#flying warehouse

[textless]

[i-lavabean]

Day 6, Ghibli Park! We didn't get to see all of it sadly but the cafe and the Valley of Witches made up for it!

And then I somehow hurt myself. Good job Lava

[warehouse-staff-blog]

Lot 1105(Late 1970's)

こんにちは 名古屋店 コジャです。

個人的に好きなJeansが久しぶりの登場です。

WAREHOUSE & CO. Lot 1105(Late 1970's) ＼25.300-(with tax)　ONE WASHは\1.100-UP

学生時代、 値段がお手頃だったこともあって買っていた【505】。

シルエットも好きでよく穿いてたなぁ～と当時の懐かしい想い出が蘇ります。 ですが、主にジャストサイズを選んでたことが災い？して年を重ねるにつれてウエスト・ワタリなどパンパンパン。 いつか穿くかなぁと思っていましたが断捨離してもう手元には無く(^_^;)

ただ今でも、 当時の好きな気持ちは褪せること無くやはり「いいなぁ」と感じます。

そういった気持ちがあるので数年前にもWAREHOUSEでリリースした際に穿いていたのがこちら。(バナーデニム)

せっかくここまで穿き込んだからまだまだ穿きたい！ という思いとは裏腹に体型の変化には抗えず。。。 穿けないことはないのですが、 加圧トレーニングかっ！というくらい締め付けられるので「今は」はお休み中。笑

「今は」色落ちサンプルとして活躍してくれています(^0^;)

そこで、 いつかWAREHOUSEからリリースされればと、 2代目《505 TYPE》を検討していたのでこちらを早速。

179cm,69kg SIZE:34(After Wash 私物)

スッキリしたシルエットなのでジャスト目でとお考えの方も多いと思いますが、 今回私はサイズアップの“腰履き”気味で。

この特徴的な縦長のバックポケットをアピールする点でも腰位置を落として穿くのもオススメですよ。

まぁ、 過去の穿けなくった悲しい経験からの安心感あるサイズ選びも含まれています���σ(^◇^;)

福岡店 隠塚着用画像もご参考下さい。

169cm,70kg SIZE:33(ONE WASH)

以前はフラッグシップモデル同様《バナーデニム》でリリースされていたのですが今回は"防縮加工"を施した新生地。

防縮加工特有のツルッとした生地表面が“らしさ”全開。 そして嬉しい“耳付き”。

これはガンガン（洗って）いこうぜ！な気分。

皆様も是非お試し下さい。では失礼足します。

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☞ [営業時間のお知らせ]

平素よりウエアハウス直営店をご利用頂き有難う御座います。 ウエアハウス直営店では営業を下記の通り変更しております。

《2024.3.17.現在の営業時間》

◎東京店　【営業時間：平日 12時～19時　土日祝 12時～19時】無休 ◎阪急メンズ東京店 【営業時間：平日 12時～20時　土日祝 11時～20時】無休 ◎名古屋店【営業時間： 平日 12時～19時　土日祝 12時～19時】水曜定休 ◎大阪店　【営業時間： 平日 12時～19時　土日祝 12時～19時】 無休 ◎福岡店　【営業時間： 平日 12時～19時　土日祝 12時～19時】 無休 ◎札幌店　【営業時間： 11時～20時】  木曜定休

今後の営業時間等の変更につきましては改めて当ブログにてお知らせ致します。 お客様におかれましてはご不便をお掛けいたしますが御ご理解の程、宜しくお願い申し上げます。

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☞ 『WAREHOUSE直営店の LINE公式アカウント開設』

WAREHOUSE&CO.直営店からのお得な情報や、エリア限定のクーポンなどを配布しています。

LINE公式アカウント開設にあたり、 2019年3月26日（火）以降、提供しておりましたスマートフォンアプリはご利用できなくなっております。 お手数をおかけしますが、今後はLINEアカウントのご利用をお願いします。

ご利用されるエリアのアカウントを「友だち登録」して下さい。 ※WAREHOUSE名古屋店をご利用頂いているお客様は【WAREHOUSE　EAST】をご登録下さい。

※直営店のご利用がなければ【WESTエリア】をご登録下さい。

.

☞[リペアに関して]

弊社直営店で行っておりますジーンズ等のリペアの受付を���止させて頂いております。 ※ご郵送に関しても同様に休止させて頂いております。再開の日程は未定です。

ご迷惑お掛け致しますが、ご理解下さいます様お願い致します。 ※弊社製品であればボトムスの裾上げは無料にてお受けしております。お預かり期間は各店舗により異なりますのでお問合せ下さい。

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☞WAREHOUSE公式インスタグラム

☞WAREHOUSE経年変化研究室

☞“Warehousestaff”でTwitterもしております。

ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー

WAREHOUSE名古屋店

〒460-0011 愛知県名古屋市中区大須3-13-18

TEL：052-261-7889

《2024.3.17.現在の営業時間》

【営業時間：平日 12時～19時、土日祝 12時～19時】水曜定休 ※2024/3/20（水）は12時～19時で営業します。

[apparitionism]

Tabled 5

This slow-motion @b-and-w-holiday-gift-exchange gift for @barbarawar , a tale that concerns Myka and Helena’s post-Boone coffee(s) and the fallout therefrom, continues to be quite difficult to get right. It’s still got the shape I envisioned, with Myka sitting at tables and lying and consulting a book to find out her future, but I have to say I didn’t expect the Bering and the Wells to need to hit so very many beats in the course of enacting, or embodying, that shape: witness my optimism in each of part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4 that that part would (might) be penultimate. Then again these two were never going to be able to “get coffee” with any degree of ease, much less find their way back to—or is it simply to, for the first time?—good. Slow and steady may not in the end win the race, but it does finish the race (eventually, though not today); however, please know, @barbarawar​ , I’ll always be apologizing to you for letting this race, such as it is, continue to run. Anyway, the prior leg ended with Myka and Helena behind the locked door of a hotel room. Myka’s hand had just touched, then trailed away from, Helena’s shoulder.

Tabled 5

Blunders. So the book had said. Satisfactory, so it had also said.

Myka raises her right hand again; it wants to meet Helena’s waist, meet and seek, seek and sway... this hand, so empty as it rises, could be, at long last, full, full, full as it blunders...

But Helena backs away, raising her own right hand, warding Myka off. “Oh no,” she says. “You’re not getting out of anything that easily.”

Rendered purposeless by the refusal, Myka looks down at her reaching (empty) hand, her wanting (empty) body. “Easily?” she asks, because what could that mean? Such blundering could never be easy, no matter how satisfactory.

And yet satisfactory would mean satisfaction. At long last, satisfaction.

Keeping her own hand up, Helena says, “Privacy and nothing more. I said it to you and I meant it. You’ll blame me if in the end it proves untrue, and as for any intemperance of your own? I don’t doubt you’ll indict me for that as well, particularly in the event you’re forced to confess it. Does Pete even know you’re here?”

Myka wants to say yes. As if that lie would make what she wants defensible. As if it would be reasonable of her to say “yes, he trusts me, and isn’t that foolish”: as if by saying that, by getting agreement on that, she could in fact implicate Helena in all of it too. She glances at the table, bolted down, solid. It could give her cover to put that lie in motion.

As if she could do any of that... all right, yes, she could do it to herself. But she should not do it to Helena.

But you can, unison the snake and the lizard and all the other animal manifestations of... well. Animals.

And as she fights to maintain that “should not”: Aren’t you an animal? is their next enticing chorus.

Obviously...

“Obviously not,” Helena says, which brings Myka up short until she walks herself back to Helena having asked about Pete. About what he knows. Myka wishes, for a bloodless, anti-animal moment, that he could know, that she could have told him, told him cold, such that he could understand her as, because he himself also was, then and now and going forward, purely pragmatic.

But Pete is not pragmatic.

“I refuse to serve as your release valve,” Helena goes on, the last two words harsh.

“How could you say that?” Myka demands, trying to make her taking of offense believable, trying to dismiss from her head the evidence that was her raised, reaching hand. Her raised, reaching knowledge of the blunders she would volunteer to make.

“How could you say you have romantic feelings for Pete?” Helena counters. “Never mind what you’re willing to do when his back is turned.”

This is not just about what Myka has said, or even what she’s willing to do. It is not. And apparently now is the time to crash full speed into these walls: “How could you say you had romantic feelings for Nate? For nonexistent Giselle?”

“I did not say that. I invite you to search your prodigious memory, in which you will fail to find me saying that.”

“Really? Semantics? You implied!” This is not the hill to die on; Myka knows that. But she will be dying, and here is a hill. Why not plant her flag?

“Perhaps. But you inferred. And you seem to be doing it again. About my... what shall we call it? Use-value?”

Myka, mortified by intention and error and invalid inference, accuses, “You are the one who brought us to this room.”

“Yes. I do seem to be the one who acts. Leaving aside the recent poorly considered raise of hand.”

Myka doesn’t understand the fuller itch of meaning in Helena’s words. Maybe on purpose. “What are you talking about?” she demands, but she’s pretty sure she doesn’t want to hear the answer. Hearing it will surely require yet more bracing.

“Why did you come to Boone?” Helena asks.

The question confounds. Is she trying to punish Myka by making her put herself back in that place? “Because you called me about the artifact.”

“Yes. I contacted you.”

“I know. Like I said.” Are they negotiating something? Myka can’t reach to it, whatever it is. Maybe that’s on purpose too. She’d rather just raise her hand again, regardless of what tainted meaning Helena might assign it. She wouldn’t say no twice, would she?

Helena’s exhale—exasperated, closing in on angry—suggests she would indeed say no twice, in fact infinitely, based on how obtuse she finds Myka’s response. “Do you not see why I might have had reason to question your... interest?”

“What?” Myka does hate how often she uses, how often she seems to have to use, that word as a mark of utter bafflement.

“It isn’t as if you were looking for me.”

Myka’s entire being sinks. “How do you know?” she asks. A question isn’t a lie, but she feels the further fall of where this must go if the truth comes out, and it’s awful and unpardonable and she will never live it down in front of herself, never mind in front of Helena.

“You didn’t find me,” Helena says, and the backhand of that compliment slaps Myka hard across her pride, because Helena’s right. On every accusatory level, she’s right.

All Myka can muster, in pathetic defense, is, “I didn’t know where to start.”

“So you didn’t. Start.”

Myka doesn’t affirm it. She doesn’t have to.

“Were we not just speaking of who acts,” Helena says. That’s no blunt slap; rather, it’s the lightness of a perfect blade.

“I should have,” Myka says. Her wince is contemptibly inadequate. “Started.”

“You didn’t.”

Myka wishes that had been an angry accusation rather than a dispassionate statement of fact. She begins in response, “Well, you should have...” But she can find no similarly dispassionate retroscription.

“Held myself in limbo?” Helena finishes for her, brutal and true in what she knows Myka wished—what she and Myka both know was unreasonable for Myka to have wished. “I had had enough of limbo. Bronze. Incorporeality. And furthermore, I didn’t betray you.”

Here at this late date, Myka should say it out loud, this unjustifiable position that has irrationally sustained her: “It feels like you did.”

Helena takes a moment, her breathing again exasperated, then says, “Your feelings were not—are not—the primary determinant of my actions. Do you know why?”

“Yes.” Myka wishes she didn’t have to hear the elaboration. But she deserves it.

“Because I did not know your feelings.”

“I said yes,” Myka stubborns. “And it’s not my fault you didn’t know them; that’s Mrs. Frederic’s fault.” Myka would have spoken; she knows it. If Helena hadn’t disappeared, she would have spoken.

But you could have spoken if you’d looked for her and found her! Those animals again. Sing-song. Laughing at all her inabilities.

Helena sniffs. “Her fault perhaps at first. Subsequently, however, your fault.”

The animals and Helena, singing together. Their accord makes Myka dig deeper into her resentment. “I didn’t know yours either.”

“I did keep them close, first from necessity,” Helena says. She’s very serious now, intensity legible in her brow, and Myka feels herself pierced by a familiarly impossible love for that concentration—so lanced that she might fall to her knees, stricken. “But later,” Helena continues, even more severely, as if in rebuke (of the love, of any drama of possible expression), “because I saw quite clearly that my choices in Boone altered your opinion of me. Fundamentally. Not my other sins, grievous as they were, but my choices in Boone. As evidenced by your pulling further and further away... even unto Pete.” She hardens. “I don’t understand your morality. I don’t believe I care to.”

“Then we’re even,” Myka says, trying for similarly hard but faltering, failing, because the soft, vulnerable fact is that she has desperately tried to but doesn’t understand Helena’s morality, particularly (but not solely) how she could have, even for a second, entangled herself with—wanted to be with—that... person, whose daughter could not possibly have offset enough of anything. She doesn’t understand how Helena could ever have taken any comfort in that mediocrity, that fakery, never mind any effect those choices were always going to have had on Myka’s heart. Never mind that.

Never mind it, and Helena can deny that it was a betrayal, but it’s sharp like that, there in Myka’s heart... the condemnation of betrayal is part of her morality, that’s always been a bedrock, and she recognizes a sick mortification at the acute, astute contrast Helena has drawn between her ability to justify Helena’s other sins but not her choices in Boone.

In further contradiction, Myka isn’t condemning herself for betrayal—well, not yet—and of course Helena would call out that flagrant inconsistency. Call it out and condemn it. “You’re changing your opinion of me. Here, now,” Myka accuses, and Helena’s set face is confirmation enough. “We said we knew each other so well,” Myka says, an illogical lament for that tragic, though clearer, time.

Helena shakes her head. “Sentimental claims in an extreme circumstance.”

Nothing but sentimental claims, those words they’d said... and here Myka had thought she already had sufficient fault from that incident to scourge herself forever: Oh, Pete, I’ll refuse to watch you kill Helena, but I’ll let you kill her. As if “I can’t watch this” were a moral stance.

Sins, sins, but omissions not commissions, for what Helena has laid out before her seems now entirely right: Myka doesn’t act. She lets others do the acting. She lets others do the acting; worse, she lets them do the unholy, if thwarted, killing; but most of all she lets them do the saving, which Steve and Pete and above all Helena have done for her. Again and again. Damningly, because whenever she should have thought of ways to save Helena, she’s failed. Perhaps the greatest reason they both must walk away is that the scales between them will never be even.

Myka isn’t crying, because she doesn’t cry; instead, she steels. But in this moment, her tempering goes awry. She feels heat in her throat, threatening to overfill, for she is here, now, realizing that she hasn’t truly believed in this as the end, even though she’s the one who determined so deliberately to bring it about. There have been so many supposed ends—ends-that-were-not—that she’s harbored (yes, tied tight to a dock in her heart) a lifeboat of hope that Helena would save her this time too.

But just as the book declined to save her, Helena is declining as well. Myka can’t see a way out, can’t see any way for them to stop reminding each other of everything that begrimes what once promised blinding beauty, everything that makes the possibility of that beauty harder and harder to discern, even for Myka who can replay all its promise in detail, every brilliant episode, over and over at will... but never fresh. Never without everything else replaying too.

She isn’t crying, but she is grieving. “We can’t fix this,” she says.

“No,” Helena agrees.

It’s a final verdict.

The coffeemaker exhales loudly, inserting itself back into the conversation, and Myka turns to it, numb. Two small filled cups await her, determinedly present. Her hand shakes as she takes one and sets it next to the machine on the bureau; it shakes again as she takes the other and hands to Helena, saying “here,” to which Helena says “thank you”—a domestic little exchange, as if a glimpse of that other reality, the one with the couples therapy. A quiet scene from a pleasant time before they needed the therapy. It’s an achingly calming view.

But the picture fades, going and going, away away, as Helena says, “I don’t know what to do now.” Bleak. Newly so.

Myka stands inarticulate, because she doesn’t know either. Into the gap, she places her best guess: “Drink our coffee?”

So they do that, in this quiet, private space. The lack of distraction brings home to Myka that she has never really attended to how Helena drinks coffee. Their “coffees” have not allowed for that sort of observation, but now she attends, and she readily discerns a pattern: Helena takes a sip, then follows it with a near-gulp; another sip, another gulp. Hesitant, sure; hesitant, sure. Over and over, but then too soon she’s through, through and walking to the table, setting her cup there.

Helena retreats back to the bedside, and Myka understands that she, too, must finish. This is now become a ceremony.

She raises her cup to her mouth and drinks. In a final irony, it’s strong and good.

When her cup is empty, she places it next to Helena’s on the table—this final table that might have supported disastrous, yet satisfactory, blundering.

But even as Myka for one escaping instant lets her imagination soar to the potential transcendence of that blunder, she is visited by a question that crashes it into dirt: could “satisfactory” ever have been enough?

Of course not, say some animals, writhing and reveling in contradiction.

So has Helena in the end saved her one last time?

Sorry, book.

Involuntarily, Myka glances at the clock on the nightstand. It informs her that she can catch her plane if she hurries. Plane, flight, flying...

Oh, I’m flying...

The wisp from that early, beautiful part of their story, when everything was possibility, forces her to try to steel again, this time into cynicism and distance. All it really does is lead her to an incongruous near-regret that she has no gun.

Things should end as they began.

But then they very nearly do, in an even more literal sense: both Myka and Helena move toward the door, then veer away, saying “sorry” as their paths threaten to intersect. Myka takes a step back, yielding.

Helena’s hand is reaching for the door’s handle, to push it down, then to pull, thus breaking the seal that has kept them here.

However: a certainty rises in Myka, a conviction that this part of their story shouldn’t end as it began. They can’t fix everything, can’t fix enough of anything, but maybe Myka can fix this one thing. “Wait,” she says, and she’s gratified to see Helena still her hand’s rise. “I lied to you,” she says.

Helena turns minimally, as if Myka’s request that she stop her motion is an unreasonable burden. “About you and Pete. Your supposed feelings. Yes, I know.”

“Not that lie,” Myka says without thought, then realizes what she’s said, then realizes it doesn’t matter at all that she’s said it. “I’m talking about Nebraska.”

Helena twists her face. “My proving ground.”

“What?” Bafflement again. More mortification.

“Speaking of lies,” Helena clarifies.

It’s not a relief, that acknowledgment—that the “home” talk was fabricated—but it’s something. “Mine too,” Myka begins.

Helena cuts in with, “You were not well.”

So she knows. Knows the lie. Which means she knows the truth. “Is this Claudia again?” Myka asks, defeated.

Helena breathes.

“It isn’t fair that you had a spy the whole time,” Myka says. If only she had had a spy.

Helena says, “No—and I mean no, it isn’t fair, but also no, not ‘the whole time.’ In fact that was how she and I came into contact again: because you didn’t seem well. Egotistically, I thought it might have had to do with me. So I inquired.”

“Which means you know everything.”

“I’d like to think so,” Helena says, with a momentary sparkle of full charm, “but in fact, I don’t. Why did you lie?”

Myka, helpless against the charm, gives the most real answer she can: “I didn’t see a way to be honest with that version of you.”

“Ah,” is all Helena says, and Myka doesn’t know what that means. Implies. Carries. Before she can ask, Helena continues, “And are you well now?”

“I’m sure your spy told you the answer to that.”

“She may have believed she had. But I would like to hear it from you. Honestly.”

“I’m fine,” Myka says. It isn’t honest. She’s about to walk away from Helena for the last time. She is not fine.

“You’re lying. Yet again,” Helena says, with obvious disappointment.

Myka has never wanted to disappoint Helena. Helena has disappointed her, more than once, but for the reverse to be true—it’s pain Myka will suffer in perpetuity.

Helena sighs. “Of course it’s what we do.”

“You and I?” Myka asks, desolate.

Helena curls her lip. “Humans. We’re feral little fabulists who put ends before means.”

If there’s a better formulation of what Myka’s been performing, lately but never when it would do her any real good, she doesn’t know it. “I didn’t look for you,” she says, condemning herself. “And I didn’t burn Boone down to get you free.”

Now Helena smiles fully. Condescendingly. “To what would you have touched your match?”

Myka doesn’t bother answering, because there is no answer. Instead she says, because she should say it aloud, “You’re very good at saving me. I’m terrible at saving you.”

“That’s not true,” Helena says, gentling.

She sounds sincere, and she might mean it, but Myka knows better. “I never hoisted you into the sky.”

“But you did serve as my eventual impetus to leave Boone: essential, once it was allowed. I admit that in the circumstance, faced with your disapproval, I became more obstinate.” Helena ratchets her face down to a half-smile, one that self-deprecates rather than condescends. “Would that you could have hoisted me into the sky.”

“I think the car had already hit you,” Myka says. “I think you stepped in front of the car and begged it to hit you.”

With a bow of head, Helena says, “Apt.”

“Was that because of me? All that I didn’t do?”

“In part? But that can’t be the entire answer.”

“I guess I did the same,” Myka says. She isn’t guessing.

“Because of me?”

Myka wants to put everything on Helena, but she can’t. Well. She can, but she shouldn’t. “In part,” she echoes. Then, “If we had both just said.” It’s a lament.

“We don’t just say.”

“Humans?” Feral little not-sayers, Helena might clarify, which would make their own not-saying at least in some way justified, if not fully excusable, and—

“No,” Helena says. “In this case, you and I.”

Myka’s desolation is complete. “Maybe in another life we would.” She looks at the clock again. Time, time. She knows she should hurry now, but instead she’s fixated on that other life. It’s different, that life. It’s just—different. She wishes she could see her way back and through to how it might have come about, but there are too many branching points, an exploding tree of “why didn’t I” choices; they mingle and blur into a chaos that she has to push down, push down and hide, to prevent that back-tracery from taking her over.

Helena is again moving to the door. Again raising her hand to it. The action—graceful, as always so graceful, a movement flowing as if through water, not air—unfolds in slow motion, stretching time, and is this why Helena always moves with such grace? To prove, over and over, her mastery of time itself?

Tellingly, Myka’s first impulse is to turn away: I can’t watch this. The consequence for Helena here today is not so dire; for Myka, though, it might as well be.

But turning her back on what is most difficult is not—should never have been—part of her morality.

Face it. Face it.

She orients herself toward the door, readying to watch that graceful hand open it. Readying to watch that beloved body recross—uncross?—the threshold. Facing it, just as she should have faced Helena’s imminent actual destruction.

She wishes, hard, that she could have been the one to deliver the reprieve then, wishes she could have parried all of Pete’s and Helena’s arguments about usefulness and nobility, parried them and found a better way, found it and brought it about. That would have been more moral, surely, than a simple turning of her face toward what she never wanted to see...

At that, her brain clicks. More moral? The moral. The lesson hadn’t been—isn’t—“Watch, even when you want to look away.” Because: “Things you don’t want to watch are things that shouldn’t happen.” And so the real moral, of all these stories: “Find a better way and bring it about.”

But this insight, valid as it may be, offers her no vision here of how to find, of how to bring about, that better way.

She tries to think, tries to find, but laughably, in spite of everything, her hand wants to rise again, to catch somewhere, anywhere, on Helena’s body; she feels her wrist, palm, fingers pulling against all the gravity, as if trying to get everyone’s attention, as if that could be the way, as if the argument of a wanting hand could ever be stronger than that of history. As if it could fix any of what had gone wrong.

It couldn’t.

Of course it couldn’t.

But. But. But.

In raising her hand, before, in that inarticulate closed-door wish, she’d been prepared to... what?

Fix nothing. Certainly, she’d been prepared to fix nothing. So: what, then, had her intention been?

To ignore everything that stood between that reaching hand and what she wanted it to achieve.

And if for a blundering moment in a hotel in an airport in Chicago...

What if the book, in its prediction, hadn’t been referring only to what might happen in a blundering moment in a hotel in an airport in Chicago?

What if Myka is meant to blunder—satisfactorily—well beyond this moment in a hotel in an airport in Chicago?

What if the book had told of more than her immediate future? What if it had understood what she had been “about to undertake” as... the rest of her life?

And one final what if—one final move of mind, like the anticipatory shudder of the second hand the instant before it calls a clock’s alarm to life—what if learning to let language slip hasn’t been about dirty work at all? What if it’s the key?

Try it try it try it try it...

“Wait!” Myka yells—it’s no yawp; she’s got purpose now. “We can’t fix this,” she fevers out.

Helena slews her head around, and yes, yes, now she’s caught again; and this, yes, yes, this is what Myka needs. She isn’t surprised, however, when Helena says, “I know. If I hadn’t before, I know it now.”

“No. Listen.” Language, the slip, the work. “‘Fix.’ That’s the word I said.”

“I did listen,” Helena says, and the set stone in her voice rhymes with the adamant of her face. “That is the word you said, and I agreed. And thus we are finished.”

“No!” Myka throws the exclamation up against that tall wall. “We need a different word! Change the vocabulary!”

TBC

[semi-sketchy]

I was told hacking in ranked caused an immediate crash BUT I GUESS NOT IN TOWER CONTROL

[foreverknightalways]

Stonetree goes running right after Fiori. Down a dark corridor and on Fioris' tail as Tony starts shooting towards Stonetree. Fiori continues to run and tries to lose Stonetree.

[flatstarcarcosa]

by far the most unrealistic thing about my ship with karnaka is the concept that i somehow make enough money with vfx work and miscellaneous photography gigs to own my own house, a bit of property that it sits on, a vehicle, and the rent on my warehouse.

[lab-gr0wn-lambs]

Y’know my dreams are always fucked up and weird but I can usually figure out what parts of my subconscious made that happen. But then there’s nights like last night where it was Hop Pop and Sylvia covered in prison tattoos flying a wooden fighter-plane through a British council-estate swarming with lovecraftian horrors and I just have to lay there in the morning and think what in the meaty fuck was that

[mayra-quijotescx]

[Image description: Search result for Windows 3.1x, reading: "Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windows 3.0. Like its predecessors, the Windows 3.1 series ran as a shell on top of MS-DOS. Windows 3.1 introduced the TrueType font system as a competitor to Adobe Type Manager." Source is given as Wikipedia. "Initial release date: April 6, 1992. Developer: Microsoft. Latest release: 3.11 / November 8, 1993; 30 years ago." End description.]

Nearly every flight in the U.S. is grounded right now following a CrowdStrike system update error … but not Southwest Airlines flights. Southwest is still flying high, unaffected by the outage that’s plaguing the world today, and that’s apparently because it’s using Windows 3.1.

Good lord. I don't know if I should laugh or cry over this.

[poligraf]

« Nebeská Etapa » (Heavenly Stage) by Eugene Ivanov

[sistertotheknowitall]

I love the idea of Danny being just Some Guy.

Like yes he’s Phantom, yes he has ghost powers, yes he’s the King of the Infinite Realms. But to the BatFam? That is just Some Guy. A random dude - if you will.

They are positively baffled by him. Like he’s completely normal as far as they (and the background check) can see. Yet, he. Is. EVERYWHERE. (Not actually but it sure feels like it.)

The kids have a running bingo card of where he’ll turn up. Outside a warehouse they’re raiding? Check. Stopped a mugging? He was the one being mugged. Tim’s favorite coffee shop? He was just hired as a barista.  Seriously it’s like everytime they turn around he’s there.

Which wouldn’t be such a problem if he REACTED NORMALLY. But no. He doesn’t flee in fear, stare in awe, he doesn’t even try to say thank you. This man looked Batman in the eye and called him the furry vigilante - TO HIS FACE! He casually referred to Dick as “the flying monkey one” to Red Robin while also calling Tim a literal walking Red Flag. When he crosses paths with Duke he doesn’t always speak but he does always give him a snack. (Sometimes it’s candy, sometimes it’s fruit but it’s always food. And he only gives them to Duke.)

He once told Jason that he didn’t care that he was a crime lord and built like a brick house, Danny would kick his ass and drag his “rotted milk soul” too hell if the gun fights kept going on past midnight. (He had exams in the morning damnit.)

He will only call Damian “baby ninja” no matter how many times the kid insists that his name is Robin.

Spoiler and Orphan? The only ones he’s respectful to but even they get the occasional random comment. (“It may be a Tuesday, but if the universe is gonna make me the human equivalent of a pin cushion then I have the right to keep the knife.”) (It was actually a Friday but who were they to argue with a man bleeding out in an alley.)

Eventually the Batkids start keeping score of who has had the most out of pocket thing said to them by this random white boy.

[radiance1]

By all accounts, it shouldn't have worked.

By all bloody accounts, that should not have worked.

Constantine will repeat.

That, by all accounts, should not have worked.

The warehouse was shitty. The materials were shitty. The summoning circle was shitty. The chanting was shitty. The magic was shitty.

By all accounts, the summoning should not have worked.

So Constantine couldn't give much of a shit about really stopping it because the summoning was so shitty it shouldn't have worked by an means possible.

So what. In the ever-loving fuck. Was the Ghost King, known tyrant of the Infinite Realms. Standing in the middle of the circle and not, last he checked, imprisoned?

That was another thing that he thought would have made it fail, actually. Because the Ghost King was incapacitated, asleep, gone, unavailable, nada.

So what. The fuck. Was he doing. Here?

Constantine knew the day was going to well to stay that way but wow. The universe loves to fuck him over, apparently.

Or the Justice League in specific.

Or both.

Doesn't matter, because now he has to bullshit his way out of this or get ready to brawl for his life.

Good thing he's good at both of those things, then.

Mostly the bullshit-

"Phantom what the fuck are you doing-" Constantine wheezed out, watching one of their newest members-a ghost going by the name Phantom-fly over in front of the known tyrant and-

Oh.

Oh, holy shit this won't end well.

Ghost King.

Phantom. A ghost.

Well, shit.

This is fine. This is totally fine. He just needs to bullshit his way out of this or face two powerhouses.

This is fine.

He's done worse.

"Sup War" Phantom said, floating around the summoning circle that contained the king of all ghosts like it wasn't a problem. "Didn't expect to be seeing you here."

"Ward." The Ghost King inclined his head slightly, eyes trained on Phantom. "I would not have come here if not for Time's insistence and I have been meaning to..." The King paused, hands gripping and ungrasping the pommel of his sword. "...Check in... on you."

"Aww, were you worried about lil old meeeee?" Phantom, ever the little shit and holy shit did Constantine want to go over there and shut him up, said. Floating around until he was staring upside down in the Ghost King's face. "Didn't know you were so soft, pa."

"I am not soft." The King huffed, flame dancing at the edges of his hair. "I was merely... concerned. Over how you would be acclimating to your circumstances. This world's League of Justice covers far more than your small haunt."

"Weeeell, it's not that bad honestly." Phantom admitted. "Haven't really done anything too big yet just some smallish things here and there. So, you know." The ghost boy shrugged, swinging back in the air to turn upright and crossing his legs. "Nothing too bad."

"Good." The Ghost King nodded, shoulders slumping so slightly that if Constantine wasn't looking, he wouldn't have seen it. "That is good. Yes. Good." The King slightly cleared his throat, grasping and ungrasping the pommel of his sword.

Silence echoed in the warehouse as the King seemingly looked for words to say.

"Would you..." He cleared his throat again, squaring his shoulders and standing up straighter. "Would you like to join me and Time for a meeting? It has been some time since you had last joined us." The King shifted slightly before adding. "Of course, if you're busy you do not have too."

"Sure." Phantom said, rolling back and forth in the air as he hummed. "Been a while since we've had some family time-"

"Family time?" Constantine caught someone-who he thinks was Green Lantern-say. He was just as bewildered.

"And if Time sent you here then it must be important." Danny paused before shrugging. "Or maybe not, can never know with him. But yea, sure. I'll come."

"Wonderful." The Ghost King smiled. Smiled. At Phantom. "Then I shall. Leave. Now. To do. Things. Yes. Things." The summoning circle flashed a familiar green, the same green when the King was first being summoned. "Goodbye, ward."

"You can call me son, you know."

The King paused for a moment, blinking slowly before hesitantly nodding.

"Then goodbye. Son."

The circle flashed and just like that. The king was gone.

"Kid. What the fuck." Whoever said- okay wait no that was Constantine, him. But yea fuck it he agrees with himself. "What the fuck." He repeated.

Phantom, the brat, only gave him a shit eating grin and a peace sign before disappearing on the spot.

[tgcg]

an open fly walking

i didnt like this one but i thought id finally air it out since its been sat in my folders for months now

TG: hey karkat

CG: YEAH?

===

TG: you ever noticed you like

TG: walk weird

CG: WOW, OKAY.

CG: HAVE *YOU* EVER NOTICED THAT I DON'T GIVE A SHIT?

TG: pff

===

TG: no listen because i got my ears scoping that shit im like a scouter for dude activity

TG: ok maybe me mentioning it to you is gonna fuck up your ecosystem or something but

TG: you have the heaviest feet of the century man

CG: I DO???

TG: just thrust them straight down into the ground like youre trying to homebrew a san andreas fault

TG: viciously tamping on tectonic plates hoping for top score on the richter scale

TG: waging war against solid particles and the basic flow of gravity

TG: i could ID those footfalls out of a million i mean it

CG: SERIOUSLY?

===

TG: i mean theres nothing wrong with it but

TG: yeah

CG: I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU'RE FUCKING WITH ME RIGHT NOW.

TG: im not fucking with you striders honor

TG: when have i ever lied to anybody about anything

CG: NOT UNPACKING THAT QUESTION WITH YOU TODAY.

CG: BUT SHIT, HOLD ON. LET ME SEE.

TG: yeah take the umbrella go over there and just walk to me

CG: ON IT.

===

===

TG: see you just kinda slam em straight down dude

CG: THIS IS THE WORST DAY OF MY RIOTOUS FUCKING JOKE OF A LIFE.

TG: dont your feet ache

===

CG: MOOT POINT. THIS MIGHT SOUND INSANE BUT I'VE ACTUALLY HAD MY STRUT PODS FOR A WHILE. ANY KIND OF PAIN THIS WOULD'VE BEEN CAUSING WOULD BE TOTALLY FILTERED OUT OF MY SPONGE BY NOW AS BACKGROUND NOISE.

TG: damn i didnt think that through

TG: my shades

CG: ALRIGHT, GET BACK UNDER THE SHITTING UMBRELLA AND THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO ME.

TG: look ive fucked myself over here too i dont have shit to clean these with

TG: ugh

===

TG: guess its karma

CG: HOLY FUCK. HOW DID I NEVER NOTICE THIS BEFORE?

TG: i dunno but im gonna assume having a dad thats a literal crab monster is probably a contributing factor

TG: im guessing thats not a great role model for this kinda thing

TG: just conjecture i mean

CG: YOUR ENVY IS OVERWHELMINGLY OBVIOUS DAVE. AS A DISCLAIMER, HE WOULD'VE ABSOLUTELY KICKED YOUR ASS.

TG: yeah probably

CG: THAT'S PRETTY MUCH ALL THERE IS TO SAY ON THE MATTER.

===

TG: but see bro had me stringent on feather feets

TG: i bet i could slip across a bike horn warehouse with nary a fucking toot

CG: HAHA. ASSUMING YOU DON'T MAKE A TOTAL ASS OF YOURSELF, AS PER USUAL.

CG: IF YOU WEREN'T CONSTANTLY RUNNING YOUR GASH ABOUT EVERYTHING AND BEING AN INIMITABLE CLOWN I SERIOUSLY THINK YOU COULD BE ON PAR WITH YOUR CUSTODIAN.

CG: THAT IS A MONUMENTAL "IF".

TG: well look at it this way

TG: im basically doing you all a favor by being a dumbass

TG: never gonna get caught off guard by the bozo patrol

CG: WOW. GOOD POINT.

===

TG: also screw this can i use your shirt

TG: this stupid hoodie is just smudging my lenses up

TG: i cant see dick

CG: UH

CG: SURE, I GUESS.

TG: cool

===

TG: so yeah i could be prowling around like a goddamn verbal assassin sniping convos left and right

TG: but no ive got the decency to go bunp in the night

CG: YEAH.

CG: IT'S DEFINITELY COMPOUNDED BY THE CONSTANT INANE RAMBLINGS.

CG: BUT

CG: IT'S ACTUALLY PRETTY RELAXING, Y'KNOW? IT HAS ITS OWN RHYTHM.

TG: see yeah i sound it off and

===

TG: wait really?

CG: YEAH

CG: I DON'T KNOW

CG: FUCK. HOW DO I EXPLAIN THIS WITHOUT WANTING TO CRAM MY FROND DOWN MY PROTEIN CHUTE.

===

CG: IT'S LIKE

CG: A SALVE FOR MY AGGRAVATION SPONGE.

CG: YOUR VOICE IS THE HUMAN EQUIVALENT OF ASPIRIN.

TG: uh damn karkat hold your hoofbeasts i was talking about the rhythm thing

CG: ALRIGHT, THAT'S IT. I'M TAKING US BOTH THE FUCK OUT RIGHT NOW. YOU HAVE REACHED THE BAD END OF THIS CONVERSATION.

TG: you think thatd be heroic or just

CG: IF I WAS STILL GHOSTING AROUND THE RUINS OF SGRUB'S ARCANE FRIGGIN GAME SYSTEMS, THE COMPLETE LACK OF SHIT AFOOT NOWADAYS WOULD BORE ME TO DEATH.

CG: LIKE. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME OUR THERMAL HULL LEVELLED UP, DAVE?

TG: hah

===

TG: but uh

TG: i mean we had aspirin on earth

CG: NO, NUMBNUBS.

CG: I'M SAYING YOU ARE MY ASPIRIN.

TG: oh

CG: YEAH, TAKE THAT TO THE BANK AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR 20-KARAT ASS.

===

TG: heh

TG: well get this

TG: i will literally talk at you forever for free

TG: you got lifetime priority seating for the davealogues

TG: never gotta go to the drugstore again you can just get doped up on my dulcet tones for the rest of time

TG: take that and some of this

TG: im packin punches

CG: OW, FUCK! NO! MY MIGRAINES!

CG: SWEEPS OF VEINCLOTTING AND NERVEFRAYING DOWN THE FUCKING GAPER. BECAUSE OF YOU.

CG: YOU ASSHOLE, THIS IS THE WORST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED TO ME.

CG: AND YOU'RE LAUGHING.

TG: chuckle up it only gets worse from here

===

CG: BE HONEST WITH ME. DID FONDLING MY SHIRT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET EVEN DO ANYTHING?

TG: barely but yknow sometimes you just gotta deal the cards youre given

TG: ill just be astigmatic for a while its cool

CG: PFF… OKAY MAN.

[yannawayne]

not a weapon but a person—capable of loving and being loved.

SYNOPSIS: You get kidnapped and Damian snaps. TAGS: Graphic Depictions Of Violence! Genderneutral! Blood, Hurt/Comfort, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Kidnapping, Childhood Trauma, My Mother is the Worst Woman Alive and I'm her Favorite Son, Damian is Eighteen.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽ ♱

A heavy thud. Ragged breaths. Then the sound of footsteps.

The same hands that had ruthlessly beat your kidnappers to a pulp—the ones that had pulverized flesh with blood splattered across his knuckles, the ones that had heard the crack of bones beneath his grip, the ones that bore the scars of countless cuts and stabs—now traced your cheek with a featherlight touch.

"Beloved."

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽ ♱

YOUR PALMS WERE PRESSED tightly against your eyes, wrists raw and burning from the rope that had bound them just minutes ago. Sobs slipped from your lips, eyes bloodshot, and mouth parched dry.

The rotting smell of the warehouse was an assault on your senses—an acrid mix of trash, harsh chemicals, and the faint tang of gunfire that lingered in the air.

There was a hushing in your ear as you leaned against a cloaked figure—Batman. Bruce. 

His hand rubbed at your back, firm and steady, a grounding presence amid the chaos. His cape, dark and imposing, wrapped around you like a shield, blocking out the violence unfolding just in front of you.

Shadows danced erratically on the walls as Robin moved with lethal precision. Bodies fell unconscious, thudding heavily against the concrete floor. Blood splattered. Screams echoed. Each punch landed with a sickening crunch, bones breaking. Crates and debris were scattered haphazardly, wood and concrete slamming onto the floor. 

Damian couldn't see anything but red.

His vision was tunneled, focused solely on the next target, the next blow, the next scream. 

A swift roundhouse kick sent one assailant crashing into a stack of crates, the wood splintering under the impact. One punch connected with a jaw, the sickening crunch of bone breaking echoing through the air. Blood sprayed on his fist. Another one rushed toward him, brandishing a knife, but he disarmed the man with a swift twist of the wrist, jamming the blade into the attacker's palm. The man screamed, clutching his arm as red streaked his skin.

Damian's eyes flickered with a dark satisfaction as he watched the thug stumble backward, clutching at the wound.

One last man remained. One who had lunged at him from behind, grappling onto his back. Damian scowled and surged backward, driving both himself and his attacker into the wall with bone-crushing force. The man's grip loosened, a pained gasp escaping his lips as the air was knocked out of him.

"Fool," Damian spat, his voice dripping with venom. "Do you have any idea who you're dealing with?"

The thug whimpered, trying to scramble away, but Damian was relentless. He twisted sharply, dislodging the assailant and slamming an elbow into his ribs. The man crumpled against the wall, clutching his side, his eyes wide with fear and pain.

"You think you can touch those I care for and get away with it?" Damian growled. He didn't give the thug a moment to recover. He swung a powerful fist into the guy's face, the impact sending a spray of blood and teeth into the air. 

"F-Fuck you, man!" The man yanked a gun from his waistband, but before he could even line up a shot, Damian’s foot kicked out, sending the weapon flying through the air. The gun clattered against the concrete with a deafening clang. With a snarl, Damian lunged forward, grabbing the thug by the collar and slamming him into the ground.

"H-Hey! Mercy! Mercy! I'm a-already down!" the assailant wailed, his hands clawing at Robin's uniform in a desperate plea. "The Bat don’t kill! You—you ain't gonna kill me!"

Damian's expression hardened, his eyes narrowing as his voice dropped to a low, menacing growl.

"I'm not Batman," he spat, the tone amplified and darkened by the modulator. "Every breath you take is a mercy I choose to grant. By the time I'm finished, you'll be begging for death."

He raised his fist, the tension in his muscles coiling like a spring ready to snap. The thug’s eyes widened in terror, his pleas growing frantic as he braced for the blow. However, just as Damian’s fist was about to land, a hand clamped down on his shoulder, grabbing onto his hand with a vice-like grip. Before he could react, Batman—Bruce—had tackled him, pinning him firmly against his chest. 

“Robin,” Batman’s voice was firm, concern barely concealed. “That’s enough.”

Damian's struggle was fierce, his body thrashing under his father’s strength as he roared in fury.

“Let me go!” he screamed, his voice raw with anger. “I’m going to kill him for what he did to them!”

The anger engulfed Damian like a stormy ocean, dragging him beneath its violent waves. Visions of his mother’s face, his grandfather’s form, and accusing shadows surged from the depths, all condemning him. Damian’s cries erupted into a raw, guttural scream, gradually dissolving into ragged gasps as he battled the relentless tide.

Though Bruce had shaped him into a hero, a beacon of justice, and his family had offered him a fragile semblance of belonging, Damian was still his mother’s son.

The violence and anger roiling within him were like roots twisted deep within his soul. There was not a thing that could purge the primal rage and pain that had taken root before his first breath.

When he finally broke through the surface, baptized in blood and weighed down by sins that clung to him like chains, he sought you out with an urgent, almost desperate need.

A heavy thud. Ragged breaths. Then the sound of footsteps.

The same hands that had ruthlessly beat your kidnappers to a pulp—the ones that had pulverized flesh with blood splattered across his knuckles, the ones that had heard the crack of bones beneath his grip, the ones that bore the scars of countless cuts and stabs—now traced your cheek with a featherlight touch.

"Beloved."

Your hands were carefully peeled away from your eyes, and you met soft emerald eyes through a veil of tears. His hands moved to unlatch his cape, the soft fabric pooling around your form. His lips, speaking in his mother tongue, murmured a soothing litany of comfort, Arabic endearments flowing like silk. He pressed your head against his chest and you found refuge in the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. 

Bruce watched the scene with a pensive look. His son's body had dwarfed you, broad shoulders and strong muscles enveloping your form like a shield. His head was tucked into your hair, his hands raking all over your tense and sweaty skin.

Damian had momentarily shed the hardened exterior he so often wore—a soldier with a heart that, despite its armor, occasionally revealed cracks. This was a side of him that often surprised people.

Because Damian Wayne was the farthest thing from soft.

He was all sharp edges. Poisonous, scalding words that could sear through the thickest armor of patience. Rough, nearly violent in his touch, like a blade pressed against skin. There was no gentleness in his movements, no softness in his gestures, only the relentless precision of a trained killer.

From the earliest moments he could walk, his life was an unending series of tests, each more grueling than the last. Each cut and bruise was a lesson. Failure was met with harsh punishment, success with silent approval. Affection and praise were as rare as mercy. 

The League’s doctrine was ingrained in him: emotions were vulnerabilities, attachments were liabilities, and loyalty was owed only to the mission and the League. His purpose in the League of Assassins was clear—to be the perfect instrument of their will, a living embodiment of their principles. 

Emotion was his enemy, a weakness to be purged.  He was taught to suppress his feelings, to turn them off like a switch. Pain was an illusion, fear a phantom to be banished. He learned to compartmentalize his thoughts, locking away his humanity in the deepest recesses of his mind. 

By the time he reached ten, he was a finely honed instrument of death.

A living weapon in a world that knew no peace.

It had taken Bruce eight grueling years to begin undoing the damage. And even then, he had barely scratched the surface.

Then there was you.

The trembling, warm-faced student Damian had introduced during his senior year—his partner for a science project, he said. 

At first, the interactions were subtle—a fleeting glance here, a hesitant smile there. But as time went on, it became impossible to ignore the way your presence began to soften the sharp edges of Damian's demeanor.

Bruce had seen you both fall for each other over the months. And he saw hope. 

You were the opposite of every lesson Damian has ever been taught.

To him, you were soft, in every sense. Soft movements, soft features, soft voice. Everything about you exuded comfort.

You made something he had always pushed down and shut away come to the surface.

You made him feel things—things he should not.

When you touched him with your soft hands, everything in him burned. The gentle brush of your fingers against his skin ignited a searing heat, a raw and unfamiliar longing that clawed violently at the walls he had worked so hard to maintain. Each touch chipped away at the concrete barriers of his training, breaking them down and leaving him exposed, aching for something he couldn’t quite name.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽ ♱

Mania. Drake had called it, a wild obsession of his that could consume and devour.

Damian's arms encircled you like a lifeline, holding you close as though he feared you might slip away. His lips brushed against your temple, warm and tender, while his biceps pressed firmly under your chest, anchoring you in his embrace. The air was thick with the mingled scents of sweat, blood, and the lingering residue of fear. 

And yet, amidst these odors, there was an underlying, almost imperceptible hint of Damian’s cologne—Arabian oudh. It was rich and smoky, with notes of aged wood, a faint earthy sweetness, and subtle undertones of leather and spice.

You buried your face into the crook of his neck, the fabric of his suit brushing against your cheek.

A Crush. Todd had chalked it up to puppy love, something that would eventually fade with time.

He lifted you effortlessly from the floor, his strength evident in his smooth, controlled movements. The way he adjusted his hold with such care to ensure your comfort spoke louder than any words could.

Warmth enveloped you—Damian had always run hotter, like a human furnace. On sweltering days, his clinginess (no matter how much he denied it) had been a nuisance, his heat making you feel as if your skin might melt off. But now, that same warmth was a comforting embrace, a welcome shield.

Infatuation. Grayson had suggested, thinking it was just a fleeting, intense passion. But there was something deeper in the way he looked at you, something that felt permanent and unshakeable.

“I am here. I am here, beloved," he spoke to you lowly. "It's alright now."

Love. His father called it.

In an instant, everything seemed to collapse around you. Tears welled up and streamed down your cheeks as you sobbed into his chest, each shudder of your body sending waves of anguish through him. Damian’s heart twisted painfully at the sight of you. 

He has seen suffering—he has inflicted suffering. But this was different. Your pain was a torment he was helpless to alleviate. 

Face twisted in guilt, he pulled you tighter against him, as though he could hold the world’s pain at bay if he just held you close enough.

A hand tapped at his shoulder, and he flinched, turning to see his father.

“The Batmobile is just by the docks. We can—”

“They're in shock,” Damian scowled. the fire back in his eyes. “Do you honestly believe they're in any state to be moved at this moment?”

Bruce’s gaze was firm. “Damian, we don’t have time to—”

“They need to be stabilized first,” Damian cut in sharply, his tone brooking no argument. He turned abruptly, striding towards the exit. “If you want them to survive this, we need to take care of them properly, not rush them into a car. I shall be outside.”

Without waiting for a response, Damian moved swiftly, the clatter of his boots echoing as he stepped into the cool night air with you. Once the warehouse door closed behind him, he turned his full attention back to you, his hand gently brushing your tear-streaked face. 

He moved to press his forehead gently against yours, the warmth of his skin meeting yours in a tender connection. He could offer no verbal comfort anymore; words seemed woefully inadequate. Your cries gradually subsided as you drew comfort from his presence.

Love.

He lifted his hand to the side of his face, pressing a button. As his mask retracted, his eyes met yours. Damian knew that more than anything else, you loved his eyes.

Time and again, you found yourself drawn to them, unable to tear your gaze away. They were hypnotic—an exquisite blend of emerald green, green as vibrant as the leather cover of his sketchbook, flecked with gold and streaked with brown paint.

His eyes were windows to his soul, offering the only genuine glimpse into the depths of his emotions. In them, you could see his anger burning like a stormy sea, joy dancing like sunlight on rippling water, embarrassment flitting like a shadow, and pain etched as deep as his scars.

At times, his eyes grew gentle, revealing something much softer—something that made your heart swell and your knees feel weak. A love so pure and unexpected that it could melt the coldest of hearts.

Damian Wayne was the farthest thing from soft.

But in these soft, fragile moments he shared with you, where his heart beat in sync with yours, Damian found an unexpected calm. It was in these rare interludes, away from the brutality and darkness that defined his world, that he could truly be himself.

Here, he was not a weapon but a person—capable of loving and being loved.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽ ♱

ao3: yenwayne

NOTE: I want to delve into the line I wrote: 'Damian is still his mother’s son.'

It's just to show his trauma, I despise Talia with all my guts.

Talia's control over Damian is a textbook example of manipulative conditioning at its most extreme. In psychological development, early experiences and parental influence are crucial in shaping one's self-concept. From his earliest days, Damian was deprived of a normal childhood. His personality, thoughts, and desires have all been sculpted by the League of Assassins from day one.

His anger, protectiveness, and sense of duty are manifestations of this—a child raised to be a killer, now struggling with the fragments of a humanity that was never fully allowed to blossom.

I'm not saying he hasn't changed!!! He has turned into so much more than the weapon they intended him to be. He is genuinely good. But the impact of such deep-seated trauma cannot be easily overlooked or resolved. It’s not something that can simply be swept under the rug or fixed overnight.

So, this was my attempt at capturing his character! I’m very open to constructive criticism since I’m new to the fandom. Please be kind and gentle with your feedback :)

[streatfeild]

can you imagine my level of insanity if i‘d known about Watch on the Rhine while it was still playing? geoffrey streatfeild and MARK WASCHKE? on the same stage???? if i‘d seen that??

[foreverknightalways]

As Nick stands in front of Fiori. He continues to shoot at Nick as the bullets supposedly miss him. Fiori runs out of bullets and goes running away from Nick and Stonetree. Nick goes to Stonetree and unties him as he says, Captain, are you all right? Stonetree answers, Yeah, I'm all right. Nick says, Don't worry, I'll get him. Stonetree answers, No. This is my fight. Nick says, Come on, Captain. Stonetree says, I'll go around the front. You take the back. Nick answers, All right. Both take off.