[coughs] talk about batman
FINE I WILL, YOU CAN STOP ASKING ME DAY AND NIGHT. these are my thoughts on batman:
another important point is:
2. i don’t want to live in a world without him
it’s popular to mock batman. and so, so easy if all you know is pop culture batman. so don’t talk to me about pop culture batman.
talk to me about bruce wayne who didn’t get blessed with almighty power, but one day decided he couldn’t let anyone else endure what he went through. who dresses up like something he fears so that no one else, especially a child, will feel alone.
bruce who is willing to be perceived as an irresponsible playboy during the day and let the symbol he created be maligned by night, who will take everyone’s shit, as long as he can still pour his life into helping people. who physically protects the vulnerable by night, then turns around and provides jobs and education for at-risk sex workers at wayne enterprises; who builds hospitals and orphanages; who won’t let anyone raze the den of sin that is gotham because the people in it are inherently valuable. that’s what matters, not his reputation.
and when other people see batman as a symbol of hope, too, he draws strength from that, without ever losing sight of the fact that being a hero is so often the simplest thing: making sure someone isn’t alone.
so it’s no wonder bruce becomes a single father of five, a foster father, a mourning father.
bruce who is an intj and not a villain (GOD BLESS!! WE’RE SO RARE!!). and of course, being an intj, he won’t join the justice league full-time, and he has contingency plans for all his friends in case they turn on him. but the thing is, they know that, and they TRUST that batman will fight to the death before he gives up on them.
batman who respects superman for showing him “justice doesn’t always have to come from the darkness,” whose friends are fiercely protective of him and his legacy but also tease him and draw him out.
and he’ll always be there when they need him.
batman who hates guns for very specific reasons but still isn’t out for vengeance
who advocates for faith in humanity despite having so little faith in it himself, because he’s seen and believed the worst of it
but still doesn’t compromise and kill his villains, partly for his own mental health, because that’s who he is.
batman is the one who shows people who feel isolated by their trauma that they aren’t alone, that they can use their pain to reach out to others, that the world is redeemable, and that there are people who will fight alongside them and give them hope. who will be their friends and family when they think they’ll never have that again.
that is batman. that is bruce wayne.