#THAT POST IS SO FUCKING FUNNY TO ME. nope torture city again.

[technikki]

saw this post and blacked out

[buginateacup]

So I finally figured out the best way for me to plot Rings is to write it out like I did before ie like you;re telling a rapid story/juicy gossip which stops me from writing the same scene in different angst/fluff/horny versions

so spoilers for the next few chapters under the cut if you’re interested

So the first night of the honeymoon is...fine. They spend most of it laughing over whatever the fuck was today and agree that staying married is really not an option. Megamind has conveniently forgotten that he agreed to be a superhero and Roxanne winds up laughing in Megamind's arms as he proves that he can in fact dance like Fred Astaire on the balcony of their suite. Its a remarkably fun night all things considered until Roxanne goes to push open the door to what she assumes is the other bedroom of the suite and finds the kind of closet that she's been dreaming of all her life and that means...

There is only one bed. Fuck

Cue panic

And Roxanne getting stuck in her dress 

help

But Megamind has also been having just a hint of a breakdown because dancing with Roxanne made him realise that oh no he's in love with his wife and he hasn't wished he was human for a long time (not true) but it does mean that she's probably not going to be okay with tentacles which is the kind of thing you should probably tell a prospective partner BEFORE you marry them so he's going to sleep on the couch far far away from temptation. And Roxanne is an absolute horny mess because she is absolutely hiding her feelings behind her libido but Megamind is being very considerate of not being THAT KIND of villain which means she feels like he doesn't want her and nothing kills desire faster than not being wanted so that’s its own problem.

Except the couch is kind of squeaky because its leather and he can't sleep and eventually Roxanne comes storming out and demands he come to bed so they can both sleep because he's keeping her awake too.

And they do.

Sleep

Just sleep

And wake up tangled together on Friday morning.

That's not awkward at all

That's also the morning they find out they have the suite for the rest of the weekend, which, delightful. Divorce can definitely wait a couple of days while they ruin Wayne's credit rating. There may be a bit of a moment where Megamind catches Roxanne trying on his mantle over her pjs that will either be incredibly angsty or incredibly hot but that that is not part of the plan we're just pretending that didnt happen, or it did and that is how they decide to be married for the weekend (IDK, working on it). In the mean time there are casino heists to plan and chess and scrabble to be played and evening brings Megamind back to bed with Roxanne because its just easier at this point. And when he wakes up because UNFAMILIAR in the middle of the night he plays with Roxanne's hair at her askance for an hour until they both fall asleep.

Roxanne is more than okay with having someone permanently willing to play with her hair on tap as all people should be.  

On Saturday Roxanne is awake first and spends some time thinking about how tired Megamind looks and how he should really take some time off and they can go to the beach or something after they get back. This should probably have been a clue about her feelings but hey, leave a girl her river in egypt.

This may or may not be the day she also glues him to the headboard of the bed with the decoupage setting on the de-gun while she has a shower.

Megamind genuinely considers gnawing off his own arm because she didnt quite manage to close the door properly and that is its own kind of torture.

They have a bet about paper airplanes and landing them in the fountain. Megamind wins so Roxanne has to show him a trick (Roxanne is not thinking about that thing she can do with her throat nope not at all) which is how he finds out his wife is a master at throwing cocktails and they get more than a little tipsy and he shows her how to fire the degun which is adorable and a little hot and they wind up slowdancing on the balcony to the Something for Kate cover of When the War is Over because I love that freaking song and I'm very attached to that mental image right now.

The second night, they know its all over by tomorrow and they spend a while talking in bed in the dark which is where I will probably make all of you cry with how lonely being the last one is for Megamind and it breaks Roxanne's heart a little to and they have the kind of thing that you just do not talk about in the light of day because if what happens in vegas stays in vegas then what happens that night is like the what happens in vegas stays in vegas of what happens in vegas stays in vegas.

Look it makes sense in context okay

They also both stay clothed so chill.

Sunday morning brings them to the foyer and its bittersweet and lovely and they just want to hold one another but they CANT because there is a PLAN and of course they shouldn’t stay married but oh shit the divorce desk doesn’t open until 11 and its only ten and their chauffer is waiting for them to take them home so shit, that is an issue but its fine because there's a form you can fill out and they will post you the divorce papers.

So great. They head to the airport and get on the plane and oh look there's yesterdays paper and why is there a photo of their wedding certificate on the front page?

And when was megamind going to tell Roxanne he was becoming a hero?

And Megamind had genuinely forgotten about that. Oops

So it turns out all of Metro City has been waiting for this day for YEARS. The paper is full of happy articles and letters to the editor saying we knew those crazy kids had it in them and Carlos has won a considerable amount of money in the pool and has taken his family to disney world.

And well they cant stay married obviously (can they?) but everyone is clearly expecting them to come home as a couple so sure they can fake it for a while before quietly separating except Megamind is not okay with the idea of Roxanne getting kidnapped by anyone else because no one else will be careful enough. And Roxanne is very unimpressed that the defenders council are trying to replace her with an official damsel. She is staying damsel thank you very much Gerry.

This may also become the fic where Roxanne finally sets up a damsel's union.

So they have a bit of a talk and yep practice kissing is definitely a thing they need to work on

a lot

that moment where the copilot walks in on them is a little embarrasing

but they land and oh look there's a car waiting for them to take them to

oh

The Scott's are throwing them a party after all

So Roxanne gets dressed by Minion for the second time in a week which is where she finds out that "Oh sir was always so worried that if he ever found someone the tentacles would be a dealbreaker"

Tentacles

Huh

Where?

Prehensile or?

Oh for fucks sake Roxanne you dont even know what they're for stop it

No but seriously where are they?

Megamind on the other hand has just found out that Roxanne has a tattoo from Metro Man of all people and there is a very awkward/sexy/funny moment in a butler's pantry where Megamind finds out exactly where Roxanne's tattoo is and Roxanne has it confirmed exactly what those tentacles are for after all.

Great so add that to the list of things we're thinking about like his shoulders and his hands and his eyes instead of our feelings.

Roxanne takes great solace in her libido as it is far easier than arguing with her head or her heart.

Or she would be if she was getting laid.

And SURPRISE this party is not the intimate dinner they were promised but a full on party with Megamind's prison uncles set up on a webcam in a theatre which is a lovely cute scene and Roxanne is definitely getting baby stories out of these men.

Megamind uses her as a human shield. Its force of habit and has nothing to do with how much he's blushing at all.

And they get asked to make a speech and Megamind tells everyone exactly how much he loves his wife and Roxanne is almost in tears because what the hell where was this when it was just the two of them? He cant mean any of this clearly and wow that fucking hurts.

And then Roxanne's great aunt helen shows up because of course family was invited and she is an unpleasant woman at the best of times and Roxanne goes full "Fuck off Helen he's my husband and I love him"

and 

shit

she does doesnt she?

Nope straight back to denial on that one. Cannot think about that right now

Because he clearly doesn't feel the same way or he'd have told her personally, not to a crowd of people. And Megamind thinks she was exaggerating because he’s also thinking where was this in vegas? And Roxanne is forcibly reminded she can't be the damsel if she's married to the hero so she is never going to see him again unless its for an interview which means she has to spend the rest of her life chasing him down in the van with fucking hal and ow ow ow

So they leave the party and Megamind drops her home only for Roxanne to find her apartment full of boxes as she is also being kicked out of her apartment as she is no longer acting damsel.

So she grabs a bag and tracks down the lair and oh hi husband can I live with you or not?

Hi wife yes please say (stay forever please stay forever) which is where we get the SECOND there was only one bed because half the lair was demolished in the last big battle and there is no space for another room right now and of course they have to keep sharing a room or Minion will get suspicious

this bed is much smaller than the giant orgy sized one in vegas

good thing they’re already getting used to waking up in one another’s arms

Roxanne does manage to ask for a small room to use as an office because she needs somewhere to cry and she's used to living alone but wow does this feel like moving in...

And that brings us to chapter 6ish?

[bigskydreaming]

dick's backstory gets so frequently gets brushed under the rug and sterilized into "parents died, adopted by a rich dude" and subsequently ignored because then it's assumed his life is then perfect. this is a boy who watched his family die gruesomely. who was then removed from the only home he'd ever known and put in juvenile detention. who then became a vigilante before he ever turned 10. who was never adopted. who was fired and kicked out and hurt by bruce. no trauma there! perfectly happy!

Preaching to the choir my friend!

One of my greatest frustrations in DC comics fandom for yeeeeears was always how often Dick and Jason get pitted against each other in trauma olympics, and other assorted wtf-ery. Because just like Bruce ended up pitting them against each other like I described in that post, the comics did too, at least in the beginning. Not AS much since Jason came back with his own clearly defined niche, more…holdovers from that original time. And so there’s this tendency with a lot of Dick fans and a lot of Jason fans to act like its gotta be one or the other, that its impossible to stan for both. And I’m just sitting over here like NOPE, I stan them both and always will, every single one of their problems and any and all canon shitty things they’ve done to each other were really the result of dumbass writers and dumbass characters forcing them into situations where like….they did what they did. I very much reject the idea that they HAVE to always be at odds, and that one HAS to be better than the other (Dick) or have had it harder than the other (Jason). Its just like…..why tho?

So for me, that tends to manifest a lot as in, when focusing on Dick, I really push back against the myth of him as the ‘pure/too light/too good to kill’ golden boy of the Batfamily, because….no. He’s not. He is who he is because of circumstance and as a result of growing up in an emotional minefield of a house where he felt pushed to perfection. With perfection having clearly defined parameters, as established by Bruce and his expectations. Not because he’s innately incapable of killing or just on some core level ‘too good to lower himself to that’, which is unfortunately something that’s also put forth a lot. But the thing is, putting Dick on that kind of pedestal unintentionally says some pretty shitty things about Jason, as well as Damian and even Cass, and I don’t think people fully realize they’re doing that when they talk about Dick “Too Good to Kill” Grayson. Implying that he is such a thing, that there IS such a thing, at the same time implicitly states that his brothers and sister who HAVE killed, even when they were children and it wasn’t their fault, they were coerced…..this basically suggests that there HAS to be something innately….’worse’ about Jason, and Damian, and Cass, or else they never would’ve been able to do that at all.

Like, I read a fic awhile back where a big theme was the rest of the family talking about this idea that like….Dick couldn’t handle it if he did end up killing someone, that it would break him, tarnish him in some irrevocable way. Like they were saying it in a way meant to be complimentary to Dick and his character, even as Jason and the others were the ones putting forth this idea, the impression was meant to be they wanted to protect Dick from this, preserve that ‘goodness’ about him, but I was just like….No. God no. Hard pass. Because the idea that Dick would lose something fundamental to him, like he’d be forever lessened as a character and a person if for whatever reason he ended up killing…..like, there’s really no way to look at that without reading into it the implication that Jason and the others are damaged goods, forever tainted. And like…no thank you. I really really have issues with that line of thought, especially when it includes Cass and Damian who were forced into being child assassins. Like, whether you mean to or not, when you apply that logic you end up writing them off before they were even like, ten. Beyond saving, even then. I find that very troubling and insidious, even. And thus I push back heavily against this take on Dick, but really, its more in defense of Jason, Damian and Cass.

Like, of course he’d be forever affected by something that huge, just like they are and always will be, but to clarify I mean - its this idea that Dick could never be HAPPY again, even if he was forced to kill someone, or put in a position where he made that choice…that’s what I really objected to. Because that’s the part that suggests that Damian and Cass will never TRULY know happiness as a result of their childhoods, and that’s very destructive thinking, to my mind. The reality of someone forced to grow up too fast, having their innocence stolen, being pushed into doing something no one should have to live with….these are harsh, stark realities, they have merit, they have weight - but they do not mean, and should never be assumed to mean, that a child, or even that a character, who fits these circumstances is somehow beyond repair, or salvaging, or just being happy someday.

And then the flipside of that is I equally push back on takes that crown Jason the King of Trauma, not because he hasn’t endured a ridiculous amount, but because in defense of Dick, Tim and the others, I object to playing into the idea of ranking the Batkids’ traumas at all. The stuff Jason’s been through is horrific, but its not negated, or watered down or lessened by acknowledging that Dick and the others have been through extremely fucked up stuff too. And similarly, I’m very bothered by pointing to how much rougher and more aggressive and ‘darker’ Jason is as a character than Dick, as a way to kinda backdoor prove that Jason’s been through more shit than him, because that again leads to a very troubling implicit line of thought that like, there’s only ONE right way to respond to trauma. That if you aren’t visibly hardened by it, darkened by it, the way Jason has been by his, then whatever you’ve been through obviously couldn’t have been THAT bad, or as bad as someone like Jason has had it. And again, I gotta just give a big HARD PASS to that, because that’s just not how it works.

The fact that Dick is for the most part a far more light-hearted character than Jason isn’t proof he’s had it easier or hasn’t been through as much or seen as much bad stuff - that last bit is especially laughable. You can’t entertain the idea of a guy who’s been fighting the worst kinds of criminals since he was ten, in the most notoriously corrupt and crime-ridden city in the DC universe, and honestly believe that there’s anything he hasn’t seen or been exposed to. It just doesn’t track. BUT, that kind of awareness of the darkness Gotham is mired in isn’t as easily reconciled with the bright, cheerful personality Dick usually sports…unless you acknowledge that Dick WORKS at being that person. This is his reaction to the trauma he’s lived and been surrounded by, not because its just innately who he is, but its because its who he CHOOSES to be, its the response he’s DECIDED on. 

Jason copes with stuff with anger and outbursts. Dick copes with stuff with laughter and mockery. Neither is better or worse, more right or wrong than the other, they’re just DIFFERENT. Different coping mechanisms, trauma responses, for different people. Like I’ve always said, I see Dick and Jason as very similar people at their core. Their differences are largely superficial. But both of them respond to trauma with defiance. By refusing to be beaten down by it. The only difference, is with Jason, that defiance looks like swearing and spitting and cursing, even when faced with an opponent much bigger or tougher than him, a situation that should be too much to survive. Whereas with Dick, that defiance looks like laughing and smiling and joking, even when faced with an opponent or a situation about which there’s nothing actually funny, nothing naturally bright or cheerful. Dick has to conjure that appearance of brightness as an act of defiance, just like Jason has to conjure that appearance of strength.

And once you stop trying to compare Jason and Dick’s traumas, stop trying to rank one as more or less than the others, and just acknowledge and accept hey, they’ve both been through fucked up shit, they’ve both been traumatized - then you can look just at the stuff Dick’s been through, isolated and independent from everything else, and then you can see just how shitty it actually is, and thus what an act of defiance, what a testament of strength it is, that he is able to go through life acting as cheerfully and bubbly as he often does. And yeah, like you said, its his parents being murdered when he was eight, its being thrown in juvie because of a corrupt system when he’d done nothing wrong, its being beaten nearly to death and shot by Two-Face and Joker and dozens of other villains throughout Dick’s childhood, its the time he was tortured by Brother Blood trying to break him in every way possible and its the shit with Mirage and with Tarantula….and a ton of other stuff that never really gets acknowledged for how bad it actually was, because comics are notoriously bad at actually LOOKING at the trauma they heap on superheroes, and what it actually MEANS and what the realistic fallout would be from it, the emotional toll actually taken.

One of the biggest instances of this IMO is with Blockbuster. Like lots of people know the basics about Blockbuster’s death in the comics, and how it ties into what happened with Tarantula….and because that’s so ‘visibly’ traumatic, because that’s an event that’s easy to associate with a trauma that most people have a ready made image and RANKING in mind already when they think of it - like they think of what happened with Tarantula and they’re like oh yeah, okay, that’s a type of trauma I recognize as TRAUMA, thus I get just from the mention of it that was definitely bad and traumatic and had an impact on Dick….so that becomes the go-to when people talk about the stuff with Blockbuster. That’s what people hone in on….so focused on what pings their radar as Obviously Traumatic, they forget to look around at everything else involved and look at the possible impact and potential fallout.

And thus people forget that what happened with Tarantula happened when Dick was ALREADY at the lowest point in his life, and WHY that was so. Like, they acknowledge it, but in a cursory way, like okay yeah, that’s the buildup, now let’s get to the actual trauma and talk about that. Which ignores like….the trauma that was the REASON he was already in such a state to begin with. Like, Blockbuster systematically hunted down every connection he could find to Dick Grayson’s civilian life, and murdered them and burned all traces of them to the ground…JUST because they knew him. Just as a way to hurt HIM, Dick Grayson.

And because that doesn’t ping on our Preconceived Trauma Scales as immediately as something like Jason’s death or Dick’s parents’ murder or similar iconic traumas….we tend to gloss over that, but like….think about it. Think about what something like that would mean for a character that’s known for both his sense of responsibility, and for being one of the most openly empathetic superheroes out there, an emotional caretaker whose entire reputation is built on how much he FEELS for other people and how deeply.

Imagine the kid who was orphaned at age eight, watching his parents fall to their deaths and in the immediate aftermath taken away from everything else he’d ever known or found comfort in - the circus…..and now imagine that same kid fifteen years later watching that same circus burn to the ground, the last memory of his treasured childhood, when things were GOOD, when he was unconditionally happy, the last connection he had to his parents and all the extended circus family he’d grown up happy among…..all of them now dead too, all of those memories physically burned to the ground until nothing was left. All of it gone, for good. And with this villain saying - that happened because of you. I didn’t care about them, I only killed them, only did all of that, because I KNEW how much it would hurt you. And then that same guy did it AGAIN - blowing up Dick’s apartment building and everyone in it….just because he lived there. Having a sniper kill a reporter he was talking to, while he was sitting across the table from her…JUST because she was talking to him.

Like, that’s trauma on top of trauma, that’s trauma on an unimaginable scale. There’s a reason in that infamous scene with Tarantula, Dick was mumbling about being poison….because he honestly, truly believed it at that point, because it was TRUE. Because Blockbuster had made it his personal mission to make that true, to make it a reality that anyone close to Dick Grayson would die. Because of him. Dick was entirely right in feeling that way, he was simply acknowledging what Blockbuster had very deliberately set out to do..it wasn’t Dick’s FAULT that everyone around him was dying, because of their connection to him….but that didn’t mean it wasn’t TRUE.

And that’s just….mind boggling to contemplate, to picture the toll that has to take, but the thing is - it barely ever gets contemplated! Purely because there’s not a simple, neat, easy way to sum it up and label what Trauma specifically it is. The way we can with his parents’ murder, or his rape, or various things that have happened to Jason or their other brothers and sister. And so it gets swept under the rug because we’re in a hurry to get back to the traumas we DO have an easy vocabulary for, with ready-made pictures all queued up in our heads. And then on top of all these traumas (because there’s more too, like think about the impact of realizing that the circus owner you regarded as a grandfather was someday planning on handing you over to people who were going to turn you into an assassin, make you everything you hate, like imagine the BETRAYAL of that discovery and how it would shake your entire view of reality and everything you knew and believed in about your childhood and the time you spent around that man). But yeah, like, on top of these traumas that don’t have a neat and easy logline to describe them, or that don’t quite look like we expect a REALLY traumatic trauma to look like….then add on top of that a trauma response that doesn’t look like our preconceived notions of what trauma response looks like, a guy laughing and joking and SMILING in the aftermath, rather than growling and shooting and drinking.

And you wind up with the idea that nothing THAT bad has ever happened to this character, not like the stuff that’s happened to this other character who ACTS the way we expect someone to act after they’ve been Through Some Real Shit. Even though nothing could be further than the truth. But that’s what happens when we try and boil things down to easy and simple and quick ways of thinking and processing stories and events and traumas. We end up skipping right over the evidence of trauma that falls outside our initial assumptions, and drawing the conclusion that means no trauma was actually ever there…..instead of the proper conclusion which is just we weren’t looking in the right places. Or were just in too much of a rush or too busy looking elsewhere or for something more obvious, and thus missed acknowledging what was actually there.

Anyway, lol. Lots to unpack there, obviously, but yeah, my point being, this tendency we all tend to have in society, this need to artificially impose ranks and hierarchies and award gold, silver and bronze medals even to something as arbitrary as the kinds of traumas we’ve endured - its fucked up, and self-defeating, and does nobody any good. Because its like trying to fit square pegs into round holes. Trying to FORCE comparisons that aren’t possible, because no two traumas are alike, no two traumas are interchangeable, and thus they inherently CAN’T be measured against each other, ranked, because….there’s no actual measurement system for trauma! There’s no way to actually JUDGE ‘this event was worse, this had more of an impact’, and yet we always try anyway, instead of just accepting….an impact was had. Instead of just worrying about the RESULT, focusing on THAT - which in this case is the person left behind in the aftermath of the trauma, the one actually traumatized….instead of spending so much time and energy focusing on the TRAUMA itself, as though that’s what matters and is important.