Shawn Tsang - Tumblr Posts
This is why I quit the comic the moment they wrote Shawn Tsang out. You are not doing my girl dirty like that 🤡
🔥 + Dick Grayson's love interests (excluding Kory & Babs)
im so sorry in advance this is going to be a long one and a Heated one at that. obviously the unpopular opinion here is just me caring about love interests that aren't kory or babs in general
first of all. i am so fucking tired of writers creating cool and interesting characters that get pushed aside and completely forgotten once it's time for dick to think about getting back together with babs or kory
like i love babs and i love kory and i don't even hate the concept of dick dating someone and then realizing, no, it's this person, it's always been this person, and i don't care if who that person is changes over time. but babs and kory still get to exist outside of dick grayson
the fact that dick seemingly never stays in contact with exes that arent babs or kory, that they completely disappear from his life, is actively out of character. the fact that these love interests in recent years have been stronger characters, and generally women of colour, makes this worse.
i've seen people complain about shawn and i've seen people complain about bea but people don't seem to register that it's not one character getting done dirty, it's a pattern happening over and over again. WOC get to be one off romances, but they don't get to be forever
i do think this especially sucked with shawn, with the whole pregnancy scare plot where dick said he was in love with her, that he wanted to raise a kid with her, where damian and jason and bruce all knew about her and knew he was serious about her, and then he didn't even fight for her. it's out of character, it makes dick look like an asshole, and also these women are really cool and i want to see them Past the breakups
i don't know how much of this is editorial versus individual writers but my guess is it skews editorial, which sucks, because it's not like they're doing it for babs or kory to benefit anyways!
this has been my rant about dick grayson's love interests in general yes i also have more specific opinions on each one but i'm excersing a modicum of self control here <3
im going to end on a positive note actually. 80% of the women dick has dated look like lesbians and i think that's allyship at its finest
The Shawn Tsang arc isn’t just important because of the pregnancy scare subplot (which I also love because it’s so personal and intimate). It’s also in how Shawn and Dick are both crucial to each other’s growth.
Like obviously for Shawn, her teenage encounter with him sparks in her the sense that her anger could be redirected to a better cause. But throughout the coverage of the Run-Offs and the subsequent events, Shawn presents a flaw in Nightwing/Dick’s philosophy. He has a psychological reason to fear anger and try to suppress it. But the way he almost demonizes it, to the point of fearing that their children will be angry like Shawn, is frankly a bias.
Because not only has Shawn NOT done anything harmful and destructive in that arc, her anger is actually an agent to push for change. She’s angered by how children from certain communities are treated so she opens a non-profit philanthropic center to help them. She’s angered by the prejudice towards former criminals (who really didn’t commit that heinous a crime) so she helps them deal with their past and settle into a new life. Because anger is NOT inherently bad. Anger means they care. Anger pushed for change. Changes that are systematic and long-term and not just “beating up one alien villain and saving the Earth THIS TIME.”
That’s why I think Shawn and Dick are so complementary to each other’s character arcs because Shawn has to learn to accept but also regulate her emotions and Dick has to learn that the world has never been and can never be black and white, and there are changes that needs to be done that he can’t do just by donning tights and a mask. That only ANGER can do. I wanted them to fight more. I wanted them to argue and then try to see it through the other’s eyes. I want them to hold onto the intensity of their relationship. But the comic gave them up. So I gave up on the comic.
🔥 + Shawn
my actually-unpopular opinion here is i think shawn tsang might be the best written love interest dick has ever had, and that their relationship would be a better endgame for him than dickbabs or dickkory
shawn’s redemption and growth from her teen-self is a really really cool backstory. it exemplifies nightwing's whole batman-but-better deal. she forces dick to face his biases in a way that helps him grow as a character, and it’s clear that more planning than just “we need a love interest” went into her character design
that's something i think it'd be nice for a defacer solo series to explore—how she transitions from kid-villain to adult-hero, with or without nightwing’s support
i also think shawn’s presence in nightwing let dick be an adult in ways he isn’t usually able to. it’s not just getting older and having a job, but also the change in maturity—the concept of dick thinking about kids Right Now As Nightwing rather than in a future timeline or an elseworld. god. that’s so cool <3 and it works so well with damian because there’s so much conflict and so many feelings and i just. <3333
behold, an image with no cisgender heterosexual explanation
Yes
When Elainna was younger, her father used to tell her about her mother.
Shawn Tsang, the woman who looked Nightwing in the face and left. Shawn Tsang, the woman who Dick Grayson had come back to in the wake of his injuries.
Shawn Tsang, the woman who had died in a simple but violent crime. The likes of which Batwoman could have prevented. Could have saved her from.
Elainna likes to think her mother would be proud of her, now, even though Nightwing hurt her and Elainna's father more than anything else ever could.
Because Batwoman is... she is something. She is not quite the kindness that her father tells her of. She is not a tribute to Shawn Tsang the Defacer or Shawn Tsang the helper. She is something almost all Elainna's own.
And, maybe, she is something Shawn Tsang could have loved.