Very Tired Of The ‘Dick Grayson Is Mostly A Pretty Boy With Bad Puns, Golden Retriever Vibes’ Trope.

I hate them

klance in 2024??? 🤯🤯🤯💯💯💯

Was Dick ever mean to Jason when they first met? Because I’ve seen a lot of fanon where it’s implied/shown that he was, but I haven’t seen anything to prove that it’s canon (and I’m happy you’re back even though you weren’t gone long I love your blog)

Aww thank you!!

Ugh I don't know where fanon keeps getting the idea but Dick was never mean to Jason as Robin.

Let's start with the erased version, otherwise known as pre-crisis.

Jason Todd was born to acrobatic parents and also performed in the circus. Here's the interesting bit: it wasn't Bruce who found out about them, it was Dick who was at the circus and cheered them.

Batman (1940) Issue #357

Where was Bruce? He was busy becoming squid food in Gotham.

Anyway Bruce escapes and meets up with Dick who is still Robin and helps him solve part of the crime. As he's discussing the case with Dick, Dick mentions that there may be a connection to Bruce's case and something Trina Todd said.

Yup! Dick becomes friends with Jason's mom <3

Batman (1940) Issue #358

Bruce doesn't trust her but Dick does and Bruce trusts Dick so he accepts.

So Dick goes to meet Trina and her husband but they've already left to sneak into the villain's lair and get caught by Killer Croc. So he chases after them. Barbara joins in as Batgirl but Batgirl and Robin are too late because Killer Croc has already fed Joe and Trina to crocodiles.

Batman's still fighting his own case while all this is happening.

Waldo the Clown takes Jason to the manor and while Jason's in the kitchen looking for food, he finds the door behind the grandfather clock open, goes inside, and finds the batcave.

He finds a trunk of Dick's old suits as Robin and that's where the iconic pre-crisis Jason Robin scene comes -

Detective Comics (1937) Issue #526

Which first of all Jason why are you wearing other people's clothes without their permission? But anyway Jason hears people coming and finds Batman's busy grabbing information with Selina and so he hides in the trunk of the Batmobile. Robin Dick and Batgirl solve the case on their end and find out there's a trap for Batman so they come in and save Batman and his allies. Jason sneaks out of the car and finds his parents are dead so he tries to kill Killer Croc but Dick and Barbara stop him.

Detective Comics (1937) Issue #526

Dick's just like "oh, you sweetheart."

Dick wants to adopt him but Bruce is like mine because they're both like "It's my fault his parents died, I should take responsibility."

Detective Comics (1937) Issue #526

Dick was really nice to Jason.

Batman (1940) Issue #529

Dick is Jason's idol. He and Dick have a great relationship, so much so that Dick actually passes on the Robin name and suit to Jason.

Batman (1940) Issue #529

I could make a meme out of the handshake scene with Bruce being one hand and Jason being the other and in the middle the hands meet is "idolizing Dick Grayson".

So Dick and Jason had a fantastic relationship.

And then some things happen where this Jason wasn't well-recieved by the audience because of the way writers handled the transition from Dick's robin to Jason's so DC realized that they need to make Jason into his own person with his own personality, looks, and story.

So they magic marker erased the previous timeline and now we have the actual Jason Todd that's actually relevant to every comic that comes after.

Yet in this current timeline too, Dick treated Jason sweetly.

Here Dick's first meeting with Jason, he actually saves Jason from the hands of drug dealers.

Batman (1940) Issue #416

He let go of his hiding spot to get the new Robin out of trouble.

Jason is not at all happy about this.

Batman (1940) Issue #416

And Dick's pissed off because he found out there's a new Robin through a newspaper and he just lost a drug deal he's been waiting on to bailout the new Robin.

So Dick storms off and Jason asks Bruce about Nightwing

Batman (1940) Issue #416

And I'm going to reiterate parts of this post for this part (people please please read this post because tumblr has an image limit and I've explained it in detail there but I can't here)

Dick had no idea Bruce passed on the Robin costume. He finds out through the newspaper because Bruce is pissed at Dick. Like he's so mad that when he told Dick to leave, Dick actually left.

You know how there's a saying about not being able to take back words of anger? Bruce is feeling that heavily. He already had suspicions that Dick wanted to leave but before Dick could tell him, he fired him so he wouldn't have to hear those words. But Bruce is super mad that Dick left anyway. So what does he do? He makes the first boy he sees Robin.

And Jason finds out Dick was Robin when he confronts Bruce why Nightwing knows Bruce's identity. And that gets Bruce more mad because he's now feeling guilty which is when Dick comes to confront Bruce.

After meeting Bruce, Dick talks about what he's been up to since he left and put Bruce in a good mood before he starts tearing into him.

Batman (1940) Issue #416

Bruce looks so wrecked. The guilt and sorrow is tantamount to his pain.

Then Dick asks Bruce why he choose someone new.

Batman (1940) Issue #416

So Bruce tells him. But Dick and Bruce's relationship go way deeper than just friends or family. They know each other. They revolve around each other so Dick calls him out, and out comes the truth

Batman (1940) Issue #416

But here's what it means in terms of Dick and Jason's relationship:

Instead of letting Jason become some sort of spite move, Dick becomes the bigger man and decides to turn Robin into a legacy.

Batman (1940) Issue #416

He passes it down like it was meant to be passed down. Because let's be honest here. The Robin name and costume is Dick's. If he wanted to, he could've taken it back, Bruce be damned. And that was one of Jason's fears.

It's Dick's approval of Jason and them catching the drug dealers together at the end that cements Jason as Robin. It's his acceptance and good will toward Jason that Bruce is grateful for.

Batman (1940) Issue #416

Dick also validates and praises Jason in the comics whenever they meet.

The New Teen Titans (1984) Issue #31

He's basically, "Don't worry about Bruce, if you get in trouble, I'll take care of it."

The only problem is they didn't meet a lot but when they did it was good times all around.

The third version of Dick and Jason's meeting.

In this version holy honking heck. First of all it's a flashback when Bruce fires Dick because he feels like he's too busy with other duties to be with Batman and then after a series of events in present time, it shows that Bruce literally kidnapped Jason and gagged and tied him to a chair. And Alfred's like WTH BRUCE?!

Even more things happen on both sides (curse you 30-image per post tumblr limit) and Bruce essentially makes Jason watch all the videos of Dick and sets Jason's gauntlet test to be a game of tag with Dick.

Dick is completely unaware of all this happening because he's just having fun busting up thugs and playing with Barbara, having no clue that Bruce and Jason are literally watching him livestream through his bike dash cam.

Nightwing (1996) Issue #105

Jason literally shows up while Dick's pondering on a rooftop and is like who're you? Oh wait you're him lol. Move over there's a new robin in town! And Dick's just like WHAT?! He such a little shit about it.

Dick's immediately like okay I'm upset at Bruce but I have to help this new kid out. There's no hesitation, no regret, no anger towards Jason at all. Just pure desire to see him succeed.

Not gonna lie, Jason's just awful towards Dick because he thinks that Dick is his test or something Dick's just like, "can you cool it for a sec?" They soon find out about a huge crime drug activity going on and Dick sorta mentors Jason through it while on the case. I'm not gonna include the panels but it's just Dick and Jason working together. It's fun to read and cute because Dick's protective of him and Jason's like a little bird following a bigger scarier one.

At the end the crime is solved, Jason and Alfred go home, and Dick calls Bruce to tell him this -

Nightwing (1996) Issue #106

Nightwing (1996) Issue #106

He was so, so nice to Jason. Actually it's impossible for anyone to treat Jason better than Dick treated him, not even Bruce was this nice to Jason.

In Nightwing (2016) Annual, there's another story of Dick and Jason's meeting. In this case Dick comes over after Alfred calls him and Jason's sulking in his room because Bruce grounded him. He pulls Jason away and they go on a Nightwing and Robin adventure where Dick talks to him, teaches him, and lifts his spirits.

Nightwing (2016) 2021 Annual

Dick being mean to Jason is pure fanon, it's so fanon that there isn't even a single comic panel that can be used in support of that horrible idea. He never ignored Jason. Dick makes it very, very clear that his problems are with Bruce won't interfere with his relationship with Jason. He treats Jason as an independent person with his own personality and genuinely looks after and cares for him in every retelling. The only thing is they didn't meet very often but when they did, Dick was such a good brother.

kyotama walked so kunizai could run

Honestly, even if (just sometimes, normally I don't) I love the new interpretation of Dick as the "angry Robin" that we have these days, sometimes it feels bad that you can't talk about a version of Dick as Robin that isn't like that without getting people saying things like "that's not Dick, he's the angry one, the bloodthirsty one" and... What?

It takes away a lot of depth from the character when people only think of that when talking about Robin!Dick, when, since always, Dick was, quite possibly, one of the best written characters, and one of those that has more nuances to make him a completely human character, not only in the sense of not having superpowers, but of being able to empathize with him.

There are many versions of the story, but the most widely accepted version is that Dick lost his parents at the age of eight, watching them fall because they sabotaged their act, an act Dick probably saw many times, one he knew for sure his parents would never fail... Until it failed, and through no fault of their own.

Dick was a little boy who grew up in a loving family (as far as we know, I still think they were strict, but not necessarily bad parents... We'll talk about the Court of Owls later), and from one second to the next, all of that ended. Even if Bruce was there for him, things obviously weren't the same anymore, they never would be again.

Although many have the idea that Dick escaped from youth center to kill Zucco, in the original stories Dick didn't even know yet about him, at least not that much to know what he really did; but he wanted to escape from juvenile so as not to lose his values, so as not to stop being who he is, who his parents taught him to be.

Even in the lines where he DOES say he wants to kill Zucco, in most cases, when push comes to shove, he wants to prevent Zucco's death. There are some moments where he even confesses that he didn't want Zucco to die, he just wanted justice for his parents.

People now see Dick as the Robin who only saw misfortune and was an absolute menace to society, and while, yes, Dick was an absolute menace, it was only to the villains, who heard a little boy laughing at them before beating the shit out of them. Plus, even as a child he was a master manipulator, both for enemies and allies.

But what about the rest? Robin was supposed to be the light where Batman was the darkness. He was the one who comforted scared civilians when Batman couldn't. He was the sensitivity that Batman cannot afford to show.

Dick Grayson was the one who saved Batman from losing himself in the same darkness that he himself was making his only way of life, and this is something that Alfred has pointed out before. It is thanks to Dick that Batman stopped being the ruthless "hero" he was becoming. Damn, he was the one who softened Alfred's heart in the first place too.

This was the Robin that Superman saw as worthy of carrying the mantle of Nightwing, whom he saw as someone who could represent hope itself.

Bruce didn't start smiling just because of the other Robins like many people now believe, no. Dick was the first to make him smile again, the one who opened the doors for the others.

Dick was always kind and tender-hearted, always joy where there was only devastation.

Even if he was the living nightmare of villains, he was still that cheerful child who wanted to avoid the pain of others. The boy who inspired other heroes, not only because of his skills, but because of his heart.

Dick is a character who, while he is now more recognized as Nightwing than as Robin (which doesn't bother me at all, because that was always his goal when he became an independent hero), he still has a history that people seem to increasingly forget about and pigeonhole his development into something... Flat.

Were there times when Dick had more anger and pain than any other feeling in him? Yes, absolutely YES. But this stage is mostly in his Discowing years, not of Robin as such (I'm not saying there weren't such moments, but there aren't as many as people describe now, and even then, he was more serious than angry), or as some animated series showed (I love these series, even if they turned Dick into a feral child who is unable to smile, lol)

Again. I LOVE Dick's portrayal as a feral child and absolute menace to society (which he was), but I also LOVE when artists, writers, and the entire fandom itself appreciates the different nuances of his personality, from his ability to laugh despite the misfortunes in his life, to his sadness that never ceased to be a part of him, until the moments where he could only feel rage and pain and felt that the world was only darkness, unable to see the colors that emerged from the light he projected by himself.

Look at him, he's so cute <3

Does anyone care about this yap? No, but I wanted to let out what I've been repeating in my head for days because people on tiktok have me fed up HAHA

Daphne and Dick definitely meet up to talk shit and gossip.

Gotham twitter AU can be canon IF and ONLY IF you accept 1. Scooby Doo exists, and 2. Robin and Daphne hang.

I like to imagine that in the villain world it’s considered suicidal to injure Nightwing.

Random villain #1: Yeah and then I shot Nightwing

Random villain #2: You shot Nightwing???

Random villain #1: Yeah, I got him pretty bad, might’ve killed him

Random Villain #2 *eyeing Batman, the Batfamily, Superman, half the Justice League and the Titans as they appear behind Random Villain #1 *: Uhh I had nothing to do with this

Have I pretty much stopped caring about Bungou Stray Dogs? Yes. Yes I have. Will Soukoku forever be that one ship that I adore and changed the trajectory of my life? Yes. Yes it will. Will I continue consuming Soukoku fanfic, art and edits? Yes. Yes I will.

I’m reading The New Teen Titans and I keep getting confused because I can’t stop reading H.I.V.E as HIV

How long is DC planning on pretending they’re not going to bring Alfred back. Like you guys never keep people dead, don’t start now. It’s been like 5 years