#And now they never will

[unfinishedslurs]

Whoopsie!! I totally killed Steve. My bad guys

Steve is batted away like a rag doll, and goes flying into a tree. The sickening crack leaves Dustin stunned, and he stops in his tracks, staring. Waiting for Steve to get back up, like he always does. 

He doesn’t.

Okay, so he’s passed out. Bad timing, but it’ll be like when Billy beat him up. He’ll probably have a nasty concussion, and a broken bone, but it’s fine. He’s fine. He’s always fine. It’s Steve. 

“Steve!” Robin cries. She starts to run to him, but a monster gets in her way and she has to defend herself. One rushes at him, too, and Dustin goes back to the fight. 

As soon as it’s over, Robin is hurtling towards the tree that Steve is still lying at the base of. Bile rises in Dustin’s throat as he follows her. He shouldn’t be passed out this long, it’s a sure sign of severe brain damage. He shouldn’t be laying this still. 

When he catches up, Robin is already shaking him. “Steve,” she pleads as the others come to see what’s going on. “Steve, c’mon, wake up. We gotta get you to a hospital. Hear that? It’s your least favorite word! I’m going to stick you in a hospital for life if you don’t wake up right now—“

“We should check his pulse,” Dustin says distantly. “Make sure his heartbeat’s steady.” He drops to his knees to do just that. Just as quick, Jonathan nudges him away. 

“I’ll do it,” he says, in a voice Dustin’s only heard him use on Will. “I’ve got some first aid training under my belt.”

He doesn’t reply, just takes the hand Robin’s not clutching and stays still, staring at Steve. He can’t stop feeling like something’s off about the way he’s laying there, completely motionless—

His heart stutters in his chest. Steve’s completely motionless. He’s usually so bad at staying still, always running his hands through his hair, or flicking his lighter, or tapping a beat against the steering wheel. Now, he’s not doing any of that. He’s not moving at all. There’s not even a rise and fall of his chest. 

Dustin stares uncomprehendingly. He has the puzzle pieces, he knows he does, but he can’t make them come together. It’s like his brain is rejecting the picture it makes. 

Jonathan pulls his fingers away from Steve’s throat, brow furrowed, anxiety pulling at his features. He starts to take Steve’s hand, but Dustin can’t make himself let go. 

Gently, ever so gently, Jonathan pries his fingers off the limp wrist in his grasp. Dustin lets it happen, silent.

Robin hasn’t stopped talking, quiet murmurs replacing the panicked concern from before. He can’t understand the words through the roaring in his ears. 

Jonathan has turned white as a sheet, frozen with his fingers looped around Steve’s wrist. He thinks he might know what it means. He thinks he’s wrong, he’s wrong, he’s got to be wrong—

Robin shifts to lie perpendicular to Steve, and lays her head on his chest. Quiet, like she’s listening for something. 

She doesn’t find it. 

It’s been three weeks, but Dustin can still hear Robin’s anguished howl ringing in his ears. 

They had to pull her off of him, needed Hopper and Murray both because she fought. Kicked and scratched and screamed when they took her. Kept calling out for Steve to wake up between it all, escaped twice so she could go back and hold him. Hopper was grim, face open and awful, Murray pale and swearing as they wrestled her away. 

Dustin hadn’t moved, still in shock. Jonathan and Argyle had to practically carry him out, because he couldn’t make his limbs work. He couldn’t make himself leave Steve’s side. 

He realized what they were doing halfway to the car. 

“Wait,” he said, twisting, “wait, what are we doing? We can’t leave him there. We can’t leave him alone, he hates being alone. We can’t—“

Jonathan and Argyle exchanged a look over his head. 

“I’ve got him, man,” Argyle said quietly. Jonathan gave a sharp nod before moving in front of Dustin, ducking down to meet his eye. Tears were streaming down his face. 

“I’ll sit with him,” he promised. “Go ahead and go with Argyle, okay? I’ve got him. He won’t be alone.”

��But I—“

“I’ve got it,” Jonathan repeated, voice cracking. Dustin nodded and fell limp against Argyle’s side. He trusted Jonathan. Steve did too. 

When they got to the car, Robin was still thrashing. Murray was practically sitting on her, a bruise forming over his eye. 

“Where’s Jonathan?” Hooper asks sharply when he sees them. 

Argyle gestured helplessly. “Sitting with him. Dustin said…he didn’t want to leave him alone.”

Hopper's eyes were defeated, and he swiped a hand across his face before getting up and heading towards Steve and Jonathan without another word. 

Dustin climbed into the backseat, where Murray finally had Robin pinned. She was yelling herself hoarse. 

“You—you asshole, get the hell off of me, you can’t just fucking—you don’t get it, he needs me, he hates being alone, he hates it, he fucking hates it and he’s never alone. As long as I’m here he’s never fucking alone so let me go—“

“Robin,” he croaked, holding her arm. She whipped her head towards him immediately, eyes wide. 

“Henderson. Dustin, tell this asshole to let me go. I need to go to Steve. We can’t—I can’t leave him alone, please, he needs me there—“

“He’s not alone,” Dustin promised around the lump in his throat. “Jonathan’s with him. Jonathan’s gonna stay with him, he won’t be alone.”

She shook her head. “No, he needs me—“

“Jonathan will take care of him,” he repeated. “He’s Will’s big brother, he’s good at taking care of people.”

She finally stilled, eyes on Dustin. “Jonathan has him?”

He nodded, face wet, and she finally relaxed.

“Jonathan’s good,” she said. “Steve…Steve likes Jonathan.” She laughed, sharp enough to make him flinch. “He’s a sucker for pretty boys.”

Argyle made a low, hurt sound, like he’d been punched. Murray moved to the middle seat, relieved that he no longer had to pin her down.

In a move that they should have seen coming, she opened the door and bolted. 

“Shit!” Murray barked, and ran after her. 

[lemonbubble]

me, eating a pile of nuts, cheese, and apple: mmmm tasty

the medieval peasant in my head watching me eat: thou knowst what would MAKETH this meal? dried fruits.

me, getting out the raisins: god damn, etheldred, you are SO right

the medieval peasant in my head: yet thou art still not heeding mine words regarding the blasphemy

[wishfulsketching]

Girl dad Silco is a source of endless entertainment for me

Extra doodles:

Someone save Sevika, she is in hell

[shadesofmauve]

I want to step away from the art-vs-artist side of the Gaiman issue for a bit, and talk about, well, the rest of it. Because those emotions you're feeling would be the same without the art; the art just adds another layer.

Source: I worked with a guy who turned out to be heavily involved in an international, multi-state sex-slavery/trafficking ring.

He was really nice.

Yeah.

It hits like a dumptruck of shit. You don't feel stable in your world anymore. How could someone you interacted with, liked, also be a truly horrible person? How could your judgement be that bad? How can real people, not stylized cartoon bogeymen, be actually doing this shit?

You have to sit with the fact that you couldn't, or probably couldn't, have known. You should have no guilt as part of this horror — but guilt is almost certainly part of that mess you're feeling, because our brains do this associative thing, and somehow "I liked [the version of] the guy [that I knew]", or his creations, becomes "I made a horrible mistake and should feel guilty."

You didn't, loves, you didn't.

We're human, and we can only go by the information we have. And the information we have is only the smallest glimpse into someone else's life.

I didn't work closely with the guy I knew at work, but we chatted. He wasn't just nice; he was one of the only people outside my tiny department who seemed genuinely nice in a workplace that was rapidly becoming incredibly toxic. He loaned me a bike trainer. Occasionally he'd see me at the bus stop and give me a lift home.

Yup. I was a young woman in my twenties and rode in this guy's car. More than once.

When I tell this story that part usually makes people gasp. "You must feel so scared about what could have happened to you!" "You're so lucky nothing happened!"

No, that's not how it worked. I was never in danger. This guy targeted Korean women with little-to-no English who were coerced and powerless. A white, fluent, US citizen coworker wasn't a potential victim. I got to be a person, not prey.

Y'know that little warning bell that goes off, when you're around someone who might be a danger to you? That animal sense that says "Something is off here, watch out"?

Yeah, that doesn't ping if the preferred prey isn't around.

That's what rattled me the most about this. I liked to think of myself as willing to stand up for people with less power than me. I worked with Japanese exchange students in college and put myself bodily between them and creeps, and I sure as hell got that little alarm when some asian-schoolgirl fetishist schmoozed on them. But we were all there.

I had to learn that the alarm won't go off when the hunter isn't hunting. That it's not the solid indicator I might've thought it was. That sometimes this is what the privilege of not being prey does; it completely masks your ability to detect the horrors that are going on.

A lot of people point out that 'people like that' have amazing charisma and ability to lie and manipulate, and that's true. Anyone who's gotten away with this shit for decades is going to be way smoother than the pathetic little hangers-on I dealt with in university. But it's not just that. I seriously, deeply believe that he saw me as a person, and he did not extend personhood to his victims. We didn't have a fake coworker relationship. We had a real one. And just like I don't know the ins-and-outs of most of my coworkers lives, I had no idea that what he did on his down time was perpetrate horrors.

I know this is getting off the topic, but it's so very important. Especially as a message to cis guys: please understand that you won't recognize a creep the way you might think you will. If you're not the preferred prey, the hind-brain alarm won't go off. You have to listen to victims, not your gut feeling that the person seems perfectly nice and normal. It doesn't mean there's never a false accusation, but face the fact that it's usually real, and you don't have enough information to say otherwise.

So, yeah. It fucking sucks. Writing about this twists my insides into tense knots, and it was almost a decade ago. I was never in danger. No one I knew was hurt!

Just countless, powerless women, horrifically abused by someone who was nice to me.

You don't trust your own judgement quite the same way, after. And as utterly shitty as it is, as twisted up and unstead-in-the-world as I felt the day I found out — I don't actually think that's a bad thing.

I think we all need to question our own judgement. It makes us better people.

I don't see villains around every corner just because I knew one, once. But I do own the fact that I can't know, really know, about anyone except those closest to me. They have their own full lives. They'll go from the pinnacles of kindness to the depths of depravity — and I won't know.

It's not a failing. It's just being human. Something to remember before you slap labels on people, before you condemn them or idolize them. Think about how much you can't know, and how flawed our judgement always is.

Grieve for victims, and the feeling of betrayal. But maybe let yourself off the hook, and be a bit slower to skewer others on it.

[ionomycin]

temple at the end of the road

[kochei0]

I turn to Ares.

Thanks to Tyler Miles Lockett who allowed me to draw inspiration from his ARES piece for page 2! Look at his etsy page it's SICK

⚔️ If you want to read some queer retelling of arturian legends have a look at my webtoon

[pakchoys]

our secret

[scramratz]

Did you know it’s legal in the USA for mattress companies to put fiberglass in their mattresses? They don’t even have to label them! So if you wanna commission me so I can buy a new bed I won’t stop you

[pidgeyato]

THE FUCK YOU MEAN TEAM-UP MISSIONS IS OVER

[demonicsuffrage]

Tim, abruptly standing up in shock: Wait, I just realised that Damian will graduate highschool in 2032

Damian, rasing a brow: Yes, ofcourse? As I am currently in fourth grad-

Jason, spitting out water: What the fuck? 2032?

Steph, pointing accusingly: That's not a real graduation year you made that up!

Dick: I think I just threw up in my mouth a little

Duke, with his head in his hands: Does anyone else feel both their feet in the grave? I graduated this year!

Dick: Feet? More like my entire body, I finished high school years ago!

Cass: Guys I think Bruce is crying

[demaparbat-hp]

Existential Nihilism Squad™

[mushyooms]

the madlad made it home

[beebfreeb]

[gibbearish]

love when ppl defend the aggressive monetization of the internet with "what, do you just expect it to be free and them not make a profit???" like. yeah that would be really nice actually i would love that:)! thanks for asking

[guiiay]

yeah... yeah