#say asshole shithead and abuser like the rest of us

[cathzinsmuln]

just blocked someone for being annoying and insufferable life is good 👍

[spitblaze]

Okay I've witnessed it happening enough in Queer Internet Circles that I think I can confidently say something about it.

Can we PLEASE stop picking arbitrary lgbt+ demographics out of a hat and having entire conversations about how they 'aren't actually queer' and 'taking valuable resources' for the crimes of 'some of them are cringe' or 'some of them are assholes' or 'they have a nebulous privilege over the rest of us so they're the oppressor, actually'.

Like look, some conversations are absolutely worth having. There's a lot of transmasc shitheads who latch on to toxic masculinity or seem to completely forget what it's like to navigate a world that considers you a woman, or completely fail to realize that being transgender yourself doesn't suddenly mean you don't have to examine yourself for internalized transphobia or transmisogyny. And that should be addressed, every community has its issues, no community is a monolith, no demographic is made up of entirely good smart righteous people or evil bad oppressive abusers. Obviously.

But I'm not talking about that!

I'm talking about people bringing up the same tired rhetoric they used when they tried to claim that nonbinary people are clout-chasing attention seekers who will keep cishet society from taking the rest of us seriously, that people used when they decided asexuals were actually cishets who co-opted our movement for their own personal gain, which was recycled from when people tried to claim that bisexuals are het-passing fakers and if a REAL queer has sex with one they'll be left for a cishet because that's what bisexuals do, which is the same as the shit they spewed at whoever the target was before that! It's paranoid nonsense all the way down, people looking for an acceptable target to take their shit out on!

Can we stop doing this, please?? Can we stop picking demographics within our own community that people arbitrarily decide are fine to bully and mock and kick out of the spaces they helped create because you think that they're cringe or that speaking about the issues they face is privileged whining? Can we stop giving bigoted cishets free reign on already vulnerable communities because someone arbitrarily decided that THESE queers are evil and cringe so its okay to make shitty comments and jokes about them? Can we PLEASE stop the cycle in its tracks while we can still see the crosshairs moving onto tranfems and trans women? We can stop this now before it starts getting uglier and deadlier, but we HAVE to be aware and do more than complaining about it online.

[onesidedradiostatic]

Real talk

Im sooooo tired of Vox always being portrayed as the victim and Alastor the only one 100% responsible for their friendship falling apart

Did we all suddenly forgot that Vox is a terrible person too? He brainwashes his audience, he supports Val, he is willing to offer his lowest employees for Val to kill, he's also prob abusive to his employees as well, he stalks pretty much everyone, he has like 5 cameras inside Angel's dressing room, also it's like implied he's jealous of Angel because he gets Val's attention, him being jealous of Angel for being a victim of abuse is pretty messed up if you ask me. Oh he also told Sir Pentious to fucking kill himself and he also gets hard of seeing people in pain and get hurt! (Sure it was Alastor but still messed up)

" he looks so sad at the end of stayed gone when Alastor threatens him I feel so bad for him:(("

Really ? Well maybe if he had just kept his little hate boner for Al to himself instead of feeling to need to start publicly slandering him it wouldn't had happened. Just saying. Also I don't see how people feel bad for him. If anything he looks so extremely pathetic it's laughable I want to kick him

Okay this is kinda out of the point I want to make it's just many people who make him the victim seem to forget he's a terrible person so I just wanted to friendly remind everyone that he's as awful as Al ^^

Anyway

I think, we should acknowledge, that it's a complicated, and probably tragic, situation. What if, maybe, they're both as equal at fault for shit going down hills for their friendship. Vox because he doesn't respect others wishes and cannot take no for an answer, he prob tried forcing Al to move on with recent technology, which Al hates. ((His request to Al to join the Vees also prob meant catching up with the nowdays stuff and new technology, like the rest of them)) and Al because he was prob unnecessary cruel and brutal with his rejection.

I don't think Al was just using Vox like I've seen many people say. He allowed Vox to take a picture of them together. For Al to do that I think it confirms their friendship was genuine. "Ah but it's Alastor so that means it was fake cuz he's an evil manipulative bastard who only cares for him-" You're wrong, but also right lol. He's an evil manipulative bastard, but , he's also capable of genuine friendships with others (( did y'all forget Rosie lol? )). What I think happened is that, time passed , things changed. Vox became obsessed with new technology and tried to force Al to follow in, Al didn't like that, but instead of communicating with eachother and solving their problems by talking it out and respect eachother's wishes, they had an unnecessary argument and fight. They're both to blame for this, they're no victims in the situation and it's okay you can still sympathise with eithers side

Also people who make Al the villain for like not returning Vox's confession and feelings in most One sided Radiostatic videos/fics I've seen-- yikes.. I really hate that I have to literally say to PLEASE don't villiantise the aroace character for being aroace and rejecting confessions. It's extremely ace/arophonic (and yes I get to have a say to this, I'm a replused aroace videos/fics like this genuinely make me feel negative emotions) even if he was extremely cruel with his rejection -- villiantise the fact that he's an asshole- not his rejection.

yes I agree!! this is essentially a consolidation of points I've made before ksdlfglg

like yes, alastor's an absolute shithead but I think there are some people who forget that vox is also... not a good person. I don't think there's anything wrong with there being sympathetic aspects to vox but I feel like there's such a huge amount of fanwork where he's the only one portrayed sympathetically without showing his own bad points in their relationship, and I absolutely hate it when alastor is fully blamed for how vox is now and vox is seen as

yeah

vox got pissy at a rejection, that's not being able to take no for an answer, that's incel behaviour LMAO

feel like there's something to be said about people feeling the need to sympathise with the one with unrequited feelings compared to the one who has to deal with someone expecting romance from them when they don't feel the same. does it have to do with society's expectations about romance that unrequited feelings are more sympathisable?

but yeah I am glad that at least the "complicated" part of the description of their relationship implies to me it won't be as simple as "vox was the poor victim and alastor was just using him", I think it is much more interesting if there's no clear victim and both were at fault in a way

[torturedfujoshidepartment]

May I please see some general Bill dating headcanons? I'd prefer fem, but gn is great too! Thank you.

⚠️General dating HCs for bill⚠️

(I am writing about epilogue bill

ヽ(*´∀｀) )

Cw: mention of physical abuse, bill being a creep, this man is walking caution warning

Rating: suggestive

⚠️people will say this till the cows come home. Bill is a asshole naturally.

⚠️So if by some luck you manage to woo him, good speed 🫡

⚠️ Bills ideal type is all over the place. If you like the same nerd shit as him he’ll either be all over it or say you’re doing it for his attention.

⚠️PDA is a big no go from your end, he’ll only touch you (arm around your waist/ hand on your ass) if he’s trying to “show off”

⚠️He doesn’t bring up the fact he’s dating unless someone brings up his relationship status to bully him

⚠️“actually, I have a girlfriend unlike you tards!”

⚠️And never brings it up again 😭

⚠️ If you steal his shirts to wear, be prepared to get your ass kicked.

⚠️“YOURE GOING TO STRETCH THEM OUT!!!”

⚠️ If he’s feeling nice he’ll let you borrow one to sleep in

⚠️If he finds out you use it as a pillow case or actually wear it he’ll call you clingy (his face is practically red)

⚠️Bill doesn’t like cuddling if you initiate it, he HAS TO BE the big spoon (you end up being the big spoon)

⚠️If you are doing something, bill will stand behind you and stare at you silently. breathing down your neck. He doesn’t realize how creepy it is

🤍“why are you looking at me?”

⚠️ “…what?”

⚠️ If you’re shorter than Bill, be prepared to be his armrest. He’ll stand over you and rest his chin on your head just to piss you off if you’re not giving him attention

⚠️He’s like a cat. A stinky one

⚠️He’ll only shower regularly if it means joining you in the shower…will ask to play with your boobs

⚠️ “C’mon just one squee-“

🤍“Wash your ass bill you stink!”

⚠️Bills gross, he’ll go through your dirty laundry to sniff your clothes (he’ll gaslight you if you catch him in the act

⚠️Will make you sit though his favourite and least favourite movies

⚠️“the producers totally ruined the second movie with this woke bullshit!”

🤍 “Mhm…yeah”

⚠️Most fights between him and you end in a physical confrontation (yeah, it’s rough out here. Women’s shelter down the block bro😭)

⚠️After these fights he’ll silently stare at you and mumble, “sorry…” and hug you.

⚠️He obviously thinks this absolves him of any wrong doings, you make him sleep on the couch for a week

⚠️if you two go to a con, he’ll make you dress up.

⚠️“It’s different when you’re doing it you’re not some cosplay whore!”

🤍“Thanks…?”

⚠️His dorky ass will bring his good quality camera to take photos of you (creep shots)

🤍“Bill, do you have to stand under me…”

⚠️ “Yes.”

over all bill is a shithead and if you stay will him that’s on you gang😭

[maxwell-grant]

What are your thoughts on Jekyll/Hyde and his archetype of the human periodically changing into a monster ?

Jekyll & Hyde was the 2nd horror story I read following Frankenstein, I got it off the same library and it always stuck very strongly with me even before I got into horror in general. I even dressed up as Jekyll/Hyde as a kid for a school fair by shredding a lab coat on one side and asking my sister to make-up claw gashes on my exposed arm and paint half of my face, although in hindsight I think I ended up looking more like Doctor Two-Face than Jekyll/Hyde, but I was 12 and didn't have any Victorian clothing to use so I had to make do. The first film project I tried doing at film school was intended to be a modern take on Jekyll & Hyde, and I didn't get much farther than a couple of discarded scripts

Much like Frankenstein, Mr Hyde as a character and a story is something that's kind of baked into everything I do artistically. And it's not just me, as even in pop culture itself, none of us can escape Mr Hyde. I would go so far as to argue Mr Hyde may be the single most significant character created by victorian fiction, if only by the sheer impact and legacy the character's had.

(Fan-art by guilhermefranco)

Part of what makes Mr Hyde such a powerful and lasting icon of pop culture is that the very premise of the book invites a personal reading that's gonna vary from person to person. Because everyone's familiar with the basic twist of the story, that it's a conflict of duality, of the good and evil sides, but everyone has a more personal idea of what those entail. Some people make the story more about class. A lot of readings laser-focus on sex and lust as the driving force, and there's also a lot of readings of Mr Hyde that tackle it to explore a more gendered perspective, and so forth.

I don't particularly take much notice of the Jekyll & Hyde adaptations partially because the novel's premise and themes have become baked so throughly into pop culture and explored in so many different and interesting ways, that I'm not particularly starving for good Jekyll & Hyde adaptations the way I am for Dracula and Frankenstein. The Fredric March film in particular is one that orbits my head less because of the film itself (although I do recommend it), but because of one specific scene, and that's when Jekyll first transforms into Hyde on screen.

Out of all the things they could have shown him doing right that second, they instead took the time to show him enjoying the rain.

Just Hyde taking off his hat and letting it all cascade on his face with this sheer enthusiasm like he's never been to the rain before, never enjoyed it before, and now that he's free from being Jekyll, he gets to enjoy life like he never has before. It's such an oddly humanizing moment to put amidst a horror movie, in the scene where you're ostensibly introducing the monster to the audience, and it makes such a stark contrast to the rest of the film where Hyde is completely irredeemable, but I think it's that contrast that makes the film's take on Hyde work so well even with it's diverging from the source material, even if I don't particularly like in general interpretations of Hyde that are focused on a sexual aspect.

Because one, it understands that Jekyll was fundamentally a self-serving coward and not a paragon of goodness, and two, it also understands one of the things that makes Hyde scary: He wants what all of us want, to live and be happy. He's happy when he leaves the lab and dances around in the rain like a giddy child, he's happy when he goes to places Jekyll couldn't dream of showing up, he's happy as a showgirl-abusing sexual predator. Hyde is all wants, all the time, and there's not that much difference between his wants, his domineering possessiveness, and the likes exhibited by Muriel's father and Jekyll's own within the very same film, which also works to emphasize one of the other ideas of the original story, that Edward Hyde doesn't come from nowhere. That no monster is closer to humanity than Mr Hyde, because he is us. He is the thing that Jekyll refused to take responsability for until it was too late.

(Art by LorenzoMastroianni)

While many of the ideas that defined Mr Hyde had already been explored in pop culture beforehand, Hyde popularized and redefined many of them in particular by modernizing the idea. He was the werewolf, the doppelganger, The Player On The Other Side, except he came from within. He was not transformed by circumstance, he made himself that way, and the elixir merely brought out something already inside his soul. To acknowledge that he's there is to acknowledge that he is you, and to not do that is to either lose to him, or perish. Hyde was there to address both the rot settling in Victorian society as well as grappling concerns over Darwinian heritage, of the realization that man has always had the beast inside of him (it's no accident that Hyde's main method of murder is by clubbing people to death with his cane like a caveman).

I've already argued on my post about Tarzan that the Wild Man archetype, beginning with Enkidu of The Epic of Gilgamesh, is the in-between man and beast, between superhero and monster, and that Mr Hyde is an essential component of the superhero's trajectory, as the creature split in between. That stories about dual personalities, doppelgangers, the duality of the soul, the hero with a day job and an after dark career, you can pinpoint Hyde as a turning point in how all of these solidified gradually in pop culture. And I've argued otherwise that The Punisher, for all that his image and narrative points otherwise, is ultimately just as much of a superhero as the rest of them, even if no one wants to admit it, drawing a parallel between The Punisher and Mr Hyde. And he's far from the only modern character that can invite this kind of parallel.

The idea of a regular person periodically or permanently transforming into, or revealing itself to be, something extraordinary and fantastic and scary, grappling with the divide it causes in their soul, and questions whether it's a new development or merely the truest parts of themselves coming to light at last, and the effects this transformation has for good and bad alike. The idea of a potent, dangerous, unpredictable enemy who ultimately is you, or at least a facet of you and what you can do. That these are bound to destroy each other if not reconciled with or overcome.

You know what are my thoughts on the archetype of "human periodically changing into a monster" are? Look around you and you're gonna see the myriad ways The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde's themes have manifested in the century and a half since the story's release. Why it shouldn't be any surprise whatsoever that Mr Hyde has become such an integral part of pop culture, in it's heroes and monsters alike. Why we can never escape Mr Hyde, just as Jekyll never could.

It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character that almost every country in the world has learned to fear and despise. Our Barbie-doll president, with his Barbie-doll wife and his boxful of Barbie-doll children is also America's answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde.

He speaks for the Werewolf in us; the bully, the predatory shyster who turns into something unspeakable, full of claws and bleeding string-warts on nights when the moon comes too close… - Hunter S. Thompson

There is a scene in the movie Pulp Fiction that explains almost every terrible thing happening in the news today. And it's not the scene where Ving Rhames shoots that guy's dick off. It's the part where the hit man played by John Travolta is talking about how somebody vandalized his car, and says this:

"Boy, I wish I could've caught him doing it. I'd have given anything to catch that asshole doing it. It'd been worth him doing it, just so I could've caught him doing it."

That last sentence is something everyone should understand about mankind. After all, the statement is completely illogical -- revenge is supposed to be about righting a wrong. But he wants to be wronged, specifically so he'll have an excuse to get revenge. We all do.

Why else would we love a good revenge movie? We sit in a theater and watch Liam Neeson's daughter get kidnapped. We're not sad about it, because we know he's a badass and he finally has permission to be awesome. Not a single person in that theater was rooting for it to all be an innocent misunderstanding. We wanted Liam to be wronged, because we wanted to see him kick ass. It's why so many people walk around with vigilante fantasies in their heads.

Long, long ago, the people in charge figured out that the easiest and most reliable way to bind a society together was by controlling and channeling our hate addiction. That's the reason why seeing hurricane wreckage on the news makes us mumble "That's sad" and maybe donate a few bucks to the Red Cross hurricane fund, while 9/11 sends us into a decade-long trillion-dollar rage that leaves the Middle East in flames.

The former was caused by wind; the latter was caused by monsters. The former makes us kind of bummed out; the latter gets us high.

It's easy to blame the news media for pumping us full of stories of mass shootings and kidnapped children, but that's stopping one step short of the answer: The media just gives us what we want. And what we want is to think we're beset on all sides by monsters.

The really popular stories will always feature monsters that are as different from us as possible. Think about Star Wars -- what real shithead has ever referred to himself as being on "the dark side"? In Harry Potter and countless fantasy universes, you have wizards working in "black magic" and the "dark arts." Can you imagine a scientist developing some technology for chemical weapons or invasive advertising openly thinking of what he does as "dark science"? Can you imagine a real world leader naming his headquarters "The Death Star" or "Mount Doom"?

Of course not. But we need to believe that evil people know they're evil, or else that would open the door to the fact that we might be evil without knowing it. I mean, sure, maybe we've bought chocolate that was made using child slaves or driven cars that poisoned the air, but we didn't do it to be evil -- we were simply doing whatever we felt like and ignoring the consequences. Not like Hitler and the bankers who ruined the economy and those people who burned the kittens -- they wake up every day intentionally dreaming up new evils to create. It's not like Hitler actually thought he was saving the world.

So no matter how many times you vote to cut food stamps and then use the money to buy a boat, you could still be way worse. You could, after all, be one of those murdering / lazy / ignorant / greedy / oppressive monsters that you know the world is full of, and that only your awesome moral code prevents you from turning into at any moment. And those monsters are out there.

They have to be. Because otherwise, we're the monsters - 5 Reasons Humanity Desperately Wants Monsters To Be Real, by Jason Pargin

(Two-Face sequence comes from the end of Batman Annual #14: Eye of the Beholder)

For good or bad, Hyde has become omnipresent. He's a part of our superheroes, he's a part of our supervillains, he's in our monsters. He lives and prattles in our ears, sometimes we need him to survive, and sometimes we become Hyde even when we don't need to, because our survival instincts or base cruelties or desperation brings out the worst in us. Sometimes we can beat him, and sometimes he's not that bad. Sometimes we do need to appease him and listen to what he says, about us and the world around us. And sometimes we need to do so specifically to prove him wrong and beat him again.

But he never, ever goes away, as he so accurately declares in the musical

Do you really think That I would ever let you go...

Do you think I'd ever set you free?

If you do, I'm sad to say It simply isn't so

You will never get away FROM MEEEEEE

(Art by Akreon on Artstation)

[with-the-same-tattoos]

Horror fans horror stans I am So sorry for fooling u into following me w my few last posts I mostly draw ocs and stuff I’m just going through a coping mechanism phase... i think... ok i used to watch horror movies a lot as a kid but like... yeah

also some super personalized analysis of the boy stuff underneath the cut bc Brahms hits different from some angles. As. Movies tend to do.Angles............... But yeah also spoilers an speculations

So anyways. s probs a lil fucked up that my immediate assumption was that, 8 yo Brahms, murderer or not, made the decision to burn down a house and live the rest of his life like a rat.... like too much fore planning but they depict the parents so well as sympathetic, that somehow my brain was like.. "yeah they probably did nothing wrong :)" and its such a massive like... i grew up with one parent who has strong manipulative tendencies, and one who has some slight unknowing manipulative moves, and it's visible in my grandparents too... n realizing that made me understand just how messy brahms' sitch is. Like, the vibe I get is, he's the type of insecure, sad and mean thing that thinks he needs to manipulate people into caring about him, not realizing that a non- calculative friendship, whatever is possible. Which he learned from his parents, i assume yada yada... who, they arent bad people, but probably grew up with similiar experiences, whatever. A loop of unrealized / excused bad behaviour... etc etc... khh   I think i got so massively attached immediately bcs I see myself in Brahms in that like... i see myself as someone who has falsified everything about themself to fool people into loving them, while being a complete failiour of a person, who in truth is a gross, hairy, socially incompitent shithead. Which is, imposter syndrome for dummies, but you know.... i still like... holds brahms gently... he may be an asshole but i also very much care abt him...... i am thinkinh about him a lot rn...

So yeah Pspspspspsps come back, come out of the walls pspspspsps, I just wanna talk, I just wanna be friends......

(Yeah me suddenly getting overly exited about somerhing dumb and over-armchair-emotion analyzing stupid characters) (im a fair bit sure he was more meant as an allegory for the type of abusive person who becomes / acts dependant on their victim, and its honestly kinda problematic to stomp over that message and focus on smth completely different... not sure if this is an appropriate comfort character :( but i have yet to come across another one who reflects the traits I fear of having so perfectly. Complicated) ( but yeah the boy is actually a pretty powerful movie) ( i say as i have no idea about movies.... idk what makes them good or bad) (but it was pretty powerful to me :)) 

[annikasafternoonread]

So. That’s The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Thoughts. I have them. This is going to be a long one, folks, so buckle in.

I guess my overall report would be... better than expected. That might sound like faint praise, but I had serious reservations coming into this book. I think a lot of people were concerned when it was first announced. And I certainly think those reactions were warranted and valid and I don’t regret them -- this book could have been a mess. 

It wasn’t. It didn’t try to rehabilitate Snow, didn’t try to make him relatable or sympathetic or misunderstood or a victim. It didn’t do any of that. Snow was a privileged, bigoted, ignorant, self-centered asshole with a superiority complex the size of a planet. Collins got that much right at least. We can see some of the forces that conspired to make him that way, but they don’t make him any less of a terrible person who did terrible things for terrible reasons.

But. That kind of character... is not the most fun to read, honestly. I don’t love spending this much time reading a book that just makes me angry. I don’t love spending this much time with a person I hate. I think I’m glad I read it, to know more what it was and to gain some interesting context about the world, but I don’t think I’d read it again. And I don’t know that I’d recommend it. If I did, it would come with some heavy caveats on there. 

So that’s my overall impression: better than expected, worth reading once and no more. On to some more specific hot takes.

So first off, Lucy Gray. I love her in a lot of ways, but she also confused me and I was a little disappointed by other aspects. She’s fun and talented and sweet, but girl what the fuck do you see in Snow he’s a shithead I mean less of a shithead to you, at least compared to the rest of the Capitol, and he did sort of save her life so like Florence Nightingale Syndrome or whatever, but ugh. Gross. I really really really wanted her to be playing him. And I’m not entirely sure she’s not.

As she says when talking about Billy Taupe being a possessive jealous asshole, flirting with people is part of the job description when you’re a performer and entertainer. It’s what she does. It’s what she’s always done. It’s what’s kept her alive for years, being charming and sweet and desirable and making people love her. And now in the Games, she’s relying on Snow to keep her alive. So the more he wants to keep her alive, the better. And if he’s in love with her, and thinks that she’s in love with him, then he’ll be very invested in keeping her alive. As Snow notes at the end, she killed quite a few people, in ways that could have been self-preservation or happenstance or mercy, but could also have been calculated as fuck. It’s hard to say.

I can’t tell you how much I hoped that she’d be cool towards him after the Games, that it would have been all for show and Snow would run back to the barracks with his tail between his legs. She didn’t, which is a big part of why I don’t think she was playing him. Her joy, her kisses, her invitations to spend time together, her song, it doesn’t seem like a lie. But on the other hand, maybe thumbing her nose at a Peacekeeper and Capitol high muckity-muck wouldn’t have been a smart move. Maybe having a Peacekeeper on your side, and someone with Capitol connections, would have been very handy. After all, he kept bringing them ice and baked goods and such. If they could keep him close, he might stand up for them if the Peacekeepers wanted to ban them (which they eventually did a few months later, so the Covey probably knew it was a possibility). He might or warn them if something bad was coming. 

The thing that swung me back to “maybe” is how fast she went from “let’s run away to the woods together and be free” to “I’m gonna sic a snake on this motherfucker.” Like, yes he deserved that, but he always deserved it. That’s a hell of a swing for a few hours. Was it just realizing he might have sold out Sejanus that swung her opinion? Was there something else instead or as well? Did that push her to make new connections, or finally tip over the pile of reservations she’d been ignoring? Maybe. But it just seems... like it might have been more than that. Like maybe she was planning to ditch him anyways, though I can’t imagine why. Idk, the theory doesn’t hold together terribly well, but neither does Lucy Gray’s infatuation with another shitty possessive abusive man. Or maybe that’s just patterns. 

The question of what happened to Lucy Gray honestly doesn’t interest me that much. I’m sure there’s plenty of speculation and opinions and headcanons about whether she returned to District 12 or escaped to the wilds or died there in the woods, but frankly I don’t care. Oh, I hope she lived, but it’s not relevant. There isn’t an answer, so I’m not terribly interested in figuring it out. 

What I do find interesting is Dean Highbottom. He’s a very ironic character, in my opinion. He tells us at the end that he thought up the Hunger Games in a class assignment “to create a punishment for one’s enemies so extreme that they would never be allowed to forget how they had wronged you.” He didn’t actually want the Hunger Games to be real or think they ever could be, and he felt terrible about even submitting the assignment (against his will). He turned to drugs when the proposal was brought forward and became real, because he was so horrified. He didn’t believe in that kind of vengeance, didn’t want to keep that hatred alive. He didn’t think that was what humanity was or should be. 

And yet. His response to Papa Snow’s betrayal in submitting an assignment about punishing innocent children for a crime they didn’t commit was to punish Snow for a crime he didn’t commit. So maybe he’s wrong about humans, or at least about himself. 

I don’t think Dr. Gaul is right about human nature being inherently evil and violent and selfish, though. Put us in the right circumstances and maybe, sure, but we don’t have to be in those circumstances. She’s so caught up in the eternal war, and obviously you can’t stop a war if you believe it’s still going. And maybe eventually if you’re not hardass there’ll be another one, but maybe there won’t! And goodness knows being hardass didn’t stop the next war! It’s impossible to say for sure that if the Capitol/all of Panem had been more fair and just and kind, the next war wouldn’t have been sooner, but it’s also impossible to say that it wouldn’t have been later, or never. That seems worth fighting for. Dr. Gaul terrifies me, obviously, but she also kind of just makes me sad. What a depressing worldview. She doesn’t see it that way, I’m sure, just sees it as a challenge and a game, but it is sad. 

The rest of my thoughts are less expansive, so let’s just bullet point them:

Propaganda works terrifyingly well. Be careful of your internalized biases and the messaging being fed to you.

The effects of pride and honour and position are wild. Snow was simultaneously crushed and elevated by them, as was Sejanus. 

Speaking of Sejanus, he deserved better. I love my son. 

The fuck was up with Clemensia? They never really resolved that. Is she actually okay? Did her skin grow back? How the hell did that happen? Could she have turned into a snake? Why was she so cutting and mean and unlike herself? Was Gaul controlling her somehow? Why did they refuse to tell her parents anything? But also how could she manage to escape from her room to sneak in on Snow? What the fuck? 

I love the full circle of a Mockingjay bringing Snow up, as Lucy Gray’s voice and fame helped him to rise and bloom, to gain Dr. Gaul’s favor and the Plinths’ money, pulling him out of his , and then a Mockingjay tearing him down, when he crossed Katniss and put her family in danger and she decided he had to die. 

This was a fucking essay, which I feel a little bad about, but I had a lot of thoughts and feelings okay? XD For anyone who actually read this whole thing, you are a saint, you deserve several cookies, I don’t have a way to give you any so here is instead a picture of my kitten using TBOSAS as a pillow.

Have a good day! See you soon for Mockingjay Part 2.

[handlewcaare]

When one read the comic books, being a teenage hero was a helluva lot easier than it was.

Spiderman didn’t have to watch his grades gradually plummet with each “emergency” meeting the Avengers set up for him. Nor did he have to turn in half finished homework because he forgot to do it when he ran off to handle a Behemoth of a beast. It was smooth sails for the likes of some friendly neighborhood vigilante.

Badd wished it was that simple.

He couldn’t complain it was all that rough. Kids at school knew of his devestating strength, so much so that a few would text him about a monster nearby. At times, he’d handle a monster in exchange for a free tutoring session for a class he was struggling in. It was a fair exchange, a life for a decent test grade.

Some people at school would greet him, but he was hardly popular. If anything, he was just as good as company as a cardboard cut out. Someone to briefly pause what he was doing to stoically pose for a photo-op. Though, some people just assumed he wasn’t as friendly as the stature he put on.

“Badd, right?”

His brow arched, momentarily breaking the signature snarl he naturally adorned (it wasn’t a scowl, it was just his face). The voice came from a girl who’s face was speckled with a constellation of freckles. He knew of her, that she was a new transfer student from H-City, but he never got to know who she really was.

“Ya know anyone else that looks like me?”

“Yeah,” the girl remarked, “hate to say it but a pompadour isn’t exactly a unique feat of yours.” Despite his frown, she went on to resume, “I was gonna ask if you had a spare hair tie.”

Out of all the things she could have asked him to do, she asked for a meager hair tie. She might as well have asked a practical mountain of a man to do her makeup. What an odd thing to ask, “how the hell do ya know I even have one??”

What should have been a snide remark about how he always had a spare hair tie for his little sister was accented with a shrug, “The girls in my track team say you do. I don’t mind using my shoelaces though—!”

“Ya can do that??” He implored as he surrendered the hair tie that was nestled within his pants pocket, “wouldn’t it be flying out of yer hair or somethin’ ?”

“You just have to know how to tie it,” after she briefly gave her thanks, she secured her dark hair within a high-ponytail. After a beat, she made a full presentation of the bun atop of her crown. “Ta-da! How does it look?”

“Like a pineapple.”

What insult would have made girls scoff or bark out a bigger insult at him only prompted a wrinkle from the girl’s nose as she laughed. Her grin radiant, almost contagious for a guy renowned for his intimidating glare. It didn’t take the girl long to skip back to her team—‘thanks Badd!’ She would chirp over her shoulder—and he offered a small wave of goodbye to her.

To say it had been the last time they spoke would have been a blatant lie. The girl, who’s name was revealed to be Hikari, would be variant in her greetings. Some days would just be utter small talk: ‘how are you?’ ‘Fine, you?’ ‘Could be better,’ and other days would be exclusively full of excitement. Most notably were they the days that she had just finished her track season or after practice:

“—what I’m saying is that Ayame started acting funny when she dropped the baton,” Hikari said as the two of them sat along the edge of the rooftop during lunch. Her brows furrowed as she plucked a piece of grilled salmon out of her bento box and set it over for Badd to eat.

“Ya still won though, right?”

“Yeah, but it was like something startled her? I can’t say what exactly, but she got a little frazzled after the tournament,” she hummed as she pursed her lips, “maybe ‘m overthinking it.”

“Ya gotta bad habit of that,” he quipped as he took a bite of the surrendered salmon, “she prolly jumped cus she dropped it.”

As it turned out, that wasn’t wholly the case.

The more he talked to Hikari throughout the months in school, the more exposure he got from Ayame. How she often would ask for one of her friends to come with her to the bathroom or how she would stay longer than an hour or two after practice. He wasn’t a psychologist, but Hikari’s concern became more understandable.

Once he was invited to eat lunch with Hikari and her track team, that was when he met Ayame.

As always, Hikari was rather jovial with introductions. Her excitability practically lightened the mood, even when some girls felt a little unnerved to be around a guy who could easily crush a monster’s skull with an indestructible weapon. Those girls he left very well alone for their comfort. The others were met with his gruff nature, he wasn’t sure whether Hikari told them he had a soft spot or not, but Ayame was the one who stood out the most.

The girl was kind and soft-spoken. She loved talking about her cat named Sakusa and she couldn’t help but find pictures of Tama to be an absolute delight. Though, Badd couldn’t lie, Sakusa was just as adorable.

The thing was she couldn’t afford to look him in the eye, nor could she barely manage a tone beyond a small murmur. When Badd would growl out a ‘huh??’ over a mean jest, she would flinch instinctively. Such a response evoked a small ‘sorry’ from the bat-wielding hero.

Lunch became rather awkward between them after that. Fortune came in Hikari’s emotional intelligence, otherwise Badd would have tried to make some means of dramatic compensation. He picked up a giant bouquet of roses for Zenko’s concert when he missed her piano recital once.

It wasn’t until school was no longer in session that he caught a glimpse of Ayame retreat to an older man. Her arms folded across her chest, though the heightened bark of the man made her flinch once more.

The man could have blended in well with the white collar types: nicely trimmed suit, slick back hair and an expensive pair of gloves that would have made Amai Mask green with envy. Their insignia was rather reminiscent to a bamboo lily.

He didn’t just have money, he had money to buy himself out of consequences.

By now, the grip around his signature bat became rigid in a white-knuckled grasp. His storm merely accented with a twirl of his instrument to rest atop of his broad shoulder.

“—and I told you to do the dishes!” The older man exasperatingly barked, “the hell were you doing??”

“I just...” Ayame paused as she shuffled closer to the masonry, “I h-had practice okay? It’s not a big deal—“

“It is a big deal!” His voice was now a tornado that swam tension within the air. His face was beet red and his fists practically quivered from the intensity of his own storm, “I had my fuckin’ brother over and—!”

Without a hint of hesitance, Badd rammed the hilt of his bat directly into the man’s diaphragm. The sheer velocity of his strength evoked a shriek from Ayame and a wheeze from the stranger. Had he known he shattered a rib or two, he probably would have offered a menacing simper.

“Do Yer own damn dishes next time,” when the man attempted to scramble to his full height, Badd hadn’t hesitated to step in front of Ayame. It wasn’t everyday he handled an abusive shithead, but they were marginally easier to handle than a stray papermache volcano come to life.

As the man scowled, his glare dripped over to Ayame, “this isn’t over—!” Once the threat had seeped, Badd simply let his metallic instrument slam into the concrete. A cobweb of weight bloomed under the strain.

“You bet Yer ass it is,”

This was a monster, no doubt, but he had heard from Daichi that some monsters liked to isolate their victims. Norte dam syndrome or something like that. As soon as the man retreated, Ayame began to present signs and symptoms of that.

“He wasn’t going to hurt me,” her voice was distant compared to the staggering man who retreated with a very polite warning. “He was just being an ass, okay? You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know what bein’ an ass is,” Badd scoffed, “and that wasn’t it.”

Being an ass meant Hikari poking fun of Badd crying in the middle of Zenko’s piano performance or Badd poking fun of Hikari not knowing how to do algebra, but being able to chemistry. Neither of them would have dared to clench their fist at the other, let alone make the other flinch in response.

Ayame only shook her head, “no, he just... he didn’t mean it.”

“ ‘s that what he tells ya?”

“Of course not, I—“ she sighed, her small shoulders slumped when she practically hung her head, “look, I know you’re supposed to be a hero, but he’s just a guy. You must have bigger priorities, right?”

Bigger priorities meaning bigger monsters; nothing like the abusive asshole nextdoor. Badd couldn’t help but wonder if that was really what being a hero meant to these people, that they were just as fictional as their comic book alternatives.

Whether the answer was blatant or not, it didn’t matter, “I don’t want ya gettin’ hurt, so call Hikari and stay with her, alright?”

“W-What are you gonna do??”

Badd simply unbuttoned his uniform jacket and let it draped over his shoulders.“ ‘m gonna go be a hero.”

It was a slow day at the notorious deadman detective agency. The gentle hum of the fan being the only company the detective had, among the various files of cold cases he tried to decipher in his day off. He didn’t mind the breaks, rather he milked them as often as he could, but they could be rather tedious at times.

Fortunately, his answer came in the form of his phone vibrating against the table. The caller ID consisted of a simple “Badd”. Chances were that the kid needed someone to pick up his sister or ask about homework he didn’t understand.

“Well, good afternoon to you too,” Daichi hummed leisurely.

“Ay, real quick!” If Badd hadn’t been huffing so much, he wouldn’t have assumed the intensity of the situation required a running start, “ya know anyone who’s got a flower on their gloves?”

There was a pregnant pause when Daichi tucked the phone along his shoulder. What sprawled evidence files had been tucked into their respective cabinet drawers, yet there wasn’t anything that could have resembled a nondescript flower. Aside from the insignia a murderer had carved into the wood of his victim’s furniture.

“What kind of flower was it?”

“Iunno??” Badd grunted, seemingly vaulting himself over a fence from how the chains rattled under his weight, “like a Lily or somethin’ ??”

Had his blood not been lethargic like tar, it would have ran glacial through his veins. He never quite noticed how reminiscent it was to a lilac flower, only that it was scrawled and messy. Though, it would have been a bold assumption to make Badd would keep him alive, “You’re planning on going after him, aren’t you?”

“Yep!”

He figured.

Hastily did Daichi retrieve his beige coat and slid his arms through the sleeves, “don’t do anything like kill him. I’ve been looking into cases like—!”

“Ah, I gotta go. I think I see him!”

“Badd, wait-! Wait, did you hear—?!” When the line was cut off to evoke a triad of monotonous beeps, Zombieman hissed a curse under his breath when he rushed to grab his keys and head to C-City. He didn’t even bother to shelf his evidence back when he bolted out the door.

Kids, he swore...

[bigskydreaming]

For the record: I fucking adore pre-Crisis Dick and Bruce and always have. And would have ZERO problems whatsoever with people focusing on the version of events surrounding Dick’s leaving home in that last reblog…if not for how often this is paired with the reactions and attitudes Dick was written as having in direct response to the OTHER version of events in which he was fired. Its literally just the mixing and matching that’s the problem for me. 

(And additionally for the record, this has absolutely nothing to do with that reblog or its OP or anything other than the fact that I’ve been trying to write this particular post for like two months and could never muster the spoons before now. But seriously, not really about that post at all, it just finally got the gears working in the direction I wanted them to go).

Anyway. Like I said, its the mixing and matching of cause and effects that are inherently just not MEANT to match up and go together, because the effect was not referring back to a specific cause, but rather a different one altogether....that’s the issue. That’s always been the issue.

Because when you leave out the key fact that Dick’s hostility in later stories is written with the explicit intention of referring back to stories in which Bruce instigated their estrangement, you make it look like Dick is just a spoiled brat who throws temper tantrums when things aren’t about him, when that is literally not the scenario he was being characterized that way in response to. 

My problem has never been with Dick and Bruce having a good relationship or Bruce being a good father who loves his eldest and expresses that in a myriad of ways. Its with the narratives that twist a specific sequence of cause and effect to shift the focus away from any possible reason Dick could have for being upset with Bruce….to spotlight SOLELY Dick’s upset, with all actual relevant context deliberately stripped away and replaced with the context of “Bruce is a good father who loves his eldest and never fails to express that in a myriad of ways.” 

And with the way this pattern has then been mirrored over the decades since it was initially applied by fandom to avoid dealing with the earliest stories where Bruce was written as abusive….and with the ripple effect consequentially being that it has become a fandom staple for the focus to be put entirely on what Dick’s doing at all times and never on WHY, so that he constantly keeps getting upheld as the problem even in situations where he was clearly the victim. Like with Spyral, like with Ric Grayson, like Mirage and tons of other times throughout this character’s history because once you establish a precedent and uphold it to the degree that we’ve so often seen with “Dick is really the mastermind of his own misery, because none of the things that he’s miserable about really happened to him, look see, Bruce is a fabulous father and always was”.....like, you get a lot of repetition at that point.

Because that, right there, ESPECIALLY when paired with the reality that the stories that this tendency is most commonly used to distract from, like Dick’s firing and NTT #55 and NW #30 and other issues where there were clear and obvious instances of abuse in how Bruce was written......intentionally or not, that replaces these narratives of abuse, but NOT with stories where everything’s all fine and dandy.....but rather, with a narrative of abuse apologism, even if it is largely unintentional.

Because when an abuse victim’s behavior in specific moments is called into question AT THE SAME TIME as the root cause of that specific behavior in those specific moments is shuffled offstage and KEPT out of focus, so that the abuse victim’s specific behavior is upheld as the ONLY issue at hand, leaving the abuser who they’re reacting to free to just keep on walking while no one pays them any attention now.....this is a fundamental cornerstone of abuse apologism in real life as much as in fiction. And it has nothing to do whatsoever if its INTENDED that way, its simply the reality of what results.

And its that last part that usually gets me and a lot of other fans so worked up because just like a lot of people turn to Bruce as their emotional support character because they relate to either his trauma or his coping mechanisms or a million other things about him.....there’s a shit ton of us who turn to Dick Grayson as our emotional support character because we relate to HIS trauma....which, like it or not, for many of us INCLUDES his at-times extremely shitty relationship with his parent.

The way people condescend about this in particular, acting like the ONLY POSSIBLE REASON anyone ever has for writing Bruce as abusive or writing fixes or codas or transformative response-takes on actual literal canon stories where he was written as abusive.....like, treating the situation as though people ONLY do this for the sake of angst porn or to smear Bruce’s character, like, they’re just in it for the drama and there’s absolutely no other possible reason to engage with those particular stories.....its aggravating as hell. 

Especially when this is paired with stuff like “oh, sorry I’m not addicted to making Bruce an abusive shithead, I have taste and am above click-bait angst lolol” like.....people really think they’re saying something there, but its probably not what they think they’re saying when you hold it up against the fact that most people saying this have ZERO problem with excessive angst and misery in literally any other context EXCEPT for ones where Bruce is to blame.

I like to refer back to the fact that people disparage any focus on Dick being fired as being ‘just a retcon’....because of how that coincides with the fact that Jason’s pre-Crisis stories were largely (though not completely) retconned as well. Because its not just the fact that Jason’s origin as an acrobat was retconned to him being a street kid that’s significant here....but rather, the fact that HOW he became Robin was retconned as well. Since originally, pre-Crisis, just like it was Dick who chose to move on from Robin himself, it was Dick who chose to make Robin the name Jason used as Batman’s partner as well. 

So I’d be fine with people being like “oh I don’t engage with the retcon of Dick being fired because it was just a retcon” except for the fact that they DO engage with a huge part of that retcon still. They engage with the part where Dick is bitter and resentful of not being Robin anymore, just not the REASONS for it, because they’ve supplanted all the history for the version of events where Dick is resentful with the history from when Bruce was nothing but supportive. And then ADDITIONALLY, they still engage with the part where it was Bruce who made Jason Robin, not Dick, as this is then linked in fanon to WHY Dick is allegedly so resentful of Jason as Robin.....even though that too is a retcon, and if they just went with the original story where Dick gave Jason his name and costume before Jason ever debuted as Robin for the very first time.....voila, no resentment or bitterness from Dick towards Jason would ever exist.

See what I’m saying? Its frustrating hearing over and over that people don’t like the firing retcon just because it was a retcon and they like the original....AT THE EXACT SAME TIME as they continue to interact with and engage with literally every part of the retcon EXCEPT for where Bruce did stuff that Dick understandably could be upset about.

And that people claim this is to avoid the more negative aspects of things between Bruce and Dick and make for a more positive family dynamic....except then they still KEEP Dick being estranged and not coming home and sniping at Bruce as WELL as keep Dick being resentful and bitter about Jason so its like.....Error 404, More Positive Family Dynamic Not Found, its almost like you’re totally fine with Dick being the fly in the family togetherness soup, just so long as Bruce comes across fine.

And this is the pattern we see over and over, and that’s why the frustration Dick Grayson’s fans have with a lot of the rest of fandom are not directly interchangeable with the frustrations fans of any character have when its their favorite character in the hotseat. Because its not the simple fact of other fans not liking his character or stories about his character, its the HOW and WHY of the reasoning, and how often that’s telling people who relate to parts of Dick’s narrative that include the uglier bits with Bruce, that like....the stories we’re upset about don’t matter, or aren’t relevant, or didn’t happen, lmfao.

Because here’s the thing: nobody has to engage with parts of canon they don’t like. We all come to these stories and characters for different reasons and if Bruce written abusively is totally counter to everything you love about the character, OF COURSE you don’t want to engage with those takes! Of course you find that out of character and view it as shitty writing that should never have happened. And that’s FINE!

But its not about whether or not you just choose not to engage with these stories or ones based on them.....its about how often people then TALK OVER the people who DO choose to engage with these stories or ones based on them.....and belittle their validity in existing at all, try and paper over the stuff that people are directly trying to address by way of fic by arguing points that aren’t in contention.....because we’re not disputing that there’s a version of events where Dick left home happily, we’re literally just saying THAT’S NOT THE STORY WE’RE TALKING ABOUT.

Like, if I go on a post where people are just having a good time with good wholesome father and son interactions between Bruce and Dick and say something like “wow wish this was real and that Bruce wasn’t actually an abusive shithead”....I’M THE ASSHOLE THERE. Lol, make no mistake. But the flip side of that is when people go on posts where people are talking about times and places and ways the dynamic between Bruce and Dick is shittier, and say stuff like “wow good thing this isn’t real and everyone with taste knows that this is just angst bait and Bruce is actually the Best Father”.....uh....what exactly is the difference here?

(Especially, and I CAN NOT stress the hilarious irony of this enough....when they then just go back to making another Whumptober entry. LOL that’s fine! The part that’s hilarious though is condescending to people who write abusive Bruce Wayne takes as just being in it for the misery business when like......umm. Like I have a point here, but I’ll let people reach it on their own. The dots though. They’re extremely connectable).

Also also, I would just like to point out that Batfandom in particular has always leaned heavily on the “sometimes people write things to cope” in regards to rape and incest fic, etc........so as long as certain corners of fandom are willing to lean heavily into that argument to defend any and all kinds of sexual content in fic, they might consider extending that very same logic to “sometimes people write things to cope” in regards to abuse survivors writing about abusive dynamics within the Batfam to work through their own shit with abuse.

But I’m just extremely tired with the “but its a retcon/its bad writing” arguments rearing their heads anywhere people are like “here is a canon story I would like to engage with because hey I thought fanfic was supposed to be about us being able to fix shitty canon or address shitty canon or just lampshade that shitty canon is shitty”.....particularly when that awareness of things being a retcon seem to be devoid of any awareness of how retcons WORK.

Because the thing is, we all know and get how retcons work. We understand that retcons act as an insertion point for a second version of events that later stories can refer back to or act upon INSTEAD of the original version of events.

This is why literally nobody in fandom writes stories about Jason as the Red Hood and tries to like....use them to make points about Jason’s childhood as a circus acrobat. Because everyone gets that the issue there isn’t whether or not Jason’s early childhood was retconned, and there only being ONE TRUE VERSION of that you can go with......no, people get that it doesn’t matter IF they for whatever reason prefer Jason’s original story.....literally no canon story about the Red Hood has been written with the intention of referring back to THAT origin instead of the street kid Jason origin. No story about the Red Hood is attempting to SAY anything about or DO anything with Jason the child acrobat instead of Jason the street kid.

So why does that awareness vanish the second that stories about how Dick RESPONDS to the retcon of being fired come under scrutiny....with people acting like they just don’t get how retcons work all of a sudden, and its fine to argue the point about how that second inserted sequence of events isn’t relevant and everyone knows this so clearly there’s no problem treating Dick’s reactions to those events as though they’re just reactions to Bruce and Dick fighting over college?

Every character has at least two versions of themselves, tbh. A canon version and a fanon version. And obviously with a shared universe as old and having passed through as many hands as DC has....you could argue that there are many canon versions of Dick’s character. 

I would argue however that there are two distinct fanon versions of Dick’s character as well. And to be clear, each of these fanon versions encompass a spectrum unto themselves, there’s a wide range of varying DEGREES of these two fanon takes.....but there’s two specific fanon Dick Grayson STARTING points.

One of these of course is the happy-go-lucky, air-headed, never worried about anything in his life, cereal-munching, fashion disaster, sails through everything without a care in the world other than his care for everyone but himself Dick Grayson. 

I mean, I don’t particularly care for that one, but it is what it is, and like I said, every character has that fanon take that has a lot of their fans going Lol wut a mess, like plz just no.

The fanon starting point I’m usually more concerned about is this one: the Dick Grayson who grew up in the lap of luxury but never really appreciated it or what he had, who is territorial and possessive, prone to fits of anger with very little provocation prompting people to walk on eggshells around him, who cares about other people but is often oblivious of his effect on them because he’s just so reckless, so impulsive, that frequently he jumps into situations without thinking about how other people will be impacted by what he says or does, and then is too proud to take it back.

The reason I’m bothered so much by THIS fanon Dick Grayson is because I flat out don’t believe we get to him by looking at canon....but rather by extremely selectively AVOIDING looking at canon, but only specific PARTS of canon.

And thus we get a Dick Grayson who never really appreciated his childhood or what he had.....as evidenced by the Dick Grayson who at times takes shots at Bruce for how he raised Dick......but without ANY examination of or awareness that the way those shots are written in canon, are with the intention of referring back to specific stories in which Bruce DID fuck up in certain ways while raising Dick....rather than a Bruce who was nothing but supportive and nurturing and did no wrong ever.

And thus we get a Dick Grayson who is territorial and possessive....as evidenced by the way he’s been less than graceful about ‘sharing’ Robin with certain of his siblings, or even Bruce himself......but without ANY examination of or awareness that the reason he’s written as ungracious about these things in these specific moments is because they were written with the intention of referring back to specific stories where something he built from the ground up - Robin - was stripped from him and given away without consulting him, or when he had to watch others enjoy a specific aspect of their relationship with Bruce that he was never (or at least not yet) ever offered himself......rather than just because Dick’s spoiled and selfish and never learned to share because he has only child syndrome.

And thus we get a Dick Grayson who is prone to fits of anger with very little provocation prompting people to walk on eggshells around him.....as evidenced by the way he blows up at certain people at certain times....but without ANY examination of what they said or did to him just BEFORE he blew up at them, or awareness that the reason he said awful things or displayed such anger is because he was specifically being written as reacting to things that very understandably PROMPT such anger, or he was written standing up for himself in the face of people saying or doing shitty things as well, or even outright attacking him......rather than just because Dick has a hair-trigger temper and anger management issues, and nobody’s ever said or done anything that justifies him getting angry at them ever.

And thus we get a Dick Grayson who is oblivious to his effect on other people because he’s just so reckless and impulsive that he jumps into situations without thinking about how they’ll be impacted....as evidenced by the way he does things like fake his death without thinking through what this will do to others......but without ANY examination of the fact that the stories in which he’s originally written MAKING the decisions to do these things, he DOES think through how others will be impacted, like how in NW #30 he did nothing BUT argue how it would affect his siblings and Barbara, or awareness of the fact that the reasons these arguments don’t change the outcome of events is because they’re deliberately written as not being ALLOWED to change the outcome, as Dick’s objections and concerns for other people are actively overriden and over-ruled.....rather than because he doesn’t make these objections in the first place or think through how other people will be impacted by things.

And thus we get a Dick Grayson who is just too proud to take things back when he fucks up.....as evidenced by the way that he either doesn’t apologize for certain things, or his apology seems hollow or insincere, or his apology doesn’t preclude him from doing something similar again later down the line....but without ANY examination of the fact that the reasons for all of these more often have to do with the fact that the crimes aren’t his to apologize for in the first place, its often him that’s owed the actual apology, and he simply won’t be ALLOWED to not get into the same situation in the future because the entire reason this pattern persists so frequently is because there’s zero sincere examination of what the pattern actually consists OF and just WHY it is that Dick in specific is so frequently stuck in this particular pattern....rather than just because Dick’s simply too proud to ever acknowledge when he fucks up.

Does that specific fanon interpretation of Dick Grayson sound at ALL familiar to anyone else?

And can you understand how the frustration with it could stem from not simply the fact that it exists, or that its not canon based....but rather the fact that it in order to exist at all, it REQUIRES building upon a foundational cornerstone of abuse apologism and outright ignoring and disregarding stories where he is the one victimized in order to prioritize that no blowback for the canon instances of abuse impact or reflect badly upon the actual victimizing characters in fandom conversations about these things?

Because speaking solely for myself now....this is and ALWAYS HAS BEEN, the ONLY issue I have in this matter. I have zero problems with good dad Bruce Wayne content, with prioritizing takes where Dick wasn’t actually fired, with simply not wanting to engage with canon or fan content where Bruce is abusive....none of these things have EVER been my problem or ever will be....as long as they like....don’t go hand in hand with making an abuse victim his own victimizer and everyone else his hapless victim whenever the specific instances of when he’s been a victim of other characters in canon comes up either in fic, headcanons, meta or just casual conversation.

[cherryblossomflowers]

An Old Life Meets A New (Pt27)

Pairing: Jensen x Daughter, Danneel x Stepdaughter, Jared x Niece

Warnings: Slight Cussing, Angst, Fluff, Death Mentioned, Car Accident Mentioned, Anxiety/Depression, Arguing, Panic Attacks, Yelling, Fighting, Sex Mentioned, Child Abuse, Drunk Abuse, Relationship Abuse, Alcohol

Summary: After the recent death of her mother, Harper must adjust to her new life in the Ackles home, this includes a new stepmother, half-siblings, and reconnecting with her father.

A/N: It’s time! Dennis vs Harper and Jensen. ONLY 3 CHAPTERS LEFT!!! No hate on Danneel or Jensen please. Feedback is greatly appreciated!

***ASK OPEN***

*LET ME KNOW IF YOU’D LIKE TO BE TAGGED*

*NEW CHAPTER EVERYDAY AT 3PM CST*

An Old Life Meets A New Masterlist

Chapter 27

Harper stood abruptly from the bench, as did Jensen. They stared at the man walking towards them. Jensen could see the panic on Harper's face.

"I thought it was you," Dennis spoke as he walked towards them, "Though I'm surprised to see you in New York. I could've sworn I heard an old friend of your mothers say you moved to Texas."

Jensen quickly moved Harper behind him to protect her, "Don't you dare come any closer, you piece of shit. I know what you did to her."

"And I know what you did to her, Ackles. You left her. Last time I checked you didn't even care to give her a call anymore," Dennis continued to walk towards them, "But this isn't between me and you. I have some...unfinished business with the brat."

Harper peeked out from behind Jensen, stuttering her words, "Wait, I-I thought y-you were in jail?"

Dennis let out a deep, dark chuckle, "I was. But I got out early on good behavior. Been out for about a week and a half now."

Harper flinched at his words as he spoke, all the memories of him, her mother, and her. All the pain she felt. All the sleepless nights. The tears, the sadness, the fear of what was to come next.

She shuddered behind Jensen, but tried her hardest not to show fear. Jensen saw that she was trying to hide and knew if he didn't try to do something, Dennis might try to hurt her again.

Jensen and Harper exchanged a worried look as Dennis continued to talk.

"I was planning on visiting you and your mother when I got out, but I recently heard that she passed away. Car accident right?" Dennis asked.

"Sh-she was hit by a drunk driver, barely survived the ride to the ambulance. She's been gone for a little over a w-week," Harper replied.

Dennis gave her a fake pout as he rolled his eyes, "What a shame. I would've loved to see her again."

That sentence set Harper over the edge. All her fear and sadness ran out the door. Now she was furious. She knows his intentions, she's known for years now.

Harper stepped out from behind Jensen and got right in Dennis's face, "Even if she was alive, your drunk ass shouldn't be anywhere near her. She hated you-"

"She loved me, you brat!" Dennis screamed back at her.

"She was afraid of you, dickhead! Everyday she was afraid to come home, knowing what was going to happen. She knew that the minute she stepped into the house, she was going to get hurt. She knew when I stepped into the house I was going to get hurt. All she wanted to do was protect me. And when you went to jail and she filed the restraining order, we were finally rid of your lazy ass," Harper stated.

Dennis slapped a hand across her face, making Harper fall to the ground, "Don't you ever talk back to me, you bitch!"

"Hey!"

Dennis looked up at Jensen, "Oh and what's this? Did your Daddy come to fight your battles for you, Harper? Guess I'll have to show him all the fun that we used to have."

Harper watched as Dennis swung at Jensen, but Jensen dodged the punch. Dennis continued to throw punches and kicks at Jensen, but Dennis couldn't lay a finger on him. Jensen dodged every shot.

"Come on, Ackles. Be a man! Fight me!" Dennis yelled out.

"This is what you think being a man is, Dennis? Well I hate to break it to you, but you are dead wrong. I'm not going to hit you and I'm not going to hurt you," Jensen spoke softly.

"But I will," Harper yelled as she kicked Dennis in the side of the head. Dennis stumbled back, his hand on his head as he felt blood dripping.

"Why you little brat!" Dennis swung at Harper, but missed. Harper swung at him, and connected with his cheek. She then swiped his legs out from underneath him. Dennis fell down with a thud.

"There's something you don't know about me, Dennis," Harper said as she punched him in the eye, "After you went to jail," another punch to the lip, "Mom set me up with some kick boxing classes," one punch square in the nose, "And I was top of my class."

Harper pinned his arms down as she continued to punch Dennis in the face. Jensen stood back and watched, afraid if he stepped in she'd punch him by mistake.

Harper stood up after a minute and brushed herself off, her knuckles red from punching Dennis. Dennis's face was covered in bruises and blood. Harper showed him what he did to her for years, and she was proud to not be afraid anymore.

Just then, Dennis swiped her legs out from under her and she fell to the ground. Dennis jump on top of her and reared his fist back and punched her in the eye. He reared back his other arm, ready to strike again.

Unfortunately for him, Jensen was not going to have him doing this to Harper again.

Jensen grabbed his arm and pulled Dennis off of Harper. Harper sat up and saw Jensen and Dennis fighting and wrestling on the ground.

First Jensen had Dennis pinned, holding his arms down to prevent any punches. Dennis then had the upper hand, holding Jensen down as he punched him.

But Jensen wasn't going to let Dennis win. Jensen gathered all the strength he had and pushed Dennis off of him. Jensen kicked him in the throat and watched Dennis fall to the ground, coughing up blood.

Both men had cuts on their faces, blood on their knuckles, and were definitely bruised. Jensen continued to have the upper hand though, pinning Dennis's arms behind his back.

"Let me go, you big shithead!" Dennis yelled at Jensen.

"Why? So you can hit my daughter again? I don't think so, asshole! You're dealing with me now!" Jensen yelled back at him.

Harper took the opportunity when Dennis was pinned and not focused on her to call 911. Jensen continued to pin Dennis to the ground. He wasn't going to let him go.

Harper walked up to Dennis and crouched down to his face, "I hope you enjoyed prison. 'Cause that's exactly where you're going back to."

Dennis wiggled his arms, trying to get them free, "You dumb ass little bitch, you have no idea who you are dealing with."

Harper looked up at Jensen and smiled, "Yeah, I think I do. I'm dealing with a man who bullied my mom and I for years. And I just happen to finally be able to stand up to him. It just so happens that Jensen here," she pointed at Jensen, "doesn't exactly like bullies. Or anyone messing with his family. He's very protective of me. You just happen to cross a line that you weren't ready to cross."

Dennis continued to wiggle and try to get his arms free of Jensen's grip. But Jensen wasn't easing up. He had Dennis down, and Jensen wasn't moving.

It wasn't long after that the cops showed up at the park and arrested Dennis once again. Jensen and Harper were escorted to an ambulance to get looked over.

After Harper was taken care of, one of the officers walked up to her and Jensen, "Mr. Ackles, is there anything you can tell us about what was going on? A statement perhaps?"

Jensen, who was currently being looked at by an EMT, shrugged at the cop, "My daughter and I were just sitting here having a conversation when that man walked up, recognized her from when he was dating her mother, and just started hitting her. I stepped in to make sure he didn't hurt her."

The officer looked at Harper, "Is that true, miss?"

Harper nodded, unable to speak.

The officer wrote something down, "Well, I'm glad you caught him. You see, Dennis escaped from prison about two weeks ago."

Jensen and Harper sat there wide eyed at the officer, shocked at his statement.

"He what?" Harper asked.

"Yes, he escaped and we've been looking for him since then. A few of our sources say he somehow got out of state, but I see now he was hiding in plain sight," the officer replied.

Jensen sighed, "But you're taking him back right?"

The officer nodded, "He'll be going to prison for the rest of his life. There's no chance of him getting out again. I can assure you that."

Harper and Jensen nodded a thanks to the officer as he walked away. Harper sat down next to Jensen in the back of the ambulance, laying a hand on his bandaged arm.

"I'm really sorry for all of this, Dad. I had no idea about Dennis. I thought he was gone for good. But I put you in danger. He could've killed you," Harper rambled on.

Jensen sighed, "Babygirl, you had no idea about any of this. It surprised both of us. Just be lucky it's a few bumps and bruises."

Harper sat up and hugged her dad, who grunted from the pain.

She pulled back, "Sorry! I'm sorry."

Jensen chuckled, "It's fine. I can take a little pain for a hug."

Harper and Jensen exchanged a hug. They stayed like that for a moment until the EMT came back and told Jensen just to take it easy for a few days. Jensen thanked him, and the EMTs left along with the cops.

Jensen thought for a moment before looking at Harper, "So you took kickboxing?"

Harper chuckled and nodded, "Mom thought I needed to learn to defend myself. What she didn't think was when I'm motivated enough, I can defend myself just fine."

Jensen laughed, "Just remind me to never get on your bad side. I don't want to end up like that."

Jensen and Harper walked back over to the bench and sat down. Harper picked up the notebook she was writing in earlier.

Jensen was curious, "I saw you writing something when I got here. If you don't my asking, what was it?"

Harper sighed and leaned back on the bench, closing her eyes, "I, um, I didn't speak at Mom's funeral. I really should've but I couldn't make myself do it. So I came here to try and find some inspiration to write a eulogy for her. I finally wrote everything I needed to say, I just feel bad that I didn't say anything that day."

Jensen smiled, "Well, if you want, we can go visit her grave. Maybe you can say it to her now."

Harper looked down at her notebook then back to Jensen, "I don't know. I think it's too late."

Jensen shook his head, "It's never too late. Harper, let's do it. I'd like to say a few things as well, if you'd let me."

She looked back at her notebook before standing up and grabbing her backpack, "You're right. Let's go."

She and Jensen jogged over to the street to hail a cab. Jensen held out his arm, yelling for a taxi. One stopped almost immediately, and they jumped in. Harper told the driver where to go and they were off.

------------------------------

Masterlist

My Cherry Blossoms

@mlovesstories​ @chessurkait​ @adorable-minibot​ @desiredposion​ @idksupernatural​ @thevelvetseries​ @spnfamily-j2​ @let-me-luve-you @obsessedwithfandomsx @wecantgiggleitsafandom

@mangueweaschester @unicornmadness2444 @emery--nicole--morrison @starchildwild​ @deans-baby-momma​ @spnbaby-67

[thewhumperinwhite]

Café: Forest

Previous: Teaser 1, Teaser 2, Hospital/Squad Car, Empty Bar, Used Car Lot 1, Used Car Lot 2, Gas Station, Roadside 1, Roadside 2.

Kent and Pax have incompatible methods for coping with trauma. Sol tries to make due with the trio’s one communal brain cell.

TW for: suicidal ideation which is not handled particularly well by companions, Kent gets triggered and doesn’t explain that to anyone, referenced past domestic abuse, gore, eye horror, terrible communication skills, Sol is trying his fucking best but nobody does a great job here, Vehicular Horror (as in many zombies get run over by cars idk how to warn for that exactly)

@whumpitywhumpwhump

Continues directly from Roadside 2.

Sol stares at Pax, revulsion rising in the back of his throat, but he’s honestly startled when Kent is suddenly on his feet and shoving Pax in the chest.

Pax stumbles back from Kent, who is suddenly his full six feet, eyes blazing.

“You goddamn bastard!” Kent screams. “How the hell could you— I might still have been able to— “

Pax slaps him.

“Shut the fuck up,” Pax says, their voice low and dangerous. “What, you think that was super easy for me, you spoiled little shithead? You think I liked that?” Pax is shorter than Kent, almost certainly, but their slap bowled Kent halfway over, and he hasn’t straightened, his hair hiding his face. “We all. Wanted. To help,” Pax snarls. “But we’re not all trying to feed ourselves to zombies, you dumb asshole, you don’t get to decide that for the rest of us. I’ve got my own reasons for wanting you to get where you’re going but I will not die for you, you got that? You want to be a martyr, go do it someplace else.” He rounds on Sol. “And what the hell is your problem?”

Sol, who has been tugging on Paxon’s sleeve, points.

“Oh, fuck me,” says Paxon.

It’s hard to really make them out in just the truck’s headlights, but there are at least three figures standing at the edge of the trees on the other side of the road. Backing up to stand behind Paxon— he’s pretty sure he’s past the point of being ashamed of himself— Sol spots a fourth. And— there’s a fifth, too.

“Back in the car?” Sol prompts, a tad desperately.

“Back in the car,” Pax agrees, taking a step toward the truck.

Sol reaches down to pick up his bat from the asphalt, and as soon as he closes his hand around it one of the figures breaks from the others and lurches at a jerking, unsteady run toward the circle of headlights.

“Shit!” Sol squawks, stumbling backwards, but Paxon, their sword swishing smoothly out of its sheath, surges forward to meet the man and slices through his neck in one clean swipe.

“There a reason you two idiots ain’t running yet?” they growl over their shoulder, and Sol shakes his head clear and takes off toward the truck, grabbing hold of Kent’s collar on the way past and dragging him along.

Kent stumbles after him, his head still bowed, and finally croaks, “Wait, we— we can’t just leave them to— “

“I think they got this,” Sol snaps, and glances over his shoulder to see Pax spin to neatly decapitate a second running, bloody-eyed figure. “‘Sides,” he goes on, a bit snidely, yanking the driver’s side door open, “how exactly were you gonna help without a weapon, genius?”

Kent climbs into the back seat, not meeting Sol’s eyes. He’s breathing heavy, and his hands are in tight, shaking fists in his lap. 

It occurs to Sol that he has now seen Kent slapped twice in the very short time he’s known him. There’s no time to think about that now, but it— maybe bears examination later.

“You know how to drive, right?” Kent mutters, at the floor of the truck.

“‘Course I do,” Sol snaps, throwing the car in reverse and taking a deep breath. “Mostly!”

He rolls his window down. “Coming on your left, Pax!”

Paxon pauses with their sword in the stomach of a very large man whose eyes have spilled out in bloody streams down his cheeks— Sol gags a little before he makes himself focus on driving— to glare at the truck over their shoulder, and then they readjust their grip and slice the man clear in half, before swinging their sword straight down through one of his ruined eyes. Sol sees Kent wince and throw a hand over his mouth in the rearview mirror.

“Take your time,” Paxon calls, sword flashing. There’s beginning to be kind of a large pile of bodies around them. “I’m enjoying myself out here.”

“Wow,” Sol says, focusing on reversing the car in such a way that he will not run Paxon over. He does his best to ignore the sickening lurch of the car as it rolls over one body, then two. “You really pissed them off.”

Kent glares at the floor of the truck. Yeah, they’re going to have to have a long conversation about this later, assuming they can actually get out of this.

When the truck rolls to a stop beside them, Paxon yanks the passenger side door open and climbs in, turning as they do so to shove their sword straight into a lunging man’s open mouth and up into his brain.

“Uh—” Sol swallows. “You good?”

“If you are,” they snap, settling into their seat and slamming the door closed.

“We, uh, we are, we’re—” He clears his throat awkwardly. Kent is still glaring at the floor, and Paxon is staring out the window, which a woman with blood running down her chin is now throwing herself against. “We’re great. Yeah.”

Sol puts the car clumsily into drive and slams his foot down on the gas, apparently a bit too hard.

A small dark figure is illuminated by the headlights for a second before they disappear under the truck’s tires. Sol forces himself to keep his eyes on the road and orders himself not to think about it.

He almost swerves to avoid the next one, but Paxon reaches over and puts their hand on the wheel.

“Just hit ‘em,” they say in a low, flat voice. “It doesn’t make a damn difference either way.”

Kent makes a horrified sound from the backseat, and winces badly when the car thumps over the woman’s body.

“Uh,” Sol squawks.

“Look at ‘em,” Pax says. “They’re running right at the damn tires. They don’t give a fuck what happens to them, so why should we, huh?” They look straight forward through the windshield, and don’t look at Kent, who Sol can see jolt in the backsea; Kent tangles a hand in his own hair and pulls it, hard; Sol winces.

The next one Sol hits leaps right at the front of the car and slides up onto the hood, hitting the windshield with a sick crack. Kent squeezes his eyes shut, and Pax glares straight ahead, though their hands tighten into fists on their bloody pant legs.

“Um,” Sol says. “Are we gonna talk about this, or...?”

“No,” Kent says flatly.

“Ain’t a damn thing to talk about,” Pax snaps.

Sol rolls his eyes. “Oh, yeah, right, fine. My bad.”

The last one is another woman, and the headlights catch in her blonde hair for a second, and Sol can’t help but swerve to avoid her. He very carefully does not look at Paxon, who scowls at him.

Finally he rolls his eyes and shoots Paxon a glare, and then he glances up at the rear view mirror to include Kent in it, too. “I’m not picking sides here, okay? I think y’all are both fuckin’ nuts.”

Pax pouts. Kent does too, a little bit.

“First of all,” Sol says, “fucking cool it with the martyr complex a little, okay, Kent? Jesus.” Kent flinches, and opens his mouth to protest, but Sol holds up one hand for silence, keeping the other carefully on the wheel. “And you,” he says, rounding on Paxon. “It’s great that you swept to our rescue, and everything, but fucking forgive us for being a little slower to adjust to the whole ‘zombie apocalypse so murder is okay now’ thing, dude. We’re not all fucking naturals like you apparently are.”

“I saved your life,” Paxon says shortly.

“Yeah, I guess,” Sol says uncomfortably. “And, like. Thanks? But do you for real not get how watching you cut a bunch of people’s heads off does not make us more likely to trust you, man?”

“Oh, Christ, not you too,” Paxon snaps, swinging their sword off their back and slamming it down at their feet. “Do neither of you kids get it yet? The world has changed. Y’all’s idealism or whatever is cute, but it’s also gonna get you both killed.” They reach out and shove at Sol’s shoulder, although not very hard. They don’t even look angry anymore, not really, just— tired. “You’re not supposed to trust me, dumbass. You listen, okay, both of you. I do not require that you trust me. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t. And I’m not gonna trust you. And then none of us are gonna be disappointed. Okay?”

Sol blinks, feeling kind of confused and— weirdly hurt. “Uh— yeah, fine. Yeah.”

“Don’t worry,” Kent says, sharply. “We won’t.”

Pax turns back to glare at him. “Well good,” they say with their teeth bared. “You shouldn’t.”

Then they both turn and glare out opposite windows.

The tension is so thick that for a second Sol is almost glad when the engine emits a sharp pop and a puff of smoke and the truck begins to roll to a stop.

“Aw, shit,” Sol says, trying to gun the engine. “Aw, shit, no, not now—”

Paxon presses their hands over their eyes and makes a noise that sounds like it would be a scream if their teeth weren’t clenched. Kent leans forward between the passenger and driver’s seats to watch the plume of smoke drift upwards from the engine.

“Either of you know how to fix that?” he says flatly.

“I know how to hotwire cars, not fix them, man,” Sol says, flopping back in his seat and closing his eyes.

Kent hesitates. “...Paxon?”

Paxon removes one hand from their face long enough to give Kent the finger. “Fuck you, blondie, I can’t do everything around here.”

Kent frowns at the dashboard as if he can somehow guilt the engine beneath into running again. “Oh,” he says. There isn’t really much else to say.

There’s a long and very pregnant pause. Paxon massages their temples. Sol counts to ten, twice, and tries without much success to regulate his heart rate. Kent fidgets and turns in his seat to look out the back window.

“Um,” he starts, unconsciously tapping the back of Paxon’s chair like an impatient five-year-old. “I don’t think you quite— got all of them,” he says hesitantly.

Paxon takes in a long breath and then lets it out, and then they drop their hands and toss their long red ponytail. “Yeah, yeah,” they say, yanking the door handle with a little more force than necessary. “It was getting a little cramped in here, anyway.”

“H-hey— hold on!” Sol yelps, reaching for their sleeve. “Are you out of your fucking mind? We can’t go out there!”

They’re already on their feet outside the truck and repositioning their sword on their back. “Yeah, well, it would also be pretty dumb of us to stay in here and get surrounded. Rein in your underage martyr and let’s jet, babe.” They shoot Sol a shiny and very fake grin and cross in front of the truck toward the woods, boot heels clicking against the pavement. They swing their sword out of its sheath as they go and the metal glints alarmingly in the light from the headlights.

Sol frowns after them, feeling... more intimidated than he wants to.

“I hate to say it,” he mumbles at the back of Kent’s head— the blonde is kneeling on the back seat and staring out the back window— “but I think they’re probably kind of right, man. You coming?”

Kent is silent for a moment, watching the vague forms milling about in the darkness behind the truck.

“Hey,” Sol says, reaching out for his shoulder. “...Kent?”

Kent winces when Sol’s fingertips brush his coat collar, and then he looks down at his hands and mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like “sorry”.

“Huh?” Sol retracts his hand hastily. That was a bad idea. In fact, it didn’t happen. He 100% did not notice Kent shaking and reach out to comfort him like somebody’s goddamn mother.

“I said, ‘you’re right,’” Kent says, turning to give him a shaky smile.

Sol blinks at him, debates calling him a liar, reaches for the car door instead. “Yeah, sure, whatever, man. Let’s just— let’s go.”

The sky is starting to spit rain, and Paxon is waiting for them with their hand on their hip and and expression of almost violent impatience on their face. They raise an eyebrow at Sol and pointedly do not look at Kent. “You took your sweet time,” they say tightly.

Kent, hugging himself a little against the cold dankness of the air, raises a hand to catch a few raindrops and frowns up at the sky. “It’s raining.”

Paxon frowns at him, and then rolls their eyes, turns on their heel and stomps off into the trees. “Yes, sunshine, it is. Thank you for pointing that out.” They sneer at him over their shoulder. “At least you’ve got your looks, kid.”

Kent wrinkles his nose at them, following. “Yeah, you’ve mentioned that,” he says, a few slivers of ice in his voice. “I’m flattered, I guess, but you’re actually not my type, Paxon.”

“Now there’s a surprise,” Paxon says, rolling their eyes.

“Oh my god, you guys,” Sol runs a hand through his hair and tries to focus on not tripping over tree roots. The woods are getting thicker, and Pax is walking very quickly. “Will you please shut the fuck up.”

Kent grumbles, but shuts his mouth. Pax picks up their pace slightly, the ass.

The drizzle is turning into something more like a downpour, now, and still companionable silence is apparently too much to ask.

“What I meant,” Kent snaps after five blissful minutes of nobody snapping at anybody else, “was that it is raining, and we have no shelter, or changes of clothing, or food, or— or anything.”

“Some of us have weapons,” Paxon says sweetly. “That’s not nothing.”

Kent huffs. “I’m sure that’ll be a great comfort when we’re— what, huddled in trees, freezing to death?”

Sol wrinkles his nose. His own coat, while thick enough to stop the old man’s teeth, is not waterproof and is starting to get kind of heavy with rainwater. By morning it’ll probably smell like a wet sheep, too. Kent might be okay in his oversized black coat, but Paxon’s poncho and leather jacket don’t look warm at all, and they’re certainly not waterproof.

“Yeah,” he says. “That’s, uh, a fair point. Do you have, like, a plan, Pax?”

Pax turns on their heel, half-skipping along backwards, dancing over the rough ground in a way that doesn’t really seem fair. “Plans are for squares, kid. Everyone knows that.”

Kent glares at them, discomfort written clear across his face. Sol looks from Kent’s shaky irritation to the tight, tense set of Paxon’s shoulders and their white-knuckled grip on their sword.

“We’re all gonna die,” he says flatly.

[billyhargrovesbabe]

when words don’t hit | billy hargrove

This was one of those ideas that just wouldn’t stop nagging me until I wrote it. It’s my own little take on a Byers!Reader. I really had fun writing it. It starts out super dramatic, but turns fluffy quickly (or at least as fluffy as it can get). Honestly, it’s got a healthy dose of angst and fluff. Also please excuse any mistakes as I wrote this at like two am. Once again, I have an idea for a continuation of this piece. If there’s enough interest, I’ll post it!

Word Count: 2,325

Warnings: Mentions of abuse, mentions of racism, violence, and lots of swearing but it’s Billy so what else is new

Let me know if you want to be tagged in this or any other writing!

You weren’t thinking when you threw the punch. Fuck, you don’t even know if you were breathing or in full control of yourself when it happened. All you knew was that the asshole who had been bullying your twin brother was here, in your house, threatening one of your younger brother’s best friends for his fucking skin color, and you were done with it. Distant memories of your own father shoving your mother into that very wall whilst screaming at her, just like the blond teenager was, flashed before your eyes. So you just reacted. And the world sort of blurred together as your fist connected right below his ribs, next to his spine, and in a perfect kidney shot. You knew it hurt too. You had a mean punch. Between protecting Jonathan from bullies growing up and teaching yourself how to fight just in case Lonnie decided any of you looked like a good target, you could hold your own. You knew when it landed, it fucking landed. But you added a “get the hell away from him, Hargrove,” just for good measure.

So when Billy dropped Lucas, you weren’t surprised. When he grabbed his side in pain, you weren’t surprised. And when he turned to you with a sort of manic look in his eyes, you weren’t surprised. It was when he laughed (and not that fake barking-laugh shit he got away with at school, but full-on chortled), that you were finally surprised. Nobody dared to move or breathe— everyone was just a little too afraid of what the unstable maniac you had just fucking kidney punched was going to do. He held onto his tender right side as he sent you the most lecherous look you had ever received. It was a look he usually reserved for girls like Tina Carpenter or Nicole Harland. Never you, the weird-Byers-kid’s twin. But the smirk he threw your way sent thrills down your spine and in a way that wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

“Well, well, well,” the Hargrove boy drawled. “Look who can pack a fucking punch. I never would’ve thought you were such a little spitfire, Byers. I mean, both your brothers are such pussies.” You felt the heat rise to your cheeks, your temper flaring and just rising as you realized he knew exactly what he was doing. He was enjoying getting you all riled up. His eyes narrowed as he delivered what he clearly thought was a devastating final blow. “Tell me, are you this much of a spitfire in bed?”

It was Billy’s turn to be surprised when it wasn’t you who launched themselves at him, but Steve Harrington instead. The fight happened so fast, no one could quite keep up but the two boys in the middle of it all. Somewhere between the posturing, the taunting, and the chaos, it started to go downhill. It wasn’t until Billy was wailing away on poor Steve that someone finally managed to intervene again. Max grabbed the syringe full of sedative and drove it into her step-brother’s neck. You didn’t dare intervene as she finally stood up to the jackass, but you immediately rushed to his side to check on him after if only to make sure he wasn’t dead from that much tranquilizer. You had essentially become the Party’s medic after everything last year (their healer, if you wanted to get nerdy about it like the kids often did). You immediately checked for Billy’s pulse and found it, a little fluttery but definitely there. You glanced at the syringe where it had landed, knowing it had been filled, and seeing it completely empty.

“He’ll be out until tomorrow morning, easy. Maybe even later.” You sighed, turning to look at the mess that was the living room. Your poor mom would understand, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t suck any less when she came home to this disaster. Out of the corner of your eye, you caught an unconscious Steve on the floor. You had a feeling you wouldn’t be making it back to the lab with overnight bags for everyone like you’d promised. There were more important things to handle here. You turned your gaze to the rest of the teenagers in front of you.

“Right. So. We can go kill the demo-dogs, but you little shitheads listen to me. When I say mission over, it’s over. Got it?” They all nodded eagerly, clearly desperate to do something to help. You searched around for Billy’s keys, only to see them in Max’s hands. She sent you a guilty— but very hopeful— grin, and you couldn’t help the slight smirk that crossed your face. You both knew how much it would piss Billy off that his kid step-sister drove his car—and right now, you were all for a little bit of petty revenge. Still, you had to at least pretend to be responsible.

“Alright,” you mock sighed. “But only because I need to tend to Steve and make sure he’s eventually conscious enough to help. Help me get him in the back, and then we can roll.”

——————————————————————

Billy woke up feeling like he had the hangover to kill all hangovers. He laid on his back, not understanding why the middle-right-side was so sore and why he was in an unfamiliar room. As he shifted to the side, he saw you laying there on the other side of the bed and on top of the covers that he was so meticulously tucked under. He tried to sit up and find some water, but a loud grunt of pain tore out of his throat as the ache in his right kidney intensified.

You shot up, locked eyes with the heartthrob bully in your bed, and immediately scrambled over the edge. He would have laughed at your lack of grace if his head hadn’t been killing him. Instead, Billy opted for a glare. A really mean glare. (At least he hoped it was.)

Without a word, you handed him the glass of water you had grabbed for him the night before. After a few seconds of thinking, you handed him some Advil too. Apparently incapable of actual words, Billy merely grunted in appreciation as he downed the water and the pills. You two sat in uncomfortable silence, waiting for the Advil to (hopefully) ease his headache. He was the first to break it. “So. What the hell happened?”

“Well...” You weren’t quite sure how to go about answering. Direct was best, right? Better start somewhere simple... “You’re in my room.” You saw his eyebrows shoot up at that, an excited and smug grin stretching across his face. You rushed to correct him. “Not because of that, jackass. Will’s friends, your step-sister included, were worried about going home last night. By the time they managed to... clean everything up, you were still out cold. Mom decided to let them stay the night, call it an impromptu sleepover, and phoned everyone’s parents this morning to let them know where their kids were. And we couldn’t exactly have you taking up the couch and the living room, so...” You trailed off, refusing to look at the still-too-smug teenage boy in your bed. Neither Jonathan nor your mom had really been all too happy about it (or Steve, for that matter). You calmly reminded everyone that not only were you the most suited to treat his injuries, but you were also fully capable of defending yourself. The kidney punch you had landed was your key piece of evidence. They couldn’t exactly argue with you there, but they made you promise to call them at the first sign of trouble. So what if they didn’t know you had let him stay in your bed? As far as they were concerned, Billy had slept on the cold, hard ground...

As you spoke and the pain began to subside, Billy suddenly realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt. He leered over at you, a very hot despicable smirk slowly stretching from one cheek to another. You saw that detached glaze settle over his eyes again, locking the confusion and discomfort (and was that embarrassment?) away as his typical jackass mask slid into place.

“You know, kitten, if you had wanted me shirtless that badly, you could’ve just asked.” He drawled it so lazily, like the crass words meant nothing to him, as he practically posed on your bed. You bit back the blush snippy remark that was just itching to fly free as you grabbed his shirt off the ground.

“I wanted to check on your back,” you ever-so-calmly replied, chucking his shirt at his face and hoping to cover the alluring stupid smirk he still had plastered on. “You know, from where I punched you. I wanted to make sure the bruising wasn’t too bad. And I wanted to check if Steve had done any awful damage to you.” The unspoken like you did to him hung in the air between you two. You saw the carefully detached gleam in his eye give way to some indecipherable emotion. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say it was regret. But the violent teen quickly scoffed, and you were sure you had imagined it.

“Guess I’m just built to last, sweet-cheeks,” he lazily threw the innuendo your way as he pulled the shirt back on. He doesn’t even have to try with these, you thought. You refrained from the eye-roll a comment like that usually would have elicited as you realized he was trying to keep his back out of your sight. He was even shifting so you couldn’t see it as he pulled the shirt over his head. But you had already seen everything. And from your own experience with an abusive asshole of a father and a teary mother who needed patching up (which was left to you since she refused to call the hospital and Jonathan used to get squeamish at the sight of blood), you knew what it meant.

“Billy,” you started quietly. The air in the room suddenly seemed thick with the tension of the situation. “I saw the other bruises on your back. And sides. And the really faded one on your stomach.” The boy in front of you froze, looking like a lion with his curly mane of bedhead that had just been backed into a corner. He carefully watched you, only half-finished with pulling his shirt down over his toned stomach. The detached facade was entirely dropped now as a sheer fight or flight response seemed to kick in. You jumped to beat him to (what could literally be) the punch.

“I’m not going to pry. I’m not going to ask questions.” You rushed to reassure him. After all, you didn’t need to. In your few conversations with Max, you had managed to chat with her enough to recognize a girl dancing around talking about her broken home. You had a hunch where those older bruises had come from. “I’m just going to say this: I know those bruises didn’t come from a fight. You’re too good at fighting for anyone to land a hit that smarts like that. But. Anytime you need to get away from the person who did that, you can come here.”

The offer seemed to sit in the air between the two of you with a huge, weighted presence. You saw the suspicion immediately set in as his jaw set and his eyes started to harden again. How could a guy who had said so little so far communicate so much? You were starting to think he was easier to read than you realized...

“I’m not trying to dig up some dirt on you or gain any kind of upper hand here,” you said, slowly approaching the bed. “And I can guarantee Jonathan won’t try to use it against you. I love him, but he’s too fucking scared of you to even breathe when you’re around.” You tried to joke with him. It didn’t quite land. Joking had never really been your strong suit though— helping was. “But if there’s any household that might know what it’s like to deal with abuse, it’s ours. My dad was a jackass. And while Jonathan tried to protect Will, I was left to help my mom clean up and face him again afterward. And now I want to help you.” You were sitting on your bed by this point, careful not to get too close to Billy. You wanted to leave him with his personal space, in case he needed to run. Instead, he looked you over with an assessing (and dare you say hopeful?) gaze.

“I’m not some fucking charity case, you know,” he practically hissed at you.

“I know,” was your calm response.

“I’ve been managing just fine on my own. Why would I need your fucking help?”

“You don’t. But I want to offer it anyway.”

He sat back at that, seemingly turning the words over in his head. You watched him slowly pull down the first of the many, many walls up in his eyes. “You’re pretty alright, you know that Byers? Nothing like that pussy brother of yours.” You rolled your eyes at the dig and playfully huffed. If this was the game he was gonna play, you could keep up. But you weren’t going to let him get away with being a total dick.

“Jonathan has a lot more going for him than you give him credit for. But thanks.” You sent him a small smile. “And please, call me (Y/N).”

“(Y/N), then.” He wasn’t quite ready to return your gentle, friendly smile. You hoped he would be soon though. In the meantime, you’d settle for the charming smirk that quickly stretched across his face.

“Why haven’t I taken you for a drive yet, huh (Y/N)?” He put an emphasis on your name like he might any of the ridiculous pet names he insisted on calling girls. Billy playfully wiggled his eyebrows at you, blurring the lines between flirting and being friendly. You laughed at him, sending a smirk right back. He didn’t offer you an apology for the night before (of course, there were others who deserved to hear it way more), and he wasn’t trying to fix the damage he had done. It didn’t even come close to patching up the issues his anger and his ego caused. And it didn’t explain or excuse any of it. But it was a start.

“Please, Hargrove. You couldn’t handle me. You said it yourself, I’m a spitfire. And I’m not as easy as the other girls you... drive with. You wouldn’t know what to do with me.”

“Maybe not,” Billy admitted. His smirk lessened slightly, but his eyes maintained that playful glint. “But I’d sure like to try.”

[bountybossier]

Don’t Be F*ckin’ Rude | Julie & Nic

This.

With: @purelikeviolence

“Get the fuck out of here.”

Julie didn’t enjoy being manhandled by the bouncer and might have fought back but whatever, fuck him. She’ll find another bar to bother. “Don’t fucking touch me,” she broke out of his grip as they exited the bar. She glanced over the other guy who got thrown out as well. “This is all your fucking fault.” She grumbled, blaming him for getting kicked out. They both lost their temper and thought fighting in bars was a good idea. Julie didn’t particularly enjoy fighting but the asshole got some good punches in. She hated that. Much rather enjoyed someone else doing the punches for her. Arms crossed against her chest, she started walking just behind him, not wanting to walk alongside him but they were going the same way.

How many fucking times was Nicodemus going to have his drinking time interrupted? Apparently, it was just going to push itself up into the hundreds whether he bitched about it or not. Since when did bar fights not get sorted out inside and they just cracked open a cold one? They didn’t do that in White Crest and he added that to his white board of his reasons that the town blew ten ways to Sunday. His knuckles smarted and he flexed his fingers. And now he was getting blamed. “Oh, is it? Who was the one that threw the bottle?” He was annoyed, but it was also a little funny. “This ain’t the only bar, you’ll find another one.” He heard her walking behind him and paid little mind to it, until heavier footfalls followed and approached. Quick. “Hey asshole!” A voice not hers called out. The hunter turned on his heel and squinted at a pack of frat kids. He grunted. “Which one? There’s two here.”

Julie gave a smug smile, recalling how the events transpired and proud of what went down. It’s not her fault some people just can’t handle their alcohol and say rude things in return. Just like how it isn’t her fault if she retaliates because of said rudeness. As she heard people heading toward them she turned, wondering what the fuck they wanted. “Fuck off, alright?” Julie waved them off, not needing them to bother her because they definitely we’re talking about her right.

“Both you and your friend.”

“He’s not my friend.” Julie said but still didn’t know if they were talking about this dude or her. Didn’t matter though. The way they started to run toward both of them said plenty. Julie slid back her foot, took her stance… and waited.

Nicodemus rolled his eyes at her cheeky smile. Deep, deep, down, he wished he had been the one to think of throwing a bottle. At least they shared the same sentiment in regards to the Frat Pack ahead of them. God, he really wasn’t in the mood to beat up children. “Yeah, what she said, fuck off. Ain’t gonna ask you a second time.” The lead bro scoffed with his entire body, the wax bits of his hair quivering. “You bumped into my bro, brah,” the younger man said. “When you and that chick decided people needed to catch hands.” Nic’s brows shut up and he glanced at the woman next to him. “Huh, he just called you that chick.”

The hunter was glad that they stopped talking and went for the direct approach. He was tired of talking anyway and he was still pissed from not finishing his drink. The first haymaker he threw out felt like coming home after a long day and he grinned.

The guys were easy to maneuver around, they were slow as fuck so just a timed hit and Julie struck at his stomach with her leg and pulled down on him by his head. Gravity did the rest, toppling his drunk ass over. She grimaced at the sight of her new bar friend just straight up punching one of the frat guys. Just all brawn, no technique, typical. Having been preoccupied judging her companion’s fighting style, one of the guys thought it would be cool to just grab her and pick her up. Really? Asshole. Swinging her leg up, she managed to bring it down on his knee. As he winced in pain he brought her low enough for her to get to her feet and once again use his own weight and lack of balance against him. She leaned over just a bit, the frat guy’s weight allowing both of them to roll with more strength but her roll was softened by his body while his back met the hard asphalt. It really wasn’t fair. These guys didn’t know fuck all about fighting but it was an advantage she’d abuse.

Whatever Julie did in her life, she had a hell of a lot more intensive training than Nicodemus did. He had his bar and prison yard fights, sure, but watching her was something else. He'd need to pick that up somewhere. Somewhere he wasn't in the middle of pressing his forearm against a man's throat and looking him in the eyes. This wasn't that kind of fight and the frat kid wasn't that kind of monster. He was just a drunk fuck that couldn't let something go. Instead, Nic headbutted him and shoved him back. The younger man crumpled at the impact and went down hard. Copper burst along the inside of his mouth and colored his teeth red as a fist caught his lip. It wasn't much to him, but the intent behind it was enough. Alright, he could work with that. The new threat turned from him long enough that the hunter hooked his arms under his and caught him there, fingers entwined behind the frat kid's neck. He looked up at Julie, spat the blood out of his mouth, and called out. "Y'mind?"

“What,” Julie played dumb, “need help fighting your battles?” She asked as she walked closer. Without a second thought, her hand shot out, smacking the side of the frat guy’s head and he was out like a light. She looked around and the rest of them were still recovering but backing away. It seemed they had taken care of them and they weren’t drunk enough to still keep fighting. “Let’s get out of here before one of them calls the cops and ruins the rest of our night.” She told the other guy, the two of them now joined together by this fight. Maybe they could find another bar and she’d buy him a drink or two. Nothing more than that. “Come on, I think there’s a bar up ahead.” She picked up her step, wanting to create distance between that mess. “So, what’d you say your name was?” She figured they had earned each other’s names now.

Nicodemus’s eyes rolled back so hard he saw his previous life, but even then, he grinned when he heard the smack and the guy in his arms became dead weight. Without much, he tossed the guy into the nearest trash bag. Last thing he needed was for him to crack his head on the concrete and die or something inconvenient like that. The hunter rolled his wrists as the others groaned and pulled themselves away from the pair. “You can say that shit again. Last thing I want is some fuckin’ boy scouts showin’ up.” Not too bad for a back alley bar room brawl, he thought. And they still weren’t done for the night. He glanced at her with a sly grin and shook his head. “Yeah? Round two?” He laughed and spat the blood out from his mouth before he picked up in pace to meet her stride. Already, it was starting to slowly mend itself and they’d be off to another bar like nothing even happened. “Nic works fine. You?”

Julie watched as he spit blood and grimaced. “Who the hell taught you to fight that you managed to get bitch slapped so hard by a frat guy that he made you bleed? Embarrassing.” Julie would have sooner died than to get herself knocked around by some human. She’d wrestled with many over the years and it’s been a while since any human has gotten the best of her in a fight. Grabbed her, yanked her but she always ended up turning it around. “I’m Julie,” she introduced herself, still keeping her eyes on this Nic guy. He talked funny. Not an accent she’s heard before. “Where the fuck are you from?” Her voice had no malice in it despite the swear, it was just how she talked to people. Most people (especially online) didn’t really get that.  Was his accent southern? It sounded southern. American accents were difficult for her - she didn’t have the most experience with them as she did with others.

“Oh fuck off, Iip’s still healin’ up from the fuckin’ bull fight I had yesterday,” Nicodemus rebutted. The werewolf had headbutted him so hard it knocked the headache out of him and jostled something loose, let alone split his lip something ugly. Hell, that was half the reason he had been at the bar they were at earlier. “A big fuck named Samson and I’m pretty sure he’s dead in a hole somewhere, so I think I’m doin’ alright.” Julie, as she introduced herself, was a breath of foul-mouthed fresh air in White Crest and Nic grinned. “Hell of a hand you got there, Julie. Who taught you that shit?” He huffed at her question. “The swampy ass of Louisiana. Not from here either, huh?” Lo and behold there absolutely was another bar down the way and he went in first, not bothering to hold the door for Julie. She could knock a shithead out, she could get her own door.

A bull fight? Where the fuck does that take place in town? Julie kinda wanted to check that out. “You fight a lot of bulls?” She asked, curious. Considering the way he fought, she didn’t take too much pride in his compliment. It was clear no one taught him anything like she knew. He just swung and Julie supposed, it worked for him. He was stronger, heavier while Julie was lighter and (unfortunately) weaker in terms of strength. Every move mattered for her, each blow needed to land. “Dad taught me,” the mention of him made her sick. “Until I started kicking his ass and I taught myself.” Now that Julie got the fight out of her she was sure there would be no fights at this new one. At least not until she had a drink. She followed Nic, sitting alongside. “So you gonna buy me a drink for saving your ass back there?” It wouldn’t hurt to ask right? “I’m from Singapore, actually. So, I’m new to the states here.”

“Somethin’ like that, yeah. Just wait ‘till rodeo.” Bulls seemed like a better explanation than giant fucking bats, demon moose critters, or fucking werewolves. Nicodemus wasn’t fighting any of that shit at the moment. He was fighting a raging headache and had just fought the bro committee, with her help no less. Now he just needed a drink to play nurse and he’d feel better. Even with his jangly nerves and senses, they were still beating strong. Something was near, he just couldn’t tell what. “Wish I coulda kicked my dad’s ass, but the fuckin’ coward upped and died before I could.” That was the case as far as he knew. The hunter got the attention of the bartender with a half-assed wave. “Whiskey on the rocks. Whatever she wants is on me. The first one at least,” he said as he gave her a dry smirk. “Saving my ass. Right. But Singapore?” He couldn’t help his curious expression. “Long way from home then. Personal or business?”

The fucks rodeo? The question lingered on her mind but she chose not to ask - honestly she didn’t care to know about this weirdo and his bull riding. “So kick his dead body’s ass,” Julie suggested with a shrug of her shoulders. At least his dad was in the ground. Julie could only guess what the fuck hers was up to. She hoped he was dead. Ugh, those were enough thoughts about her father for like the whole year. “I’ll just get whatever dark beer you guys have on tap.” She had already drank plenty at the other bar. She didn’t need to get shitfaced or start another fight. “I’m from Singapore. Didn’t say I came from there. I’m visiting someone.” It was all she was willing to give.

The hunter rasped out a loud laugh. Well shit, now why hadn’t he thought of that? Hell below, Nicodemus actually liked talking to Julie. It was a rare fucking occurence for him to enjoy talking to anyone. She was no bullshit. Take none and give little. A sentiment he appreciated. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll do that when I find it.” He didn’t want to talk about deadbeat, distant. It didn’t sour his mood, really, but it also did fuck all to improve it. Not like whiskey did, which he immediately took hold of and started drinking. “Alright, fair enough. The poor fuck willingly put themselves here? Goddamn.” The hunter shook his head and tapped his fingers against the bartop. The irony of his statement wasn’t lost on him. “Guess we’re all just poor fucks then, huh? Some of us maybe.”

Once she was poured her drink Julie grabbed it and chugged almost half of it. It wasn’t that bad but fighting made her thirsty so she needed it. “Speak for yourself, you poor fuck,” Julie scoffed before looking at him. “What are you doing here then?” Where was he from again? Fuck, she couldn’t even remember. Even if she did, she wouldn’t have known its distance from where they were. America was a puzzle for her. Not one she ever bothered to solve. “I take it you came willingly?” Who the fuck would do that? “You enjoying the mime and moose shit?” Probably was one of those. Then again he didn’t really strike her as a tourist. He didn’t seem that excited to be in the town like some of the tourists she’s interacted with.

“Ain’t gonna argue that. What’s that make you then, a charitable asshole for sittin’ with a poor fuck like me?” Nicodemus laughed, the fight from just a few moments ago leaving him in a pleasant mood. He didn’t even need the whiskey for that. “Here for work,” he said plain enough. “Bounty hunting. Don’t got one of those, do you? We both might after that...” If she did, he didn’t care. He only went after the ones he wanted to and after everything, he figured he was as good as done for the day. “I go where the work is, so yeah, willingly enough. I don’t plan on fuckin’ about here long,” he said and even as he said it, he was unsure. Typically, he stayed maybe a couple weeks. It was going on a month or more now. “You findin’ work here or what?” He took another drink. “Nah, the mimes don’t do shit for me and I’m just waiting for one of the moose to gore the shit out of somebody. It’d spice things up.” He turned slightly in his chair to look at Julie. “You know they got two fuckin’ mime places?”

“Hey, if the shoe fits.” Julie said with a shrug as she reached for her drink once more. She was just shitting him though, the last thing she’d call herself was charitable. Giving a smirk, she shook her head as she kept her eyes on her drink. “Not in this name,” she teased. “Not yet.” Julie has thankfully never had a bounty on her - ever. Her name was never given. Maybe people looked for her but she’s never found anyone doing so, so she must either be lucky or they must have been horrible at their jobs. Unlike her. “I doubt anyone’s gonna put a bounty on us for kicking some frat boys’ asses. Probably a typical Friday night for them.” The most that would happen would be sometime down the line they run into them again and they have to kick their ass one more time. “Yeah I don’t plan on sticking around here too long either.” However she was already here longer than she would have been usually but this one was particularly difficult. She snorted at the mention of the mime places. “Yeah, I think they have a bar. I sure as hell am not going over there for a drink. What the fuck is it with having to mime your orders? That’s so - I don’t know how those things stay open.”

“Not this name, huh?” Nicodemus repeated with a huff. He tapped his fingers against the bartop. Usually he gave Asher as a name to anyone that asked, typically clients and the ones he couldn’t be bothered to give a fuck about. But in White Crest, he had given more people his real name in two months than he had his entire lifetime. The thought was fucking weird and his nose scrunched at it. “Well, I’ll be sure to let my eyes just skip on over it if I see it.” He said with a tip of his glass, eyes slightly closed as he tipped his drink back to finish it. “Yeah, probably not. They might start callin’ us heroes.” Ah shit. What if those guys had been affiliated with Walker? Oh well. It was fine. If it ever came up at the Silver Bullet, it wouldn’t be hard to explain to a fellow hunter that they struck first and the pair of them had finished it. “Guess we’ll see which one of us gets the fuck out of here first.” He ordered himself another drink, scanned across the bar to look at every face that sat there the same as they did. How many people were just passing through in White Crest? Never in any other town had he met so many...interesting individuals. Maybe the town was cursed to burden people with connection. “How do you think one of those mime fuckers fights?” The question was serious, his brow furrowed. “Think they react the same to gettin’ punched in the teeth?”

He’d skip over her name just because she backed him in a bar brawl? Damn, Julie could only imagine what he’d do for someone who was nice to him. And he was a bounty hunter? She was sure all she had to do was give him some puppy eyes and he’d forget all about her bounty. She wasn’t about to call him a shitty bounty hunter though. “The mimes?” Julie wasn’t even thinking about that and had to take a moment and another sip of her drink. “The same as anyone else?” How the fuck else would they act? They were just performers after all weren’t they? “That’d probably make them break character…I don’t fucking know. Why? You wanna go test it out?” Not that Julie was against going up to someone and straight decking them in the face but she liked to have a reason - ah fuck that, she’d punch just about anyone for no apparent reason.

“Fuck yeah I wanna test it out.” Nicodemus said, face screwed up as if he was surprised that she might not want to. He shook his head and tossed back his whiskey. “When’s the next time we’ll get the opportunity to fight a goddamn mime horde?” The hunter flashed Julie a grin and bought them another round. He had plenty of money to spare and if they were going to spend the rest of their night shooting the shit over fighting stuff, then they would need more drinks. And they did just that until it was closing time.

[truethingsiwishicouldsay]

Why Progressive Tumblr is So Damned Depressing

Watching a bunch of idiots argue over politics while doing nothing about the issues they bring up is really wearing on me. 

I'm not that bothered when some neurotic asshole who’s scared to come off anon suicide-baits me. Not compared to watching hundreds of people try to argue that actual activism is less important than whether you, say, personally wear makeup, eat meat, or recycle.

The problem with this view is threefold.

First off, focusing solely on your own consumer-level choices isn’t going to change much of anything. If Jane Doe down the street doesn’t sort her trash correctly one day, the effect is negligible compared to the corporate scumbags dumping millions of gallons of industrial waste into a local river. If Joan Doe at work wears lipstick or otherwise is “imperfect” in her Feminism, it does a lot less damage than the CEO who rapes his way through his female administrative pool without anyone reporting him. If Jenna Doe is married to a man and volunteers at a rape shelter, she’s still doing more good than a woman whose activism consists almost solely of refusing to fuck men. If Janine Doe buys meat-based food for the dozen cats she’s fostering, she’s not only feeding them correctly, she’s also doing more for animals than someone whose diet is free of animal products but does nothing else for animals. Aside from group action such as voting or participating in boycotts, your individual life choices won’t do much to make the world a better place.

You can say that it’s easier to change yourself than the world, but if that’s all you’re doing, you’re not actually doing that much.

Second, Tumblrites won’t fucking leave it at that. It really seems like everyone on this goddamned site who thinks they’ve found the key to living right immediately becomes almost narcissistically proud of themselves. Their arrogance very often translates into setting themselves above the rest of us as some kind of authority. They then convince themselves that policing others to make sure we’re all “living right” too is not only a great way to virtue-signal and feed their egos, but also a great excuse to bully the ever-loving shit out of complete strangers. 

Many, many members of “progressive” Tumblr totally disregard that perfect is the enemy of good, and that demanding your version of perfection from others is far less important than encouraging positive change in ways that don’t depress, disgust, and drive away anyone reading your entries and responses. My guess is, deep down they may actually understand this, but they enjoy bullying people, and think that doing it “for a cause” somehow excuses it.

They will convince themselves that suicide-baiting a woman for being heterosexual is right and proper. They will convince themselves that obsessively berating anyone who eats or uses any kind of animal product is how you convert others to veganism, instead of how you get blocked. They will convince themselves that looking for trans people to bully is the best way to be gender critical. They will contribute to the toxic cesspool that “progressive” Tumblr is increasingly becoming over and over again, without stopping to think that maybe there’s a better way to do grassroots activism than acting like high school Mean Girls on bath salts.

Third, the more time you waste abusing people on Tumblr, the less time you have to do something actually productive to make the world a better place. My near shut-in ass has plenty of time for posting things on top of real activism like participating in boycotts, and I still don’t waste time looking for, say, individual “imperfect Feminists” to target for “correction”. Why? Because I’m not an egotistical shithead who gets salty at anyone who doesn’t obey my vision of how people should act, and takes pleasure in attacking them. 

Yeah, I’ll tell people to stay in their lane or stop being dicks, and I’ll hit back at those who attack me or others. But I do not set myself on a pillar, look down on the rest of Tumblr and decide which total stranger to crack the whip over today. That is not my place. It is not yours either.

If your idea of activism is policing and fighting with your fellow Tumblrites instead of doing anything positive and productive to change the world, you’re doing activism wrong. Seriously, do you want your legacy to be “helped x people rise out of poverty”, “saved x animals from kill shelters”, or “opened your home to x domestic violence victims”, or do you want it to be “suicide baited x total strangers on Tumblr for not conforming 100% to my politics”?  

Your time is limited. And none of us actually know how much time we have left.

Choose wisely.

[deniigi]

There’s a tornado coming towards my town and we’re all huddled in shelters. Got anything lying around to distract me?

I sure fucking do now!

I’ll give you two, here’s the first under the cut. I wrote it today, it’s basically Matthew Murdock’s Steps for How to Make a Family:

How to Make a Family

By Matt Murdock

Step 1. Have a dad.

Step 2. Lose your dad. Bemiserable. Great job, everyone. We’re doing amazing so far.

Step 3. Attempt to find areplacement dad.

Step 4. Fail abysmally.Like, make that shit stunning. Literally ruin your life for the rest of alleternity. Make yourself physically unlovable by all potential foster families,church members, and living humans. Don’t worry if you get tripped up by thisstep, you can repeat this one as many times as it takes for you to learn agoddamn lesson, but be equally warned: you will not learn that goddamn lesson.

Step 5. Go to law schoolbecause fuck it, why the hell not?

Step 6: fall in stupid,hopeless love with your roommate

Step 7: do not account forthe fact that the roommate maybe loves you back. Fuck no. REPRESS. THAT. SHIT.

Step 8. No longer repressthat shit. Accept the roommate. Embrace the roommate. Maybe drunkenly kiss theroommate and then make extraordinarily poor decisions with the roommateinvolving, at least at first, truly horrendous sex on a twin-sized bed.

Step 9. Meet your soulmatein the form of a tiny, angry woman set up to ruin your life by the first faileddad figure.

Step 10. Do not commit murder.

Step 11. Wave goodbye toyour soulmate and sob helplessly on your roommate. Don’t worry. Roomie ain’tgoing anywhere. Cling to this because it is the only thing you’ve got going foryou for the next three years.

Step 12. Have a fuckloadof casual and unhealthy relationships.

Step 13. Graduate.Accidently make a nemesis out of your roommate’s girlfriend who knows more thanhe does and possibly you do that you would do anything to be with the roommate.Including steal him from a perfectly respectable internship with a perfectlyrespectable job offer at the end of it.

Step 14. Set up a lawfirm.

Step 15. Acquire a client.This is family member #2. You will now kill for her. Congratulations.

Step 16. Attempt tosemi-murder some Russians

Step 17. Get found by yourroommate!!

Step 18. Get abandoned byyour roommate!! Well done, everyone, we are back down to one family member.Let’s hope nothing bad happens to them!!

Step 19. Get re-found byyour roommate!! Attempt to make up. Lie a lot about being better and morehonest in future. That’ll show ‘em.

Step 20. Become aterrorist?? Maybe skip this step if possible.

Step 21. Make anintentional nemesis of the Punisher. Congratulations! You have found familymember #3! It doesn’t matter if you don’t fucking want him, he’s yours now,baby!

Step 22. Ruin everyone inyour family’s lives with a botched trial! Break up with the Roommate. Cut tieswith family member #2. Do not fuck her.

Step 23. Re-kindle yoursexual relationship with your soulmate. Oh, by the way, she’s back. We’re goingto call her family member #4 now, ‘cause she’s harder to kill than a fuckingcockroach.

Step 24. Make the mistakeof allowing The Punisher (nemesis) and the soulmate to join forces.

Step 25: Just fuckingmurder your soulmate. Do it, you coward. Yeah, suffer them consequences, youpiece of shit.

Step 26. Get smashed. Getangry. Go out and nigh-eviscerate some folks. Don’t worry, you’ve got a couplemonths for this step/spiral.

Step 27. Trip over theSpider. Menace him. Say it’s his fault. Ignore all apologies and tell theSpider to get and keep the fuck out of your city or else. That’ll fix him.

Step 28. Go on anotherbender. Drink too much. Forget to eat. It’s fine, you’re not alone, you’llalways have the Devil to talk to.

Step 29. Accidently kickthe Spider in the head. Realize now that the Spider is approximately 12 yearsold and you just kicked him in the fucking head. Holy fuck, you fucking disgrace.You fucking child abuser. You are no better from your sensei, not evenan iota.

Step 30. Feel bad.

Step 31. Go on, you ain’tdone yet. I’ll tell you when to fucking stop.

Step 32. Orchestrateanother trip over the Spider. Do it gently this time. Make the same kind offuss but, when his voice does the horrible wavering thing, clear yours andannounce obnoxiously that there’s only one thing to do to stop this and its toteach the Spider how to fight properly.

Congratulations! You have foundfamily member #5! Aw, he’s so happy. Oh wow, he’s still talking.

Jesus fuck. He’s stilltalking.

Step 33. Meet Deadpool.Make tracks. You are an idiot, but not that kind of idiot.

Step 34. Meet Deadpool.Nearly die. Admit that Deadpool might have just saved your goddamn life.Reflect. Reflect. Reflect.

Step 35. Accidently set afoot outside HK and find yourself in the crossfire between a load of morons,Deadpool and the Spider. Do what you do best. Bask in the awe and approval ofthe giant man and the Spider afterwards.

Step 36. Get charmed ontoa team.

Wait. What?

Step 37.  Investigate: why the fuck is the Spidercrying? Who has made the Spider so distraught? He is 12. 15, whatever. Theymust die, whoever they are.

Eliminate the threat. Maybe, sortof, kind of, give away your identity. It’s fine, it’s a mutual exchange. Hisname’s Peter Parker.

Step 38. Alright, a bigstep made up of many little ones, so stick with me. In the absence of reliablesupervision, make shit decisions. Drink too much. Work too much. Sleep never. FuckDeadpool. Yeah, go on. We all knew it was going to happen with your goddamntrack record, pal. Kind of make up with the Roommate and family member #2. Moreor less get back onto speaking terms with them. Hire an office coordinator andan intern for the summer. But most importantly, meet a tiny angry woman with ascarf. Guess what! She’s family member #6. Hey, y’all are mutual functionalalcoholics. Drink to that, babes.

Step 39. Fuck, there’smore. Okay, well. You’ve always wanted a weird brother. Two weird brothers. Oneweird brother and one big, grumpy brother. Oh, yeah. That’s fine. That’s cool.Let’s call them family members #7 and #8.

Damn, it’s getting kind ofcrowded in here.

Step 40. Hey, so. Dunno ifyou’ve noticed with all the bad decision-making things going on, but Deadpool justwent on a bender with you and brought you home at the end of it. He’s kind ofcool with your whole deal with the Roommate. So, that kind of makes him yourbiggest, weirdest family member. So, welcome #9 to the family.

Step 41. THE SOULMATE ISBACK. Girl, did we miss you!! Yeah, totally go out with her to the bottom of apit. That’s safe.

Step 42. Die.

Step 43. Wake up. That’sright, sleeping beauty. Death is still too kind for the likes of you. Hey, bythe way, this lady? You know her and guess what??? She’s been your fuckin’ momthis whole damn time. Congrats, you’ve found family member generation 1, #2.But now, since you are a fucking self-absorbed, suicidal piece of shit, let’scall her family member #10. Or hell, maybe family member #1, since you’ve lostliterally everything you’ve ever worked for and which ever mattered to you.Hell, yeah. Since you’re gonna die like an idiot soon anyways, why the fuck notstart over?

Hello family member #1. Nice tofinally make your acquaintance. Give us a few days to shake off the shock andwe’ll be right with you.

Step 44. Get the fuck backon the rails. Say thank you and I’m sorry to your goddamn mother, for fuck’ssake, she’s been here the whole damn time.

Step 45. Wake the fuck upand appreciate that the Spider and Deadpool and Jessica and Danny and Luke wereall worried as fuck about you. Feel ashamed for that. Bad dog, no biscuit.

Step 46. Celebrate acouple holidays with the guys.

Step 47. Nearly lose thekid, once to Stark, then once to the city.

That’s your baby brother. Yeah,it’s normal to not stop shaking sometimes.

Step 48. The Roommateloves you, you asshole. He and family member #2 want to start up a new firm.Yeah, it’s pretty great, but don’t cry though, ya moron. People are around.

Step 49. Wake up onemorning and realize that your family looks like the following:

Slightly-estrangedbut well-meaning mother

Best friend withthe great hair and a nose for trouble

Frank fuckingCastle (whether you want him or not)

A highlyfunctional alcoholic who thinks you’re funny but won’t admit it

The strangelittle cult-brother

The strangecult-brother’s girlfriend

Your nursefriend who you fucking failed to appreciate earlier, you shithead

The big,sometimes grumpy bullet-proof brother

Your secretary

A spider

The Spider’s mom

The Spider’sbest friend

The Spider’sother best friend/your intern

The merc with amouth

His cat

Your soulmate

Yourroommate/best friend/life partner

And your dad, youfucking moron, he’s been with you in your heart this whole time.

Step 50. Rinse and repeatthe relevant/applicable steps from 1 to 49 for those persons who seem more orless worth it for the foreseeable future.

[iatethepomegranate]

Homecoming Chapter 23

For story masterlist and AO3 links, see the “my tags and fics” page on my blog. This is part of the Human Connection series.

Tumblr removed my last chapter from the tags and I’m not sure why, so I won’t be reblogging myself this time or tagging anyone. We’ll see if that works.

Pairing: DickTiger

Rating: Teen (this chapter)

Length: 3.7k

Summary: Dick recuperates, Tiger has a visitor, and Jason engages in some very healthy coping mechanisms.

Notes: Warnings for alcohol abuse, allusions to the previous torture

***

Chapter 23

It was difficult to concentrate on anything while Dick was laid up in bed. Tiger found the manor stifling most days due to the problems with Bruce and the affections of an overbearing family. Add in the argument and Dick's condition, and he couldn't breathe while surrounded by those walls.

So he found himself outside again, by the back door, leaning against a stone railing likely older than most American architecture he had seen. The roof covered the area, which was fortunate, as it was raining today.

It rained often here, cleansing the air until it was cool and fresh. Tiger leaned over the railing, catching raindrops in his palm.

He was in no hurry to return indoors and face the consequences of that conversation in Dick's bedroom. Where would he go if he had to leave this time?

“Yes, Tiger,” came a familiar woman's voice. “Water is wet.” Helena threw a duffel bag at Tiger's feet. “Your things.”

“Thank you.” Tiger wiped his wet hand on his pants. “Who let you in here?”

“The old man who answered the door,” Helena replied, leaning on the railing on the other side of the stairs down to the manor grounds. Tiger was certain Helena knew Alfred’s name, but sometimes she didn’t like to reveal exactly how much she knew. “He mentioned Dick is suffering some side-effects from the machine.”

“Migraines,” Tiger replied. “Is the machine destroyed?”

“I made sure of it.”

“And the prisoners?” Tiger had been too worried about Dick to give them much thought, but now Bannon was on his mind. Death for that man would be ideal, but Tiger would settle for a lifetime in a high-security prison.

“I've been talking to Batman about that.” Helena gazed out at the manor grounds, frowning, which could either be a bad sign or utterly meaningless. She frowned often. As did Tiger. “Checkmate is our best option for dealing with them. They will likely recruit some who can be rehabilitated.”

“And Bannon?”

Helena sighed. “I don't know. I've been in touch with Checkmate to make sure they have all the information. They know he's a piece of work. But you know them better than I do.”

Tiger hadn't spent much time with Checkmate in several years, given the deep immersion required for his mission in Spyral. They were more principled than Spyral had been, but they were still a group that believed the ends justified the means. Tiger had once thought the same.

“They might want to use him,” Tiger mumbled. Bannon had an uncommon set of skills and an even less common temperament to match. “People like that are hard to find... and control.”

“I could still make him disappear,” Helena offered.

“Do not tempt me.” The thought of Bannon being allowed to keep working made Tiger feel lightheaded. The scar on his shoulder burned.

“I can make it look like an accident.”

“Helena, please.”

Helena held up her hands. “Okay. But if you change your mind...”

“Matron.”

“Message received.” Helena joined him at the railing, nudging the bag aside with her foot. “Checkmate wanted me to bring you one of their own.”

Tiger wasn't sure he wanted to hear Checkmate's message. He sighed, and waited for her to tell him.

“Apparently you never officially quit,” Helena said. “They want you to report to their Gotham headquarters for evaluation and potential reassignment.”

Tiger sighed. “Very well. I can resign in person.”

“Not so fast. You might need their resources to research Dick's condition.”

Tiger hated that she had a point. “Fine. I will debrief with them and ask for assistance. They owe me.” The thought of what would happen when Dick's family discovered he had been a double agent this whole time, however, landed heavily into his mind. “I may not be welcome here for much longer, even if Batman is unconcerned about my allegiances.”

“Oh?”

“He knows I shot Alia.”

“Well, shit.” Helena nudged Tiger's bag with her foot. “Listen. I got Gloria home to her family, so I have no more commitments. I'm staying in Gotham a while longer. If you need a place to stay, my couch is free.”

Tiger didn't know what to say to that. Helena had already helped him run from his problems in the past, and she was offering to do it again. But Tiger would not leave without a fight this time. The thought of being separated from Dick was unbearable. He could barely tolerate being in a different room out of necessity.

“I'm using an old Spyral frequency on my communicator,” Helena said. “Your first one, remember?”

A long time ago, but Tiger remembered. “I will contact you if needed.”

“How do you rate your chances of staying here?”

“I don't know.” Tiger leaned heavily against the railing, weathering a wave of exhaustion. “Bruce can be... stubborn. But the rest of the family likes me, for whatever reason. Dick and Jason won't let me go without a fight. If the others become involved, I can count on Damian at the very least. Possibly the others.”

“You could be okay,” Helena said. “It's hard to blindside somebody twice in a row.”

“Even if I am able to stay,” Tiger muttered, “Bruce can make life unpleasant. I don't know how I can...” He sighed. “Dick is not well. I cannot leave him.”

“Remember that when it gets hard,” Helena said. “Is he up to visitors?”

“Not right now.”

“All right. I'll just have to visit another time, remind Bruce I'm watching. Maybe I'll bring the new uniform I'm working on, since I no longer have any director duties to distract me.” She squeezed his shoulder. “Hang in there. And stay in touch.”

“I will try.”

***

The pain ebbed away after several hours of suffering, but Dick had to move slowly or risk his shitty leg crumbling beneath him. He couldn't quite figure out where it was sometimes. But there were plenty of walls in this place, and Dick knew how to drag an injured body.

Also, he was just plain bored. Reading and watching television were both out of the question; his head split with pain whenever he tried. The rest of the family was likely at dinner, but Dick's stomach hadn't quite settled yet.

Pain memory was a pain in the ass, but he had managed to hold onto enough of the conversation right before he'd been knocked flat. Bruce knew Tiger had helped shoot Alia, and that Jason had practically torn out his own heart on the process of defending him.

Dick still had his communicator, so he tuned it into Jason's frequency, not quite ready to put Tiger through the pain of seeing him in only a semi-recovered state. Jason could take it, and they needed to talk... well, as much as Dick was capable. Words still took time to form in his mouth.

“Jay?” he said into the communicator, leaning against the bedroom doorway. His arm wasn't too bad as long as he was looking directly at it.

“Up already?” Jason let out a long breath through the link. “Shouldn't you be resting?”

“Bored.”

He snorted. “Right.”

“Where are you?” Dick couldn't quite enunciate the words as well as he normally would, but he got the point across.

“Shouldn't you be asking Tiger?”

“Not yet.”

“Still look like shit, huh? I'm on the roof. No way you can make it with half your limbs out of commission.”

“Help me, then.”

“Fuck's sake,” Jason muttered. “Fine. Hope I'm not too drunk yet.”

Of course he was drinking on the roof. Dick would've loved to make a smartass comment, but he couldn't quite get his mouth around the words.

“Tim's room has the easiest foothold,” Jason said. “Kid should still be at dinner. Meet me there.”

Dick didn't comment on the use of Tim's name, rather than 'the replacement' or any of the similarly asshole-ish varieties Jason had used over the years. Jason would backslide the instant he said anything.

Jason sat sitting on the windowsill when Dick staggered his way into Tim's room. “Hey, loser. You look like shit.”

Dick rolled his eyes, grateful that the migraine hadn't affected his eye movement; that would be too far. “Thanks.”

Jason slid outside and helped Dick climb through, keeping a tight grip on his bad arm as they picked their way across the sloped surface and up to a flat point with a bucket full of beer bottles, some full, some empty.

Jason set him down in the middle of the flat section, up against a chimney, and sat opposite him with his back to a slope, snagging a half-empty bottle from the bucket. “Okay. You're up here. Now answer me this: the fuck, dude?”

“Should you be that close to the edge while drinking?” The sentence came easier than Dick expected. Good.

“Fuck off.”

“I can't.”

Jason grumbled under his breath and took a swig of his beer. Dick glanced down at the bucket. More than half the bottles were empty; he'd been here a while. It was just as well Jason could hold his liquor, then.

Dick waited until he'd finished the bottle and started on another before asking, “What happened while I was down?”

“I'm not drunk enough for this conversation.”

“Give it thirty seconds.”

“Were you always this much of a smartass?”

“Yes.”

“Ughh.” Jason took several more gulps and wiped his mouth. “Okay. Fine. Bruce kept being a shithead until I told him to shut the fuck up. Then Tiger disappeared to fuck knows where. He's still in the house, though. Don't freak out. Then Bruce tried to talk to me about shit.”

“How'd that go?”

Jason raised the bottle. “How do you think?”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“I really fucking don't.”

“Drinking hasn't improved your temperament.”

“How would you know?”

Dick could feel his headache coming back just from this conversation. “Jason.”

“Don't Jason me.” Jason drained the rest of the bottle. Dick was really starting to worry about him. This thing with Bruce had been going on for years, ever since Jason came back. They'd never resolved it, and Dick was starting to wonder if they ever would. Maybe some things just weren't fixable.

That wasn't something Dick was prepared to accept, though.

Jason slammed the empty bottle into the bucket and opened the next. “Why are you even out here?”

“Didn't feel like dinner,” Dick replied. “And Tiger doesn't need to see me like this.”

“You're looking better already. Or maybe I'm just getting drunker.”

“It's both, Jay.”

“Yeah.” He took a long swig. “So, you've come to keep the family fuckup company.”

“You're not a fuckup.”

A laugh burst out of Jason, most definitely louder than he had intended. “Bullshit. The only reason Bruce hasn't been on my ass as much is because he's been busy with your boytoy.”

“Call Tiger that in front of him. I dare you.”

“Get me drunk enough and I will.” Jason reclined on his side, propped up on his elbow. It was probably a more stable position given his inebriation. “God damn it. You just had to go and get yourself injured, didn't you?”

“Wasn't planned.”

Jason wasn't listening. “Here I was hoping you'd come back in one piece and step back into being everyone's annoying big brother so I didn't have to do it anymore. But nooooo.” He tipped his head backwards and emptied the bottle into his mouth. “You go ahead and make everyone think you're gonna fucking die. And, like... you don’t die. But you're too damn sick to be yourself, so I'm stuck here filling your shoes in Bruce's house and none of us even know if this is a permanent thing or...” Jason dropped his face onto his arm. “Fuck, I'm an asshole. Pass me another bottle.”

“I think you've had enough, Jay.” Dick didn't trust himself not to drop the damn thing anyway.

Jason groaned into his arm. “I forgave him, you know. For not saving me.”

“I know, Jay.” Dick had reminded Bruce of this on several occasions in the past.

“But letting the Joker live... fuck. I don't know. It's just—it's a lot, okay?”

“I know that, too.” None of this was new information. Dick had struggled with this before, with what happened to Jason and Barbara. There were times he had been so angry he easily could've killed the Joker himself. He'd come close on several occasions.

“He would've done it if it had been you, you know. All his bullshit about how he really did want to kill him and had to stop himself or he'd, like, keep killing or whatever... he would've done it.”

“You don't know that, Jay.” Dick wasn't in the mood to fight over who was the favourite tonight. “He loves you.”

Dick was getting to the point where he hoped Jason wouldn't remember this in the morning. He wasn't great at comforting Jason even at the best of times. He tried, but he didn't have the frame of reference to truly understand where Jason was coming from. Bruce had made mistakes with both of them, but in different ways. Jason's death had altered the trajectory of his life, put him in direct opposition to Bruce and the rest of the family. They'd reached an uneasy equilibrium, where Jason didn’t involve them with the more homicidal aspects of his vigilantism and they didn't dig too deeply anymore.

That didn't work for Bruce. He took responsibility for Jason's actions, especially those that occurred within Gotham. Dick couldn't see a solution without one of them giving in, and Bruce and Jason were two of the most stubborn people he had ever known.

Jason wasn't a bad person. He just had very different ideas about how to deal with the worst criminals they encountered. In a way, it had prepared Dick for Tiger and, in turn, experience with Tiger had given Dick greater patience with Jason.

It was still hard to reconcile, even when Dick wasn't coming down from hours of pain.

Jason flopped onto his back. “Jesus Christ, I'm drunk.”

“You're just noticing now?”

“Ughhhhhhhh.” Jason threw an arm across his face. “Why the fuck are we talking about this? You trying to make me cry?”

“I won't tell.” Even if Dick was strongly tempted to tell Bruce that Jason was still really messed up about this. “Nice to know you care that much about the kids, though.”

“Someone has to. And you're...” Jason gestured vaguely in Dick's direction. “You know.”

“Why, Jason, you're almost responsible in your old age.”

“Fuck off.”

“I told you before: I can't.”

A chill wind picked up, jabbing through Dick's coat. The tip of his nose was turning into an icicle.

Jason groaned and sat up. “You should get inside. Don't need to get sicker on my account.” He had to put a hand down to stop himself from pitching sideways. “And I'm way too drunk to help you.”

Dick put in a call to Tiger, who didn't arrive alone. Tim had tagged along.

“You've got to stop using my window as an escape route,” Tim complained, pulling Jason to his feet. “How much did you drink?”

Tiger helped Dick stand, peering past him at the bucket. “That... looks like many empty bottles.”

“It is,” Dick confirmed.

Tim and Jason went down first. Despite his inebriation, Jason was steady on the slope, more so than he'd been on the flat section. Muscle memory was a hell of a thing.

Tiger pulled Dick close, kissing the top of his head. “How are you feeling?”

“Better.” Dick pressed his cold cheek to Tiger's shoulder for a moment. “Come on. Talk more inside. Tim'll get the bottles.”

Jason had sprawled on Tim's bed when they got inside. Tim slipped back out to grab the bucket of empty bottles, muttering under his breath the whole time. Dick lowered himself into the desk chair.

“Have you eaten?” Tiger asked.

“No. Still a bit queasy.”

“Better than I feel right now,” Jason muttered, pressing his hands over his eyes. “God damn, why did I drink so much?”

“We'd all like to know the answer to that question,” Tim replied, dumping the bucket by the window, slamming that shut. Dick flinched at the sound.

“I don't pry into your shitty coping mechanisms,” Jason mumbled.

Tim crossed his arms, leaning against the windowsill. “What'd I miss?”

“A lot,” Dick replied. He wasn't sure how much he wanted to tell Tim, or how much Tim suspected already. He was a smart kid, smarter than Dick by a huge margin. There was no shame coming in second to a certified genius. Well, third, behind Bruce... and possibly some of the others. Definitely Barbara. Dick knew a lot of smart people.

“Three shooters took down Alia and I was one of them,” Tiger said.

“Oh, I know. Jason did a really bad job hiding the evidence.”

“Had no time,” Jason muttered.

“Bruce knows, too,” Tiger added.

“Yeah, because you told him,” said Dick. He still wasn't sure how to feel about it. Some tiny part of him had been hoping Jason was gonna pull off something spectacular and throw Bruce off the scent.

“He already suspected.” Tiger fixed Tim with an odd look; Dick had a vague pain-fogged recollection of Alfred telling him they had spent some time together while everyone still thought he was having a stroke. “This doesn't bother you?”

“I heard what happened,” Tim replied, giving Tiger a steady stare in response. “It doesn't sound like you had many options. Or any. I hate killing as much as anyone else in this family, present company excluded, but I would've made the same decision in your shoes. I mean, if I had quick access to a gun. Which I normally don't.”

Tiger's expression was hard to read. Confused, maybe?

Tim shrugged. “I'm glad I didn't have to make that choice. Would it help if I talked to Bruce about it?”

“Maybe,” Dick said. “Jay and I have obvious reasons for being on Tiger's side. You don't.”

“I'll catch him after patrol tonight,” Tim promised. “If it helps, I think the others would understand, too, especially if they knew how close it was. Damian and I don't always see eye-to-eye on things, but I think this might be an exception.”

Dick really didn't want to think about close he had come to either dying, or being possessed and then eventually dying anyway. Judging from the way Tiger's body language had completely shut off—crossed arms, rounded shoulders, mouth set in a thin line—he didn't either.

Tim held up his hands. “We can deal with that tomorrow. You should go to bed.” He walked over to Jason and kicked his foot. “You, too. Thanks for putting us a man down tonight.”

Jason snored loudly. Tim watched him for a moment, before sighing.

“Bastard,” he muttered, shoving the bucket of bottles into Tiger's hand. “Go stick those in his room. I'm not catching the blame for this.”

Tim headed down to get changed for patrol, leaving Jason asleep in his bed. Dick and Tiger made their way to their room, detouring to put the bottles in Jason's room.

Upon entering their room, it became clear that Alfred had been in here. The bed was made, the whole room dusted and a bowl of fresh fruit sat on the desk. Dick grabbed a banana, recruiting Tiger to open it for him.

They sat on the bed together, Dick leaning into Tiger a little. Holding his body weight up with only half his limbs working properly was damn exhausting.

“Helena visited today,” Tiger said.

“I missed her? Damn it.”

“She'll be back.”

“Did she say anything interesting?”

“She said... many things.” Tiger ran a hand over his face, drawing attention to the dark circles under his eyes. “She returned my belongings. I think Alfred was going to... ah. There they are.” There was a duffel bag in the corner. “Checkmate has taken the agents who did not cooperate with us, including Bannon. They may recruit some of them.”

“And Bannon?”

“He might be one of them.”

“Fuck that.”

“Helena told them what he did.” Tiger closed his eyes, head downturned, and Dick was surprised he hadn't fallen asleep yet. “They also want me to report in for a debrief. And possible reassignment.”

“What are you going to do?”

“That depends. If they can help research your condition... I can be friendly. Otherwise, I will resign.”

“I didn't think you wanted to go back.”

“I do not.”

Dick rubbed his forehead, willing a stab of pain to go away. “Bruce has resources. We can—”

“Checkmate has other resources,” Tiger said. “I want to give you the best chance to recover.”

“You don't even want to be a spy anymore.”

“I want you to be in pain even less.” Tiger grabbed an orange from the bowl, digging into the skin to peel it. “They owe me for Spyral.”

“You think Maxwell Lord will see it that way?”

“I will make him see it that way.” Tiger plucked out a segment and handed it to Dick. “You missed two meals. Eat.”

Dick was nowhere near well enough for this argument, not after dealing with a very drunk, very emotional Jason. There was still a good chance he could puke all this fruit up anyway, which made talking a rather unattractive proposition.

“They will make me do a psychological evaluation,” Tiger said, passing Dick another segment. “It is unlikely I will pass, and therefore will not be cleared for field work anyway.”

“About time that PTSD was good for something.”

Tiger almost smiled. Almost.

Neither of them really felt up to sleeping yet. They'd tended more towards insomnia than nightmares recently. Talking about what happened hadn't really been on the radar, either.

Right now, it was just easier to lie side-by-side, hands intertwined, staring up at the ceiling. The whole thing hung heavily between them, a thick pane of glass pressing down on their chests. It would eventually shatter, and there was no telling how much damage it would do, but maybe they could start breathing again once it was done.

They weren't ready to take that chance yet. Dick still felt too damn fragile, and Tiger, though he'd fared better physically, was just as messed up on the inside... if not more.

They needed more time, and now they had to make sure they would have it.