#every year i feel this tension
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the thing about 9/11 that i'm sure everyone here understands but i want to put into words is like, it WAS a tragedy, and the people that died that day, both in the towers and in the planes, DO deserve to be remembered. there were heroes and victims both that deserve memorials.
unfortunately, the united states government has so completely shat on their memory and twisted their tragedy into a quest for oil and white supremacy, that actually taking part in any state-endorsed memorial is not honoring them, but spitting on them. they deserved better.
#every year i feel this tension#cause it is VERY funny to mock 9/11#i just wanted to be clear that when i do so it is not because those deaths didnt matter.#its because 9/11 has always been a disgusting circus
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LAKE MISSOULA x JONAS VINGEGAARD
credits under cut!
lake missoula - richy mitch and the coal miners // jonas vingegaard - team presentation, tour de france 2024 // jonas vingegaard, tadej pogacar, and remco evenepoel - podium ceremony, tour de france 2024 (belga images) // tadej pogacar and jonas vingegaard - tour de france 2024 // wayward son - rainbow rowell // jonas vingegaard - stage 21, tour de france 2024 // it's down to legs - caley fretz // jonas vingegaard - stage 20, tour de france 2024 // jonas vingegaard - tour de france 2024 // jonas vingegaard - stage 11, tour de france 2024 // a poem on hope - wendell berry // jonas vingegaard and remco evenepoel - stage 19, tour de france 2024 // quora user shulamit widawsky // jonas vingegaard - stage 21, tour de france 2024 (getty images) // jonas vingegaard - stage 21, tour de france 2024 post-race interview (flobikes) // 'now the fight is over': jonas vingegaard concedes tour de france battle for yellow, but still aims for second - adam becket // jonas vingegaard - stage 19, tour de france 2024 post-race interview (flobikes) // video: jonas vingegaard and matteo jorgenson consoled after heart-breaking end to stage 19 of 2024 tour de france for team visma | lease a bike - kieran wood // jonas vingegaard - tour de france 2024 // jonas vingegaard - tour de france 2024 // 'probably the hardest moment of my career'-- jonas vingegaard on his crash and fight to be ready for the tour de france - stephen farrand // jonas vingegaard's tour de france was a venn diagram - iain treloar // rise up and salute the sun: the writings of suzy kassem - suzy kassem // jonas vingegaard - tour de france 2023 // jonas vingegaard - stage 21, tour de france 2024 // jonas vingegaard - stage 11, tour de france 2024 // vingegaard exhausted after tour de france: may cut season short - sjoerd valkering // jonas vingegaard and tadej pogacar - stage 20, tour de france 2024 (belga images) // the thing is - ellen bass // "if you had told me four months ago that i would be second, i wouldn't have believed you" - jonas vingegaard disappointed but proud of his tour de france - ondrej zhasil // jonas vingegaard and tadej pogacar - stage 11, tour de france 2024 // jonas vingegaard - stage 11, tour de france 2024 post-race interview (nbc sports) // alfred lord tennyson // jonas vingegaard and tadej pogacar - stage 11, tour de france 2024 // remco evenepoel and jonas vingegaard - stage 21, tour de france 2024 // jonas vingegaard and tadej pogacar - tour de france 2024 // matteo jorgenson and jonas vingegaard - stage 19, tour de france 2024 // matteo jorgenson and jonas vingegaard - tour de france 2024 // jonas vingegaard and tadej pogacar - podium ceremony, tour de france 2024 // jonas vingegaard and wout van aert - tour de france 2024 (team visma | lease a bike)
#obligatory jonasposting#i don’t know if i got the vibe i wanted to capture?? i feel like watching jonas race this year has ultimately been about hope#like the entire thing at its core feels like a leap of faith- of course visma was obsessively running numbers behind the scenes and#trying to prepare him as well as possible#but in the end he still hadn’t raced since april. he still had less than half the preparation and a massive question mark was following#them to the startline#but he still came. and he still believed. and everyone around him believed beyond everything else-#staff. commentators. fans. everyone was holding their breath because they don’t know where to place their bets#so it all comes down to crossing your fingers every time he gets a mechanical. saying a prayer under your breath when he loses 30 seconds.#and then stage 11 comes along! the tension is suddenly resolved and it’s like seeing the sun again!#but then things start to go downhill- but everyone still keeps hoping. the commentators i was watching were still saying “if” instead of#“when” about his podium in stage 21 because despite everything people still had hope! they don’t want to lay down the hammer#and even when he still finished second#the grief still mingled with the wonderful and beautiful fact that he still did it!#you take a step back and against all odds jonas vingegaard came back from the brink of death and podiumed the fucking tour de france!#and that heartbreak and wonder can coexist. you didn’t hope for nothing. the sky is still blue. the sun still shines. he made it.#sorry long tag rant i’m a yapper at heart y’all#me reading or listening to anything ever rn: omg this is so jonas coded!!!#jonas vingegaard#jv#tadej pogacar#remco evenepoel#wout van aert#wva#matteo jorgenson#tdf#tdf 2024#tour de france 2024#tour de france#cycling
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Childhood Friends Au: Danny's in Gotham Again
when the wool is off your eyes you'll stop counting sheep at night cause you'll eat your fill of them during the daytime
A few weeks after Danny’s visit to Gotham, he buys an apartment in the city. It’s this little thing, a studio apartment on the same street he grew up in. In Crime Alley. When he tells his parents, they protest heavily. They don’t think it's safe. They think he should reconsider. There were plenty of apartments and places to live somewhere else. And what about college?
Danny doesn’t think he’ll go to college. He isn’t sure what he wants to do, now that being an astronaut is off the table. It’d be a waste of money to go without a goal in mind, he thinks. He says he’ll take a gap year and apply at one of the community colleges funded by the Wayne Corporation, possibly. It just wasn’t in the cards right now.
“If things get tough,” He says at dinner that night, “then I can talk to the Waynes. I’m friends with the family, remember?” He ended up getting Bruce’s number in his phone again before he left, and in the process got Tim’s as well. They don’t talk much, Danny isn’t sure what to say. But he sends Tim memes whenever he comes across one and thinks he’ll like. Tim sends memes back in return.
His parents do remember. They remember. They also remember the horrified shriek that echoed through the house when Danny learned of Jason’s passing. They remember running up the stairs and bursting into their son’s room and finding him sobbing into his bed, curled up like a little kid, like he was in pain. He lost his voice that day, stuck between screaming out his grief and sobbing it.
They’re still not sure if they should let him go.
In the end, Danny wins them out, and he lets them help him search for an apartment. They take a break from their lab work to help search for cheap furniture to buy. They may have more money than when they were in Gotham, but that frugal part of you never fully goes away. They all agree that they don’t want Danny to be seen carrying in nice-looking furniture when he moves in.
He ends up with a basic furniture set, all mismatched, and in the warm summer of June, his parents rent out a u-haul and drive him down to Gotham to move in. They meet the landlord when they arrive, a skinny and frail old man with wispy white hair and a wrinkled face. He gives Danny the keys and tells him what apartment number he is, and then he leaves.
His parents help him move in. They help him carry his heavy furniture up to the second floor, where his apartment is. Danny isn’t sure if he wants them to help. His mom and dad are strong, but they are getting old, closer to their fifties now that their children are grown. His dad’s hair is slowly beginning to thin, and rather than the white eating at the sides of his head, it now streaks through his hair like salt-and-pepper. His mom’s hair is graying out too, and there are more lines in their faces than he remembers there being.
When he voices his concerns, his mom laughs spiritedly and says that they may be getting old, but they are still as spry as when they were in their twenties. Danny isn’t sure if he believes them or not. He can see his dad struggle a bit when they return to get his bed frame, and they have to take a break before they go back down for the rest of their things.
Five years ago, his dad could do this without breaking a sweat. It forces a heavy thing in the back of Danny’s throat. (He is less afraid of his own death than he is of his loved ones, and while he has always felt rocky with his parents, he still loves them more than anything else.)
Danny’s apartment is exactly as he would have expected it to be: shabby and worn through. The entire room smells like stale cigarette smoke and weed, nicotine stains the wall with poorly covered bullet holes, and stains in the carpet that are a color he can’t discern. The fridge has a broken light and when he tries to turn on the gas stove, it click-click-clicks before lighting, fire fwooshing out while the smell of gas fills the air. There’s rat droppings in the cupboards and the closet-like bathroom is just as bad.
The ghostly part of him can sense the heavy stench of death in the room; people have died in this room. People have died in every room of this building, he thinks. They have died on the streets outside and in the alleys squeezed between them. He can feel it like a heavy fog in the air.
It is painfully nostalgic, a bittersweet feeling in his chest that he grimaces to.
When the last box is placed in his apartment, his parents offer to help unpack. They are hesitant to leave and Danny knows it, although he doesn’t know if it’s from empty nest syndrome or because it's Gotham. He thinks it might be both. He is their youngest child finally leaving home to a city known for its danger.
“Are you sure you don’t want us to stay behind, sweetie?” His mother asks, a frown she tries to hide settled in the creases of her face. She fiddles with her hands, a nervous habit Danny has since noticed when she feels truly unsure and doesn’t need to hide it. Hesitancy looms over her like a heavy cloud.
His dad jumps in hastily, splaying his hands and smiling painfully wide to hide the glistening in his eyes. “You’re mother’s right! We can help you get everything set up, champ. I could probably do something with that stove of yours to make it faster!” He says, his voice still booming like it always does even if there’s a stumble in his words.
It makes his heart squeeze, knowing just how much they care. It was hard last summer, telling him that he was the Phantom. Terrifying, actually. They couldn’t comprehend it. He hadn’t felt his heart beat that fast in years when he stood in front of them at the kitchen table and told them he was a halfa, begging them to believe that ghosts weren’t inherently evil.
His parents were people of science, however, and after much, much shock, they slowly came to terms with it. How could they not? The evidence was right in front of them. Their son was dead-alive, alive-dead. Somewhere stuck in the between. The tears they shed that night could fill a river, moving from the kitchen to the living room as Danny explains how he died.
(When Danny tells them that he died after a week Jason did, his mom and dad look horrified. His mom covers her mouth when he adds that it was his idea to go inside it, his dad looks ashy pale, gripping his pant legs so tight that his knuckles turn white. There is a conclusion coming to their minds that he can tell they don’t like.)
(“You’ve always hated our inventions, Danny.” Mom says in a hushed voice, and Danny winces at the wording, sinking into the back of the cushions in shame. He never thought that his parents noticed. Mom quickly grabs his arm, “No, no, there’s nothing to be ashamed of Danny. We were… perhaps too careless with our inventions, too enthusiastic. You had every right to hate the things we made when they had a tendency to… to malfunction.”)
(Malfunction is a delicate way of putting it, when Danny remembers every time they had to evacuate their old apartment complex because whatever half-baked creation his parents made inevitably blew up into ash and smoke. There were soot marks permanently stained into the ceiling.)
(Her hand slides down and grabs his, and she cups it in both of her hands, squeezing tightly. He forces himself to look up, and there is a look like her heart breaking when he looks into his mother’s eyes. “You’ve always avoided the lab after we moved, Danny. And you had every right to, so why on Earth did you ever think about going into the portal?”)
(Danny struggles to come up with an adequate answer, a way to verbalize what came over him that day five years ago. The answer is there, hanging in the air like a knot in a noose. He opens his mouth, and then closes it.)
(Finally, with a tongue made of lead, he shrugs lamely and looks away. “I didn’t know there was an on button inside it.” He mumbles, and despite being the truth it feels like a lie. But that is the truth. He didn’t know there was an on button inside it. So he didn’t care what happened.)
(Something dulls in mom’s eyes, like she thought of something else that Danny hadn’t said. Her eyes shimmer, and she squeezes them shut, breathing in so deep that it shakes. And then she pulls him into a hug, a hand burying into his hair and pressing him close. “It must have hurt so much, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”)
(It is something that Danny doesn’t expect her to say, like missing the last step of the stairs. It startles him so much he laughs this short, bark of a thing. He feels his dad press against his back and wrap his big arms around them, his nose pushed into his hair.)
(Because yeah. Yeah, it did hurt. It hurt more than anything else he’s ever felt before. It had torn him apart and sewn him back together again, only to rinse and repeat. The pain was nothing he ever spoke to Sam or Tucker about, and it was something they never brought up. No, that’s not true. If they ever brought it up, Tucker would call it a zap. As if Danny only experienced a mild static shock. Like it was painless. It’s a pretty lie that Danny lets him and Sam believe.)
(His eyes sting and water immediately wobbles into his vision, coming up with such a force that he doesn’t even need to blink before it spills over. “Yeah.” He forces out, voice unexpectedly rough and cracking. “Yeah, it- it hurt. A lot.”)
He tells them about fighting the Lunch Lady a month later. He tells them about finding Jason. It comes spilling out like a waterfall. “I found him, mom.” He says, holding onto her tight while she keeps him tucked under his chin like a little kid. The secret of Jason being Robin stays hidden under his tongue, it is not his secret to tell. Not his identity to expose. He grips her tighter. “I found him, mom. Right there in the Ghost Zone, and he was my Jason. He wasn’t an echo or a— an imprint of him.”
Mom is silent; quiet and attentive, and so is dad, who rubs his large hands up and down Danny’s spine in an attempt to soothe him. It only works a little. Danny breathes in like a gasp as the urge to cry overcomes him again. He always avoids talking about Jason, his grief is like a never-healing scab that can be picked off at any time. It is ingrained into his core.
“And then I lost him.” He forces out, a sob layering under his words that he chokes on and swallows. The hand on his back stills, and he can feel mom and dad breathe in like a question. He turns his head and pushes it into mom’s shoulder. “He disappeared, mom. Just— just gone.”
“And he didn’t move on.” He says, voice snarling like teeth biting before his mom can ask, because he knows that’s what she was going to ask. It’s what Sam and Tucker asked when he came to them in tears hours after he found Jason gone. It’s what Jazz said when he finally told her about it. It’s what every one of his ghosts asked when he told them about it and begged for their help.
Danny grits his teeth and tries not to dig his nails into mom’s clothes as a fresh wave of tears run down his face. “His haunt is still there. If Jason really moved on it would have disappeared with him. That’s how it works. But it’s still in the zone, so Jason’s out there I just don’t know where.”
(Sam once asks him why Danny didn’t just move on from it a year after Jason’s disappearance. She asked him why he didn’t give it up. Danny nearly saw red, and nearly bit her head off for it. It was incomprehensible to him to just stop looking for Jason, to give up. Not when he was out in the zone somewhere. Because he had to be in the zone.)
(Danny once tried to take Jason through the portal with him, and much like what happened to Kitty, it didn’t work. Jason was too tied to the ghost zone to leave.)
(Some bonds are just unbreakable, he thinks. Bonds forged through blood and time and trust, and when you’re on the streets of Gotham, you hoard what little trust you have in someone like a dragon with its gold. It is scarcely given and fiercely kept.)
“I’ve been looking for him.” Danny whispers when talking becomes too hard for him, when it runs the risk of him crying. “When- when I’m not fighting ghosts or, or in school or with my friends, I’ve been looking for him.” He has explored the Ghost Zone in every reach he can. He has met so many people. He’s met the ghosts of aliens from planets in every corner of the galaxy. He has met gods or god-like beings and their disciples.
He’s met famous scholars and writers (he’s gotten the autographs of all of Jason’s favorite writers). He has found entire cities that have so much life in it that it's been permanently etched into the ghost zone, like a mirror version of itself.
He’s visited the ghostly vision of Gotham so many times, and he avoids the imprint of Wayne Manor like the plague. There are ghostly newspapers that he reads. There are the ghosts of Martha and Thomas Wayne in many of them.
Jason’s haunt connects to Wayne Manor, but it is also the street they grew up in. It is a small brick building with a door that leads to Jason’s room. A ghost knows when someone enters their haunt, it alerts them like a doorbell in the back of their mind. A foreign ecto-signature in a place drenched in your own.
Danny visits it every time he goes into the Ghost Zone. It’s always his first stop.
He tells his parents all of it. He tells them of the ghosts he’s met, of the places he’s seen. And when he feels brave, he tells them about Rath and the terror that his future self brings him. He keeps some details hidden, the ones that he can afford to keep without muddling up the story.
(Rath is a tall, spindly thing, like a funhouse mirror version of Danny himself. He has arms that are much too long and legs that are much too tall, with skinny fingers that extend into claws.He wears his suit the same as Danny does, with it partially undone and the sleeves wrapped around his waist.)
(There is a black hole in his chest that is much bigger than Danny’s own. It takes up his chest cavity and drips the same, viscous black liquid as the tears falling from his eyes. Danny never forgets his voice; a scraping, quiet thing like he’s screamed himself hoarse. Rath has a voice like goosebumps, and it haunts Danny like a bump in the night.)
Danny speaks and speaks and speaks until he can’t think of anything else to speak of. He is tired and sad, and it feels like his heart has been ripped out and rubbed raw again. And yet, he also feels so much better. Like a long heavy weight has been taken off his chest.
Yeah, last summer was hard. His parents walked on eggshells around him, and they forced themselves to unlearn their bias of ghosts. It was more than Danny could have ever dreamed of, and when they felt ready for it, they asked him more about the ghost zone.
He smiles sadly at his dad, “I think fixing the stove can be a priority another time, dad.” He says, watching him wilt and his smile fall. Jack Fenton was always so good at making himself look like a kicked puppy. “I can handle unpacking by myself, I promise.”
His parents still look so unsure, like they want to argue. Danny watches his mom purse her lips tightly, confliction running across her face like a datastream. She takes dad’s hand, squeezing their fingers together despite the droop in her shoulders.
“Oh, alright then, I suppose.” She relents, her hand placing on Jack’s arm. “I guess we could go, we’re just going to miss you so much, Danny.”
Tears seem to have won over his dad, and Jack Fenton sniffs back before he can cry properly. “Our little boy, all grown up.” He says, voice wobbling. It makes Danny laugh, and it makes his heart pang. His smile grows impossibly wider and so much fonder. “You’ve become such a kind, wonderful young man, Danno. We’re so proud of you.”
Danny laughs again, and it cracks. “You’re gonna make me cry, dad.” (He feels a welling of guilt in his gut that he ignores — he doesn’t feel like a kind man. He doesn’t feel like a good one either. Not with what he plans to do.)
His father holds out his arms in hopefulness, “One last hug for your old man before we head out?” He asks, mustering up a smile on his face.
Danny barrels into him, nearly knocking his dad over with an oomph. He’s as tall as him now, but he still feels little in his bear hugs. With arms wrapping around his middle, Danny hugs his father tight and breathes him in one last time.
“Careful there, Danno.” He laughs, patting Danny’s back roughly. “You’ll break my ribs with that ghostly strength of yours!” But he holds on just as tight.
Out of spite, Danny bends back and lifts him off his feet, laughing when Jack tenses up and nearly scrambles out of surprise. His mom laughs with him, stepping back to give them room for the few seconds that dad is in the air.
When it’s his mom’s turn, Danny has to hunch to hug her. Something bittersweet to him as she plants a kiss on his forehead and says that he’ll always be her baby. “Even if you do have that horrid smoking habit.” She adds on with a disapproving eyebrow raise.
Danny turns red in embarrassment, and walks them back to the GAV. Gothamites of all kinds slow to stop and boggle at the monstrous, road-illegal thing that is parallel-parked next to the curbside. In the past, Danny would have died with mortification to be seen with it. Now it just makes him laugh. Before he goes back into the apartment building, he buys a newspaper from a nearby convenience store.
The first thing he does when he gets back up to his room is one: make a mental note to buy a bicycle chain lock for the door. The locks jiggle and there are splinters along the side that show signs of it being broken into in the past. The second thing he does is pull his cigarettes out of his pocket and light one.
Danny starts to unpack with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, placing the newspaper he bought onto the counter. He has a cheap loveseat that he pushes off to the side, and he moves the boxes into the kitchen. It’s a matter of organization that Danny has to think about before he does anything.
It’s as he’s pushing the sofa up against the wall facing the windows that his phone rings a familiar tune: Sam. The phone is fished out before he can think about it and when he stares down at the screen, he realizes it's a facetime call.
He presses answer and walks over to prop his phone up onto the counter. The smiling faces of Sam and Tucker greet him, rather than just Sam. Immediately, Danny grins. “Hey Danny.” Sam greets, smiling a dark-painted lazy thing. From the background it looks like they’re in Tucker’s room. Sam is in Tucker’s desk chair, and Tucker is behind her, leaning against it. “Have you moved in yet?”
Danny pulls the cigarette from his mouth and huffs, a cloud of smoke following his breath. “Yeah! It’s a shithole.” He grins lopsidedly, and his feet carry him off to the side to allow Sam and Tucker view of his apartment. He lets thirty seconds pass, allowing the both of them to really see the rest of the room. And then he steps back into frame.
Sam and Tucker both look like they’re trying not to look judgemental, like they’re trying to hide a grimace that Danny sees anyway with the small turns at the corner of their mouths. He grins wider, mirth filling his lungs. “I know, it looks awful doesn’t it?”
“It’s— it’s not so bad.” Sam says with a strain in her voice, a forced smile on her face that tries to be reassuring. Tucker nods along readily, and he looks just as unsure as Sam does. Danny stifles laughter behind his teeth.
“No, no, it looks bad,” He takes a drag of his cigarette, shaking his head. “You can say it, I won’t get offended. It’s a fucking apartment in crime alley. Of course it looks bad.”
Sam remains silent, a rearing of her stubbornness showing itself. Tucker takes a different approach, and heaves a dramatic sigh of relief, slumping like a weight. “Okay, you’re right. It looks bad.” He frowns, “Sorry, man.”
While Danny snorts, Sam sighs. “Yeah, it looks bad. What even are those stains?” She asks, and both she and Tucker lean closer in tandem to the screen, eyes squinting at the floor behind him. Danny glances at the floor, and shrugs.
“Blood, probably.” He says, and while years in Amity Park have accustomed him to a clean environment, the desensitization of Gotham still remains. Tucker and Sam both make faces and lean away, as if the stain itself was capable of passing through to them. “Yeah, there are bullet holes in the walls.”
“Are you sure it’s safe to be there?” Tucker asks, a furrow appearing between his brows. He adjusts his glasses and leans against the chair. Sam is frowning heavily, and Danny can already see her thinking up of a new way to fix the problem.
“Oh, I never said this place was safe.” Danny tells him cheerily, taking a last hit of his cigarette before placing the dead stick onto the counter. He itches for another one. Instead he walks over to the shelf his parents brought in and starts moving it. “It’s Crime Alley, Tuck. Safe isn’t even in its vocabulary.”
Tucker and Sam look like they’ve both swallowed a lemon.
“But it’s where I want to be right now.” He says, grunting quietly when the shelf is against the wall he wants it to be, near the short hallway leading to the front door. He can push it in front of it if someone tries to break in. “And Crime Alley’s apartments are the only ones I can really afford right now without mooching off my parents, and I’d rather not depend on them.”
He can hear the disapproving hesitance from where he stands. And he ignores it.
Danny walks back into frame, lifting up a box onto the counter. He hums lightly, fingers run over the tape keeping it shut. “Why do you even want to be in Gotham, Danny?” Sam asks, and she sounds genuinely perplexed. Danny stills. “I thought this place only had bad memories for you.”
His blood turns cold, and like a dime being flipped his slow heartbeat fills his ears. “It does.” He replies automatically, before he can think. Shit, shit. He knows that Sam or Tucker would ask that question, and yet he still feels unprepared for it. His heart pulses quickly against his ribcage, knocking, asking him what he’s going to tell them that isn’t the truth.
Danny stammers, “I mean— I just— I guess I felt nostalgic.” He says, and it sounds like a weak defense. He looks away, finding himself instinctively scratching his jaw. A new tick of his when he’s nervous. From the corner of his eye, he sees Sam and Tucker both narrow their eyes at him.
He cannot tell them the real reason why he’s moved back to Gotham. He can’t tell them of the little secret and vow he told himself five years ago, the one that’s been left to fester and burn like an open wound close to his core. The one that, if he thinks too much about it, sends a searing hot electricity through him, filling him from crown to toe top-full of direst wrath.
(Danny was always the angrier one in the duo of Jason and Danny. He was always the one with glass in his mouth, cutting his teeth and tongue so that he could spit blood at the world around them. His knuckles had more blood and bruises on it than skin, once upon a time. All because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He has grown from it, that fury has turned to a small simmering candle.) (But sometimes, sometimes it rears its head, and electricity will buzz under Danny’s skin. There is lightning before the thunder, the second before a fist pulled to punch lands, the spark before it becomes a blaze.)
He stumbles over his words, and then sighs long and low, drooping his head. “I… was thinking that I can’t avoid this place forever.” He says, and the best lies always have the truth in it. Because it’s not a lie, not completely. But it’s not close enough to the truth either. “And that maybe if I came back, I’d be able to do something about those bad memories. Make them better or make it hurt less.”
Like wool over their eyes, it fools Sam and Tucker. Their narrowed eyes soften, and Danny feels like a snake is in his lungs as they both adopt their own versions of gentleness on their faces. “Oh, Danny.” Sam breathes out, and the snake squeezes, “Of course, we understand.”
Tucker nods, smiling at him. “Yeah, bro, that’s really brave of you. I know it can’t be easy coming back.” He says, “Maybe you can reconnect with the Waynes again, you always thought well of Mister Wayne whenever you came back from visiting.”
Danny smiles weakly, the gesture cutting into his cheeks like a knife. Perhaps he could. He was still upset with Bruce for hiding Jason’s killer from him. But he doesn’t hate him. Maybe five years ago, he did, when the death of Jason was still fresh in his mind and freshly bleeding in his heart. Now he just doesn’t know what to think of him. He was Batman. Jason was Robin, and the Joker killed Robin.
It would need to be something he’d have to speak to Bruce about in person, he thinks, in order to resolve it. To hear his judgment on it and make an opinion from there. Danny has learned in the last five years, much to Jazz’s smug delight, that talking to people about something he was upset about did make him feel better.
The conversation slips on from there into something more light, more breathable. And while they talk, Danny unpacks. He sets up his bed in the corner of the room, adjacent to the windows, and unpacks his cheap TV and table stand. It’s directly across from the couch, in front of the windows. He puts up knicks and knacks he’s collected over the years on the shelves.
When he puts up the curtains, he notices that more than one frame jiggles loosely. Sam makes a comment on the musty stains permanently dyed into the glass, and Danny talks about getting something to fix the cracks. Gotham winters can get brutal, and even if he can withstand the cold, doesn’t mean everything else in his apartment can.
“Oh, watch this.” He says halfway through unpacking, and pulls out a stick of thick white chalk from a box. “This is something I learned from Clockwork a while back; I think he knew I was going to move to Gotham.” He grins sillily, popping into the camera frame to show them. “I wonder how?”
Sam rolls her eyes, smiling while Tucker huffs. “It’s not like he’s the Master of Time and can see all past, present, and future.” Tucker snarks.
Danny hums lightly, curt like he isn’t sure he believes Tucker, and walks to a piece of bare wall not yet blocked by furniture. He starts to draw on it. The chalk shimmers with faint ectoplasm on the wall.
“Uhh…” Tucker’s voice cuts through, “Are you sure you should be doing that? Won’t you get in trouble for that?”
“There are bullet holes in the plaster, Tucker.” Danny retorts dryly, arching his hand to make a big circle. “I don’t think the landlord is gonna care if I get washable chalk on his walls.” Inside the circle, he inscribes the symbols of the Infinite Realms. “I don’t think he’d be able to see it anyways, he was really old.”
When he is done, Danny steps back to admire his work. It’s not bad, he thinks, for a lack of practice. He tosses the chalk off to the side, it lands on the couch and rolls back into the cushions. Ectoplasm heats under his hand, slowly glowing from his fingertips before stretching down the rest of his palm.
Danny’s fingers press against the wall, into the center of the circle. The result is immediate, ectoplasm is siphoned off his hand and into the circle. It glows, and then swirls. He steps off to the side for Sam and Tucker to watch its transformation. The circle fills with a swirling pool of ectoplasm, like a smaller version of the basement portal, and then it warps and stretches.
It fills out a rectangular shape, shifting like taffy being pulled this way and that, before settling into a solid shape. It solidifies, and instead of a wall there is a glowing purple door, warped in nature and seemingly shifting like a trick of the eyes. He can hear the gentle hum of the zone standing next to it, and can see the carving of the circle in the wood.
He gestures dramatically, grinning from ear to ear. “Ta-da~” He sings, “A door to my haunt! For whenever I feel like visiting it.” He pats the wood, making a strange thunk-thunk sound. “And then watch this.”
Danny touches the circle again, and the door twists and recedes like water going down a drain. The circle flashes bright green, and then fades into nothing on the wall, invisible to the naked eye. “I can hide it whenever I want! So if I ever invite someone over—” which he doubts, “—I won’t have to worry about them asking, ‘Hey Danny? Why is there a creepy fucking door in your studio apartment?’”
He gets a pair of laughs for his efforts, and Danny grins wider.
Sam and Tucker have to end the call when Danny is nearly done unpacking, leaving him alone with only his thoughts and the Gotham ambience outside. There were only a few boxes left, and they promise to call him tomorrow. He tells them that they better keep that promise.
The silence that follows after they leave feels somberly, as if the reality of moving in has finally set in and filled the air with its loneliness. With its change. Finally, Danny lets the strangeness of moving back to Gotham hit him when he reaches the last box, and he stops to take another smoke break to let it settle.
It feels so strange to be back in Gotham, he thinks. He’s all grown up, or almost grown up. He can vote and pay taxes, but he doesn’t feel much older than he was at fourteen. There’s a disconnect that makes him feel sad.
There are cars running outside, driving by. He can only catch glimpses of them, his apartment faces an alleyway. There are dogs barking in the distance, strays he bets. It’s already dark out, and he wonders if he looks out the window he would see the bat-signal shining through the night and staining the permanent cloud that hangs over Gotham.
Bruce would be so disappointed if he learned the reason for Danny’s return to Gotham. But Danny’s not here for him. He’s here for someone far more important. And like that, the simmering anger that has tucked itself into the furthest corners of his heart starts slipping through. His heart has teeth, ready to strike and snarl and bite.
He crushes the cigarette in his hand and throws it away. When he opens the last box, it is with hands that tremble and with a face of stone. With a delicateness he does not feel, he reaches in and pulls a corkboard from the box. On the corner frame is a small, near inconspicuous carving of another ghost rune.
Danny hangs it up on an empty space on the wall, out of sight from the window. It’s plain, and he has nothing to pin to it. He presses the small rune on the corner, pushing ectoplasm into it. Unlike the door, it does not twist and warp and shape itself into something new. Instead it bursts into green flame, eating away at the board and revealing the same thing underneath it, just in dark blue-black-purple.
Now this board, this board Danny has something to pin to it. The newspaper he bought earlier sits abandoned on the counter, and Danny unrolls it with something like viciousness in his chest. On the front page is an image of a damaged street, and above it is titled: “JOKER STRIKES AGAIN, 3 DEAD AND 27 INJURED”
Danny rips out the first page, he rips out every mention of him. His hands shake and threaten to crumple the paper as he turns back to the board, there is hot blood pounding in his ears. There is an impending sense of finally in his chest, like a setting sun giving the stage to a starless night. There is a stern set in his jaw, five years of festering rage rushing forth like a tidal wave, threatening to make his vision swim.
It would be so easy, he thinks, to go out as Phantom right now and hunt the clown down. It would only take a night. All it would take is a night, and then he could sink his hands into the Joker’s chest and rip out his heart where he stood. It would be so easy.
The thought alone forces Danny to stop as he is hit with another rush of fury, really making his head and vision swim. Thorny vines wrap around his throat, making it hard to breathe. He stares at a spot on the wall until the shaking passes.
If he wants to be discreet about this, then he can’t do it now. Even if he wants to. He doesn’t want witnesses. He doesn’t want an audience. He made a mistake, telling Red Hood about his plan. He wasn’t sure what he was thinking. Perhaps he wasn’t thinking at all. But he can only hope that the Hood hasn’t mentioned it to Bruce. He knows it hasn’t been long since they started working together. He hopes that the Hood has already forgotten about it.
He pins the newspaper clippings onto the black-blue-board, and stands back. It’s bare now, but it won’t be forever.
He presses the circle again, and the pinboard reverts back to its original blank state.
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Was I expecting to make a third part?? No. No I was not. I was also not expecting to make an entire google doc filled with summaries for short story ideas about this au that all tie into each other so that way if i DO continue this i have a skeleton pathway to follow rather than making everything up from scratch and potentially cornering myself
you can find this on ao3 or on tumblr 1 2 :)
#dp x dc#dpxdc#dp x dc crossover#danny fenton is not the ghost king#dpxdc crossover#childhood friends au#cw swearing#cw smoking#im calling them short stories bc if i call them chapters i might intimidate myself#fun fact every single chapter will have a crane wives lyric on it i am DETERMINED#i hope yall are subscribed to this on ao3 bc i almost didnt post this on tumblr#the fentons being good parents were a surprise to me too but also i never really planned on them being BAD parents#okay so they appear as negligent in the first post but we'll just call that a plothole#i had the idea that danny was the angrier one out of the duo earlier today and it felt like an epiphany#there's no guarantee of a next part but yk immm kinda hoping there is#on the docs the ending bullet point for this chapter was#'make it feel like a tv show where the seemingly inconspicuous and friendly character has something sinister up their sleeve'#WE know that danny's not inconspicuous in the least he's been thinking of this murder for the last five years. but nobody but red hood know#i had to come up with a in-story reason why danny doesnt kill the joker NOW but my out-of-story excuse is: there'd be no tension otherwise#its about the BUILD UP. Its about the RISING TENSION. Its about KNOWING that danny is planning to kill the Joker but you dont know WHEN#its about knowing that something is going to explode but never knowing when#i made the doc yesterday and spent my entire pluralism for educators class going thru the crane wives albums and looking up the lyrics and#matching them to the *checks doc* 18 short story prompts i have prepared#i am still missing one :((#its the tim and danny story and i have NOTHING PLANNED FOR THEM. i cant think of a thing for them to bond over :(( so i cant match a CW son#even DICK has a story and that was also a surprise#my favorite lines: He was always the one with glass in his mouth cutting his teeth and tongue so that he could spit blood at the world#aND danny slapping his door like a used car salesman and going 'now people wont ask why i have a creepy fucking door in my studio aptm :)'
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actually stunned by how gay The Beatles has been all this time and I just never knew
#like its always just been there in my life but i just never paid attention#my university roomie was obsessed w them and had several beatles posters that i looked at every day#so stuff like the pictures of them from the let it be album are like engrained into my brain#and yet i never knew the lore??#nor did i know until recently that they were actually all high school buds nor did i know they wrote their own music#nor that they genuinely basically invented modern bands n using the studio the way they did etc. so all that was very impressive and cool#but THEN on top of that omg the angsty gayness of john and paul#like all i knew previously basically was that john was a thing w yoko ono and paul had a young wife recently#i had at one point heard of people shipping j&p together and was just kinda like wow i guess people will ship anything#I DIDNT KNOW#that they were actually like that cute and that insane together and that their song writing together was like an actual marriage#anywayz the old pictures and videos of them are just like jesus look how they look at each other i dont think it was just being bros#i am sort of in the camp of they prob didn't act on it for real but there was def some insane tension/chemistry going on#and then ofc once youre aware of this their songs take on so many possible meanings outside of just singing about their gfs and wives....#anyways i just have to vent about this somewhere bc im actually shocked at how this has just passed me by all these years#and it definitely was not on my bingo card for 2024 to fixate on the beatles but here we are lol#more proof to me that my ultimate fave trope or wtv is 'besties to enemies when really they actually probably wanted to be lovers'#gets me every time!!!!#whats been fun about this rabbit hole is how just every single one of my expectations has been reversed as well#i went in assuming i would like them best in this order:#(1) george (2) ringo (3) paul and (4) john#i was sure i would hate john i thought he sounded so pretentious and like such a douche#but no actually he is my fave one and it's literally in reverse order for me i find george my least fave#(i like his music and feel bad for how he got ignored in the band but i like him the least)#and then i literally am john paul ringo george in order of faves now#i just love when i get surprised like that idk it keeps me on my toes and keeps things exciting and fresh#and yes john is indeed pretentious and a douche but i didn't know he was also funny and vulnerable and that i like his voice and songs#the most in the bunch almost every time as well#the beatles#p
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ten needs to be trapped in a torture chamber forever for what he does to martha. I hope jakey the time lord fucking dies
#heyy girl lets kiss also share a bed in this inn What do you mean it's weird it's not weird winky face but ew i would never LOVE you#what do you mean how could you even think that i must respect the memory of blond 19 year old who was better than you in every way btw#i defintiely find it more INTERESTING than rose's seasons bc i think theres more dramatic tension than just. We're in love! like ok whateve#doesnt mean that tension is always fun to watch and obviously there are Problems with it#but theres something compelling about the awfulness of it just laid bare#like if you thought rose was Grounded & Realistic. here's the actual stuff. martha's family's not even messy in a particularly charming way#as in they dont turn out to become beloved and heroic recurring side characters like jackie/pete/mickey#everythings on tenterhooks if you're not his Object you're constantly having to reassert yourself and recontextualize the relationship#like oh actually this is scary and feels bad and sometimes there just isnt a heartwarming conclusion where Love saves all#she's fighting for her place in the story but it's not even worth itttt#it's kinda cool.... there are som eideas here.....#ten is so frustrating because he's such a human man about it you KNOW he knows what he's DOINGGGG#doc who
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thank god chappell roan didn’t release good luck babe in summer 22!
#i unfortunately had a homoerotic female friendship that ended abruptly and tragically#she was my best friend for YEARS like we met when we were 11#i knew i was queer pretty early on but it’s so painfully obvious in hindsight how badly she was repressing everything#we fell asleep together she liked every guy i liked she was invested in every female situationship i had#like it was so painfully obvious what we were but we were just an undefined weird tension homoerotic pair of besties!#she always wanted to know every detail of my sex life w women refused to hear about the men i was w#she would hold me when we watched movies she wanted to do everything w me and she hated me after we graduated hs!#last conversation was on her birthday haven’t spoken to her once since#this song has sent me into a 3 day spiral session if you can’t tell 😭#never fully gotten over her but i see her post w her new friends at her school 6 hours away like cool cool okay#you’re going to ignore i ever existed instead of confronting your feelings okay! don’t know why she wants nothing to do w me anymore tho#crazy stuff it’s been a year and a half since we stopped being friends but i think about her a lot and i wonder if she thinks about me#i have 2 playlists about her she still follows me on spotify but she didn’t even wish me a happy birthday#at the end of the day i hope she figures everything out. you’re nothing more than his wife and all that#this song THIS SONG SHE WONT LEAVE MY MIND#probably delete later. we’ll see cause all my friends are sick of hearing me talk about her but i can’t stop she’s been in my mind since#this song dropped so thanks chappell 🥹🥹🫡
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discovery of the day
#im sorry i do Not see what everyone sees in this movie. although from the years of browsing the internet ive began to realize#that i actually dont know if people actually like the movie or not#why is everything so rushed#their romance felt like nothing to me because i dont KNOW what they see in eachother#listen you dont have to tell me straight up into the camera why they love eachother#but the aggressive kissing and cut sex scenes arent telling me much#i get that it came out in 2005 but cutting mostly every gay sex scene? even the kissing for the most part?#but oh we NEED to see this happy husband and wife doing it. yes im bitter#a german movie by the name of summer storm came out the year before this one and actually shows something that feels like actual passion#i sound like i need to see people doing it in these movies all the time I promise thats not it#but even the kissing? the thing i Actually like the most? the thing that makes me feel things? felt like nothing at all#and oh i forgot that this is a tragic gay movie where one of them dies. Oh yeah. forgot.#mentioning summer storm again: it actually has a relatively happy ending. feels good that i dont need to be reminded of how gay people are#doomed 24/7.#the romance started good. with jack telling the guy whos name i already forgot to get his ass in the tent already.#the Pulling his arm over my body thing. it was going great#THEN IT WENT SO FAST! WHY WAS HE SUDDENLY SO INTO IT! WHY WERE THEY BOTH SUDDENLY DOING IT#im sorry i expected a slighter slow burn than this!!! calm down cowboys i have no idea why you two like eachother all of the sudden!#i seriously thought they would show these little moments of tension#and it just growing bigger and bigger#until they couldnt take it anymore#that would explain the aggressiveness of it! why they were so desperate! but it literally just HAPPENED!!!!!!!!!#im sorry i. I expected more of this movie that i hear so much about.#the most it made me feel was at that moment that turned into a meme where i thought “Hop on fortnite”#chuckled. that was it. did i cry? did my heart race at any moment? was i worried about what was gonna happen? not Once#im so. Disappointed.#after this i wanted to watch summer storm but netflix removed it. Its a german only movie no one knows from 2004. where the hell am i gonna#🏴☠️ that#AAAGHHHH!!!!!!!#not being able to watch summer storm made me cry more than this movie did What the hell
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wait no sorry one last quick immature bitch moment
the more I find out about how this person has behaved in both this relationship and a bunch of other relationships, the funnier it is how much they like to set themselves up as a like. authority on ethical nonmonogamy and consent and conflict management.
when like. they constantly sexually assault people to prove a point, pressure their partners into shit, got into enm by cheating on 3 people concurrently, and literally every time a problem in their orbit is brought up it gets explained away without anything actually changing, or they cry about how hard it is until everyone says OH NO IT'S FINE DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT
you know. very "call yourself a Community Organizer even though you're not on speaking terms with your roommates" energies.
#red said#I'm mad tbh i know in being bitchy but this blog is my safe space to be bitch on#and this shit has been building up for years. not even just in my relationship with their partner. since the first time i meet them#in like 2018#and having this chat with my pal last night now I'm no longer second guessing myself bc of my relationship has uhhh Crystalised Some Things#especially getting some new context on where a lot of the tensions and sensitivities I've been aware of for ages are from#also tbh when we broke up my ex led off with 'i know you think this is about [partner] but it's not' and i was like. it is though.#it's not the only thing but it's been a common thread through every piece of tension in that relationship#not saying if the partner wasn't there we'd have been together forever. i don't think that's true and I'm glad things went the way they did.#cause w were good for each other and breaking up was also good for us#but their partner has really caused me so so so so so much turmoil for years and i haven't felt able to acknowledge that cause it makes me#feel like an asshole. but like. OK SO I'M AN ASSHOLE. I'M FUCKING MAD AT THEM.#they are manipulative and controlling and they treat their partner like shit and they have perpetually made my life worse#i like a lot of things about them and i do feel for them. we share a lot of similar issues and i do understand how they feel a lot.#but fuck me they treat everyone around them so badly and a good chunk of the reason i ended things with their partner#is that i was so fucking sick of being told i was wrong and just didn't understand how hard they had it whenever i brought up#one of the many many many shitty things they did to me or to our partner or to our friends.#multiple times i left a situation in a fully fucked up mess and my partner came to apologise for how their partner has behaved#and within minutes it would turn into them explaining to me how it wasn't really their fault and i shouldn't be so hard on them#and like fuck that. had enough of that in my life with my previous ex.#anyway. yeah. i am probably being more didactic and aggro here than i genuinely feel. but there's some room for that anger i think#and i did get some room for it to breathe last night and that's good and helpful.
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I feel like I came out of the womb with raging anxiety
#never been fully relaxed a day in my life#literally had a panic attack at age 6-7(?)#I’ve been super self aware for as long as I can remember#the tension in my body is my natural state#I’ve BEEN imagining every worst case scenario since I could form thoughts#7th-8ish grade is where it got worse#had panic attacks like four times a week#and then heart palpitations started and holy shit I was googling symtoms and that would make it worse#was convinced I would get a heart attack#having a headache is part of my daily routine#then I got a crush on a guy and with it came body dysmorphia#couldn’t look people in the eye from how ugly I felt(still struggle with this one but we got this💪🏼💪🏼)#now I mostly just cry#like I deadass get stressed and overwhelmed and just cry#depression came next and I was honestly not surprised#and it tampered my anxiety a bit but I’d honestly rather feel stressed than feel so numb#yeah I wouldn’t recommend#so basically I lie awake feeling aware of my own heartbeat or of my body#oh and I can’t forget the physical pain that anxiety caused me#muscle aches literally convinced me there was something wrong with me#went to the doctor numerous times bc I NEEDED to be diagnosed with something or I would go crazy and instead got told to see a therapist#and the therapist basically told me everything I had already figured out myself but at least I can talk to someone#tw anxiety#tw depression#tw body dysmorphia#anxiety#mentions of depression#and I’m only a teenager so should I be worried about what happens in the next few years? bc this already sounds like a lot to me#this was supposed to be a funny little post but nvm I guess?? don’t worry about me I’m good though many good things in my life#teenager
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me to Nina yesterday: explaining how due to a headache and exhaustion I wasted away the end of my afternoon just watching Ryan Gosling interviews
Nina, instantly sympathetic: and I completely understand that, a valid thing to do
#the thing about Nina is that most of the time she not only hates my coping mechanisms she also plain doesn’t understand them#one of the many tensions of our relationship#but she was just 100% like yeah. I fully get it#and it made me feel so much better#my relationship with Nina the work of a lifetime because the moments of mutual understanding are so rare#but so powerful when they happen. and it takes years to discover that sudden gold#(my mom is often so troubled by our relationship. she’s just like (whisper voice): do you guys even like each other)#because we’re just SO sparks fly (antagonistic version) in many of our interactions#and it’s just like. YEAH. We’re just going to have an intense altercation and clashing of opinions viewpoints values and perspectives#at least every other day. LOL#but we will navigate it!#no one on the planet I smooth things over with as fast as Nina. it is lightning-speed reconciliation#because we both move on so quickly in the same way. in that the mood will just lift#we got in a fight the other day. Nina left and stormed out. 10 minutes later I get a text going#‘I’m sorry Maria. I should not have said that about your mother’#which made me laugh because we weren’t fighting about our mom. She just likes to quote Jacqueline from ever after sometimes out of context#and my mom was on the couch watching me like ‘you’re reconciled???? It’s over?????????’#because my mom a) is so different from both of us in the speed she processes in and b) has no sisters#0 sisters. 4 daughters. and she still isn’t used to it lol. because my mom’s strength and weakness is that she never gets used to anything!#ALSO Nina told me the other day that I’m the one that taught her to apologize because I would just make her do it when we were kids#not to me but to other people! I would just sit there and explain how verbal acknowledgement of wrongdoing would make things better#and she was always like ‘ughhh I hate it so much. FINE’ because she always does want to make things better#anyway this SHOOK ME TO MY CORE. Because I never thought Nina actually internalized any of the things I’ve said to her ever lol#and she was like ‘yeah you gave me that good habit’#(I love apologizing. Love to put it into words and I have an intense need to do it immediately and thoroughly)#(tbh it’s only with time that I’ve come to see that other people do not work that way. and need more time. and are not just —#instantly comfortable putting everything into words especially the hard things)#(because it’s not like I’m always driven by more charity and compunction. I just ducking HATE unresolved things not put into words)#(so it helps me feel better. and sometimes you just gotta learn to not say it right away if it’s only going to make things worse#(or learn to say it in different way without words. that actually communicates the sorrow. And that can sometimes look like giving space!)
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#negativity cw#a couple of years ago in Dec 2022#my mother screamed at me for literal hours two days in a row shortly before Xmas Eve#about many many things but one of the things she said was that I was the only reason for discord in her marriage to my dad#and their relationship was on the rocks and it was my fault#it’s not the first time she’s blamed me for their marital tension (she’s been doing it since I was 13)#but it was one of the worst#and after that I decided I would never get them an anniversary gift again#a one-line ‘congrats’ in whatsapp was all they would get#after a decade of being blamed every year for their relationship strife#that was almost 2 years ago#and after a talk I had with my mom yesterday on a walk#It looks like their marriage’s years might be numbered#I’m 25 and moved out#but still#it’s not vindication I’m feeling (I don’t want to take any joy in it) but
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tw: abuse discussion, intimate partner violence, grooming discussion, power and control. Trying to be vague here and not fly too close to the muse Sun
Re: red tv and the manuscript discourse, I wonder if people realize that it is actually possible to have abusive/toxic/harmful relationships with people your own age, too? Like even if Taylor and jg were 2 years apart, harm still could’ve occurred….? Like it was obviously not grooming bc that is a very specific set of experiences usually involving a child and a person in a position of trust/power like a parent or teacher or coach etc (I know this bc I lived it!!!). But like… that is not the only kind of harm that can happen to young people???? Her youth/naivety was definitely a factor in how fucked up the situation was but it was not the only element. Power dynamics do not begin and end at age. Adults can fuck each other up, too…
#This is not a vague post I promise#I’m just in awe of some anons other blogs get about this#And I think what lots of people are calling “grooming” is actually what we call “love bombing”#training someone to ignore harmful behaviors by showering them with affection/praise/apologies after tension building and explosion phases#You wear your best apology type vibes#The last time#and that behavior often occurs without the love-bomber realizing they’re doing it#People who cause harm rarely set out to do it with evil in their hearts#But it can still be abusive#And that gets murky when the only perspective we take on harm is from the carceral system#Like oh but he didn’t mean it and he loved her and he didn’t force her so it obviously wasn’t abuse (not necessarily jg here! Generally)#but like the truth is that people do have real love for those they hurt. And they often do genuinely feel guilty and apologetic!#Doesn’t make it okay or excusable! And people should feel safe/empowered to leave but that can be Uh.. challenging#But yeah it is extremely clear to me what happened with jg and it is at best toxic as fuck and at worst… coercion and manipulation#Taylor has every right to be traumatized by that situation like it was Very Bad and lasted So Long and deeply influenced her self-image#“He said that because she was so wise beyond her years everything had been above board… she wasn’t sure” is all I need to know tbh#He knew exactly the ways that midnight rain and dear john had changed her and he used all of that to play The Good Guy#And used that to convince her to sleep with him repeatedly (off and on at his whim for years)#Like!!! Not good!!!#C#relationships#abuse#ipv#gbv#trauma#would’ve could’ve should’ve hours#The manuscript#all too well#dear john#jg
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Because like the thing about Shallan is that usually abusive childhoods are portrayed with violent parents that hit their children and yeah obviously that's usually how it goes but when I see those it just helps me pretend that I didn't have any issues growing up because I just got slapped once in a while and got hit enough to bruise only once but Shallan never got hit and yet all her flashbacks chapter describe the horror of growing up in an atmosphere of constant fear that if you ever do or say the wrong thing the violent parent would get mad and someone would risk getting hit and it was a lot to read for me
#it's better than actually getting seriously hit for sure but it's still not a great way to grow up and now every loud noise makes me jump#and i feel like I'm constantly walking on glass at home and everything i said is studied to cause the smallest reaction possible and hearing#anyone yell makes me panic#and this constant tension doesn't feel great! that's for sure#even if now i take getting hit a lot better and it's no longer a problem#it's the whole... never express an opinion at home thing that stress me#i really can't wait to move and end this constant state of paranoia i had for per past 20 years#the stormlight archive
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Every International Women's Day, you will find that progressive publications publish their manditory IWD article about how we should focus more on women in the global south and yet we can't because upper class white women have their pink cupcakes and their CEO jobs exploiting the working woman by being customers and crying about Barbie not getting an Oscar nomination. I always read it and think....I have really good news for you, journalist writing this, about what you could do with the article you're being paid to write!!
#IWD#honestly where is the sport in these tired rhetorical touchstones-pink cupcakes or pussy hats- it's tired#and fyi everyone i saw talking about the barbie movie oscars thing was clearly not being fully serious/serious at all#i am not clear how wealthy women in particular are exploiting people by being customers-#IWD isn't a public holiday that the low paid still have to work#anyway look class disparity is really important to talk about and CEOs as a concept are not value neutral#but women being CEOs not just men is value neutral- as in it's not worse when women do it#i just get tired of the same point being made every year and them never doing the thing they could be doing- spotlight global south women#i really feel strongly that people only like doing this if they can make snarky tweetable points- for it's own sake it's nothing to them#if you read the guardian's IWD article i'm sure my examples seem very familiar!#I recommend 'feminism and nationalism in the third world' by kumari jayawardena#it covers the history of activism thought and gendered struggle of women in specific asian and middle eastern countries#it's a dense and very factual read- definitely not a snarky tweets book#though my edition has a foreword addressed to western feminists that's the only area it even slightly overlaps with that kind of book#oh yeah forgot to say it only goes up to the 1980s (was originally published in '86)#but it's sooo interesting to see the tension between nationalism and anticolonialism and women's liberation laid out#and how the different classes of women experienced it differently
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#so its been 3 months exactly since me & my ex like... said farewell#very dramatically#i just found out he blocked me on tiktok. 2 months ago i would've been devastated but now i just feel kinda bummed out#like is this really how 4 years of best friendship & 1 year of dating fuckery ends? damn lol it wasn't even all that#but mostly i just think its extremely pathetic & childish and LOSERRRR BEHAVIORRRR . for a 100k tiktok acc#to block a 150 follower account that doesnt even follow him + doesnt interact#like ok you said you weren't in love with me?? yet you feel the need to block me 3 months after the fact#im minding my business unless he breaks first (which has been the case a few times)#its still hard to get over him but he's making it easier every day!#just yesterday i was on the train On my way! to a concert & i remembered the afternoon before my harry concert in june last night#the mutual interest if you will had been re-established like a week prior & i texted him if he wanted to hang out and he said yes (ofc)#and the tension.......... GOD I MISS THATHSFDJKFS#walking around decathlon flirting oh it was SO STUPIDDD. THE GIGGLES. personally i've never really experienced that on that level before bc#like it's the best friends to lovers thing its the fact that we both felt the energy shift very clearly and were leaning into it#but not actually doing anything about it yet#just making stupid jokes flirting giggling but acting like actually nothing is going on#when i damn well know that if any of my friends saw us that afternoon they would've side eyed us SOOOOO HAARDDDDD#not to wax poetic over the guy who fucked me over so many times but. the electric energy .....#i'm probably not going to feel That ever again#whatever! whatever#txt
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I need to get out of here it’s literally killing and eating away at me being around somebody like this all the time
#I genuinely feel like I’m losing years off my life just from being around this awful shit#the energy is so draining#when I’m not home the tension lifts off my shoulders I can physically feel it dissipate when I’m not here#I’m so exhausted in every way#just one abusive household to another and the cycle continues over and over and over#I haven’t had a home where I felt truly safe for#13 years now
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