I love Bruce in titans media so so bad. He is such a bastard. He will never trust dick to make his own decisions really even tho he constantly is like ‘dick I trust you to make your own decisions.’ He trusts dick’s competency, he uses dick’s independence and different goals often against him, and he trusts dick ‘to make the right decision in the end’ (ie. the decision he WANTS dick to make, OR the decision that is ACTUALLY right even if it proves Bruce wrong) and to perform perfectly, but he doesn’t trust dick with dick’s own heart or goals. Rip
But I also love the idea that Clark knows what Bruce is doing is wrong: but kind of smiles about it. He lets Bruce make his own mistakes because he can’t stop him, in a way? It’s kind of like. Gentle parenting almost LOL. Clark steps in when he goes tooooo far but. Bruce fucks up sometimes, Clark is fully aware of this, but he is so. Non-controlling ? To contrast with Bruce’s controlling nature… he lets Bruce fuck up and becomes the ‘safety net’ to balance him out and un-fuck his plans… it seems very ‘lets see where this goes’ but its more like. ‘I will catch you every time you fall. And you will fall. Because you’re dumb, Bruce. But I’ll let you make that mistake and pick up the slack unless I really think it’s going to hurt someone beyond what I can fix.’
Something I deeply believe is that Bruce Wayne is an abusive father. I don’t know how a person can read his relationship with dick and Jason any differently, and to that point… his relationship with Damian also leaves something to be desired. With tim and cass—we see the best of him. But with his other kids, he will straight up in canon beat them half to death, and i know, this is comics, I know, when Bruce teaches them to fall and get back up in training Tim or whatever that it’s all good and ‘normal’ for comics. But if you look at Grayson, if you like at under the red hood, if you look at the infamous slap/punch to dick after Jason’s death. Well I just think it paints a deeper picture of a deeply unwell man who loves with his whole heart but is unable to fully process his trauma and love in a healthy, consistent, kind way.
Bruce is The Mentally Ill character of all time. He has control issues, he’s obsessive, he’s often mean, and he genuinely believes in ruling through fear on top of kindness. Even if he didn’t hit his kids—-he would still force them to parent him, and even if he can reason that that’s something they choose, that that’s something Batman “needs.” No adult should need a child for their own mental wellness. That’s the adult’s responsibility. To have your child have to bend backwards to coddle, console or shift around to meet your needs, provide for you emotionally… is a crazy expectation.
And yet, this is not an indictment of Bruce to me, as a character. I think that characters can be terrible people—-characters can abuse other characters—-and still be good characters. In fact, when treated appropriately and as art, art and writing, and the gothic horror i in particular like to write with him and from which all his themes are canonically based, are SAFE places to read about, write about, and view and explore abuse
Good isn’t a thing you are, it’s a thing you do.
Bruce does a lot of good and bad things. So do most people. Abuse is a pattern of behaviors from a place of power and/or privilege
I know we all hate the joker, but i really do believe it only takes one bad day for a person to fall prey to circumstances that make you feel like such a hopeless, desperate black pit of a person that you do reach out and hurt others. On purpose, on accident, a little bit of both. You don’t have to be ontologically evil. You don’t have to be a monster. You can legitimately love someone, and hurt them and your relationship beyond repair. You can love someone deeply, and not deserve forgiveness from them, or be granted that forgiveness.
Ultimately, i don’t even particularly believe in redemption narratives. I don’t believe in sin or a need for forgiveness from a higher power—-and i don’t believe that forgiveness is necessary to grow and change and be better, and try to be better, even when you fail, and you often will, which is more tangible and real to me than just ‘turning good’ one day. My Bruce does try to be better—-for @yoakkemae ‘s dick, at least. But he is still incredibly toxic and withholding. But it’s not for some kind of atonement or to make up for taking things from dick. It’s to be better so dick will stick around and let him see his grandkid. It’s so he can help dick not suffer when he’s around. Sometimes there is no noble sacrifice, it’s just a long process of ‘I’m going to be nicer. And I’m actually gonna do that this time. And when i fuck up I’ll apologize and actually mean it.’
Ultimately, abusers are people. People are complicated, people abuse people. If you ‘other’ a ‘monster’ bc you think you could never do that—you become more likely to hurt someone yourself and think you are right in doing so.
Bruce definitely thinks he is right in hurting his kids, half the time. When he doesn’t—it’s always him admitting he was wrong to view them as soldiers instead of his children. You can hurt a soldier. You can’t hurt a child. He can compartmentalize so easily when his robins become his ‘friends’ and ‘partners.’ Even in robin when we can see him express empathy for tm and tell him basically to have a normal life literally constantly——it’s because Tim already has a normal life that Bruce logically wants him to go back to. He doesn’t view him as a fellow orphan, a ‘brother’ a ‘playmate’ a ‘mirror’ or a ‘replacement.’
[ 4. ] sender shoves receiver out of the way of a projectile.
Bruce hates the way Green Lanterns’ powers feel. Concentrated, sheer will. The power to make things happen–create opportunity and action and help and reality to replace the grand expanse of none-of-that and nothingness in this one.
Hal extends a giant hand—-and holds Bruce like an injured bird—perhaps a turtle, too slow, and human, a tire track stamped across his shell—delicate, timely, nothing but kind.
Bruce feels so small and insignificant in that hand.
And he hates it. It burns deep in him. Hal's will—it almost stings, the way it makes Bruce bristle and snarl.
“I had it.” He didn't have it. His leg is badly injured. His head is bleeding under the mask—he can feel the wet squelch and squish of it beneath the rubber and leather, mixed in with helmet hair and sweat and stinking sebum---they've been at this war in space for WEEKS and he has not had time or space to so much as shower.
He's angry and hurt and every part of him is exhausted and he wants to take Hal's will and smash it in two. Take his hand and dislocate every finger, split every nail, scrape the skin to red lines and scars like an angry kitten.
Fucking. Giant hand!!!!
BATMAN doesn't want to be held!
He crawls out of it on his bad leg into a heap beside a pile of bodies—living, Martian Manhunter tells him, but if they weren't---Bruce wouldn't be able to tell, and excursions like this off-world for so long leaving Gotham to its own devices—they make him bitter, and spiteful, and mean, and there is no one here right now to calm him down.
He gets back up. He always gets back up. Gotham is, unfortunately, a part of Earth and not enclosed in a little glass case for Bruce to stare at like so many other shrines and collections in the Bat Cave. If only Gotham was a giant penny or a frozen T. REX or Jason or Batgirl's old costumes. Something to play with and pontificate over. Something that belonged to him and his memories alone, a Platonic ideal, a reality out of Nothingness, encapsulated by sheer will.
Bruce is a detective in the middle of a war. He extends his hand to his belt. He's out of batarangs. Out of bombs and blow darts and first aid kits. He's got a bo staff and a prayer: Don't let Hal Jordan pick up my corpse.
And then he falls down. And he doesn't get back up. Not until later. Not until he's in the MED BAY of some awful space ship for some awful planet for some awful aliens.
★+ Dick [for Bruce, or any of your DC lot that's loud >w>]
"Nightwing is the greatest man I have ever known or ever will know. A founding member of the Justice League, the leader of the Teen Titans. Intelligent, diligent, precise, a prodigy above all other of his young colleagues, a genius in combat, strategy----and COMMUNICATION. A skill which some find I lack."
"... He picks up the slack."
"... He is my greatest ally. My best friend. The light to my darkness. My---" Robin. "Son."
"My greatest achievement.'
"And if he ever ends up like me, I will have failed him by every measure and standard possible I have ever held for myself."
Send me ★ + a name of another muse / character in my muse's canon and they'll talk about their relationship with them
"As a detective, establishing a motive is crucial. I understand exactly why the Red Hood does everything he does. I understand he is broken, and illogical and confused---I understand it is due to Talia's influence and the poison of the Lazarus pit. He feels used. He feels replaced. He feels that I did not avenge him."
"I taught him better than that."
"..."
He ducks his head, curls his hands into fists, opens and closes them experimentally, sets his jaw, grinds his teeth. He could monologue a million years about how much he loves his son.
A love for that child as eternal as his vigil, his mission, his promise.
But he'd have to be goaded. He'd have to be pressed.
He doesn't know who to tell how much he loved his child. He knew. He knew I loved him. He knew. How did he forget?
Things are broken that Bruce cannot fix without honesty. Without changing. Without making a compromise which Bruce will not do.
"i ought to be thy adam but i am rather thy fallen angel." [ you know who is saying it. to whomst. hahah ]
"Mary Shelley. Frankenstein. 1818. The Creature."
Bruce pauses. "Was it misery that made you a fiend? Do you need me to listen to your story to make you happy?" It sounds almost cruel from his lips. It sounds like an accusation, a threat. It's cold and it's dark and it's heartless. The rejection of the creature. Its ugliness too much for the creator of a corpse given life.
"... I'm listening." To his own surprise, he is. There is a kindness in that, and nothing else.
the most important thing to know about bruce is that everything he does on purpose he does with the unfiltered intensity of a green lantern. but. there are so many moments that slip. to the point he might as well be called extremely and honestly expressive.
bruce has big emotions he cannot completely control and he hates this about himself. he has the emotional stabIlity of a deeply hurt child who has never let himself heal, to the point he has parentified all his children (wxcept damian). he fears with everything inside him, he mourns and despairs with everything inside him, he experiences hope and dreams with utter naivete—only to have to CONTROL himself, have to force those feelings to be a tempered blade
still. bruce is a man who would rather poison himself past the point of his immunity rather than take care of himself. he is a person with utter faith in his friends. he makes terrible, mean jokes and extremely saucy flirts, and he is, of course, in many ways, a camp tom of finland stylen fetish hypermasculine drag king
he controls himself, but he is all emotion. he tries to temper and withhold all affection from people and use it sparingly, he wants to be professional and precise with his words, not let people get too close or “spoil them.”
but when u dont take care of urself that doesnt always happen.
in the midst of battle, that doesnt always happen.
when ur chilling with ur bros, that doesnt always happen.
bruce is extremely expressive and weird to people willing to look for the tells, or wait until he is too thoroughly exhausted or relaxed to behave in an orderly, contained, and controlled fashion
the league knows how funny he is, and how much he cares. their co-workers to the titans (vin dieael) family, but batman has utter faith in all of them even when he insults them. why else would he work with them? even when he is withholding, he wants to push them to greater heights. and he DOES show affection and respect when it matters, hes an asshole, but hes their asshole, and its infinitey nuanced
his lovers see him at his most unhinged, bruce is a character steeped in bdsm, and they ONLY see the honest parts of him. even tho he lies about it later. truly frustrating, but there are. glimpses. into his whimsy and kindness. he is devoted to his partners, even when he is negligent and unkind.
but his kids? theyre the ones who pack a snickers bar from alfred and know when hes hangry. theyre the ones who see him after five schoolnights of no robining still asleep at the batcomputer, drooling with his finger stuck on the b symbol. theyre the ones who he is softest with, and meanest with, and silliest with. theyre the ones who see him ALMOST exactly as he is, but will never be able to understand him.
