ਪਰਦੇਸੀ

HE’LL NEVER RECOVER

“I don’t have a problem with being a Desi queer woman. But I think the queer community is not as accepting of Asians, and the South Asian community is not as accepting of LGBT individuals. I grew up in a very white, suburban place, and I hated being Desi. But then when I got to college, I learned that the reason I hated myself was racism and colonization. I started missing my Desi self so much–the food, the language, Bollywood movies. In college I fell in love with being Desi.

By the time I got in line to pay he was loitering at the front of the store again, and I just had that feeling that he was going to try and take the game I just bought, or steal my purse, as soon as I left the store. OR, he was going to try and follow me home. And I know I don’t have to explain that terror to any woman reading this, but all I could think was that I’m in this Gamestop alone with at least twenty other men and something is about to happen. I’m beginning to freak out, to the point where I’ve just pulled my pepper spray out of my purse and into the pocket of my coat. 

So there I am, next in line to pay, and there is this GIGANTIC dudebro right behind me, and I say gigantic as a 6 foot tall woman. He says, “Ma’am? Don’t be offended, but would it be alright if I walked you to your car?” and I was like “Are you serious?” and he was like “There are some weird guys in here right now. Have you noticed that guy watching you?” and then I showed the dudebro the pepper spray in my pocket and he was like “Right on. Would you still let me walk you to your car?” and I said yes.

So I paid, and waited while HE paid, and he walked me to my car. And just as I was getting in, the weird guy who’d been loitering came out of the store, saw me and my dudebro, and turned around and walked away in the opposite direction. 

Y’all know how every single Wayne child is the maximum amount of dramatic? A truly impressive and extra amount? It’s because they interact almost solely with superheroes and super villains, both of whom speak in full monologues by design. It’s a pretty obvious cause to effect relationship, right?

The less obvious part is the true cause of every single bit of it: superheroes, super villains, Wayne children, even the overwhelmingly dramatic aesthetic of Gotham itself. One man is responsible, and his name is Bruce Wayne.

Listen, Gotham City is Like That because it’s 100% impossible to live a normal life when there’s a dude in a bat suit posing dramatically on your rooftop. You can’t do it. It’s also impossible to fight said man in a bat suit without monologuing back at him when he starts yelling about Justice and Morality and whatever the hell else he’s on about this week. Furthermore, it is absolutely impossible to be friends with that dude without absorbing the drama, and it’s even more impossible to peacefully be his child.

Honestly? The marketing team is just trying to have a normal quarter meeting, but nooooo, Tim and Damian can’t make it through thirty minutes without “YOU SHOULD HAVE KILLED ME WHEN YOU HAD THE CHANCE,” and frankly this is not what they signed up for. Why do they all talk like that?

Yeah, it’s Bruce’s fault. 

But why does Bruce talk like that? That one comes down to two factors: the obvious death of his parents and the man that ended up raising him. You see Alfred Pennyworth is a classically trained Shakespearean actor, and that was bound to bleed over.

After his parents’ deaths, when Bruce was at his lowest, he remembered all his favorite books. All those heroes suffered, right? Most of them lost everything, but they did the right thing anyway. It helped them, and it helped other people. 

And when Bruce decided that he wanted to be a hero, the voice in his head that told him how a hero sounds was Alfred’s. Adventure sounds like Alfred reading The Count of Monte Cristo by flashlight on a stormy night when Bruce couldn’t sleep in the thunder. Heroism sounds like Alfred reciting the legend of Arthur over breakfast on a winter morning while the fog rolls past the windows. Destiny looks like Alfred in a blanket cape, brandishing a stick like a sword– “Let the angel whom thou still has served tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped!”