how I propose we, as a society, analyse sports anime going forward

*showing visible symptoms* oh my god i need help desperately

*symptoms go away for one day* what if im just faking it

incredible how much housework you can get done if you take a chance and believe in yourself and also have fifteen other much more pressing responsibilities

“I love it–the drug pushers in the motorcycle gang are telling me I made bad choices in my life.” asdfkljal;skjd DICK

Something critical is that probably the real dick grayson would absolutely never ever casually call BW Dad to his face, and truthfully even post-adoption in GK#17 the father-son thing is only like 49% of the Bruce & Dick rs although dick absolutely does lasso bruce into conversations as in “oh my dad does the same thing!” when hes having conversations w total strangers faraway from anywhere on the eastern seaboard where word could never get back and associations could not be made BUT WITH ALL OF IT SAID THAT DICK WOULD NEVER CALL BRUCE DAD TO HIS FACE, in Bruce’s like deepest, most potent fantasies, like daydreams and nightdreams and also canonically that issue where bruce is in that feartoxin dreamscape world in Batman/superman #65 where his parents are alive and bruce is romantically stable and dick is his son, Dick absolutely, and invariably, calls him Dad. But that element absolutely isnt on the table in the real world at all. It isnt even that Bruce Wants That—he doesn’t want a change to the very precarious working current order, not even a very small one bc its very precious & risk aversion reasons—but it’s also like a satisfying recognition of some real under-the-surface order in the world that bruce perceives but which just isnt in play in the real world. But it is something explicit and certain in Bruce’s head and something that Bruce is aware of. And sometimes he like closes his eyes and thinks of it or something.

#YEAH YES PERFECT #one of the things that i loved about the post-crisis batfamily #is that it was constantly TEASING family without ever quite getting there #everyone was very hesitant about words like 'father' or 'son' or 'brother' #and they all tended to get defensively couched in 'the closest thing i have to a brother' 'he was like a father to me' #'maybe that's what it's like... between fathers and sons' #or all the times dick & tim call each other brother but put it in air quotes. or the workarounds: my friend. my closest ally. #or when dick & bruce are performing themselves for strangers so then dick can say anything because it's half pretense #it's this dynamic where you alllllmost say you think of the other person as your family but you don't QUITE say it #and i loved this because i love the dynamic of 'we both care more about this than we're willing to admit' #and there's so much productive tension in that restraint & that unwillingness to say the words #and i feel like it loses so much of what i loved when you just retcon it and dick's just casually calling bruce dad. no!! no!!! #dick would not say that!!! he might think about it. or imply it. he might hint at it. he might put it in air quotes #but he would not say it straight out sincerely to bruce for all kinds of complicated reasons#and bruce would never expect it. not even want it precisely. because the person he loves is dick-grayson-as-he-is #and not really dick-grayson-if-he'd-never-had-other-parents-and-uncomplicatedly-grew-up-calling-bruce-dad #and yet sometimes. in the secret daydream of his own mind. (tags via @silverwhittlingknife)

#YES \o/#the tension of it all is the best part#how big and bedrock the emotions are vs. the unstable shatterpoint fragility they feel re: talking about them#like speaking a thing aloud could be enough to break it#vulnerability!! rejection!! giving up emotional leverage to someone who may (probably definitely) use it against you!!#the universe will conspire to steal from you those you love the moment you give away how important they are to you!!#these traumatized people#the bittersweet double-edged sword for Bruce of both wanting and not wanting to hear it (h/t @umbrellacam)

I really wish the West had more recognition of 'martial family' - the East Asian concept of mentor-student (and student-student) bonds. We've watered down the concept of mentorship so much that superhero-sidekick (and fellow sidekick) relationships just ... don't have a box, anymore.

Like, Dick and Bruce's relationship is DEFINITELY more complicated than that! Bruce took him in as his ward, and later adopted him! (Though, those thing can also happen in martial/mentor relationships.) They are in this weird, delicate place that isn't quite what either of them wants, but also is the only thing they both could accept.

But, even if mentor-student bonds don't ENCOMPASS everything their relationship is, understanding them would help push back on the modern idea of nuclear family that seems to get applied to the Bats these days. Dick would TOTALLY have called Tim 'shixiong' if he was in a wuxia show, and it would perfectly encapsulate their relationship. It would also have helped EVERYONE to provide Dick with the same term for Jason. Tim could correct people when they called Bruce his dad by explaining he's Tim's 'shifu', and maybe fans would stop snickering 'doth thou protest too much?' Cass IS Tim and Steph's 'shijie', and that allows us to place her in the Batfamily without reaching or twisting her actual relationships.

The challenge that Dick and Bruce have is that they started out as mentor-student, and then both later realized that father-son MIGHT fit better, but neither is sure. If we don't understand how they started, and how safe and rich and deep that relationship can be, it's really hard to chart their journey!

I could imagine Dick calling Bruce "Dad" (in a sincere, not joking manner) if he felt Bruce needed to hear it, more than because he needed to say it himself.

His own feelings about Bruce are, as other's have already expressed eloquently, much more complicated due to the multiple levels of their relationship over the decades, but "Dad" is at least an element of that relationship, so he'd feel no shame about saying it. I suspect he would never use it casually or repeatedly, because he knows that it would make Bruce profoundly uncomfortable to hear it, even moreso in front of other people (Alfred excepted of course, and possibly Tim. Damian and Jason would be even MORE complicated I suspect)

Because there may well be a time when Bruce needs to be reminded that he HAS served as a surrogate father to Dick for most of Dick's life, and that Dick can and DOES view him like that and cares about him in that way, so he might use it on rare occasions, to remind him of that.

I might've organised this Devil's Sacrament, but you rocked up to it in full ceremonial garb

Early DickBats is about Dick and his impostor syndrome flaring up. He thinks he's a fake or he doesn't deserve to wear Bruce's cowl...in Dick's mind how could Dick ever equal Bruce? Bruce, meanwhile, thinks surely no one would want the burden of being Batman, and definitely not Dick, right? Dick, who Bruce thinks is the best out he's ever met, the man even the very best (Superman) likes. Surely Dick wouldn't want the memory of their shared pain, their shared loss, the memory of all the times Bruce let him down, forced him to do things, to go places? Bruce doesn't want to burden Dick with Bruce's demons. Dick thinks Bruce didn't deem Dick worthy when alive, would he mind if Dick wore it after his death.

Nothing in canon says Dick considers being Batman his tragedy. Fanon needs to stop inventing fanon motives and attribute it to canon.

Natsume Sōseki, The 210th Day

They know he’s lying. They just know.

Van Helsing: We cannot involve Mina in this desperate and dangerous mission anymore. It would be too much for her feminine nerves.

Mina: I'm literally the only person in this room who hasn't had a nervous breakdown at some point in the last 6 months.

Vein took one look at them and decided "Yeah I'm gonna put you in that gay photoshoot." Like what else are these supposed to be about lmao