Shipping meme - Day 9

[runespoor]

Shipping 30 Days meme
Day 09 - The most believable relationship?

If by believable you mean 'most likely to happen in RL', don't know, don't care. If you mean 'the one with the development I can buy the best, given the characters and their world'... probably Babs/Dick.

Here is an extremely interesting essay on Dick/Babs as it stood during the early issues of Nightwing and BoP. The predictions are outdated, but the psychological analysis of the characters still stays true, it's intelligent and articulate.


The beginning of their relationship is cute and funny, but nothing to write home about if it weren't a retcon spelling MEANT TO BE! OTPPPPPPPPP in what has got to be one of Chuck Dixon's Year Ones least subtle attempts ever to make Dick/Babs CANON THAT CAN BEAT UP ANY OTHER CANON, ANY DAY in the finest First Girl Win tradition. I snark, but I love dearly. 'Not on your life, Boy Wonder!' Eee!

For the next several years, their relationship keeps the same format. Dick has a huge crush on Batgirl, and Barbara flirts back because ribbing Robin is fun, as Batgirl she has power that she never had as Babs Gordon, Bespectacled Bookworm, she has confidence and sexiness and she's the one who can make fun of the jock, you know? She likes him, but it's not anything serious on her part. At the time, their relatinship involves a lot of snark and bad puns, as it wont to do.

It also involves things like this, in an alternate version of their first meeting:


Then there's Starfire, and Bruce fires Dick who becomes Nightwing (my Batfamily: firmly Post-Crisis), and Dick is with the Titans, and Kory. Nightwing: Year One tells us that there was some tension between Dick and Babs at that time, because it's written by Scott Beatty and Chuck Dixon, and Dixon likes to show that HIS OTPPPPPPP, MEANT TO BEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Then for a good long while there's nothing, then Dixon gets to write Nightwing and later Birds of Prey, awwww yeah. And promptly sets out to give us things like:













Incidentally, BoP #8 is impossible to find.

And this, which I probably like even better than the previous scene. It's got Barbara's need to be control all over, and Dick probably/possibly playing into it.


Here, have more Babs being toppy and Dick not complaining.




But there's more to the story than this! Otherwise the ship wouldn't be as compelling as it is, and mostly it wouldn't make sense.

It wouldn't make sense for Barbara, who is as big a control freak as Bruce, to merely slip into happy monogamy with Dick, not when Dick has kept on telling her that he's had a thing for her since she was Batgirl. For Babs, there's always going to be that uncertainty - what if Dick loves the old her? What if when he kisses her he's kissing Batgirl - even if he doesn't realize it?







They have to work for it. They have issues to deal with. Well, Babs has issues, and Dick means well, but he can't make them all better, simply because it's in Babs' nature to be worried about her past as Batgirl as long as they're dating.










In that very same issue, they also share their first kiss, but thankfully they're interrupted before they can do irreparable damage to their agreement to wait.


At some point during Dixon's run, they get together for realz, I assume.

telling Batman:













Their romance is adorable, and like most relationships, not devoid of tensions and fights.








or this:





or this:







(pasta scene did not make the heartbreaking post, but it is, it so is! I ♥ this scene.)


There's the break-up scene. It didn't make the heartbreaking post because I had to choose, but I love that break-up scene, for one main reason: it's inherently in character. Nothing about it is even remotely new to the characters. All the aspects shown here have already been touched up, by Devin herself, and most of these aspects where seeded by Dixon.












And when things go to hell for Dick, after Babs has broken up with him


It takes him a while, a descent into the mafia, intervention by Deathstroke and Editorial nuking Bludhaven with Devin Grayson's plans for the end of that arc, but when he emerges, it's on this:




and this, courtesy of the non INSTANT DISCONTINUITY parts of the Nightwing Annual #2:
evidence 1






evidence 2




evidence 3












You're gonna ask me, what makes them more realistic than other couples? We're talking about a boy getting together with his first crush, here. How realistic is that?

Here's the big secret: they haven't worked out. They have an amazing, deep, layered relationship, they're friends and partners, but their feelings for each other weren't enough at the time to withstand all their other issues. They love each other. They just couldn't be together at the time. Not because they're star-crossed lovers; because as persons, they needed to be apart. Dick needed to find himself. Babs doesn't want to fall into the same trappings over and over again.

So where are we, today? Well, there's apparently no plans to get them together in the immediate future. They're colleagues working the Gotham beat. Dick is still making overtures and Babs is avoiding them, which is something we've learned to expect. Dick is still the more enthusiastic one, and Babs still tries to distance herself.

We still have Babs giving Dick orders and Dick obeying.

We still have the flirting.

the rest of the days:
Day 01 - What is your current favourite ship?
Day 02 - What was your very first ship?
Day 03 - A pairing that needs to happen now?
Day 04 - The pairing with the most chemistry?
Day 05 - The pairing with the least chemistry?
Day 06 - The best kiss?
Day 07 - The most heartbreaking scene? - IMAGE HEAVY
Day 08 - The pairing with the most baggage? - IMAGE HEAVY
Day 09 - The most believable relationship?
Day 10 - Why aren't these two married in real life?
Day 11 - What is your dream pairing?
Day 12 - Who had the best wedding?
Day 13 - What is your favorite television pairing?
Day 14 - What is your favorite book pairing?
Day 15 - What is your favorite real life pairing?
Day 16 - What is the absolute worst pairing?
Day 17 - A pairing you thought would never work out, but did?
Day 18 - What is the cutest pairing?
Day 19 - A pairing you've rooted for since the beginning?
Day 20 - The "can't stand the sexual tension anymore" pairing?
Day 21 - A pairing you like and no one else understands why?
Day 22 - A pairing you hate and no one else understands why?
Day 23 - A crazy love triangle/quadrilateral that worked out great?
Day 24 - A crazy love triangle/quadrilateral that worked out badly?
Day 25 - A pairing that was/would-be adorable, but could never work out?
Day 26 - A pairing that you hated and ended up loving?
Day 27 - A pairing that you loved and ended up hating?
Day 28 - A pairing that you will never understand?
Day 29 - What ship had the best proposal?
Day 30 - Your favorite ship forever and ever and ever?

Comments

[matt_doyle]

I tend not to like it when people comment saying just "THIS," but, uh...

[runespoor7.livejournal.com]

I am ever so smug right now, you have no idea.

[matt_doyle]

:-P

[modestroad.livejournal.com]

And that's why I ship Dick/Babs. They feel like a real couple. This was wonderful. Thank you!

*goes to re-read Nightwing*

[icon-uk.livejournal.com]

I never warmed to Dick/Babs the way we were obviously supposed to. They have too much in common to be that interesting, except Babs is more of a control freak. Dick and Kory are opposites and that made for a much more fun dynamic, maybe not any more plausible (Though it worked in context as both are the epitome of their genders) but much richer.

That said, I deeply disliked the way that Devin Grayson messed with the characters to make them break up as they did, that just never rang true.

[runespoor7.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I never did read any Dick/Kory, maybe I'd love it if I did. I never thought Babs and Dick had too much in common, at leats not in their Nightwing/Oracle incarnation, which is the one I'm most interested in. In fact, it's funny you should say Dick and Kory are opposite, I was just thinking that Babs and Dick complement each other. Not sure what you mean about Dick and Kory being each the epitome of their gender, though.

We really shouldn't try to discuss Devin Grayson. This is my squee post, so let's keep that discussion for scans_daily, if it's all right with you.

[icon-uk.livejournal.com]

When Dick met Kory he was going through some growing pains, he was his own hero, but still always connected with being part of "Batman and..." a role he valued, but still chafed under the limitations that imposed on him. He was also a good deal more emotionally repressed than we're used to these days. Kory helped him mature into his own man, by basically loving him for who he already was, and who he could be, and he rose (no pun intended) to the challenge.

Aside from the usual heroic tendencies, Dick was ALWAYS calm, and logical, and in control, and slightly repressed (Not wanting to do anything to disappoint Bruce methinks), she was warm, and passionate and completely open with her emotions. He found that enormously liberating, and she recognised his good points too. They were very, very good for each other, and one can only imagine what the sex between Earth's finest acrobat, and an alien who could fly, was like, but the word "creative" springs to mind.

And as for the epitome of their genders, he's a strong, wise, physically perfect male, she's a passionate, caring, physically spectacular female.

Other aspects of the discussion I'm happy to leave for other occasions.

[runespoor7.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your explanation. You make a good case, I'd love to read stories showcasing their relationship. I don't really have the time to chase down and read the entirety of Wolfman's Titans, though, but what would you recommend as far as shorter stories or arc go?

[runespoor7.livejournal.com]

Yay, and you're welcome!

[zolac-no-miko.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, fantastic, thanks so much for putting this together! That essay is amazing, and there are some truly fantastic moments captured in those scans. Guh. Dick. I love you so desperately.

My introduction to my everlasting love of Batman was through Batman: The Animated Series, when I was a pre-teen. This is why Dick will always be my Robin, and this is why I will always love Dick and Babs. I shipped it then, I ship it now.

I do like Dick and Kory, but in an in-the-past kind of way. The love they have between them will always be there, but I think they will always only be strong friends. Dick and Babs... their relationship is so huge there's so much history, they've had so many stops and starts as they struggle to find themselves and find how they fit into the world... I do hope they work things out. I want them so badly to work things out. They deserve each other.

[runespoor7.livejournal.com]

I watched the Animated Series same as you when I was a kid, which inoculated me with the Gotham virus same as you, but since it wasn't shown in any kind of order, what most struck me was the atmosphere... I only found Babs/Dick when I got into comics.

So much agreed on the history between them. I'm glad you liked the scans!

[runespoor7.livejournal.com]

I think we all want a Graysoncam!

I like Helena, but I'm not sure how their relationship would go. For one, I think she'd be quickly annoyed by how much he looks up to Batman, and for another, I don't think she'd be willing to compromise her friendship with Babs. But they should have more team-ups, it'd be interesting.

[oximore.livejournal.com]

(as much as I loved Dick & Starfire for the sexiness -I'm shallow, I never saw them as a "long time" couple, but those two? Married for life, whatever the canon says about it... :3)