#its like i know i can write... somewhat

[lexa-griffins]

God fucking bless people who can write fast and look at it and decide its good, i'll write a fucking sentence and immediatly have a self induced panic attack because the line isn't perfect therefore i can no longer write and I should give up

[silverwhittlingknife]

hi Silver! o/ because that fanart made me wonder - would you happen to know when/where Dick's stuffed elephant plush Zitka turns up in the comics?

GREETINGS CAM <3333 THAT ART WAS SO CUTE

Yeah, I think your instincts are right - it's a truly adorable bit of transformative fandom, but I'm 95% percent sure it's not comics canon. Barbara has canon plushies, but I don't think anyone else does.

I got kinda invested in the investigation (it's hard to prove a negative!) and I ended up typing out an entire History of Elinore/Zitka, so, uh, if you're curious, meet me below the cut for:

Where does Elinore / Zitka - the animal - appear in comics?

Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?

Where does Elinore / Zitka appear in comics?

We're gonna go in chronological order!

Dick's circus elephant friend was first created for practical reasons: in Batman 436, Marv Wolfman does a big expanded flashback to Dick's circus backstory as a way to subtly show us Tim before officially introducing him (so that we can have a technically-solvable mystery-of-Tim's-identity in LPoD). In this comic, there's an elephant named Elinore who loves Dick:

Aww. Such a cute elephant!

Batman 436 comes out in August 1989. New Titans 60 comes out a few months later, in November, and guess what? When Dick visits the circus, he is suddenly surprised by an unexpected blast from the past! It turns out that even though it's been years, Elinore still remembers him!

Here's the part where Elinore remembers Dick:

SUCH a cute elephant. I love her.

(Guess who else still remembers Dick even though it was so long ago. Guess which other character is about to be an unexpected blast from the past. Guess which character Elinore is directly paralleling guess guess guess sorry everything is about Dick and Tim in my mind but I can focus I swear)

Four years later, in 1993, Batman: The Animated Series retells Dick's origin story. They like and keep Wolfman's elephant, but they change her name to Zitka:

Wolfman doesn't return to the elephant beyond those two appearances, and a few years down the line, New Titans gets cancelled and Wolfman's not writing Dick anymore anyway. So the animal gets abandoned for a while, until Devin Grayson, a fan of both Wolfman and B:tAS, revives the Wolfman-era Titans team in JLA/Titans and then the ongoing series Titans 1999.

Grayson then brings back the elephant in a flashback to Dick's past in Titans 16 (Jun 2000), where she imports the B:tAS name. Sometimes I'm skeptical of TV-to-comics imports, but honestly, I endorse this one. You lose the alliteration, which is a shame, but IMO Zitka is a better elephant name than Elinore.

Here's Dick with the newly-christened Zitka in Titans 16:

Grayson also briefly references the elephant in Gotham Knights 20 and - in a final angsty callback - in Nightwing 88 (Feb 2004), where Zitka tries futilely to comfort Dick in the midst of his trauma conga line:

... And... honestly, I think that's it for comic appearances? The two Wolfman comics plus the three Grayson comics.

Both Wolfman and Grayson are writing multiple titles - Batman, New Titans, Titans, Gotham Knights, and Nightwing between the two of them, spanning a big chunk of Dick's post-Crisis canon - and both writers use the elephant for heartwarming moments of nostalgia, which means if you're doing a post-Crisis readthrough for Dick, Elinore/Zitka feels memorable. But I don't think she actually shows up that much.

For post-2011, I am not as well-informed - throwing this out to the dash? anyone know? - but I feel like Zitka the heartwarming symbol of Dick's heartwarming circus past is, uh, thematically very at odds with the Court of Owls evil!circus vibes, so my instinct is that this story element was almost certainly dropped in the reboot.

Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?

In WFA, yes; in main comics continuity, no. Technically, I have not read every comic ever published, so I could be wrong!! But I don't think so.

Below, find my rambling reasoning on the tonal vibes of pre-Crisis, post-Crisis, and post-2011, and why this particular story element doesn't seem right to me for the first two.

Pre-Crisis (...okay, mostly the Silver Age): stuffed animal, yes or no?

tl;dr no, requires too much background knowledge on the part of the reader, plus the elephant wasn't a thing until later

Elinore doesn't get created until post-Crisis, but also just generally, pre-Crisis callbacks are more along the lines of this reference in Batman 129 (published in 1960), where, wow, Batman and Robin are hunting jewel thieves - and it turns out Robin recognized this strongman! BUT HOW?!

The comic goes on to recap Dick's entire origin story in flashback, on the assumption that you may not know it.

(BTW, if you'd like to know more about Haly's Circus throughout the years, nightwingology has a great post here summarizing a lot of fun plotlines and characters!)

Basically: Silver Age comics are very self-consciously episodic and kid-friendly; they're not generally gonna do overly-elaborate callbacks because they don't know what comics their kid readers may have randomly picked up or remember.

By the time of post-Crisis, comic books were being written for an adult audience buying from the direct market, i.e. readers who are collecting whole runs & don't need or want Dick's origin story to be recapped to us in full every time it's referenced. That's why in post-Crisis, we get stuff like "hey, neat, this particular soda brand is getting mentioned in several different books!!" or "in order to understand this story arc, buy SIXTEEN DIFFERENT COMICS in FIVE DIFFERENT RUNS and read them ALL ACCORDING TO A NUMBERED ORDER and also you better be following the individual plotlines and recognize these five minor characters who we don't bother to introduce!! Good luck!!" But the elaborate post-Crisis plotlines - and subtler worldbuilding like a stuffed animal callback to Dick's backstory - don't make a lot of story sense UNLESS you're imagining your readers as completionist adult fans.

So IMO a stuffed animal wouldn't be a pre-Crisis thing unless it was The Episodic Story Of the Week, and I don't think a stuffed animal is action-adventure-y enough for the fast-paced storytelling of the Silver Age. (Unless it, like, came to life and tried to eat you or something.)

Post-Crisis: stuffed animals, yes or no?

tl;dr: no, Dick's a manly tough guy, he's not gonna have a stuffed animal, that'd be lame, like something Tim might do

Part of the edgy grimdark adult vibes in 80s/90s comics is that some characters who used to be kinda silly & goofy & lighthearted - like Batman and Robin - get reimagined as Serious and Angsty and Edgy in a Tough Cool Manly Brooding Way. This massively affects characterization for Bruce, Dick, and Bruce and Dick's relationship.

(I obviously love this change & love the tense Bruce-and-Dick interactions, but plenty of fans of the earlier fluffy comics really disliked the edgy retcons of Miller / Wolfman / Starlin / et al.)

The upshot is that post-Crisis is a period when you could have a recurring reference like a stuffed elephant, but you wouldn't have a stuffed elephant, not for Dick. I think a toy like that would be too cutesy / childish / effeminate to give a male character in post-Crisis, unless you were poking fun at him.

Now, you could probably let Tim have a stuffed animal, because Tim is sometimes cool but also sometimes a tryhard loser who is faking being cool and not entirely pulling it off (see e.g. the Robin comic where he practices tough-guy faces in the mirror, or the Teen Titans comic where Conner discovers his cringy Enya CD, or when he's fanboying over Connor and it's awkward, etc etc.). A stuffed animal would be deeply embarrassing, and you'd have to be careful to compensate by having Tim do something cool afterward - but Tim's character concept allows for "he's kind of a loser sometimes."

But Dick isn't!! In post-Crisis, Dick's a tough / impressive / "cool guy" character, the kind of guy anyone would want to be, even in the flashbacks where he's Robin, and even in the stories where he's more lighthearted than angsty. It'd be kinda lame for Dick to have a stuffed elephant, so he wouldn't. I feel like Dick would be more likely to poke fun at it if someone had one, like when he's making fun of Wally for liking the Hardy Boys. Dick could have a Batman action figure, at most, and if he had one he would have it ironically.

Basically: in post-Crisis, a male character hugging a stuffed elephant feels more likely to be a punchline to me, not something poignant. (Even with Tim, Tim could have an embarrassing stuffed animal, but he couldn't hug it when sad - that's too far. Maybe Booster Gold might do this. Probably he wouldn't, but spiritually, he would. Sorry Booster ilu! <3)

Instead, Dick instinctively deals with his inner turmoil like the TORTURED ACTION HERO he is: by punching things and brooding and yelling and joining the mob and sleeping on rooftops and going on obsessive secret missions and acquiring Angsty Stubble!! Just like Batman!

(Technically I don't know if Bruce ever joined the mob but you know he would.)

Anyway as you know this is my favorite continuity and I am poking fun affectionately, but uh, yeah sdfsfdsfs. No stuffed animals.

Post-2011 / Infinite Frontier / Wayne Family Adventures: stuffed animals, yes or no?

tl;dr it's in WFA! Probably not anywhere else, but it could be.

Post-2011 stuff tends to be cutesier overall, most of all in the current Infinite Frontier era. So I don't feel like this would be tonally out-of-line with IF comics. Taylor tends to go for more meme-y references rather than fanfic references, though.

So the obvious best fit is WFA, which is aiming for a rough approximation of Silver Age family-friendly vibes - wholesome, episodic plots, Teaching Good Moral Lessons For The Youth, etc. - plus lots of Easter eggs for fanfic readers and some comic references.

And look, here we are:

Aww.

Whew - that's everything I could find!

Anyway as you can probably tell, I LOVE the elephant, so this was a very entertaining rabbit hole to go down, thank you <3

[gennyrthewriter]

you dont understand how badly i wanted to be The Arbiter when i was 12. you dont fucking understand.

[bitchy-peachy]

I really wish that antis stopped using real life sa victims in their shit especially since they tell real life sa victims that we deserved our assaults cos we all handle our trauma differently.

[hanzajesthanza]

i was looking up tips for formatting bilingual books (for example, a copy of idk the iliad with ancient greek on one side, english translation on the other), but i didn’t know the word describing this kind of format 🤔

so i was stringing together keywords like “book with two languages” and one of the results was a reddit post with someone trying to find a book that alternates between multiple languages, i.e., there are no translations, it’s it’s one text, but half of the story is in english, then the other half, or interwoven throughout, is in french or whatever

and it took strength to not suggest the hussite trilogy 🥴

[dallonwrites]

okay actually looked at the lover boy wip intro again and this has me crazy because the grief in this was meant to all be about bobby but "remember that his favourite fruit was peaches and try not to cry over it" got me because felix's favourite fruit being peaches is like. a recent but definitive part of his character. and i can't remember if i just used peaches as a placeholder for bobby's favourite fruit (he does not give peach to me) and if i first wrote this before or after i decided peaches were felix's BUT now i'm like. what if this passage is him grieving bobby but it spirals around his grief for his relationship with felix??? find a lover the way you found felix and don't lose him this time but also find a lover because you're trying to find a connection as deep as the one you had with your best friend even though you know it can never be replicated. you can never find a lover that will love you like bobby (platonic, to be clear) loved you. find a lover in the fact you are alive even though it makes you nauseous because it just reminds you that your best friend isn't. how do you grieve someone who's still alive whilst simultaneously grieve someone who isnt? trying to grieve two people in two different ways and you feel guilty at the way they blend and blur because it feels like you lose your separate grips on both of them and you don't feel like you have space in you to accommodate all this ache. and like what if i edited all this to make that parallel more clear?? that his primary grief is bobby because he's the one who's dead but he's also grieving felix and probably doesn't even realise it?? and then the two become blurred?? and if he realised this he would actually feel fucking awful about it and like a bad friend?? haha just kidding unless??

[constantvariations]

I remember someone saying "there's no such thing as a good racism allegory" and it's been bouncing around in my head for a while. I'm someone who typically thinks anything can work if given the right circumstances, but then I really started thinking about it and I believe they're right

Because if you want to talk about racism, you should just talk about racism

(This is unpolished and ramble-y, so strap yourselves in)

Racism is deeply ingrained into our society, no matter where you live. Imperialism and colonialism has ensured that no corner of Earth has been left untouched. Choices from hundreds of years ago are still being felt today. There's practically no end to the discussion of its effects on the world and its people

So, why should anyone feel the need to dress it up in cat ears?

I've consumed a lot of media where writers have consciously echoed in part some aspect of racism in their fantasy story: Bright 2017, Dragon Age, RWBY, the MCU, Harry Potter, Detroit: Become Human, etc. The biggest thing they have in common is that the narrative is told to side with the victims, but it somehow always ends up against them

It always sides with the status quo

It's confusing, maddening even, because the narrative oft goes out of its way to show how horrible the system is and how these folk don't deserve their treatment, so why are we going back to normal as if it's a good thing? Why are the people actively working to improve the system decried as annoying at best and monstrous at worst?

Then you look at the people who write these storylines. The beliefs they hold, the people they vote for, which charities and organizations they give to, and it all makes sense. Centrists (at best) trying to look progressive are the ones who need to dress racism up in cat ears and rainbow freckles. They set aside the long, brutal histories and crushing systemic realities to play pretend that racism is Not That Bad and is only done by Those Bad Individuals

That's why Velvet's ears are tugged instead of culled. That's why the Mantle drunkards say mean things to Blake instead of attempting to assault her. That's why everything surrounding the SDC's labor practices is so vague as to be useless while the biggest evidence of their malice is hand-waved away by a writer who says the victim "had it coming" as if someone can deserve being branded by being too much of a brat

These stories aren't meant to make the audience question why our society works off the bloodied backs of the exploited or demands we take good, hard looks at ourselves and how we've been duped into believing so much garbage about entire swathes of people. They're meant to satisfy the people who only feel bad that these things are happening because they (white folk) look like the bad guys. It's a self-congratulatory wank about how "I'm not like THOSE guys, therefore I'm a good person!"

And then there's the characters meant to convey this story in the first place: always inoffensive, mostly aimless, "not like the other girl" types that pander to that delicate palate. Blake - a conventionally attractive, pale skinned girl in fashionable clothes - used to be passionate about equality but only in the right way, and demonizes anyone who does not conform to this mindset despite having no reasoning to back it up while never once demanding better of the privileged people around her even when they do racially insensitive things

The biggest downfall of these racial allegories, be they about cat girls or orcs or elves or robots, is that they do something that marginalized folk have been forced to endure since the dawn of time: literal dehumanization. There are tangible differences between humans and whatever the allegory is, which undermines the very fundamental fact that black/asian/queer/neurodivergent/disabled/whatever folk are unapologetically, undeniably, exceedingly human. By dressing up their plights in cat ears or spottled blue skin, you're creating theater not for the people who actually live through these struggles as a means of connecting with them and providing them a safe outlet for their feelings, but giving the people who benefit from passively allowing the system to enforce said struggles a pat on the head for not being the grand wizard

I don't really know where I'm going or how to end this, so I'll just sign off with if you're going to talk about racism, just talk about racism

[sundial-bee-scribbles]

In case it's hard to read/understand: "If I had a nickel for every time I had a story with a blonde girl named after a plant, who has a German father and a French mother but absolutely hates said mom, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice."

weird, extremely-specific tropes in my stories: pt 1

[dennisboobs]

i wrote another rambly dennis analysis and deleted it <3 y'all don't need that

[ariminiria]

AU where instead of Desi, Jack manages to get Cage to come back to fill in for him

[insertsickusername13]

Promises Made on October 30th

title is the concept and summary bc i thought of the title before the concept of the fic. whoops.

warnings: implied abuse, alcohol is referenced and consumed but not in like a bad way (most of the time), no smut but there's one scene where they kiss and i describe it in a gross way for some reason and sex is talked about once or twice

word count: 3.6k

 Jake spent most nights alone. He had friends, sure, and plans most evenings. Dates with girls, parties to attend, and though he’d like to spend the rest of his life swimming in a fuzzy unconsciousness where he was only just aware of his existence, half passed out on someone else’s couch, dawn always sunk her rosy fingers into the horizon and one hostess or another was forced to give Jake a pitying look as they showed him to the door.

 My parents will be home soon, some would say, and Jake would leave with a bitter laugh. If he was lucky, he’d get to stay and help clean up. On the best days, he could sometimes sneak in a quick fuck with whatever girl was still around. 

 Most nights, though, he left before anyone had the chance to kick him out. He spent hours sitting on the floor of his living room, staring at the front door and waiting for them to come home. If he pretended hard enough, the pictures on the walls weren’t the most terrifying thing he had ever faced. Photographs from family weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, and award ceremonies all taunted him. His parents’ faces stared at him, scrutinizing every move as he trembled, cried, and broke down. Every sob echoed back like a bullet ricocheted off metal. He was sitting expressionless in the middle of a war zone watching soldiers (read: dreams) and civilians (read: his future) bleed out and die on the floor around him. 

 Despite holding onto the childish hope that things would get better, that the future held something more than loneliness for Jake Dillinger, there was still the undeniable truth that it wouldn’t. Jake was doomed. Life wasn’t going to be anything special for him—he was going to suffer and he was going to have to get used to it young. He hated his parents, himself, his girlfriend, his life, and his house. He wasn’t going to kill himself, he wasn’t a coward, but he wasn’t going to wake up every morning and fight to be okay. He was resigned to his sadness.

 Until Rich Goranski knocked on his door at 10 pm on September 17th and showed Jake that silence wasn’t the only thing that could exist in his house. 

 He didn’t wait for an invitation inside. The second Jake had opened the door, Rich pushed past him and into the kitchen. He wasn’t quite fast enough for Jake to miss the bruises on his cheekbones or the way he favored his right leg over his left. Jake cataloged the injuries and promised himself he’d ask about them later. 

 “The hell are you doing here?” Jake called after him, his tone tipping over the border between annoyed and concerned.

 Rich shrugged and settled on the kitchen counter. He seemed to only be slightly aware of Jake’s presence, more focused on the empty floor in front of him. His eyes were glassy in a way that suggested he’d already been crying and was done with it. Jake studied him, searching for his next move in Rich’s body language. If Rich looked like he was going to cry again, Jake could probably swoop in for a hug without being called gay. If he didn’t, Jake would probably offer a drink. Or a movie?

 “Stop looking at me like that,” Rich snapped. He was looking up at Jake, his eyes narrowed and lips pressed together, almost like he was challenging him. Jake flinched back, unsure of what he’d done to deserve such treatment. 

 “Like what?”

 “Like I’m a fucking math problem or some shit. I’m not. Just fucking talk to me.”

 Jake considered him. Though it was invisible to Rich, Jake could still see bullets and spears flying through the air as people screamed out war cries and fought with everything in them for land or oil or their families. Metaphorical war didn’t end just because a friend had shown up. Jake was always surrounded by imagined violence; always on the verge of fleeing. 

 “I don’t know what you want from me,” Jake answered. His voice was barely loud enough to be heard over the sound of a bomb going off in the distance.

 Rich forced out a bitter laugh and hid his face behind his hands. 

 “God, fuck, me either. I don’t know why I’m here. Just fucking distract me. Do whatever the hell you want.”

 Jake found his parents’ record player in the living room and hit play. It was the only thing he could think to do—why, he wasn’t sure. But Rich had said anything, so Jake did anything. Some song by The Police (god, the irony) drifted through the room, a byproduct of his parents’ last anniversary together in the house. Jake had long since stopped caring—it didn’t even hurt to know they’d danced in this room, laughed in this room, raised him in this room. 

 He turned back to Rich and was met with a small, borderline amused, “What the hell, Jake?”

 “You said I could do whatever I wanted.”

 “This is what you want?”

 “I dunno.”

 Rich laughed as he hopped off the counter. The sound was so pure Jake watched the blood-soaked carpets go from crimson to pink as the rain washed away the worst of it. A white flag waved in the distance. Rich swayed to the music mindlessly, still favoring his right leg. 

 “Dancing?” Jake asked, the single word enough to get across his message. Rich nodded as he took Jake’s hand in his own and pulled him in close. 

 “Why not? We’ve got nothing better to do.”

 So Jake learned about music and dancing and how small Rich could feel when Jake had his hands on his hips, fingers digging into his skin just to convince himself Rich was real instead of some fantasy made up as a coping mechanism for his parents’ leering memory. Silence wasn’t the worst thing to exist. Jake knew how to make it go away.

 Still, that did nothing to dispel the obvious and ever-painful emptiness. Jake could play record after record as loud as he wanted until he had every song memorized and could sing it from any room in the house, but it was still empty.

He stumbled into the kitchen, drunk and disoriented, his feet dragging across the tile floor. Each step was like wading through the ocean, sea monsters grabbing at his ankles and trying to drag him under. He gripped counters and walls to keep himself afloat just long enough for Rich to knock on his door and saunter in, his presence a song in and of itself. 

 Jake followed his every movement with every sense: his ears, listening to the sound of Rich’s footsteps. Taste: kissing the corner of Rich’s mouth—never his lips, Jake wasn’t gay, but close enough that he could convince himself there was something like love brewing between them. Touch: holding onto Rich’s hand, his clothes, his hair, latching onto the warmth of him to convince himself the air conditioner wasn’t too cold or the empty spaces too vacant. 

 Sight: looking at Rich and only Rich. If he only looked at his hazel eyes and dyed-red hair and, on the days when Jake was weak and scared, his lips, then the shadows in the corners of the room lightened into something manageable and the photos on the walls that functioned as the closest thing Jake had to family faded into… well, photos. Just photos. 

 Rich helped, but he wasn’t enough to make the emptiness go away until October 15th.

 He showed up in the same way he had before. Glassy-eyed, hurt, and willing to do whatever Jake wanted to make everything slightly okay for a little while. 

 Tonight, Jake chose balloons. 

 “You can’t be serious,” Rich groaned. He was on Jake’s couch, a glass of white wine in hand. Something imported from Italy, or maybe France? All Jake knew was that it cost four hundred dollars.

 Jake shrugged. “Isn’t Brooke’s birthday coming up? It could be for her party.”

 “This is literally just a fucked up coping mechanism, don’t pretend it’s anything else.”

 Jake sighed disappointedly and leaned back against the couch. He was on the floor in front of it, a pack of two hundred balloons in his hand. They were all different colors—some neon, some pastel, some black, and others white. He’d bought them on a whim at a Walgreens for twenty bucks with no particular plan. Faced with his barren living room, the only signs of human existence the expensive vases on the end tables and the overstuffed throw pillows, he’d decided he’d blow them up and throw them around just to add a splash of color. 

 Jake looked up at Rich. He was half asleep but tense, his face scrunched up and hands clenched. It’d been bad this time around. It hadn’t just been Rich’s existence that pissed his dad off—he’d done something. Probably something minuscule, like broken a glass or clogged the toilet, but it was enough that what was usually a couple of light bruises and a limp had turned to black and blue blemishes over his right eye and up his chest. His lip was busted and every breath seemed labored and painful. Jake, unsure of what else to do, ran his thumb over Rich’s pulse and whispered, “Please?”

 Rich opened one eye to look down at Jake. Amongst the annoyance and pain, Jake saw a flash of pity. Rich shifted uncomfortably. 

 “Fine, but I have at least two broken ribs so you’re going to have to accept the fact I’m only blowing up one or two of these.”

 “Of course,” Jake rushed out, his hands already fumbling with the packaging of the balloons. “I wouldn’t—if it hurts, you don’t have to. Obviously. Just—”

 Rich thoughtlessly threaded his fingers through Jake’s hair. Jake’s voice gave out. 

 “I don’t understand you,” Rich whispered, not even bothering to look at Jake. “You’re confident all day, and then the second it gets dark you freak out. I’m the same person I am all the time. I know you don’t want to hurt me. Calm down.”

 It was, of course, a trend Jake had noticed as well. At school, he could control his tone and inflections to the point he sometimes wondered if he was accidentally manipulating the people around him into loving him. Then at night, when his defenses were already broken down by hours of facing the empty, stormy seas that were his house, he could barely find it in himself to get out a sentence without stuttering. 

 He blamed it on the one lie Rich had told in his claim: that he was the same person. He wasn’t. There was something different about nighttime Rich that had Jake’s face feeling too hot and the silence turning into the sound of his heart beating circles in his chest. 

 “Sorry,” Jake replied softly, “I dunno why it happens. You make me nervous.”

 Rich raised an eyebrow. Jake shoved a purple balloon in his face and hoped that would be enough for the topic to be dropped. It was still too sensitive, still too in the early stages of development, for Jake to be prepared enough to vocalize the worst of it. Someday, maybe. Probably. Once he didn’t have Christine to distract him or Jeremy’s constant insults to scare him into suppressing every urge that didn’t perfectly line up with the picture everyone else had of him in their minds. 

 Rich took the balloon and started to blow it up. For Jake, the process was effortless. Rich struggled through it tediously, taking small breaths and wincing after almost every one. Jake hated to say that he’d originally interpreted Rich’s complaints as a joke, but his worry hadn’t really spiked until Rich choked out an awkward, muffled cough and pained groan. 

 “Do you need—”

 “No,” Rich breathed, “No, I’m fine. Shut up, Jake.”

 Jake turned back to his neon green balloon without a word. He’d blown up almost twenty by now, enough to coat half the living room in a thin layer of color. He thoughtlessly kicked one with his foot and smiled as he watched it hit a picture of his mother and uselessly bounce off. Smiling, he kicked another one. It hit a picture of himself as a child. 

 He turned to Rich to tell him—about what, he wasn’t sure. Kicking balloons? Hitting pictures of himself and his family? His coping mechanisms were getting more fucked up by the second—and was almost immediately paralyzed by… fuck, by Rich. Just Rich. 

 He was sitting crisscross on the couch, a balloon in his lap. He’d spent the last four and a half minutes blowing it up to just a little bigger than Jake’s head. It was still smaller than it was supposed to be but Jake wasn’t going to complain. It was physically impossible when he could barely get enough oxygen in his lungs to speak. It wasn’t that there was a crushing panic on his chest stopping him from breathing, it was something much brighter. There were so many butterflies in his stomach they were flying into his chest and choking off every inhale. 

 Rich’s lips were wet. That was really what doomed Jake. He’d previously been unaware that every time Rich removed the balloon from his mouth he felt the need to lick his lips, but now that Rich was focused purely on tying the balloon off and was giving Jake ample time to stare, Jake was forced to acknowledge the way his vision tunneled at the sight. The way his whole body seemed to go warm. 

 Jake turned fully to face Rich, the balloon in his hand completely abandoned in lieu of watching Rich stick his tongue out in frustration as he struggled to keep the balloon inflated while tying the knot. When he finally succeeded, he burst into a smile louder than any record Jake had played over the past month.

 Rich looked up, eyes bright, and faltered when he found Jake already staring at him. He cleared his throat as his face flushed red. 

 “Uh, hi,” he squeaked out. Jake wanted to scream. This was one of the differences that left him speechless. Daytime Rich would smirk and call him gay. This Rich just looked flustered. 

 “Hi,” Jake whispered back. 

 “Whatcha doin’?”

 Jake considered his response carefully. One song or another was playing softly in the background, the balloons were filling up the emptiness. Everything was kind of okay. Jake had nothing left to cope with. He just… 

 “I really want to kiss you right now,” he answered. Rich froze. 

 “What?”

 Jake got up just enough so he was kneeling, purple and green and red balloons gathered around his knees and feet and the coffee table his back was pressed up against. He leaned up so he was close enough to run his pointer finger down Rich’s jawline and nudge his nose against Rich’s.

 “You heard me. You can tell me to stop.”

 Rich remained silent. Jake thought he felt ocean waters rising around his waist, drowning his balloons and pictures in stormy salt water. So he did the only thing he could think of.

He kissed Rich like his life depended on it, because it did, and felt his heart start beating again for the first time in months when Rich kissed him back just as desperate and soft and messily. 

 Hands tangled in Rich’s hair, mouth open and his tongue practically shoved in Rich’s mouth, licking at teeth like they were nectar or ambrosia, he scrambled onto the couch, limbs slow and unsteady as he climbed over Rich and forced him back against the couch. He tried to get himself closer to his paradise, his respite, his island in the middle of the ocean, but all he got was a wretched screeching sound and the feeling of air-filled plastic against his chest. 

 He pulled away just enough for Rich to let out a small whine as they lost contact with each other.

 “Rich.”

 “Yeah?” Rich asked breathlessly, already trying to lean up and kiss him again. 

 “Get rid of the fucking balloon.”

 Rich’s eyes widened, almost comically so. Jake wanted to cry at the way that sent his heart into overdrive.

 “Yeah, yeah, right, hold on—”

 He threw it across the room. Jake found the balloons kind of useless now. He was so filled with giddiness and hope that he couldn’t even comprehend how anything could ever be empty. 

 Until October 30th. 

 Rich didn’t need to knock on Jake’s door or let himself in. Jake was at Rich’s house, banging on the door repeatedly, each knock echoing and panicked. He didn’t stop until Rich swung the door open, rumpled and half asleep. 

 “What the fuck?” 

 “I need to talk to you.”

 Rich glanced back inside—presumably at his dad—before nodding. 

 “Yeah, okay, lemme get changed and put on my shoes, then we can go.”

 Jake nodded rapidly. His mind was racing beyond what he could understand, landing on panicked responses before he even knew what had triggered his fight or flight. He didn’t stop moving even as Rich disappeared back into his house. His foot tapped against the concrete. His fingers picked at his nails and the fabric of his shirt and his hair. Curses ran through his mind like a broken record, repeated until the sound was imprinted on Jake’s brain. 

 Rich appeared and suddenly everything in Jake’s mind went silent. 

 “So… are we doing this here or…?”

 “My house. Not uh—” Jake glanced back behind Rich. Not near your father was the implied statement. Rich sagged with relief.

 “Okay, yeah. Let’s go.”

 Jake could feel Rich’s concern in his gaze. He was watching Jake’s every move as if preparing for something, like Jake was going to swerve the car off the road and into a ditch or shoot himself. It made Jake want to laugh. Or scream. Or cry. He was going to die. 

 He didn’t even make it back to his own house. It was only a six-minute drive and he only made it four minutes in before he pulled over on the side of the road and stormed out of the car, his whole body trembling. He didn’t know where he was going, just that he needed an escape from the cramped driver’s seat of his car. He needed the autumn air to stop him from overheating and the wide expanse of stars to talk him down from an anxiety attack. 

 Rich fumbled after him, too confused to be panicked and too disoriented to be calm. 

 “What the hell?! Slow down—”

 Jake halted and spun on his heel, eyes wide. They were by a pond with benches and a dock and a parking lot only twenty feet away. There were grills along the beach and a football in the grass. Jake almost screamed. Every sign of humanity felt like too much. If he was going to do this, he needed it to be in the middle of the desert or the empty expanse of space with no one but Rich around to hear his confession.

 No. Fuck it. He needed to do this now. 

 “I’m gay.”

 Rich seized up. He was only a foot away from Jake, close enough so when he finally regained control of his muscles, he was able to reach out and take Jake’s hands. 

 “Really?” he whispered, looking up at Jake with eyes that literally shone like gold or diamonds. Jake wanted to drown in it.

 He swallowed his shame, not caring that it burned at his throat, and said, “Yeah. Yeah, fuck. Not all the way. I like girls. But I like kissing you and I like boys and I… I just like you. All of you. All the way. I like you. I’m really sorry.”

 Rich broke out into a grin. 

 “Yeah?” he asked just for confirmation. Jake nodded again. 

 Rich jumped up into Jake’s arms, fully committed to getting as physically close as he could. He wrapped his legs around Jake’s waist and his arms around his neck and fingers in his hair and kissed him hard on the lips. Jake felt like he was at home for the first time in years.

 “Me too,” Rich said between kisses, “Me too. So much. So fucking much.”

 Jake smiled into every kiss, so ecstatic he could barely keep himself standing. He fell back into the grass whispering, “Run away with me. Forever. It’s terrible here. It’s so terrible.”

 Rich nodded in agreement and pressed a gentle kiss on Jake’s neck. 

 “They hate us and we’re gonna find someplace better. I have enough money. Just run away with me, please. We can go anywhere you want.”

 “Anywhere?” Rich asked. He sounded pained, like the word burned as it came out. Jake nodded and propped himself up on his elbows. 

 “Anywhere. Just promise me you won’t leave.”

 Rich smiled and kissed him again. 

 “I promise,” he murmured, “I promise you’re beautiful, I promise I’ll run away with you, I promise I won’t leave, I—”

 He paused. Dread burrowed itself like a bullet in Jake’s chest. He searched Rich’s expression for answers before Rich had the chance to start speaking again. 

 “Not… not tonight, though, okay? There’s something I gotta do first.”

 “Is it—?”

 “Don’t worry about it, Jake. It’s nothing. How about Sunday? Give me tomorrow to take care of things, then we’re gone.”

 November first. The day after tomorrow. 

 Jake could handle it. He’d host his Halloween party, break up with Christine, and tie up any loose ends he had left. He’d be gone before he ever had to clean up the hell of a mess his friends were sure to leave behind in his parents' house.

 “Promise?” he whispered.

 Rich nodded. 

 “Promise. I just need tomorrow.”

[baeshijima]

honestly one of my favourite things is drawing fanart for my own stories bc 1) i am my own stories biggest fan 2) seeing all the impactful scenes i have in mind in some sort of physical representation is just so nice and lk helps me write some scenes and 3) i can make my ocs look as silly and tragic as i want

[st4rstudent]

Unfortunately, it has gone quite slow. This writing thing has HANDS!!! It's just a short one story since I haven't actually wrote anything in a whiiileeeee. i think its about maybe halfway done

[cherrysnax]

not to SYS! on main but like comics Miguel reads just like Robyn and older leo to me it’s soooo weird

[carrots-bear]

Using this its so helpful

i think its so funny when people take the way donnie acts at face value even though its a horrible lie because he's a horrible liar, while understanding leo is bullshitting very well despite him actually being GOOD at bullshitting. many such cases

[poor-man-s-productions]

My cats have had diarrhea the past few days and my mom thinks I should call the vet and ask if they need to be brought in I freaking hope not I feel guilty every time because it’s mom who has to pay for it but I still don’t have a job yet. Ughh