bowditch

[bowditch]

sometimes i handle mine by treating it like an impatient, hangry preschooler-- like okay brain-me still deserves patience and kindness, but not always indulgence.

"hey, [x horrible thought]!"

"wow that's a pretty vivid idea! really interesting! what's another way it could happen?"

or

"you just keep fucking up today"

"mm maybe i've messed up some, but that's not how we talk about people."

the important thing-- the crucial thing that i got from my therapist at the time, that changed so much for me-- is that whatever mental script/coping tool you have, you separate those thoughts from yourself. it's also not an outside entity! (hello, fears of demonic influence, thanks evangelical upbringing).

it's chemicals. misfiring chemicals and old ruts in neural pathways and random junk bin stuff your brain has collected over the years. but it's not you in the sense of conscious decision and things you've chosen to act on, ways you've decided to be. it's echoes of other experiences and memories and the toxic talk version of an earworm.

if you get only two lines of bohemian rhapsody stuck in your head on a loop out of nowhere, you don't think you ARE freddie mercury do you? of course not. you know it's something you heard outside of yourself. you just-- usually-- aren't bothered by it if it's a positive association. maybe you'd be annoyed if it was neutral but irritating (like the goldfish snack jingle) or even more annoyed if it was something you hated (imagine here that i mention your least favorite song; i'm not going to shit on anyone's musical taste by revealing mine).

all this to say that separating you-- your intentional self-- from the intrusive thoughts or negative thought habits is so important.

when my intrusive thoughts were at their worst intensity and frequency before i got help, i would make myself nearly sick getting stuck in these loops trying NOT to think the thought and then having rancid anxiety about what kind of person i was if i was thinking such things. separating it from Me enough to stop fighting the thought and then treat it as something mildly interesting but really not that important or serious was life changing. it doesn't matter how horrific the scenario would be in REAL life-- in my head it was just a random, impulsive thought that appropriately horrified me.

if it didn't horrify me, why was i having such a terribly anxious reaction to the idea of being a person who could think such things? i wouldn't have even noticed it as unusual if it truly didn't bother me; maybe i would have eventually been curious that other people WERE horrified by such things? but that wasn't the situation i had. that's a different problem with a different kind of mental help need.

tl;dr sometimes u gotta hear out the horrible thought without trying NOT to think it, and then tell yourself/the thought very firmly and politely, "hm, fascinating, but highly unlikely. would you like a drink of water?" and keep doing it until you've got new neural pathways that make it easier.

and it does get easier.

do you ever have such a monumentally bad brain day that you just take away its mic?

like...... buddy, you are producing insanely bad thoughts today and believing them, I'll take it from here, get off the stage

[bowditch]

i do love the idea of the Justice League finding out Batman’s identity and the fact that he’s actually just a tired vigilante dad and immediately discrediting his spooky-scary-intimidating reputation, and Bruce just being devastated about it. he worked so hard on that reputation, on that respect, and it’s all down the drain just like that. nobody flinches away from his glare anymore, because they’ve seen him glare at Red Hood and get a spoonful of mashed potato flung into his face for the effort. nobody cares about his threats anymore, because he tried to threaten Red Robin to go home and rest one time and Tim just giggled at him deliriously before mocking his tone and stealing his coffee. they’ve seen him pick a splinter out of a whining Nightwing’s finger mid-meeting. Damian once called him a condomless harlot to his face when he told him not to bring his swords onto the watchtower. he’s lost control.

he decides he wants the fear factor back and in all his brilliant genius, he decides the best way to go about that is to invite the league round for a fancy dinner party, specifically so he can use all his ‘brucie wayne’ acting skills to channel the essence of every creepy-rich-guy-in-haunted-manor movie he has ever seen in his life. it is the only time his kids have been fully onboard and willing to contribute to one of his plans without any complaints. they almost seemed more eager to pull it off than he was.

they spend the entire day making the manor look old and slightly abandoned, much to Alfred’s displeasure, and ensure that the only lighting is a fuck ton of candles, just enough to light the halls while leaving the corners and edges shadowy and ominous. Damian is allowed to have some of his more ‘skittery’ pets roam the manor freely for the night, causing occasional scritches and scratches to come from the ceilings. all of the kids dress in their best funeral attire, apart from Jason who gleefully pulls on an old white shirt stained with blood from when Tim crashed through his window with a stab wound, requesting a medkit.

when the league arrive they’re greeted by all the kids lined up on the staircase, staring at them blankly and ominously, while Bruce gives them all a large grin and ushers them into the creepy looking dining room. the league are somewhat nervous.

during the dinner the kids act completely different than the league have seen them in-mask. polite, cordial, and refusing to show an ounce of emotion. they pick at their food and only speak in vague sentences that refer to various horrific events of their past. Bruce has never been prouder.

the first close call they have to breaking character is when Bruce presents a bottle of red wine without any kind of label. as he pours a slightly disturbed Diana a glass, she asks where he got it from. Bruce happily gestures to Jason as says ‘my second eldest procured it especially for you, earlier today.’

Diana looks across the table at where Jason is grinning eerily at her by candlelight, still visibly stained with blood, eyes glowing slightly green. she pales, and Tim knows he can’t watch her shakily lift the glass to her lips without bursting out laughing. he refuses to be the one who fucks up first, so he dramatically stands up and declares he must ‘go feed the experiments’ before storming out the room. ‘the experiments’ are in reference to the pen of rabbits outside that glow in the dark because Damian rescued them from a testing facility, but given the environmental context it sounds much more sinister.

Jason joins him by the pen to also start wheeze-crying in private about 20 minutes later, because apparently after Oliver Queen had finished with his bbq rib, Damian had leaned over and without blinking stared into his eyes to blankly state ‘i would love to feed your bones to my animal friends, if you don’t need them anymore.’ and from the other end of the table Jason had snorted wine up his nose from how hard he was trying not to break.

amazingly, they never break character, although it came pretty close when after hearing another skitter from somewhere above, Stephanie climbed up from the table into the crystal chandelier and deftly returned to present the table with a large tarantula cradled in her hands, to which Damian stood up and declared, ‘ah, dessert! i will help pennyworth prepare it.’ before taking the animal and leaving to put his beloved spider back in it’s enclosure. the league genuinely seemed to be under the impression they were about to be served a tarantula-based desert, and upon seeing their faces at this realisation Dick had to pretend he’d dropped a fork on the ground so he could duck by Bruce’s chair and stuff a napkin in his mouth while he got his laughter under control. Bruce pats his shaking son’s back below the table cloth, determinedly staring at their guests with that same creepy-grin he’d kept up the entire night.

every member of the league makes their excuses to leave early, much to Bruce’s exaggerated disappointment. the second the last of them is out the door Alfred turns to face the family and says ‘mission accomplished. now get this manor back to it’s proper state.’ and they have the spend the rest of the night cleaning.

totally worth it, in Bruce’s mind. none of the JL will look him in the eye for weeks afterwards, and it was honestly the most successful attempt at family bonding they’d ever had. he wonders if they should make it a monthly thing. It’s also how they find out Damian’s a fucking theatre kid with a gift for the arts which is another revelation in of itself

[bowditch]

favorite screencaps of bruce looking miserable from batman: prelude to knightfall

[bowditch]

[bowditch]

"Oh, time won't let this heal so I guess I'm stuck here."

[bowditch]

hi, i'm bowditch now! if you came here looking for audreycritter, that's still me. no pronoun change-- just an online/socials identity one for me.

it's also been changed on ao3 -- please know all my stories are still there and nothing is being deleted or moved!

[bowditch]

Somewhere warm.

[bowditch]

Jason: Were you dropped on your head as a child?

Tim, not looking up from his case file: Bold of you to assume I was ever held.

Everyone else in the batcave:

[bowditch]

Dick: Why did you just venmo Jason 3k?

Bruce: Payment

Dick: For?

Bruce: ‘Nice to dad’ bill

Dick:

Bruce: I pay him 3 thousand dollars and he’s nice to me for 30 minutes every month.

Dick: Why am I doing it for free?

Bruce: Because you have a kind heart. Also, Jason took business as his second major, and you didn’t. So.

[bowditch]

Jason Todd You Smoke Too Tough. Your Swag Too Different. Your Thighs Are Too Thick. They’ll Kill You Again

[bowditch]

hey since you said the ask box was open AND that you were watching battinson might i humbly request a battinson + robin??

battinson's emotionally wet cat ass trying to show bonding/affection by mentoring young dick grayson.........

+ dick begrudgingly allowing the eye black because he is Very Brave and Wants To Go

[bowditch]

Penelope is so funny to me personally. She’s been running a con. Her husband is covered in blood. Upon first glance the past 20 years have obviously had a harrowing effect on him. Her response is to immediately piss off this blood-soaked warrior

[bowditch]

the inconvenience of unkillability....

[bowditch]

Hey. Your brain needs to de-frag. Literally it needs you to sit there and space out.

If you want your memory or executive function to improve, stare out a window at the skyline or sidewalk or trees or birds on the electrical wires for like 20+ minutes per day. (With no other stimulation like a podcast or TV if you can manage but hey baby steps innit). If you're fortunate enough to have safe outside with any bits of nature, go stare closely at a 1 meter square of grass and trip out on the bugs and shapes of grasses and stuff.

Literally this will make you smarter. Our brains HAVE TO HAVE this zone out time to do important stuff behind the scenes. This does not happen during sleep, it's something else.

That weird pressurized feeling you get sometimes might be your brain on no defrag.

Give your brain a Daily Dose Of De-Frag.

[bowditch]

I love when he

Detective comics (2016) #1056

Robin v.4 #128

Robin v5 #14

Robin v.4 #92

Batman & The Signal #3

[bowditch]

Every Robin needs to have the “I’m not wearing any armor, you can’t make me” / “You need to wear armor to be safe” / “Yeah to be slow, you mean” / “You think this is slow?” conversation with Bruce at some point in the early patrol days, just so that Bruce can double his own armor plates for one no holds barred spar and show them that that was, in fact, not slow by any definition of the word.

[bowditch]

Snowed In

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