#just know that slade is absolutely still out there trying to cure dick
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vampire dick au with jaytim?? vampire dick au with jaytim šš
Tim hates that he's hard from this.
He shouldn't be.
He really, /really/, shouldn't be.
Dick isn't doing this for any sort of physical pleasure- he's only doing it because he needs to eat. Drink? Feed.
He's only doing it because he needs to feed. And it's Tim's turn to feed him.
Still, Tim shudders from his place on his knees, half bent over the coffee table, hands gripping hard at the edge to keep from touching anything else. He half wants to push Dick away and half wants to reach down and touch himself.
Neither would be a smart decision- and if Tim is anything, it's smart.
So he bites his bottom lip and keeps his hold on the table.
He tries to remind himself that it /is/ Dick behind him, hands rough on Tim's hip and in his hair where he's holding Tim still, keeping his head angled just right to stay latched onto Tim's neck.
Dick might've lost most of his humanity when he became a vampire, but he does care about Tim still. In his own way. His brother isn't completely lost to him. Even if he is a controlling, possessive monster now.
He keeps Tim and Jason locked away here in the manor. They're prisoners in a gilded cage; mostly allowed free reign of the cavernous house- the building no longer feeling like home without Bruce, Damian, and Alfred, without the freedom to /leave/ it, to come and go as they please.
But most of the time they're clad in geo-locked collars, made to keep them in line and safe from stray fangs. Dick has the collars set to shock them should they try to leave the building, and he can set them off himself if his decides they're āmisbehaving.ā
It's been a while since he's had to shock them himself- after so long, it stopped making sense to keep fighting him, he was so convinced that he was protecting them, and none of their escape attempts worked anyway. Besides, Tim doesn't like the idea of Dick draining other people dry to keep himself fed. At least when Dick's feeding on him and Jason, he makes sure not to bleed them out completely.
The collars have the added benefit of making sure no other vampires can feed on them, only able to be unlocked by Dick's biometrics. And Tim is pretty sure Dick likes the show of ownership the collars give him over them.
His collar is off right now- it always is when Dick feeds. It's dropped right beneath him on the coffee table he's braced over. The stray thought of throwing it into the nearby fireplace springs to mind, but Tim can't leave without Jason. Even if he could, on the logic of coming back for him, he's not really in a position to be fighting Dick right now.
He's still hard.
It's a trained response at this point- though, not one that Dick actually intended. No- it came about because of how /Jason/ treats Tim after Dick feeds from him. As soon as they started to accept that there's no escape from this new version of Dick, they also started to take a shred of happiness for themselves. Best of a bad situation, Tim supposes.
There are worse people for Tim to be stuck here with. Jason is surprisingly good for him. They both need it hard and fast and rough and /mean/ a lot of the time. There's something about being denied their old lifestyle- adrenaline junkies having withdrawals from their vigilante personas being ripped form them so fully. It's more than maddening, being stuck in this big, empty manor. It helps, to get to spar with Jason, to push it from sparring to /fighting/, from fighting to fucking.
They don't really play like that right after feedings, though. Too drained in every sense of the word. No, Jason is astonishingly gentle with Tim after Dick feeds from him. Calloused hands massaging the knots from Tim's back and shoulders, rubbing small circles into Tim's weary skin, chapped lips pressing soft kisses along the edges of the freshly locked collar.
Tim gets flashes of it while Dick is still pressed against his back, drinking his fill. He lets his eyes slide shut, knowing that letting himself get lost in his thoughts about Jason will help the time go faster. Dick can't take much more from him without going too far; it won't be long before he's wrapping the thick collar back around Tim's throat and pressing an apologetic kiss into Tim's hair for the treatment, the tiny reminder that Dick is still his big brother, even as he keeps him chained here.
#jaytim#timjay#this was wholly inspired by the discord peeps lmao#i know i didnt write much of the slade and dick stuff#just know that slade is absolutely still out there trying to cure dick#my brain just latched onto the jaytim part bc i am who i am#and i couldnt get the image of dick feeding off tim out of my head#melodys words#melodys works
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youāre not the poison; itās me.
... um. titans 2.07 absolutely WRECKED me you guys, and i would like to tell you why in excruciating detail:
SPOILERS ahead
(and before i go ahead, i just want to say this: this episode deals with ptsd and psychosis and suicidal ideation explicitly, in ways that even i found difficult to watch. itās very intense. please keep that in mind if you decide to watch it.)
1. usually genre tv shows like to pile on the trauma but deal with its fallout either rarely or in oblique ways--shots of the character brooding, a couple ofĀ ācandidā talks filled with frustrating euphemisms, then itās on to tackling the next plot point. not titansĀ tho--for this show, the trauma is very much the point. the plot is wafer-thin and takes a backseat as the show takes episode after episode to break down its central characters and hammer it in that there are no easy fix-its for complex trauma, and that Dealing with it is a continuous, sometimes lifelong process. it forces you to keep re-evaluating and re-contextualising the actions of these characters and challenges your assumptions.
1.5. for instance: letās take donna troy. in s1 she was the put-together big sister to dick, content with living her life outside the superhero community while giving sound advice to dick about how he can get his own life back on track. now? sheās a stressed, paranoid wreck, plagued by horrible memories and taking her insecurities out on dick and jason and whoever else is available. deathstrokeās machinations aside, thereās something deeply dysfunctional about the way the original titans operated, the ways they brought both the best and the worst out of each other. it seems like none of them really understood the seriousness of what they were doing until they did something truly terrible that they couldnāt take back, and it was earth-shattering enough that donna completely abandoned her old life to live as a civilian. trigonās vision for her in 2.01 reminded her that she was fooling herself; coming back to titans tower and actually having to face what made her run away in the first place has broken down the walls sheās spent five years putting up. itās not pretty to watch, but... it tracks.
2. after having written post after post about dick cracking under relentless stress and the weight of his own guilt complex, it was startling to see him actually fall apart. halluci!bruce was absolutely brutalĀ and really brought home the fact that Good Lord, Dick Grayson Is So Far From Okay That Itās Not Even Funny Anymore.Ā
because hereās the thing: dick is deeply unwell, and however the show proceeds with his character from here on out, this episode made absolutely no bones about that fact. his single-minded dash to find and kill slade is framed as both irrational and suicidal. heās visibly on edge, bursting into bouts of uncontrollable rage. heās shown to carry a guilt complex the size of mount everest, to the point where it actually seems delusional. heās fucking terrifiedĀ of abandonment, to the point where heād rather cut off ties on his own rather than have others leave him. heās constantly berating himself and this doesnāt give him a moment to sit down and think and try to form a rational plan. halluci!bruce even mentions meds and āuppers and downersā to cope, and i am genuinely concerned that that was what dick actually did to cope in the immediate aftermath of whatever the fuck went down with him and joey and deathstroke. maybe itās ptsd with a secondary psychosis triggered by nearly losing jason the same way he lost his parents (and massive sleep deprivation, i imagine), or maybe thereās another underlying chronic mental illness. either way, he needs help.Ā
man but halluci!bruce was vicious. if this is what dick has running in his head at all times, no wonder he broods, and no wonder he takes others admonishing his choices with barely any protest!Ā
2.25. looking at this from a different perspective, tho, hereās another way in which bruce wayne functions as a symbol on this show. phantom!bruce is how dick normally externalises everything he hates about himself, and this dynamic plays out very literally in this episode.Ā
interestingly, and somewhat heartbreakingly, it took dick accepting and internalising his low opinion of himself and his veritable ocean of guilt for judgy!bruce wayne to turn into loving, concerned!bruce wayne, who would comfort dick and wipe his tears. (it is entirely heartbreaking that thatās what dick subconsciously craves from bruce.) dick must debase himself for love and acceptance. itās fucking tragic.Ā
2.55. and what does it mean--for dick and for his friendships with the og titans--that heās so convincedĀ that they would leave him if he told them the truth about jericho? for one, even back then, it seemed like dick was doing a lot of the emotional labour for the team: as a leader he both funnelled and executed the teamās plans, with responsibility for the fallout falling unevenly and mostly on his shoulders; he acted as the go-between for the team and bruce, for donna and garth, probably for hank and dawn, given he was dawnās rebound. later, hank and dawn are visibly concerned by how viciously he fights. after re-forming the titans, he continues to shoulder responsibility for the shit-show that deathstroke rains on them, although he didnāt know deathstroke was alive when he re-opened the tower. of course he thinks that the team will think that heās beyond redemption if they find out the truth; of course heād want to go and finish off deathstroke on his own--or die in the process--before any of them finds out.Ā
2.75. but guys, hereās the thing: in spite of all of this, dick grayson still went around to check on conner and jason and assure the latter that he didnāt blame him for running off on his own. he saw jason standing there on a precipice right at the end, and decided he was going to be opaque anymore, or fall back on what he learned from bruce. he sits down with jason and finally divulges the secret that he had been willing to die to protect--making himself vulnerable to save jasonās life. heās trying so goddamn hardĀ even though his brain is rioting against him right now and probably has been for years. itās just--i canāt imagine a truer, more sensitive portrayal of dick grayson than this.
3. watching jason reach his breaking point was,,, Not Fun. itās one thing to be seemingly passed on like unwanted baggage from guardian to guardian. to be viewed with contempt and impatience when he just wants to make sure his voice isnāt lost in the constant shuffle. to be looked at as an impostor by the very people he looks upto. to be assigned the role of hot-headed fuck-up despite all his attempts to be useful, to proveĀ himself. but to have all of that fall on him all at once on top of (poorly) dealing with a near-death experience? yikes.
3.25. and the horrible, tragic, humanĀ part of it all is that donna and the others probably didnāt even knowĀ what they were doing to jason by piling on him like that? heās a relative outsider to both rachel and the og titans. heās an arrogant prick thatās easy to hate. without dick and gar to stand up for jason, heās cornered by people who havenāt even gotten to the point of seeing him as a vulnerable kid thatās struggling, just like the rest of them.
3.5. and so the two robins perch on the ledge, each convinced that they are poison that will either kill or drive their friends away. itās a fraught moment of connection that stops jason from jumping, but he doesnāt step away. both of them are on a precipice in more ways than one; i can only hope they help each other land on the right side.1
also, bruce wayne? send your sons to therapy MY GOD
4. kory and rachel using their awesome powers in concert to cure conner! kory using her cultural background to connect to and help conner! conner mumbling in kryptonian! krypto fucking shooting across the sky with eve on his back! in such a sad and intense episode, itās important to remember that some fantastic things happened as well!
5. hereās the thing: i donāt think dick killed jericho in the way that he probably thinks he does. dick is a hugely unreliable narrator--thatās been his Thing since s1. part of me thinks jericho should be dead; whatever happened with him and the titans has been built up to be such an earth-shattering event that it would kinda be cheating if he survived anyway. the other bigger part of me says: fuck that noise. JOEY WILSON LIVES, and thatās that
6. gar was sleeping? are you kidding me??? iām assuming deathstroke drugged him or something so that he wouldnāt be there to Talk Sense and stop these melodramatic fools from tearing into each other. i can only hope that thereās some Big Plans for him down the line.Ā
#titans#titans spoilers#dick grayson#jason todd#donna troy#bruce wayne#cw suicide#cw mental illness#meta
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Best of DC: Week of February 19th, 2020
Best of this Week: DCeased: Unkillables #1 - Tom Taylor, Karl Mostert, Trevor Scott, Neil Edwards, John Livesay, Rex Lokus and Saida Temofonte
Ahhh shit, here we go again. DCeased was awesome.
In much the same way that the original Marvel Zombies filled my heart with dread, DCeased absolutely blew my mind with the short six issues that it took place in. It was equal parts violent and heartbreaking as the heroes of Earth had to figure out a way to either stop the Anti-Life virus or die trying. We had a good spin off with the single issue, A Good Day to Die and now we have Unkillables, another spin off focusing on some of the more violent heroes and villains while the events of the main series unfold elsewhere.
The book begins on the first day of the Anti-Life virus being released as Deathstroke finds himself on a job in Kentucky. Throughout the original story, I did kinda wonder what people like him or the other assassins were up to, given that we saw a select number of other dead supervillains throughout like Giganta and Clayface. As Tom Taylor and Karl Mostert unfold the story we see that Slade Wilson was killing some infected Neo-Nazis before an attempt to renegotiate his price ends with him infected too.
Mostert and Taylor set this opening up in a very comedic way with the white supremacits running from something in the local church as Deathstroke looks on, puzzled as to why theyāre running before taking a few out before heading inside. Mostert, Rex Lokus and I think Trevor Scott then give us an awesome single page of Slade facing down a horde of zombies with only his gun and a bloody sword. He looks like a badass and, in the following panels, proves it by killing them with ease.
Mostert doesnāt shy away from Sladeās brutal violence and shows how fluidly he can kill with dynamic poses as he shoots and slices multiple enemies at once. This accentuated by the excellently colored spurts of blood from the zombies and the gory detail of blood on the walls. Thereās even a really good panel of one of the zombies being cut in half with Scott inking the silhouette as their blood and insides drip down. Even better is when Slade gets infected and violently rips his mask off before coming back to his senses while choking a guy.
Tom Taylor introduces a unique aspect here as Deathstroke returns to normal on the second day of the virus being introduced. As we learn later, itās due to Sladeās unique super soldier DNA that allows him to fight off the infection, effectively being immune to a point. I can definitely see this being a double edged sword for him as the infection seems to last for a day before being purged from his system. This makes him unique amongst both the heroes and villains of Earth as maybe a potential savior.
Iād also like to praise Saida Temofonte for her amazing lettering as well. She does an amazing job, not only with word balloons, but with captions that have a bloody background and the typefaces she uses for sound effects. For the most part, they fit the gruesomeness of the story with intense and bloody BANGs to eerie RRRRRRs, signaling the incoming zombies. Deathstrokeās scream as he claws his own face is intense, scratchy and blood curling until we get an AMAZING title page with names filling the empty space.
As things progress, we cut to Jason Todd in the Batcave. The silence is eerie as we get one small āspshā sound as Jason steps through the blood trail of Bruce, Tim and Dick. Unfortunately, this seems to take place shortly after the events of DCeased #2 when an infected Dick and Tim attack and infect Batman, leaving Alfred to kill them all. Jason, like most readers, is shocked because he thought Bruce would have found a way to survive and then heās met by Ace the Bathound. After letting Ace see that heās not infected, Jason proceeds to make graves for his brothers and father before speeding off in the Batmobile to find the rest of his family with Ace.
These scenes are powerful as Jason, normally the black sheep of the family, has to deal with the fact that heās one of few left. Why wasnāt Bruce prepared? Why was he the one left and not Dick or Tim? Damianās still alive in Metropolis, but effectively, Jason is all alone. Mostert and I believe Neil Edwards show Jasonās love for his family as he carves out wooden headstones and buries them in the cave. Without a word of dialogue, this speaks volumes about Jasonās love for his family.
Elsewhere in Gotham, Ravager, Rose Wilson with a missing eye, unlike her main continuity counterpart, is curled up in her apartment in fear. The zombies are pounding on her door when Slade radios in and tells her itās time to escape. Rose has the ability to see into the future in short bursts and sees that everytime she goes for the door, Zombies come through and kill her. Deathstroke, however, has a plan. As a side note, itās great to see Rose in gear similar to what she wore in Geoff Johnsā āTeen Titansā while also complementing Deathstrokeās current armor.
Unfortunately for Deathstroke, as he keeps his eyes to the sky, he sees the terror that is an infected Man-Bat flying at him with a terrifying SCReeeee as he crashes through the window and smashes the plane on the roof Rose runs to her dad and, believing him to be infected, plunges her sword through his chest and he screams āOw.ā This scene is pure comedy made even better by the dramatic rain and fire in the background. Soon after, Mirror Master, Evan McCulloch, shows up offering them help.
I donāt know what the reason is for using the Scottish version of the character, but it doesnāt really matter as the representation of the Mirror Dimension is still cool as hell. While wearing special glasses that block signals, they walk through the dimension and Mostert draws an epic depiction of it with all of the violence, gore and death through the many mirrors while the characters look miniscule compared to the vastness of it all. The Mirror Dimension has always been terrifying and McCulloch could do a lot to solve the problem, but it makes sense that he doesnāt. Cause itās terrifying.
After many pages, we arrive at the rest of the stars (fodder) of the series in Vandal Savage, Solomon Grundy, The Creeper, Cheetah, Lady Shiva, Bane, Deadshot and Captain Cold. I do have a bit of a continuity issue as Cold was shown to have been one of the Infected during the events of āA Good Place to Die,ā but alternatively this series could explain how he got there or, much like that story, itās off base with whatās happening in the main pages. But some of these additions are pretty interesting to say the very least.
Savage is near immortal, but has been shown to have been killed before. Thereās a high chance that using Deathstroke, heāll find a way to cure and rule over the people of the Earth after the heroes leave. Grundy is already dead, so can he get infected? The Creeper is much like Deathstroke in that he can heal from anything, so it makes sense that heās managed to survive. Cheetah is strong and fast, but I donāt rate her chances high and the rest, while immensely skilled, are still just human. This is a ragtag group, but theyāre not averse to getting the job done by any means.
The rest of the issue focuses on Jason Todd and his fight to rescue the remaining members of the Batfamily. Mostert, Lokus and John Livesay give readers an awesome assault on the Gotham PD with Cassandra Cain as Black Bat, James Gordon and Harvey Bullock fighting back against the zombies. Cass awesomely kicks and knees zombies in the background while Harvey and Jim shoot them. I LOVED Cass as Batgirl/Black Bat and it was awesome to see the return of the iconic costume and a character that I like so much.
Of course, Temofonte thrills with the lettering here again. She sells the panic in both Jim and Bullock as they fight off the horde as well as the frankness of Bullock as he has to break it to Jim that Blck Bat is the only one coming. The static-y bubbles that she uses on Bullock when he gets infected is also amazing and saddening, but gets even worse when Cass has to āCRCKā his neck to kill him. Soon after, Jason plows through the GCPD in the Batmobile with a āCRNNNCHā that shrinks around the vehicle.
Jason rescues Cass and Jim after shooting the remaining zombies in the head and plans to get the hell out of dodge. Jim, still holding out on the idea of hope, tells Jason that Barbara is still out there somewhere, but Jason, knowing that itās no longer the time to keep secrets, reveals his and Cassā identities and shows Jim that Barb is dead. He then takes the haggard detective to her last known location and Mostert and Lokus sell the utter despair of the scene.
Infected versions of Barb, Stephanie Brown, Batwoman and Catwoman were killed by Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn in Issue #3 of DCeased (if I remember right). This scene of James finding his daughter is depressingly grey and his facial expressions show us just how painful this is for him. Heās lost just about everything and cries in his grief. Jason, however, finds the dead body of the Joker and ties him to the front of the Batmobile before they all make their escape to Bludhaven.
This first issue of a three part miniseries already has me as excited as the original story did. I love each of the characters being used, the callbacks to past history and the way that everyone is being written. Each of these violent characters sees that thereās no need to hold back anymore as the regular rules are tossed out of the window. Everyone now has different amounts of pain and grief to deal with while others have different hopes of power or a cure. Ultimately, I donāt think things will end ultra well given the events of the main series, but I have no doubts that this will stand on its own.
Tom Taylor continues to be excellent when writing the despair and tragedies of DCeased and lifting up lesser characters, like The Creeper. His scripting and dialogue are a joy to read and I really feel like heās got a grasp on everyone. Karl Mostert brings their all to this book with awesome panels and scenes that make readers want to wince, but look again to see the utter brutality of what theyāre witnessing. His art is stellar. The various inkers definitely bring it to life alongside Lokusā vibrant colors and Temofonteās amazing letters.
Iām already gleefully anticipating the next issue and it more than justifies the $5.99 price, high recommend!
Also, y'know, support me on Patreon: patreon.com/TyTalksComics
#dceased#dceased unkillables#jason todd#cassandra cain#james gordon#deathstroke#rose wilson#tom taylor#karl mostert#rex lokus#saida temofonte#dc comics#comic books#comics#zombies
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