Genuinely Just Curious, No Hate Or Anything. Honestly I Don't Fully Understand What Is Going On With

My favourite boy, Duke :3

Get rebloged, nerd/silly

Reblog if you're not homophobic

Every url that reblog’s will be written in a book and shown to my homophobic dad. 

Duke Thomas/Signal!

(request by @the-badass-penguin )

bonus crappy sketches/studies from last year

DC STANDS FOR DUKE & CASS COMICS

I don't really like the debate about Duke Thomas on if he's the "normal one" or "just as crazy" as his siblings because it's based on a false dichotomy that limits Duke's characterization in a fandom that already doesn't really know where to place him. The long story short is that Duke is like his siblings which is to say he does whatever based off of his sense of morality and he often has no scale of normal human behavior.

I'm pretty sure that the idea of him as the normal one comes from Wayne Family Adventures. (Though if this predates it in fandom please let me know). WFA chooses to play into his newness to give insights into the dynamics of Wayne manor and the larger batfamily.

I don't necessarily think this is a bad choice. I'm pretty giving to adaptations because it's hard to summarize 80+ years of comics into an easily digestible form. However, it was clearly written by a team who didn't have much insight on what to do with Duke outside of that, so his newness and uncertainty become his characterization and by extension him being the "regular one" in the family. The fandom that hasn't engaged with Duke outside of WFA run with that.

Which leads to jokes, skits, and fics where Duke is not only misrepresented but underrepresented. In a family filled with weird people with distinct dynamics what's the new, normal guy to do but sometimes stand in a corner and throw in a responsible one liner.

As a response people get frustrated with Duke's lack of inclusion in fics, skits, and jokes, so they bring up all the things that prove he's just as wild as his siblings (such as getting shot and thinking it's cool or jumping out of a cop car though my personal favorite is when he breaks into the iceberg lounge). However, without context this still isn't Duke. He doesn't just do insane things for the response he has a very clear characterization.

Duke is a child genius who has a huge problem with authority, primarily motivated by helping his community (though in the time between his parents disappearance and goign to live with Bruce he is a bit of an adrenaline junkie as a coping mechanism).

So, if we revisit some of the actions listed above:

Duke gets shot and thinks it's cool: This is Duke in his peak adrenaline junkie time, when he's riding the high of We Are Robin and all the potential negative consequences of superherodom haven't settled in yet. (This is also the period of time when he's getting into fights and is a bit of a playboy).

Duke jumps out of a cop car: This is Duke with his problem of authority (particularly cops) especially when they are trying to stop him from doing what he thinks is right. In this case, stopping him from We Are Robin duties. (This is also why he sneaks out of his foster homes looking for his parents).

Breaking into the iceberg lounge: This is peak Duke. It's him using his genius intellect to crack open a case and because he refuses to ignore it when he can help chasing the lead himself. It's also a little bit his adrenaline junkie sense as he's absolutely more reckless when there's a lot of external pressures.

TLDR: Duke is not the normal one. He's also not just a series of his wildest actions. He's a 16 year old, who wants to help the world and his own way of going about that, wether that's within or outside of our conception of normal behavior.

When you see it, REBLOG IT.

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Random Duke Thomas Headcannons pt 4

Insired by @overcookedfool 's headcannon about Cass and Duke being banned from hide and seek, Bruce uses their hiding skills to train the other batfamily members.

The training involves Duke and Cass hiding around Gotham and the others having to find them before sun up (for Cass) or sun down (for Duke). So that everyone can still get their work done, this only happens once a week.

If someone finds them in time, they can get a trophy from the batcave, if Duke or Cass remain unfound, they get the same deal.

Dick gets them to use carnival rules so winning a lot of little trophies can get you a big one. After a few months of the training exercise Duke and Cass put their trophies together to offically own the dinosaur.

Hi!! I love you so much <33333 /qpr

Simp

Random Duke Thomas Headcannons pt 3

I think Duke would gets given a lot of gifts while on partol. It comes with working the day shift, really.

The first few weeks people were hesitant about a Bat being out during the day, some openly hostile, but now many see it as just a part of Gotham's charm.

One day, a girl runs up to him, holding a paper tightly to her chest. It was a drawing she made in class of Batman. The girl asks all shyly if Duke could give it to him and what was he meant to say? No?

So Gothamites started giving him things, first with kids crayon drawing, the some teens who made badges and pins, adults with letters of gratitude. Soon Duke was passing on drawings, t-shirts, crocheted dolls, poems, etc to all the batfamily.

Gothamites wanted to share their love to their heros. Bruce, Dick, Barbara, Cass, Damian, Stephanie, Tim, Kate, even Luke now had piles of trinkets after only three weeks.

One day, while on patrol as usual, a kid waved him down. He held poorly wrapped box in his hands. Duke swung down and took the box from the boy. When serching for the same he was shocked to find "Signal" written messy across the top.

Inside was a drawing of Duke a week ago, saving the boys dad who got trapped under his car. He hung to photo up on an empty wall in The Hatch.

Soon, that wall became more full than the rest of the family's piles.

When he gets in his own head, doubts clouding his brain, he stares at the wall. Art, photos, poems, letters, badges, stickers, patches, pins, shirts, dolls, shoes, all the items from Gotham, showing how he is loved by them. How he is their hero.

Duke still is asked to pass on gifts for the rest of the Batfamily, but more often he gets given gift for himself.

hi do you know where I can find a list of all of duke's comic appearances? really struggling to find one!

Unfortunately there's no reading list I've found that encompasses all of his appearances 😔. @duketectivecomics has the closest one with all Duke appearances until Infinite Frontier, but after that it's really difficult to parse out the order of things. You could gamble with the DC fandom page of Duke's appearances which is accurate but out of order, it's a pain but it does tell you all his appearances. After duketectivecomics' list he only has a couple main roles anyway, which seem to be:

Batman: Urban Legends #18-19

Some sporadic appearances in Gotham War

DC Rise of the Power Company

As far as I know that's all, but obviously he cameos a lot in other books. This lack of an updated reading list is bothering me too so I might actually get on that myself, unless someone else has an updated list they want to share (in which case please do!!!). Sorry to not be of more help anon :(.