Dick relates to Surface Pressure too much. Meanwhile Jason has “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” stuck in his head for some weird reason, and Tim is kinning Isabella.
When I read a Dick Grayson is Romani fic, the fic normally involves his circus childhood and/or him suffering from racism. I want to see fics tackling the internal/identity conflict Dick might experience as an adult who was born a Rom but was raised for the latter half of his childhood not as a member of the Romani community.
I do not have any personal connection with the Roma nor am I an expert of the Romani culture. I do not know if there is a widely accepted idea that ‘once a Rom always a Rom’ or if a born Rom who was not raised in the community is considered to not be a Rom/having lost their Romani spirit.
However, I do personally relate with Dick (and maybe project a little) as someone who was born in China and was adopted very young by an American couple. I am ethnically Chinese and was raised by a white family. Neither of us were too concerned with keeping my culture as I grew up. As a teenager, I grew interested in my origins and as an adult, I became regretful for my child self’s lack of attachment, which had led to me forgetting my native language.
The very real possibility of identity issues is just one of many important detail. I’m not sure if anyone else is bothered by Dick’s funeral or if I am the only one. In a fic that is set during or post Spyral, Bruce’s plan to fake Dick’s death has harsher and more unforgivable consequences if he follows Romani funeral/mourning customs. From what I know (please correct me if I’m wrong), Romani funerals call for the possessions of the deceased to be ridded of, traditionally destruction through burning the items but now the common way is selling the items. Since Bruce had physically beaten Dick into accepting the Spyral task, it would not be ridiculous to believe Bruce would get rid of Dick’s possessions if it would make everything more convincing and aid Bruce in fulfilling “The Mission”.
Still thinking about the Dick and Jason saga of Arkham during Morrison’s run I don’t know how uncharitable it would be to pin the entire blame on Tim???
Because one (bad faith but I think kind of funny) interpretation of those months would be Tim breaks Jason out of prison for… reasons (why honestly did Tim do that), and after Jason commits the not very surprising mass murders once out, including the attempts on ten year old Damian and Tim (you’re welcome eh?), and after Tim quite aggressively pressures Dick into seeing that him being Batman is the only sustainable way to stop Gotham imploding… Tim proceeds to jump ship to go find ‘the real’ Batman and leaving Dick to deal with the middle brother who’s have a jolly old time shooting everyone up.
Likenoneof that would have happened if Tim had just left Jason alone in jail??? And Tim just fucks off for at the time (and as Tim literally says himself at several points) no good reason is just blindingly funny to me.
What’s that Dick? Jason’s committing mass murder after I blew him out of jail?
Anyway I have to go away from Gotham for plot reasons byeeeeeeeeee.
Like yes I’m not saying that Tim wasn’t presented very sympathetically within his solo series and we all (mostly) understand why he acted the way he did.
…But if I were Dick I would have strangled the motherfucker like thanks for literally nothingTim.
hot take: if you want a darker batman movie, skip over bruce and go straight to dick’s run as batman. i haven’t even read the run much, but here’s some fun reasons why this would be terribly angsty in the best way possible:
dick’s goal is to be nightwing, not batman
dick has the trauma of losing his birth parents *and* bruce
dick has to figure out how to raise a kid
depending on how you approach it, dick has to keep the role switch in who batman is a secret because that’s what bruce would have wanted.
dick is dealing with all of this while still grieving bruce and handling his legacy.
he probably also feels responsible for becoming a father figure to the rest of the batfam, even though that absolutely should not be his role.
if this ever *was* a movie, i’d 100% want it to end w/ dick learning that 1) gotham needs people protecting it, but not batman specifically; he was just the first and 2) if he stays as batman, he doesn’t have to be bruce.
i’d like at least 1 set of the scenes w/ the justice and commissioner gordon where they just know that it’s nightwing/the first robin instead of the OG batman, and another set where the batfam grieve together as a family.
I would like to keep talking and note that some of the “darkest,” angstiest, and weirdest Batman stories take place during Dick’s tenure too. For consideration:
Gordon’s psychopathic serial killer son comes back to town and starts killing people. This storyline includes several murders, a mirror-filled fun house, hallucinagenic nerve gas that conjures violent illusions, and a murdered woman left inside a dead killer whale, and culminates with James Jr. kidnapping Babs to kill her, with a secondary mission of “mentally destroying” Dick and Gordon…and also the Joker is running around causing chaos and leaving Gordon’s ex-wife in critical condition on top of all of this
Dick and Damian take down a mad scientist named “Professor Pyg” (he wears a pig mask; it’s a whole thing) who leads the “Circus of Strange” and tries to introduce an addictive mind-altering drug into Gotham’s population. His mutilated, brainwashed minions are called ‘Dollotrons’, and they’re just as creepy-looking as they sound
Victor Zsasz runs a gladiator ring with children; Damian and his friend Colin Wilkes have to take it down from the inside. Yes, Dick worries the whole time
a history-laden all-Batfam story about the Five Founding Families of Gotham featuring a serial bomber targeting famous Gotham landmarks (most prominently the bridges leading into the city)
Also:
the inherent angst of having to fight your family members over a mantle you don’t want and your dad specifically told you to let die in his last note to you
I would also like to point out that Dick has to fight against not only one but TWO zombie versions of his parents during this time period: Blackest Night happens during Dick’s run and he’s forced to fight his reanimated parents, and he also dumps Bruce’s (apparent) body in a Lazarus Pit under Gotham City to try and revive him (it doesn’t work, mostly because it was a clone and not actually Bruce’s body). If there’s an opportunity for depressing angst, it’s Dick having fighting his dead birth parents or a fake version of his dead adopted dad that he tried to revive
ON THAT NOTE, the Batfam had Thomas Elliot/Hush (who had surgically altered himself to look like Bruce) basically pretending to be Bruce for the entire time they thought he was dead. “Having to grieve for your dad when literally no one outside the family knows he’s dead and there’s a lookalike running around” is some prime angst opportunity, right there
Also the “angsty in the best way possible” story about a family fracturing during a time of unbelievable grief, even as Dick tries his best to hold them all together, and slowly but surely healing and coming back together in the aftermath
Like…there is so much potential sitting there waiting to be mined, but DC and WB are all cowards who want to keep milking Martha Wayne’s broken pearls, apparently
by teasing the main characters for several thousand words and refusing to write a full-on sex scene, am I, the author, indirectly edging myself through plot?
yknow, oregan is really pretty, i feel like that’s not said enough. i’m coming across a waterfall like, every twenty minutes this is so fucking beautiful. but i kinda also want to take a nap.
I love how it’s been like. three or four hours since i dis-the fuck-appeared from the house and not a soul as noticed.
i’m chilling on the other side of the country waiting for my family to realize that instead of lounging with my menagerie of cats, ive broke into an airbnb in oregan because i accidentally teleported myself. again.
I noticed kid, but I also know you can handle yourself AND I know that if needed I can (and will) take a zeta tube to your location
Anyway there are snacks in your backpack
oh shit i do have a backpack. this airbnb is well stocked so i’ve been eating their food.
and i was just gonna start hitch hiking back in the morning and have my own personal cross country road trip.
…I’m picking you up
aw cmon! you literally just said i can handle myself.
Youcan, but that doesn’t mean I’ll let you
really? what’s the worst that can happen in that situation? any random serial killer that picks me up on the road will be a total amateur compared to both gotham and new york rouges and that’s like, the worst case scenario i can think of
yknow, oregan is really pretty, i feel like that’s not said enough. i’m coming across a waterfall like, every twenty minutes this is so fucking beautiful. but i kinda also want to take a nap.
I love how it’s been like. three or four hours since i dis-the fuck-appeared from the house and not a soul as noticed.
i’m chilling on the other side of the country waiting for my family to realize that instead of lounging with my menagerie of cats, ive broke into an airbnb in oregan because i accidentally teleported myself. again.
I noticed kid, but I also know you can handle yourself AND I know that if needed I can (and will) take a zeta tube to your location
Anyway there are snacks in your backpack
oh shit i do have a backpack. this airbnb is well stocked so i’ve been eating their food.
and i was just gonna start hitch hiking back in the morning and have my own personal cross country road trip.
…I’m picking you up
aw cmon! you literally just said i can handle myself.
yknow, oregan is really pretty, i feel like that’s not said enough. i’m coming across a waterfall like, every twenty minutes this is so fucking beautiful. but i kinda also want to take a nap.
I love how it’s been like. three or four hours since i dis-the fuck-appeared from the house and not a soul as noticed.
i’m chilling on the other side of the country waiting for my family to realize that instead of lounging with my menagerie of cats, ive broke into an airbnb in oregan because i accidentally teleported myself. again.
I noticed kid, but I also know you can handle yourself AND I know that if needed I can (and will) take a zeta tube to your location
Anyway there are snacks in your backpack
oh shit i do have a backpack. this airbnb is well stocked so i’ve been eating their food.
and i was just gonna start hitch hiking back in the morning and have my own personal cross country road trip.
