#I don't know why I write this much

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

woke up and someone spilled vanilla extract all over my dash, so as punishment you strange little beasties are getting all the VANILLA FACTS i know:

vanilla is the 2nd most expensive spice in the world (2nd to saffron)

which is why more than 99% of what we call "vanilla extract" is actually vanillin (vanilla's dominant flavor compound) and is not extracted from real vanilla.

luckily, even professionals struggle to tell the difference when it comes to things like baked goods. but there is a distinct difference in non-heat treated products like vanilla ice cream. real vanilla has a more complex, individualized flavor profile.

why is vanilla so expensive? because it is a ridiculously delicate & demanding crop. complete primadonna.

vanilla beans come from vanilla orchids. these crazy flowers bloom for A SINGLE DAY and have to be HAND-POLLINATED in a process that is exhausting, delicate, and requires specialist knowledge passed down over generations.

then, if you're lucky, you get vanilla beans.

which then require months of further specialized treatment.

the entire process takes about a year and can go wrong at any stage

vanilla has been cultivated for over 800 years (possibly much longer). the first known cultivators are the Totonac, an indigenous people of Mexico.

the Aztecs used it as a sweetener to balance out the bitter taste of cocoa. it was popular in a drink called xocolatl--the precursor to modern hot chocolate!

it is only pollinated by a very specific orchid bee!!!

which is why no fruit could be grown outside of Mexico until the 1800s

Edmond Albius, born into slavery, invented the pollination method we still use today--launching a global industry when he was just 12 years old.

today, the majority of the world's vanilla is grown in Madagascar

if you want real vanilla, read the labels carefully--it's harder to find than you think!

in conclusion, those tiny black specks you see in fancy vanilla ice cream? those are vanilla bean seeds! itty bitty orchid seeds!!! they are delicious and also a PRISSY BITCH!

(src)

[radiance1]

Danny often felt tired, as of late.

He wasn't certain as to why he did, though. It happened after his, apparent, coronation as the Prince of the Infinite Realms and after finally getting a boyfriend out of that damsel in distress who made him into one.

Which was unfortunate, because though he may try, it was very hard to pay attention on dates when Danny felt he just came from using the Ecto-Skeleton and no amount of sleep would make it go away. Fortunately, however, Billy was very understanding and accommodating of his plight, letting him sleep on him whenever he wanted and having their dates be less mentally/physically demanding things.

Man, Danny loved his boyfriend.

Unfortunately, he was away on one of his Justice League mission things.

Another thing he noticed, is that he liked to sleep in more cold places now. Very, very cold places.

So much so, that he genuinely debated moving to the Far Frozen if not for his parents turning his room into a literal walk-in freezer for him.

Did he ever find out why he needs to sleep so much? No, not really. But man.

Danny could go down for a nap right now.

---

Pariah was having a good, very good day.

He woke up, stretched, ate some food he didn't actually need to, did some light exercises after aeons of not using his sword and just fighting in general and sat down for some tea.

Even had a letter from the Master of Time with a P.S that two humans would be busting down his door!

Wait what-

"Ghost King!" Came the rather loud, effeminate shout accompanying the loud slam of his castle doors. "Where is our son!"

Honestly, Pariah is impressed by the lungs on that human.

"You heard her!" He looked down calmly at the... Actually, what in the infinite is that? Since when did humans go walking around with cannons??? "Tell us where our son is our so help me! Ghost King or not we'll exorcise you right where you stand!"

Pariah blinked slowly, very, very slowly.

Then took a sip of his favorite ghost blend then calmly placed the cup back down.

"You must be the boy's, human, parents I presume?" He asked calmly, gaze sweeping over them both. They seemed to be prepared for war, a burning fire in their eyes as they stared down the very King of Infinity and saw only an obstacle.

Oooooh, how that made the part of him that longed, sung for battle purr in sheer delight.

"Why don't you join me for tea?" He said, waving a hand and conjuring forth two extra, human sized, chairs on the opposing end of his table alongside two more tea cups. "And explain whatever is going on, while you're at it."

The two shared a glance between each other, then slowly lowered their weapons down to a point where they could still draw them at a moment's notice, yet not actively antagonizing the king at the same time-

Oh, he just loves these types of mortals.

-before slowly making their way to their seats, which were right next to each other of course. Married and whatnot.

"Tea?" He flicked a finger, filling their cups with the same that was in his cup but before remembering. "Ah, right. Human and your mortality." He casually mentioned, flicking his finger and changing the liquid to one of the few mortal blends he could still recall. "Worry not, for they are not poisoned." He chuckled lightly.

Honestly, doing such a thing would be beneath him, especially when faced with mortals of such fire.

"Now," He brought his cup to his lips. "Why don't you inform me as to what, exactly, has brought you to my doorstep prepared for battle?"

They, once more, exchanged a glance between each other, making sure the king was still in sight before Maddie opened her lips.

"Our son is missing."

---

The summoning was a success.

A terrible, terrible success.

One that the Justice League, One John Constantine especially, had valiantly attempted to stop.

But, unfortunately, once it got going it seemed to be incapable of stopping.

Faced with an entity being summoned from the Infinite Realms, they had called all of the heroes who were capable that weren't occupied. Shazam, unfortunately, was one of said heroes occupied.

Superman and Wonderwoman? Were not. So, at the very least, they had two of their heaviest hitters available.

The circle glowed a toxic green, growing and growing in glow until it reached its zenith.

Then was snuffed out as brightly as it glowed.

The air stilled, followed by a chill that rivaled the chilliest of snowstorms as if they were standing within one that very moment.

The next moment?

Ice.

Pure, unflinching, jagged pillars of ice rose from the circle the same moment it glow returned. Sticking out from the circle haphazardly and nearly impaling those that stood too close.

Mist, thick, blue mist. Rolled from the pillars of ice, descending down onto the floor with a gentleness that was almost deceptive if not occupied by such cold and being completely and utterly unnatural as it was.

The Justice League readied themselves.

[baejax-the-great]

If I were a writer at a big game company working on a sequel to a beloved series and the higher ups kept telling me to make the game shittier and kept sending my work back to me to be dumbed down even further somehow, and then once most of the writing was done they laid me and my coworkers off illegally without severance, I'd probably gleefully watch as people trashed the shitty game that shipped.

[sergle]

man, you know, nobody asked me, but I have such conflicting opinions on some of the fat falin art, where on one hand: it's always nice to see A Fat Body in fanart anywhere + it's being done in positive ways, for funsies and on the other hand, there is something so familiar about how you are automatically The Fat One if you are a woman simply standing next to a more petite woman, bc I've had a 0% hitrate in seeing people change Marcille's body type and keep Falin's, or change both of them. it's just Falin

[14dayswithyou]

Hi, Howdy! Hey! I really love your novel!! I got a little confused by the 4 day, may maybe you help me please? who is it? why we got the bad end staying the night in Ren’s apartment and he disappear of the home screen? I can’t understand “unset memory” game, sorry if I wrote smth wrong or smth sounds rude, I swear that I didn’t mean it if happened, I’m really a fan of the novel, I’ve been playing the game since day 1 or 2 I guess, probably day 1, english isn’t my first language, but I tried lol

⌞♥⌝ I hope you don't mind me answering these as bullet points!! ^^

"It" will be revealed later in the game! So I won't reveal too much right now.

You can only get the Dead End in Day 4 by staying at Ren's apartment — the rest of your choices before that don't matter. I'd also pay closer attention to the black smoke and Ren's reaction towards it!

Ren disappears from the home screen because he promised to help the player out (and stop them from getting the Dead End again). Try replaying the game again from the beginning for a surprise!

"Unsent Memories" was another visual novel (initially being written by @10chimes / @unsentmemory, though the project has since been dropped and handed back to me /pos) and is set in the same universe as 14 Days With You. Its storyline and characters are completely separate from 14DWY, so you don't have to worry about them while playing 14DWY.

[atalienart]

✧*:･ﾟArt summary 2024

2014-2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021

[laurellala-comics]

queerplatonic narumitsu so good and important thank YOU

Thank YOU! My account is just me reaching frantically out into the void trying to find my fellow qpr enthusiasts, I am always happy to find more! Such a coincidence you sent an ask because I actually drew this kinda queerplatonic coded narumitsu after reading your fanfic, which maybe wasn't intended to be queerplatonic but it filled that niche for me! (everybody go read right it right now!!!) . It's not directly based on any of the scenes, just the emotions and vibes that you captured.

This drawing was also inspired by "Breathless on DVD" by Antarctigo Vespucci which is about two people missing different versions of eachother and only having an old version in their head to miss, someone please scream about these lyrics with me

I haven't seen you in a long time. Are you still 27 and mad at me?

You haven't seen me in a long time But I'm still 23 and worrying everyone I love is just pretending

[protect-namine]

the way everyone has a dislike in their profile that actually says something integral about their character. lu guang doesn't like plans getting messed up, cheng xiaoshi dislikes loneliness, xia fei with owing favors, vein with lying...

and then you have liu xiao, who dislikes... cilantro. and fish mint.

(shakes fist) (putting him in a glass jar and shaking vigorously) learn to be vulnerable!! tell me something about yourself!! I guess him liking movies lines up with the theater metaphors, and there's him liking chess, but that. doesn't count methinks

[vaguely-concerned]

do you ever think about how, when we get lucanis' ossuary mind note on what he was thinking during the fireplace scene at the end of his recruitment mission... what's implied to be his instinctive internal reaction as he's saying "you'd have to kill me" out loud sure isn't 'and I don't want to die'. it's '(and spite would die)'. do you think spite's gremlin-y candle-hungering give-me-FIRE! >:D presence has maybe saved that guy's life even more times and in more ways than are immediately obvious at a glance. do you ever. cry.

it's also very. him that the thing that would stay his hand on killing himself partially might be that he just isn't willing to visit the same cruelty or harm on spite as zara, even when accepting his passenger spirit as collateral damage would at least offer a chance to put an end to his own pain, which at that point he seems unable to see any other way of truly escaping or find real relief from than to die. there's so much resentment and fear and other understandable fraught emotions in spite and lucanis' relationship early on, but it's just as clear that deep down lucanis conceptualizes spite as fundamentally innocent in what's happened here -- perhaps, indeed, more innocent than he manages to conceptualize himself until someone else can help him get in there and start to untangle it with him. he's protective of spite in some subtle ways right from the start, taking pains to point out several times on the jog through the ossuary that the spirits here were just as much victims in what was done to them as anyone else. when spite acts out during the fireplace scene... how much of lucanis brushing it off the way he does is about the '*actively bleeding from the eyes* don't worry about me' avoidant side of it all, and how much is him trying to shelter spite from the eyes of people he does not know well enough yet to predict how they’ll react in response — towards himself or spite. (additional idea to really bring on the heartache: do you think he has maybe intervened in pretty much the same way between illario and caterina over the years and that’s how he does it so smoothly and automatically; it’s basically psychological muscle memory. Haha. ow.) 

Between that and the pretty consistent language he uses that frames spite as child-like, even when he means that in frustration/enfant terrible flavoured terms lol, you get the sense that regardless of how much Lucanis is aware of this on the surface, there is a deep instinctive protectiveness in him for spite. I think that even comes across in the scene where lucanis tells you he’ll continue to pursue a way to separate him and spite on the minrathous route. So I was kind of picking up on/working with that already subconsciously, but when I found that note it hit me like a sledgehammer that clearly in some part at least, the reason lucanis is still here is that he knows now that spite would die with him and doesn’t find that price acceptable. Spite thinks that lucanis mentally locking himself in his (torture :() room and refusing to speak to him is an act of rejection or trickery, but to my eyes taken with everything else we know about how lucanis’ brain tends to work… as much as it’s an expression of avoidance and fear and overwhelm and trying to get away from the voice pushing him towards action when the mere prospect of action fills you with despair to even contemplate (“There’s nowhere to go”), I think it’s also a mark of lucanis’ affection and protectiveness of spite. The guards along the way make it very clear that more so than to keep the outside world from coming in, this place is for protecting people from what might break out. 

And that’s why I think this is also such a good case study to look at lucanis' internal freeze logic and why it has been so adaptive for him up until now when faced with completely impossible emotional situations to which there are no good answers or causes of actions available, even though it's inherently and unavoidably one of those 'what's worse, the medicine or the disease' solutions a brain cooks up. lucanis by the point of inner demons is facing this conundrum: 1) I can't live like this, it hurts too much. I've been in pain so long I’ve got screams where my blood should be and it just keeps getting louder, and nothing really touches or helps that. 2) I can't die to escape this, because that would also kill spite (and also I've got a job to do I guess *working 9-5 slowed with reverb and with underwater sound distortion effects is playing in the background*). those are of course not actually his only options, but in the state he's in they are the only options he can conceive of. (that's not infrequently how it works, when the suffering is that intense and unrelenting. Nothing gives you tunnel sight quite like ‘I just need this to stop’ agony that has gone on long enough to add sheer soul exhaustion to the mix)

so what happens in the end? his freeze brain -- honed, I'm sure, through many long years of attachment trauma and abuse and loss for exactly this kind of 'uh-oh. Incoming FUBAR situation alert let’s go' -- kicks into action and makes him do nothing except what's externally required of him, so he can stay just functional and momentarily distracted by a plethora of avoidance behaviours enough to get through his daily life, if like not particularly happily so... and otherwise, as it were, locking himself in his room deep inside where nothing can touch him, where nothing gets in and nothing gets out, no harm allowed to either escape from within nor allowed to pierce through and get inside. numbness isn't actually a cure for that kind of suffering, but it's the closest thing you're likely to get with any immediacy and if you’re desperate enough by god you take those. It’s how he survived his upbringing, and it’s how he survived the ossuary — as he tells Davrin straight out, the trick to just shut down every part of his soul he can to get through intolerable pain, loss or helplessness. I don’t think that mechanism came to him in the ossuary the first time, I think that blueprint was deeply embedded in his neurons and went ‘ah. My time again. Not to worry I’m a bit of an expert at this I’ll get us through this yet (though you may not thank me for it by the end of it all)’. 

In that state he's unable to himself reach out and meaningfully ask for help (and also like... why would his inner world have any framework for that as even being on the table? this has never been an option before in his life, not in any safe or consistent way; he's fucked up the way he is because the same things/people that should have been and partially, comparatively, were the sources of help and relief and safety growing up are also the sources of pain and abuse, that eternal irreconcilable ambivalence, the double edged sword of unpredictable insecure attachment), but it also keeps him from doing anything uh drastic the other way too, on acting impulsively in ways that can’t be taken back. (that seems to be more illario’s role/dubious privilege in the family lol.) at many points in his life and especially growing up, freezing and going numb around the pain is as close to having control of anything as there was any hope of. 'harm will be inflicted on me unpredictably, but fuck you I don't have to truly feel it as long as I shut all this other stuff down as well, that's what I can control' nervous system logic. (it'll get you every time.) for what it’s worth I’m not so sure his nervous system judged that one incorrectly, I think that is the kind of rebellion you would have to cling to while being raised by someone like caterina, because look at illario if you want to know how much she respects and rewards anything more overt or active. (I mean, if you don’t succeed, at least. swing at Grandma Dellamorte you’d better not miss or you’ll meet that cane swinging at you the other way and she will not miss)

I say all this because I think it's as easy to demonize the freeze response as it is to demonize anger, to conceptualize it only as an obstructive force that, as bellara puts it, is one of the purest forms of a heart not seeming to want to let you be happy, or a mindless byproduct of trauma. But in my experience, the brain doesn’t generally come up with ‘stupid’ defense mechanisms. Even in the most maladaptive of coping mechanisms, there is at the core of it some part of you that once meant to save your life, no matter what trouble it is wreaking for you today. when you look at the setup of Lucanis’ soul, as it were, you can see the dual and in some ways genuinely noble and even tender qualities this response has in him, however misguided: it does imprison, but it also protects, and it means to protect; for all the pain along the way it has sheltered all the parts of his soul that are most precious and breakable, the most vulnerable parts that want to live and so so importantly love completely and freely. Lucanis thinks he’s protecting not even primarily himself but everyone he loves by staying where he is. (“It would be better for me to stay here than to risk losing you”) A child’s logic, to be sure, but logic of a kind and clearly one that caterina has encouraged in him because that’s a conception of love it’s been very useful for her for him to have. Freeze looks like utter hopelessness on the surface, but in some ways I think it’s the utmost triumph of hope — a spare and unrelenting winter that exists because it thinks one day spring might still come, and the things too precious and fragile to thrive in your life as it is now might bloom then. 

He is an adult now, and Caterina no longer controls his entire world, physically and emotionally. There’s finally room for other things, other people, himself, in his life, without everything having to defer to the gravitational force of what Caterina wants from him at the end of the day. And while I think her jumpscaring him with the First Talon position is partly her attempt to wrangle him back into the status quo of control she once had, I’m not sure it’s going to work quite the way she might hope — at least in the Treviso saved route, there are just too many fresh spring shoots in his life at that point that could grow into something new, it’s too late to trample all the saplings growing up through the cracks in time (and indeed some of them might also fight back). (The outlook on the Minrathous saved route is um. Perhaps less convincingly immediately hopeful to me and the prospect of actually getting around to healing further down the road, but I refuse to give up on him that’s my little guy and he’s above all incredibly smart and stubborn and not a quitter and all the rest of this still remains true beneath it all, just like. Give him a moment here.) His hopes and dreams have diversified while she had her back turned lmao he suddenly keeps them with so many more people than just her and Iillario now. She doesn’t hold the monopoly of meaning and connection in his life the way she used to. And whether out of love (you know. Hope is every man’s prerogative I suppose) at seeing him really happy for perhaps the first time or sheer pragmatism, I think she’s going to have to accept that and adapt her ways of doing things with him accordingly, or else have him drift even further away from her.

Spite is the urgent impatient voice that starts to break through to go ‘that moment is now it HAS to be now. We need to shake off the shackles and illusions and face what’s actually here so we can learn to properly live now, or this winter will starve us to death as surely as anything Zara could do to us’. And he is right! As crucial as this soul-starvation landscape has been in survival, it has clearly reached the end of its sustainability, you can’t survive permanently on frost alone. I just also want to recognize the credit Lucanis (and his fucked up but valiant nervous system <3 pour one out for a real one) also deserves for stubbornly holding on in any way he had to until Spite’s true escape project is even an option for either of them. Especially since Lucanis seems to harbour a lot of self-loathing and frustration over his own propensity for freeze — “You know him. You can open the door, but he won’t walk through it”  (still one of the saddest most painful things I’ve ever heard. In case you were wondering. He knows. He knows what he’s like, and he despairs of it, he thinks it means it’s his own fault he still feels like this. Augh.) The real point at the end of the day is not that spite saved lucanis or vice versa, but that as traumatic as it was to get there and against all cultural expectations, it is ultimately their enmeshed condition, their togetherness, that saved them both. (which, again, when you consider the cultural narrative of possession and spirits most andrastian nations are working with…what a radical conclusion to come away with haha. Not unprecedented at all, if you look at Wynne and her spirit, but on a deeper and more psychological plane than ever and even more impactful for it, to me.)

[isthatacalzone]

me: *seeing people yell about how they did Glintshore & Percy's death in the show*

also me: ..................anyway

[necrotic-nephilim]

@sasheneskywalker i love when you enable me to ramble about things because oh my god do i have thoughts.

so recently, i made a post discussing the phenomena of DC x DP and DC x MLB crossovers and why they exist and part of that post was discussing how largely speaking, at least half, if not more of the Batfamily fandom doesn't read the comics. if they interact with canon DC material, it's adaptations that are their own sequestered universes and oftentimes not remotely comic accurate or seeking to be. the most obvious example is the Young Justice cartoon. i'm adding a cut to this post because it just got so long i'm so sorry.

a lot of times, when people are discussing the "why" of this oversaturation of fanon-only fandom, they blame Wayne Family Adventures. and i think, to a point, i agree WFA is responsible for a boom in this fandom. but as someone who's been in the fandom long before we had WFA, to me it's the other way around. WFA was DC's way of meeting the demand for this easy-to-get-into, easy-to-consume content about the Batfamily that predicates itself on the comics just enough to be vaguely the same characters, but has a more sitcom, slice-of-life sort of vibe so DC could profit off of this section of the fanbase that otherwise wasn't consuming its primary material. and well, it's definitely worked. not only that, but i have a weird theory that the decline in the MCU also led to the rise in the Batfamily fandom. when you consider the fan content that made the MCU popular within fandom, it's that 2012 "they all live in Avengers Tower and Thor is eating poptarts and Clint is in the vents and there are movie nights every Friday" sort of vibe. those were the fics that were a hallmark of the fandom. and as the MCU has strayed from well... quality content in general, but specifically well-thought-out crossover content where characters can have their own arcs but also exist in a wider story where they clearly care about each other, that fandom was sort of homeless. so where do you go, if you like a superhero found family where you can have villains for angst but also stick them all in one big family-like home for silly crack and have a plethora of options for gay ships? well. you go to the Batfamily. if you write a crack/fluff Batfamily genfic with silly vibes and low stakes instead of say, a fic about a very specific comic issue even if it's a popular comic, you're *going* to get more traction for the former. because the fanbase largely just isn't reading the comics.

and i feel... complicated about this. because on one hand, Don't Like Don't Read has been a tenet of my fandom experience. i'm very pro-fandom and that includes fandom content i don't like. and to an extent, i do think this sort of should apply to Batfamily fanon. i enjoy having my moments with other comic purists, giggling over exceptionally painful OOC headcanons or even facepalming in pain over some content but it is on me to not interact with that content. you don't make fandom a better place by being hostile to fans who engage with canon in ways you don't approve of. and frankly? we as comic readers are not going to get non-comic fans to read the comics by being asshats to them. no one is going to want to pick up any comic if we get a superiority complex about it. and also, i feel like we're all lying to ourselves a little bit insisting comics are so, so easy to get into. they're not. we can just all agree, they're really not. i've been single-handedly helping my sister get into comics, specifically Wonder Woman and no matter how simple i make it, i watch her get frustrated trying to understand what pre-Crisis and post-Crisis and New-52 and Flashpoint and all these things mean and what a retcon vs a reboot is and what a Crisis Event is and what the hell Diana's current backstory even *is*. sure, you can give someone a beginner list of comics to start with and slowly dip their toes in the water but sooner or later, *something* is going to confuse them. comics as a medium straight up aren't going to be everyone's cup of tea. and if someone *just* wants to read silly fluffy fanfiction about the Batfamily, i can't entirely begrudge them for not wanting to take the hours and hours out of their day to understand this medium. it's not an accessible medium to get into. "read this and this, but this run is out of print and this run wasn't collected in trades at all but also make sure you read that event in order and this is a good comic but the backstory in it is retconned and you *have* to read this it's so important but it's also really bad because the author kind of sucks" sounds. ridiculous for someone who like. just wants to read some stuff about Nightwing. sometimes, we all make reading comics sort of sound like a chore, not a hobby.

so my point is, i do extend some grace to Batfamily fanon for existing. i think my biggest gripe is, as i said in my other post, misuse of tags (if you're not creating content about comics, maybe you don't need the comics fandom tag on Ao3, just the all media types umbrella tag) and my far bigger gripe: when panels are taken out of context to support fanon only headcanons. if i could impart *anything* onto the Batfamily fandom as a comic fan it'd be this: if you haven't *read* the comic, don't spread the panel. if you don't even know what comic it's *from*, don't spread the panel. it's fine to use comic panels to discuss your headcanons, but so often i see someone spreading a comic panel from a comic they haven't read, and when asked where it's from, they can't source it. a silly example that comes to mind is a post going around, taking a panel where Dick, in his internal monologue goes "here comes the sun. do do do do." and the post is claiming it's from him getting buried alive. when that panel comes from Nightwing (1996) #140, and he gets buried alive in Nightwing (1996) #127, two completely different moments frankensteined together. if you're going to not read the comics, that's completely fine, but unless you're sure of the source and the context, panels shouldn't be spread around. i'm sick of this specifically happening to Red Robin (2009), with ppl claiming Tim has totally killed people because he blew up some of Ra's' bases, when those panels within context, make it clear he gave everyone time to escape. and in a later arc in that very comic, Tim grapples with the idea of murdering Captain Boomerang, and *specifically chooses not to*, because he doesn't agree with murder, even against the person who has hurt him the most. if you'd like to write fanfiction where Tim is pro-murder and has done some sketch things, i'm totally on board and would probably like to read it. but there's no need to pretend it's canon from a few panels you saw out of context.

beyond that, i think it's not *entirely* correct to say that fanon is harmless. whenever i see very WFA-positive posts, they often default to the argument that WFA is fun and silly, and comic fans are killjoys for not liking it. which. i think is complicated because the issue is, WFA and fanon don't exist in a vacuum. if you like WFA power to you, i don't think it's the worst thing ever, but i do think it's degrading to these characters because honestly? they feel incompetent in the webtoon. it's one thing if WFA was solely a slice-of-life sort of deal, just having silly episodes where Bruce is taking on a PTA mom or they're all fighting for the last cookie. but when WFA attempts to take on more serious plots with these characters, it *fundamentally* falls flat in understanding them. i get it, Bruce comforting Jason having a panic attack because a noise reminded him of the crowbar felt cute in a microcosm, but i'm so serious when i say that storyline destroyed how like. half of this fandom understands Jason Todd's relationship to his trauma. it doesn't understand how he reacts when he's triggered, what coping mechanisms he seeks out, and how he would handle Bruce comforting him. even if i can believe for a brief moment Jason *would* be triggered by something like that, him running and trying to hide and then getting a hug from Bruce to make it okay is just. painful. WFA needs everything to be wrapped up in a nice, neat little bow. so even when it starts to tackle interesting concepts, it makes them fall flat with its need to be soft, low stakes, hurt/comfort. there was a two-parter episode that dealt with the complicated mutual hatred/jealousy between Tim and Damian that *almost* really interested me because for once, it felt like the webtoon wanted to explore canon messy dynamics. but of course, it had to be fixed with one conversation and a hug. you don't mend the *years* of issues these characters have like that. WFA isn't in character because these characters are hyperbole cartoonified versions of themselves to fit within the medium and be a cute happy family.

because that right there, is the crux of it. the Batfamily fanon seeks to simplify the Batfamily and force them into a nuclear family. there are so many fantastic posts on here discussing how the nuclear family-ification of the Batfam is eroding decades worth of complex histories so i won't go too far into that. but what i will say is that there's this need, in the Batfamily fandom, for the Batfamily to exist as a unit. they are a *family*. (honestly i think calling it the Batfamily is a misnomer and has been for years but we're in too deep now.) they exist to each other first, and any teams or friends they have come secondary to this family unit. you can *specifically* see this demonstrated in what headcanons are becoming popular these days. i have an entire lengthy meta in my drafts about how i *loathe* the "the Batfamily meets the Justice League" genre of fanfic because it makes no *sense*. in order to have this genre of fic exist, you must operate under the assumption that no one in the League, or adjacent to the League, knows the Batfamily exists and are thus utterly shocked to discover Batman has kids. and to make *that* work, you have to strip *every single Batfamily member* of such important dynamics and friendships so you can lock them all in Gotham for their whole lives. Dick can't have the Titans, Tim can't have Young Justice, Duke & Cass can't have the Outsiders, Jason can't have the Outlaws, Damian can't have the Supersons, Babs can't have the Birds of Prey, and so on. because if they had these relationships, they would be known to the League. the Batfamily fandom doesn't care about this, it's just "silly fanfiction", it's not trying to be serious. but how can you say you like Dick Grayson as a character if you don't understand the Titans *are* his family? at some points of his life, moreso than the Batfamily even is. it is constantly repeated to us in most comics with Dick how much the Titans mean to him. he *needs* them to be who he is. the same extends to every other Batfamily member, most of which have been full League members at this point. but in fanon, that doesn't matter. the Batfamily are a sequestered unit first, and all of those side relationships are secondary and easy to toss away, if it makes your fanfic work better.

and because they have to be a unit first, you have these forced relationships that dump years of actual canon material for the sake of making them get along. the Batfamily fandom has its favorites and well. it's no secret it's usually the boys. Jason and Tim by *far* stand out as fandom faves so, their dynamic is a heavily explored one. it does matter that in canon they don't tend to get along and especially don't see each other as family. what matters is that you can push dynamics onto them. and so fanon gets all twisted up about which Robin Tim actually idolized as a kid (Dick) and what member of the Batfamily is pro-murder but still an older sibling figure to him and looks out for him (Helena, or if you want the dynamic of once tried to harm Tim but they've reconciled, Jean-Paul) in favor of who's the most popular. Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian are always going to be the standouts for popularity, but it's specifically Jason and Tim who are getting fanonized the most. and that's because really, we don't have much canon content of Tim that *isn't* the comics. for Dick you've got Young Justice (tv), for Damian you've got the DCAMU, for Jason you've sort of got the Under The Red Hood movie, but Tim sort of lingers in this limbo. (yes, he's in Young Justce (tv) and Titans (live action) but in neither is he the main character nor given much depth) so, he gets a *lot* projected onto him and has become fanonized. and even with Jason's animated movies, you don't see him interact with Tim, so people build it from the ground up how they want to see it, disregarding of canon comics. i think it's what makes him so popular in the first place- he's malleable into whatever you want or need him to be.

and of course, the fanon ignores other characters in the Batfamily it doesn't know about. i feel like you could create a tier list of Batfamily characters by their popularity, going from the fandom main characters: Tim, Jason, Bruce, Alfred, Dick, Damian. to the underrated: Steph, Duke, Babs, Cass. to the forgotten about unless they're convenient for a story: Kate, the Foxes, Helena Wayne, Carrie, Selina, Harper Row, Maps, Minhkhoa Khan. to the absolutely unknown: Helena Bertinelli, Jean-Paul Valley, Onyx Adams, the Clovers, Julia Pennyworth. it's not lost on me that the ignored characters tend to be women and people of color. which is both a canon and fanon problem, DC will continue adding interesting characters to the Batfamily, play with them for a few years, then drop them to default to the "Batboys" again. and it's a vicious cycle of the fandom only caring about the "Batboys", and thus people entering the fandom via fanon osmosis won't have content about the other characters, therefore, they won't be interested in those characters enough to create it, and it's just this ouroboros consuming itself, no matter how much canon content we have of these other characters. and it's ridiculous just how large the Batfamily is becoming because of this, which is why i'm a pre-Flashpoint fan, because then the Batfamily was contained enough to actually feel like a family with every character having nuances relationships with each other, but i digress because those thoughts could be their own post.

and the thing about fanon is it doesn't exist in a vacuum. DC has started turning the comics to accommodate for what fans are asking for, because fans will beg and beg for content they're not going to consume. Tim Drake: Robin had Tim as a coffee drinker because that's the fanon accepted headcanon. and the resolution of the recent Gotham War arc was for Bruce to buy this new manor for everyone to move in and call him. nevermind that most of these characters have their own homes and have zero reason to be moving in with Bruce. Tim had his marina in Tim Drake: Robin, Dick has Bludhaven, Cass and Steph have their little side of town in Batgirls (2022), and so on. these characters are being forced together as a unit, as one big happy family living together, to appease what non-comic fans want and it's damaging comic relationships. Robin: Knight Terrors saw Jason and Tim team up and working together, which i've seen varying opinions on but i personally despised. their interactions made zero sense for any of their canon history, but it appeases them being this close sibling relationship that fanon acts like they are. also the fears they faced in their respective knight terrors didn't make sense for either character and *only* worked as a moment of bringing them together so they could reassure each other and have this weird dreamscape bonding moment. the canon is bending itself to the will of fanon rather than building on the pre-existing complex relationships. Tim barely even gets along with his most important team in Dark Crisis: Young Justice because it seems the only important relationships the Batfamily can have is with each other. and when we do see them outside of the Batfamily, it only seems to be to relive the glory days like with World's Finest: Teen Titans, instead of developing them as they currently exist. this isn't recent in the comics, it feels like you can trace it back to the New-52, but it does feel a *lot* worse over the recent years. WFA is fine when it exists in its own bubble, but the simple truth is, DC content never exists on its own. the adaptations will reflect back onto the comics. (the damage the Young Justice cartoon has done to some characters should honestly be studied) and so it does frustrate me a bit when fanon-only or adaptation-only fans act like we're being nothing but killjoys for being frustrated with this. since they don't read the comics, they don't see how the comics are suffering as a result of this.

people argue about what's out of character for the comics they don't even read. i'm sorry, but "bad dad Bruce" is consistently canon. that man is just kind of shitty. when you take someone who has the drive he has, who has this need for the Mission first, who needs a teenager in spandex next to him to keep him off the ledge, that guy is sort of going to be a shitty father figure. he just is. not on purpose or with malice, but when you compare him to any other dad in a big DC family, he sure takes the cake. it's why characters like Oliver Queen tend to *really* fucking hate Bruce for how he treats his kids. Bruce loves fiercely, but he doesn't do well with putting that love first. and his love is a controlling one, he is very particular about controlling how others in the Batfamily are "allowed" to operate. it's what drives the wedge between him and Dick, it's why Steph is never a true daughter to him. (besides the reason of her needing to be a love interest to Tim first, anyway-) i've never understood the massive outcry of people reacting to Bruce kinda being shitty in comics they're not reading. there are some moments that get ridiculously OOC with how cartoonishly evil he is (the whole Gotham War arc and that... complicated mess with Jason) but largely if you want sitcom loving nuclear father Bruce, you have to accept that is a fanon thing, not a canon one. the Batfamily being a nuclear family in *general* is fanon. most of the "Batkids" don't actually see Bruce in a particularly fatherly light and begging for moments where he calls them his kids or they call him dad outside of incredibly specific circumstances is just OOC.

it's getting harder and harder to exist peacefully in this fandom it feels like, if you don't comply to the standard fanon has set. i'm happy people are having fun with their blorbos, even if in ways i dislike, but that "harmless fandom fun" does ripple it's way back to canon, eventually. so i end up pretty tangled with my feelings because are fans at fault for DC making these poor decisions? probably not, but it certainly feels like an unfortunate cause-and-effect situation whether at the end of the day, nobody is happy. and of course, i know some fanon-only fans are striving to be more canon accurate and care about canon dynamics more than others, but for them it's always going to be an uphill battle with the above-mentioned out-of-context panels thrown around and ever-pervasive fanon overtaking anything that's truly seeking to be canon compliant. so really, it sometimes feels like we're all losing.

[dollypopup]

I can't stop thinking about Colin on his travels. Colin, alone, on a journey to 17 different cities, across several countries. Colin on his own.

Colin who writes letter after letter, to his family, to his friends, and barely gets a response back. How long before he understands that they didn't get lost in the mail? How long until he realizes that, just like when he was a boy, no one has the time for him? The space for him? How many letters unanswered before he lets it finally take root and fester in his mind?

He could have died on that tour.

Would they even notice? Would they see when the letters slow until they cease? Would they wonder why? His mum, surely (maybe, possibly, but she has enough on her hands, besides, and he's never been a concern, in need of her assistance, before), but anyone else? Anthony on his honeymoon, Eloise a stormcloud personified, Benedict taking on the familial responsibilities, Fran preparing for the marriage mart and in Bath, regardless. Daphne, his closest sister, a mum running her own estate.

Greg and Hyacinth who enjoy his stories, but are children.

Pen who ignores him. No explanation, no goodbye.

Colin who has no one in his corner. Colin who travels city to city, putting on personas. Will they like me? What about now? Colin who has hardly anything to read from the people he loves. Who do not think of him.

And yet he thinks of them. Brings them back gifts, writes his recollections for them until it hits him that, oh, they don't care. They don't care what he's doing, how he's doing. They didn't want to hear it before, when he was there with them, and they do not want to hear it now, either. Did they even open those envelopes? Did they see them come through the post, just as proof he's alive, and shrug off the contents? Did they look? Once, Colin sends an empty page. No one notices. Easier, then, to send just the outsides. People only ever care about the outsides. Pretty and prim in neat packages, uncaring of what lies beneath. Sea sick on the rocking boats, staring up at stars on the continent, Colin grows aware, but not bitter. Sad, but resigned.

He loves his family, he loves Pen, loves them to grace, loves them to it's okay. It was him, he determines. Too chatty, his letters too long, uninteresting, his passions dull or droll, or else, worse, he's displeased them in some way. Colin who takes refuge in stranger's arms and homes, who dreams and tries to sate his curiosity. Colin who pretends, because anyone, anyone but him would be received better, he's sure of it. Colin who must talk too much, surely, and with no one to listen. Colin who learns to hush.

Yes. Remarkable- as in, I have many remarks about it.

How many times did he go to excitedly write of what he did that week, and stopped himself, knowing it was a waste? How many times did he write and throw into the fire a letter asking Why don't you see me? Why don't you care?

If he didn't make it, how long would it take for anyone to notice? A month? Two? A year? Would they wave it off as his frivolity, denounce him as a flake and fume about the funds? Would they wonder where it was he had lost himself off at?

He cannot fall into that, so, he writes in his journal, instead. Of the ache of it, of how he longs for connection, for understanding, for someone to take him seriously. He keeps it with him, this log of his discontent, of his folly and felicity, of his pitfalls and pains.

If he didn't make it, would they realize all that's left of him is what he sent them, not even a body to bury? Did he look over the side of a bow of a boat and look at the churn of the ocean and think of how many bones it held? Did he tip his face to the sun? How many new scars did he earn? Who did he befriend?

Who did he become?

Somewhere along the line, Colin learned. He learned the real him wasn't wanted.

Somewhere along the line, somewhere between Patmos and Paris, Colin left Colin behind.

And, somewhere along the line, Colin laid face to face with loneliness in his bed, and it wrapped its arms around him.

[the-broken-pen]

Hey hey

Could you perhaps write a snippet where the building hero is in, gets bombed? Its bombed as an assassination attempt to get them, however the people in that building die and hero, succumbed to their injuries couldn't save everyone of them. At last they watched the last ambulance left without them, even as they called for help

Villians villa is just few kilometres away

Thankfu hero's legs aren't broken

They begin walking

The problem? Vil is way to composed and prim and perfect to let all of hero's blood get on their expensive carpets and fabrics. They could even be mad at the hero for reddening their porch if they hero stood their asking for bandages. What now? And the fight the two had yesterday that ended with "never see me again" and "don't ever talk to me"s.....vil was stopping hero from attending the event the building....

Will vil help them? They can just ask for bandages and leave.

What hero doesn't know: vil would literally destroy the world for hero, and there's no way in hell are they leaving hero on their doorstep.

(Anon you were cooking with this ask, thank you!)

The hero realized the building was going to explode a split second before it did, which wasn’t enough time to do anything other than brace.

They tensed, and there was a horrible screeching of metal and brick, followed by a deafening silence that covered them more completely than the rubble did.

The hero coughed once, weakly, pain rocketing through their chest, and shoved a piece of concrete off themself.

From somewhere else in the building, a soft, terrified wail began, broken around desperate sobs.

The hero coughed again, hand rising to their ribs. They didn’t have the energy to be surprised when their fingers came back coated in blood and dust. They grimaced at it, struggling to their feet–

And oh, god. That hurt.

The hero had a surgery once, the kind that resulted in bandages and a care regime and a set of stitches, and when they had woken up in the recovery unit, it had felt sort of like this. A moment of loopy half-awareness, and then a pain that had knocked the breath out of them, hands clenching into the sheets as a nurse tried to figure out if they needed more medication. 

This was worse. Their vision swam, and they blinked it back with a hiss.

Because someone, somewhere in the wreckage, was crying. And if one person was crying, it meant there was someone who survived. Which meant it was likely there were other survivors–ones too hurt to make any noise, ones knocked unconscious, ones still too shocked to do anything other than lay there–and it was the hero’s job to find them.

It took them far too long to locate the source of the crying. Longer to dig them out, vision going white as the person slammed into the hero’s chest in some facsimile of a terrified hug.

“You’re okay,” they managed, voice like gravel. “It’s okay. I’m going to get you out, and you’re going to be just fine. Were you with anyone?”

And then again, and again, and again.

The hero panted, hands on their knees as their body fought them in an attempt to just collapse onto the concrete below. They just–they just needed a minute. Just one, maybe, and then they could–

This time, the hero wasn’t even aware of it before it happened.

The remains of the building shook, then disintegrated into itself in a plume of dust and rock. The hero shielded their eyes with one hand, blinking against the onslaught.

What little air they had managed to get stuttered out of their lungs in something close to a sob. They had done this enough times to know there wasn’t anyone in that building left alive. 

They sagged down against the nearest thing–more rubble, maybe? They didn’t know–and this time when they rested a hand on their side, there was a considerably larger amount of blood.

“That’s…not great,” they said, and their fingers blurred in front of them slightly. There was an ambulance right there. Just a couple feet away. They had already helped most of the survivors, so maybe it would be okay for the hero to–

A paramedic rounded the back of the ambulance, and the hero lifted a hand, reaching–

“Please, wait, I think–I think,” it hurt coming out of their mouth, “help. Please I need–” they trailed off as the paramedic took the step up into the ambulance.

And closed the door behind them.

The hero wasn’t even that surprised when the ambulance began to drive away.

“Help,” they finished weakly, then sucked a breath in through their nose.

They were supposed to be good at this kind of thing. Surviving, no, thriving in catastrophe. A pillar of light. The one with the plan. 

The kind of being that didn’t beg for help on the ground.

The hero wasn’t entirely sure how they managed to get themselves back to standing. It was as easy as that–one moment they were on the ground, gravel embedded in their knees, and the next they were up and shaking but they were up.

“If I stay here, I’ll die,” they murmured. They had hoped maybe the threat would keep their legs from buckling again. It didn’t.

They weren’t near any place that could be trusted. There wasn’t a safe clinic for heroes on this side of the city, and even if there was, the hero wouldn’t trust them. Couldn’t afford to.

But as for near…the hero swallowed the nausea as it rose in their throat. There was one place they could go. One person they could go to.

Four miles. They could do four. There was no other option.

Where the hero had had some blurry recollection, or at least, a good guess of how they got to standing, they had absolutely no clue how they made it onto the villain’s porch. They managed a blink, retching slightly as they stared at the villain’s wavering door, then had to freeze just to bite down the pain that had come from the gagging.

They tried to knock and ended up collapsing against the villain’s door, knees giving out entirely as their fingers scrabbled for purchase and left behind smeared bloody marks on the wood.

They weren’t entirely sure how that happened either, or how long it took the villain to answer the door. Just that it hurt—so, so much, it hurt so–and that they managed to shove themself back into some semblance of standing right before the villain pulled the door open.

The villain’s face did a sort of spasming thing as soon as they saw the hero, jaw dropping slightly in what the hero could only really read as shock.

There was a very considerable amount of blood on the door. They were cold.

“I–” the hero tried, but they weren’t really sure where they had been going with that sentence, and after yesterday and the screaming and the fight the villain probably didn’t want to see them at all, didn’t want to ever see their face again, so–their mind blanked. “I got blood on your door.”

They tried to gesture towards it, but that hurt, so their hand simply twitched slightly from where it hung by their side.

They glanced down at their feet, because they didn’t want to see what the villain’s face was doing, especially if what it was doing was anything resembling anger.

“Oh.” There was blood at the hero’s feet. “And on your porch, too, I guess.”

They looked up at the villain, but they were still staring at them, brow furrowed, hand clenching on the doorframe.

“I’m sorry.”

There was a very faint quiver of tears when they said it, and the hero knew better than to hope the villain didn’t catch it. 

Were they saying sorry for the porch or the door or yesterday–

“Holy shit,” the villain finally breathed, and it sounded like it had been punched out of them. The hero froze, panic rising in their chest.

“I’m sorry,” the hero blurted out, stammering. “I’m–I’m so sorry, I’ll go, just–could I maybe have some bandages? Just–just one, maybe, please? I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” they said uselessly, head swimming. They couldn’t even remember what they were doing here. The villain was perfect in every sense of the word, stoic and proper and collected in a way the hero would never be; a marble statue brought to life. The idea of them letting the hero–the personification of a train wreck in motion–in to bleed all over the villain’s soft carpet and nice shoes and cause irreparable damage to their very expensive house was almost laughable. 

If they had had the breath to laugh.

More of the hero’s blood dripped onto the slats of the porch, and they stepped back. “I’m sorry–”

The villain reached for them, and the hero flinched, taking it for the dismissal it was–

The hero blinked, and it stuck for a moment too long as the world tilted, and when they pried their eyes open again the villain was staring at them with something the hero was too out of it with pain and possibly delirium to identify. Their gaze drifted back to the blood smeared on the door, and the villain’s grip tightened on the hero’s bicep–when had they grabbed the hero’s bicep?–until the hero’s gaze returned to theirs.

The villain said something, but there was a roaring that had started up in the hero’s ears. They seemed to take the uncomprehending blink the hero gave them in return for an answer anyways, and guided them down until they were both sitting on the cool wood. A tug, and the hero was resting against their own propped up knees, villain’s hand still firm on their arm.

“How much blood did you lose?”

It was like screaming underwater, the hero reasoned. Or through a mirror. But they heard it nonetheless, and that was their villain, and even in hatred and war they would always answer them.

“Was ‘supposed to be counting?” If they had any more energy–or maybe slightly more blood–in their body, the slur to their own words would have been concerning.

The villain’s lips pursed into a thin line, and the hero felt them begin to run an assessing hand over their injuries, cataloguing them, brow furrowing further with every second.

“M’sorry,” they managed, tongue thick. The villain didn’t pause.

“For what?”

“Bleeding on your door,” they managed. The villain stopped them from raising their head from their knees. “And your–porch.”

“I don’t give a shit about either of those things,” the villain said, simply, easily. Like it was nothing. Like they didn’t feel the weight of it as they threw it into the air.

The villain sat back on their heels, clearly having learned what they wanted from the hero’s injuries.

When the hero didn’t immediately look at them, the villain grabbed their chin, gently turning it until the hero faced them.

“How far did you walk,” they said slowly, and the hero had never been more grateful for anything in their life.

“Four miles,” the hero said, and they couldn’t hear their own voice above the roaring, but the villain obviously could from the way their eyes darkened.

The hero wanted no part in making the villain angry again–I never want to see you again, do you hear me? If you ever try to talk to me again I will kill the both of us, I promise you that–, but when they attempted to push themselves up to leave, the only thing they managed was a piteous whine and a stab of pain so intense they forgot to breathe.

“Idiot,” the villain hissed. But oddly, the hero didn’t sense any anger coming from the villain.

They blinked–too long, again–and found themselves in the villain’s arms as they walked through the house. Their head lolled back onto the villain’s shoulder, and the villain glanced down as if–to make sure the hero was okay. That they were conscious, and breathing.

Oh.

Oh.

The villain wasn’t angry.

They were afraid. For the hero.

Which didn’t make any sense, because–

I never want to see you again–

“You’re mad at me,” the hero reasoned, and it came out half strangled and petulant. The villain looked down at them, and the hero caught the tiniest flinch in their jaw.

“I’m not mad at you.”

“That’s not what you said yesterday,” the hero whispered, and the villain flinched.

“I wanted to stop this from happening.” The villain settled them onto a bathroom counter, lights flickering on as the hero leaned back against the mirror. Blood began to dry, sticky, between their fingers.

The hero’s mouth went dry, and it caught in their throat when they tried to swallow it.

“You could have just left me there.” Their voice only shook a little bit, but the villain’s head still snapped up from where they had been digging through a drawer.

“What?”

“On the porch,” the hero clarified, clearing their throat. The lump didn’t go away, and they had begun shaking at some point, and they couldn’t stop. “If you didn’t want to deal with me you could have just left me there–”

The villain’s face had darkened into something the hero almost didn’t recognize. 

“I would burn the world for you, and you think I would leave you to die on my porch?”

“You said you didn’t want this to happen.”

“No, that’s not–” the villain rubbed a hand over their brow, and the hero winced at the blood it left behind. “No. No, that’s not what I meant. I was trying to keep you from going to that stupid event and getting hurt. I knew it was going to blow.”

“I would have gone anyway.”

The villain stilled. “I thought maybe if you never wanted to see me again, and you knew I was there…”

“I would,” the hero repeated. “Have gone anyway.”

The hero watched as the villain’s face rippled through a dozen emotions, settling onto something unidentifiable.

“Why?”

“Because you were there,” the hero said easily, shrugging one shoulder. Because when it came to the villain, it really was that easy. They could scream, and shout, and hold a knife to the hero’s throat, and the hero would still follow them into hell. That was their villain.

The villain looked like the hero had stabbed them, face draining of color. Their fingers went white around the edge of the counter, as if it was the only thing keeping them upright.

“What,” the villain’s voice was hoarse.

“I went because I was hoping you would be there,” the hero said honestly

“Stop,” the villain raised a hand between them, a shield, voice breaking. They sucked in a breath, then another, like they were trying to keep themself from breaking down onto the tile.

“You would have gone to the event no matter what, just to see me,” the villain said slowly, and the hero nodded

“Yes.”

“Even though I screamed at you?”

“Yes.”

“And told you I hated you.”

“Villain, please–”

“Now you know,” the villain interrupted, voice incredibly soft. “Why I would have never left you on that porch.”

The hero forgot to breathe for a moment, tongue going numb in their mouth. The villain couldn’t mean–

They blinked for a moment too long, and then the villain was standing between the hero’s knees, hand on their chest.

“You love me,” the hero said a moment later.

“Ruinously,” the villain agreed.

“So you–”

“I was trying to save your life,” the villain’s hands were gentle as they began to patch up the hero’s side. “And now I’m saving your life in a new and unanticipated way. But there is nothing you could ever do to stop me from saving your life.”

The hero’s heart clenched. 

“Really?”

The villain caught their chin, eyes boring into the hero’s. They brushed a piece of hair off the side of the hero’s face.

“Really.”

The hero sighed, and the villain caught them as they slumped.

“I thought you hated me,” the hero said, and they hated how raw they sounded. The villain made a choked little noise.

“I’m so sorry.”

The hero sniffed.

“Don’t do it again.”

The villain simply hummed, and smoothed the ends of a bandage down against the hero’s abdomen. The hero could feel their hands shaking.

You scared me.

A second later, their hands settled on either side of the hero’s head, and the villain rested their face into the hero’s hair. They pressed a kiss to the hero’s temple, tension easing from their shoulders.

I’m sorry.

The hero clutched the front of the villain’s shirt between their hands, drawing them closer. The villain went willingly, loose limbed with affection and the rapid draining of terror from their system.

“I would have never left you on that porch.”

The hero had never believed anyone more.

[lazylittledragon]

right now i'm very torn between "taking critique is important as an artist and it's not an attack on me personally" and "people commenting about my same face syndrome under my posts upsets me an unreasonable amount and i wish they would stop doing it"

[scificrows]

Okay, my brain refuses to think about anything other than Murderbot, so I looked at every use of the word "friend[s]" in TMBD and... created some pie charts. Normal human activities.

Some Thoughts™ I had while putting this together (under the cut):

In All Systems Red, Murderbot notes that the PresAux crew are all close friends (twice! and goes on to explain their internal relationships which I think is very cute). This is pretty much the only use of 'friends' in ASR, except for when Murderbot says that SecUnits can't be friends with each other.

It seems that this may be one of the first times Murderbot has ever really been around a group of friends before? Murderbot notes that this is not the norm for its contracts and admits that the fact that they are all friends and the way they interact with each other make it actually enjoy that contract (before!!!! the hostile attack, so it already enjoys this contract before they start seeing it as a person etc ghghhhh). [Inference: Friendship seems enjoyable.]

The first character that calls Murderbot its friend is ART in Artificial Condition. Murderbot immediately refutes this (and then goes on to call ART its friend to its clients for the rest of the book). [Inference: Maybe ART is Murderbot's friend. And maybe that is... agreeable]

Rogue Protocol has more than twice as many instances of the word 'friend' as any of the other novellas. Why? Miki. Friendship and its implications for non-humans are a central theme because Miki is friends with everyone. Murderbot initially scoffs at the notion that Miki and Miki's humans are friends. At the end of the book, after witnessing how desperately Don Abene tried to stop Miki from trying to save them, and her grief after its death, Murderbot has to admit that she had in fact been Miki's friend. [Inference: Humans can be friends with bots and can sincerely care about them]

In Exit Strategy, Murderbot tentatively uses the word "friends" for its humans for the first time (several times actually). It questions whether it can actually call them its friends or not and later realizes that it had been afraid what admitting that the humans are its friends would do to it. At the end of the book, Mensah tells Murderbot the PresAux crew are its friends, which is the first time a human has directly said that to it (at least on-page). [Inference: Humans can and want to be Murderbot's friends]

In Network Effect, Murderbot seems to be more habituated to the word 'friend', confidently calling ART and Ratthi its friends, like it is no longer just trying the concept on unsure if it fits. There are many instances in which other characters refer to MB as ART's friend or the other way around and Murderbot's humans refer to Murderbot as their friend several times. Generally, there seems to be less hesitancy, because yes, all of them are Murderbot's friends, why wouldn't they be. [Inference: SecUnits can have friends. This SecUnit has friends. They care about it a lot.]

Conclusion: The Murderbot Diaries tell the story of a construct that does not seem to consider the possibility of friendship for itself and is fine with that - until it accidentally starts caring a little too much and suddenly more and more people annex it as a friend (ew) to the point where it can no longer deny that this is happening and has to begrudgingly admit that yes, it has friends now and maybe that is actually not a bad thing.

[gonkaccino]

Season 4 hope/prediction: Deb's show is solid, zero issues, runs flawlessly with great ratings, but her personal life is completely eroding. We start with her discovering Marcus is leaving, and it culminates in DJ going into labor right before a taping. Deb chooses the show. When it's over, and she finally flies to Vegas, it's too late -- Aiden's not letting her in because he loves his wife too much to let DJ get into a shouting match with her mom right after giving birth, and instead takes the brunt of Deb's wrath, with her making excuses and talking about how they used her money for IVF, and anyway, DJ's fine, so who cares if she wasn't there? Kathy's in the room with DJ and the baby (DJ's the closest she has to a daughter, after all) and Deb leaves too furious to think about how badly she's hurt her family.

She heads back to her Vegas mansion -- empty, obviously, Josefina and the dogs would be in LA -- and pops open a bottle of wine. Alone. Completely alone. Can't call Marty, she has no friends, the closest she's got would be Kiki and wouldn't that be embarrassing, calling your poker dealer to talk about your feelings --

and then Ava's there. She got the news about DJ's labor, she got the story from Aiden (who was distraught, by the way, man's too much of a sweetheart for Vance drama), a spare key from Damian (happy to pawn that off on her, though if it isn't returned promptly he's taking legal action) and has arrived just in time to see the Deborah Vance having a breakdown the likes of which no one thought physically possible. Crying gives you wrinkles, you know. But Ava has to be here. She's the physical embodiment of a lesson Deb never truly learned: you don't have to like someone to love them.

In my imaginary fantasy land that I am concocting this would then subsequently lead into them fucking nasty but I understand that this may be a step too far for the surprisingly large number of very normal people who watch this show and would forgive JPL for not taking it that far. However I do believe they should fuck about it and let Ava take the reigns in their relationship while they see how many of Deb's bridges they can un-burn.