#but yeah. i think they’d suck but also their Complexes would clash in a way that circles back around to functionality

[gumy-shark]

wearing a tshirt that says “ask me about my silly mp100 headcanon where post canon teru and shou become the worlds shittiest roommates who are still functional somehow” and then on the back it says “im tired and not super verbal rn so i might not be able to actually answer questions i just wanted to let you guys know that this headcanon exists and i love it”

[angstmonsterwrites]

This week delivered a pretty harsh emotional gut-punch. I had to end the only non-family friendship I had where the person in question lived within a 100mi radius.

She and I had been growing apart for a bit as it was--the way I saw it was that we simply had become two different people than when we first met online back in 2014. We'd exchanged emails for the longest time, and met once at a convention. She was someone who'd been easy to relate to and understand at first because of a traumatic upbringing, but the substance of her messages never changed or varied throughout the years--it was always, always about who had wronged her this time and why it was evidence of how terrible people are, but how she was "hardworking" and "different". We scarcely talked about anything else. Victim mentality. The one time we met only solidified that this was who she was. Imagine someone side-eying perfect strangers in a crowd of cosplayers and constantly grumbling about how they were too scantily clad and making remarks about how sure she was her favorite character would disapprove. (Yes, there was a concerning disconnect from reality there that often made me wonder if there was something schizoid-flavored going on.) Suggesting that she could do anything differently or an alternative point of view was usually met with a lot of reaching and bending over backwards for reasons why nothing was ever her fault or how it was someone else who had to change.

In short, it wasn't commiserating. It was years of me reading long screeds, and going, "Yeah. Uh huh. That sucks." Most of the time, if I brought up any complaint of my own, it was met not with compassion, but with either dismissal so that we could focus on her again, or more ranting about how it was all just more evidence of how right she was. Even just attempts at sharing new interests resulted in a sort of pushback where she'd barely stop short of telling me I was wrong or somehow treacherous for doing so. Trying to share good news always prompted her to double down on refocusing on how awful everything was for her.

As we got into the vile meat of 2020, my energy to respond to long-form emails was pretty well shot, and my responses had slowed down substantially. She started to badger me with the question, "What am I to you?" I explained that I felt our attitudes and values had seriously diverged over the years, and that my stress level was simply too high, but that if she still wanted to keep in touch, it was a better idea to message me here on tumblr or just text my phone. I have no issue having quick back-and-forths, and little to no restrictions on when it's okay to message me. As a general rule, I answer as soon as I see it. This seemed like it would solve the problem with the lapses at least, and communicating in a way that offered instant responses should have provided reassurance that I wasn't just ignoring her. Yes, we had our differences, but for the most part, I was unresponsive to the emails because I was having a hard time with my own mental health.

Should have. She agreed to respect the boundary I'd set, but then unfollowed me here and sent a long paper letter instead--the furthest thing from what I'd requested. She then would only message in months-apart check-ins to see if I'd read the letter yet, growing increasingly aggravated when I had not. At one point, she explained that it was meant to reveal to me how much she'd accomplished, and how I was wrong about her, and also contained a poem she wanted me to read aloud to my household. The hysteric "What am I to you?" questions continued.

After deliberating, I explained why the letter and her related actions had upset me. She said that she'd unfollowed (without even trying to message at first) me because she suspected I wanted nothing to do with her. She then also insisted that she'd sent the letter before unfollowing, complained about how badly she missed the email routine, and went on a tirade about how unfair it was she was the only one reaching out, and how she'd done so much more for me, and so forth. It essentially devolved into overt gaslighting.

It was then that I calmly told her that I felt it was probably best for us to leave one another in peace. Those were my exact words. If we couldn't even agree on how to talk without an explosion of manufactured drama--if she couldn't be bothered to respect one simple ask without making herself out to be a victim of unfair treatment--then there was nothing left to say. She responded saying that she was even more afraid I wanted nothing to do with her--at this point, it had become true--and again demanding to know what she'd ever really been to me.

I had had enough. I blocked her.

Two days later, I got one last email from her, and a phone call with no message. (Or I certainly hope it's the last. Good grief.) In it, she reiterated her belief that she'd been the one pouring all the effort into our relationship, how this confirmed I was 'just like everyone else', and that she wasn't going to let herself be hurt by me anymore.

And...I've been feeling like complete garbage ever since. Not so much because I felt it was time to end that friendship--the descent into blatant gaslighting was all I needed to push the proverbial EJECT button--but I’m left questioning why I tend to attract that sort of person more than any other--selfish, histrionic, delusional. Making and maintaining friendships is difficult for me, so the question of how I might have done anything differently has to be asked. The simple answer, I believe, is that I should have just been open about my disagreements and our incompatibility much sooner. But even with more emotionally mature individuals, I do have an unfortunate track record of lapsing into silence unless spoken to when I'm overly stressed, and I know that can send the wrong message. I don't want to be that person who does nothing but use the other as a doormat for continual complaining and nothing but. I don't want to burden anyone the way this person burdened me.

That's the emotional backlash I always face when a friendship fails because of toxic behavior: Is it possible that this same toxicity lives in me too, and I'm just too myopic or self-righteous to see it? Is it possible that this is why being any kind of a social person is so challenging to me? I don't think so, but what if I'm wrong? What if I'm reading my own tone wrong? What if I'm measuring the content of my conversations with others in a way that minimizes exactly how much self-centered bitching I do? Do I come off as someone with a victim complex?

I find myself coming back to the damaging, impossibly mixed messaging around socializing I was raised with. If I share what's good or fun, that could be selfish because what if the other person is having a hard time? What if I'm just rubbing something in their face they can't have? If I what I share is sad and difficult, I may be overburdening them or dragging them down when they'd otherwise be doing just fine. Sometimes just talking at all feels invasive--that is, attempting to get to know or draw closer to another person makes me feel like I'm stealing something that doesn't belong to me. I was always told that it's rude to pry, and that if others really want to talk to me specifically, they will without prompt.

In sum, these 'rules' allow for zero proactive communication, suggesting that any such effort is doomed to be bothersome and thoughtless at best. Of course, I don't buy into them anymore, but that doesn't mean that they aren't engraved into my psyche in such a way that violating them still comes with a serious wallop of guilt.

And as folks with a history of emotional abuse go, there do tend to be extremes of embracing victimhood as an identity, low-key messiah complexes, and what have you. I absolutely am guilty of nursing one of those soft-core messiah complexes, I think. Unfortunately, this means that when someone comes along with no end of narcissistic self pity--that is, not just someone truly down on their luck-- it's an easy trap for me to fall into. I always see it as my role to fix things for people or to try save them from their troubles, or to be the one who listens and gives. I want to be useful and relied upon and a source of comfort, understanding, and peace, but then I want to act all surprised when I get used and stepped on time and again when I fail to be 100% honest about any frustrations or misgivings I might have. By the time I decide to set any real boundaries, it’s far too late to maneuver out from under unreasonable expectations without snuffing out the relationship altogether.

When someone with a baby savior complex clashes with another person who possesses a loud-and-proud victim mentality, I suppose it's bound to be a slow-moving train wreck.

Maybe I'm not like her, but I can't escape the fact that in many ways, I really did bring this upon myself...Again.

---

TL;DR: I asked for some minor changes in how I communicate with a friend because my stress level was so high that the idea of jumping off a local overpass wasn’t not bouncing around in my head. Her response? Act like a jilted lover, thinking only- “But what about me?” And I realized it’s been that way with her for a long time.

[bluboothalassophile]

Weathered the Storm

After a very long day wandering New York City, looking over his properties and he was thinking about the logic of moving again now that the bats had found him. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have places to go, the trick would be getting Raven to move with him. His girlfriend was a homebody if he ever met one. Not that she wouldn’t travel, and it wasn’t like she was domestic (he did all the cooking and the cleaning in this relationship), but Raven centered her existence around having a place to call home. Not that he blamed her, he kind of did the same thing, and he had just officiated the plans for the bathroom.

Which was another think he’d been running around doing, collecting needed supplies after having officiated it.

Now it was night, he had everything set up for the bathroom and he was on his block as the rain started. Life was pretty good for him right now, minus the Bats knowing where he lived. Pulling out his keys he walked into his apartment complex. He jogged up to the fourth floor; yes, he’d gotten apartment 4C as a joke for himself on C-4, one of his favorite tools. He’d even managed to paint the door bright red and Raven not blast him. Pulling his keys, he unlocked his place and saw Raven sleeping on the couch, her book on her chest and she didn’t look like she’d moved. He smirked a bit, after dealing with his family four days earlier he was sure she was exhausted. Carefully he scooped up his girlfriend, she grumbled something.

“Getting heavy, little bird,” he teased and heard her mutter something in Azarathian as cutlery rattled a bit.

“Kay, kay, light as a little feather,” he mused as he got her to their room and put her on the bed as he walked out. There was a tap on his window which had him looking up thinking it was a bird and he just about jumped out of his skin seeing Dick there.

“Jesus!” he yelped as he then composed himself and scowled as he stalked to the window and yanked it open.

“What?” he growled.

“Can I come in?” Dick smiled.

“Fuck no! What do you want and go? This is not a stop for Bats!” he snapped.

“Ah, come on little wing! It’s crappy out here,” Dick pointed out and Jason frowned as he looked at the rain and his sopping wet brother.

“No.” He slammed the window shut and walked to his kitchen as he purposely pulled out a kettle and tea. There was a persistent tapping on his window but Jason opted to ignore it when his phone rang.

“What?” he answered.

“What The Hell Kind Of Locks Are These!?” Dick demanded.

“Bat proof, seriously Dickhead, what do you want?” Jason scowled as he looked at the window where Dick was trying to jimmy the lock on his window.

“We seriously need to talk!”

“No, we don’t!” Jason snapped and hung up as he purposely stalked over to the window and looked Dick straight in the eye and took apart his phone then walked back to the kitchen. There was a persistent rapping on his window and after about ten minutes of it Jason surrendered to the fact he wouldn’t get any fucking peace in his own home as he stalked to the bathroom, grabbed towels, checked on Raven before he stalked back to the window and opened it.

“What is so fucking important you can’t email it!?” Jason hissed as his brother clambered into his apartment and he slammed the window shut on the storm.

“Thanks Jaybird, and I’m here because I was on my way to Blüdhaven and it started pouring so I thought to stop by here and stay dry.”

“This isn’t a fucking motel or halfway house for traveling bats!” he snapped as he walked back to his room and grabbed dry clothes for his idiot brother and threw them at Dick’s head.

“Ah, but you love us!” Dick mused.

“I like Cass and Stephanie and they’re about it,” Jason snapped. The girls weren’t so bad to work with, he and Barbara still clashed, but Cass and Steph were cool, as was the new chicks Harper and what’s her face with the powers. He’d get her name eventually.

“So… you and Raven, it’s real?” Dick said now dressed in dray clothes, Jason collected the wet stuff and dropped it in his dryer. Jason looked over at what Dick was looking at, it was of the few photos of him and Raven, and it was taken in Coronado, San Diego, California on a vacation he had taken with her about a year ago. He’d even splurged and they’d stayed at the Del Coronado.

“Yes, and off limits Dickhead,” Jason warned as he peeked in on Raven who was still sound asleep before he shut the door completely.

“Why are you really here, Dick, I know about ten routes between Gotham and Blüdhaven that are faster and don’t get you tangled here,” Jason said as he walked to the kitchen and pulled out some of the cookies he’d made earlier for a snack.

“I just swung by to check up on my little brother, can’t I do that, especially since Alfred didn’t get him to come to Sunday dinner,” Dick smiled. “Oh, are these the lemon things of Alfie’s?”

“Yes, and no, I didn’t go to dinner because I am renovating my bathroom after much sabotage needed to get Raven to agree to even let me,” Jason smirked, he was a bit proud of himself for lying to an empath and not getting her temper. Not that he’d ever boast about that. Never. Ever. He liked being on this side of the grave, thank you very much.

“Ah, can I see?” Dick asked.

“No! If you wake Raven I’ll skin you alive for kicks,” he warned lowly.

“Got it, no entry,” Dick sighed.

“So… you and Raven, three and a half years; Dami told us.”

“Yup,” he popped the ‘p’ to annoy Dick.

“How’d you two manage that?” Jason looked up seeing genuine interest on his elder brother’s face which had Jason frowning as he stood up straight, leaving his sugar cookie in the tin.

“Why?” Jason asked.

“I just want to know, longest I lasted was two years and that was even being engaged for a year, before that fell apart, so what’s the secret?” Dick demanded.

“First off, you fucked up with Kori, big time, and if you ever manage to shrink the ego and stop thinking with your dick instead of your head you might realize you were an idiot for fucking that up. And yes, I know all about it, Kori’s a good friend of mine and Raven’s, so I side with Kori. And two, none of your fucking business,” Jason snapped.

“Jay, I’m not… I’m not asking to make fun of you, you are the first of us with a successful relationship, I actually want to know how you and Raven pulled it off,” Dick said and Jason reluctantly looked over at Jason from the stove as he made warm milk for the cookies.

“She’s my best friend,” Jason answered.

“What?”

“Raven is my best friend, I don’t lie to her about the important shit or the little shit, I don’t try to be someone else and I don’t force her to be someone else, I’ve also made it a point Not to do everything you and Bruce and Tim do in a relationship,” he said calmly. “It’s really fucking simple, and complicated Dick. Lie to a girl, try to do the lone gunman thing for protection, and she’s going to leave. And yeah, I’ve done stupid shit and Raven’s yelled at me for it, and she’s done stupid shit and I’ve yelled at her. But I don’t cut her out Dick. It’s really that simple.”

“You two just, you don’t seem to mesh,” Dick said.

“Now that really isn’t any of your fucking business Dickhead,” Jason warned sharply. He and Raven worked because everything Bruce, Dick, and Tim were notorious for doing, he didn’t do, he actually tried not to do that with Raven.

“Are you two happy?” Dick asked.

“Not always,” Jason stated as he sat down. There were times they wanted to murder each other and the last real war they had was about something stupid, he’d left, and Raven had stayed with Victor as he ripped apart some crime organization. When they had both cooled down they had been adults about the problem, resolved the issue and moved on. No, he had no fucking clue what their war had been about, just that it was enough to have them wanting to throttle one another.

“Dick I don’t know what magical fairy tale land you and the Bats live in, but relationships are work. You’re not always going to be happy, and it’s going to suck at times. But it’s a relationship, it’s work.”

“Hadn’t thought about that.”

“Course not,” Jason muttered. He really didn’t call Dick ‘Dickhead’ just to annoy him, Dick and Bruce were notorious for thinking with their dicks instead of their heads when it came to relationships. Just look at how Bruce got the demon spawn for a kid.

“Jason?” Raven appeared, sleepy, rumbled and like a lost little bird as she rubbed her eyes.

“Hey, we got company, though I think I’m posting a sign on the window ‘No Entry’,” he informed her as she walked over and Dick smiled at her.

“Hey Rae,” Dick grinned.

“Hey,” Raven muttered as she clambered onto his lap.

“Midterms suck,” she informed them promptly before she was sound asleep again and Jason just sighed. This was a peculiar habit of Raven’s, and one he didn’t mind but wasn’t happy about revealing before his brother. Still, Jason dropped his arms around her to keep her still and looked pointedly at Dick.

“Not one word,” Jason warned.

“I’m not saying anything,” Dick avowed.

“Good, else I’d kick you back into the rain, the couch is yours, but I want you gone in the morning, and my apartment is not your stop between here and Blüdhaven, got it!?” Jason growled.

“Yup,” Dick mimicked.

“Good, cookies go in the cupboard, do not destroy my place so it looks like yours or I’ll track you down and murder you slowly and painfully in your sleep,” Jason stated as he picked Raven up carefully and took her back to their room.

“Oh, and Dick, my room is off limits. Don’t even think of snooping in here,” Jason snapped.

“So I can snoop the rest of the apartment out.”

“Touch anything and I will know,” Jason stated as he kicked his door shut and put Raven back in bed.

“Stay,” she mumbled.

“Not going anywhere little bird, just going to bed,” he promised as his sleepy girlfriend conked out again. The other secret to their relationship that the Bats would never understand, was they were independent of one another, however, they also were a unit and wanted each other’s company. Changing he fell onto his bed and looked Raven over carefully before he turned off the light and let sleep settle.

Bats were not going to be welcomed in his relationship, but it appeared they would be crashing into his life.

~~~*~*~*~~~

Dick waited until he was sure neither Raven nor Jason were coming out of their room before he got up and started looking over the photos. The thing to understand with his being here, was Raven was one of his best friends, and Jason was his baby brother, he just… he wanted to make sure they weren’t going to be hurt.

Looking over the shelves of records, books, and odd mementos that they had he could see they were close. Surprisingly he couldn’t pick out what was Raven’s and what was Jason’s on the books or music, and he paused looking at the few photos of them they had. It was clearly a gift, he was betting Victor’s, and they were scattered on the shelves.

There was a photo of Raven and Jason in a different apartment, boxes everywhere, and it looked like her place in San Francisco from five years ago when she had abruptly moved out. There was another photo of them, it was of them at an airport. There was a photo of Victor, Jason, and Raven at a game, Raven in her Mets gear, Jason in his Knights gear, and Victor wearing a Mets hat, all of them were smiling, it looked like a good time. There was a photo of them, which was clearly not staged, sound asleep in a park, books on their chests, neither seemed any the wiser to the photographer.

But the photo which really caught his attention was one of Raven and Jason, both with real smiles, at the beach, both with surf boards and wetsuits on, and a caption written in Cyborg’s bold scrawl: 'Congrats on Three Years!’.

Dick smirked, Jason and Raven might be the two biggest loners ever, but it appeared this was solid and he didn’t think he or the rest of the family would ever get to be a part of it really.

[feminafatalis]

i wanna talk about laura cheating on shadow and what it means in terms of her morality and like what kind of person she is, but since cheating is a rough topic i’m gonna put it under a read more. please do read this if it won’t be triggering for you though because i think it’s gonna be really important to understanding my portrayal of laura! this may not be free of spoilers, but as far as i know i’ve stuck mainly to information and details we already know from the show. if i go into book stuff, i’ll put a spoiler warning

so okay, first things first: i’ve seen some stuff in laura’s and emily’s tags about laura being a bitch or a whore, etc and i’m not even gonna address that tbh but someone brought up like not condemning her for like the sexuality of it, but examining her morals. and that’s 100% valid!!! but they said like her ‘shitty morals’ or something and honestly?

laura isn’t morally shitty. she’s morally weak.

because if you think for a second laura like??? doesnt know what she’s doing is fucked up and wrong, then we are seeing two very different lauras.

and yes, she does it anyway. but that is not indicative of some like moral seed of evil. she’s lonely and sad and weak.

i don’t think robbie ever forced himself on her or really even took advantage of her because she definitely had most of her agency in the situation, but i also see so many indications that???? no part of her actually wanted to be with robbie. like as sad as it is, robbie is a complete stand-in for shadow. when she mentions being with him, she often mentions being drunk. she, as far as i can tell, drinks to ease the guilt she feels sleeping with robbie. (again, i’m not saying any of this is right, but i am saying that laura didn’t one day go ‘fuck shadow i wanna get laid’ and sleep with robbie)

robbie was a drunken mistake that made her feel special and safer and loved. i’m also going off of the fact that in book canon, shadow isn’t super expressive (which i’ll get into more later and im gonna put a spoiler warning)

i also don’t think laura’s friendship with audrey is particularly healthy. it’s 100% tenuous, probably a little high school. im certain that they don’t get along more often than they’d like to admit. of course i’m not trying to minimize what audrey’s going through (and i think the show and betty gilpin did a really good job of like portraying how much it fucks her up) but there are aspects of her personality that i could identify as seriously clashing with laura’s. i think audrey was a little more cynical, probably a bit more biting and sarcastic in her everyday life. and i think laura, before her death, was the kind of positive you only are when you’re really making an effort. laura doesn’t have a good relationship with her mom (clearly evidenced by the fact that shadow doesn’t get along with her mother. shadow meant the world to laura and if her mom was ever unkind to him i really don’t see laura tolerating that)

shadow was laura’s best friend, if not (by the time they got married) her only real friend. is that healthy? of course not. but it was definitely a reality. laura has people she’s friendly with. but her circle is audrey, robbie, and shadow. audrey is her best friend on paper, but they are old friends and definitely grew to be very different people. robbie is the person who knew shadow and was shadow’s best friend, so it makes sense that laura is more drawn to robbie for companionship than audrey because he is more like shadow

so now let’s think about laura who’s just lost her best friend in the entire world. it’s her fault. she doesn’t really shy away from the fact that she is the reason shadow went to prison. i can’t remember if they go into detail about what happened, but he did it to protect her. so: 1) the love of her life/her best friend is in prison. 2) it’s her fault. 3) her ‘best friend’ audrey is someone she connects with less and less every day. 4) robbie is there.

also!!!! laura is ABSOLUTELY self sabotaging. she knows sleeping with robbie will damage her relationship with shadow, and whether she is conscious of it or not, she thinks shadow is better off without her.

NOW let’s talk about that dick pic shall we?

gross.

so we see her phone, her texts to robbie seem to consist mostly of plans to meet. but he texts her that dick pic and she says DOWN BOY

i know this seems like im reaching but she is pretending he is shadow

it’s literally this big sweet inside joke that shadow is her puppy. they don’t go into it on the show which is absolutely obscene because it is the sweetest thing in the world and im gonna paste it in here for anyone who hasn’t read the book.

“When they got married Laura told Shadow that she wanted a puppy, but their landlord had pointed out they weren’t allowed pets under the terms of their lease. “Hey,” Shadow had said, “I’ll be your puppy. What do you want me to do? Chew your slippers? Piss on the kitchen floor? Lick your nose? Sniff your crotch? I bet there’s nothing a puppy can do I can’t do!” And he picked her up as if she weighed nothing at all and began to lick her nose while she giggled and shrieked, and then he carried her to the bed.“

So, yeah it’s a reach but I genuinely think Laura is just pretending Robbie is Shadow. She talks to him as if he’s Shadow, she gets drunk before she sleeps with him. She’s miserable because the love of her life is gone.

I’m not saying Laura is a morally pure person. But she’s not an inherently bad person. She did a bad thing out of desperation and emotional instability and now she’s dead and she can’t apologize because she doesn’t feel all that sorry because she can’t feel anything bc she’s dead. so yeah im not seeking to absolve her of guilt, but like she was also suffering a lot without shadow and the way she coped with it totally sucked! but i also see it as a very (tragically) human thing to do.

PLOT/BOOK SPOILERS BELOW

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another thing: i haven’t read this far in my reread so i don’t remember much detail but shadow is called shadow because he is a shadow of a person. that’s why i think his race is made to be a little bit ambiguous, he doesn’t talk much, and is all together pretty passive in the book. they changed these things because a) shadow as a protagonist needs to be a little bit more relatable/engaging, b) the show would be dry without dialogue, and c) like re: race you inherently have to choose a human to play the role and that person is inherently going to have a racial identity so like that’s just how that works

this is why i identified so strongly with shadow in high school, lol. he isn’t fully himself!!! he’s not fully alive, even! so obviously that factored into laura feeling so distanced from him. all she got were phone calls, potentially rare visits where he was likely suffering a lot emotionally and thus may have been even more distant? and like that’s not his fault, but again laura is a weak person. she needs a lot of love and care and reassurance which shadow can’t possibly give her in prison. it’s not his fault, it is her fault, but shadow has sympathy for her so i ask that you do too! and like you probably do bc you’re following me but ive seen a lot of hate in her tag and it just made me sad bc she’s so complex and to just write her off as a sack of shit is totally reductive bc she was definitely like wracked with guilt when she was alive. we just don’t see it now bc she’s dead and like expressing whatever guilt she had to shadow doesn’t make sense to her because its over, she already did it. and what’s the sense in making shadow feel guilty or sorry for her?

so yeah thats my spiel im sorry it turned into such a rant. but if you got this far thank you omg! ur a star and i hope you understand laura’s nightmare of an existence a little better (at least according to me) lmao love y’all! pls go easy on my dumb zombie daughter