#A: no WAY. it’s disgusting. i prefer the old tradition & practice of cheating and that’s it

[kebabcito]

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[athenawasamerf]

Feminism in Egypt, Part 2

FGM

FGM has a long, bloody history with African and Arab women. Some people say it originated in Ancient Egypt; others lean more towards it being a Bedouin Arab tradition. I’m not here to discuss the origin story of one of the most horrific human rights infarctions on earth. I’m here to talk about the current feminist struggle against it.

FGM was outlawed in Egypt in June of 2008, and a 2014 survey showed that a whopping 92% of married women and girls between 15 and 49 years old have been subjected to FGM (I will talk more about the inclusion of 15 year olds in official surveys of married women in a post about child brides), and that 72% of these crimes were carried out by doctors. In 2008, a DHS survey of women and girls in the same age range showed that 63% of them were in support of FGM as a practice. Of those 63%, 60% cited husband preference for ‘cleaned’ girls, and 39% cited religious reasons. All of these are easily googleable facts, but these things always sound so clinical when they’re presented like this. Cold, sterile, detached. So, let’s get a little deeper into it, shall we?

Girls in Egypt are mutilated anywhere between birth and marriage, but mostly before the age of 15. These are children. Every single year, we have cases of babies, toddlers, children, young women dying from botched mutilations and infections, especially after the 2016 criminalisation of FGM practitioners. Parents will take their daughters to backwater clinics, or have ‘doula’s who have no medical experience of any kind visit them at home, and cut into the flesh of their young daughters with non-sterile equipment, often without anaesthesia.

I’ve heard and read first-hand accounts of girls who got topical anaesthesia that wore out halfway through. I’ve heard and read first-hand accounts of girls who were dragged, kicking and screaming, and held down by family and neighbours forcefully as their bodies were torn into. Of girls who bled for days, of girls who had to have their legs bound to each other for weeks, of girls who couldn’t stop screaming in pain every time they went to the bathroom, to complete apathy and even disgust and anger from their families, of girls who were snarled at for making noise while their bodies were being torn away on their own beds, of girls who still have constant pain over a decade later, of girls who hate themselves and hate their vulvas, and hate their lives. Of girls who are suicidal, of girls who are terrified of marriage, who have trust issues, who can’t handle the thought of anyone touching them there again, after the first time being so traumatic and painful and horrifying. All of this is done while the family, and even friends and neighbours, celebrate in joy. It’s even tradition in some rural areas to take all the female children of the family to get ‘fixed’ together, dressed in pretty dresses and fancy shoes.

I’ve also heard of women who are asexual due to trauma, whose husbands rape them continuously, who are abused for refusing sex, whose families disown them for being such a disgrace, whose husbands divorce them and leave them for dead, whose husbands marry multiple women besides them, and they are left to fend for themselves, unable to get a divorce and move on, and completely abandoned by the people they trusted the most. They’re told the angels will curse them all night for refusing sex, but what about their trauma? What about their feelings? What about them, as people? Nobody cares.

So, how did we get here? There are 3 main reasons.

The ’’religious’’ folk will cite a (weak) hadith as their proof that FGM is a good, healthy practice. It goes that the prophet saw a woman going to get her daughter cut, and he told her to ‘not cut severely, as that is better for the woman and more preferable to the husband’. Apart from any implications of misogyny in this hadith, it has been disputed multiple times, along with a couple others in support of FGM. You can read more about that here.

Regardless of the truth of FGM having Islamic support, the reality of the matter is that a huge amount of actual, real life Muslim people cite these hadiths as their reasoning to mutilate their daughters, and everyone sees that as completely justified. The truth of the matter is this: Someone put these hadiths into the public conscience knowing full well they will be used to abuse, maim, hurt, kill women for centuries. Whether that someone was prophet Muhammed himself or later scholars, no one can actually ever know.

The second, more indirectly religious and directly misogynistic reason, is to ensure ‘purity’. You see, as I’ve talked about before and as many of you already know, women in Islam and in MENA in general are seen and treated as property. The family’s honour lies between a woman’s thighs. A young girl who speaks to boys her age in the most innocent context possible can be subjected to house arrest, beatings, forced stopping of her education, even death, for daring to put the family’s honour in jeopardy. A girl who has a boyfriend, well...

In a society that places so much value not only on women’s virginity, but also on their complete removal and separation from the male sex at any cost, it’s not very surprising that tips and tricks like using FGM to ‘cull a woman’s sexual desire’ spread like wildfire. Girls are mutilated to make sure they don’t become wh**es. This is said frankly, openly, it’s common knowledge. If you refuse to hurt your child in this way, you will be met with disdain and disgust, and even wails of despair, with shock, with animosity. “Do you want her to become like a prostitute and ruin your family name? Do you want her to walk around uncontrolled? Don’t you know what shame she will bring on you?” These statements are directed at girls as young as... in the womb, if you show your dissent early enough.

And the final reason is the least of them to hide under religious pretences, and the most misogynistic: Because this is how men prefer their wives to be.

You might think when I say preference here, I mean it in the way I mean, “Oh, I personally prefer brunette hair,” but you would be sorely mistaken. By prefer here, I mean demand. I mean a man could force his grown wife, through physical force or through abuse, to mutilate her body for his satisfaction. I mean that men will sneer at un-mutilated women. I mean that men will beat their wives on their wedding night to within an inch of her life for ‘cheating’ them if the wives are not mutilated. I mean men will suspect their wives of adultery and murder them, which carries a reduced sentence of ‘time served during investigation’, just for the simple act of having intact genitals. I mean men will divorce their wives on their wedding night for being unharmed, for being whole. I mean men will act so entitled to women’s bodies that they will always have the assumption that the ‘product’ they are ‘buying’ is cut to taste, and they will become violent and aggressive and murderous if they find out this is not the case.

I personally don’t know whether or not I’ve been mutilated. With such high numbers in Egypt, the likely answer is yes, but I genuinely have no clue. I am not allowed to ask about these things, or I’ll be seen as a loose wh**re. My parents would beat me up and they still wouldn’t allow me the dignity of knowing whether my own body has been altered against my will. I don’t know if I’ll ever find out.

The feminists fighting constantly for tighter regulations, for harsher punishments, for longer sentences; these women are seen as the spawn of the devil. Accusations of loose morals are thrown their way day in and day out. Death threats and rape threats (’that’s what you want anyway isn’t it?’) are hurled at them from every direction. They are silenced. They are ridiculed. But they are prevailing. This year, the Egyptian president has decided to alter the FGM laws to cover loopholes, and possibly to increase enforcement. He has also altered the charge set to doctors who perform FGM which results in death from manslaughter to first or second degree murder.

The problem, however, remains in lack of reporting. Ever since the criminalisation of performing FGM in 2008, and the setting of punishments in 2016 as a minimum of three months’ jail time, to a maximum of 2 years, or a minimum of 1000EGP to a maximum of 5000EGP fines (63.71 to 318.53 USD), and until 2018, and possibly until today, not a single mutilator had been convicted.

Imagine being fined as little as 60 dollars for the permanent mutilation of a little girl’s body. And even that is not happening.

People refuse to report the monsters who do perform this, despite a 2012 gynaecology convention condemning the practice, and calling it an inhumane act, and stating quite forcefully that it is not a medical procedure, and that it is an infringement on the human rights of women and girls, which medicine and medical ethics do not condone. And yet, the public opinion remains the same: this is their business, it is not our place to intervene. It is not our place to get this fine young man thrown in jail, or fined, for performing a ‘cleaning’ procedure, and besides, wouldn’t you rather they had a medical professional perform it, rather than an uneducated woman, or a barber, or a butcher? It is not our place to report this family and tear them apart -  what did they ever do to us that we may hurt them like this?

No one ever asks what little girls have ever done for us to fail them like this.

[rcrisdraws]

This took a long long long time... so here’s the excerpt that goes with it!

Gone were the days when he could play with his brothers.

Summer evenings used to be for play, as heat dissipated and people were given a reason to ease their activities. Even if summers were cool in Sanchi – Uorachia’s popular name; even if Shun and Shinobu studied together, while Isamu, being much older, was still relegated to solitary learning, and even if their father was as stern as always, summer evenings were for play.

Trying to step on Isamu’s toes, in a literal sense, was an activity that wasn’t relegated to just summer – Shinobu seemed especially keen on it, and would actually keep a score of hits and misses, trying his absolute best to catch his older brother off guard. And while that was often not the case, the boy was getting better at strategizing and making his intents not known.

And after their lessons were over Shun approached him eagerly:

“Castle! Castle! Let’s play castle!!”

The purpose of that particular game was to tear down a castle or fortress made out of a few rocks and it’s ‘inhabitants’. It began as a game of ‘bringing down nii-san’s pile of rocks’, then Isamu proposed they both have fortresses. And Shun and Shinobu had their own small castle, near the stables, but it was rather disorganized and most of the time, left unattended. It was too easy to bring down – and Isamu didn’t want that; the boys worked hard and their brother used actual harmful knowledge that’s been drilled into him since age 11. So over time Isamu became the sole owner of a fortress, and more and more the game resembled warfare. The thought of that became hard to bear, the thought of having to teach his brothers strategies to more efficiently take down enemies in a silent, least invasive ambush, made his heart clench, then drum when he had to actually enact it.

The gameplay consistent of his brothers, armed with small bows with padded arrows, trying to knock over the stones of Isamu’s castle, which over the years, truly became something similar to a small fort. The game could take hours – once all the important bits of the wall were down Shun and Shinobu had to hunt Isamu down.

“You’d like that Shinobu?”

The boy approached his brothers, looked at his nii-san with questioning eyes-

Then tried to step on Isamu’s foot. He jumped out of the way, but in his attempt to not trip Shun, his toes were, in fact, touched. Shinobu smiled pleased.

“You are getting truly good at this.” Isamu said.

A mocking bow and a delighted wide smile, complete with bright eyes – Isamu couldn’t contain his own glee.

“Yeah, let’s play!” Shinobu said.

“Yes!” Shun jumped up, and away, towards the armory. “I made some new arrows! They’re a bit heavier, but travel faster. I think?”

“Show me!” Isamu encouraged him, following Shun, who took out from a hidden corner a bag filled with about a dozen small arrows with a thick shaft and a tip made of blunted lead wrapped in layers of cloth.

He handed them to Isamu; nii-san weighed them. They were indeed heavy, and rather sturdy too.

“Can I test them out?”

“Sure!” Shun replied, picking up the small bows.

The abandoned fortress near the sables became target practice. The arrows whistled from the bow, rocks fell easily.

“Nice shot! Can I try too?” Shinobu asked, and his brother handed him the bow.

Shinobu inhaled, drew the string and the arrow fell heavy, budging a stone from its place, but without actually knocking it away. He huffed.

“I’ll do better next time.”

“You sure will.” Isamu encouraged with a smile. “Shall we?”

“Lead the way!” Shinobu cheered.

Isamu ran to his fortress, armed with nothing but more bricks to rebuild his damaged walls, while his brothers had 6 arrows each. Both of them were unique, and the older they got the more their personalities emerged as distinct-

And it wasn’t long before Shinobu shot from behind a thicker tree from the orchard. It landed, but only shifted the stone around, however while ducking, Isamu’s clothes knocked it over.

“Shit-”

The next arrow went for his head: that was Shun’s; the boy was more meticulous, with an interest in tactics and calculus. The fear of getting his head shot was then replaced with the anxiety of witnessing his brother grow too proficient- But too much thought ended with Isamu once again knocking over his own fortress.

As such nii-san stood up and took a step away, laid on his abdomen, hands trying to repair the damage done: Isamu’s grown too big for this fortress and his brothers noticed and took advantage of it.

Now, with Isamu not in sight, the boys tried their best to take the walls down. 4 and 6 years, respectively, meant a great difference in what young bodies could do: their attacks lacked force, but their minds seemed much keener than Isamu’s own – or at least that’s how he felt. Some extra perceptive abilities and suddenly Isamu was some sort of god-

The wall to his right fell almost completely.

Isamu stood back up to try and rebuild it, but Shinobu ran towards the wall on his left and with arrows in both his hands poked the stones down.

He was compromised; Isamu jumped up and ran across the orchard as fast as he could.

He didn’t pause to notice that he was running towards the forest. Isamu stopped and Shinobu did so as well:

“You’re no fun letting us win.” Shun lamented, catching up.

“We’re not allowed in the forest...” Isamu didn’t want his brothers punished for his obsession with those trees – he’s been there too many times, scolded just as many for his foolishness.

“But we’re not there yet.” Shinobu added.

Isamu turned: “Come, let’s get some sweets, you’ve taken the fortress down in record time.”

“Nii-san... You don’t fit in the castle anymore...” Shinobu said as if the truth was obvious to anyone except for Isamu himself, and Shun laughed copiously.

“Hey, you’ve improved too!”

“You don’t have to make up kind words.” Shinobu replied, devoid of warmth.

And Isamu’s mouth was sealed shut; blood ran cold, and then it boiled. There was no praise for them outside of their eldest brother’s...

So, sweets were most definitely in order.

He patted Shinobu’s back with a smile, nudging him forward:

“If you want to chase me, catch me at Oba-san’s shop!” Isamu grinned, starting at a sprint.

“Hey! That’s cheating!” Shun protested, while he was being left behind by his other older brother as well.

Oba-san lived in an old estate that used to belong to the root Fujiwara family, until they moved to a larger, northerner estate, that was much rather a castle in its own right. That house passed down to the Satou, wealthy as well. The woman didn’t like to talk about herself and she might have not been part of the clan at all – but she made some damn good sweets and people stopped caring about heritage. In fact, she has even opened a small shop, people placing orders for sweets for anniversaries, traditional celebrations and, best of all, new year’s. The perks of being a Katou, living so close to Oba-san, was the ability to beg for the ‘ugly’ sweets before new year then stuffing their faces with mochi before the actual celebration. Surprisingly, they were never caught – Oba-san and the maids stuck up for them.

And they ran all the way there, the three of them out of breath by the end. Oba-san noticed them already and was rummaging in the back of the store for something. Shinobu and Shun rushed to the counter to peer over it. Isamu tried not to look impolite so he kept his distance - he wasn’t well liked by the town, and even the clan had little appreciation for the Katou. Isamu was deemed dangerous to be around; mothers warned their children about him and men preferred to keep their distance. Inside the clan’s area people kept quiet; some boys spat at him. Only a few months ago a Satou kid, someone’s cousin, started hurling slurs at Isamu – he beat the boy half to death. His father was furious, whipping his son until the scars would forever mark Isamu’s back. He couldn’t sleep for a whole week-

Isamu was jolted from his memories by the clatter of small porcelain plates with none other than kuzu-manju on it: round, about the size of Shun’s palm, almost translucent, with bean paste in the middle, and all wrapped in a shiso leaf. The brothers cheered ecstatic – it was a rare treat, usually all they got were some dango:

“My nephew became 14 – almost a man already!” Oba-san said. “I made these for him and had some left-overs. Kept them cool just for you, boys.”

Shun downed the first dumpling with lightning speed; Isamu was worried he’d choke, but then he went for the second.

“Isamu, have one too, dear.” Oba-san insisted, and the teenager took a step forward and took the sweet – it had to go in one quick mouthful or he feared it’ll slobber over himself.

Isamu couldn’t contain his smile while chewing it: cool, sweet, watery, with the added freshness of the leaf. The woman smiled, pleased.

Somehow, he always went back to that smile, as if it alone represented all the kindness in the world. But it’s been a year since and gone were those days, because Isamu had to become a man in truth. He’ll be 19 in winter, his genpuku celebration, denoting the formal take-over of the role of a Shinobi, has been postponed again and again – due to Isamu’s misbehavior. But he wanted it so, or he feared he’ll lose even that small smile from Oba-san as she indulged a too-old-to-be boy a sweet.

His father warned that Matsudaira Noburu’s tutelage would be his final lesson. And Matsudaira Noburu was a man just like his father: a cruel, petty man with enough wit to hide it behind pretty words and promises. Noburu just wasn’t bound by blood to Isamu, and his disgust had to be veiled with etiquette. Although, as Katou found out in the four months under the Matsudaira’s tutelage, Noburu was quite pleased with his performance even if his attitude was ‘rather insolent for a noble Fujiwara’ – as he put it.

Isamu desperately wished not to become just another harsh patriarch, a scheming murderer that sought pride and glory in the death of others. But the deeper into his past he looked Isamu feared he saw less and less differences between himself and the men he despised. Last year, at 17, he beat that Satou, and he’s been merciless since, having enacted at least a dozen assassinations alongside Noburu’s cousin, Matsudaira Yuuta. Many of those weren’t even warriors; maybe they didn’t even deserve to die. But it didn’t start there. At 14 he was taken outside Uorachia on a military campaign; returned two year later – they wanted him a man then; it didn’t happen, Isamu had his brothers to bring play back. But even before that, since he was 11: Isamu’s been punished with war and death. They taught him to kill since he was 11.

They wanted him ruthless, to become the feared warrior his ‘eyes’ prophesied.

And Isamu thought these past months finally managed to break what little was left to enjoy, memories of war brought back, skills to be used as learned. Now his father could be proud.

[dazedclarity]

the world is yours and you can’t refuse it

In which Damian wants to be an adult, accidentally stumbles into friendship with some dumb ten-year-old half-alien kid, and maybe finds appreciation for the kid still in him too. 

Friendship fluff 

Damian Wayne is not a kid.

He lets Grayson call him “kiddo,” sure. And much to his dismay, there have been times when he, Pennyworth, or Father carried him to his bedroom after he dozed off somewhere else in the Wayne Manor. And he lost his last ba–deciduous tooth more recently than he liked. But that doesn’t make him a kid.

Damian’s earliest memories are being pushed to climb mountains, taught how to fling swords into an opponent’s gut, and told, time and time again, of the legacy he will fulfill. Visceral violence and blood. There was never a time for childhood. At least not one in the traditional sense that everyone else seems to describe.

Besides, he’s thirteen. Surely that adolescent age is finally old enough to be considered on his way to adulthood, his lack of growth spurt and still-high-pitched voice be damned.

Jon Kent, the half-alien, on the other hand? Is perhaps the biggest kid he’s ever known.

He didn’t want to be friends with him. He didn’t. With his unrefined, feline-endangering powers and his processed snack bars and his completely absurd notion that his temporary (that growth spurt is coming!) taller stature gives him anything resembling superiority. He was annoying and he was overenthusiastic and he was ten. That’s like, a whole three years younger than Damian.

It was Kent, really, who started calling him at random. And Damian reasoned that it was more fun talking to him than breaking bones alone. It was just a force of habit, really, that lead him to feeling a little lonely when Kent didn’t call for a while.

It was quaint how deeply he wanted that video game. He should have understood by the age of ten that flashy, colorful distractions are detrimental to practical abilities. But as he scrolled through the company website and saw Youtube videos of the gameplay demos, he supposed he could see some tactical training nestled within the silly sounds and bastardization of real-world physics. And he guessed that he could see why someone as childish as Kent would want to play. So he told Father that he wanted it, but made sure to insist that he buy it himself–he didn’t need his father sneaking any hints to the alien. He still considered it rather silly, though.

But that didn’t stop the pride he felt when Kent’s eyes lit up at the sight of the gift that he’d pulled out from right under his father’s nose, as much as he tried to force it down. Or the heat in his cheeks when Kent launched at him into a hug.

Or the slight thrill he did get at maneuvering those candy-colored monkeys across the screen. 

“Ha! Got you!”

“No fair! That’s cheating!”

“It’s not cheating if it’s built into the game!”

“HA! Got you!”

“What? Argh…”

Ok, it was more than a thrill. It was different. It was…fun. And for a moment, surrounded by warm Christmas colors and their last score flashing on the screen, Damian didn’t feel like Robin or the Son of Bruce Wayne or anything. He wasn’t sure what he felt like, but a part of him liked it. Another part of him liked the way Kent was smiling and laughing (because of him!). In a quiet moment, he decided that maybe he could try this friendship thing out after all.

In what seemed like no time at all, Jon dozed off on his shoulder and his father was tapping him on his other to tell them that they had to go. Damian may have pouted—though he preferred the term sulked—just a bit as he pulled his coat on. Just a little.

Yes, after that day Damian started calling him. Mostly just to check on his progress as Superboy; it really should be going along faster. He had powers, after all, he could be dangerous to those around him. Of course, on occasion, he’d call on long nights when father was gone and Pennyworth was cleaning their large, ghostly quiet mansion. There was something about Jon’s rambling, even when it wasn’t about superheroing as much as trivial topics like farms and cleaning his room and homework, that made the hours past faster and his own bedroom seem a little less empty. That’s when he got to thinking, really, he never went to a normal school. He never rode a garishly yellow bus to sit at an uncomfortable desk to drone out simple equations or read short books. He never swung around low plastic bars on a playground.

He was certainly beyond such things. But he was curious all the same.

He didn’t experience them from a kid’s point of view, of course. But he did get to spy on Jon from inside a rubber mask while he did. Before he spied on his cute little family game nights straight out of a sappy sitcom and his wholly undignified 9:00 bedtime.

Damian wasn’t a kid. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t a little fascinated by what it was like to be one. At least, until it was time to whip Superboy into shape.

One night, when they were laying out under the stars covered in mud and and twigs violently snagged throughout their costumes, Superboy spoke up like something had long been bugging him.

“You said my name is Superboy instead of Jon.”

“It is. As is Robin for me. If we are to reach our true potential, we must commit to those aliases.”

Jon was quiet for a moment. Damian hoped that it meant that he got it. Until he spoke.

“Dad said that staying connected to your civilian identity is really important. I asked him once. He’s Clark Kent first, he said. It keeps him grounded and reminds him what’s really important.”

This time Damian was quiet. “Maybe it is different for you aliens. But my father puts on the mask when he goes out as Bruce Wayne. Anyone who really knows him can tell you that. Anyway, your father should be pushing you harder instead of coddling you.” He didn’t have to look to see Superboy’s face scrunch up in annoyance.

“He doesn’t coddle me!” he argued, crossing his skinny (but destructively strong all the same) arms, “and you act like I don’t have enough training to be in the field!”

“You don’t.” Damian grinned cooly at him, watching his face redden even in the darkness. “Shameful, really. That’s why I brought you out here. You don’t have time to be a schoolboy.” Damian ignored, for the time being, that he was out here too because his own father wanted him to be a schoolboy rather than work–perhaps that alien had gotten to him, god forbid.

Jon only humphed and turned away. Until,

“Your dad worries that you, like, never take off the Robin suit.”

“How the hell do you know?”

“I heard him say it to my dad at Christmas. Maybe my super hearing might have come in a little, I guess, I dunno.”

Damian gritted his teeth in annoyance. “He’s the one to talk.”

Another moment of quiet. “Doesn’t it all get to you too?”

Damian tutted. “Why would it?”

“Isn’t that why you call me all the time? And why you just broke into my bedroom?” Jon chuckled, and it made Damian’s fist clench.

“I’m trying to make you fulfill your legacies as Superb–”

“Dad says I’m doing just fine! Why else would you follow me around!?” Damian’s blood boiled. How dare he insinuate that Damian is following him like a puppy begging for attention? That’s the last time Damian tries to guide a snot-nosed little brat like him.

“Shuddup,” he snapped. Jon’s smile fell before Damian firmly rolled to the side, facing away from him.

Crickets chirped for several moments more.

“Hey Damian?”

“What?” he sighed.

“When we’re all done with this, like when we get back home, do you wanna stay over? I haven’t had someone to play Monk E Monsters with in a while. Kathy doesn’t like it.”

“What, like a sleepover?” Damian said mockingly. He’d never really had one, but he’d become familiar through pop-cultural osmosis. The word brought imagery of silly sleeping bags on floors, confectionery being consumed at a disgusting rate, and pointless games being played into the night.  

“Yeah!” Nothing about Jon’s tone was ironic. It was cheerful, and hopeful. It caught him a little off guard.

“Sure, whatever.” With a moment’s thought, Damian added, “If Father allows it. I do have a very tight schedule as Robin, you know.” Just to appease the kid, he told himself. After all, Jon did smile brightly at his answer.

In the end, however, after they returned to Hamilton county to a mother’s panic, harsh scoldings, promises that Jon would not go out for months, and turns in the shower to wash off days of grime and sweat, much to Damian’s surprise Father did consider it best that he rest a bit at the Kent’s for the weekend. So he found himself sprawled out on the Kent’s couch, biting his lip as his ape punched Jon’s off a platform, mindlessly tossing microwaved popcorn kernels into his mouth. Later on, Lane let Jon watch one sort of scary movie, apparently convinced because he had an older friend with him.

“Psh, she thinks I’m such a baby,” Jon scoffed. “I’ll be fine.”

Thirty minutes in, Jon was gripping Damian’s arm for seemingly dear life. That familiar heat rose to his cheeks once again.

“You’re such a kid,” Damian groaned, but didn’t pull his arm away. Especially not when maybe one of those stupid jump scares might have made him flinch a little. But he’d be damned if he let Jon see that.

Damian found sleeping in a thin sleeping bag on an inflatable mattress about as comfortable as he expected.

“Thanks for staying over, Damian! It was super fun!” Jon piped from the bed above him.

But it wasn’t so bad, he supposed. And their parents must not have been too mad about all this, because they still let them team up to fight crime–for the times they knew about, at least.

“Hey, you said you’ve never been to a carnival, right?” Jon asked over the phone one night, several months later.

“Um…no,” Damian replied, uneasy at the sudden question. He wasn’t going to ask what he thought he was going to…

“Do you wanna come to the one in town this weekend?”

“Seriously?”

“Uh huh, my other friends are gonna be busy with their parents’ stands and it’ll be fun! You should come! Have you even ever ridden a ferris wheel?”

“I’ve never wanted to ride a ferris wheel,” Damian said in a huff.

“You always say stuff like that, and then you always have fun.”

Damian denied it, but that didn’t stop him from showing up at the Kent’s door anyway.

Of course, Grayson had heard him discussing the matter over the phone and wasted no time in pressing him into it.

“I grew up in something like a carnival,” he’d said, “you’ll like it. It’s fun! You can run around and eat sugary crap like kids your age should.”

Damian tutted in irritation. But his brother had persisted. Later, when he didn’t know the youngest Robin was lurking in the shadows, Damian had overheard Richard telling Pennyworth that he thinks Jon is a good influence on him–a balancing force, so to speak. Damian tried to ignore that point on the ride to Hamilton County.

Though he had to admit, there was something a little comforting about peeling off the sweaty Robin costume after having had worn it for several days straight. Sometimes he just forgets to.

If he’d known that he’d have to squeeze into the backseat of the Kent’s stale-smelling family truck, he’d have hired a car to take him directly there…but Jon soon distracted him with rapid-fire stories about pie-eating contests, water-gun fights, and viciously spinning light up rides. Damian was hard pressed to admit it, even to himself, but part of it was intriguing. Provincial, but intriguing.

“Last time Alan ate an entire cheesedog before going on the tilt-a-wheel, we told him not to but he did anyway and then when he went on, it all–”

“I think that’s enough, dear,” Ms. Lane said from the front seat.

“Quite enough,” Damian agreed, though something in him wanted to hear the end.

“I’ll tell ya later,” Jon said, almost like he read his mind. It made him less uncomfortable than it should. In any case, he had inspected the alien man’s powers closely enough to know that telepathy was not one of them, and so his son certainly didn’t have it.

Something in his head that sounded an awful lot like Grayson’s voice told him that such things occur with friends.

Perhaps that was why he also let Jon grab his arm again and drag him to the muddy fairground, with Lane’s voice shrinking into the distance as she told them to meet her back at the car by 10:30. And so he was dragged that night, up to game booths with cheap stuffed animals hanging from the ceiling (”You know we could buy these toys with pocket change at the dollar store, right?” “Winning them is the fun of it Damian, gosh…stop being such a killjoy”), over to meet Jon’s friend Kathy to drink some unpasteurized milk (who, to Damian’s amusement, was quite taken with the fact that he was thirteen…until Jon made a comment about Maya’s liking to him in retaliation), and through a “scary” funhouse with twisting mazes and poor trying-too-hard actors in running makeup (both of them agreed, after the Joker, none of those clowns were the least bit intimidating).

It was fun. There, he said it. That unpasteurized milk was pretty tasty (whether it would make him sick was still under consideration). And maybe the toy Monk E Monster that he won at a ball-throwing booth (all too easy for someone of his skills) was kind of cool. Some of those mazes almost posed a slight challenge. He enjoyed himself. He smiled fairly often that night.

Until they reached the looming ferris wheel, and his smile fell.

“I am not going on that.”

Jon handed him a stick perched with a monstrous, artificially pink ball of fleecy sugar–cotton candy.

“Come on!” the kid whined, threads of his own blue one sticking to the sides of his mouth. “It’s so cool! You can see the whole fairground up there!”

Damian squinted at the spinning contraption, studying its shoddy construction. “That thing is only being held together by luck. And I don’t believe in luck.”

“What…,” Jon’s voice fell to a whisper and he leaned in, “is Robin not brave enough to ride a mere ferris wheel?” For a moment, Damian was ready to march up to the damn thing and toss that stupid kid on it. But in another, he simply sighed and rolled his eyes.

“I can’t believe you tried that old trick on me.” He took an indignant bite out of his cotton candy (which tasted better than he cared to admit). “Not going to happen.”

He preferred to believe that his stomach lurched in response to the unpasteurized milk, not the way Jon’s face fell and his tiny voice sighed out “Ok, let’s go back to the car then.” But either way, he ended up paying that damn ticket price and leading the then-joyous boy onto the rickety platform, praying to whatever pantheon might be listening to let him survive this.

The wheel creaked and shook as it began to turn, and Damian knew this was a huge mistake.

But Jon was grabbing his shoulder and pointing out the shrinking people below, as well as all the places they had been that night. And yes, against the country sky, which glittered with far more stars than any city night, in the distance the flashing yellow and red lights of the carnival went from tacky to something kind of like beautiful. Just enough for him to forget his assured doom.

“See, I told you it was cool!” Jon said smugly, again showing an ability to read him that Damian knew now he did not like one bit. Damian smiled slightly in response. Only slightly.

“It’s alright. But you should see Gotham from up high, it’ll beat any carnival you’d attend for the rest of your life.”

“Sure! That would be awesome!”

Damian didn’t intend that as an invitation. But he supposed he could deal with it becoming one.

“Hey…Damian?” Jon said softer this time, both out of caution and seemingly to make sure no one else heard. “I know you thought it was kinda lame, but thanks for coming here.”

“…You’re welcome. Thank you for inviting me, I suppose.”

“Of course I did!” Jon said casually, “you’re my best friend.”

The wheel didn’t screech to a halt. But it might as well have.

“I’m–what?” Damian sputtered. Jon’s casual expression became timid, and Damian felt the hole get deeper. “I…I thought Kathy was your best friend.”

“I mean, she is…” Jon rubbed his arms and adjusted his glasses self-consciously. “But you’re different, ya know? She can’t be in with all the superhero stuff. You can be best friends with Superboy too. Like you can come to carnivals with me and help me kick bad-guy butt!”

Damian blinked twice, for once unsure of what to say. He looked at Jon, then back at the fairgrounds, getting a little closer now that they were wheeling towards the ground. Then back at Jon.

Truly, what was the harm? 

“Ok.”

“Really?”

Damian shrugged. But he guessed that by now Jon could tell he didn’t feel that relaxed. “Yeah. We’re best friends.”  Oh, wouldn’t Richard be so proud, he thought sarcastically.

His newly christened best friend grinned wider than he had for the rest of the night, and Damian’s heart thudded a little in his chest. Must have been the milk again.

“For two supers, it’s just nice to get to be normal kids with each other.”

“I am not a–” Damian, much to his own surprise, stopped, sighed, at looked back across the carnival. “Yeah…yeah, it is.”

By the time they had gotten back to the car, they had pushed and shoved each other enough to get cotton candy in each other’s hair, stains on Damian’s shirt, and smears across Jon’s glasses. Ms. Lane sighed and sent them to wash in the bathroom before they went in the car.

Before long, they were laughingly making mud puddles of the dirt floor as they splashed each other from the sink. One thought, soft but warm, crept into Damian’s mind in the chaos. Perhaps being a kid sometimes might not be so bad after all.

Look at you kids, you know you’re the coolest The world is yours and you can’t refuse it Seen so much, you could get the blues, but That don’t mean that you should abuse it [x]

[dream-about-dancing]

#O: what’s your opinion on open relationships?#A: HUH??? now why the FUCK would u ask me that???#O: calm down anakin i was merely wondering if u & padme had an arrangement of that kind#A: no WAY. it’s disgusting. i prefer the old tradition & practice of cheating and that’s it

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