edit: not responding to replies here anymore since i didn't expect it to blow up and i'm super busy with work π thanks to everyone keeping it civil and polite tho :')
opinion/rant i guess?? i dont think greaseball was ever abusive to dinah to the point of their relationship being completely toxic. (this is about pre-2018 greasedinah btw!!)
DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT SAYING HE WAS NOT ABUSIVE. the aggression greaseball displays is VERY clearly written, my point is merely that there is depth to his writing and i wanted to link his abusive behavior to the deeper rooted reasonings <- his own ego and toxic masculinity. When I say dinah has toxic traits here too i don't mean she was toxic TO greaseball, she has toxic traits that affect herself and her own coping. Please be respectful when replying or reblogging THANK YOU.
thing is, greaseball and dinah both have character flaws rooted in their toxic masculinity/femininity. GB cared too much about his own reputation and talked down to Dinah as a result of his own perception of masculinity, he let his stardom get the better of him. But Dinah also let her jealousy and anger at GB get the better of her, she turned her anger into a motivator for her to get back at him, resulting in her plan for revenge. That just shows how she cares too much, she's so empathetic and attached to her lover that she can't find a healthy way to vent out her frustrations. Neither of these behaviors are good ways to deal with their respective needs and wants.
But in the end, she still runs back up to him after he NEARLY DIES, and cries over his injuries. Despite how frustrated Dinah is with him she still loves him deep inside, and he's genuinely apologetic too. Whenever I see people talking about how insincere his apology is and how he only apologizes after Dinah prompts him THAT IS NOT TRUE?? He literally tries apologising before she even tells him to spell it out, the spelling thing is a coping mechanism she learned through processing her own emotions, she's SHARING this coping mechanism with him so that he can process HIS OWN emotions thoroughly because he never learned how to do it before! Because of TOXIC MASCULINITY!!! Those entire few lines are essentially Dinah taking the best parts of her identity, being empathetic, and using it to help Greaseball communicate his true intentions, which is to apologize.
That's what I love so much about those two, their arcs are all about loving each other deeply but not knowing how to communicate it properly and having a falling out because of it, and eventually talking it through with the best parts of their personalities and mending the relationship. The way they treat each other is so tender and the love they have for each other is so deep, theyre just flawed characters who need to work hard to be able to understand each others' perspectives.
So yes, Greaseball hurt Dinah's feelings, but that doesn't mean Dinah should have just left him or that she doesn't deserve him. She loves him too much, and even though she went on a mini rampage against him, in the end she was the one who helped him process his own guilt. I just feel like i keep seeing people who get really confused about their relationship and consider it toxic, there's a whole arc to it where they both find themselves in each other, just felt like i had to write down my thoughts on it :p
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