And another thing, he said as if its ever just ONE more thing, hahahaha look, fuck you numbers, Iâm not about to be limited by the likes of YOU.
Anyone else think its kinda weird that in all the many years of âDick not so secretly resented Jason because Bruce adopted him and made him Robin and thatâs why they were never closeâ fics.......there seem to be a big whopping zero that take the fix-it approach:Â
âWhat if Bruce had been aware of the tension between the two because heâs not actually a Dumb Dumb McStupidhead and thought to himself, gee, if only there was something I, the parent, had the power to do about this resentment from one brother based on something I, the parent, did for the other brother who never did anything because he is not the parent and also he did nothing wrong? What if given that I and my actions are the actual problem here, I, the parent, he who holdeth both the actual power in this family as the parent and the power as the problem-causer, to address the problem.....like what if I got off my âmatches with Batmanâ butt and.....did...something? About it?â
Like.....oh I donât know, just spitballing here....maybe explaining to Jason just what it was Dick was resentful about when it came to Robin and that Jason wasnât the one Dick was actually mad at, which more than likely would have prompted the extremely empathetic at this age Jason to take Dickâs side and be like wtf, you gotta fix this B.Â
Or maybe like, going to Dick and expressing how sorry he is that he didnât consider how Dick would feel about any of this and that heâs let it go unaddressed for so long since then, which more than likely would have NOT resulted in Dick continuing to hold a grudge against an innocent third party but rather be like thank you this is literally all I ever wanted, a fucking acknowledgment that youâd hurt me and that my being hurt mattered to you?Â
Or if the problem is more Dick being resentful that Bruce adopted Jason and not him, maybe Bruce explaining this to Jason and that Jason wasnât the one Dick was actually mad at, which again, more than likely would have prompted the extremely empathetic Jason to go umm, wtf are you talking to me about this for then, if you think heâs upset about that why the fuck arenât you going to talk to him about it and tell him all this stuff about regretting not adopting him before now and sparing him this hurt instead? Like what are you waiting for old man, your fucking helicopter to come pick you up? NOW. Go NOW. Youâre not getting any younger, geez Louise, why are old people so dumb.
Or maybe like.....Bruce going to Dick and expressing how sorry he is that he didnât consider how Dick would feel about.....look, you see where Iâm going with this, right? You get it? Its not actually all that tricky to grasp?
Or hell, maybe even just in a fic where Jason nurses his own resentment over the fact that heâs heard so much about Dick and looked forward to meeting him and yet months and months go by since Jasonâs adoption and in all that time his alleged big brother apparently canât even be bothered to come introduce himself, RIP Jasonâs feelings, guess he canât possibly matter all that much to the guy, way to welcome him to the family......
I mean, its not like THAT thought neeeeeeever comes up in fic, so its like, hmmm, counterpoint, but where are all the fics that take the angle of rather than let Jason think he doesnât matter to his predecessor and let Dick take all the blame for this impression when thereâs LITERALLY nothing Dick could do about it since he found out about Jason from the freaking newspaper months after the adoption and only after Jason debuted as Robin.....maybe Bruce, could again, just like....start a conversation. And be like Jason I seem to have inadvertently given you the wrong impression here, but trust me, Dick not coming to meet you before now had nothing whatsoever to do with you and was purely because I never actually told him about you.
Again, cut to Jason, the actual brains of the family at this point in time, staring at Bruce with his mouth hanging open:
âWait, so youâre telling me that after the two of you had this big fight and you havenât seen him in like eighteen months, AND after his eighteenth birthday came and went without you bothering to even call him and let him know you still wanted him in your life despite him no longer legally being your ward, AND after you went and took me in and adopted me......you never at any point picked up the phone and said hey kid that I raised and consider family and still want to be part of my family no matter how long its been since we talked......I just thought you should know, given that weâre still family and all, that our family is now bigger, because thatâs information that is kinda key to give to people you consider family, as NOT keeping them in that loop could kinda sorta maaaaaaybe give them the impression that you DONâT think of them that way or else you would have thought this was relevant information for them to have?â
Bruce: Iâm not sure I see where youâre going with this.
Jason: How are you this dumb. No but seriously. HOW.Â
Anywho, cut to me, twiddling my thumbs here all super casual like.....
But HMMM, isnât it WEIRD how fandom, which is totally better than canon, and definitely does not have patience for that unnecessary family angst porn DC is so obsessed with and just wants these goshdarn idiots to be a FAMILY, like......neeeeeeeeever utilizes the transformative power of fanfic and their much more reliable takes on Good Parent Bruce Wayne to like....have Bruce....do something about the problems between past Dick and Jason? In any of these fics? And instead has him just....let the opportunities to make things better for them, AND HIMSELF in the process, just like.....sail away into the rear view mirror, waving a hand at them as they pass, content to let things fester and worsen until cut to after Jasonâs return, like.....oh gee, really wish something could have been done about the relationship between Dick and Jason way back when, maybe Jason could have benefited from another close relationship in his life then and maybe Dick might not be as bad off now if he wasnât burdened with unnecessary guilt over having had human emotions when he was a teenager?
So so SO weird that this angle never comes up or gets tackled in ANY fics that emphasize Dickâs alleged history of being an asshole to Jason and the reason they were never close or barely knew each other. I mean, its such an EASY and OBVIOUS fix to all that, donât you think?
Unless, of course.....in the fics that make an emphasis of this fandom created dynamic.....its not actually considered a problem to fix at all.
But rather, this manufactured dynamic IS the fix, to what they see as the ACTUAL problem......any kind of real or explored focus on what Bruce actually DID and didnât do, that caused the resentment theyâre all too happy to show Dick nursing, but seem keeeeeeeeenly deft in avoiding any exploration of him FEELING. Except of course when it comes to a reason for him to feel even guiltier BECAUSE of it.
Its almost like we would have had a ton more variety in how fics depict the early years between Dick and Jason, perks of this oh so easily arrived at fix-it angle.....unless those fics were always doing exactly what they intended by keeping every one in the comments sections so busy commenting on what a jerk Dick was in that chapter or in the older events that chapter mentioned, that they just so happen to never really spend much time considering Bruceâs inciting choices back then to be AS worthy of comment or criticism.
Idk you guys, I just happen to find it kinda hilar in that âwhat a weird coeenkeedink kinda wayâ that so many of the things a lot of fandom are EXTREMELY loud about holding against Dick (whether Dick did or not actually do those things in the first place)....just so happen to be the very things that most of these same people REFUSE to ever hold Bruce accountable for, or admit that he actually did.
Yâknow, like how Bruce never actually fired Dick as Robin, that was just a retcon (when thereâs literally been more versions of events where Dick WAS fired than WASNâT at this point).....but meanwhile, Dick very much definitely did FIRE Tim, that was exactly how that went down.
Or how similarly, Bruce neeeeeever actually kicked Dick out, let alone made him give back his keys, but Dick DEFINITELY kicked Tim out of house and Gotham.....even though Dick literally did none of that and in fact was living at the penthouse the whole time he was Batman, meaning Wayne Manor was perfectly available to be Timâs home base the whole time, if heâd wanted it.Â
Or how Bruce has never lifted a finger at his eldest, or thrown any kind of a temper tantrum, because he is a good person who would obviously never ever do that, BUT if the son he spent the longest time raising just so HAPPENS to end up with a reputation of having a hair-trigger temper, going off at the drop of a hat, blowing things all out of proportion and lashing out physically whenever heâs overwhelmed emotionally.....well, that certainly has nothing to do with Bruce or anything heâs ever done, lol why would it, BUT its definitely something that needs to be commented on time and time again because it very much did happen all these times in canon, whereas all these times youâre talking about with Bruce are very clearly out of character writing because see, Bruce just isnât like that, uh doy.
Or how Bruce definitely wasnât being problematic as hell when it came to his non-interactions with Dick back when Jason was living with him, but Dickâs non-interactions with Jason are 10000x more worthy of comment and criticism. And Dickâs responsibilities towards the emotional wellbeing of the kid he didnât pick to be his family and wasnât even actually legally family with at the time, let alone actually obligated to, are definitely the same as Bruceâs responsibilities to the emotional wellbeing of both the kids he did actually pick to be his family and did actually make obligations to. Thus the one is definitely more deserving of a call-out post than the other....wait, what? Dammit, I was SURE my math checked out on that one this time. Well fuck a duck, now I am THOROUGHLY flummoxed by all this.
Just really funny in that lmao âactually not at all sortaâ way, how its the extremely PRECISE things that so many fans absolutely REFUSE to acknowledge Bruce ever doing, that they just canât help but âexposeâ as a mere retcon, bad writing, ooc behavior, writers just ânot getting who Bruce Wayne is,â etc, etc, whenever it does get brought up by other people....
It just so happens to be these very specific things that come up time and time again as the things people just WILL NOT LET GO when it comes to Dick doing them.....even when.....in most cases he didnât even actually do them! Not because they were âmere retconsâ or just âbad writingâ or âooc behaviorâ or âwriters just not getting who Dick Grayson isâ....but because they literally. Did not. Happen. Until fandom for some reason - âdespiteâ HATING canon for having Bruce do THESE VERY SAME THINGS - put their own interpretative or transformative spin on things and MADE those things happen in such huge numbers that a lot of new fans coming into fandom by way of fics honestly believe that THESE are the canon moments and its the ones attributed to Bruce that are just fans of other characters having their sour grapes moments.
Anyway. So I mean, unless Iâm just totally reading the room wrong, Iâd have to hazard a guess that the only real reason we NEVER see fics addressing things the way I outlined in my earliest examples at the start of this post.....is that a whole lot of fandom just kinda decided over the years that it was just waaaaaay easier to just redirect peoplesâ ire at other characters, away from Bruce, than it was to go to the trouble of like....actually ADDRESSING Bruceâs pesky little canon mistakes.
Cuz see....writing a happier, more united Batfam in the years before Jasonâs death is only a fix-it fic if the problem youâre fixing is the familyâs relationships.....and not âBruce acknowledging - let alone taking ownership of - his mistakes.â If the latter is the REAL problem, well a more âtogetherâ family isnât something you actually need at all....you just need someone else to pin its divisiness on.
Aaaaaanyway.....now standard stock disclaimer that as Iâve always always always said....I donât actually hate Bruce nor do I have anything whatsoever against Good Dad Bruce.....my issues are always just with peoplesâ approach to his canon mistakes or poor writing being to double down on the problem but just make it someone elseâs. And that one little thing where the Smartest Man In The World can come up with a way to fight Doomsday with a paper clip and some chewing gum, but goshdarnnit if heâs not completely helpless and powerless when it comes to fixing his own mistakes or interceding in his childrensâ emotional problems.Â
(As in by just yâknow, parenting them. Sitting them down for a conversation. No, bugging their apartments and calling that his love language doesnât count.)
Also, an Honorable Mention Pet Peeve goes out to all the fans who love to dismiss Dick Grayson stans raising this issue because âthis sort of thing happens with all the charactersâ when lololololol, no, it really actually does not. Given the weeeeeeeird similarities and parallels in the very specific things we tend to gripe about Bruce doing in canon and others tend to gripe about Dick doing in fanon, like, Iâd actually think some of you would be a bit more empathetic about how much it sucks seeing your fave character condemned for stuff like this, given the lengths you go to when avoiding acknowledging Bruce doing it. But then again, that would defeat the point of attributing all that to a Bruce scapegoat instead of a Bruce in the first place, so I mean, I guess not actually.
But whatevs. I guess Iâm just not able to grasp the nuances of how people criticizing or even fixating on some of Bruceâs worse actions in canon gains the ire of fans who are like, I am just here rolling my eyes at you guys for being so addicted to your shitty misery porn that you like, just loooooove going with the takes where Bruce is just the worst person ever and a totally shitty dad....
While meanwhile.....many of those exact same fans.....
Two seconds later: Now if you donât mind, we have to get back to making up scenarios and bad faith interpretations that paint Dick as being just the worst person ever and a totally shitty brother or son. But in a not-that-weâre-addicted-to-shitty-misery-porn kinda way or whatever, because weâre obvs SO not, thatâs YOU guys, this is totally different. We donât LIKE doing this, weâre only doing it because we HAVE to. It has nothing to do with us not actually minding the writing or the content of whatâs being written whatsoever, we just donât like that it makes Bruce look bad, and as long as you keep fixating on how it makes Bruce look like, duh, what other choice do we have but to make someone else look worse instead? When you think about it, this is all your fault, really.
Anyway. You just gotta love the takeaway.
Us: Griping about something Bruce does in canon and how the writers portrayed it and any resulting followup.
Others in Fandom: manufactures a parallel scenario with Bad Brother/Son Dick Grayson out of a single out of context panel, tinfoil and some dental floss.
Fandom: These two situations are the same.
Us: Okay but see theyâre really fucking not tho, is the thing....
