It’s important to recognise that Barbie (2023) criticises both the patriarchy AND the matriarchy. Yes, the Ken’s are just accessories to the Barbies. Yes, they don’t have any say in the government they live under. That’s the point, you’re supposed to feel awful, you’re supposed to want the Kens to have their own agency, you’re supposed to want equality. The Barbie movie explicitly states that the way Barbie treats Ken is wrong, so much so that once he finds a safe space for his masculinity and individual identity he’s so excited to share it with the other Kens.
But they go overboard and replace a matriarchy with a patriarchy and now the same issue exists but in reverse. That’s the POINT!! THATS THE POINT!!! Barbie is not anti-men it’s pro equality PLEASE understand this
how am i doing? oh I’m fine except i’m in a constant state of nostalgia and sentimentality over everyone I’ve ever loved and every age I’ve ever been and every phase of my life and every job I’ve worked and I’m constantly missing people and places that I can never go back to but it’s cool it’s fine
Fight me on this (actually don’t) but Tim is Dick’s baby brother. He is the one Dick gets to take on silly adventures, they go to the grocery store and max out Bruce’s credit card on the toys section. They take a weekend off to laze on Dick’s couch watching bad movies and eating day old pizza until Tim says he wants something more substantial, but instead of cooking something, Dick presents him with a can of tomato soup and goes “Here’s your dinner, your Majesty,” and Tim’s a menace so he drinks it straight from the can without heating it just to throw it up five minutes later.
Tim is the one who still goes up to Dick and tells him about his day, who asks him for advice, and calls him just to share a funny story. Tim is the one who tries to make Dick’s favourite foods when he is down, who pulls Dick out of bed on the days he feels like drowning, he is the one who sits on Dick’s living room when the world feels too big and he is too small, and Dick has piles of cases to finish.
Tim is the one Dick would go feral for, the one Dick doesn’t know how to give up because he was the one that was there when shit hit the fan and Dick thought he would never get up again.
back to the regularly scheduled programming of batfamily thoughts! anyway I got into a discussion with my mom about the incredibly specific ways small children act today so here’s how I think the batfamily would have been as tiny tots:
dick was one of those kids that if you took his eyes off him, he would vanish. you’d find him in a few minutes and he’d be like. climbing onto on a table. or swinging from a curtain or rope he was clinging to. or rummaging through something you were pretty sure he couldn’t open a minute ago. just generally causing chaos and being in places or playing with things he shouldn’t. sweet kid, but being on baby grayson babysitting duty was like watching houdini on a sugar high.
jason wanted to do everything his mom did. even if it was taxes or cleaning the toilet. if she was doing it, he wanted to do it. always trying to be helpful, even though he usually just ended up getting in the way. he probably had an extremely small broom and dustpan or something like that.
tim asked so. many. questions. he would point to words and ask “what does this say?” he had a “why” phase but it was all questions that his parents had no idea how to answer. “why are there tides?” because of the moon" “how did the moon get there?” et cetera.
damian was a small creature kid. if it moved he would just stare at it. he was always collecting breadcrumbs to feed the birds and letting bugs crawl on his hands. he found them fascinating. (he has not lost this fascination and probably never will.)
cass was a duckling. especially with the minimal amount of human interaction she got, if someone was in her space she’d follow them everywhere. she was never in the way, never obtrusive, just a little shadow to whoever was around her.
stephanie had a sweet tooth and her parents bribed her with treats a LOT. she was pretty well-behaved until she learned that misbehaving just a little would get her candy. gamed the system from an early age. if there was a treat on the table she would eat it. do not leave cupcakes unsupervised around baby steph.
barbara took apart everything. which was cute when she took apart her dolls and put them back together. it was less cute when she figured out how to use a screwdriver and disassembled the remote. she put it back together eventually.
duke was the kind of kid who didn’t talk in front of strangers basically ever. he’d smile politely but he just. would not say a word and escape as soon as he could. not shy – he’d happily play in the corner when other people were around – but completely silent around anyone unfamiliar.
kate was one of those girls who had a hat or a tutu or a pair of shoes that she absolutely had to wear everywhere she went or she would have an absolute meltdown. more specifically, it was socks with big sparkly ladybugs on them, and she would pitch a fit every time she wasn’t allowed to wear them because they had to be washed.
bruce repeated things. everything. doesn’t matter where he heard it – from his parents, family members, on the street, wherever. he was a little parrot. as you can imagine, this posed some problems.
He just.. has a very.. concerning way of expressing it.
He never really said it out loud.
Dick coaxed him into being more vulnerable, but afterwards he was mostly showing it through acts of service, gift giving, quality time or a few words they’d know was affection only if they knew his backstory and his thought process- a minor detail he overlooks. Literally everything but verbal affection, because Bruce couldn’t even fathom saying it. He didn’t know how. How could he even begin to express the amount of love he feels for them? So much so that if he tried he wouldn’t find the words, in any language even beyond this planet.
Martian Manhunter once peeked in his head while the other was drunk tired, bragging about his kids and had to sit in a dark, silent room for days afterwards because he’d never seen so much light, or felt the amount of pride, guilt, happiness, gratefulness and awe over flooding every one of his senses.
They were his light. His heart. The best parts of humanity that told him he was doing something right. They gave him hope.
But with having such expressive friends like Wonder Woman and Superman, he was slowly learning how to try.
When Jason goes missing for months (undercover and rioting) - all it takes is Bruce ending a voicemail with “on patrol- just remember I love you” for him to come with a bazooka ready to kill whoever was hurting Bruce.
My favorite HC ever is Dick Grayson just. Acting dumb. In all aspects.
Richard John Grayson is perfectly fucking capable of cooking. Is stereotyped to be capable of burning water and is banned from the manor’s kitchen. His brothers have no idea he knows how to make a three Michelin star steak.
Dick Grayson is bisexual. He knows this, has known it for forever, and is 100% comfortable with it. Based on what others would tell you, though, he’s completely straight and is actually a little uncomfortable with being considered gay. 100% a fierce ally to his queer family and friends tho.
What’s navigation like for Dickie Gray? A master. Can track anything, navigate anywhere, knows a dozen methods for any given survival scenario. To everyone else? Dick cannot do it. Incapable. Directionally challenged. You’d think a trapeze artist would know which way is up, but no. He gets it from his parents.
Dickiebird? Excellent manipulator. We know this. His family knows it. Some of his friends know it. They pray for any poor soul who has no idea how manipulative Dick can be. They watch in the distance disappointedly, knowing that Dick’s victim just thinks he’s an ordinary, honest, standup guy, all the while not even knowing that despite being aware of Dick’s true nature, they are being manipulated in equal measure.
Related side note: Good ol Richy? Incredible conversationalist. Everyone knows this. It’s his whole persona. Wears that fact on his sleeve. He always finds a way to make everyone feel like he’s interested in the conversation, even if he would rather die than talk about the current topic for a second longer. And this goes beyond just giving occasional sounds of acknowledgment and peppering words like “cool” or “yeah”. Someone could be talking about the most boring topic imaginable, and he’d have a dazzling smile on his face, his body language signifying that he’s completely engaged, will even ask proper clarifying questions in an attempt to learn more. When he exits the conversation, someone asks, “wow, are you really that fascinated by (insert inane topic)?” and while Dick’s smile doesn’t even falter, he immediately drops the pretense and says, “Oh, absolutely not. That was the most boring conversation I’ve ever had in my life.”
Dick Grayson has gotten this far in life because people consistently underestimate him. He’s made himself come across as juuust incompetent enough (in very particular ways that don’t compromise his image as a capable leader), leaving everyone absolutely fucking blindsided whenever he pulls the rug out from under them about what they thought he was capable of.
