it'z rx²

Full context for the nosy

"Unnecessary superpowers"

"Origin tied to a joker event"

"We have Tim Drake at home"

"Dukes powers don't help him solve mysteries, don't make for interesting fights, and are actually a detriment to act attempt at at stealthing"

"There really isn't a Duke story you couldn't have told using Tim"

"Speaking of representation, if that's so important--"

Alright, Mr. @lucas-deziderio, let me stop you right there.

It is beyond cool for you to not be into a character. If Duke Thomas doesn’t hit for you, fine. If you want to love Superboy Prime, go live your truth. Nobody is forcing you to care about Duke.

But you are not just saying “Duke isn’t for me.” You are making things up about a character you clearly do not understand so you can dress up your disinterest as objective criticism.

“Unnecessary superpowers” is already a wild place to start, because Duke’s powers are extremely useful for both detective work and stealth. Light manipulation, invisibility/camouflage, enhanced perception, and psychometry are not random useless add-ons. They are literally investigative and tactical abilities. Saying they “don’t help him solve mysteries” or “don’t make for interesting fights” does not tell me anything about Duke. It tells me you don’t know what his powers are.

Then we get to “Tim Drake at home,” which is just lazy.

Duke is not “smart funny Gotham boy sidekick.” Duke’s entire arc is about being a kid from Gotham proper (Which Tim is not) who lived through the city’s failures, organized with other disenfranchised youth, challenged the idea that Batman’s system was enough, and became a hero from the margins instead of from inside the Wayne Manor machine.

That is not Tim Drake’s story.

Tim comes from a completely different social position, a completely different origin, and a completely different relationship to Batman and Gotham. Tim is not the character whose story is about championing the people Gotham leaves behind. Tim is not the character whose heroism is rooted in collective action with neglected kids on the street. Tim is not the character whose existence critiques the limits of Batman’s approach from the perspective of someone Batman’s world repeatedly failed.

So no, there really are Duke stories you could not just tell with Tim. The fact that they both have brains and jokes does not make them interchangeable. That is not analysis. That is skimming a wiki and deciding you found the whole character.

And speaking of representation, “just make other Bat-family members Black” is not the sage answer you seem to think it is. Black lego (LEGO!) Batgirls and a truly mediocre-to-bad Black Tim Drake adaptation in a bad-to-unbearable Titans show, are not the same thing as having a Black character whose story, community, politics, and position in Gotham actually inform who he is.

Duke being Black is not a palette swap. It matters to the shape of his story. It matters that his arc is about Gotham’s neglected kids, civic failure, survival, organizing, and being failed by the very heroic infrastructure that supposedly exists to protect people like him.

So when you flatten all of that into “boring,” then turn around and say representation can just be solved by making somebody else Black in an adaptation, yes, that reads a certain way. And the way it reads is not flattering.

You can dislike Duke. That is your prerogative.

But “I personally don’t care about this character” is not the same thing as “this character has no purpose.” And if your argument requires ignoring his actual powers, ignoring his actual arc, ignoring his actual social context, and pretending Tim Drake can be dropped into his place with no meaningful loss, then your argument is not based in the reality of the fiction.

It is based in your lack of desire to engage with experiences that were not catered toward you.

And just to avoid misunderstanding: when your response to a Black character being defended is “well, if representation matters so much, just make other characters Black,” while also dismissing the actual Black character as boring, replaceable, unnecessary, and not worth understanding?

That is not good-faith criticism.

That is you telling on yourself.

So yes. You can like Superboy Prime. You can dislike Duke. You can think Prime is more interesting. Have fun.

But do not pretend this was some thoughtful literary argument when it was really just you adding your two centavos to a conversation you did not bother to understand.

Calling Superboy Prime lame was not an attack on you.

This is.

This post is an attack on you.

This post is me calling you racist and intellectually dishonest.

But they're right, they don't need to make a point. Whitness is about stealing value, time and joy from other people. The world takes them seriously even when they're wrong, because it's useful to have people who reflexively reinforce the pecking order. The laziness IS the assertion of control.

They want you to feel embarrassed about caring, so you shrink back and dim yourself, and they don't have to bother interrogating the mediocrity of their existence.

I possess a power where I can enjoy a person's work whilst thinking the person himself is a twat. Always thought he was a bit of a weirdo, but his rendition of Books of Magic and his Hellblazer one-shot are still in my top 20. I begrudingly owe that man my favorite book, the Wesley Dodds' Sandman Mystery Theatre run. Hell, I own a Tom King book whereas I find his other output genuinely bottom bin garbagio.

But I digress. I personally dont care for Duke since I think the Batfam has been bloated for a good decade. Peak!fam is, to me, NML era. Yes this means Jason should be 6 foot under. I used to dislike Prime, but I like Williamson's (another writer i dont care for) direction with the character.

>WhitEness stealing value, time and joy from other people

And I agree that whiteness being built on stolen value, colonialism, racism and facism isnt an opinion.

she is a med student. rotations do not last more than a few weeks tops, so as much as you mightve liked her to still be in the ER full time, this isn't realistic at all four months after season 2. anyone with basic knowledge of the american medical school system would be aware she wouldn't still be there in real life, and the show tries to keep to realism as much as it can.

she would not still be in the ER as a med student. it would've been SO much easier for the writers to say "oh, javadi is on another rotation right now, she's not in s3 but will be back in s4 after graduation", and it also would've made sense to not see her. that's how it is.

INSTEAD, the writers went out of their way to write her with a storyline that will bring her back to the ER and still give her a role since they know how loved she is and like writing her. now, we'll get to know MORE about who javadi is and her passion for psych, AND we'll get a heavier presence of psych in the show as a whole because of it, which is a great thing too!

there is nothing logical to complain about here. the writers have made a decision to advance the storyline of, and keep in the main cast, a character and actress that we all like. be happy about that, narratively they could so easily not have done- insulting and attacking people who are trying to give you this interesting storyline for her rather than writing her off as would make sense for s3 is *insane*.

It was only legalized in 8 US states (the 8th only a few months before), and wouldn’t be legalized nation-wide until 2015.

It was only legal in TEN COUNTRIES in 2011. We wouldn’t hit 20 countries until 2017. (Australia was 23rd)

As of today (April 14, 2026), I believe only 38 countries have fully legalized same-sex marriage. Out of somewhere around 200 countries in the world. That’s only ~19% of countries.