#and then cass coming back and them both being extremely insecure about their place in the family

[casscainmainly]

I know they're probably not related, but I like to connect this scene (from Gates of Gotham #2) to Dustin Nguyen's story "What's In The Box?" in DC Festival of Heroes:

(Nguyen also uses the Black Bat costume, placing it around Gates of Gotham time).

I like to think that, while Cass more or less brushes off Damian's insult in Gates of Gotham, she can't help that it does get to her. That being shipped off to Hong Kong was genuinely something she had to process. And I like that, because this is in DC Festival of Heroes, her feelings about Bruce shipping her to Hong Kong are tangled up in her understanding of her race.

Idk I just like reading these as connected, because it indicates that Cass had a lot more feelings about leaving Gotham than she let on.

[empire-of-wildfire]

HOLIDAY SURPRISE

A @starseternalnighttriumphant X @empire-of-wildfire CHRISTMAS MINI-FIC COLLABORATION

WARNING: GRAPHIC SEXUAL CONTENT. NOT SUITABLE FOR READERS UNDER 18 YEARS OLD. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

a/n: here��s part 3!! Sorry it’s not on schedule, we both have been going crazy with work but we worked really hard to get this out for you guys tonight!

Cassian hung up the phone, running his hand down his face in frustration. His partners hadn’t been pleased when he’d told them he was staying in Velaris longer than planned because they needed him to start working on another case, but he told them he would work virtually until he could return. He hadn’t told them about Amina, wanting to keep her to himself for a little while at least. He’d called and arranged for more of his things to be sent to him in a week or so, and he looked into AirBnBs so he wasn’t living in the hotel long-term. He was pretty sure he’d thought of everything that needed to be handled while he stayed here, although something still nagged at him but he ignored it. The possibility that he wouldn’t be returning to Illyria permanently flickered through his mind, but he shoved it away. It was too early to know that. That would require further planning, and likely an extremely uncomfortable discussion with Nesta. If she didn’t kill him first.

Even just thinking about her for a brief moment, she moved to the forefront of his mind like she always had, since the day he left Velaris. Except now it wasn’t just Nesta he couldn't stop thinking about. Now she shared his headspace with Amina.

Amina. Now that he’d had a little while to get over his initial shock, he marvelled at the thought of her. So many times he’d dreamed of the day Nesta would bless him with children, but his imagination couldn’t have ever come up with such a perfect child as the one he met hours ago. He wished he could’ve been there to see her birth, to see her grow into the fiery toddler she was now. He couldn’t wait to see the woman she would become one day. Tough as nails and sharp as a whip, no doubt, with Nesta as her mother.

He was dragged out of daydreams of his daughter by the shrill sound of his phone ringing. He didn’t even look at the screen, assuming it was Rhys calling him to chew him out some more.

“What, Rhys?” He snapped.

“Sorry to disappoint, but it’s your other favorite brother,” a deep voice said, sounding amused.

“Oh shit, sorry Az.” Cassian instantly regretted his attitude. He hadn’t even seen his other brother yet in the hours he’d been home, he didn’t deserve his anger. And yet, Azriel had clearly known about Amina, and had kept her from him just like Rhys. “What’s up?”

“I just got off the phone with Feyre… she sounded pretty upset. Mentioned something about you and Nesta and that she wasn’t sure if you were leaving again?” Azriel said the last part slowly, as if afraid of setting Cassian off.

Cassian sighed heavily, bracing for the conversation he knew was about to happen. “How could you not fucking tell me? I don’t give a shit what Nesta threatened, I’m your brother Az. She’s my daughter. I deserved to know.”

“I know Cass, trust me. I wanted to tell you so many times. But I also knew how much your job means to you. I guess I’d just hoped you’d at least come home to visit sooner than this so you didn’t miss so much time, but then the longer it got the less likely I thought it was that you’d ever come home. And I didn’t want the only reason you came home to be because I told you about Amina. I was afraid you’d come to resent me for taking you away from your career, or worse, resent Amina for it. And I couldn’t risk her getting hurt like that.”

Cassian just sat there for a minute, shocked into speechlessness. For all his anger about how he felt about this, he hadn’t stopped to think about how Amina would feel. He’d just decided she would love him automatically, but what if that wasn’t the case? What if she never wanted to know who her father was? Would Nesta have ever told her, even if she didn’t ask?

“Cass? You okay?” Azriel asked tentatively.

“I just… I don’t know what to do,” he admitted.

“It’s Christmas Eve, and I know she’s taken the next week off. Go talk to her. I would assume at this point you know where your priorities are, so tell her that. Apologize. Make her see you won’t hurt Amina, or her, and go from there.” Azriel paused, clearly considering something. “She just dropped Amina off with me and Elain. She’s over in the neighborhood by the Sidra.”

Cassian sagged with relief, glad that someone was telling him something at least. “Thanks.”

“Good luck brother,” was his only reply.

Cassian immediately hung up and ran for his car, taking off for the other side of town. The neighborhood Azriel had told him Nesta lived in was pretty small, but he still wasn’t sure how he’d find her house. He slowly drove through the neighborhood, looking at each house for a sign of the fiery woman he hoped was living in one of them. Suddenly he came to a stop in the middle of the street, unable to look away from the house in front of him.

At face value, the house was simple, but elegant. Nothing overly extravagant, but clearly a well loved home. The thing that stopped him in his tracks though, was the front door. All the other homes had very neutral front doors, black, beiges, whites. This door was a bright, crimson red. He was immediately transported back to a different time in his life, when whispered secrets were shared under soft sheets with the woman that held his heart in her hands.

“When we get our own place, like officially ours, I want the front door to be red. I know it’s weird, but I want it to be a statement.” Nesta’s words rang in his head like she just said them, though that conversation was over five years ago.

Evidently Nesta had taken her dreams into her own hands, no longer wanting or needing Cassian with her to make them happen.

Cassian pushed down the twinge of pain and regret that thought caused, then finally parked and got out of the car, making his way slowly towards that bright red door that represented so many missed moments and realized dreams.

Knocking on the door, he braced himself for the wrath of Nesta Archeron.

As soon as she opened the door, she took a step back and ground out, “What do you want?”

“Can I come in?” Nesta hesitated, scanning his face as if looking for something. “Please, Nesta. I just want to talk,” he pleaded.

Finally she nodded, turning and walking into the house, leaving the door wide open since she knew he would follow her. He quickly stepped inside, following her through the house.

He spied the big Christmas tree in the living room, covered in matching ornaments. Nesta had never really been in to Christmas, but he wondered if that had changed now that Amina was in the picture.

He had to admit, he wasn’t expecting Nesta to live in the richer part of town. She must’ve been doing well at the hospital, being paid well if it meant she was living like this. Despite how awkward it felt to be here, to feel her weighted gaze on him, he was glad Amina would be cared for well, even if things didn’t end well and he ended up going back to Illyria.

“How is she?” he asked after a few moments.

Nesta’s whole body was tense as she poured cups of coffee, and he watched her closely just in case she decided to poison him. “She’s fine.”

He let out a sigh, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “Tell me about her.”

“Oh, all of a sudden you’re interested?” she asked, her pleasant voice not concealing the venom underneath.

“Nesta, please.” He never begged, and she knew it. Her shoulders dropped in acquiescence, and she walked over with the two mugs, setting one down in front of him as she sat at the opposite end of the table.

She looked out the window to where the sky was dark now, and he had forgotten how late it was. But she just gazed out for another moment before she sighed and turned back to her coffee, staring into the mug.

“She’s super smart. She started walking months before the doctor said she would. She started talking months before she was supposed to. She’s leagues ahead of any other kid her age.” A small smile graced Nesta’s mouth. “She’ll be smarter than me one day, if you can believe it.”

Cassian watched her intently, hanging on to every word as Nesta finally relaxed and talked about their daughter. It was clear that Amina was the center of Nesta’s world, a place that had used to be his. He always knew Nesta would be an amazing mother, and his heart clenched when he realized he’d always thought he would be there for that day that she did become one. And he’d missed it all: the moment she found out, the ultrasounds, the birthing classes, the actual birth of his daughter. And the truth of it hit him square in the chest, making him wince.

As if she had sensed it, she stopped talking, eyes roving over him. “I didn’t think you’d ever come back.”

Ouch. He guessed she was ready to move on to the harder parts of a conversation that was four years in the making. She didn’t give him time to reply as she grabbed her mug and placed it in the sink, walking out of the kitchen. He scrambled to follow her, catching up to her in the living room.

“Nes, you know I loved you. So much. I just wanted to prove I was more than the dumb kid I was here. I wanted to see if I could make something of myself.”

She spun on him, her eyes ablaze. “You don’t know how much it hurt when you told me you wanted to leave. I thought it was because of me. Every insecurity I’d ever had about us, warranted or not, came roaring back.”

“Nesta—”

“We’d been together all of high school and college, and then suddenly you wanted to leave and I hardly got any more notice than anyone else did.” She was on a roll now, and didn’t leave any space for him to interrupt. “I mean for cauldron’s sake Cass, we’d talked about our future together! That didn’t involve you being thousands of miles away and leaving me here. So after you left and I found out I was pregnant, I didn’t want to try and make you come back. And I knew if I told you and you still didn’t come back, it would crush me.”

Her words shocked him. Nesta Archeron knew him better than anyone else in the world, knew him better than his own brothers. And for her to think that… “Do you honestly think that if you’d called me and said we were having a baby, I wouldn’t come back and be there for you? For fuck’s sake Nesta, I can practice law anywhere.”

She crossed her arms stubbornly, fire in her gaze. “You fucking left, Cassian. You wanted to chase your dream, you were so focused on being such a hotshot lawyer, so forgive me for thinking that a baby would ruin that pipe dream for you!”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it. You’ve known me for how fucking long, Nesta?” his voice was hard, and he was struggling not to raise it but he couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth. “Do you think for one second I would’ve stayed in Illyria if I had known you were pregnant with our child?”

Her jaw clenched. “I didn’t need you to stay here out of guilt that you knocked me up.”

“Gods, Nesta, I’m not standing here because I feel fucking guilty. I’m here right now because I never stopped loving you!”

She froze, her face a mask of pure shock. For once she was left speechless, and Cassian took advantage of it. He closed the distance between them, taking her face in his hands and kissing the hell out of her.

He wasn’t expecting her to return his fervor, her hands sliding up around his neck, tangling in the locks at the base of it. Every nerve ending came alive at her touch, his body reacting to her the way it used to over four years ago. The feel of her mouth was like coming home, so familiar and intoxicating that he had half a mind to wonder why he ever left her.

He grabbed her up, somehow finding his way to her bedroom and settling her down on her bed, hands slipping her out of her shirt. As he pulled it up over her head, he realized it was one of his old shirts from college. His heart clenched painfully, lungs refusing to breathe. He wasn’t stupid, he knew what Nesta keeping his things meant. But he wouldn’t ask, wouldn’t push just yet.

As soon as he had her completely naked before him, he pulled back to take in every inch of her. She was completely breathtaking; her sharp angles and curves were softer now, likely an after effect of giving birth. But it didn’t matter to him. This was Nesta, the one woman that he would never get over, no matter what happened between them.

He slid his hand over hip and up her stomach, watching goosebumps pebble her skin. Before he could reach her breast, she sat up and grabbed him, impatiently pulling at his clothes to get him on the same playing field. He chuckled, helping her get himself undressed. He leaned over her again but she surprised him by wrapping a leg around his hip and flipping their positions. She was now atop him, gloriously naked above him, her golden brown hair falling around her shoulders and down her back. Her face was vulnerable, open, her eyes already blown with desire. She was a goddess.

She leaned down to meet his mouth, kissing him long and deep. He groaned against her lips when her hand found his already hard length, stroking him softly. When she ran the tip of him between her folds, he was ready to lose his godsdamn mind.

“Nesta,” he breathed, her name coming out like the holiest of prayers.

She wasted no time in sliding down onto him, and he was already lost in pleasure that he almost missed the sharp gasp that left the woman atop him. She stilled, adjusting to him after so many years apart. His hands wrapped around her hips, thumbs caressing her skin as he met her steely gaze.

“Lost for words?” he quipped, the left side of his mouth hitching up into a smirk.

Her nostrils flared, but instead of shooting a venom-laced reply back at him, she moved her hips, effectively shutting him up and leaving him incapable of any cocky remarks. Her hands braced against his chest as she began to ride him, and he wondered if he was going to die from this. He hadn’t been celibate since he’d left her, but every single motion of hers was threatening to undo the very threads of his life. Coming together after so long was going to ruin him, but he didn’t care.

He watched her as she moved on him, rolling his own hips to meet her movements. She clenched around him and he swore, fingers digging into her hip as his other hand came down between her legs to stroke the sensitive bundle of nerves there. When she let out a breathy moan, he knew she was his again.

He continued his ministrations, watching in awe as Nesta started her ascent, writhing and moaning above him. He took over her movements, thrusting into her slow and deep, feeling every inch of her. When he knew she was close, he sat up, seated inside her at a dizzying angle. He captured her mouth, tongue invading her mouth as he picked up his pace, thumb circling her clit torturously.

Her back arched, chest pressing against his and then she was crying out his name and spasming around him, body shaking as her orgasm overtook her. He didn’t stop, continuing to stroke into her, his mouth on her neck as she trembled. He rolled them so she was on her back, his body resting against hers as he continued his pace, hips stuttering as she clenched around him one last time. Her arms and legs wrapped around him, pulling him even closer, her nails raking gently down his back until her hands were on his behind, urging him to go faster. 

He didn’t resist, bracing himself on his arms as he looked down at her, taking in her pink cheeks and glazed gray-blue eyes. She held his gaze, hands coming back up to slide along his jaw, pulling him back down to kiss him softly. Her kiss seared his mouth, and he sighed in content against her lips, savoring the way she tasted.

“I love you,” she whispered, the worst so quiet he wasn’t sure if he’d even heard her right. His eyes shot open, brows furrowing in surprised but she just kissed him again, holding him close.

Her lips found the juncture of his shoulder and when her teeth dug into his skin, he found release, choking out her name as he emptied inside her, all but collapsing on top of her sweat-slicked form. He couldn’t think straight, could only focus on all five senses that were overwhelmed by Nesta. Everywhere they touched was like fire, all he could smell was her and the evidence of what they’d done. His head was on her chest, listening to her heartbeat, and the memory of her coming undone kept playing in his mind. He felt no better than a house cat as she ran her fingers through his hair, massaging his scalp.

When he finally lifted his head, it was to place a light kiss to her collarbone, to her jaw, to her swollen lips. Her eyes were already half-closed, trying to fight off sleep, but her mouth curved into the soft smile that had captured his heart all those years ago.

It wasn’t until she was sound asleep that he ran a thumb over her cheek and whispered, “I love you too.”

-

@werewolffprince @schmlip-scribble @justgiu12 @westofmoon @legallyhermione @love-is-a-contradiction @shyvioletcat @oversizedbats @superspiritfestival @ladywitchling @disgreisful @empress-ofbloodshed @lovemollywho @highqueenofelfhame @rocky99 @sayosdreams @mynewdreamwasyou @whydoineedtowriteanamehere @charincharge @sjm-things @cookiemonsterwholovesbooks @queenestarcheron @julemmaes @littlehoneyybee @throne-of-crescent-roses @sleeping-and-books @agentsofsheilds @that-golden-lyre @swankii-art-teacher​ @nessiantho @mythicaitt

[sondermink]

Salt

Wine and Drag Race were exactly what he needed. Not to be caged into any stereotypes, but Sonder absolutely adored partying, and tried his very best to keep up with Cass and the band. Maybe it was because Cass was part Vampire and could metabolise the drugs quicker, or maybe it was because he was a youthful sixteen months younger than Sonder, but he needed a break.

Cass didn't seem to mind. In fact, he had become a little distant, but Sonder wouldn't admit that it got to him. His unintentional polyamorous relationship (with a girl, no less) was heavy on his mind. Normally the drugs numbed it, but Sonder was very much enjoying the wine with his best friend instead.

"What would your drag name be?" Sonder asked, his cheeks flushed red and giddy. "I think mine would be Saalty Tension. Can you see it?? And I would be boldly against tucking." He laughed heartily as Ru Paul savagely tore down a Queen.

"Well, I haven't actually thought about it, but Saalty Tension sounds hot." Jeremy purred his delicious, irresistible purr. Sonder didn't know if it was on purpose or not. Jeremy didn't talk to him like that. Not that he hadn't seen his friend flirting with people before, but Sonder was rarely the recipient. Although, it wasn't impossible... Jeremy took Sonder's wrist in his big, manly hands, and turned it over so that he could press a fluttering kiss to his palm.

"You would absolutely need to tuck. I've seen... Well, no, You're too shy to show me properly, which is a bit unfair because you've seen me naked a thousand times..." Jeremy was on a tangent, and Sonder blushed deeply. "I've seen you in those sequined go-go shorts. That's practically naked."

Sonder giggled and pulled his wrist away on instinct. His fingers danced over the spot that had been kissed. "Stop it! What are you doing, you bloody perve?" Sonder pushed on Jeremy's shoulder, making the Lockhart giggle instead. His hair flopped in such a way... Oh... "It's... Stop it, I can't believe we're even discussing this, it's nothing like yours..."

"I saw it, a little, remember that time you jerked off while I fucked Tyler?"

Sonder's breath caught in his throat. They didn't bring that up much, not when they were this close to sober. He swallowed the remainder of his wine to close the gap. "You did not!" He protested, sitting forward to fill his glass. He turned at the waist and topped off Jeremy's glass. "I was extremely discreet, and you've always been a show off! I mean, I would too, if I was - Well..." He gestured to the comparative Greek God.

Jeremy scoffed. "You're not being insecure, not after all this time?" Sweet, kind Jeremy, took Sonder's hands in his own once more. His big, strong hands. Sonder gulped. "You've got nothing to worry about. From what I've seen, you're totally perfect." He gave an encouraging squeeze. Sonder gave a small smile and took his hands back, back to the wine. Surely it was just the wine making him this flirty. Besides, it was normal for them. They'd always been flirty. "You don't need to be big when you're a bottom, anyway."

Sonder spat his wine dramatically and turned back around to Jeremy, properly red in the face now. "Excuse me?! You're just full of assumptions today, aren't you?" He attempted a playful slap at Jeremy's cheek but it ended in Sonder doing nothing but pressing his hand against the stubble there. His thumb brushed Jeremy's lower lip, and the blonde obligingly let his mouth gently open. He'd kissed him before. Loads of times. They kissed for experimentation in the beginning, and then for fun, and later for more fun, and sometimes when they were drunk... Like now... But Sonder hadn't even finished his second glass...

"I've topped. Loads." Cass. And he was really being very liberal with the word 'loads'. Maybe a couple of times, but lately they only hung out when they were both on massive amounts of drugs. He was sure Cass had sex with Shosh now more than ever, now they were on the road and in each other's space at every moment. With Jeremy's rough face in his hand, his soft lip against the tip of his thumb, did he really even care who Cass was shagging?

He leaned forward and kissed him. Gentle at first, playful, as if it were a question. 'Is this okay? Were you just teasing me?' And Jeremy answered with vigour. The boy wrapped his arm around Sonder's waist, forcing the smaller boy up, his stomach pressing against Jeremy's chest. Okay, definitely not teasing. Sonder's hand went up into Jeremy's gorgeous hair, which he tugged, and the blonde emitted a moan. Sonder smirked against Jeremy's mouth and so the boy answered it, tugging on Sonder's hair, his tongue pushing into his mouth. Sonder moaned, much louder than Jeremy's, which had the boy chuckling. "Idiot." Sonder whimpered, biting Jeremy's lip and dragging, slowly, letting the reddness pop between his lips while the Lockhart locked eyes with him.

"Is this okay?" Jeremy asked through his hooded eyes, luscious eyelashes batting ever-so-sweetly. Sonder gave a small whimper. Cass. He looked up, thinking about it for a moment. How happy Cass seemed with Shosh. How drunk he was with Sonder. Maybe they weren't compatible as a couple. Maybe they were better as friends? They'd jumped into everything so fast, which was just so unlike Sonder. He had been proposed to by Caldwell before he'd even had a dick inside or around him.

His hands rested on Jeremy's shoulders, thumbs rubbing small circles into the skin of his neck. He'd known the boy for most of his life. And he'd always wanted him. There wasn't a moment in his life where he wouldn't have dropped everything to do whatever Jeremy wanted to do. He truly, with all his heart, loved Jeremy Lockhart.

"It's perfect." He said, firmly and with purpose. And as soon as the words left his mouth, Jeremy was on top of him like a racehorse out of the starting gate. He kissed up Sonder's slender neck, brushing his nose up his skin. Sonder straddled Jeremy on the couch as drag queens yelled at each other. Jeremy grabbed a hold of Sonder's ass and pulled him closer while the other went up his shirt to play with Sonder's pierced nipples. It was all so much. And in such a position there wasn't much Sonder could do but to moan, whimper, and grind. He could feel Jeremy's erection pressing eagerly against his ass. Sonder had been hard almost the entire conversation. His own penis pressed into Jeremy's stomach.

"Is it too much?" Jeremy asked, coming up for air. Sonder shook his head immediately as he rubbed his ass pointedly against Jeremy's dick. The Lockhart fumbled at the fastening of Sonder's jeans, and Sonder stopped his grinding. "Does that ever work? You sweet moron, skinny jeans." He mumbled the words lovingly through kisses and bites before dislodging himself from Jeremy's lap. "My place or yours?" He giggled, pointing to his room. It was definitely the closest, and it was the one more equipped for penis on penis sex.

Jeremy grabbed the boy in a fireman's hold, having Sonder make an unsavoury noise as he was suddenly scooped up. And so easily... "Jeremy!" He protested, not-so-secretly loving it. It wasn't long before he was thrown back onto his own bed. He had bought himself an extremely impractical bed spread. Bright pink and fluffy, like a stuffed toy. It was not for having sex on. Sweet, stupid Jeremy didn't think of that at all and jumped on it eagerly. "Oh my god! If you got cum on this I'd actually skin you and use you as a bed spread instead. I'd Buffalo Bill your sweet ass." Sonder shoo'd his friend off the bed until it was just sheets. The sheets could handle it.

Jeremy looked so sweet standing beside the bed, waiting impatiently, dick literally in his hands for Sonder to ready himself. Lubricant on the bedside table, an array of condoms. Toys, if they wanted to. Sonder had come a long way since Caldwell, virginal and afraid, Moore. He wouldn't have to blow Jeremy to hint to him that he wanted to have sex. Jeremy only needed to see the hungry look in Sonder's eyes as he walked calmly around the bed to his best friend and pushed him into a seated position. He took Jeremy's chin between his thumb and forefinger and had the boy look up at him. "I'm down for anything, really. And I don't normally top. I'd rather ride than top. I'll top if you really want but I'd prefer to lay down on my Egyptian cotton sheets and have you ravish me." He brushed his thumb across Jeremy's kiss-swollen lips. He looked up at him with his silly puppy eyes. Clearly, he hadn't expected his teasing to come to this.

"I'm down for anything." He pulled on Sonder's wrist, making the boy giggle, as he fell back into his bed. Jeremy started by undressing him properly this time. Sonder's dick popped up lewdly as his pants were pulled roughly down, and he turned an even deeper shade of red. Jeremy managed to pull Sonder halfway down the bed with a tug of his jeans and Sonder had to do the rest, kicking them off unceremoniously.

"Your dick is perfect, what were you even talking about?" Jeremy didn't wait for an answer as he took the length in his warm mouth. Sonder's toes curled. Oh, God. It had been a while. He wouldn't have lied and said he'd never imagined Jeremy's mouth before. Even wanked off to it. But he was so.... Eager. Hungry. Sonder grabbed the boy by the hair and pulled him up, crawling over him, kissing and tasting the saltiness on his mouth.

Jeremy's jeans were easier to extract but they both giggled as the woolen jumper captured Jeremy's upper body. It gave Sonder an opportunity to tickle him at first, his first instinct, and then to lay him back and kiss all over his chest, flicking his tongue against his nipples. A contained Jeremy gave a muffled moan before being able to get the jumper off completely, and once he had his hands he put them to use. Jeremy spat in his hand and Sonder scoffed. They had lube right there! Jeremy appeared to not notice as he grabbed a hold of both of their dicks and let his saliva be the lube and... Oh. And it felt very nice, made nicer by the fact that Jeremy had a little dribble making a line of spit from his mouth to his dick. Sonder's toes curled.

He put his finger to the line of spit first, an attempt to wipe it up? But Jeremy took it as an excuse to take Sonder's finger in his mouth. His tongue flicked just deliciously and Sonder moaned. Jeremy was a well trained slut and Sonder hadn't taken advantage of it at all. Jeremy had been out fooling around all of Hogwarts and Sonder had been left masturbating to the thought of it. He had to make up for lost time now. He replied to the finger sucking by taking Jetrmy's big manly hand in his and sucking on his finger in kind. It was Jeremy's turn to moan as Sonder gave the boy a preview of what he could do to his thick dick once he got a a chance to. He looked down between them, at his own dick on top of Jeremy's. The similarities and the differences. And for once, he didn't care.

Jeremy had a wet finger now, which was exactly what he had planned. He pulled Sonder forward and kissed him deeply, lewly, his mouth hungry to taste, his lips bruising and teeth grazing. And with that, he pressed his wet finger against the warm hole of Sonder's ass. The boy cried out in shock and pleasure, and before Jeremy could very annoyingly ask if it was okay, Sonder pressed his hand against Jeremy's, making his finger go inside further. It felt so good, and Sonder could feel himself becoming overwhelmed. With their bodies so close together there was barely room for a hand on a dick anymore, but Sonder made do. With less of a stroking and more of a teasing of Jeremy's slit.

Sonder felt himself come, sticky and warm, all over Jeremy's stomach. And once Jeremy realised what was happening, he too added to the mess. Sonder let out a soft screech at the untidiness of it all and pressed his legs together in an attempt to contain the sea of semen. Jeremy only laughed, and being the friend he was, he threw Sonder off of him and let the jizz go everywhere. Sonder cried out in protest and as he did, Jeremy laid his full body weight over his stomach, cum and all. He shrieked, pushing at the mountain of a man on top of him to no avail.

"Disgusting! You have to wash my sheets."

"Why?! It's your fault as much as mine!"

"Be-Because I made an attempt! You're so gross, oh my god! Get off me!"

Jeremy obliged with a goofy, just-done-it look on his face. Sonder rolled his eyes. Covered in cum, he was already stripping the sheets around Jeremy's naked body.

"Get up, you big... God, you big goofy mess! C'mon, we can shower."

That manged to get him standing at least, and to be quite fair to him, he did put the washing on. Sonder sucked Jeremy off in the shower later that night. Jeremy returned the favour later in his own bed, but there was no mess that time.

They cuddled together as they had done a thousand times before. Jeremy's face against the back of Sonder's neck, Sonder absentmindedly tracing on the skin of the arm Jeremy threw over him.

"What am I meant to say to Cass?" He asked quietly, waited patiently for an answer, but Jeremy had fallen asleep. Sonder drifted off too, but only after worrying about his ethics for a few more hours.

[arcadianmoonshadowjedi]

Personal Opinions on Rapunzel and Cassandra’s Friendship

Ok so this is one post that I’ve been wanting to make for a long time, especially since this is perhaps one of the relationships in the series with the most polarizing views ever (maybe even the number one relationship that is) ranging from people who ship them romantically to people who hate their friendship all together and think that they should’ve never been friends to begin with. So I thought it would be worth a share for me, mostly focusing on S1 and 2. This is not meant to be any hate for either of these girls because they are both among my faves in the series!

ALSO: I will NOT tolerate any hostility or rudeness on this post. If you don’t agree with my opinions, either lets have a friendly, respectful discussion or just scroll by and leave this as it is, thank you!

If you don’t know by now, I personally do not ship them, and never have I since I first started watching the series. I also never interpreted any of their interactions as romantic or saw the two of them as a “potential couple.” I would say this could mostly be due to the fact that I am a hardcore New Dream shipper who strictly believes Rapunzel and Eugene only have romantic feelings for each and I personally don’t think they would have any romantic feelings for anyone else. And I’m also the kind of person who values platonic love so much I also don’t like when they’re shipped (this applies to male-female platonic love as well).

However, I do think that their friendship really made for an interesting story. Now in my opinion, I personally don’t think their friendship was 100% toxic, or devoid of love or happiness, and nor do I think it was entirely a healthy one either, otherwise it wouldn’t have fallen apart by the end of S2.

To start off, I’ve always felt and stand by my opinion that the friendship was very flawed from both sides. The problem with Rapunzel, esp in S1 and less in S2, was that she was a socially stunted teen who was barely out of the tower and barely had time to learn about healthy friendships and boundaries, and this has caused her at several times to unintentionally step on Cass’s personal boundaries, be extremely pushy and at times annoying. Cass on the other hand, as we all know has a super “bitchy”, distrustful personality and has her own insecurities and struggles with self-esteem that negatively affect her own judgments and actions. I feel like a lot of Cass’s trust issues and tough, bitchy exterior stem from her trauma of being abused, neglected, and eventually abandoned by her own mother. I have this headcanon that even though she has no memory of this incident (PTSD can cause a person to forget a traumatizing memory but still continue to suffer as a result of it), she basically has this idea that if her own mother didn’t stay and love her, why would anyone else do so? Cassandra grew bitter to a point where she pushed people away and avoided attachment to avoid the same trauma from happening again. Of course that was until she befriended Rapunzel after Rapunzel persisted in making this friendship happen even after all the pushing away Cass was attempting to do. Based on the canon we got, I would definitely conclude that this was each of the girls’ very first close female friendship in their lives and both had a whole lot they needed to learn in order to grow and build healthier relationships in general. In my opinion, despite the flaws of this friendship, both girls did need it (Rapunzel needed a blunt gal pal who, along with Eugene, could help her discover more of the real world around her and learn more about social interactions, whereas Cassandra needed someone to help her to open up her heart more and know that she is worthy of being loved).

The reason why I don’t agree with a lot of the “Cassandra is malicious and evil to Rapunzel” or “Cassandra’s entire goal and purpose in the whole series (Even in S1 & 2) is belittle and demolish Rapunzel” claims is because I feel like they erase all of Cassandra’s positive traits and great sacrifices she has made for Rapunzel, whether it was their TBEA sneakout adventure which put her at risk of losing her job and home just to make Rapunzel happy or Cass getting her hand charred to get Rapunzel to snap out of the reverse incantation, just to name a few. To also say that Cass was never nice to Rapunzel or never cared for her erases the fact that there were several times she got out of her comfort zone to apologize and make peace with Rapunzel after a conflict (her hugging Raps in Challenge of the Brave after she completely Effed up and in Rapunzel Day One after she opened up about her feeling hurt) or whenever she comforted Rapunzel in her pain (QFAD and BTCW).

As for the claims that “Rapunzel is selfish” or “takes all of her friends for granted” claims, I’m equally opposed to that and they leave an awful taste in my mouth. Rapunzel, as we all know, was trapped in a tower for 18 whole years and has NEVER interacted with anyone besides Gothel and Pascal. Of course Eugene was the first human outside of the tower she interacted with, which throughout the events of the movie and all the trials and sacrifices that they went through, their relationship has so much stability to it. However, not every person Rapunzel interacts will share the understanding she has with Eugene. Rapunzel lacks so much social understanding and skills that there are times she doesn’t know when to have the right type of interactions (remember the bear hug?), let alone experience in royalty. However Rapunzel herself is a major people pleaser and will do whatever it takes to make those around her happy (even if gets really pushy and annoying at times) but she will eventually stop with her pushiness especially when she sees how harmful it can get. Just like Cass, there were several instances where Rapunzel will willingly fight for her, like in BTCW with Adira, even though Cass was technically in the wrong or in Freebird (An episode I’m not a fan of but enjoyed some aspects of it) when both of them fought to save each other or even Rapunzel sacrificing the last egg to turn Cass back.

As for the flaws of the friendship, I would definitely say that alot of it had to do with both lack of proper communication and understanding of boundaries. As we all know Cass doesn’t always have the “fluffiest, kindest” ways of communicating her feelings or her pain and can in turn lash out really badly and come off as condescending and rude. Rapunzel on the other hand, wasn’t really the best at reading social signals (Challenge of the Brave is the best example of super flawed communication and understanding on both sides) or understanding personal boundaries. I personally don’t believe that Rapunzel would “put up someone else’s shit to please them” but she would be more like, if they’re not pleased, Imma force them to be pleased (mostly in a cute, clumsy way, namely Under Raps when she felt the need to constantly “cheer up” Cass or “comfort” Cass in Big Brothers, even when Cass told her she didn’t need it, other examples include Rapunzel’s Enemy with Monty and Goodbye & Goodwill in Vardaros).

However I would say I saw so much improvement throughout S1 and mostly the first half of S2, where we do see them have so many friendly and goofy interactions (In Like Flynn with the pranks, the “game face” in Pascal’s Story, the Island eps, etc).

Then there comes the midseason and this is were I would say the friendship completely fell apart. And I think this is mainly where the argument that Cassandra is controlling over Rapunzel comes into play. Cassandra at the very beginning of the season, as we know the King assigned her with keeping Rapunzel safe, she basically gave up her dream of potentially becoming a guard to accompany Rapunzel. At the same time, Rapunzel is out in the real world outside of Corona and wants to discover more. We see these two have clashes of views and ideals that lead to certain debacles (Freebird is a prime example, tho I personally wish they did something else besides the whole bird plot lol) and then Rapunzel and the Great Tree, especially when Cass expresses that Rapunzel should take caution (which in itself feels "limiting" Rapunzel's desired freedom). I know that there is alot of anger over the argument that Cassandra was belittling Rapunzel by calling her naive (which I agree was a shitty move on her part). But I personally never thought it came from a place of wanting to "bring down Rapunzel and seek control over her" but more of a panic over the fact that they were in a dangerous location and the fact that the gang was nearly killed in it. Adira's points were also valid but Cassandra's insecurity and jealousy of her lead to her reacting hysterically and to make extreme accusations against her. Rapunzel was also stressed from being overwhelmed by the reverse incantation, which also led to her to shut down Cass in an unhealthy, humiliating way.

I feel like this along with the progression of S2 led to the betrayal and I feel like the whole Moonsandra arc should've been more focused on the problems with the friendship and Cass's insecurities rather than the whole Gothel drama. However, I always felt that it was a very complicated friendship that needed lots of mending and better communication on both sides, and I feel like that's where they got to in Plus Est En Vous. Both Rapunzel had grown to better understand social skills, communication, and boundaries a whole lot better than when we first saw her and Cassandra (tho S3 needed much better writing) she had grown to reclaim her self worth and accept that she was worthy of love.

As much as I was upset Cass left Corona, realistically that was what they both needed to give each other space to grow and learn in a healthy way.

[bigskydreaming]

What do you think of dick hability to read the body language in new 52 People act as it doesn't exist and it really bugs me because thats one of the few things i really liked from new 52

I actually really like it, and it fits with some longtime headcanons of mine, but it hasn’t been touched on enough that I can understand it rubbing some people the wrong way, due to Cass.

But its like I said in that post earlier this week, about how I think its pointless to be ‘possessive’ of character traits…..I think Dick is an expert hacker himself, but I don’t think he’s on Babs’ level. Nobody is on Barbara’s level. But his own expertise isn’t diminished because he’s not on the level of the pretty much undisputed best hacker in the DC Universe. Neither is Barbara’s expertise lessened by virtue of Dick, as well as Tim, Bruce and most of the rest of the Batclan, all being damn good at it in their own right.

I see it as being the same thing here. I like the idea that Dick is intuitive and highly capable when it comes to reading body language, for a number of reasons, but I don’t think it suddenly makes him Cass, means he’s as good at it as Cass, or that Cass being on a whole other level with that, being like…lessened or threatened because Dick’s own capabilities in that regard are touched on every now and again.

I’ve actually said this many times before, but I think this insistence so many fans have about their faves being the only ones associated with certain traits, stories or characteristics actually does them a disservice, because when you stop viewing things as a competition and instead look at it as a chance for common ground, you unveil SO many possibilities.

For instance, I’ve always felt, long before the New 52, that it makes sense for Dick to have a strong, unconscious understanding of body language….as in, he’s at the upper levels of what humans are naturally capable of having in that regard, which of course still puts him at an entirely different level than Cass, whose mastery of it is deliberately BEYOND peak human levels because of her own backstory.

But if you think about it, Dick having skills in that direction makes sense for him AND opens up a lot of areas for Dick and Cass to bond more AND have occasional conflict.

Dick is one of the only other Batkids aside from Cass AND Damian, who knows what its like to be raised literally from the time he can walk, to be a proficient athlete with complete control of his body as like…a lifestyle. The kind of demands that makes of someone, the way that instills certain work ethics and instincts in someone practically from birth, to such a degree that it probably NEVER becomes something he can wrap his mind around, that for some people, these kinds of habits AREN’T second nature, practically built into him….that’s something that I don’t think even some of the other most highly capable athletes in the DC universe are fully capable of grasping…like Bruce, Tim, Jason, Dinah, etc. Obviously this doesn’t lessen any of their skills or proficiency as athletes, just as professional athletes who don’t start training in their chosen fields until later in childhood can be just as capable as ones who started in early childhood. But it makes I think, for a slightly different mindset.

I think this is part of why Dick understands Damian so much better or more easily than a lot of others do. Because Damian was raised this way too, just with different end goals than Dick. Dick can’t relate to being raised to kill, to stamp down on his urge to show affection, the specific training methods of the League with someone as young as Damian, no. But that unconscious, built in awareness of his own body in ways that even a lot of other athletes or fighters never develop just because they approach their bodies and training so differently…that I think Dick gets, and because of that he gets Damian and his own work ethic, and the way that telling him to not push himself so hard or take it easy at times….like is going to be totally wasted on Damian, FOR THE SAME REASONS those things have so often been wasted on Dick. 

Telling someone to be careful not to strain or overwork their body is not going to carry a whole lot of weight with a twelve year old kid who has spent ten of those twelve years being instilled with a greater awareness of his own body and capabilities than anyone else will EVER grasp….let alone someone who only met them a year or two ago (notice how this applies to both Damian AND Dick).

Similarly, causing people to worry when they go throw themselves into an extremely rigorous workout routine in the name of ‘relaxing or de-stressing’ is always going to be a thing, when other people just fundamentally don’t get that for someone raised from birth to eat, sleep and breathe their own physicality….this IS relaxing.

So IMO Dick and Damian have at least that much in common, which has given Dick particular insight into Damian that others don’t have, and helped him get further in reaching Damian and developing a bond with him. And extend this to Cass and her own backstory, and I think they all three have this in common, and thus could share this understanding between all three of them….thus giving Cass more opportunities and ways to bond with Dick and Damian in particular.

Continue on for ten thousand more words (lol, I wish I was exaggerating. Oh, me) of Dick Meta, Cass Meta, and Dick and Cass Meta, below the cut:

Now, add in the fact that Dick wasn’t just raised from birth to be a world-class athlete, like Cass was…..but as I often stress, just as important….he was raised from birth to be a PERFORMER. This is where I think his instinctive awareness of body language would have come from. Because he was raised to do all of his athletics with apparent ease, to show none of the strain it takes, to make it look like art, like the performance that it so usually was. And he was also raised to not just perform for a crowd, but to command their attention, to draw eyes, to feed off their energy and use that to tailor his own performances, his every action, to achieve maximum impact. 

Don’t forget Dick was a world-class acrobat as a CHILD. He was quite literally a child prodigy….and people LOVE meeting a child prodigy. Something like the encounter with the Drakes’ that’s part of Tim’s own backstory would have been an every day occurrence to Dick. Which means it was every bit as likely a part of his early training to be able to glean from the rich strangers that wanted a photo op with the young, exhausted child performer that probably just wanted to go to bed now….exactly what would go over best with those strangers, expedite this encounter, and enable Dick to move on to the next one or better yet, out of the tent ASAP.

I’ve talked about the classism Dick endures just by virtue of being a circus performer…its never been about how much money he and his parents did or didn’t have, its about the fact that most people look down on circus performers as like…an amusement to enjoy, not athletes to respect. You can’t deny that people summoning to mind an Olympic level gymnast would view that gymnast in an entirely different way than they would a Cirque de Soleil acrobat they called to mind, even if they had similar levels of athletic skill….because as a society, we regard something like the Olympics as a WORTHY pursuit for an athlete of that caliber….whereas one might sit in the audience of a circus and enjoy the performance, but that doesn’t mean most people walk out of that tent thinking of what they just saw in terms of the SKILL rather than their entertainment, because there’s this unconscious bias that like….if one wanted to actually be respected for their athletics, they’d aim for the Olympics, not to wear gaudy costumes and face paint and travel around in a caravan and never put up roots in any one place, etc. 

Our view of the circus goes well back before Dick’s creation, even, but its very much there. You simply can’t argue that most people give circus performers the respect their skillsets deserve and would merit in other situations…..and you bet your ass, someone like Dick who was raised as one, would have been instilled from a very young age with an awareness of how to glean when someone was treating him with disdain…and respond without offending them, but still not necessarily letting them impact him with their disdain.

Because one of the things I don’t think I’ve ever talked much about is how for as much as we talk about Dick’s self esteem issues and insecurities in regards to Bruce…..the boy Bruce first took in as an orphan was NOT overly insecure. If anything, Dick was the complete opposite. He knew EXACTLY what he was capable of, and was not shy about insisting upon it. I would say by all accounts and reading between the lines, the Graysons did a tremendous job in instilling in Dick from a young age an amazing degree of self-confidence….WHICH probably accounts for a LOT of the later conflict between Dick and Bruce, because it was never just a matter of Dick not getting the vocal or visible respect or appreciation from Bruce that he wanted….it was that Bruce wasn’t giving him it in the forms he’d been raised with, and grown accustomed to. 

Its that disconnect that I think Dick has always struggled with…where he KNOWS, on some level, that Bruce loves and respects him, and holds enormous appreciation for Dick’s own skills….but Dick only knows this because of….well, what he gleans from Bruce’s body language and his own awareness of Bruce and his nature. He has to read between the lines, and still be left guessing (since Bruce is himself pretty much a master of obscuring his own emotions and body language, in as much as anyone is, to the extent that only someone like Cass can willfully pierce that shroud). 

But my point is, there’s every reason in the world to think that Dick’s parents were very good at preparing their world-class prodigy son for the pressures of the spotlight he grew up in, and heavily prioritized making sure he wasn’t going to be diminished by the disdain of whatever snobs he encountered during the meet and greet portion of that lifestyle. And to be good at that, to know how to manage people who make you want to put your fist in their face while giving away nothing but a nod and smile, and still manage to seize enough control over the encounter to walk away with your head held high rather than feeling like you were just thrown to the wolves….that takes a high mastery of body language and an instinctive grasp of how to read people and put them at ease, to seize control of a conversation from someone who is used to having control at all times in all places. You have to know how to PERFORM, at all times. And in this regard, Dick was every bit as much a prodigy as he was in his acrobatics.

IMO Dick Grayson on his A-game could make Brucie weep in envy. I think this training, this ability to read people with just a look and adapt himself accordingly, to make the most of the encounter while giving up the least along the way….I think its absolutely nothing that Bruce himself taught him, that Dick already came to Gotham with, and its what ACTUALLY enabled Dick to survive the lifestyle and spotlight that Bruce’s lifestyle and spotlight made Dick grow up in. Its what enables Dick to handle the pressures of leadership and get along so well with his various teammates, coordinate dissenting personalities well enough to create teams that are famous for how well they gel and work together in battle no matter what they’re like when interacting in civilian arenas. Bruce, for all his skills, is notoriously not a people person. He knows how to manage people. He struggles with understanding them. And this has always been where in comparison to Bruce, Dick soars.

He didn’t learn any of what he knows about being a people person from Bruce. But he sure as hell learned it SOMEWHERE.

And I think that somewhere is in the circus, with his parents and whatever other various babysitters he picked up things along the way from. A kid as friendly and outgoing as Dick would have been soaking things up from all the circus performers like a sponge, I bet. Little tips and tricks of the trade from not just the knife-throwers, as is occasionally referenced….but also the fortune teller and ringmaster and clowns and magicians and escape artists. A couple dozen varieties of different masters of their own crafts, with one thing in common of all of them….all their crafts rely on performing. On reading an audience, even audiences of one. And selling that audience exactly what they’re looking for from that performance.

Let’s not forget that for all Dick’s insecurities and self-esteem issues as an adult….those almost unilaterally exist in regards to his family and closest friends. For the same reasons as he struggles with these things with Bruce….because they’re not great at showing Dick the respect and appreciation he needs from THEM, SPECIFICALLY….in the forms he would recognize, the forms he was raised since birth to receive and recognize as such, when his parents and circus family gave him these things.

Outside matters pertaining to just his family and closest friends, however, Dick is not remotely insecure. There’s a huge chasm between the former and the latter, in terms of how Dick acts and conducts himself. And its probably a large part of why Dick is so adept at not giving away to his family that he’s more in need of their acknowledgment and support than they realize….because Dick spends so MUCH of his life genuinely not giving a shit what most people think about him or say about him….he’s that much more proficient at wearing that as a mask when interacting even with his family of detectives, who are pretty good at reading even him in a lot of other aspects.

Because I maintain that Dick absolutely endured a hell of a lot of classism and racism growing up, and still does….which is not okay no matter how well he endures it….but he for the most part clearly doesn’t let this constant barrage effect his general self-esteem, and that is fairly important to note. Just as is the fact that like….he calls himself Dick, by his own choice, because its more important to him that he hold on to what he can of his parents, every last physical reminder he has available to him….and thus I think its especially shitty to write his second family using his parents’ fond nickname for him as a joke or insult, and probably hurts Dick when they do it….but the rest of the time? The general public making him a punchline for it? Dick could give a fuck. Same with general opinions of his costumes and what he looked like as Robin or early Nightwing, etc, etc.

Dick Grayson is not an insecure person overall….and that I credit entirely to his first parents, the Graysons.

All of this feeds into that overall awareness of body language, reading people for emotional cues and ways to survive a lifetime in the spotlight without being consumed by it…and without alienating people in the process, because a performer needs an audience, and growing up in a circus taught Dick early on that he had to find a way to end these encounters with asshole patrons in a way that kept his head held high but DIDN’T cost the circus - his family - their patronage in the future.

(Another reason I maintain Dick’s oh so infamous temper has been vastly more inflated than fits either canon evidence of it OR his overall characterization…..a man who has been raised from birth in the spotlight and constantly exposed to people who look down on him….like, KNOWS how to control his temper. I’m sorry, he just does, lol. This is basic understanding of human awareness. If your entire life is in one spotlight or another, be it the circus then Wayne Manor and Page Six, as well as being one of the most focused on superheroes in the entire cape community….and you’re somehow overall regarded in all public perceptions as charming….you do NOT have an infamous temper. You just don’t. People love to shove public figures off their pedestals whenever possible….and in both his civilian and superhero personas, Dick Grayson is on very high pedestals. There is no way in hell his general reputation in any of his communities would be anything close to what it is if he actually has as short and nasty of a temper as people love to spin him as having, because of a dozen scenes taken mostly out of context, over the course of 80 years as a high profile character. I’ll stop harping on this one when it stops being the first thing to come to mind when people cite a ‘flaw’ of his.)

Going back to reasons for him to have such a mastery of body language in his own right….Dick was also raised from birth to do his routines as part of a TROUPE, a group of athletes, not just singular by himself. Thus, a TON of what he was raised practicing every day….would have included reading his family’s body language for cues on what to do next. Watching for signs that something might be wrong or off even just by a second and requiring that he adjust his own movements to compensate for that, when they’re all fifty feet in the air and with the crowd cheering so loudly they couldn’t possibly communicate with words….this could literally be a matter of life and death for a troupe of performers whose reputation hinged on them being death-defying in their stunts. 

Yes, in most continuities its stressed that his parents didn’t let Dick perform the most dangerous routines with them yet, due to his age…..but that doesn’t mean they weren’t preparing him for them as early as humanly possible, given that its never too early to start working on various skills that are integral to these kinds of things. 

And with one of the most fundamental and essential skills needed to be part of a group of performers who excel at dangerous routines being communication, this is all the more reason to think they were probably teaching Dick from a very young age to pick up on body language and watch for even the slightest hints of different indicators of stress, fatigue, anxiety, fear, etc. 

Because compensating for something going wrong with a partner’s part of a routine can be essential in matters of teamwork. (Again, just gotta give a shout out to the Flying Graysons here, because its not stated enough that everything Dick knows about being a solo vigilante, he learned from Bruce, but everything he knows about teamwork is either instinctive or built in, OR learned from his parents, part of a team). And most of the time, when we’re talking about shifting position just enough while fifty feet above a crowd in order to make a catch of a partner that launched with not quite enough momentum or is overshooting their mark….compensating or cheating one’s own routine just enough to be there for your partner is the kind of thing that needs to happen in a SPLIT-SECOND…..like, with you making the adjustment the micro-second you realize its necessary….which means you have to be picking up the slightest hint of it the second it shows up in their body language, like a….what’s the word…oh yeah. A pro.

And given that these acrobats were all performers as much as athletes, with it being a given that their performances needed to appear as light and carefree at possible at all times, for the sake of the crowd….they couldn’t afford to give away obvious tells of anxiety, stress or exhaustion, had to keep a performer’s mask of total poise and control at all times throughout their routines….which makes it all the more likely Dick’s own ability to read body language and instinctive or hidden cues is exceptional….as he had to be trained from early on to be able to see behind those masks and read his parents and family for tells even while they were doing their professional best to keep those very tells hidden so that nobody would pick up on them…unless they were a master of reading such things.

So all in all, I believe that among however many languages Dick Grayson was taught from a very early age as part of a globe-trotting circus….one of those was body language itself, even if it was never actually couched in those terms, as though it were an actual language being taught the way it was regarded as such for Cass….as for Dick and his family, it was probably just regarded as tools of the trade, a necessary component of the performer and acrobat toolbox Dick was raised familiarizing himself with from as early as he began walking and talking.

Which brings us back to Cassandra…..as stated, I think Dick is exceptional at reading body language, with as much mastery of that as is possible at peak human potential…..but, that doesn’t make him the equal of Cass, whose own skills in that regard are beyond even that, due to the precise and comic book nature of her own origin. And how her father did something similar but for totally different reasons and no regard whatsoever for Cassandra’s well-being.

So I don’t think there’s any reason that Dick being the next best at reading and reacting to body language takes anything away from Cass being the undisputed master of that, and interpreter of the Batfamily’s hidden emotional cues.

In fact, allowing Dick to be acknowledged as adept at reading body language benefits her character….as she’s so often solely used as the interpreter of the emotionally stunted Batfamily’s attempted repression of their emotional cues. Basically just being treated as a plot device rather than a character in her own right.

As much as I project onto Dick and thus talk about fandom’s neglect of various facets of his character, it can’t be denied that the same is true of Cass….times ten.

Fanfics spend WAY more time using Cass to establish or well, tattle on various Batfamily members’ emotions than they spend on giving Cass emotions of her own in regards to whatever situation is going on in a given scene.

 And since Dick is so often used as the family mediator or peacemaker anyway, this doesn’t actually change anything about his own role in things….it merely supplies a concrete reason for why he so often is defaulted into that position, and so good at it, despite his family’s overall emotional constipation. He has to be amazing not just at teamwork, but reading hidden emotions as well, in order to manage his family and their various arguments even just as well as he does already.

(Just a quick clarification…earlier when I noted that Dick’s own insecurities largely stem from the Batfamily and not always knowing or trusting where he stands with them….its not that he has no ability to read them despite their own very well crafted performer masks. Its just that as good as he is, he’s still never going to be as good at this as Cassandra is, and there’s still going to be things he misses, or things he misinterprets. And additionally, the problem remains, that he shouldn’t HAVE to glean any hints of familial love, respect and appreciation from his family’s body language. When he’s constantly relying on subtext and body language to reassure himself that they really do love and appreciate him, its inevitable that sooner or later self-doubts and second guessing are going to start to creep in. So its not that Dick doesn’t ever see these things in his family’s body language. Its that over time, I believe this has progressed to the point where even when he sees these cues, he second guesses himself as to whether he’s actually seeing things that are there, or just seeing what he wants to see. And since none of them are exactly making a point to validate what he sees or thinks he sees with actual validation in indisputable forms, like verbal confirmation of this…eventually, Dick’s own skills reading body language become irrelevant here, since he himself is aware he’s an unreliable narrator when trying to narrate what his family’s body language is saying. He wants it to be saying all the things he uses to assuage whatever hurt he feels for not hearing them tell him these things…thus he’s too aware of his own bias when reading them for cues to actually trust any of the cues he reads, that could otherwise confirm this.)

Anyway. So acknowledging or even emphasizing Dick’s own exceptional abilities with body language would actually be to Cassandra’s benefit, I maintain. Because without expecting anything of Dick that isn’t already expected of him and his role in canon and fandom, it merely provides additional support for the idea he’s good at playing family mediator even with as emotionally repressed most of their family is. Thus freeing up Cass from constantly being looked to as the interpreter for all the things most of their family have trouble saying….and allowing for more focus to be paid to her own emotions. And letting her HAVE them, in the first place.

Because we have to talk about the elephant in the room here: racism in regards to Cass. The quiet, stoic, normally serene and beatific Asian martial arts master is a racist as hell trope, and its one that makes all too frequent an appearance when Cass is used at all in fics. AND canon.

Its not that Cass can’t be all those things at various times. Its that they can’t be ALL that she is. At ALL times. (And that, for the record, she’s not usually ANY of those things in canon that actually tries to develop her rather than use her as a one-note trope in its own right. Cassandra Cain…serene? LOLOL. Please, I don’t know who you’re talking about, but it ain’t the Cass I know and love).

First of all, give her a sense of humor, because she has one, and its amazing. You’ll note I make a point whenever I write her to emphasize her having a kind of dry, sardonic wit that is not at all opposed at being at her siblings’ expense, lol. I mean, its not like that’s the only take possible on her, or even just her sense of humor, I just mean…have one. Humor is one of the most telling representatives of a person’s characterization. By that I mean, a person’s sense of humor is one of the things we most initially associate with them in our mind, and a character having a distinct sense of humor is one of the easiest and best ways to develop them as having their own character voice, something that marks them as distinct in your awareness from other characters. Where if you close your eyes and picture them in a scene, what comes out when they talk, like, to make a joke….isn’t interchangeable with just any other character. It sounds or feels like them, specifically.

And just FYI, you might have an easier time writing Cass making jokes if you allow her to form full sentences. She can speak English, has been written speaking English quite well in the past, and the insistence on broken English when writing her that way in canon is shitty and racist in and of itself anyway, so those particular takes on her don’t need to be respected let alone emulated in fanfiction. Let Cass Speak English In Complete Sentences 2KForever. She’ll still be Cass, I promise you. But the changes made to her brain in canon that allowed her to finally learn spoken languages years after her brain had finished developing, like, that happened early enough after Cass’ debut that there’s really no excuse for writing fic where she’s been part of the family for years and still hasn’t picked up a strong grasp of English. 

Y’know how I’m always saying the entire Batfamily are ALL Mary Sues, they are a family of Mary Sues, that is pretty much their high concept as a group, that they’re a composite of the most otherwise competent people in the world and completely emotionally incompetent at the same time? Like, it applies here, because as I also harp on a lot about, I think all of the Batfamily are actual literal geniuses, and I do mean all. Cassandra included. She’s a master of her own many areas of expertise and thus IMO more than capable of picking up languages fairly quickly once the canon barrier to her doing that earlier in life is removed. It just looks and sounds weird and suspect, to insist on writing her as never moving past broken English, IMO. 

And also, like, she doesn’t need to ever be as talkative as Steph, nor do I think would it fit her to be written that way either, but there’s a very wide range of options between that and hardly ever talking at all. I do think she defaults to being one of the more quiet ones in a room, as in one of the last to speak….but give her reasons to be that way, instead of just more imitation of our media’s racist insistence on treating Asian characters as the quiet, all-knowing keepers of sage wisdom who only share their truths once you’ve made the trek up to their mountain top. 

So again just in terms of my own personal take, I tend to write Cass as being one of the last to speak up when around people she’s not as familiar with, because its her version of keeping her back to the wall of a room so no one can sneak up behind and surprise her. She’s only quiet at first in my stuff because focusing on using conversations to glean as much information as she can about the people in them before jumping in is just like, a form of intel-gathering for her and her past left her with a tendency to be as overly cautious in her own way as the rest of her family, and this is what her way looks like. 

(Dick puts on his performer’s mask, Jason blusters and leads with bravado, Damian adopts a position of superiority and will only climb down once you sufficiently peak his interest, Tim recites facts and trivia and likes to bore people he dislikes into submission so you give up and go away, Duke is the family member who really makes friends so easily that any time he makes enemies, his friends have already plotted to destroy you before Duke even gets around to trying to do that himself, Babs has already hacked your bank account and credit rating by the time you open your mouth and thus feels no social anxiety whatsoever as worst comes to worst, she can always just tank your credit score to make herself feel better, and upon meeting you for the first time, Steph either adopts you or punches you in the throat, depending on which way her gut is leaning. As for Bruce, well. He’s terrified of pretty much all social settings, but he’d have to actually admit to that for the first time in recorded human history before anyone could actually cite what ‘his way’ of dealing with social interactions he’s wary of might be. I mean, its basically just ‘Brucie’, but you get what I mean.)

So I mean, its not inherently bad to write Cass as being quieter than the rest of her siblings, and you don’t need her quoting Shakespeare back and forth with Jason in order to prove you’re not writing her speaking broken English. Its just. Do some digging in her head before settling in and writing what you’ve found there. Actually TRY getting in her head in the first place. Spruce it up a bit, redecorate your surroundings, make it feel lived in and homey. Give it CHARACTER. Whenever you write a character choice, in my personal opinion, you should, if asked, be able to back up that character choice by having a reason you feel the character would choose that. 

For me, I write Cass being the quietest of her siblings in social settings simply because she’s doing recon first, and of her various skillsets, spoken language is the one she’s mastered most recently and thus she has the least familiarity with….and thus is the last thing she turns to in any given situation, because she’d rather go down the list and run through every other skill she has to see if it could apply here, before resigning herself to having to converse with the person in front of her because she doesn’t think Bruce would accept “I didn’t know how else to change the subject” as a justification for stabbing someone in a non-vital and easily healed location that had the fringe benefit of rapid bloodloss leading to them passing out fairly quickly.

And of course, none of this applies with Batfamily, because she is comfortable with her family for the most part, and thus when I write her being the most quiet in those group scenes, its because she prefers listening their just purely because she finds her siblings’ antics entertaining. And also because I view her as being as batshit competitive as the rest of them, so IMO she’s always plotting the perfect conversational one-hit KO to have at the ready before she wades in. Because in the Batfamily, even ordinary conversations are something you can and should win. Otherwise, what’s even the point? LOL.

Also in terms of my own stuff, I tend to write Cass and Tim as having very similar forms of wit, and my personal take on them is that they both have just slightly different degrees of that same dry, sardonic kind of commentary, as their primary display of humor. This doesn’t necessarily always match their canon characterizations and how they display humor there - but its due to the fact that they’re two of the characters canon most rarely allows to show a sense of humor in recent years, and it tends to be all over the place more often than not. This is a major departure from how they both were portrayed in the 90s, where Tim’s humor was much more consistently in line with what I’m describing…and thus, so was Cassandra’s, when she debuted and developed her own primary characterization. 

So basically, I consider Tim to be a major influence on Cass’ humor….or more accurately, in the shape her own sense of humor more commonly takes. Because it was with and around Tim that Cass first started to pick up a lot of social cues and explore her own sense of self for pretty much the first time in her life. 

Stephanie’s humor, by contrast is a lot more loud and gregarious and in your face….which when you put the three of them in scene together as a trio, like they once spent a lot of time as, positions her as an extremely different version of the ‘straight man’ to their comedic duo. Because Steph doesn’t need anyone to back up or appreciate her own humor, she’s already landing the punchlines way before anyone else has even had time to think of any, and she doesn’t care what the reception is, the lovable loudmouth goof that she is. Which allows for Cass and Tim to sigh behind her and exchange sidelong glances and kinda….narrate her theatrics in that ‘faces the camera like they’re on The Office’ sort of way, which I mean, I personally find hilarious when they do it, and she’s not remotely bothered by, because like, she’s fucking hilarious and anyone who doesn’t get that is simply wrong and needs to be pitied, if you ask her.

Anyway, that’s just why my own depictions of Cass and Tim share a lot of their humor in common and some of their other characteristics….they’re the ones Cass either consciously or unconsciously picked up from Tim, as he was one of the first people for her to genuinely feel comfortable around and thus someone she trusted to both have knowledge of and mastery over the various social cues she was now finding she needed to learn because of her new environments. 

(Of course, this is one of the times where Cass was dead wrong about something, IMO, as she might have overestimated Tim’s mastery of certain specific social cues and her body-language reads have her aware people aren’t responding her own attempts at mimicking them in the way she’s fairly confident they should be, and she’s not sure what she’s doing wrong there. Oh well. She’s still better off than if she’d picked Bruce to emulate there. When she asked him, he’d stiffened and radiated such intense discomfort, even Steph froze in mid-ramble as she sensed it on even the complete opposite side of the Cave.)

ANYWAY. Wrapping up THAT particular tangent and cycling back around to Dick and Cass having skill with reading body language in common….I think this could also be a huge opportunity to write Dick having a dynamic with Cass that’s unique to just the two of them and distinct from the dynamics they have with the rest of their family. Not to give them a super special bond but just because I mean, all the sibling dynamics between the various individual Batkids should ideally have their own flavor, because nobody interacts with two different siblings in the same way. Each sibling is their own unique individual, and thus should have their own unique dynamic when interacting with them.

So I like to headcanon Dick and Cass in private being the family gossips. They love dishing on the rest of the family with just each other….and being the two most skilled at seeing behind their family’s masks (and thus what their family most wants to keep hidden, to varying degrees), they have more dirt on everyone else than most intelligence agencies have on their nations’ enemies. Of course, they’re both staunchly moral, so they would never ever use their powers here for evil, or to hurt or embarrass their family.

They would, however, occasionally indulge in snickers and giggles about it behind closed doors. Look, shut up, they’re BONDING, they have childhood trauma, its fine.

And if Cassandra’s superior skills with body language means she inevitably has more gossip to share with Dick than vice versa, that’s okay, she’s still more than happy to share. He’s the one who introduced her to the joys of gossip, after all, so if anyone’s entitled to it, its him.

I also headcanon that because they’re both the best at reading body language, there are occasions when in group environments or just at the dinner table with the whole family, they both happen to pick up on certain cues or be aware that a sibling is lying through their teeth about something or being full of shit, and then catch each other’s eye and give the faintest of eye rolls or ‘can you believe they’re falling for this.’ Which sometimes other siblings catch, because Cass and Dick have forgotten to be subtle about it. Or did they not forget anything, and are just being trolls and instigating shit for the giggles? Who can say. Probably just them, which they find quite fun.

In fact, its slightly possible that the rest of the family, ever since Cass joined them, have developed a slightly inflated estimation of Dick’s own skills with reading body language, and now credit him with more of a mastery of it than even he actually possesses. 

See, I have this one headcanon that every now and then, just to mess with their family, Dick and Cass make a point to hold a silent conversation in front of them. You know that thing people who know each other really well do with just their eyes, like managing to convey certain impressions to each other just by being expressive enough in ways and about things they’re pretty sure the other person will get and be on the same wavelength about?

Yeah, that, but Cass and Dick do it without exaggerated facial expressions. And for like. Ten whole minutes. Meanwhile, Tim’s like: “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m not buying any of this” and then determinedly ignoring them. Jason’s annoyed because he can’t actually ever seem to ignore them, and then this builds into something like: “You guys better not be talking about me behind my back. Or I mean, right in front of my face. Whatever. And you definitely better not be talking about Tim right in front of his face and not including me!” Steph just keeps continuing on with whatever she’s doing, entirely unbothered, because she knows if they’re actually communicating anything important (or even slightly of interest to her), she’s sure she can get Cass to tell her later. And she’s not wrong, of course. Duke just shakes his head and feels better about being slightly jealous due to how funny it is watching it get under everyone else’s skin, but in the name of not feeling left out, he joins in on shit-talking Dick and Cass in order to have Vengeance. “B, didn’t you ever teach them its rude to exclude people from your conversation? You know, some people would say its never to late to ground your children.”

Damian, by stark contrast to the rest, completely abandons whatever else he’s doing to watch them both as intently as he can for as long as they persist. As he’s probably third in line behind the two of them when it comes to instinctive grasp of body language, due to the whole ‘being raised to read/scan others for as much information as possible just from their movements. Y’know. In case you have to kill them.’ In his case, his full grasp of it was hindered by seemingly being taught to dismiss certain specific emotions as irrelevant or a weakness, and though Dick and the rest of the family have by now done a pretty good job at getting him slowly but surely past all of that, its like retraining himself, trying to consciously now pick up on cues that he spent a decade discarding and moving past the second he saw them. 

But he’s determined to become as adept at reading body language now as even Grayson is, at least, even if his implicit acceptness that he’ll never have the same mastery their sister does is fully internalized and something he’ll never admit to, even on pain of death. Both Dick and Cass have at various times offered to help him with it, but he refuses as a point of pride….he wants to do it himself. So every time they have one of these ‘conversations’ in front of the family, he drops everything else he does and scrutinizes them for the whole thing like he’s a codebreaker sure that in time, he’ll crack the code and all its secrets will be revealed. (Mostly, its more like he dreams of the day he’s become good enough at it that he and Dick can hold silent conversations like this and he can rub it in Drake’s face. Hah! It will be glorious, Internal Damian insists).

Even Bruce himself isn’t entirely sure whether or not Dick and Cass are fully communicating the whole time they converse like this, or just faking it for funsies. It frustrates him to no end that he’s yet to figure out a way to just…ask them, without giving away that he doesn’t actually already know the answer, and that’s BUGGING THE CRAP OUT OF HIM, C’MON!!

(Of course, both Dick and Cass have fully picked up on his frustration and thus realized he’s as clueless as the rest of the family, and its this precise thing that they spend most of these ‘conversations’ silently giggling about to each other).

And in terms of fleshing Cass out…..part of what frustrates me so much about the excuse people give for focusing on certain negative fanon takes on Dick, that its done to make him more interesting, because no one’s perfect….

Its never been that this claim, in and of itself, is untrue. The problem I’ve always had with it is they add in ‘flaws’ in the name of making Dick more realistic, while at the same time ignoring plenty of material that’s already present in Dick’s character…but which focusing on, would require people spend more time and insight on him than they want to. Just making Dick angry and ‘remind people he has a temper’ is quick and easy, in comparison.

However, the other part of why this claim bugs me so much is because it IS valid and applies to fanon’s two dimensional takes of two other characters….who are never written with any kind of flaws which is part of why they come across as fairly superficial in a lot of works. And that’s Duke and Cass. When they show up at all, their usage is VERY superficial, and like….I don’t think I’ve ever read something with either of them, where they were written having a conflict with another member of the family, other than just sometimes Cass not liking Jason because of his stance on killing. (And usually this is in Jason-centric fics, so its not really in the name of fleshing out Cass so much as making Jason more misunderstood and Cass the bad guy for not respecting that okay he kills people, but only because he’s very sad, she should be able to see that, ugh have a heart).

So, I also headcanon there is a slightly negative dynamic between Dick and Cass specifically, albeit one Dick himself is not aware of. 

(And also complicated by the fact that as much as I gripe about Dick being perceived as having negative dynamics with the rest of his siblings that are all his fault, Cass is the ONE sibling this is ACTUALLY true of, even if it was only really in one story, Redemption Road. I go into that in more depth in another meta, but long story short it was after she was brainwashed by Deathstroke and killed because he made her, and Dick was written as wary and untrusting of her return, not because he didn’t like her - they’d already spent a lot of time in years before this bonding - but rather because he didn’t trust that they could be totally sure the brainwashing was gone yet, and thought Bruce was being too relaxed about that. I maintain this is a callback to his own issues with that time he was brainwashed by Brother Blood and people were a lot less great at understanding in the aftermath that a lot of his choices hadn’t been his to actually make, and that there was bitterness here on his part for Cass getting the understanding and support from Bruce that we never saw Dick get when it was him in a similar position. Kinda a Prodigal Son type vibe. But point being, this was a brief period and it didn’t last, but it is there so there’s interesting potential to have Dick and Cass not DISLIKE each other by any means, but just at times be slightly uncomfortable around each other and trying their best to hide it...from the one other person in the family most capable of/likely to pick up on it).

So what I think it is on Cass’ part, the discomfort/slight ‘not quite sure how I feel about this’ aspect of things.... Like, its just a headcanon, and one where in my head she’s put a lot of effort into making sure he never ever picks up on this particular thing from her. Because she’s not proud of it. At all.

Even if pride is really the problem. 

See, I’ve long believed that out of the entire Batclan, Dick is the only person who can ever beat Cass in a fight. Even compared to Bruce.

And to be clear, its not like Dick can always beat Cass. Or even often. At most, its still maybe like, two fights out of ten. And its not deliberate, like something he can do or capitalize on consciously.

But for someone like Cass, who otherwise is pretty much undefeated unless she’s going up against her own mother, Lady Shiva….even two fights out of ten is a lot.

And it bugs her, more than she cares to admit.

Because she is as competitive in her own ways as the rest of her family. She does have her own ego about certain things, like everyone else does. And David Cain, monster that he was, raised her to be the best there is, at one thing and one thing only: fighting. As much as she hates him, as much as she hates her childhood and what was done to her, how much she missed out on and the things she still feels left out for not understanding or grasping the way she thinks she should…..alongside all that has always been at least an awareness that at least there is one thing that came out of it: she is the best. Absent her mother, who one day she will fully and consistently surpass, everyone including Lady Shiva believes…as much as Cass hates her father and everything he did to her and why, she’s still at times taken a certain sort of pride in her skills in fighting. At least in that one slight respect, even if its not something she would have chosen, had she ever been given a choice….at least it had worked, had done what it’d been intended to.

Except for when it comes to Dick. Who will probably always be able to beat her, maybe two times out of ten. No matter how much more she grows in her skills. There’s that one or two times every now and then, where it will always be a toss-up, as likely to go to him as to her.

And its not something that Dick’s even aware of giving him a specific edge when it comes to fighting her, and its not something he could capitalize on even if he were aware of it.

See, as much as fighting is second nature to Cass, as instinctive as breathing…it goes hand in hand with her ability to read body language. That’s her edge, the one variable that no one else can compete with or match her on, the thing that will always put her in a class of her own…..the one result of specific training that was crafted specifically to create this one result.

You can’t separate Cassandra’s fighting prowess from her ability to read body language. They are one and the same, even if she can use the latter for other things too, and even if her fighting prowess isn’t JUST due to her ability to read body language. Which its not, by any means. BUT, regardless, she can’t train herself out of a reliance on body language while fighting….especially not to fight one person in specific, her own brother, and even there pretty much just out of pride.

Because the slight advantage Dick has over everyone else when facing her, is that like her, he’s one of the only fighters out there who was trained from birth to have an almost inhuman mastery of his own body, to be at the peak of human capability in specific regards. Even though his training wasn’t at all in the arena of fighting, at least not before he was taken in by Bruce. For Dick as well as Cass, there are certain things that are so fundamental to him, so ingrained into his movements because they were taught to him at the same time as he was taught to walk, the one being every bit as natural as the other.

And acrobatics was only one of these things. Performing was the other.

Y’see, the one variable Cass can’t totally account for every single time she spars with Dick….is that Dick’s body lies.

Like I said earlier on….its not just reading body language that Dick was likely raised to do, albeit in different, less rigorous ways than Cass. He was also taught from an equally early age how to DISPLAY body language. Or rather, a specific kind of body language.

My headcanon is that because as early as he began learning acrobatics, Dick was taught acrobatics with an eye towards performing, specifically. Since that was what his family did. And the one thing performers like the Flying Graysons always, always have to do…is perform with a smile.

So it was probably drilled into Dick from an early age, even if it wasn’t couched in these terms or even consciously thought of in this specific way…..but while taught the fundamental components of a flip, breaking it down into each individual micro-movement expected of his body in order to achieve the optimal flip for performing in front of a crowd…..one of those micro-movements, for Dick…was a smile.

Its as fundamental to his acrobatics as every other command his conscious AND subconscious mind sends to the various muscle groups he uses in his routines and now in his fighting even. I think its a large part of why quips and banter and grins are so intrinsic to his fighting as well. He doesn’t KNOW how to be anything else. Bruce probably tried to train it out of him before realizing or accepting that focusing on just making Dick not smile while backflipping over an opponent was detrimental, if not merely just unnecessary. Its just second nature to Dick, as much as reading body language is to Cass. 

His own training from the time he could walk, put just as much emphasis on ensuring that no matter how he felt during a performance, no matter how exhausted he was or how stressed, whether he was having a bad day or was just cranky or mad at his parents or mad about something someone in the crowd said or just didn’t feel like practicing his routines today….he did it all with a smile, an easy, effortless grin, as though he was lighter than air and nothing he did was taking a toll on his body, it was all equally effortless.

Combine that with the fact that for Dick, because of what his training was FOR….because it was all done in the name of being with his family, being like his family, it was so he could do what nobody else could do, so he could fly….unlike Cass, Dick’s early training instilled in him an intrinsic pairing of movement and joy. To him, movement IS joy. Its essential to his core, to who he is. 

Where other people see him throwing in unnecessary flips to his fighting to show off, Dick’s always just grinned and shrugged his shoulders at this, unable to explain what’s not even a matter of conscious thought….to him, saying he added an unnecessary flip is like saying to someone else they took an unnecessary breath. He can understand what they’re saying….just like you can take note of taking an extra breath that you don’t really need…but he can’t link that to the ‘show off’ part of things anymore than you could understand someone accusing you of showing off for taking shorter, quicker breaths than you need to. 

Because Dick doesn’t throw in unnecessary acrobatics while fighting because he wants to show off, IMO. Who is he showing off for? The people he’s fighting? Why on earth would they be more impressed by him doing an extra fancy flip than they would just by virtue of knowing his reputation as a fighter and seeing it proven true as he kicked their ass? No, I think he does it because he’s not even thinking about it, and he certainly can’t think of a reason not to. Its just what he does. Flipping out of the way of an incoming punch in such a way as to make that flip as aesthetically appealing as it is functional, is every bit as instinctive to Dick as every other part of the flip.

Because that’s WHY he was trained to do all this. That’s what its for. Not fighting and superheroics. Those are what he adapted it to do. First and foremost, it was done, taught to him, perfected by him…..so he could fly. And show everybody just how much he loved doing that, when you get right down to it. Because he loves being able to do that. For Dick, the heights he can reach are his higher power, and every single movement he makes is like an individual prayer given in thanks of the gift given to him, that enables him to do that in ways nobody else can match.

But in terms of fighting, and in terms of body language that Cass reads on an equally unconscious level….this has the unexpected and accidental side effect where every so often…Dick’s body lies. At least, I imagine that’s how Cass would describe it, if she ever put it into words for someone. Because he links his joy, his happiness and pleasure at being able to do the acrobatics he does with the movements themselves, because its so ingrained in him to do it all with a smile, to sell for the crowd that its all done with the greatest of ease, and because its inevitable that on some basic level, there are some flips or techniques that the mere act of doing brings to mind - even just his subconscious - memories he associates with that movement, that are largely, more often than not, pleasurable memories….Dick’s body language every so often doesn’t quite read the way everyone else’s does. The way Cass expects it to, knows how to interpret.

And this is nothing deliberate on his part. Nothing he could capitalize on, even if Cass did ever tell him what it reads like from her perspective. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t train himself to use this to his advantage in fights against Cass, any more than Bruce for all his mastery of his body, can effectively train himself to not broadcast certain body language tells when sparring with Cass. Because Bruce’s training, as extensive and intense as it was, and as he commits himself to it, still only started later in life. When his movements and how they pair with each other and his emotional states, they were already set in stone. Because those things go deeper than conscious control….even if Bruce made an effort to hide his next punch from Cass, she’d see the indicators of him preparing to deceive and adapt just as instinctively.

But Dick, because his training began as early and was so 24/7 in its own way as Cassandra’s, when they were both just learning their basic fundamentals and their body was building connections between their muscle movements and emotions they felt when using each precise combination of each specific muscles to achieve each specific end result….with Dick, the times his body language misleads Cass is as unconscious as breathing to him, as instinctive as every other of these movements, and the urge to smile while doing it. He’s not aware of doing it, couldn’t consciously command himself to do it more without giving that away in micro-expressions in his face….but its there, nonetheless. Because its not like it was done or trained into him in order to lie to Cass or someone like her….that’s just an unanticipated side-effect. It was done for one reason only: to make even the most rigorous of efforts look as effortless as skipping.

And it being that instinctive is WHY Cass occasionally falls for it, every now and again. Even when she tries to prepare for it sometimes. Because its like a lie spoken in her own first language. Every so often, she misreads how exhausted or worn out he is while in the middle of a spar, because Dick’s body language while flipping around so often reads as easy, light-hearted, happy. None of the things associated with being on the verge of his legs giving out, even if they are. And every now and again, a punch catches her off guard, because its not telegraphed in any of the normal ways, his body language is too focused on what’s coming after the punch, the preparation to make a leap or a vault that its particularly excited for, that always paired with anticipation, from as early as he could attempt it. Every once in awhile she fails to capitalize on a moment of weakness he has or an injury he’s nursing…because she’s missed the signs for it, its so buried deep beneath the performance mask he was trained to wear specifically while continuing through a routine even while feeling an ache or pain in that particular muscle group.

Even if no one else entirely knows why, Dick can beat Cass every once in awhile, even more often than Bruce can. Because the LESS Dick focuses his conscious thoughts, the MORE instinctive he makes his movements, basically when he MOST relies on just muscle memory and lets his body take over on autopilot, trusting it to get him safely through a fight while his conscious mind and troubles might be otherwise distracting him…..that’s when Cass has the hardest time reading him reliably. Because when he gets like that, everything else vanishes. Its like no other emotions exist for him. Even while being otherwise miserable or unhappy or grieving or tired….when he just lets go and trusts his body to do what its been trained to do so often and extensively its just pure instinct at this point….all of her brother’s movements at that point just sing. The brutality of a fight gets lost in the beauty of his acrobatics, even on the very same level and in the very language she most relies on…because they were meant to be ‘spoken�� even that bone-deep, they were meant to look like and indicate pure joy of movement in even the most primal of languages.

On a certain level, Cassandra has always been the least surprised of any of their family, why people like Deathstroke and the Court of Owls and countless other villains have always been so intent, so focused on making Dick specifically turn to their side, become one of them…become a killer. She understands the draw they feel towards him perfectly, probably even better than they do. Because the language these villains speak most naturally is violence. And her eldest brother takes violence and makes it art.

And even villains are drawn to art that speaks to them in a language they can understand.

So, even though she doesn’t want it to, even though it shouldn’t bother her, even though it ultimately doesn’t even matter that much….it bothers Cass, a little bit. That Dick has just enough of an x-factor in sparrings specific to just the two of them, that no matter how much Cass tries to adjust for it, she can still be thrown or fooled as easily as anyone else can fall for a lie spoken in a shared language. Its actually probably for the best that her own unique form of Kryptonite belongs to none other than her very own big brother, protective to a fault. Someone who would never hurt her.

Except…

Even with all that, she can’t help herself. Every once in awhile, she looks at Dick and can’t help but be wary. She doesn’t like having a potential blindspot she knows full well is there and can’t do a damn thing about. She doesn’t like that it bugs her so much either, but it does. She doesn’t like that the fighting and body-language reading that are the end results of her father’s abuse have become in different ways just enough of points of pride that she finds her pride pricked at the reminder she’s still fallible. Still human. Can still be fooled, even if unintentionally, even if not that often. 

Because given the price she paid - that she never asked to pay, never was asked if she WANTED to pay it - to be so foolproof, at least where everyone else is concerned, she at least wished the damn training had worked as intended, instead of one specific monkey wrench her father hadn’t accounted for. All because who was prepared for an acrobatic vigilante who’s happy and gleeful on a primal level even when fighting for his life, because his body can’t help but be glad it can fly?

So she fights that feeling down any time it arises, becomes all the more determined for it not to create a wedge between her and the big brother she honestly adores and she knows honestly adores her too.

But sometimes when he smiles at her, Cass hates the way she is. What it makes her. Because all of them by now are used to people like the Court constantly trying to repurpose Dick, turn him against everything he holds dear. And each time everyone else is reminded of that, they turn to cast glances at Cass, without even thinking about it. They’re all just as aware of Dick’s own fighting prowess, after all. And how deadly he could be if he ever put his mind to it and set aside his morality.

She knows full well that if that ever happened, if any villain ever did manage to get their hooks in deep, she’s the one it would ultimately fall to. The Break Glass in Case of Emergency, Plan Z, final failsafe. She was who they would sic on the big brother that’s always drawn the darkness like moths to his flickering flame.

And she alone nurses the knowledge that if it ever came to that….she’s not quite as certain as the rest of their family, that she could infallibly win.

It bothers her more than she can say, more than she will ever dare say….that one of her greatest fears wears her doting eldest brother’s face.

Because if the Court of Owls ever did make a Talon of him for real, there’s no one who could sink a fatal blade past her guard more easily than he. She might never see it coming, too busy looking at him and seeing nothing but poetry instead.

Dick held her once while she came down from a lungful of Fear Toxin. Even as she shook the last of it from her system and looked at him with fresh, clear eyes again, she couldn’t help but flinch. He asked her what she’d seen while under its influence. She didn’t answer, and hated how sad he looked while covering up. No doubt thinking that it was because even now she didn’t trust him, her own family, wouldn’t let herself be completely vulnerable with them.

Still, she’s certain he would have looked far sadder if she’d told him the truth.

So each and every time her big brother’s body tells her a lie, she tells him one right back.

After all, the flip side of being the two best truthseers in the family, is there’s nobody better at being lie-tellers at the same time.

Who else is ever going to know?

[jamiedodgerart]

the fade is a liar sometimes

aka, a really long post about how mal hawke survived dragon age inquisition. warning for big but kinda vague spoilers for dai and mentions of alcoholism

ok full disclosure i dont know how he survived the fade. but im thinking the nightmare like. didnt wake back up in time to block the way through the portal, and so never caused the Do I Kill The Warden Or Hawke dilemma. cos. that was kiiiiiiiinda bullshit. 

i had to pick between alistair and mal. and i really didnt want mal to be actually really dead bc at the time of here lies the abyss he’d be in a really shitty place, mentally, and i didnt want him to just! die! without resolving that! so i gave canon the finger and concocted a convoluted plan to give mal a better ending

background, after the events of da2, he ended up leaving kirkwall and fuckin’ around in the woods for a bit. i imagine he was helping refugees get out for a little while, until anders showed up and convinced him to help groups of renegade mages/circles on the verge of winning their independence. at this point he was pretty sick of the world at large, didn’t know what he wanted or where he was going to go next, and let himself be (guided? directed? pushed around?) by anders, drinking himself into oblivion and generally feeling like garbage. he fell out of contact with most of his remaining friends and began convincing himself that he was guilty for the explosion, by trusting anders (he’d suspected something was wrong with the ingredients anders was asking for and confronted him about it, but trusted him and helped him by distracting the grand cleric)

i rambled about this on my private twitter but mal and anders... ended up not being a great fit for one another and past me said it better than present me can

eventually, the inquisition came into being and grew in power. anders, still being a wanted man and mal too by association, avoided the inquisition’s patrols pretty easily. but stories started to spread about the inquisitor and his... particularly creative justice. see, pica really likes choices that have some poetic irony to them that also focus on rebuilding (he had alexius work for the mages, stuff like that), generally avoids executions, and is pretty chill with mages. the inquisition is also independent of any government, really, and is about as impartial as you can get in thedas. so when mal gets word from varric that corypheus is back, a problem, and something they need mal’s help with (that is also, in his professional opinion, his fault), he gets an idea.

he heads to skyhold, meets pica (who read the tale of the champion, asks varric questions about it constantly, was expecting a hero, and was not expecting the hero to be a depressed alcoholic) and iunno here lies the abyss happens with the aforementioned edit of no one important dying (i guess i could kill alistair and preserve a kind of important turning point in pica’s character with an added bonus of giving mal another thing to have survivor’s guilt about but i dont think i could go through with it. imagine the emotional toll. pica could get that change some other way anyway) mal by this point has gotten to know pica fairly well and has found what he’s heard to be true, and gives him a proposition

(i would like to add now that while ive read asunder, until i looked it up just now i didn’t remember where it sits in the timeline relative to da2, and it wasnt super clear to me just how much each of the two events affected the mage/templar war. so some text in sketches might be inaccurate, historically)

so you can imagine that anders is Pissed Off by this development, but justice is kinda like 

cos like. pica Is a real actual authority figure. who is down to dispense some quality justice esp re mages. and is coming at it from a “yo i know you meant well and you did kinda have a point but you also killed a lot of people so there does have to be Some kind of consequence of that”

(but neither of them are at all happy with mal turning them in)

anyway the trial ends up including a full investigation of the events in kirkwall, as well as the events at the spire (cole, rhys, and evangeline all give their testimony) and it’s more a straightening out of what was up with the whole start of this shitshow anyway, cos the confusion and misinformation about it is probably the worst part. 

pica finds anders guilty and sentences him to community service, which a lot of people disagreed with. pica thinks it was a GREAT IDEA though because that community service comes in the form of anders teaching the inquisition mages about healing magic!! something that anders is good at, loves doing, and can actually help people with!! why are we still fuckin about with herbs when there’s magic!!!!! this also has the added bonus of making mages less scary to the general populace- chuckin’ fireballs is a lot more alien and intimidating than healing up a broken arm, yknow? it can help mages seem more human and good for society than they were, separated from the public in towers.

anders is still a prisoner, though, which hes super not happy about, and part of his sentence is also that dagna gets to study him. he and samson are in grudging solidarity in the face of tolerating her extreme cheerfulness. and maybe he gets a cat too. i wonder if he and samson could talk about how shitty the chantry is re: lyrium addiction in templars? its obvs not on the scale of mage shittiness but it could be an interesting discussion

see in the grand scheme of things mal really didnt do all that much. he was duped by a lover into doing something he 100% would not have done if hed known what was actually going on. i feel like the most anyone could bust him on was aiding and abetting. and maybe helping hide an apostate. mal was found, as pica informally put it while distracted by looking at a transcript of a kirkwall templar’s testimony, “kinda guilty? just like. if ur asked to help blow up a chantry dont do it again” but cassandra elbowed him really hard and he said “look ok your sentence is, fuck, i dunno, work for the inquisition. what do you wanna do”

that was not what mal was expecting and he didnt have an answer. and pica looked at him and said “ill give you some time to figure it out, ok. just. take care of yourself, man. u look like shit” which got him another elbow, which he returned to cass with equal force

anyway. mal is now officially Not Guilty in the court of the law. which fuckin sucks bc that assessment does absolutely NOTHING to stop his shit brain from keeping being guilty about everything. so he tries to quit drinking, fails, and just has a rough time in general, while also sometimes visiting anders in prison. which probably really doesn’t help.

ENTER WARDEN-COMMANDER OF FERELDAN, MADRANA “MAD” TABRIS, AND HER PARTNER/GF/ADULT SUPERVISION EMMARIE “EMMY” COUSLAND

(you may also know mads as hester, as i called her in previous playthroughs. hester’s not a really elfy name and shes grown far enough away from her namesake that i felt a change was warranted. also emmy was created by @1500birds. i love her)

thats them (mads then emmy) so mad tabris, legendary fighter, unkillable blight-ender, bather in darkspawn blood, and general bottle covey is looking for a challenge. its been like ten years since shes had an actually hard battle to win and she’s near skyhold, and she’s heard that mal hawke, another legendary fighter, is also in the area. oh and some cadash guy. hes apparently good too. also, she’s looking for some way out of the whole grey warden death sentence thing. shes not keen on dying unless she’s killed, ydig, and apparently skyhold’s doing a lot of groundbreaking research these days

she and emmy swing on in to skyhold and finds that hawke is, well, a mess

important background. mads is not good at dealing with other peoples’ emotions. so shes not really equipped to deal with this. emmy, however, is kind, has nerves of steel, loves to help people, and is Very equipped to deal with this. and so the two of them adopt mal. (even though hes older than both of them.) 

theyve got really, really different ways of trying to help mal. emmy is a great listener, and understands survivor’s guilt and the lost-all-my-family brand of trauma pretty well. she helps him sort through all the shit that’s happened to him and offers a lot of support. and hugs. by god shes a hugger. also theyve got a symbiotic cuddling relationship bc emmy is always cold and mal is always warm, so they platonically nap together sometimes. mads is unfortunately too wriggly and pointy to be a good cuddler :’( she squeezes in the mix sometimes anyway though and it’s uncomfortable but nice

mads’s method of helping mal is in her area of expertise: getting out pent-up negative emotion by fighting. for a long time, mal has internalized a lot of shit, and mads is really good at annoying him into either yelling or punching out that shit. shes doing it out of concern for his well-being, she swears, and not because she takes joy in pissing people off. she does but thats not the point. it’s not a perfect strategy but it does help a lot

unfortunately for her, sometimes mal can be downright vindictive when drunk and angry, and can hit on the few things she’s insecure about

(i would really love to make a post about mads sometime, cos she ended up being a lot deeper of a character than i originally intended. i really just wanted a really sharp angry lady who fought with the subtlety of a brick to the face, and ended up getting that plus bravado covering up a whole host of insecurities. i feel like i should finish dao before writing it up though ahah)

(what mal said is also not totally accurate- mads cares very much for emmy. but yknow how when things get heated it doesn’t really matter if they’re really accurate anymore- they just have to be close enough to get a reaction, ydig)

anyway! the two of them together help mal get his life back in order- he cuts down and eventually quits drinking, starts taking better care of himself, and gets more of a handle on life. i guess you’re probably wondering where varric is, right around now. so am i mal pushed away a lot of people close to him after da2, including varric. but varric kept looking out for him (lying to cassandra to protect him, using his network of contacts to keep an eye on where he and anders were operating). when mal comes to skyhold i think he’d try to avoid varric out of guilt- yknow how when it’s been a really long time since you’ve talked to someone, and you know you should have called them back, but you never did, and they kept asking how you were, and you want to be in an actually good place before you call them back, but shit keeps happening, and it’s been like two years since youve said anything to them, and then you see them and do some serious acrobatics trying to stay out of their sight so you don’t have to confront their honest interest in your well-being that they have no right to still have after so long with no word from you, and you have to make it seem like you havent been avoiding them because that would be rude, and really it’s just easier to be constantly vigilant of where they are and make sure youve got plausible reason to be leaving casually yet quickly

well mal did that. emmy had to physically bar his way from escaping a room once when varric came in, and dragged him by the scruff of the neck to talk to him. varric was painfully understanding and ended up hitting it off nicely with emmy

so! someday mal gets a job. specifically, pica gives him one. because he still owes the world some community service. with his experience as a hunter and highwayman, he becomes a scout!

whoaaa color

more specifically, mal becomes a... specialized type of scout. some idiot who shall not be named but whose name sounds a whole lot like pica cadash gave him command of a small squad of scouts, heavier armored and armed than average inquisition scouts but not heavy enough to count as infantry soldiers. their job is to dismantle highwayman and rogue mercenary bands, in whatever way necessary. so! originally this was supposed to mean sneak attacks on their strongholds or whatever, but mal talked with him about his own experiences with crime (mostly that most people in his crew back then were in it out of necessity, and needed money to support family) and the squad kind of became. really heavy recruiters. it became kind of a joke that the inquisition would take anyone- and they would! practically any skillset could be used in an organization as big as the inquisition, and at this point it was still growing

like. barely any exaggeration here

so that’s where he is pre-trespasser! thank u for reading and if youve got questions or want to learn more PLEASE ask i lov my ocs and love talking about them

i want to add that in @1500birds‘s latest playthrough (miranda trevelyan, a pro-chantry mage cullenmancer) mal rags on cullen endlessly

that was supposed to be the playthrough where he survives the fade, but then bran realized that miranda would kinda hate mal and would 100% leave him behind

[moiraineswife]

May I ask you something that's not so much in Mor's favor? Don't you think that she should have told Az that she doesn't want him that way? She didn't need t come out to him in order to do that. Another reason to add how this whole plot was done horribly. It made her seem.. Not a great friend. She also said that she likes things the way they are to Feyre, she doesn't want to change things, it's comfortable for her (Az, her, Cass thing). I just.. Wish that all of this is different completely.

Right *rubs temples* we have finally reached a point I have been struggling with with this whole Mor...fiasco which is the tension between my desire to drag sjm through the mud for the way this was written...but also my intense desire to protect Mor’s choices as a queer character having agency with her own identity. This ask is going to be dedicated entirely to the latter (okay maybe not ENTIRELY but when I’m talking about  how Mor acted I’m going to do it in such a way that’s just ‘I wish all of this hasn’t happened how it did but it has and I’m working with what I’ve got here’) Clunky disclaimer out the way, let’s pick this apart... 

Right, first off,I would like to point out that it’s canon that Mor did actually try to talk to Azriel about this after he found her in the Autumn Court. However he wasn’t really listening and was doing some babble-confessing of his own at the time and she panicked. She was seventeen years old and the boy who just saved her life, who she knew she couldn’t be with, tried to tell  her that he loved her and she had no idea what to do so she panicked. After that it’s not really surprising she struggled with trying to explain things to him. 

Then  I think it’s important to remember a lot of things about the dynamic between Mor, Cass, Rhys and Az early on in the series when she knew Az and might have told him. So she’s only known Cassian and Azriel for two weeks when the whole Incident happens. The situation Mor is in is a  hell of a lot more complicated than ‘I slept with this one dude and this other dude loves me but I’m queer I’m not sure how to tell him’ (which is complicated enough in itself) 

Mor owes her life to all three of them at this point. Azriel saved her from the Autumn Court. Cassian and Rhys got her out of the Court of Nightmares and then proceeded to keep her out. So not is she indebted to them for saving her she is also completely reliant on them for her freedom. At this point in the canon we’re dealing with an extremely vulnerable queer girl who has been brutalised beyond belief and has only just been able to get out of her abusive situation. If the relationship she has with Cass Az and Rhys deteriorates she has nowhere else to go but back to her emotionally abusive homophobic family. 

Factor into that that she’s recently had sex with Cassian, largely because of Az and his jealousy over the two of them, and then walked away from that and the fact that she knows Azriel is in love with her but that she can’t reciprocate...I’m not surprised she’s terrified of telling them the truth. She’s grown up being told people like her are selfish and awful and that they should be forced into marriage and breeding regardless of how they feel about it, she probably believes that’s how Az and Cassian definitely, since she’s only known them about 3 weeks, will react to her. And Rhys grew up with them, they’re his brothers, she’s probably petrified of telling them the truth about her and having them all reject and abandon her which leaves her with nowhere to go but back to her father. I don’t blame her for not telling them. 

Then the War happens and she’s away from them all for a while and falls in love with Andromache and she has to go through losing her (twice) completely alone because no-one knows and she can’t tell t hem. She says herself that there was no-one for a few decades and like..Those aren’t circumstances where I’d feel like adding a whole  heaping pile of angst on top when she still isn’t sure how the boys will react so she just bottles things up and hides them away again. 

And then...Things settle out a little bit. The dynamic between her and Cass and Az finds something like what we see now, the three of them all tied together and loving each other just in different ways. And then she has to start trying to accept herself (Andromache was her first female lover and after that fell apart Mor was alone for decades, it’s hard to talk to people about something you barely understand or accept yourself) 

She has to unlearn the vile homophobia that she grew up with, she has to coax herself into trying to be with a woman again after what happened before, she has to try and explore this part of herself without letting anyone know...That’s hard. And so she finds Velaris, she finds Rita’s and at last she has a little safe place, a place where she experiment and be herself and so she does.  But that’s a safe place, a place that’s just hers, a thing that’s just hers, that no-one has yet managed to take away from her or destroy, and she feels this desperate urge to keep it safe because it’s all that’s kept her from breaking at times, knowing that no-one has ever truly known her. 

All of this takes time. Mor is healing and I know she’s a strong, confident woman when we meet her in ACOMAF and she’s had while to process all of this but...Abuse and that sort of homophobia and the trauma she was subjected to on top of then losing the only person she’s ever truly loved...That takes a lot of healing, that takes a lot of time to slowly build up an identity and a self-worth and by the time that happens...She needs the people around her. She has a support system in place and she deeply loves all of them. 

If she suddenly reveals that she’s queer that’s going to mess up her relationship with everyone in the Circle (except, perhaps, Amren) But everything will change and she’s only just managed to find herself and a place where she belongs and she has NEVER had that before. Cassian and Azriel both had difficult childhoods but they also both had Rhys and Rhys’ mother. Mor has not had a single positive, mutual, respectful relationship before Rhys, Cassian, Azriel and Amren. That is so fucking important for her recovery and her stability and I cannot find it in myself to shame her or hate her for wanting to keep that whole. 

Not to mention the fact that she knows this will hurt Azriel. And she loves him. I don’t care what bullshit that coming out scene spouts about her not being able to love him ‘the way he deserves’ because of her sexuality (which I have issues with) because she loves this man in a very deep, unconditional way and this will hurt him and she can’t bear that. 

So there are a lot of pressures surrounding her keeping her sexuality hidden. She’s petrified of her family, of the homophobia she grew up surrounded by and she wants to keep this one tiny piece of herself hidden from them, so they never truly know her and therefore can’t own or break her. She’s petrified of losing the Circle, who she owes her life, freedom, power and stability to, they’re her support system and the only truly positive relationships she’s ever known. of course she’s terrified of losing that? And she’s scared of hurting Azriel and wrecking her relationship with someone that she truly and genuinely loves, even if she doesn’t want to be with him romantically. 

Also I think, when you mention that she didn’t have to come out to explain things to Azriel I think....In this case it’s complicated by them? She’s already walked away from him once while he was trying to tell her that he loved her...If she just goes to him and tells him that she can never ever be with him without the context of her sexuality...That’s going to ruin him? And she knows that. She knows how he sees himself and she’s probably terrified of offering up that rejection because the Circle is Az’s safe space and support network too and she loves him. She cannot just say ‘I don’t want you, I never will’ because then it will just...sound like he’s not good enough for her and he never will be? It’s going to sound like a ‘him’ problem than it just being the way that she is and she knows that would shatter him. (You can argue all you like that this is an Azriel problem and it’s not on her to fix or attend to his insecurities, and it’s not, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy for her to just shatter him like that? This is the reality of their situation) 

Also, on the subject of her not wanting to change it...I want to make it clear that I don’t think this is actively good for her. Like, I’m sorry, but if you think that Azriel, a straight man, is suffering more for Mor not feeling like she’s able to come out, feeling ‘petrified’ of facing him with this, than she is...I don’t know what to say to you. 

Being closeted is not fun. It’s not a little ‘straight passing’ card that you get to wave around so you can blend in with the normal people and not get noticed, it’s hard. It’s painful. It’s frightening. It’s constantly having to censor yourself whenever you’re talking to people, constantly worrying if they’ve figured it out even though you’re not ready, this constant paranoia and this guilt that builds up and the frustration and the hurt at not being able to be yourself. 

This situation is harming more exponentially more than it is Az and when she says that she doesn’t want it to change that’s not her being selfish. at all. 

(Especially when, as Mor told us herself in ACOMAF, she could peel her clothes off in front of Azriel and he wouldn’t move. He isn’t ready for this relationship anyway. He could have gone to her as well at any point in these 500 years and approached her about this and he hasn’t. Mor is not the only one maintaining this stasis between them and telling herself it’s ‘good enough’ this thing is mutual. 

Azriel isn’t technically losing out on anything by this because he hasn’t tried to make a move or talk to her about it and isn’t ready for the relationship himself? Maybe he could have moved on if she’d given him a concrete no but like...After five hundred years...He could have damn well just decided to move on for himself, like I’m sorry. A man should not need a flat out rejection from a woman (which, you could argue that he’d gotten when she walked away from him when he told her he loved her) to move on with his life, okay. 

He could have made that choice for himself she is not stopping him making that choice and she is not ‘stringing him along’ either, she isn’t hinting that oh maybe some day this might happen, not today but maybe tomorrow, she’s avoiding the subject and she has Cassian buffer them ffs to try and protect her from this. That’s not stringing him along, like, sorry) 

“WheneverAzriel makes his feelings clear, like he did with Eris … It’s stupid, I know.It’s so stupid and cruel that I do this, but … Islept with Helion just to remind Azriel … Gods, I can’t even say it. It soundseven worse saying it.”

“To remind himthat you’re not interested.”

“I should tellhim. I need to tell him. Mother above, after lastnight, I should. But …” She twisted her mass of golden hair over a shoulder.“It’s gone on for so long. So long. I’m petrified to face him—to tell him he’sspent five hundred years pining for someone and something that won’t everexist. The potential fallout … I like things the way they are. Even if I can’t… can’t really be me, I … things are good enough.”

Right, regardless of how you personally view Mor’s sexuality (bi/gay/queer/whatever you wish) the fact of the matter is that, in canon, Feyre states THREE TIMES that Mor did not enjoy sleeping with Helion and that she got no pleasure out of it. She’s described as ‘pale and vacant’ the next day and during the coming out scene Feyre actually thinks of her as looking ‘tortured’ okay, she is not enjoying this. The fact of the matter is, Mor is repeatedly having sex with men...For Az. To keep him at a distance. This is...Like I’m sorry but if you can’t see how fucked up that is (for HER) I don’t know what to say to you. She’s repeatedly putting herself in sexual situations she may or may not want that she does not seem to enjoy...For Azriel. 

She is suffering here, okay. She is closeted, that’s painful, that’s hard in itself but she also has this to deal with. Azriel’s affection has kept her closeted (in part) all these years and she is PETRIFIED of facing him with this?? How can this possibly be purely selfish on her part? How is she the only one getting flack for doing what she needs to do to keep herself safe. 

Especially when it’s hurting her like? ‘Good enough’ it’s just..It’s like Lucien’s situation in the Spring Court. That was ‘good enough’ for him, yes he was being abused  horrendously, no he didn’t have any real agency or power over himself or freedom or love or respect but it wasn’t the abusive shithole he was trapped in all those years so it was ‘good enough’. 

That’s what this good enough is, okay. She cannot be herself. She cannot openly love who she wants to. She has to suffer heartache and grief alone and isolated because she can’t tell anyone how she feels. She is ‘petrified’ of facing Azriel. She is closeted and that hurts. She is also GUILTY AS FUCK. She’s doing all of this, hiding herself, hurting herself, sleeping with people she doesn’t get any pleasure out of, and has been doing this for five  hundred years and she still feels horrifically guilty about this. She’s said in that coming out scene too that she wants to be able to love Azriel the way he deserves but she can’t. She’s tried to change herself and has hidden herself and hurt herself all for this relationship that she doesn’t want, that makes her uncomfortable? 

She likes things the way that they are  because these are the first people who accepted even a part of her. They love her and they respect her and they treat her with dignity and gave her basic fucking needs from a relationship and that is ‘good enough’ for her. Because she grew up with emotionally and physically abusive homophobic parents who accepted no part of her, who treated her like an animal, or worse, and then she found this...She found this love and respect and of course she doesn’t want to change it. Of course she doesn’t want to lose it. Of course she’s terrified of telling them and seeing that same hatred that lived in her parents’ eyes. Even if she knows it’s irrational that doesn’t matter. She’s a terrified queer abuse victim and she is suffering, she cannot be herself, but that’s good enough because what choice does she have, really? 

Mor is a closeted, scared, vulnerable, abuse survivor who is petrified of losing the only safe space that she’s ever had just because of who she is. She is suffering 100 times more from this situation than Azriel or anyone else in the Circle. I will not sit here and call a queer character selfish or a bad friend or any of it for doing what she feels she has to to protect herself. Especially not when most of the things that she’s doing are more damaging for her than they are for anyone else. I love Azriel, I relate to his character a lot, but I’m not going to sit here and prop up this ‘oh no poor boy’ while Mor gets thrown under the bus because she is afraid. 

Her identity is her own and this choice, revealing this part of herself to who she chooses, is one of the only pieces of ultimate agency that she has ever had. I won’t say she was wrong to keep it hidden, keep it safe, if that made her feel okay. Mor’s situation is not ��good enough’, Mor’s situation is deplorable and painful and I refuse to call her selfish for maintaining something like this because she is absolutely terrified of the alternative. 

Queer people have the right to be in the closet for as long as they need to be in order to feel safe. It is not for anyone else (especially not straight characters a la Feyre) to tell them when they should come out. They are not ‘liars’ for being closeted. They should not feel guilty for being closeted and keeping themselves safe. That’s a disgusting way of looking at things and it’s an incredibly damaging mentality to have. 

‘Out and proud’ is great, okay, but it’s not possible for everyone. A queer person’s safety comes first and if they feel that they need to keep their sexuality hidden in order to do so that is their choice. And it is not up to anyone, especially those who have no way of understanding what this feels like, to judge them or shame them or guilt-trip for that. It’s not selfish to want to protect yourself and not risk ruining the relationships you have with those around you for the sake of telling them something they do not have a right to know unless you choose it. 

In the end I will chose validating and defending a queer person’s decision to keep their identity hidden for their own personal reasons and safety over the feelings of anyone who feels like they might have been entitled to know this every. Single. Fucking. Time.