I'd normally color this way different but I got a little lazy okay? Anyways, I wasn't sure what to add since the OG posts were already perfect, but I hope you like this :) (I tried sending this earlier and tumblr said something went wrong so hopefully this works...)
Waa!! This is sooo cute!! My chest is overflowing with cuteness overload at his lightbulb expression and at his desire to share his snacks 😭He went all the way to the manor to share his stale peanuts with his fam, and apparently, this isn’t the first time he’s offered to do that 😭. And his hair!! So floofy!! I love hiiim! You should totally draw more little scenes like this with the batfam! Your art style is so cute! You definitely made this whole scenario 10x better 👍!!
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I feel like I can trust you with Dick's characterization, unlike every dc writer; how do you think he'd react to what the fam did to Damian? And how'd he react to what Damian did? (it's the most terrible character assassination, but it still happened unfortunately)
The interesting thing about Dick’s situation is that he was there when Damian blamed himself for Alfred’s death (for people who don’t know, Dick had amnesia at this point). He knows how Bruce did nothing to actively comfort Damian or to offer him reassurance. Babs was the only one who stood up for Damian and told Bruce to go after Damian. Bruce, of course, didn’t.
This is such a huge contrast to how Dick reacted when Damian blamed himself for the whole Selina and Talia situation. (Yes, I’m aware that the two situations are wildly different from one another.) But instead of allowing Damian to stew in guilt, Dick comforted Damian and asked how he could help him. Then, instead of letting Damian go off to Khadym by himself, Dick went with him. Something that Damian was extremely grateful for.
Because of this (as well as other times where Dick is the one who’s there for Damian), I think that if Dick had been his usual self during all this, he definitely would have done something similar to Babs and given Bruce a verbal lashing for not going after Damian. I also think it would have been in character for Dick to go after Damian to talk to him about his feelings (or to say something comforting to keep Damian from leaving in the first place).
We’ve seen before that Dick and Bruce’s methods of dealing with Damian are different. When Damian disobeyed Bruce, Bruce easily gave up on the idea of working with Damian, and he told Damian to keep working with Dick instead.
On the flip side, when Damian disobeyed Dick, Dick quickly realized that Bruce’s method of “demanding” Damian to do as he was told wasn’t going to cut it. He tried a new approach instead. He pointed out what Damian failed to do, but he also praised Damian for what he did right.
Dick turned a negative into a positive. He also reinforced the idea that he would be there for Damian because they were partners. This was something Damian realized when Dick saved his life while dealing with Professor Pyg.
It was basically Dick’s silent way of saying, “Hey, you’re not getting rid of me, and I’m not getting rid of you. We’re in this together. I’m here for you.”
Bruce’s message to Damian was the exact opposite. It wasn’t, “Hey, I’m still going to be here for you even when you mess up.” Bruce’s message was to essentially say, “You’re too difficult to work with. I don’t want to try and make it work.”
Dick, knowing exactly how infuriating Damian could be, and knowing how hard it was to work with Damian, ended up defending Damian in that moment.
Dick knew Damian’s struggles. He knew Damian was insecure about the idea of Bruce taking Robin away from him. Damian had told him about it, and while Dick had tried to brush it off as a joke at first, he quickly became serious and tried to understand what was bothering Damian when he realized how upset Damian was.
That was such a key difference between Dick and Bruce’s interactions with Damian. Dick was not only Damian’s mentor, he was also his confidant. Dick was there to reassure Damian in ways that Bruce wasn’t. He was there to say, “I can tell you’re upset. What’s wrong? I want to help you with it.”
Generally, Bruce’s approach at comfort is not to really ask what’s wrong. It’s not talking about feelings. He’s more of an “actions speak louder than words” kind of person. That’s why he wasn’t able to resolve his issue with Damian earlier. He couldn’t make himself open up in the same way Dick could.
With a change in morals, the absence of Bruce, the loss of Dick, and the death of Alfred, too much had changed by the time Bruce finally tried to talk about things with Damian. Damian felt abandoned by Bruce at that point. He felt like Bruce didn’t care about him as either a partner or son. He no longer had Alfred to care about him, and he had a brother who didn’t even remember he existed. Bane and KGBeast took away the love and support in Damian’s life, and Bruce’s late attempt to try and fill those holes was rejected.
That being said, I think Dick would be upset to know how Bruce had been absent in Damian’s life for months on end. He’d sympathize with Damian because he knows what it’s like to be shut out by Bruce. I think he would also feel guilty about this as well. Guilty for the path Damian went down, guilty for not being there, guilty for letting Damian go back to live with Bruce in the first place.
It reminds me of how he felt guilty over Jason’s death. He felt responsible in some way because he gave Jason his Robin costume. I think he would feel similar in regard to the situation with Damian. Not so much guilty because of the fact that he gave Damian the Robin costume, but more so because Damian was on the right track when he was Dick’s responsibility. Dick was always there to lead Damian by example and was there to praise him for doing good.
He was even part of Damian’s subconscious and acted like the morally good “angel” on Damian’s shoulder, which showed that Damian kept Dick’s teachings in mind. So, y’know, Dick’s influence went deep.
Now would Dick be upset by the path Damian has taken? Yeah. Damian had his own prison, wiped villains minds, killed Brother Blood, and he intended to kill KGBeast for shooting Dick in the head.
Back when Dick and Damian were partners, I think Dick wouldn’t have been totally surprised if Damian had ended up killing someone. He once expressed his fear of needing to get to Damian ASAP because he was worried Damian would kill the Joker. I think he also expressed a bit of surprise that Damian restrained himself from killing people at times. That might factor into how he would react in the present knowing what Damian has done.
In the past, Dick had to deal with a lot of inner turmoil when he was dating Kory because he was worried she was “reverting” to murdering people like she used to before she lived on Earth. He made it extremely clear that he wasn’t okay with that. (For the record, Dick was being mind controlled at that time, so his reaction to that situation may not be an accurate indicator of his character.)
Dick also had to decide what he was going to do with Jason when Jason was killing people. Dick offered to help him reform on two separate occasions.
He tried to put aside the terrible things Jason had done because he not only believed that Jason was worth saving, but that he was also capable of change.
I think this is the same approach Dick would take with Damian. He would want to help Damian reform. He would want Damian to choose to be good. He did it before, and yeah, it was hard. But he helped show Damian that he didn’t have to be the killer the League of Assassins raised him to be. That he could choose to be better than the villains and murderers he was surrounded by.
Whether we’ll get to see Damian feel remorse for what he’s done or, at least, stop what he’s doing so he can be accepted by his family... I have no idea. Before DC shot his character development straight to hell, he wanted to be a good person. We’ll just have to see if Dick, Bruce, or some outside force has any impact on his future morals.
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