#if I'd had that crisis a few years later i probably would have remembered it lol

[fluffacep]

Ever since I was a little girl I knew I wanted to be a man

[a-s-levynn]

from the curious asks: 3, 15, 26?

Ooooh hey there! Thank you for asking!! 🫂💖I hoep you have a lovely day!

3. Do you like the person you feel like you’re becoming? This is not easy to put to words. In general i don't like the person i am. Ever. But i think i see myself in a far worse light than i am probably at, at this point. I like that i'm trying to be someone i actually would like to have around but i am terrified of the idea that it might not be genuin. Which feels like a contradiction. I'm unsure. I like the chosen path but i don't think i'm ever going to actually like myself. And it's not even a confidence thing, because i'm very aware of myself.

15. Do you get wanderlust? Where do you want to go? This is so clishé but anywhere there is large bodies of water where i can't see land on the horizon. I don't know what it is about the see and ocean that draws me but it does. But alas, i'm in a painfully landlocked place.

26. What does your favorite tattoo mean to you? Or if you had to get a tattoo, what would it be? Why? As of yet i only have but one. But i guess a storytime is due about my ST tattoo i guess. But in short. ST means more than i thought in a roundabout way.

So storytime incoming so i think i'll put a cut here because it is long. Like actually long. And i'm too tired to check for typoos right now but i hope it is still readable. But I'm serious, it is very long. You have been warned.

There is a few things coming together into it. I wanted to have a tattoo since i know there are things such as tattoos exist. I never really had the money but even if i'd had i was so indecisive i hade no idea what to have.

Now my ST journey was a weird little thing. And it kinda sounds made up but it's not. It just has weird little coincidences. I think i shared a short version a few months back but this is a bit more detailed account of the events.

First i got aware of the them around when the Sundowning started to release. I'm not remembering exactly but i know i've seen an article about some new music which caught my eye because of Vessel in the original mask.

Pretty much a visual i thoroughly enjoy. So i opted to check out what this thing is. And this is why i think there wasn't much of Sundowning out yet because i did not vibed with it. At all. And the EP's were so far from what i was needing musically back that time. There was one track i kinda liked musically, i know i listened to it a couple of times but that's it. I was still hurt and angry and i needed to drown out noise. So i noted that the looks are cool, the dude had a nice voice it's just not for me.

A few months later a friend of mine sent me a video edit which had a song under it. I never bothered to look up the original. But i listened to that one downloaded track a lot since then.

Que 2021 and the release of Alkaline. I watched it. I know i watched the video. I know i liked it but didn't really connected it back to that nieche weird project with the masked dude because it was so different. And i still wasn't really paying attention, so i moved on to other artists and forgot about it.

And about a year later i was sitting alone in the park i used to hang out when i skipped classes at uni in a particularly shitty day insted of doing anything. It was one of those days when i was floating in a self haterd fueled lonely depressed existencial crisis monstrosity of moment. Which were not rare by any means. The depression part not the sitting in the park part. It was just a particularly shitty one and i wanted to feed ducks to feel something. There was stuff happening. It was a lot. I love that park because it has a pond with a bunch of ducks you can feed. It's peaceful. Anyway all day i had this meoldy in my head and i had no idea what the fuck it was. It annoyed the shit out of me because i didn't know what it was.

So when i went home i started searching to find it before i actually drive myself crazy with it. It took my mind off of what was going on. And that is how i found the offering. That was the one thing i liked when i first got aware of ST. And the instrumental melody of that track was what got somehow pulled out of my subconscious. And something finally clicked. So i went through all the materials. Imagine my bafflement when i realized i listened to an ST song since my friend sent me that stupid edit. It was sugar.

Then of course i checked out tpwbyt over which i'm still hitting myself because it could have been the part of my life sooner if i don't get distracted from alkaline. But yeah that's when i finally paid attention to the lyrics. Pretty much that was the day i finally came around to ST and they became a regular in my listening history because it helped me with my emotions. But i was yet to be insane about them.

But i noticed how much it actually helped me with processing and understanding my feelings in general to listen to their music and thinking about it in relation to myself and i made miles of progress on my own with a set of headphones which 10+ years worth of therapy couldn't even touch. And that is when the idea of the tattoo started to form in my head.

I knew i wanted something that represented my journey to come around to ST. Because in a was i think i had to grew up to it. Or be ready for it. So i wanted something from the era i first got aware of them. And in the end i choose the cover art of the first ep. Because that was the last one of the discography i understood yet it was basically the first thing i heard from them. And then there the flying seeds part of the artwork which kind of felt like these little connecting point. The visuals being eyecatching, me listening to sugar unknowingly, offering coming to my rescue. Little seeds that blossomed into my love for ST.

I also had the idea to have either worship or nothing-lats-forever incorporated but i had no idea how yet. The former one because duh, worship, the second one because it is so true, but i was leaning towards worship from the start. Also the runes were coming with track by track along with tmbte and by the end i was hunting for a better version of the apparition art when there were leaks of track titles and art because i needed that freaking P to finally be able to figure out my tatto. And it was perfect because i wanted something new in it to reflect on the journey of me arriving to this point. And the runes were perfect in that sense.

The idea behind the placement on the underside of my forearm is very simply coming from praying as a nod to the quite heavy religious imagery of ST. I am not religious so i don't really pray but the idea came from that. I mean my tattoo is mostly only visible if i raise my hand and you usually raise your hand at a live show. ST hawing rituals as live shows, we basically worshipping, all that jazz. So it's a nod to that. And the placement kind of decided that i have to rearrenge the art a bit as well.

The last bit is the old sigil insted of the new. Now that is a purely visual decision, because the current one would be too busy of a design in the overall of the tatto.. When i had everything i sent an email to a tattooshop before i went to work and i already had an answer when i arrived in. I called the artist in my next smokebreak to ask for an appointment. She was free the next morning, and the rest is history.

And in retrospect not long after i've seen them live for the fist time (actually twice in 3 days) and that was an experience. I don't know what happend during Higher but the last time i felt something akin to that is when i was 5 and experienced a full solar eclipse. I can't put it to words. But something happend. Something just slid into place in my brain. That is probably why i'm so sure by now that Higher is my favourite track. And i am very much insane about them ever since as you can see.

I'm sorry this got so long, but i never really wrote down my road to st in a detailed manner and it was very fun for me to actually follow back my own path, so thank you so much for the opportunity. And thank you so much if any of you read through this wall of text.

[theninjasanctuary]

It's a bit sad how little I've managed to post in May and June, considering I've mostly been having a good time, and it would be good to recap that so I can remember later.

Threw myself a late birthday garden party towards the end of May, when the apple trees were still in bloom, the weather was lovely, as were my friends and fam who showed up, and we had nice food and a good time. This also served as summer garden party season prep, finding all the gear, dusting it off, etc. And so it was pretty easy to set up the solstice celebration garden party yesterday - pretty low-key, but sweet, with lovely weather and lots of blooming peonies. The ones I planted last August are not blooming yet this year, just gaining strength and hopefully growing strong roots in all the good soil, perhaps I can hope for a few blossoms next summer?

Thought to myself that the current year seems to be pretty good to me, all things considered. I'm making decent amounts of money, work is going okay-ish, and I'm not super-stressed about my prospects at the moment, Mom's doing okay, keeping busy, taking care of her place and enjoying life, and can cat-sit when we travel. I'm aware all of this might not last, I'm obviously in line to be the primary caretaker should Mom's health decline, and I cannot be too certain about my career outlook. And, well, apparently my big brother's marriage is in crisis and the drama might spill over even though they live in a different country, so who knows, might not have the peaceful second half of the year I hoped for.

The work trip to NYC and New Haven went kind of well. I didn't get sick, which alone is a massive upgrade compared to the last time I went to the US. The flight experience was so-so; picking a seat yourself is now ridiculously expensive (40+ €, do fuck off with that, Finnair), so I went with randomly assigned seat each direction, and of course they were in the middle 4-seat section of the cabin. On the flight over, had the middle row 4 seats all to myself, which wasn't too bad, but on the way back, the plane was pretty full, and I'd been placed into the extra legroom row in one of the middle seats, and after boarding was completed, a random dude made a beeline for the empty middle seat next to me because of the extra legroom, so then I was sandwiched between him and a hefty lady for the entirety of the flight; I was fuming internally, but also exhausted, and somehow managed to sleep for most of the nearly 9 hours. Another grumble about Finnair, they've cut the meal service so you get one meal for the transatlantic flight, and then a round of coffee or tea with an option of buying snacks - and the selection is really unappealing. On the way over, I had packed a couple of snacks, which helped. The leg back home left 11ish in the evening, and the served a warm meal at midnight NYC time or early morning destination time, and loads of people actually refused that, probably without realizing this would be the only meal on offer, because transatlantic overnight flights always used to serve breakfast before. I woke up enough to eat, although the food was less than impressive. It's a good thing we'd had a decent dinner at a Thai restaurant before leaving for the airport.

I had a work friend on the same flights, staying at the same hotel, which was even better than I expected, since it turns out he's a bit of an alpha dog when it comes to travelling, does his homework, knows exactly where to go, etc. Usually I have to do all of that, so having someone else lead the way was an interesting change. And he's chill, and a foodie, so it was nice to have someone to go to dinner with. We didn't hang out the entire time though. I shopped a little bit and very blandly (this is highly on brand), but mostly spent time diligently visiting art museums. Spent an entire day at the Met, but I think even so I only saw about 70% of their display, and that's with just walking through a lot of the rooms. Overall, more relaxed and less anxious than previous trips to the US have made me. The last time I'd been to NYC was 10 years ago, and it was stressful, with a work friend who I've since confirmed dislikes me, so it felt good to get a do-over with far less worries.

Stayed in three hotels; the NYC one was the smallest and most expensive, but clean, neat and fine, and very conveniently located, I'd gladly go back. At New Haven, the first two nights were at a four-star hotel, and they gave me an upgrade (I'm assuming they were overbooked for standard rooms and had to bump some people up; I'm cute, well spoken and take the trouble to sign up to memberships, which presumably helps). So I had a plush corner room with two walls of windows and a giant bed all to myself, it was bigger than the first apartment the boyf and I rented together. And I ordered room service one night, too, fish tacos with finger limes, I think it was the best thing I ate all trip and my mouth waters just thinking about it. Had to move hotels for the final night to a three-star one, and that was a standard room, but also rather nice. My body was trying to sabotage the entire thing by rescheduling my period, and I actually managed to leak through a tampon & Uniqlo period panties whilst sleeping there - not much, and it was on the sheets, not mattress or duvet, so I had to do some very-early-morning, half-asleep emergency washing in the sink, but hey, an anxious overpacker like me had brought a tiny bottle of stain remover that's very effective against blood stains (it's been in my travel bathroom kit just in case for a while). So that was another example of a dreaded thing actually happening to me, and managing to deal with it and move on.

All three hotels had flattering bathroom mirrors. And then I came home and weighed myself and set a new record. OTL

And it would be nice to get the expenses paid on location refunded to me ASAP (submitting all the paperwork was a hassle, but I hope everything is acceptable).

[angrylizardjacket]

it's in the blood // this is tradition

Summary: Children inherit all sorts of traits from their parents. Not all these traits are good.

"My reputation preceded me before I was born."

[ charlotte & lola au ]

A/N: 2292 words. Halsey's new album killed me on the spot. i talk a lot about the next gen being mirrors of their parents, but i'd like to go into detail about that not necessarily being a positive. @misscharlottelee this made me feel things. i love these kids.

Warnings: overdose mention, addiction discussion, mentions of drug abuse.

Penelope Dingley-Lee

Tommy can count the amount of times he'd seen Razzle truly angry on one hand, and here and now he can see it again, written all over his neice's face. He'd thought she would look like Charlie when she's angry, and occasionally she does, the way her lip curls derisively, dismissively, that's very reminiscent of his cousin, but here and now, her blue eyes are hazy, cloudy, and her lips twist with an irate arrogance that is worryingly familiar.

Angry and high and wearing clothes that don't quite match, in this moment she's exactly her father's daughter.

She's been in the papers again. Her tits have been in magazines again. Tommy bites down on his instinctual desire to repremand her; she'd call him a hypocrite, call him an old man, tell him to keep his opinions to himself while she could still buy his sex tape out of a shady car boot down the street.

Charlie was like that too, on occasion, wit too quick for him to keep up with. When she got into a mood like this, Tommy didn't have to worry so much; usually Razzle would egg her on, but knew when to pull her back.

"It's my god given, motherfucking right to go feral -" he'd heard Charlie back in the eighties holler at three in the morning, high on amphetamines and waving a gossip rag above her head. Razzle would be on the sofa, equally fucked up, but gazing at her like she hung the stars in the sky.

"Lola gets photographed at least once a month stark naked along the strip like it's a sport, why is my Playboy shoot a national crisis?! My tits are fantastic!"

"They are, my love," Razzle nods seriously, and Tommy pulls his pillow from beneath his head, trying to either block out their voices through the thin walls, or maybe smother himself. The girl beside him, the groupie whose name he doesn't know, asks blearily why there's so much yelling. Tommy doesn't answer.

A week later, Tommy is the one to bail out Charlie and Razzle for public indecency, and they're both beaming from ear to ear.

Here in the present, Penny is draped out on the sofa, laughing low and pleased as she watches TV.

"TMZ blurred out my tits," she snorts, "cowards."

"Penny..." he can't help the faintly disappointed notes in his voice when he says her name.

"Thomas, I've read The Dirt," Penny fires back venemously. Hypocrite he hears in her tone, you have no power over me.

There's something hollow in her eyes in the photos he sees of her in the papers. She wears her father's inflluence and her heart on her crushed velvet sleeve, on the arm of a shallow, pretty, band boy who plays badly and loudly. But she laughs louder, though tthe sound is low and unconvincing if anyone bothered to listen hard enough, and Tommy wonders if he has enough dark hair dye left for when that boy breaks her heart.

Jupiter Lee

Tommy is proud to watch Jupiter on stage, but he is afraid.

Their anger is something he remembers from Lola, the way they cling to the past with vitriol echoes their mother, but on stage, they drink up the attention, get high off the love the audience gives, and he sees himself in those moments.

A child of addicts, Jupiter had drawn lines in the sand for themselves that they refused to cross; no alcohol, no drugs, and they'd stayed loyal to that. But highs come in all forms; they simply picked a different kind of poison without realising.

On stage, halfway between the gutter and a god complex, Tommy knows the smile they wear all too well.

Rebellion from Jupiter didn't shock the world like it did when it was Penny's name in the papers. Jupiter's trajectory was spot on in the eyes of the public, but rebellion wouldn't be the thing that broke them.

Once, so long ago that it's a miracle the memory survived, Tommy remembers asking Lola what she would be doing if she wasn't with the band. Lola gave him an easy, bleary smile, laughing sweetly when she told him that one way or another, she'd be here. In the moment it overwhelms him with love. In hindsight it breaks his heart.

"Come on, I think this is inevitable," Jupiter smiles on television as an interviewer asks them the same question; if they weren't making music what they'd be doing, "as if I'd do anything other than this."

'Don't you know where I come from?' is left unspoken, but Tommy still hears it.

He tries to picture himself in a life without the world at his feet the way he has now. No image comes to mind. Nothing else makes sense. Even if he wanted to do something else, wanted to grow up to be something else, he couldn't even begin to picture it for himself, tragedy and all.

They play their parts. They let history repeat itself. Jupiter makes mistakes Tommy and Lola had already learned from. Penny plays Jupiter's conciousness until the role grates on her nerves, diving head first into chaos, taking Jupiter with her with little convincing.

Tommy remembers this too.

When the world looks at Penny and Jupiter, they like to remember how Lola was seen as a bad influence on Charlotte, but forget that Tommy would have followed Charlotte in to Hell without hesitation.

Leo "Seo" Sixx

Lola has google alerts set up for her son, Seo, because he disappears for months without warning. Tommy asks how he is, and Lola looks to her phone with a tight smile, telling him that he's competeing in a skateboarding competition in Prague. She learned that from Twitter.

Seo comes and goes without warning, and talks to his siblings more than his parents. He loves them, but he hasn't allowed himself to stop for years. He doesn't know how. Then again, neither did Lola or Nikki.

"Jupiter thinks a lot about legacy, don't they?" He's in Tommy's kitchen, eating a poptart, when Tommy returns home one friday evening. He's waiting for Penny and Jupiter to finish getting ready, the three of them going out.

"Do your parents know you're in town?" Tommy asks with faint amusement, though there's a twinge of guilt in his gut when Leo considers that he should probably let them know. Says he forgot. Tommy's not sure if he believes him; like his parents before him, he tends to leave a lot unsaid. It's part of his charm, the world seems to think, but Tommy knows all to well how deliberate of an act it can be.

"Jup's got all this stuff in their head about legacy and who they should be," he continues his earlier thought, "which I guess makes sense, they tie a lot of themselves up in their identity," he shrugs, then, "I don't know Leo."

Tommy's not sure if he's talking about the grandfather he's named after, or himself.

"You've given this a lot of thought," Tommy says quietly, humouring him.

"I think a lot," Seo responds, "I've been thinking about going back on my meds, its weird being off of them." Of course this concerns Tommy, who knows objectively that Seo isn't his kid, but he's close enough that Tommy feels like he's allowed to be concerned. "I'm worried a doctor's note isn't going to be enough to let me compete at the Olympics on speed," falls too casually from Seo's lips, alarming Tommy in an instant. Though it must clearly show on his face, as Seo breaks out into an apologetic grin, "dextroamphetamine, for my ADHD. I've been trying to wean off it for the Olympics, it's been hard -" but his next words, said so blithe, so casual, have Tommy's heart stopping in his chest as he's thrown back thirty years, "I've been on them since I was like eleven years old; it was great, I could think, like the right amount, but now I... I think everything. I feel everything. Its a lot." He shrugs, like he didn't just become an echo of his father.

Seo's parents both died twice from overdoses, and now their son feels like he can't function without amphetamines.

Objectively Tommy knows that they work for Seo, that he's not abusing them he simply uses them to help him function, but the irony is not lost on him. It's a lot to unpack. He doesn't think to ask about the Olympics; it slips his mind until he sees Seo and a silver medal on his Twitter feed.

Lola calls Tommy in tears. She's proud, but she wishes she'd known, wishes she'd been able to watch it live, or go over and support him in person.

No-one in Seo's life seems to fully know or understand his intentions or actions, no-one can predict his next move. He puts up a bright facade, but like his parents before him, he does not trust the world to know him.

They don't know where he goes in the few months after the Olympics, all they know is that he doesn't come home.

Cerie "CerieThree" Sixx

Since she'd turned sixteen, Tommy has never seen Cerie Sixx without a smile. That is a very deliberate choice that she's made.

She's made a choice to rise above the percieved grime of her origins. She's halfway across the country, smiling for a camera she can control, editing her image before she lets it out into the world. Cerie Three - even the name the world knows reflects this; she's picked apart the context she was born into, disecting it, deciding which was useful to show the world, disposing of the rest.

She speaks warmly to her family, from what Tommy can gather, but the people on the peripheries of their life seem more like associates in the coldest sense of the world. Her smile doesn't reach her eyes half the time when she sees Tommy, and she shakes his hand when her brothers will hug him. The internet is closer to her than he is.

Cerie looks the most like her mother of all her siblings; she's 21, the exact same age Lola was when she met Tommy, but half the time he can barely see the resemblence. Lola had let the world see a villain at that age; Cerie had learned from that, had rejected that, rejected the cold, hard humanity of her mother's fronting. Cerie wanted to be perfect. Cerie had to be perfect, hyper aware of her own image, like her siblings seem to be, but the way she'd so effectively shaped her public identity was kind of terrifying.

Perhaps this was what it was like for people who didn't know Lola, only allowed to know the image she put out into the world, or people who only knew Nikki for his stage presence.

But the more Tommy thinks about it, the more he remembers just how effectively Lola had wrapped the band around her little finger when she set her mind to it, how she talked her way around exectives despite being dressed like she'd woken up in the gutter and fucked up on any number of drugs. Lola understood people, and it seemed Cerie did too.

Cerie Sixx, twenty one, doesn't stop creating content, doesn't stop studying, and doesn't stop smiling. Two of those three things are inhereted traits, inhereted determination, and the third is a choice.

Cyrus Sixx

Though Cyrus had inhereted much of his parent's musical talent, the same way Jupiter had, Cyrus had also inhereted a love of the high life. Even so, he's so full of love, kissing his mother on both cheeks before he goes out to get shitfaced in the bars she was decades before he was even born.

He works hard, at his job, on his music, but his partying matches it just as well. He knows exactly how far he has to fall before he meets the depths his parents' had sunk to, and though he doesn't voice this, his arrogance comes across in his actions.

There'd always be someone to pull him away from swan diving to rock bottom. He takes that for granted, and keeps getting closer and closer.

The only one of Nikki and Lola's children who still lives at home, he's the only one like them in the way they'd feared.

"He's going to have more success than he will ever be able to comprehend," Nikki had told Tommy, the day after Cyrus had been admitted to hospital after staying up for four days while high and obsessing over a song he had been working on. Nikki had found him having a fit after having fallen from his desk chair. Now, sitting on Tommy's patio in the sunset, he looks tired, he looks afraid, "if he doesn't end up killing himself first."

A month ago, the fire department and the police had to pull him, kicking and screaming and bareass naked from a tree in the middle of town. His parents had bailed him out, had felt a familiar sting of guilt as they find themselves reminded of their own youthful exploits. They repremand him, of course, but they both know the only reason they stopped climbing trees was because there had been no-one to pick them up after.

Nikki sees himself in his sons mistakes, but he'd had to learn concequences the hard way.

Tommy loves his family and all it's strange branches, as well as their raucous youth, but his closest friends were some of the most volatile people he'd known, and somehow he'd forgotten that as time as taken people and memories from him.

But these children were made in their image.

[bitimdrake]

hi, it’s the void! i’m back. okay, regarding any metas you feel like writing. i wasn’t kidding when i said they all sounded great. i loved the timeline you did for Dick, especially because i haven’t been reading DC that long and it was great to understand how events happened and stuff, and more timelines like that would be amazing, , but i’m actually mad curious about your thoughts on how Dick and Tim are similar? like i've seen a lot about their relationship as brothers which is great but (1/2)

but now that you’ve said it, it kinda makes sense. although the only specific thing i can remember is them both insisting on going to public school. anyway, i'd love to hear your thoughts! (2/2)

I very probably will end up doing more timelines because I had fun! but unless there’s a specific request I might wait until I’m fully done with my pre-flashpoint read through. Onward to your actual question, though!!

tl;dr: Dick and Tim are both true heroes on the side of good, very smart, social and well-liked, team players, highly prone to (often unnecessary) guilt, susceptible to becoming more Batman-like in their worst moments, and able to fight against that with The Power of Friendship (i.e. trusting and relying on others).

  but lets start with the reason why Tim and Dick ended up so similar in-universe, which is that out-of-universe they’re the most similar.

They’re the archetypical, “light to Batman’s darkness” type Robins.

[Dick to Alfred, in flashback: “No, it’s not like that, Alfred. I mean, I know the danger, and I really try to careful. But I also know I’m doing good, that I’m helping people. I think in a way I’m helping Bruce, too.” “How is that, sir?” “I used to think he was more real as Batman than as Bruce Wayne...but because he just can’t be some cold super-hero around me, I think Bruce is becoming more real, too. Look I know what we’re doing is important, but it’s not everything. Mom and Dad always taught me to enjoy myself. I think maybe I’m helping Bruce to sometimes enjoy himself, too.” | (Batman #438)]

(p.s. go read batman year 3, ft grieving bruce, bruce & dick & alfred Feelings, young dick grayson flashbacks, and the cameo first appearance of baby tim)

[Tim, to Bruce: “B-Batman, it’s hard for me to say this to you--but since Jason...died, everyone’s notice how you’ve...changed.” / “You need someone to make you slow down just a bit and wonder what could happen. I mean, how many times have you been hurt these past few months?” | (Batman #442)]

  They’re the two who had truly long runs as Robin: post-Crisis Jason had about a year and a half, Stephanie a few months. If you include all reboots, Damian has had a decade, but I ignore everything after Flashpoint since the characterizations changed so wildly, and he only had 2 years preboot. Meanwhile, Dick was Robin for over 40 years, and Tim for 20.

They were really the only two preboot that had time to live and grow in the role of Robin. They had time to become staples of the greater universe and connect with many other characters. They had time to become long-lasting members of notable teams.

They both were introduced in the sidekick role, but soon started leading stories as main characters in their own right instead of supporting characters to Batman. Tim got his own Robin series, and then continued into his Red Robin series. Dick was the regular star of stories within batfamily anthology series—though I’m not familiar enough with the golden/silver/bronze ages to cite those off-hand, sorry—and then in the modern age got a Nightwing ongoing until he took over as Batman.

(By contrast, Jason and Damian have only really lifted to starring roles post-Flashpoint, previously having always shared billing as Robin. Post-resurrection, Jason was a sporadic guest character, usually an antagonist. Steph started as an occasional Batman guest star, then become a supporting character to Tim in Robin, and only much later became a main character once she got Batgirl. Cass did get her own Batgirl book right off the bat, but, look, out of universe and narratively Cass is so very different to the boys, and was still always very isolated from the rest of the dcu. Barbara as Oracle is the only one who had the same central status as Dick and Tim, but being neither Bruce’s kid nor a Robin, she has a completely different, far more independent role.)

tl;dr: If you read preboot comics, there really is a distinct way in which Dick and Tim are treated as fundamental main characters in the universe in comparison to all the other batkids.

i can’t believe how long this is already getting so I’ll see you under the cut

[Alfred, to Bruce: “Oh, he was sad, certainly--But also more than that. He’s changed considerably over these past horrible days. When he first came to us, I dared entertain hopes that you might, through proximity, become more like him. Bright and more optimistic. But I’m afraid exactly the opposite has occurred. I’m afraid he’s become more like you.” | (Robin #132)]

(alfred is talking about tim here, but, spoiler, imma argue that this could literally apply just as well to either dick or tim)

Those out-of-universe similarities all come together to mean Dick and Tim had to fill pretty similar roles. Dick was created in a very lighthearted era to appeal to kids and give Batman someone to talk to, and Tim was created very specifically and carefully to Not Be Jason Todd and convince readers that a kid sidekick was still reasonable even after one of them had been killed—but the outcome is the same.

They’re the good kids. The reliable ones. Sure, they sometimes fight with Batman or make the wrong choice or struggle, but those are problems they overcome instead of defining characteristics. They were the ones who could be solidly in the role of the Robin without making readers question if they really should be Robin.

As young characters who led their own stories, writers naturally leaned into making them relatable to kids*. And when they graduated, all that established characterization kept them as The Good Kids into their future identities, even as they matured.

(*I think this is super key in comparison to Damian, who is ofc a very young kid, but who pre-Flashpoint had most of his appearances in series that weren’t necessarily geared towards kids: Batman, Batman & Robin, etc. Ergo he could be violent and bloody and chop off heads, and not have to take have any kid- relatable traits or stories. Compare to Super Sons, which I haven’t read, but from what I understand is very geared towards kids and therefore tries to make Damian more kid-friendly and kid-relatable to match.)

   Dick and Tim have pretty much the same skillset all non-meta, Gotham-based vigilantes have. They’re great martial artists, they flips off buildings, they’re very smart and great detectives, etc etc. Fanon tends to exaggerate any difference in skill, but honestly by the time Tim is full-grown there’s not any hugely noted gap between them. Dick is more acrobatic, but they’re both excellent fighters. Tim’s detective skill are more likely to be mentioned, but they both are great problem- and case-solvers—and Dick has solved cold cases while sick at home, or ruined mystery movies with friends by figuring it out two minutes in, etc.

[just for kicks, here’s a horribly cropped side-by-side of Ra’s calling each of them “detective” | (Red Robin #12 / Nightwing #152)]

   They’re both also very empathetic and caring. This seems pretty well known for Dick, but sometimes missed for Tim, so I’ll remind here that Tim became Robin exclusively because he wanted to help Bruce and help Gotham. He’s the only bat who became a vigilante without having any preexisting personal tragedy to motivate him, because he just wanted to help that much.

Also well known for Dick but often forgotten for Tim: they’re both social, friendly, well-liked people. Dick, of course, has friends all over the place (though, imo, keeps his closest circle of friends pretty exclusive), and generally has no problems socially.

The same is pretty much true for Tim. He doesn’t have the connections across the superhero community Dick has (tbf Dick’s been around 50 years longer), but he is similarly very comfortable in social situations. He’s a confident kid, particularly once he’s been Robin for awhile. Tim swapped schools approximately 2437 times in the Robin series, and very quickly made friends at all of them:

[Tim, to random jocks: “Excuse me, guys?” “Who’re you?” “I’m Tim Drake. I’m new here and have only one friend so far, so I can’t afford to lose him. The trouble is that he’s madly in love with Darla here and dying to talk to her. Now, as we all know, the official-rules-of-guys dictate that you’d be fully justified in beating the snot out of anyone dumb enough to make a pass at your girl. So here’s the deal. Just this once, I’m willing to take the beating coming to him. I’m not suicidal enough to try fighting back, but I still suggest we go outside so that you’ve got all the room you need to do a proper job of it.” (pause) Random jocks: “Hey, you’re all right, Tim.” “You’re pretty cool. Funny, y’know?” “Besides, she really ain’t our girl. Darla don’t date nobody.” “Come on. You can buy us sodas while your bud takes his shot at her.” “Or a double bacon burger.” | (Robin #122)]

The confidence, lads.

  Like I said, they’re the “good kids,” and that applies to both sides of their double lives:

As civilians, they got good grades in school (not that that separates them from the other batkids), they generally followed the most important rules, and were relatively well-behaved kids—if not sometimes considered boring. (It’s important to remember here that, as the guy who was Robin in the 40s, Dick was once the ultimate square. Even though he was Robin until he was 19, it wasn’t until he became Nightwing that he was allowed to do adult things like “be shown in bed with his girlfriend,” and it really wasn’t until the 90s that he started to shift away from being known as the conventional, straight-laced guy.)

Dick is canonically a lightweight because he barely drinks, even though he’s specifically trained to resist other drugs. Tim is regularly teased for being so very virginal. Dick and Tim are probably the people who always appoint themselves designated driver, even when they intend to drink with their friends, and there’s already an assigned DD, and they really were planning to just have fun, they swear, but listen, someone has to look out here and make sure everything is okay and be responsible and, anyway, alcohol is bad for you.

   As vigilantes, they stick with the Code and they don’t kill. As far as I can tell, the no killing code has never been shown to be deeply and personally vital to them in the way it is for, e.g., Bruce and Cass. But it is important to them: something they follow stringently, try to get others to follow, and a point of horror when they (perceive themselves to) break it.

Here’s some clips after Tim got dosed with a superspeed drug and accidentally killed Lady Shiva. (“What?? Tim killed Shiva???” Yes, but don’t worry; it will literally never be mentioned again ever.)

[Tim’s narration: “Cleared her airway. No breathing. And no pulse. Okay, so this is weird. I’m trying to bring someone who’s killed so many back to life. So she can live to kill even more.” / “But if I can save one life. Even if it’s Shiva’s. Have to fight down the poison in my blood. I deliver pressure to Shiva’s heart too fast and--and I’ll have killed her twice.” | (Robin #52)]

And here’s Dick after accidentally killing the Joker in a rage:

[Tim, to Dick: “Nightwing?” “What… What have I done?” “Omigod… He’s dead.” “I…I killed him.” | (Joker: Last Laugh #6)]

[Barbara, over video chat: “Even Bruce would admit it. The world would be better off if the Joker were dead. So don’t let this destroy you.” Dick shuts off the connection. | (Nightwing #63)]

(Dick has another sorta-kill in Nightwing #93, where he doesn’t pull the trigger himself but steps aside to let someone else do it, and he has a guilt breakdown from that as well. Even though, again, the person killed was awful, and in that case there weren’t a lot of other options left.)

I probably don’t need to tell you that Lady Shiva and the Joker are horrible people and mass murderers, to the point where resuscitating them (Tim in the first case, Bruce in the second) is arguably the less moral action. But Dick and Tim both have the same reaction of horror at what they’ve done, and refuse to entertain how the world would probably be better off without said villains. Killing is wrong, and that is the only thing either of them allow themselves to think about.

   Unlike the other pair of batboys, these two are inarguably, fundamentally heroes and not antiheroes. On the occasion where they’ve tried to be darker (e.g. Dick after that accessory-to-murder thing as “Crutches”/Renegade or Tim early in Red Robin) it pretty much always stems out of feeling awful, and only makes them more miserable and depressed. In both cases, they’re taking on the role as some kind of self-punishment.

[Conner, to Tim: “Wait a second. This is all a punishment, isn’t it?” “What are you talking about?” “Taking on the identity of Red Robin--The “failed” Robin. Isolating yourself. I know what guilt can do to you, Tim.” | (Adventure Comics vol. 2 #2)]

[Dick: “I let him get shot. A bullet was fired and I failed to throw myself in front of it.” // “I’m not undercover with the bad guys--I am the bad guys.” | (Nightwing #112)]

Both of them have a tendency to feel responsible for anything that goes wrong, and especially anyone who dies—whether it’s someone they had a hand in killing, someone they failed to save…

[Tim’s narration: “Dad thinks this is part of the punishment. For me it’s therapy. Just last week I was holding a kid my own age and watching him die. And I couldn’t stop it. Some hero I turned out to be.” | (Robin #47)]

...or just someone they love who got hurt:

[Roy, to Dick, just after Donna’s death: “Stop this. You’re upset, we’re all upset...But this isn’t the time to make decisions.” “When is the time? When we kill more of our friends?” “It wasn’t our fault.” “The hell it wasn’t.” “Dick, don’t act like I don’t care! Don’t pretend that this doesn’t kill me inside. But you can’t tell me that Donna would want--" “I can’t tell you what Donna would want. Nobody can because she’s dead, Roy! What do you want to do? Just strap on our guns and wait for the next thing? Wait for the next madman, or alien, or psychopath to come along so I can shove people I love into harm’s way?! How many should we kill before it seems like a bad idea?!” | (Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day #3)]

(Donna is a full hero in her own right, who makes her own decisions and definitely wasn’t shoved into anything by Dick, but there’s a guilt complex for you.)

And neither of them deal well with grief. This is more pronounced with Tim, who lost a whole bunch of extremely important people in a very short time, and reacted with things like cloning attempts, Lazarus pits, and world tour wild goose chases, but it’s true for both.

[Soon after Donna’s death, Dick sits silent and alone as his answering machine speaks: “I’m not here. Leave a message after the beep.” Roy, over the phone: “Dick, it’s Roy--pick up the phone...C’mon...Please...I know you’re there...Just pick up. Dick, we need to talk...You can’t just...Please… You can’t just leave me hanging out here. I’d rather we...y’know...try to go through this together...if you’d just let me… Please man… Okay. Fine. I’m here when you’re ready.” | (Teen Titans/Outsiders Secret Files)]

[Soon after his father’s death, Tim curls up in bed as Dick speaks through his answering machine: “Tim, it’s Dick. I know you’re there… C’mon, Tim. Pick up...Pick up… Tim, pick up...Please, kiddo...Pick up… I know you can hear me, Tim…” | (Identity Crisis #7)]

(thank you for setting up this perfect parallel, comics)

So, grief and guilt, the two biggest things that push both boys to their worst. Which brings us to our next point: So You Were A Teenage Vigilante Adopted By An Emotionally Repressed Father Figure And Now You Have Terrible Coping Methods.

   When they hit these rough patches and fail to dig themselves out, Dick and Tim react pretty much the same way. They self-isolate, overwork themselves trying to control and fix everything, get overly serious and grim, and fail to take care of themselves, sometimes out a misplaced sense of guilt and sometimes simply because their own wellbeing takes second place to trying to save everyone else.

Or, in other words, at their worst, both Tim and Dick emulate Bruce.

During the (short! it was pretty short!) time Dick was a cop, he overworked to the point where he was doing virtually nothing to take care of himself or hang out with friends, too busy trying to take down the BPD as a cop and save people as a vigilante. After his dad and Stephanie (seemingly) died, Tim outright dropped out of school (under the pretense of being homeschooled by his fake uncle) because he didn’t see a point in devoting his time to anything that wasn’t The Mission anymore.

And even in good times, they each have shades of those traits! They both tend to be the most grim/serious on any team (or out-of-Gotham friend group), and are prone to secrecy and occasionally to trying to control things behind the scenes—all to the point where being teased or accused of being too much like Batman is a common sentiment from their friends. 

[Donna, to Dick: “How long, Nightwing--How long have you been conducting secret investigations behind our backs?” “I’m sorry, Donna. But I needed to be sure my suspicions were correct before I--" | (Titans #99)]

[Wally, to Dick: “Okay. I tried. You’re on your own. You want to play the martyr? Go ahead. But I never thought you wind up like Bruce.” “What’s that supposed to--" | (Nightwing #63)]

If I took the time, I bet I could find like a billion examples of the Titans mocking Dick for being too Batman-like, but just take these two more serious examples.

imo, contrary to popular belief, this is actually far less prevalent for Tim, but still definitely gets its moments:

[Kon, to Tim, being retrained by Cassie: “Yeah, I’ll bet! Batman give you some tips for handling us, huh?” (Cassie: “Kon! This isn't the ti--") Tim: “What...is that...supposed to mean?” Kon: “You gonna make me spell it out for you?” Tim: “It think you’re going to have to, yes.” Cassie: “Kon, please, not here, not n--" Kon: “Hey, he wanted to hear it? He’s gonna hear it. So...Do you have files? On us? Or did you think we weren’t gonna hear about it? About how Batman had files on everyone in the JLA--his friends, his teammates--on all their weakness and how to beat them in case one of ‘em went rogue. Well? You’re his protege. You take the lead from him in everything. Have you figured out ways to take down each of us? Are you as paranoid as he is?” | (Young Justice #36)]

(man, remember that time bruce was such an untrusting bastard that he nearly destroyed not one but two different superhero teams? good times)

Whether or not they’re actually up to something shady (and in this case, Kon is wrong as it turns out), Tim and Dick both have that quietly secretive thing learned from Batman. And they both have to deal with being under Batman’s shadow; I mentioned earlier that both have fought with Bruce, and they definitely have, but I can’t think of a time they’ve ever done so publicly.

   They both deal with the worry of being seen as purely an extension or lesser copy of Batman, and on a more internal level the worry of becoming like Bruce.

Dick gets more arcs that focus on the former—Possibly because, as the original Robin, this is a big out-of-universe question for his character too. How do you make the character who was Batman’s sidekick for 40 years, who was created long before the idea of sidekicks growing up ever existed, his own man and able to stand out from under the shadow of the Bat? (answer: turns out it’s actually pretty easy if he becomes wildly popular and beloved in his own right)

Tim gets more arcs that focus on the latter—possibly because, as a teenage character who was more or less in a long-form coming of age story during his time as Robin, there was still a sense that who he would become in the future wasn’t set in stone and his personality would continue to shift and grow.

But both of them ultimately want to be their own person, and much as they love him, neither of them want to become like Bruce. Or to make this parallel absolutely explicit:

[Tim’s narration: “Here’s the thing: no one can predict their own future. The best a guy can do is to look to those who’ve been much longer on the same path as him, and see what a life of walking that path has done for them. For me, those people are Bruce and Dick. You see what I’m getting at? Bruce has been on the job the longest. It’s slowly driven him mad and eaten the human part right out of him. But what about Dick? Surely a guy like him can’t dedicate himself to this line of work and keep a level head on his shoulders? I wanna yell “He can!” but I can’t forget the glimpses I’ve seen recently of the same kind of monster eating at Dick, too. Little things that, looking back now, I can remember seeing in Bruce a few years ago. Should I call them “early warning signs”? Do I dare to assume it’s a disease I can’t catch with time?” | (Robin #100)]

   On the bright side, Dick and Tim aren’t Bruce. They are, as noted, both far more social people, prone to far more openness. And because becoming like Batman is always narratively portrayed as a Very Bad Thing for them, that means it’s something that they usually get to fight against and overcome to be happy, healthier people.

[Wally, to Dick: “Don’t stand there blinking at me, Grayson. What do you want, a mission statement? Fine. My mission is to keep you from turning into your guardian. Batman may be a loner, but you need a family around you.” “You’d really join another team just so I could have a social life? You’ll never last.” “Ten bucks says I stick it out longer than you do.” | (Titans #1)]

[Tim: “People...You think you know how I feel about Batman? Trust me: right now, you don’t. No, I don’t have files on you. Batman and I are different, believe it or not. I have friends. He has...associates. That’s becoming more and more clear to me… And that’s all I intend to say on the subject.” | (Young Justice #36)]

[Tim: “I realized you were playing with me. But this is me, refusing to play. Did you think I was going to run all around the city, desperately trying to save everyone all by myself? I’m not Batman. I have friends.” | (Red Robin #12)]

(i can’t believe bruce is never around to hear tim roast him like this rip)

So Dick and Tim specifically fight against those Batman-esque impulses by having close friends who they truly love, trust, and can rely on as a support system.

  I can throw out lots of other little similarities between them if you like: both preferred public school as you mentioned, both orphans, both traumatized after witnessing their parent(s) death.

They both started with a complicated and not necessarily parent/child relationship with Bruce (Dick and Bruce initially having been just as likely to be referred to as brothers; Tim initially having his own living father and a relatively professional relationship with Bruce), and explicitly said Bruce wasn’t their father. They both eventually shifted in their feelings and later considered Bruce their dad.

They both still love and care deeply about their original fathers, and rarely actually refer to Bruce as “dad”. They both lived with Bruce long before being officially adopted (Dick as his “ward” and only adopted as an adult; Tim living with him temporarily while his parents were away or comatose and adopted after his original dad died).

They both were unwillingly stopped from being Robin once temporarily (Dick fired in Robin: Year One; Tim forced to quit by his dad) before later returning to the role. They were both later permanently fired from the role by the current Batman, and extremely upset about being replaced. They both are consistent and reliable parts of the bat-team, except for a single period after they were fired and spent time away (Dick with the Titans in NYC; Tim around the world looking for evidence Bruce was alive).

…and so on and so forth.

   (The fanon note to end this post is that they each have a tendency to get wildly exaggerated by fans to the point of getting flaws they never had in canon—but in completely opposite directions: Dick gets flanderized into a perpetually cheerful, ever caring, lynchpin of the family; often with the entirely non-canon flaws of being stupid, oblivious, and/or overbearing; often without his more serious, workaholic, clever, or occasionally manipulative side. Tim gets flanderized into a perpetually depressed, genius-level IQ, uber-workaholic control-freak; often with the entirely non-canon flaws of being socially anxious, paranoid and untrusting, and/or entirely unwilling to take care of himself at a basic level; often without his more social, trusting, goofy, or occasionally cocky side.)

    In conclusion, Dick and Tim definitely have differences and qualities unique to each of them, but they’re more similar than they are different and also I can’t believe I am writing long analyses of fictional media on tumblr dot com but it turns out i miss writing essays and have lots of Thoughts.

thank you for asking, the void.

[princess-of-the-corner]

Human After All: I'd like to know more about A) Lust realizing that Hohenheim had an actual life in Resembool and B) everyone's reactions to Ed and Al sneaking off to do the human transmutation and the aftermath.

Oh boy here we fuckin go!!!!!

Lust realizing that Hohenheim had a life in Resembool:

Oh boy. Okay so this has some setup.

When Lust first meets Ed and Al, she assumes the situation is a lot different. Basically They're close enough to be mistaken for twins, so she thought it was more "one night stand and disappeared from town but their mom remembered the name and told the kids". Because... Why would he stay?

But then Lust babysits Ed and Al on a trip back to Resembool to visit Winry and her grandma. And like.

Lust gets curious about some things. And she happens to see a photo album out that she can't help but look through.

Of course Granny finds her snooping but just lets her look through it and explains that it's from Winry's parents' wedding. And Lust eventually flips to a page where Hohenheim is in the photo.

Lust pauses on it because it's so strange. First in general, of how Hohenheim looks just like Father but also nothing like him at the same time. Physically identical, but the way they carry themselves is.. Entirely different.

Especially as this picture is kinda goofy. Granny tells her how everyone was hinting to Hohenheim that he should marry Trisha since they were already "basically married". And the newly married Sarah Rockbell had given up pn subtly, and chucked her boquet right at Hohenheim's face with a "sorry I was aiming for Trisha!"(which no one belives because she has incredible aim).

Lust asks more on that. And Granny mentions how Hohenheim and Trisha had been together for a bit amd were already living in the same home. And that pretty much immediatly after that whole "lack of subtly" the pair decided "despite not going through legal paperwork we are married now fuck you' and also bonus pregnancy announcement. Which has Lust relize Ed and Al aren't twins.

But it's weird to her. Because like. Hohenheim had a life here? He was with this woman for a few years and essentially got married (clearly the "don't go through the paperwork" is because he doesn't legally exist). But like. He had a wife and kids. One of the kids seems to have been actually planned. Why would he do that? And why did he leave? No one has answers on that, but Granny says that if he did leave, it was for good reasons. Not whatever the town gossips make up for fun.

Granny is a little sus about Lust's interests in all this because like. I kiiinda mentioned this before on my artblog but he way I draw Lust she actually looks a lot like "if Ed was a girl" and considering how much Ed looks like Hohenheim... They basically look somewhat related. Granny points that out and kinda pulls some Gaslight Girlboss Gatekeep of "nope no relation whatsoever my father just worked with him long ago but it's totally not relevant to anything!"

Anyway!

Later, Lust is wandering around Ed and Al's home because that fucker hasn't burned yet. And she just... Sees more of it.

True. It's been just the boys for years but there's still things like his clothes in the bedroom closet or something casually put on a shelf too high for Trisha to have reached.

The two rooms that really hit are the bedroom and the study.

Tbe bedroom is mostly untouched. But she sees a shelf of little statues. It's strange to her, but she realizes all the statutes are made from Alchemy. About half of them have very obvious marks, a sign of a talented but inexperienced maker. Seeing two distinct styles, she cam guess Ed and Al made those.

The rest are perfect. Intricate and flawless. If they weren't on the shelf with the others, she would've thought they were made by some master clay artist.

Alchemically made trinkets as gifts for someone they love.

The study is another beast altogether. A whole library on Alchemical texts. Some even older than Lust. All marked up with someone's notes in the margins. The same person's notes, as the handwriting doesn't differ. Clearly all these are important. So why leave them?

The real hard hitter is a journal Hohenheim left. Of course Lust reads it. The fact that the journal is written in Xerxian is just another punch to the gut, but thankfully Lust can read it.

It has a lot of things but the main info she reads is an entry from when Ed was just born and Hohenheim is discussing worries over how his whole "Philosophers Stone in Human Form" deal might be effecting Ed in terms of like. Genetics and stuff.

But the main thing Lust focuses on is that Hohenheim mentions discussing those fears with Trisha. That he told her what he was and his whole history and everything.

It's... Confusing to Lust. Why did Hohenheim just settle down here in this small ass rural town with a normal woman? What was it about her that compelled him to stay in one place so long? To settle down after years and have a kid? Having a second kid? And telling her about... Everything?

She finds no answer because, from all accounts, it seems like Trisha was just a normal, small-town girl. She didn't even have an interest in Alchemy! Just gardening. Why her? Why not someone at least... Great and powerful to match what he was? Even if no one could truly compare to what he was.

Everyone's reactions to Ed and Al sneaking off to do Human Transmutation:

Oh boy. This is a big plot point.

So the boys had quite a plan to trick the adults. Lust has gone on trips out of town for weekends(reporting back to Father), and she's also babysat the boys on a trip to Resembool before. So the boys wait until one of her trips and tell Roy and Riza that she's taking them on a different trip to Resembool. None of the adults know this until Lust comes back without them and has no idea where they were.

They put it together real fast and all three book it to the train station. Several hours of worried pacing of what could've happened.

Roy and Riza are entirely in the dark of what might happen. Lust though... She knows how the Gate works. And what could have happened.

She knows that There's a Price to pay. And while she was planning on encouraging the boys to go through the Gate anyway, she was supposed to be involved with it so she could trade a part of her Philosopher's Stone for their safety. Obviously just so they don't loose a Sacrifice to blood loss or later infection! Not because she cares or anything! But yeah without her, who knows what the Price may be?

They check the boys house first. They see plenty of blood, which is a terrifying sight. But they also see a trail leading out. And that if the boys are still alive, they probably went to the Rockbell place.

Which yeah. Granny's already waiting for them. She wants to yell at them for failing, but it would be hypocritical sinve she didn't notice the first time around.

She tells them the boys are alive but fucked up. Ed lost a couple limbs and Al is... Hard to explain.

Lust is the first to notice the suit of armor in the living room. The way it's arranged like a child, curled up and hiding, barely peeking out from behind the "arms". Light in it's "eyes", like someone's in there watching her.

She remembers the experiments done on the death row inmates. Puttin Souls in suits of armor. She's horrified, but not surprised, when it moves.

That is a whole conversation. Lust has to pretend she doesn't know how that works(while also questioning how the boys managed it). Al tells them what he remembers, which is just everythiny going wrong and then being in the armor and Ed missing some limbs.

We have a long emotional scene when Roy goes to talk to Ed.

Ed is very much not okay at this point and he's trying to be angry but it's just not really there. And he just asks why Roy is still there. He failed to keep them from fucking up why does he still care? Just go back home and leave them so he doesn't have to deal with them anymore.

Well that's just heartbreaking. Roy just talks to him about a lot of things. And the main thing was that this wasn't just "I'm gonna try and stop you but whoops failed that bye bitch" situation. He's not just going to drop the kids because he failed once. He's not even going ti drop them after months of pushing him away and being stubborn about the whole situation. They're a family now damn it.

And Ed kinda feels like that might be worse, because he threw that away ti go fuck up. But Roy tells him it's not "thrown away". They're still going to be here for him. And figure things out.

Later at night, Roy, Riza and Lust all kinda sneaknout individually. Which does lead to some comedy until Granny catches them and calls them idiots. But all of them were thinking of going to the boy's house and looking over their notes.

Roy and Lust are the only ones who can make heads or tails of the notes. Riza can follow some but gets lost and Granny never was an Alchemy person. Roy's looking more for "what went wrong" while Lust is focused more on "what went right". And Lust does find that though they came very close to making a Homunculus, they did do everything pretty right. She accidentally comments on that, which leads to a horrifying theoretical of "what if the boys managed to make a fake Trisha that looked and acted like her but wasn't her?". This also leads to the more disturbing question of "what was it they did manage to make"?

This is a thing that came up in Canon, but here they get answers of the thing that they made wasn't their mom, and you can't bring back the dead. Ed and Al take that news about as well as they did in Canon as well.

The "possible homunculus" thing comes up too with the others wondering if Al really is Al and not just... Something vaguely like him that Ed accidentally created. (Lust knows but can't tell how she knows rip!). Riza to the rescue on this one by asking Al about something Ed shouldn't know about. So that existential crisis is averted!

Of course there's discussion of what to do to help Ed and Al. Which... Does lead to getting back toward Canon of "have Ed become a State Alchemist". It's debated a lot because ya know. Sure it's the best option to help them have the freedom and access to stuff tk find shit but. Ya know. Roy already feels like he failed to protect these kids once already this is not helping.

Anyway! One more fun scene!

Please imagine once Ed gets the automail arm and just does the clap-slap Alchemy. And Roy and Riza are like "yo what the FUCK???"

[punkscowardschampions]

Buster & Rio

Buster: You up yet? Rio: 😴 Rio: Just about Buster: [sends her loads of pics from Nancy's camera roll cos my idea is she's still asleep and he stole her camera to look through] Rio: She got loads of good ones Rio: so sneaky with that 📸 Buster: And your good side Buster: Even after all those drinks Rio: All my sides are good 😘 Rio: I can handle my drink too, tah Buster: You did alright Rio: Shut up that you drank any more or was any less wobbly, like Buster: I did drink more though Buster: I know 'cause I was the one stealing 'em Rio: Well then that's just bad manners Rio: should be ashamed of yourself, McKenna Buster: Shame's for pussies Buster: I did what I did and I don't feel bad Rio: 😏 Rio: could at least pretend you're a little bit sorry for short changing me Buster: You obviously weren't if a second ago you were trying to argue that you drank as much as me Buster: You had a good night and you didn't miss out if that's what you reckon, like Rio: Whatever Rio: it was fun Buster: Yeah Rio: All things considered Rio: no one else was concerned about handling their drink, obvs Buster: Never are Rio: Not a party 'til someone makes a tit of themselves Buster: Who you gonna give the first prize too though? Rio: 🤔 Rio: be rude not to give it to birthday boy Buster: Too late to write it in his card but he can still have it Rio: Just what he wanted Rio: better than a 10 years over midlife crisis Buster: Mid life depends when you die Rio: You're giving him 100? Buster: 'Course Rio: Pop that in the card Rio: cute Buster: Stop calling me cute Rio: It's not you it's what you said Buster: 😏 Buster: I said it so it's me Rio: Fine then 🤐 Buster: Nice try Rio: 🙄 Buster: You gonna sulk for long 'cause I'm bored of being the only one awake here Rio: You gonna be nice to me Buster: If you're gonna take me somewhere good Rio: I'M not gonna do you dirty Rio: I have manners Buster: That's not really selling it to me, babe Buster: Make it sound fun, yeah? Rio: I don't need to sell it Rio: you're bored Buster: Come on Rio: You come on Rio: when have I ever let you down Buster: Do you want me to be nice or do you want me to answer that? Rio: I'm ignoring you Rio: be ready, I'll come to yours Buster: I am ready Buster: Not a fucking amateur Rio: You're gonna need to prove that Buster: How? Rio: If you're asking, then you definitely are an amateur Rio: You've got time to work something out Rio: gotta do breakfast Buster: I was doing manners Rio: What happened to fun? Buster: Cheers for admitting I'm right and you can't be polite and not boring Rio: You can't Rio: it doesn't suit you Buster: It don't suit you either Rio: Why not Buster: You know why not Buster: I'm not feeding you compliments for breakfast Rio: Now THAT is boring Rio: and mean Rio: 👎 Buster: You've got time to work for 'em Buster: Like I said, I'm no amateur, babe Rio: Does Nance wanna come? Buster: I don't know Buster: Do you want me to wake her up? Rio: Up to you Rio: I don't mind Buster: Will she wanna go? Wherever it is you're taking me Rio: Probably not Rio: I'll see if one of my 'rents will take them imaginosity or something Buster: Alright Rio: She'll like that more Buster: Yeah Buster: Junior'll probably be happier if she don't fuck off with us for ages as well Rio: Right, exactly Rio: they can be cute nerds Buster: They were 🤓s last night Rio: They missed each other Buster: Don't encourage 'em Rio: Don't be mean Rio: at least she was smiling, right Buster: I'll give you that Rio: Shame they can't hang more often Buster: It's not like she'll have to struggle to write him a letter like when granddad was a kid Rio: 😂 okay he's not that old Rio: still Rio: he's so shy Rio: be nice if he had someone Buster: Don't Buster: She better make friends like the few she had in Cambs Rio: What do you mean, don't Rio: I can't adopt her, calm down, like Buster: I mean don't make me think about how she might not Buster: All the shit that can go wrong Rio: She'll be alright Rio: she'll have the time to Buster: 'Course Rio: at least you're going at the start Rio: midway through is the worst Buster: Yeah, fuck that Rio: what are you wearing Rio: need to see if its sensible Buster: [selfie because of course he would] Rio: 👍 Buster: Show me yours Rio: Steady Rio: [but does 'cos was just a shameless excuse, like what you doing] Buster: I've figured it out Rio: You what Buster: I know where we're going Buster: But don't worry I'll look surprised when we get there Rio: How Rio: 🤔 Buster: Just that good Rio: Bollocks Rio: such a bullshitter Buster: Where did your manners go? Rio: If you're gonna lie, then all bets are off, like Buster: Sounds fun Rio: If that's how you want it Buster: How do you want it? Rio: Do you care? Buster: I asked, didn't I? Rio: Can play 20 questions later Buster: Yeah Buster: Can do whatever we want Rio: 🤞 Rio: That's how I want it Buster: Me too Rio: If anyone asks we're just going park yeah Buster: Nobody's gonna ask me Buster: Don't worry Rio: Get it Rio: even if they were up, already got the headache and mouth too dry to say much Buster: I don't wanna talk about them Rio: Okay Rio: got it Buster: The state of 'em last night was embarrassing Rio: Everyone was though Rio: and you know, no one's judging Buster: Yeah, everyone was but you still know what I mean Rio: yeah Rio: I'll make you forget about it Rio: you'll see Buster: If anyone can Rio: You can trust me Buster: I know Rio: Not just a useless 👸 waiting to be saved Buster: I know Rio: though having woodland creature pals or mice to do chores would be well helpful rn Buster: If you'd have said last night we could've caught some out by the bins Buster: Still, I'll see what I can do Rio: Could catch a lot out by those bins Rio: minging Buster: 'Course I'd risk it for you though 👸 Rio: My hero Rio: 😍🙄 Buster: You'd have to trust me too Rio: You know I do Buster: Probably not one of your better ideas Buster: But yeah Rio: You're the one who's anti being wrong Rio: I'll survive Buster: Good Rio: and how do you know trusting me ain't a bad one for you Buster: 'Cause I know you Rio: You're not that bad Rio: I told you, not scared of you Buster: And I told you, don't be Rio: I'm not Rio: you're Buster: Don't tell me Buster: I don't wanna hear what you think of me Rio: Are you scared? Buster: I'm not scared of anything Buster: Ever Rio: Then why don't you wanna hear Buster: 'Cause then I'll know Buster: Like it or not Rio: I don't know what I was going to say Rio: so you're safe Buster: You mean you're safe Rio: If you say so Buster: You are Buster: From whatever you might have said and no take backs Buster: I was never in any danger Rio: That'd be why you stopped me Rio: for my own sake Buster: 🤴 Rio: 🤖 Buster: If you say so Rio: mhm Buster: Come out with it then Rio: Why should I now Buster: You've got shit you're holding back Buster: Why should you? Rio: that's a joke Buster: Say it Rio: I'm on my way Buster: All the more reason Buster: You keep saying you ain't scared of me Buster: Prove you're not Rio: Not you I'm worried about Buster: Why are you worried at all? Rio: Don't be thick Buster: Don't say one thing and do another Rio: What? Buster: Tell me Rio: Why have you done a compete 180 Buster: I ain't done anything Rio: You said don't tell me, so I'm not Buster: And you didn't drop it when I said that Buster: So finish what you started Rio: you first Buster: Girls always go first Buster: I've got no manners and I know it Rio: No balls Rio: don't pussy out Buster: Fuck you Rio: Told you Rio: we never last long Buster: 'Cause you know all these languages and you still can't say fuck all to me Rio: because there ain't no language in the world where what I wanna say is fucking okay Rio: okay Buster: Fuck this world then Buster: We made our own when we were little anyway Rio: We aren't little anymore Rio: we can't just pretend we don't know better Buster: We can do whatever we want Buster: We both agreed to that before I even got here Rio: It's different when you're here Rio: harder when we're actually together Buster: So turn around Buster: Don't be coming to my door Rio: No Rio: come on, we can do what we've been doing Rio: don't need to spoil it Buster: You just said we can't Buster: Lucky if we last the day Rio: Of course we can Rio: we just need to leave it alone Buster: Fine Rio: It can be Rio: Please Rio: we can still have fun Buster: Fuck it Buster: You're on your way Rio: It would be rude to turn me away Rio: unbelievably bad manners Rio: and I could just be awkward and say I'm there to see Nance so Buster: You can see her if you want but you said you wanted to have fun so Buster: You'll have more of that with me Rio: I wanna see you Buster: Okay Rio: Mates? Rio: for the holidays, like Buster: Yeah Buster: Like old times Rio: Right Rio: I wonder what happened to that boy Buster: I wonder if he's played dares since Rio: Probably Rio: he was always up for it Buster: He didn't think we'd be up for it though Buster: Probably weirded him right out Rio: He shouldn't have said it Rio: clue is in the name, whole point of the game, like Buster: He'd been trying to get me to pussy out of playing for ages Buster: Don't you remember what a cunt he was? Rio: Oh, not really Rio: he was alright to me Rio: bit of a hanger-on type but other than that Buster: 'Course he was alright to you Rio: 'cos I'm not a lad Buster: 'Cause he is Rio: You used to reckon every lad fancied me Buster: They all did Buster: 🐸💋 Rio: 😂 Rio: he might've grown into his face Buster: We can use it for a punching bag Buster: Gotta start teaching you some time Rio: Awh, poor old whathisname Buster: I doubt you'll hurt him that bad, babe Rio: 😒 Rio: You wanna watch out Rio: my aim might be off Buster: I'm not ticklish, like Buster: I'll be fine Rio: Such a dick Rio: be your fault Rio: shit teacher, like Buster: I'll be a great teacher Buster: It don't mean I can give you power you ain't got Rio: Shut up, I'm not weak Buster: I didn't call you weak Buster: There's just no way you'd be able to knock me out Rio: Easy Rio: especially if you keep 'motivating' me like this Buster: What do you wanna bet? Buster: I'll let you try at the end of summer Rio: 🤔 Rio: what have you got that I want Buster: Tell me what you want and I'll get it Buster: If I don't already have it, which I probably do Rio: Alright, that's the bet Rio: I'll have thought of my prize by the end of summer Rio: you can do but don't dream too big 'cos it won't happen 💔 Buster: 😂 Buster: I'll make it easy for you and say you only have to knock me over not out Buster: Even with that fighting chance you won't win whatever you think you want Buster: So don't think too hard Rio: You can't cut corners, you still have to show me everything properly Rio: and at this rate, getting to punch you will be prize enough 👌 Buster: I'll teach you everything I know, exactly like I said I would Rio: Good Buster: We can start as soon as we get where we're going Rio: Can we? Rio: could be going to a library for all you know, boy Buster: For all I care Rio: 😏 Buster: Are you scared of librarians? Rio: Don't be stupid Rio: as if I'd actually take you to a library to try to distract you Buster: You could distract me anywhere Buster: But cheers for not picking a library, babe Rio: Challenge accepted on that one too Buster: It's not a challenge Rio: Come let me in Buster: [does or rather let's himself out cos no need to stay around the baze gaff] Rio: [run kids run 'fore anyone can think to stop you, like] Buster: [he should give her a matchbox with some kind of bug creature in that he caught cos 👸 and she said she wanted one lol] Rio: [that's so cute, bye, just getting some grass and dandelions and putting it in there like let's ride] Buster: [I hope it's not a gross bug lol but yeah I thought it's a good way to show they are still little like] Rio: [she wouldn't be eww about it so its fine, Ali is her mum, just taking his hand so they can run to the nearest dart thing] Buster: [we see you handholding when you don't need to and we stan] Rio: [at least you don't have the longest bus ride ever, the dedication that she got here thanks lol] Buster: [I never even thought about that like omg boy she must really love you she's literally a child and she did that early af in the day after a night of it] Rio: [thanks for not kidnapping her everyone lmao] Buster: [when I had my 1st hangover at 10 I was literally in bed all the next day like] Rio: [my boo say not for you sir] Buster: [only for you my waffle wife] Rio: ['you had breakfast?'] Buster: [looks at her like don't be stupid because 🤴s don't make their own breakfast and 10 year old boys who don't give a fuck clearly don't so no he has not lol] Rio: ['we can get pancakes' height of excitement live your best also a throw forward to when you go get breakfast in London] Buster: [remember when he made her crepes though and it was sexual as hell] Rio: [omg yes I do, that's like soon I think they were 12? something like that I'm sure, all I'm saying is you do a terrible job of ignoring each other] Buster: [god bless but in the now he'd be buzzing cos she's just treating him normal which his friends and Nancy aren't] Rio: [just chatting about all the things she's gonna get on her pancakes like when you're a kid and you go ham on the pizza hut ice cream and it's unedible] Buster: [omg yes such a mood and it'd lowkey turn competitive cos he's a boy who needs to flex like I'm gonna get this and this] Rio: [just loling when it gets outta hand] Buster: [we all loling and having a fun time cos deserved soz for not letting you 3rd wheel Nance but also not soz] Rio: [we all know that was shameless like no no you go do this instead, everyone catch yourselves on so blatant] Buster: [literally what are all of you playing at we can excuse baze for obvs reasons and cali cos 10 kids but the rest of y'all step it up tbh] Rio: [at least she'd know all the swag food places in town even now, should be like a cereal cafe vibe so they really can go ham with toppings, also probably there so off you get 'cos baze are pretty central] Buster: [yaaaaas open the door for her boy and help her out cos she's smol you gotta] Rio: [does a lil curtsey 'cos running with this 👸🤴 mood] Buster: [opening the door to the place too and pulling her chair out etc cos likewise] Rio: [imagine working there you'd be like aww, hence the waitress should give them a freebie or something and be nice af] Buster: [Why am I emosh about a fictional waitress shipping them bye] Buster: [omg they should go back and take saint as a bub and she can still be there] Rio: [AWH] Buster: [they'd be on such a sugar high rn it'd be adorable] Rio: [fight off any sign of a hangover with sugar] Buster: [they are gonna crash so hard later] Rio: [😴] Buster: [that could be so cute though if they do together and a nice flashforward to when they did when he was wrecked in a couple of years] Rio: [hit all those feels] Buster: [for now go and window shop for a bit until you actually go in somewhere swag and she tries something on and comes out and shows him even though she doesn't need to and you die boy and hit her with all them compliments so she can die too] Rio: [a moment, no hiding that lads] Buster: [shame she can't take a selfie in that 🔥 lewk for him to pine over later but they are meant to be at the park] Rio: [I mean she can take one but you can't realy ask for it unless you wanna be that obvious lmao] Buster: [unless she's sneaky and posts it but after the fact like only they know it happened then idk] Rio: [always an option, not like anyone is checked in appaz ] Buster: [that's the tea] Buster: [we could also let them actually go to the park later like maybe they get picked up from there so it looks legit but while they are there he can start to teach her how to 🥊 too so] Rio: [yas, we know it's gonna be inte nse and a moment so] Buster: [and they can take loads of cute selfies together so it looks like they've been there all day but really also just cos they wanna] Rio: [#shameless] Buster: [just look everyone we're so trustworthy don't worry about us bye] Rio: [let us go out more thank you] Buster: [do we wanna skip to later like maybe when they in the car on the way home #sneaky or is there any more we wanna say/do that happened?] Rio: [I reckon that's lots of moments for one day, I'm good to skip] Buster: [who should we say is picking them up and if it's Cali who else is in the car kid wise is my question lol] Rio: [probably cali, assuming everyone else is too fragile from last night, they could be taking Nancy home as well from whatever they went and did in the end, then probably the toddler aged ones 'cos extra and love to be involved so maybe Pablo, Grace and Janis like hello! lol] Buster: [sounds real when you're just in the car putting up pics of the girl you love and trying not to be too extra with your captions like] Rio: [better chat to Nancy gurl since you shamelessly uninvited her so guilty but no regrets really] Buster: [Nancy should ask if she can stay over at their house and Buster just like 👀 waiting to see if Cali will say yes cos shamelessly wants her to] Rio: [they'd probably umm and ahh 'cos the baze situation but I say they should ask baze when they get there and they'd say yes 'cos she's a helpful bitch and distract the kids tah] Buster: [Buster would be so buzzing cos he didn't have to ask her to stay but she still is] Rio: [just like love it when a plan comes together, a shameless look at him like yas] Buster: Not gonna stop being a 👸 if we stay up all night, are you? Rio: Oi, I suit green Rio: just watch your da's car don't turn into a 🎃 Buster: I know you do Buster: He don't suit red as well as me though and he'd be 😡 if anything happened to his car Rio: 😂 Rio: call in a favour with my fairy godmother and 🤞 Buster: Depends how distracted we need him to be later on Buster: So don't yet Rio: Imagine how weird he'd look if we shaved his eyebrows off Buster: [actually lols like excuse him everybody] Rio: [😏 but also telling the kids some joke 'cos you know they'd be like WHAT WHAT] Buster: [just looking at her back like 😏 cos she swagged it] Rio: What have you actually got in mind then Buster: Don't you like surprises? Rio: Sometimes Rio: not if you're coming for my eyebrows or something though Buster: You can trust me Buster: I won't touch your eyebrows Rio: Alright Rio: then I'll pretend to be surprised Buster: You're gonna be surprised for real Buster: Wait and see Rio: I'll try Buster: You don't have to when I'm putting in the effort for you Rio: Try and wait Rio: I mean Buster: You won't have to wait that long Buster: Nance can never stay up as late as me Rio: Don't being SO busy make you SO tired too, like Buster: Sometimes Buster: But being around you wakes me back up Rio: I feel that too Rio: not just all the sugar we had either Buster: There's so much left we've gotta do before summer ends Buster: And I've gotta do it all with you Rio: We will Rio: got ages, it'll be the best Rio: we can do something every day, like Buster: Let's go to the beach soon Rio: Yeah Rio: do you reckon we could get there and back without getting caught or Buster: 'Course Buster: It'll be easy Rio: Then we won't need to bring all the others Buster: It'll be loads better if it's just us Buster: One day I'm gonna have my own private beach but you can come Buster: 'Cause you're my best friend Rio: Promise now so you can't change your mind Buster: [does an IRL pinky promise lil link up of their fingers there and then excuse him everyone] Rio: [so buzzing] Rio: I'll cheer for you at matches then Buster: Yeah? Buster: Only when we're older and I'm richer or now too? Rio: Now too Rio: but I'll have to come visit your new house for that Buster: You will Rio: Good Rio: I wanna see your new rooms too Buster: Nance's will probably be boring Buster: Mine won't Rio: What colour are you gonna do Buster: Blue Rio: That'll look sick Rio: I hope when we come back for good, I get to do my room how I want it Buster: Will you get to have your own? Rio: I think so Rio: there's lots of rooms they just need sorting Buster: I'll help you 💪 Rio: then you can stay over ours Buster: Yeah Buster: It's a really short flight, I'm gonna come back whenever I want Rio: Do Rio: I almost forgot how much fun it is Rio: having you around Buster: I'm not letting you forget again Buster: Not even almost Rio: That's alright with me Rio: I don't wanna Buster: Good Buster: 'Cause I want us to stay best friends, okay? Buster: Forever Rio: and ever and ever Rio: no fairytale shit, I mean it Buster: So do I Buster: [giving her a look so she knows he does cos we all know what besties is code for here] Rio: [when you're so 😳 but also 😊 Nancy like hello???] Rio: We should find the scariest film we can tonight Buster: Definitely Buster: Just don't let Nance pick Rio: Will she be too 😱? Buster: Probably not Buster: Her taste is shitter than mine though Buster: Last film she chose had more subtitles than plot Rio: Such a cute nerd Rio: but summer = no homework so Rio: 👎 Soz babe Buster: 😏 Buster: I'll always be your fave now Rio: See what she's gonna over by way of private beaches and shit first Buster: She needs people to 📷 privacy ain't really gonna be on offer, like Rio: Unless she wants to take those kind of photos Buster: It's Nance Rio: True Buster: [chat to your sister boy cos you love her really] Rio: [lbr gonna need to entertain yours they'd be peak annoying] Buster: [oh lord Grace especially] Rio: [a 3 year old with no chill] Buster: [get them out of that car ASAP Cali step on it] Rio: can we get pizza Buster: Yeah Rio: 😁 Buster: But we're getting our own 'cause Nance won't grow the fuck up and stop being a vegetarian Rio: 😂 Rio: you can get whatever Rio: I'm not fussy Buster: You have to get what you want too Rio: Alright Rio: [sneaky looks forever] Buster: Good Buster: [such a look bye] Rio: Maybe we can all sleep in the lounge Buster: When did you start having properly good ideas? Buster: Just today like? Rio: Um always Rio: you just haven't been paying attention Buster: [another look cos we know he has] Rio: [look like well then] Buster: Smallest goes in the middle Rio: You definitely just made that up Buster: It makes sense if I did or I didn't Buster: You just don't need as much space, babe Rio: Just don't hog the covers Buster: I've already taught you enough 🥊 to stop me Rio: 😏 Rio: would keep us warm Buster: And a 👸 shouldn't ever be cold Rio: Practically a beheading offense, that Buster: Exactly Buster: And I'm not allowed to die yet Rio: Never Buster: [does another pinky promise like it's so casual] Rio: Will accept faux fur though Rio: don't have to murder any mink for me Buster: Well now your birthday present ain't gonna be a surprise Rio: 😂 Rio: my parents would probably throw paint at me, like so tah Buster: No animals have died, I'll make sure they know Rio: so considerate Buster: 🤴s have gotta be Buster: It's written in Rio: and best friends Rio: what are you gonna do for your birthday Buster: I don't know Buster: We were gonna go on holiday but mum and dad might say no now Rio: Maybe by then they'll be up for it again Buster: Me and Nance can't agree where to go anyway Rio: Typical Rio: where do you wanna go? Buster: She never wants to do anything I wanna do Buster: I've suggested loads of shit like scuba diving or surfing or skiing Rio: Maybe compromise Rio: there will be places where you can be doing that and she can do what she wants as well Buster: Do you wanna come? Rio: Your parents aren't gonna take me with yous Buster: They will if I say I want you to Rio: What if by then you have a new London best friend you'd rather take Buster: I'll probably have new friends but none I like as much as you Rio: okay, ask them Rio: when you know if you're going or not Rio: and I'll ask mine if they'll let me Buster: Alright Rio: [let you get out this car now like byeeee] Buster: [get in that house and fight over what pizza you want lads] Rio: [live your best sleepover lives, Nancy somehow oblivious to the vibe god bless] Buster: [love that oblivious lesbian] Rio: [wanna skip to later when Nancy is asleep or is there anything else?] Buster: [I think we can cos we know what the vibe is] Rio: Are you awake? Buster: Are you ready to be surprised? Rio: Go on Buster: [okay so my idea is baze have a hot tub in their dublin house but like he's made it cute/like a little beach vibe because who knows when they'll actually get to go and like sneakily set it up while she was distracted doing whatever with Nance over the course of this sleepover in dribs and drabs and like made cocktails for them as best as a little kid can and decorated and shit] Buster: Come on Rio: [That's the cutest shit I've ever heard like #overwhelmed does not begin to describe] Buster: [just looking at her like are you surprised/do you like it] Rio: [when you're like how do I avoid kissing you right now tbh] Buster: [forever the mood] Buster: [drink your drink girl it's okay] Rio: ['How'd you- WHEN did you-'] Buster: [😏 cos so proud of himself rn for being so #sneaky] Rio: [having to give him a massive hug 'cos that happy 'This is so cool, Buster'] Buster: [hugging her back way longer than you need to because we're hiding behind friendship so hard atm and we all know he wants to kiss her as much as she wants to kiss him] Rio: [make it more tense by literally getting in a hot tub like not calling you fat babe but Nancy's costume isn't gonna fit you right] Buster: [but it's that or getting in with your pjs on like this is all the boys I've loved before and risking them going see through] Rio: [ooh yeah I mean, an option] Buster: [and frankly a mood]                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       nb Rio: [doing it, 'cos then you'll have to find her a t-shirt or something like] Buster: [casual moment under towels and blankets because oh no we didn't think that through or did we and now you're gonna have to wear my clothes what a casual situation] Rio: [honestly like okay do you both wanna die or] Buster: [we're so evil] Buster: [at least the drinks would be good cos he copied what he's seen baze do] Rio: [apart from the undeniable sexual tension, they'd be having a great time] Buster: [a hot tub is the literal best when you're a child that's the tea] Rio: [and now] Buster: [tbh] Buster: [don't get too carried away splashing etc and wake anyone up though like] Rio: [got to be so sneaky rn] Buster: [so many secrets for so many years bye] Rio: [have fun with that] Buster: [live your best lives while you can kiddos] Rio: [oh I was thinking she should've got him something touristy and stereotypically irish in town like a teddy and imma just put that on his bed space] Buster: [why am I so emosh about them as kids rn like calm down me] Buster: [it should have an irish football kit on or something cos that sporty bitch he is] Rio: [deffo or rugby, they're good at that] Buster: [yasss] Rio: know he's not blue but Buster: I'll still find a place for him Buster: Don't worry Rio: You can put him away, it's alright Rio: just a bit of Dubo to take with you Buster: I wanna see him every day if I can't see you Rio: I'm gonna miss you so much Buster: I'll miss you too Rio: shame I can't convince my parents they need to move to London next, eh Buster: Or I can't convince mine to just stay here Rio: should've got them something from the giftshop too Buster: I'm glad you only got something for me though Rio: I had a good day with you, not them so Buster: I won't tell Nance Rio: Good Rio: she'd be so jealous, obvs 😏 Buster: 'Course Rio: I'm glad the surprise was just for me too Buster: This whole summer is for you Rio: I'll take it Buster: I'm giving it to you Buster: Like it or not Rio: I want it Rio: you know that Buster: Yeah Rio: [thank god those 😍 are hidden in the dark now] Buster: [saving yourselves because he'd be wearing his too so] Rio: what else do you wanna do Buster: We have to go tourist watching of course Buster: See how they compare to the London ones soon enough, like Rio: I reckon the Dubo ones have more craic but are well more offensive with the stereotypes, like Buster: They can't wait to tell you all about their Irish blood even if they don't have any Buster: None of the tourists in the capital are trying to call themselves cockney Rio: Exactly Rio: still, wherever they are, you can tell the yanks a load of bullshit and they'll buy it Buster: Sell 'em a load of bullshit and they'll buy it as well Buster: But speaking of Irish blood I've thought of the best dare for you Rio: What? Buster: I dare you to dive off the rocks at the forty foot Buster: [basically it's this famous outdoor swimming spot year round that's lowkey a bit dangerous but nearby enough they could easily get there and therefore had to] Rio: Alright Rio: I'm down Buster: You have to do it properly Buster: Don't just jump in the water Buster: It don't count as a dare done if you don't go off the rocks Rio: I know Rio: I'll do it, not chicken Buster: I know Rio: We'll have to go when there's not loads and loads people about Rio: I'm very cute and saveable Buster: You don't need saving Buster: But if you did, I'll do it Rio: Tell that to concerned/nosy adults 🙄 Buster: I will Buster: [gets closer to her without even meaning to do it because] Rio: [a really quiet 'hey' 'cos don't be waking Nancy up] Buster: [just looking at her in the dark like 👀 how did I get this close oops] Rio: [a lowkey staring contest rn] Buster: [saying her name really quietly like] Rio: [makes a tiny noise that's somewhere between oh and a whimper] Buster: [let's say they hear a noise which could be outside or upstairs but it's enough to cockblock him from kissing her cos must be done since he'd be literally so close to her by now] Rio: [dramatically pretending to be asleep the way you do as a kid 'til the coast is clear but the moment is gone] Buster: [thanks foxes or whatever the fuck] Rio: [just laying there like well, shit] Buster: [you know he'd get up cos FUMING that I've cockblocked him when he was leaning so far in that there's no pretending that anything else was about to happen] Rio: [when you know there was a noise but you're still like oh no, I fucked that up] Buster: [All I can imagine is him getting his shit and going to his room because he is that dramatic] Rio: Night then Buster: Yeah Rio: yeah Buster: [isn't being quiet or chill rn soz everyone] Rio: You're gonna wake them up Rio: what do you need Buster: Unlikely Buster: When they sleep it's really hard to wake 'em Buster: These days Rio: Not a challenge though Buster: Can be Buster: If you want Rio: Not the best idea you've ever had Buster: It was your turn to have 'em Buster: For today Rio: Then listen to me, like Buster: Don't tell me what to do in my own house, like Rio: Alright Buster: I can do whatever I want Buster: [no you can't boy and that's the problem lol lol lol] Rio: And why do you wanna Buster: I can't sleep why should they all get to? Rio: Does it make you feel more normal again Rio: if they're shouting at you Buster: Shut up Rio: That would make sense, is all Buster: Don't make sense of me Rio: Why? Buster: You're not smarter than me, I don't need you to Rio: Who said I'm doing it for you Buster: You're saying it to me Buster: Like you know something I don't Rio: I just asked you why Buster: You're talking about making things normal as if I could Buster: But however loud I am there's meant to be a crying baby keeping everyone up Rio: That doesn't mean you wouldn't try Rio: still Buster: They shouldn't be sleeping Buster: None of us should be Rio: What do you want to do Buster: There's fuck all I can do Rio: What are you going to do Buster: I don't know Rio: You don't have to figure it out tonight Buster: Cheers Rio: You want them to wake up Buster: Why are we playing twenty questions all of a fucking sudden? Rio: Not a question Rio: wake 'em up Rio: but they're not gonna make it better like you want Rio: parents are very disapointing Buster: There ain't no making it better Buster: Even you can't Buster: I only forgot for a day Buster: [lowkey trashing his room cos angry and sad and remember when he did before and she was there then as well how poetic] Rio: [emotions] Rio: You can't forget about him Buster: It doesn't matter if I can't, I still have to Rio: That don't work Buster: You don't know that it won't Rio: It's impossible Buster: Nothing's impossible for me Rio: Until it is and now what Buster: You're wrong Rio: Wish I was Buster: You are Rio: You wouldn't be up there trashing your room if I was Buster: Fuck off Buster: It's your fault Rio: Yeah? Buster: Yeah Rio: That's alright then Rio: easily solved Buster: You can't make me forget everything and then tell me it's a stupid idea Buster: Make me happy and then make me angry Rio: It isn't a stupid idea Rio: you aren't forgetting you're just carrying on Buster: It's the same thing Rio: I'm not trying to make you angry Buster: I know Rio: are you okay Rio: like, you aren't hurt or anything Buster: [comes back down cos he's not gonna sleep in that carnage but just sitting on the stairs like well this is fine] Rio: [nods her head in the direction of their sleeping situation and gets up 'I'll go in Nancy's room'] Buster: [comes over to her because wants to be close to her always 'Don't'] Rio: [casually checking him over but also handily not making eye contact 'cos can't 'you have to sleep'] Buster: [just making her lie back down and snuggling her because shameless] Rio: [allowing herself to get there 'cos he clearly needs to 'Buster, I just-' but shaking her head 'it won't happen again, okay'] Buster: [holding onto her like his life depends on it 'okay, it won't happen again' very convincing boy well done] Rio: [just stroking his hair] Buster: [calming down as she does 'Sorry'] Rio: [shhing him gently] Buster: [is he crying or isn't he, there's no way to know] Rio: [just telling him he's alright over and over] Buster: ['I didn't mean it, it's not your fault'] Rio: ['They can be two separate issues, it's not important'] Buster: ['it is to me and you are to me, don't fuck off, I don't want you to'] Rio: [holds him tighter like I'm still here] Buster: [literally just wrapped around each other by this point] Rio: ['I'm sorry too'] Buster: ['You ain't allowed to be 'cause you didn't do anything' but his voice is soft not his confrontational one] Rio: [shakes head 'cause we both know what almost happened but not putting words to that right now] Buster: [holds her tighter like I mean it 'cause blaming himself entirely for that as well since he was the one doing all that leaning] Rio: ['we didn't even get caught, it's so fine' kinda giving away that you don't regret it there but shh] Buster: ['we won't get caught going to the beach or the forty foot either, it'll be the best summer, I promise' just like I love you and I won't ruin this haha] Rio: [reaching out to pinky promise again] Buster: [doing it while we can cos Buster is gonna be a dickhead soon and outgrow being this cute egg RIP] Rio: [rip rip, also realised its edies bday on the 10th btw] Buster: [OMG I forgot how old is she gonna be?] Rio: [7] Buster: [should we let them snooze or is there any more feels we wanna inflict on ourselves?] Rio: [Hmm, probably sleep or this could get outta hand so easily lol] Buster: [Good point]

[ibmiller]

Hey so you seem to know stuff about Steph (obviously) and mid-2000s Batman stuff, do you have any ideas about what might've changed if War Games hadn't happened? This is something I've been poking at but there's a lot of major events going on in the comics at that general point in time and it gets confusing, I'm pretty sure Tim and Cass wouldn't be in Bludhaven for instance (would Tim even be back as Robin?) but I can't guess at much else and I'd like some more knowledgeable input

Thanks for the question!

I think the question of “what would have happened without War Games” is really a question of “what would have happened if DC hadn’t decided to go grim and edgy in 2004-2006″. To me, that means a couple of things.

1) Identity Crisis doesn’t happen, or if it does, they don’t push to have it include rape, heroes becoming murderers and brainwashers, and deaths calculated to be as nasty as possible. In terms of the Batfamily, I’m speaking specifically about the death of Tim’s father.

2) Infinite Crisis isn’t as destructive, both in-universe (with Cass not going evil), or out of universe (with Greg Rucka getting fired from Wonder Woman - I just did a runthrough on Comichron to see what his sales were like, and there was definitely an artificial boost from the various tie-ins he’d gotten, but it seemed like they could have let him do at least one more year on the book). One Year Later is a huge mixed bag, with an attempt to push both lighter, more fun and hopeful directions (with Paul Dini and to some extent Grant Morrison in the Batman stuff) and really dark, grim stuff, with the weekly miniseries “52″ covering both sides of that push.

Obviously, these are some of the events you’re talking about when you say that comics from about 2004-2007 were quite confusing. As someone who simply doesn’t read anything with “Crisis” in the title, I’m not a huge help to you on that front (outside of reading wiki summaries :) ), but I do think that there was a real problem from the end of War Games to the beginning of Grant Morrison’s “Bat-Epic” (in roughly 2006-7). You do have some fondly remembered things, most noteably “Under the Hood/Under the Red Hood” where Jason returns, but outside of the fact of his return, I think more people seem to fondly remember the animated version of that storyline, rather than the actual story. What DC chose to do with Jason for the next 4 years was kind of frustrating, too.

I would be very curious to know how much the architects of War Games knew about Jason’s return. People say that Hush, in 2003, foreshadowed Jason’s return, but so much of War Games was hammering home two things:

1) Batman is super sad because Jason is super dead and will never come back

2) Stephanie is too much like Jason, including being dead

In terms of the nitty gritty: If you remove War Games, you probably also have to remove Identity Crisis when it comes to Tim’s storyline, because so much of what they built for that character had to do with him being sad and alone because Steph and his dad die, and there’s all the drama of him being Robin because his father finds out. Honestly, once his father found out, his father was almost certainly dead, because DC wasn’t cool with people knowing Batman’s secret identity back then (these days they seem much less hardcore about it, though they don’t give it out like candy). So I think Tim’s father wouldn’t have found out, and Tim wouldn’t have quit, thus Steph wouldn’t have been Robin. All of those massive changes were just put in to service the overall story of War Games and Identity Crisis, and make Tim sadder. 

Cass had some fun stuff going on in Bludhaven, but her character was kind of aimless due to creative shifts (it’s been a few years since I did my blitz through her solo series, and I didn’t make careful note of issues or dates, so I’ll be interested to see what Cass fans have to say about my impressions here). It’s actually an interesting question if the writer during War Games, Dylan Horrocks, would have quit if War Games hadn’t happened, since it seems to me that he was deeply unhappy with having to write that story, and it contributed to the problems which led to him leaving the title. Many Cass fans are a bit torn about Horrock’s run, so I don’t know, long term, if they would have been excited about that, or would have preferred Gabrych to come on when he did. I don’t know who pitched the end of Cass’s series being the revelation that Shiva is her mother, but a lot of that seems directly tied into the fallout of War Games (with dead Steph appearing in a dream), so it’s possible that either they wouldn’t have chosen that direction for Cass, or it wouldn’t have been as harsh an ending as it turned out to be for the title.

The other major Bat-title that I know about from that time is Birds of Prey. That period was smack in the middle of Gail Simone’s amazing first run. That book was profoundly impacted by War Games - the Birds’ main base, the Clocktower, was blown up, and they moved out of Gotham and started having more international adventures again (as they did in the Chuck Dixon run). This was all part of the “Make Batman be alone again” plan, and was stupid - but Simone did a wonderful job, showing Dinah (who’d mentored Steph a few times) mourning, and Babs using Steph’s story to scare Misfit into not claiming the Batgirl title for herself. The Birds title didn’t often impact the main Batman line, and it’s unlikely that much would have changed in terms of the storylines Simone wanted to tell. But the framing likely would have changed significantly - she might have not set as many stories outside of Gotham, and she might have been able to write her favorite Batman (the hugger) a bit more.

Without those two stories, I think Tim continues to be Robin, and Steph probably continues to be a fun girlfriend, but not really growing or changing that much (both Jon Lewis and Bill Willingham liked using her, but didn’t really seem to have any plotlines devoted to her that weren’t editorially dictated). Without a Chuck Dixon, Bryan Q. Miller, or James Tynion, Steph was probably just going to keep being a supporting character, instead of getting a chance to be a solo or lead. This one fact, actually, is a large part of why, even with how stupid the event got, I’m somewhat glad that War Games happened, because Steph got three months as a lead, solo character, and fans really rallied to her, and even more after her death felt so unfair. Without that, I think her fans would have continued at pretty low levels - people loved her, but they didn’t see her as representative of something really key - the outsider who desperately wanted to be in. Without War Games, we don’t get the redemption story of her Batgirl run, and we don’t get fans who cheered when James Tynion brought her back as Spoiler in Batman Eternal.

[florchis]

I'd love to hear more about your demisexual Fitz headcanon because the more I think about it, the more I love it. Like, do you think Fitz knows he's demisexual? Is he out to anyone? Give me all your theories! :-)

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you. I never knew I had so many *ideas* about this until I started writing it. For some reason this ended up being a re-telling of the canon-Fitzsimmons storyline with demisexual Fitz? To be honest, I think I didn’t change the story much, but it still was so important for me to tell.

{Mentions of both of them being with other people, mentions of both of them being bi, mentions of Will Daniels, a lot of discussions of sex, but nothing explicit.}

Growing up, Fitz knew that he wasn’t much into girls like his classmates were, which led him to a small sexuality crisis, like, was he gay??? He finally decided that probably not, because he didn’t care much about boys either (the discovery of his biromanticism came later in life), he was just Weird Like That, and too busy building things and getting a PhD at fifteen to pay much attention to people.

Then he met Simmons at the Academy, and Simmons was still a genius, still his own age and still fanning herself over people?? Like he couldn’t process it? Again, he assumed his lack of interest became from His General Weirdness and from his “it’s not like anybody would give me the time of day, anyway” belief.

Simmons talks about sex all the time. Like. All. The. Time. Not in much detail, but since she is bored by people that is not him, she usually has a lot of comments to share. “I kept him longer than usual because he is not that bad in bed” and “If he put the same effort into giving oral that he puts into trying to get me to give him oral, maybe he wouldn’t be half bad”. Fitz is baffled by this. Like, not disgusted, but for him sex is a thing that exists in a plane outside of reality. One of that kind of things that your parents tell you “You will understand it when you are older.” But apparently he is old enough now- because Simmons is-, and still he is not getting it?

Just before they graduate from the Academy, he decides that he has to know what is all the fuss about. It’s not a decision made out of desire, it’s not something his gut is telling him to do, it’s a very conscious, intellectual decision. He is a scientist, and scientists ought to try things before drawing a conclusion.

He picks a Nice Girl, one that is a freshman and therefore doesn’t know much about his weird reputation, but still one or two years older than him. He takes her out, does all the expected things, or so he imagines. When she invites him into her dorm room, he says yes.

It is… an okay experience, but nothing to write home about. He still doesn’t get it. He can get as much physical satisfaction by jerking off and way more emotional satisfaction during a night in with Simmons.

During they stay at SciOps, Simmons sets him up a couple of times with female co-workers. Fitz goes out obediently with all of them, but never asks them for a second date, and just barely kisses them goodnight. He doesn’t connect with them as much as he connects with Simmons, and then what is the point in getting physical with them? He barely has enough free time as it is to add up another thing to the list.

After the fifth lukewarm date, Simmons confronts him.

“Are you gay, Fitz?”

“No. I mean, it doesn’t make much difference to me, a man or a woman. I am just not interested in them, okay, Simmons?”

“Don’t you get sexually frustrated?”

“… should I?”

“… Fitz, are you asexual?”

“I’m not repulsed by sex!”

“You don’t have to be repulsed by sex to be asexual, silly. Let’s look it up.”

They look it up. Simmons redirects him to tons of webpages, forums, personal blogs. Always the biologist, she is the one more interested in Putting Things Into Categories. Always the engineer, he only cares if Things Works, and they don’t need to have a label to work.

“Okay, but don’t you find Amy hot?”

“I find her aesthetically pleasing, if that is what you mean.”

“… and what about the Doctor?”

“Well, he sure is a sight for sore eyes.”

“I will just say it very crudely: wouldn’t you bang one or either of them if you had the opportunity?”

“No, why would I?”

(He has sex dreams about Simmons from time to time, but that is normal, yes? To have sex dreams about someone with whom you are close, about whom you care very deeply? He refuses to acknowledge that sometimes those “sex dreams” are not “dreams” at all, because he is fully awake during them.)

He tells Simmons that her research is dope, but that it doesn’t feel quite right, that he is just Weird and they should leave it at that. He doesn’t tell her why.

He still wigmans for her from time to time, but always comes home alone.

“Don’t you get lonely, though?”

“How could I, when I have you?”

“You are absolutely right.”

Right before they are assigned to the Bus, Simmons is courting this legs-for-forever-ballet-dancer during a night out, and Fitz gets stuck with her brother. They hit it off quickly, talking about football (real football) and engines. They end up making out heavily in a dark corner. Things are going sort-of-smoothly, but when the boy asks him- very gentlemanly, by the way- if Fitz wants to go back to his place, Fitz feels like someone is pouring a bucket of iced water over his head, and he flees. Simmons never gets to find out if the dancer is as flexible as she claimed to be.

“At least we found out that is not a gender-related thing, yeah?”

“Shut up, Simmons. Just shut up.”

It’s strange living in the Bus, so close to so many people, after living only with Simmons for so long. He feels a little dizzy, getting used to new people, and he flirts with Skye almost unintentionally, because he truly likes all of them- and Ward is so way out of his league-, and when Simmons points out that she thinks that Skye may not be picking up on his flirting, he shrugs. That’s almost better, in a way. He doesn’t know how he would react if she flirted back, and had expectations about him, and.  

When he realizes that he is in love with Jemma, the sexual urges don’t come right away. First comes the desire to kiss every inch of her face, and hold her close, and tell her that he loves her. Which are, frankly, some of the few non-sexual things they still don’t do together.

The sexual desire for her comes with time, but it is so shocking and new that it almost throws him off balance. One day she is leaning down on one of the lab’s counters, and he just side-looks at her and his brain goes Damn, would I tap that, with no intermission whatsoever. He starts hyperventilating, and has to shoo away her concern before things get even more awkward.

Things only escalate from there, and he feels deeply ashamed, because she is his best friend, and her own woman, and a human being, for god’s sake, but he still gets bombarded by sudden desires to lick every freckle he knows she has on that milky white skin of hers. He tries to repress so much consciously that his dreams get absolutely insane.     

He wonders, sometimes, why did this sudden change happen? Why with Simmons, of all people? He has been so apathetic about sex for all his life, why that had to change? Deep down, he knows why, but he doesn’t have much time to process, because the fall happens, and then the pod, and then everythings goes to hell.

While she is away, he tries his best to not think of her on any romantic or sexual capacity. He just thinks about his best friend, and about how much he misses her, and about how much he needs her, and about how betrayed he feels. All the hurt and all the anger and all his struggles cover up all his other feelings pretty well.

But then Jemma comes back, and she is even more pretty than he remembered, and she is sad all the time, and he is angry all the time, and wanting to kiss her is the least of his problems, to be honest.

Life within S.H.I.E.L.D. is never easy. There is always something crumbling down, someone on the verge of dying, someone on the verge of taking over the world, someone keeping a terrible secret, someone gaining superpowers. But maybe there are certain  things that they still can make okay. When he leaves the Playground with Fury’s cube, his favourite sandwich and a Love, Jemma forever imprinted inside his eyelids, his heart is beating faster than it has beaten in a long time, and there is no time, there is never truly time, but he still says to himself So this is what being thoroughly turned on feels like.   

Life within S.H.I.E.L.D. is never easy. He doesn’t have time to relish what she told him before he took off, much less to savour the triumph of asking her out, that she is taken away.

He gets single-minded after that, trying to get her back. (Or he wish he could be single-minded. He keeps getting distracted by the curve of her lips saying oh after he asked her out, by the texture and the weight of her hand on his, by the intensity of her voice when she said maybe there is. He misses her with a fervor he never thought was possible, he misses her in every way he ever had her and in some ways he never did, and it is an all-consuming feeling. He dreams about her, sometimes in platonic-ways, sometimes in so-not-platonic-ways, and he wakes up in twisted, sodden sheets, crying bitter tears.)    

Having her back in his arms, tattered and bruised, scrawny and dehydrated, but alive, is the most wonderful feeling in the world.

Jemma is having a hard time adapting back to Earth. That’s okay. He can wait. He has waited twenty-eight years. She is healing, and he can wait forever for her. Her happiness has always been his priority.

The harder part is that she is not opening up to him, and he can feel her running between his fingers like water. Or like the sand of that goddamned planet. She dresses on his clothes and walks around the base holding his hand, and searches him for comfort during sleepless nights, but that doesn’t mean that she is talking to him, and he wants to respect her time to process and her boundaries, but his heart aches for her.   

Then she tells him about Will, and it’s like someone filled up his lungs with liquid lead. It makes total sense, just because she is the sun of his solar system, it doesn’t mean that the feeling had to be reciprocal, does it?

But he is still her best friend and there is still a good man stranded on a planet for fourteen years, and there is still work to do. There is always work to do. He has no right to grieve something that never was. (Never, ever, has he felt more guilty for the way he just wants her, not even while she was missing.)

There is a recording of her talking about how much she thought about him and about them, about the future she wants with him, and she claims that it was the more clear-headed she ever was. It takes every ounce of willpower on his body to not jump her then and there. (It’s so confusing. What is he finding so arousing: the promise of a future, the love confessions, her? How is he supposed to tell all of them apart, define what is the source of his emotions?)

Then they are screaming at each other, in the lab nonetheless, and she shouts that he dived into a hole in the universe for her, and he has to kiss her, because she still doesn’t understand that it’s the less he would do for her. While he kisses her, his blood turns to liquid fire. He never knew there were so many nerve endings in his body. (Or he knew. But he never felt them before.) It’s hopeless, anyway. They are hopeless.

(There are some things he never talks about; hearing Jemma scream, unable to do anything to alleviate her pain, having to listen to her asking him to let them kill her, are only some of them.)  

When Ward teases him about killing Will because he slept with Simmons, he tells him to grow up because Ward is a dick. And he is not a killer. And Will is a decent human being who deserves so much better. And Jemma is not his possession. And what he feels for her goes so much deeper than just sex, not that Ward would ever understand that.

In a way, he knows he did the right thing in Maveth. But the guilt is real, the responsibility is real, the weight of Jemma’s disappointed gaze is very real.

Everything is too much, and he needs to take a step back. It doesn’t matter that his heart pleads for her, his mind pleads for her, his body pleads for her. Some things are just not meant to be.

Jemma tells him I miss you, and Can we start over, and maybe they should do that, so Fitz doesn’t have the heart to tell her that he doesn’t think he can.

Apparently it was a long-con, because she then takes his own quantum physics explanation and turns it against him, and says that the future is set and that they are inevitable. His heart literally melts.

She is highkey flirting with him, and his body is screaming at him I have only ever wanted this one thing, why are you denying it to me? Some things apparently are inevitable, or at least they are, because he is not sure who kissed who, the only thing that matters is that they are kissing, and it’s magnificent.

Her hands are on his neck, she is sitting on his lap, and Fitz’s body feels electrical, like a high-wring spring, full of potential energy ready to be transformed into kinetic.  

“Sorry, sorry, I don’t want to push too fast either.”

“What?”

“You know, with everything with you, and, and, and sex. I’m cool with whatever makes you comfortable. I don’t want to overstep any boundaries.”

“Jemma?”

“What?”

“You are rambling.”

“Oh.”

“I will let you know if I’m not comfortable with something, okay? But I- well, let’s say that I have thought about it. Before.”

“You mean… sex?”

“… yeah.”

“Sex, sex and, and us?”

“You don’t have to put it like that, like, like I am some kind of-of pervert, or something!”

“Oh, Fitz.”    

“We should consider all variables as we move forward, because things are bound to get… complicated.” He needs to ask for confirmation that nothing will change between them if- when- they have sex. He is scared, scared of how much he wants her, scared of messing this up, scared of being in unknown territory. Sex is not a thing that comes natural to him, and combined with their complicated history… yeah, chances just aren’t good. He wants her deliriously, but he is also scared shitless. He has thought it over and over so many times that the only solution that comes to his mind is to stop thinking and just listen to what his body and his heart are telling him.

“I’ve been thinking about it, about us, and, um, it clicked. The crux of our relationship is like the singularity in transhumanism. Singularity is the defining moment-”

“-the point at which a measurable variable becomes infinite.”

“Our friendship is linear. Simple, comfortable.”

“Effortless, really.”

“As soon as we deviate from that path, change becomes exponential. The point of no return.”

“Are you comparing us sleeping together with crossing the event horizon? It’s quite lovely when you think about it like that. And also terrifying.”

“Yeah, exactly. So, we should stop thinking altogether… “

“… and just do.”       

(He feels very comforted that Jemma also finds this experience a little terrifying.)

He is not nervous anymore when he gets to the hotel room. So many things have passed during the last two hours that the only thing he wants is her, her, her, in all the ways she wants to give herself to him. And most importantly, he wants to give himself to her in every way imaginable, and that’s a certainty that he has never had before.

They laugh so much during sex, and that is truly the best thing that could have happened to him. They are still the same people, this experience is not changing the baselines of who they are, and that’s good. His love is real, his desire is real, and right now, everything he has to give is for her.