t be surprised at all, just at a different time. Clark will be the one who wakes up in the middle of the night. He won’t know why at first, the way few of us do when roused from a sound sleep by nothing at all.

And it really will be nothing. Clark will stare into the dark, thinking, listening, and realize the world has gone silent. The white noise at the edge of his hearing, his subtle companion for decades, has ceased.

Bruce Wayne’s heart has stopped beating.

[lurkinglurkerwholurks]

fic inspired by this post

[thattimdrakeguy]

And give Tim his interests back, it made him feel more human

He liked to read, go to the Arcade (it was 1991, so I guess he just brings his Switch everywhere now), into both Sci-Fi and fantasy, he played roleplaying games with his friends, for some reason still cared about a Barney the Dinosaur rip off he was fond of so clearly he's nostalgic about what he likes, he liked kaijus, super heroes in general, like most people know he loves Batman and Robin but he also seemed to be impressed to be in the presence of Beast Boy and that guy fucking smells I imagine, super into cars, the mechanics of sports and goes to sports but yet doesn't really talk like he follows sports, used fandom forum sites all the way back in the 90, was a member of the Sherlock Holmes fan club before that, he liked going to the movies, had action figures

i'd also say he likes music, but then that goes to the question what genre, and it was literally whatever the artist or writer or both decided for whatever issue, so take your pick honestly. it apparently was never important what music he was specifically into lmao

I'm not saying he's mister unique, but he was a total geek and a dweeb, and that's part of why he was popular, because he was relatable for that stuff

Give him his damn interests back 😭he literally solved crimes through his interests sometimes. it was a part of the character. it was great

[waynekhan]

I think a necessary point to understand Bruce and Dick, the bond between them, and how being a father saved Bruce in many ways, is to understand that after the death of his parents, all the adult figures in Bruce's life failed him.

Bruce grew up a not only a orphan traumatized child, but also a child who didn't feel he was loved. He had a guardian, a tutor, and a billionaire inheritance, so obviously he was well taken care of and never lacked anything, but Alfred treated him like his young master who was his responsibility after the death of his former employers, and Leslie, despite being legally his adoptive mother, was absent for most of his childhood.

He didn't have the emotional support and did not grow up in the warm and familial environment he needed. He was a depressed child and became a depressed man.

Dick's adoption is an altruistic and empathetic act by Bruce; he knows how terrible, how lonely it is to spend your childhood feeling that the only people who loved you and cared deeply about you are dead.

Bruce gave Dick what Alfred and Leslie weren't able to give him.

Dick grew up a happy child, Dick had a good childhood and grew up knowing that Bruce was there for him even when they fought, Dick grew up knowing that Bruce stayed because he wanted to and cared about Dick. He is Bruce's greatest success because he's proof that it's possible to grieve without letting your whole life be swallowed up by your trauma.

Fathering Dick also helped Bruce; Dick made Bruce a happier man. When you take care of someone, especially someone young, that person tends to develop affection for you as well. And human beings are social beings, they like to feel that their relationships are reciprocal, and it is by loving Dick like a son that Bruce feels loved back for the first time since his parents died.

It's a similar situation with Tim. Sometimes, when we say that being a father saved Bruce, some people understand that this means some role dynamic was reversed, that one of those children had to take on some responsibility for Bruce at some point, but that's not what it means. Caring for someone can be healing, to love and to be loved back can be healing, sharing your daily life with someone who is dear to you and feeling that you are also important for them can be healing.

None of Bruce's children was ever parentificated for the sake of Bruce, saving them is what saved him.

Is not only Batman, the caped crusader, who is making for others the difference that would have mattered to him, but also Bruce, the father and the son, and the lonely child.

Batman: Dark Victory #9

Batman (1940) #438

Detective Comics (2016) #1074

Batman (1940) #439

[suzyblue0292]

It’s such a nonsensical thing to mourn - but the Tim Drake is horrible in the kitchen fannon makes me sad. Dana Winters-Drake taught him to cook. I’d like to think they had more than the one lesson. She was such a positive relationship in Tim’s life and it’s sad to see her vanish- even in small ways.

[batsandbirdbrains]

Look I don’t care how implausible it is, I don’t care how ridiculous it is. Dick is eight years old when he becomes Robin. It’s the funniest fuckin thing and I refuse to ever make him older than eight when he bullies a grown ass Bruce into letting him go out at night with him.

Does Bruce take him on kiddie runs until he’s a little older? Maybe. Does Batman stand menacingly behind a brightly colored little bird to threaten the goons while Robin can’t see him? You know he does.

But Robin is still actually terrifying when he first appears on the scene, because he’s a teeny tiny fluttery little thing that does cartwheels and handstands and makes puns then launches himself full force to kick a man in the nose and then cackles when he bleeds. His laughter makes goons shiver, they hear it bouncing around warehouses and half of them bolt, because they learn very quickly what happens when a feral Robin appears.

The Gotham rogues all immediately have beef with a literal third grader because he took the bats attention away and also because he’s roundhouse kicked them all in the shins at some point and that shit hurt like hell, and then he laughed in their faces while making a pun about their villain name.

Majority of the rogues everywhere hate Nightwing because they all know he used to be the feral child that they all thought Batman should have put on a leash, half of them have been straight up bitten by him before he lost all his baby teeth, and they’re all so bitter about the fact that they’ve been beaten by an actual elementary school student. And now he’s all grown up? He’s fucking terrifying.

[raptorific]

I’m fairly certain that the people who make the “batman could make himself obsolete by using his money to solve the economic strain that drives many people to crime” posts are only familiar with Batman through Will Arnett’s spoof performance in the Lego movie, since that’s the only version of Batman I know where he isn’t hiring so many ex-convicts at his company so they have a legitimate source of income and using so much money to fund social programs that all the other bigwigs at Wayne Enterprises hate him and want him gone

Literally every version of his origin story I can remember involves him realizing that he can’t just treat the symptoms as Batman, he has to treat the root cause as Bruce Wayne. A huge part of the plot of “The Dark Knight Rises” is that his company is on the verge of bankruptcy because Bruce keeps spending all their profits on things like “clean energy” and “food and shelter for orphans.”

The opening of “Arkham City” shows him campaigning against mass incarceration because the majority of the inmates in Arkham City are not public menaces like the Joker, they’re desperate people with no other options, and Gotham should be providing them with legitimate means of stability rather than punishing them for having none.

Especially since the majority of his villains are independently wealthy people (doctors, lawyers, business executives) who are exploiting people’s desperation in order to get themselves henchmen, and the henchmen almost always have jobs with a living wage waiting for them on the other side of their sentence, and Bruce has a standing offer to pay out-of-pocket for the therapy of any of his villains whose crimes are the result of a mental illness (which Bruce is sympathetic to since he is mentally ill himself)

But what’s really damning about these posts is that a lot of them suggest Bruce should use his money to give the police the resources they need to deal with crime on their own, which makes it clear they’ve never actually consumed a piece of Batman media, since the issue with the Gotham Police is not that they’re underfunded. They have a bloated budget, they’re almost militant, and they’re so corrupt that they actually encourage crime, both violent and economic, because they’re on the payroll of the richest criminals. 

Also, some of them refer to Batman as a “old rich white man’s wet dream” and I really disagree here. A story that says the only rich dude in the world who’s not a criminal drain on society is the one who spends the majority of his hefty inheritance and all his corporate profits trying to correct the imbalance that allowed him his wealth in the first place, whose staunch belief is that the best crime control policy is building a world where no one feels crime is necessary, as well as refusing to support mass incarceration or police corruption, systems which stand to benefit him financially? Batman is an old rich white man’s worst nightmare. 

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Bruce Wayne tends to spend so much of his wealth on social reform and funding charities for the needy and helping desperate ex-cons get back on their feet so they don’t have to resort to crime again, that they had to invent ancient curses and shit to explain why Gotham continues to be a shithole because it begins to stretch plausibility that there’s so much call for Batman in a city that has Bruce Wayne in it.

[snakeredbirdbatkatana]

Bruce Wayne, who predominantly raised teenage boys and is still actively raising teenage boys.

Taught Dick how to shave.

Spent years dragging half asleep and begrudging children out of bed every morning for school.

Gave sex talks, feigned oblivion when sheets needed to be washed or when five minute showers become thirty.

Morning found his coffee being chugged by his third son. Jason eating bacon and eggs from his plate. Dick's head buried in the fridge.

Alfred's judgmental gaze when not a single boy found a shirt or pants as a requirement before coming downstairs. Content to lounge around in boxers.

"What the fuck is a bathrobe?"

"An article of clothing, on your floor Master Timothy."

"I didn't see it....?"

"No, that would require moving trash, and being able to see said floor."

"God this house is a nightmare-"

Bruce Wayne learned early, gremlins come late.

Between the hours of 12:00-3:00 am.

Will tell you everything, how school was, who they love, the worse things to happen to them.

What they need.

You can't be asleep.

Sometimes it's stupid, a Christmas present an annoying teacher.

Or it's the last step before making a decision.

Bruce after a long day pretending to relax in bed, waits.

Dick clad in Superman boxers appears.

"I think I'm depressed-"

He's wiped tears, changed plans.

"Bruce- can I tell you something?"

Accepted confessions with open arms.

Picked up drunk children.

Picked up the phone.

"Bruce-Dad...I fucked up."

Hunted his second oldest down, finding his baby bleeding out.

Patched up wounds, staying as long as Jason wanted.

Broken windows, crashed cars, blood and broken bones.

Tears, vomit.

He hasn't eaten hot food in years, hasn't slept through the night in even longer.

Bruce Wayne stares at three heads of black hair taken up his entire bed and knows he wouldn't change a single thing.

Well one thing.

"Damian, why are you on the floor?"

"Todd kicked me Baba!! I was asleep!"

"Jay- let your brother in the bed."

"Noooooooo."

"Father make-"

"Dad he-"

He's the luckiest man in the world.

Teenagers though definitely suck...

[sidewalk-cracks]

Can y'all please stop making Dick so weepy in these Jason identity reveal fics. I know we want him to be the loving, sappy, affectionate older brother, but y'all really aren't giving him enough credit. This is Batman's first protege, who got the heaviest brunt of Batman's focus. Dick is a detective. This kid has been fighting Clayface since he was ten years old. He's had the longest tenure as Robin and he's seen and been through some shit. Dick would be grilling "Jason" nonstop, interrogating him relentlessly and hardly pausing for breath. Even after "Jason" has answered a bunch of questions only Jason would know, I still don't think Dick would believe him until every identification test under the sun has been tried- fingerprints, dental work, DNA, you name it. I think he would be emotional; he's just incensed rather than sobbing. If you don't think he would immediately activate instant kill mode and slam this abhorrent shapeshifter/body snatcher/whatever defiling his brother's memory against a wall and threaten to gouge their eyes out unless they tell him who they really are this instant, then I think you should revisit your understanding of Dick Grayson.

[windybluebelles]

People really gotta stop treating Jason’s fights with characters like Tim and Mia as him beating helpless children.

Gang…their the same age

[infinitysgrace]

i think the thing about batman's no kill rule is that it's essentially bruce saying "guilty people don't deserve to be murdered on the street either, actually." and he's not wrong.

[suzyblue0292]

Okay, I love a good Jason and Tim fic. Lately, I’ve been living on the Jason Todd & Tim Drake tag on AO3 and frankly there’s this thing that’s been driving me crazy.

The “Tim has PTSD from the tower “attack” and is scared of Jason” storyline. First it wasn’t an “attack” it was a fight. Tim gave almost as good as he got here is the panel right before Jason wins with a final punch and rips the R from Tim’s chest.

Note that they are both bloodied up.

Then note that I said “before Jason delivered the final punch.” This is a fair fight, Jason goes to see how good Tim is, he doesn’t stomp him into the ground once he’s down. He doesn’t break half of his bones, he doesn’t leave him beaten half to death. He punches him out and takes the R.

You know what else he doesn’t do? Slit Tim’s throat. That bit of lore comes from Jason’s appearance in Hush. He holds Tim hostage with a knife at his throat.

He cuts Tim’s neck as Catwoman whips his arm away to help Batman save Tim.

As you can see in these later panels, Tim is no doubt scarred both physically and emotionally for life by this mortal wound. /s

(When he says Selina saved him he means by intervening in the confrontation- not the bleeding.)

Tim was Robin, people made more significant attempts on his life every third issue. Do he and Jason like each other at this point? No. Is Tim traumatized and nearing flashbacks every time he lays eyes on Jason? Equally no.

Fanfic is for having fun and exploring the universe the way you want. I’m not trying to take that away from anyone, however as I see more and more fanfic authors admitting they’ve never engaged with the source material - I wonder are you exploring the universe or creating a more and more threadbare interpretation of an event you have no knowledge of.

It’s just a thought.

Keep writing, consider reading some comics, and in the meantime I’ll keep doing what readers should do when they hit exasperating content and hit the back button when I run into this particular storyline.

And you know, scream into the tumblr void on occasion.

[batmanhistorian]

The Problem Isn’t Robin. The Problem Is You Don’t Like Superhero Comics.

A Defense of Robin & the Sidekick Archetype in Comics.

Every so often, a particular critique bubbles up from the depths of comic fandom discourse: the outrage over Batman’s use of a child sidekick. “How could a responsible adult train a kid to fight crime?”

Let’s get one thing straight right out of the gate: this isn’t a critique of Batman. It’s a misunderstanding or outright rejection of superhero comics as a genre.

Because the idea of a child or teenage sidekick isn’t unique to Batman. It’s baked into the genre’s DNA. Robin wasn’t some edgy, irresponsible afterthought added to make Batman more palatable. He debuted just one year after Batman himself, and was created specifically to give young readers someone to identify with. And it worked;Robin’s arrival doubled Batman’s sales.

Sidekicks Are Genre, Not Anomaly

From Bucky Barnes to Speedy to Kid Flash to Aqualad, nearly every major superhero had a youthful counterpart. They serve multiple purposes: they humanize god-like heroes, ground fantastical adventures, give younger readers a place in the story, etc.

And guess what? Those sidekicks have all endured unspeakable trauma. Bucky died in the war. Speedy dealt with addiction. Wally spent decades in Barry Allen’s shadow. Donna Troy’s origin was rewritten into tragic nonsense more times than anyone can count.

But none of these characters attract the volume of moral panic that Robin does. Why? Because Batman is the most popular, most visible, and most psychologically dissected superhero on the planet. His mythology gets scrutinized through “real-world” logic. So when people see Batman training children to fight crime, they recoil. Not because it’s uniquely extreme, but because it’s more visible.

You Can’t Apply Real-World Morality to Myth

If you apply real-world morality and logic too strictly to superhero stories, none of them hold up. Why doesn’t Spider-Man call Child Services instead of swinging into the night? Why do the X-Men keep putting teens in danger while talking about protecting them?

These stories aren’t morality plays rooted in realism. They’re modern myths, told in the language of drama, archetypes, and symbols. Robin isn’t “child endangerment.” He’s the light in Batman’s darkness. He represents hope, youth, resilience; a symbol younger readers are supposed to look up to, to teach them to stand against injustices and do the right thing. That’s why so many Robins exist, and why they all resonate with different eras.

The Genre Knows What It's Doing

Comics are not oblivious to the implications. Entire storylines have interrogated the ethics of child sidekicks. A Death in the Family let fans decide Jason Todd’s fate. Batman and Robin repeatedly explored the tension of legacy and responsibility. Young Justice and Teen Titans were built on the premise of teens demanding their own agency rather than being side characters in someone else’s war.

The genre critiques itself, but it also embraces what works. And Robin works. He’s lasted longer, sold more, and evolved more richly than almost any sidekick in any medium. If you think Robin is just a tool of exploitation or lazy storytelling, you haven’t been paying attention to the last 80 years.

Admit You Want Something Else

Let’s be honest: most people who rail against Robin don’t actually read superhero comics. Or if they do, they only want a narrow slice of them; gritty realism, moral absolutism, hardboiled antiheroes. That’s fine. You’re allowed to prefer that. But don’t pretend that your personal taste is some kind of ethical stance when the comics themselves do not promote the idea of a teen sidekick.

Robin exists because comics are for more than one kind of reader. Because sidekicks matter. Because legacy matters. Because Batman can’t be a symbol of fear without someone reminding him what hope looks like.

[marimondart]

Post-patrol sunrise ☀️

I drew this for Tim's bday and couldn't help myself but draw steph too :') i love them.

[vintagerobin]

Is anyone else really tired of the child soldiers reading of child heroes. Especially in superhero comics as a genre like, we have deconstructed the idea of sidekicks literally to death, the last major holdout of the sidekick trope is Robin at this point and that one's just barely hanging on. Is it really necessary to take a genre convention that was originally about children's power and escape fantasies from a media that was originally aimed at children? Is it really better to be so completely pessimistic about children to the point that a child being at all competent and able to hold their own amongst adults is more unbelievable than a friendly spaceman who flies and shoots lasers from his eyes?

[jackandjanetdefender]

Dick insisting he's nothing like Bruce after running away from home, finding a family of maladjusted disasters to train into a team, having a training arc/apprenticeship with an older assassin dude who obsesses over him afterward, and using vigilantism to avoid facing his crashout era will never not be funny to me.