#tentative title: a good excuse to be a bad influence

[britcision]

Happy WIP Wednesday friends! Not a huge deal for you today, but I figured I’d drop the Flashback and give you the last piece in the “Bruce Puts His Head In His Butt” for the night!

(Bruce is tranq’ed by Alfred minutes after the call ends and is put to bed. In my heart. He might actually walk himself up but we all know it’s Alfred’s glare that makes it happen)

Just a taste of chapter 14 of Dead and Loving It, you can find the fic on AO3 or from my pinned post which is the latest chapter, but links to the first and all subsequent chapters are in each post!

———————

A Good Excuse To Be A Bad Influence

Jason was actually on his way to bed on time for once in his life, the early end to patrol and lack of crime lord duties giving him a chance to get a full five hours sleep.

He should have known he wouldn’t get lucky two nights in a row; Constantine wasn’t around to distract Bruce anymore.

He’d contemplated not answering. Contemplated trying not to shoot Bruce in half an hour if the fucker showed up at his window.

The pit growled.

It was the worst thing he’d ever heard. The worst thing he’d ever felt. And he did feel it, vibrating in his very bones.

It sent shivers creeping up and down, muscles tensing as if to run away from something inside him.

He answered the call, hoping it wouldn’t show in his voice.

“What.” Flat, unfriendly. Not encouraging conversation.

“You didn’t come to the cave.” B’s voice was equally flat, but in his case it sounded like a condemnation. An accusation.

Jason gritted his teeth.

“I have shit to do in the morning. Make it quick,” he snapped, giving his bed a glare it definitely didn’t deserve.

His pillows had never done anything to hurt him.

There was a momentary pause before B audibly decided not to push it.

Good.

Jason was in a mood to bite.

“We have intel on the Infinite Realms. I’ve sent the report. You need to stay away from Danny Fenton, for your health,” B said, still cold, still clinical.

Like he didn’t care. Like what Jason wanted didn’t matter.

Jason’s grip tightened and the phone case cracked.

“Yeah, no. Fuck off.” He spat the words, adding “get new phone” to his list of chores for the morning.

He’d been doing so well with this one. Of course Bruce had to ruin it.

At least the old man didn’t seem surprised by his reaction.

“Jason. It… he. His abilities may affect your condition,” he said slowly, sounding tired. Old.

The pit snarled, sensing weakness, and Jason kinda wished he was still lost in its rage. Back when he was, it was easy just to hate those moments.

B showing signs of humanity fucking hurt.

“He is. He’s making it better,” he shot back, brooking no argument.

“We don’t know that, Jason. Please, just… just for a few days. Until we can talk to the League, understand what he’s doing to you.”

Was.

Was that Bruce begging?

It froze something small and soft in Jason’s chest, stuck him in place. And did nothing to stop the flood of icy rage from filling him up.

Filling his chest, crushing his lungs, making it hard to breathe. Because of course, anyone and everyone else’s judgement was worth more to the man than Jason’s.

Begging Jason to listen to him, when he would never, ever, fucking ever listen to Jason. When it didn’t fucking matter if Jason begged.

“And why the fuck would the League know better than a doctor from the Realms?” He finally snapped, ignoring the way his throat tightened.

There was a long silence.

“A doctor?” Bruce asked softly, his voice still so flat and emotionless that only his kids could have read the confusion. Jason rolled his eyes.

“Danny brought me to a doctor. I’m gonna be fine,” he ground out reluctantly, part of him resenting Bruce’s constant insistence on knowing everything.

But… well. If it got the guy off his fucking back.

There was a long silence, one that Jason was fully aware B was likely spending working this new information into his latest paranoid fantasy.

Jason seriously considered just hanging up and going to bed. He was about to do it when Bruce spoke again.

“Would this doctor be willing to speak to the League?” And there it was again, Batman voice, clinical and distant and always, always fucking suspicious.

Jason rolled his eyes harder. With emphasis. Willing to be interrogated by first the Justice League and then separately also goddamn Batman.

Actually, now that he thought about it, he was pretty sure B wouldn’t get anywhere with Frostbite. Frostbite took his work seriously and was, yeah, king of a full realm of yetis.

None of Bruce’s pointed silences, menacing looming, or vague growls would bug the guy who got Danny through Fucked Up Ghost Puberty.

(And would probably be helping Jason through his own Fucked Up Ghost Puberty… joy of joys.)

It might actually be fun to see him try. If just being here wouldn’t put Frostbite in danger, because hell fucking no that wasn’t happening. The guy may not be his king but Jason would still die first.

But of course, in all his paranoid bullshit about the Realms influencing Gotham, B had somehow conveniently missed what America was doing to the Realms.

Like Jason hadn’t even done the full write up.

“Not while the fucking League are required to hand him right to the US government for torture and experimentation. Which, by the way, did you read my report on the Anti Ecto Acts?” Jason asked sarcastically, doing his very worst fake concern.

And again he was met with silence. Fuck, maybe Bruce hadn’t read it. Jason had dropped it in the day before all this gala bullshit had started, and it had been a busy two days since.

Maybe B deadass hadn’t put the pieces together. Might as well hammer it home for him.

“You know, the one that says you, me, Cass, and Damian are all non-sentient because we’ve been exposed to the pits?” Jason added, eyes narrowing.

Which wasn’t technically true, since it was the resulting liminality and ability to process ectoplasm that made them count, but Bruce didn’t need to know that yet.

Finally he spoke again, voice gruff and clipped.

“I’m looking into it. But for now, Jason, please-” he said again, the cover of Batman beginning to slip.

But Jason was done. No fucking chance Bruce was giving him orders when he hadn’t even bothered asking for Jason’s opinion.

He wanted to spout off about dangers of the Infinite Realms after talking to some wet paper bag of a man who hawked his soul like it was a pokemon card. Hard pass.

And even after hearing that Jason knew what was going on a damn sight better than Bruce did, he still wanted to push him around?

Fuck that.

“Sorry B, legally non-sentient, guess I can’t be blamed for my actions,” he drawled, then turned his phone off and dropped into bed.

He had a lot of shit to do before picking Danny up in the morning.

——————-

Jason will be using “legally non-sentient” as an excuse long after the laws themselves are repealed, and just you fucking wait until Damian hears he can try it too 😏

Sorry Bruce, Damian can’t socialize today, he’s legally non-sentient and can’t be blamed if he bites someone

Tag List: @welcometosasakiworld @kyrianclawraith @someonebored0100 @stealingyourbones @starkcravingmad @frostedthroughghost @akikkobara @rainbowbunny0159 @littlefeather345 @violet-catsarelife @serasvictoria02 @wolfjackle @blacksea21090 @secretdestinywerewolf @anime-hipster-the-amazing @undead-essence @skitscratched @blackroserelina @snoodly-boop @trickerdi @mayoota-blog @xysidhe @idkmrpianoman @little-apricot-the-writer @chaoticmistake @the-legal-shipper @bun-fish @aroranorth-west @demon-cat-goes-woof @perfectwastelandcreation @onyxlightdragon @larks-and-katydids @peachesandcreamfemboy @jesus-camp-the-sequel @may-rbi @mothman-the-mothman87 @viyatrix @stargirl1331 @idfk-man10 @thedepressedrobin @skulld3mort-1fan @rootsmudge @ravenshadow17 @cankoking @phantom-dc @mentalcarebear @magic-pincushion @redamancyardor @lyra689 @itsparadoxlacuna @alcorbearson @asphyxia778

[decoolz]

A Piece of my WIP

This is part of my Work in Progress The John Laurens Alexander Hamilton Kissing book--working title (TJLAHKB) I am extremely nervous about sharing this, but I would like to see what people think about it. This is just under 3000 works so most of it will be under the cut. A new beginning. The mistakes of London and teenage fantasy were gone now, he was sure of it. All he had to do was take this meeting and the next few years of his life would be set. John stepped out of the coach and smoothed out his waistcoat. If he did this right, he’d be able to recover his reputation. No one would be talking about the rumors if he achieved glory on the battlefield. All he had to do was find General Washington’s command tent.

The camp smelled like twelve thousand people had been camping here for weeks. The sweet stench of rotting food nearly overpowered the unwashed smell of thousands of people gathered in quarters much too small. John searched the faces of passersby for someone to help, but not a single soul gave him a glance. No wonder the British had the upper hand. This was the encampment housing the head of the whole continental army and not a single person gave John a once over. He could be a spy wandering about. All this was going in his first letter to his father when he got situated.

“Excuse me!” John shouted at a boy who couldn’t possibly be old enough to enlist yet was running around the place as if he knew every inch of it. “I’m looking for General Washington’s tent. I have an appointment.”

“Good luck with that,” the boy chuckled. He turned and pointed toward the middle of camp. “See the big round one. That’s where you’ll wanna go. Hope you really got that appointment.”

“I’m Henry Laurens son. I don’t need an appointment,” John clarified rolling his eyes. “My father arranged for introductions.”

“Good on you,” the boy nodded, then ran off the way he was heading.

John continued to drag his footlocker across the dirt and dying grass up the path to the “big round tent,” silently judging every single one of the people who walked by him without offering to help or ask what he was doing wandering around this camp. From the looks of everyone’s dirty and mismatched attire, this wasn’t the kind of place where people took much care to observe anything.

He entered Washington’s tent without once being stopped. Setting his footlocker out of the way, he straightened his waistcoat again before approaching the desk in the middle of the space. The man bent over the desk didn’t bother to acknowledge him when he entered. John cleared his throat thrice before the young redheaded man looked up for his work.

“How may I be of assistance?” he asked with an unrecognizable accent. “I’m assuming you’re not the Frenchman. Are you one of his staff?”

“I am French but I’m from South Carolina,” John replied. He pulled his letter of introduction from his inside pocket as he stepped closer to the desk. The man behind it appeared altogether uninterested. “I’m Henry Laurens’s son, I’m here to have a meeting with General Washington to join this regiment.”

“He’s not taking meetings today,” the clerk replied. “I can schedule you for later this week if you’d like. What is your business with the General?” He licked the end of his quill and met John’s eyes.

“No, you misunderstand me,” John said, shaking his head. “Henry Laurens is my father. He wrote to General Washington and told him to expect me this week. I don’t need an appointment, he’s expecting me.”

The clerk clicked his tongue. “Right. You still need an appointment. The General is a busy man. He isn’t going to stop running the army because some self-important rich man’s son is going to show up at some point this week. I can write you in for an appointment tomorrow if you like. Should I write in Henry’s son or do you have a name of your own I can use?”

“No,” John shook his head. “I should be able to see him today. He’s expecting me. He told my father he’s looking for a French translator to help with correspondence and the like. He made it pretty clear the post had to be filled post haste.”

“Right … but you see, that’s not how it works,” the clerk explained, speaking slowly as if John was a simpleton. “In order to get into see General Washington, you need an appointment. I make the appointments. I would highly recommend you stop being a jackass and give me your Christian name so I can put it in the ledger for tomorrow.”

John took a deep breath. Clearly, this man didn’t understand who he was speaking to or he wouldn’t continue to be so obstructive. He’d be sure to put this in his letter to his father as well, he’ll have this scrawny boy’s job by the end of the week.

“Listen, Mister…”

“Lieutenant Colonel,” the redhead gentleman corrected.

“Fine then,” John scoffed. “Lieutenant Colonel, I don’t think you understand what’s happening here. I have a letter of introduction from my father with the understanding that I am to meet with his excellency when I arrive at camp. I am here. So, if you please, announce my arrival.”

“You seem to have poor comprehension skills, which honestly looks bad if you’re trying to get a job as a translator. There must be a meeting set up and penciled into this ledger before you can see him.” He held up the ledger for John to look at. “As you see here, today he is booked solid since he’s in the city meeting with a Frenchman who will be joining the ranks. So even if I wanted to let you in to see him—which don’t misunderstand I do not—I can’t because he’s not even in there. But if you give me your name, and not refer to yourself as your father’s son, I can write you in for tomorrow.”

“But I have a letter of introduction,” John extended his hand with the papers toward the boy.

“Go for you,” the Lieutenant Colonel nodded. “What is your name? I can set up an appointment for tomorrow at one in the afternoon right after luncheon.”

“My father said--”

“Listen,” the other man pulled a hand down his face and sighed loudly. “We seem to be at an impasse here. You need an appointment. I honestly don’t give a shit what your father said, because he’s not here. I am. I control the ledger book with the appointments. I already informed you against my better judgment that General Washington isn’t even in camp at present. I’m not sure what it is you think you’re going to accomplish by arguing with me about it. Give me your name I’ll write you in for tomorrow right after luncheon and you can go relax at the inn up the road for the rest of the day and stop bothering me.”

“This won’t do,” John shook his head. “I was promised a meeting when I arrived.”

The other man blinked slowly, shook his head, picked up his quill, and continued whatever it was he was working in when John walked in. After several tense moments of silence, John cleared his throat again for attention.

“Oh, you’re still here. Again, your meeting is tomorrow at one. I wrote down ‘Henry’s son’ so they’ll be no confusion as to how important you are. If you insist on staying in my office to wait for your scheduled time, you are more than welcome to sit in one of the terribly uncomfortable wooden chairs on the side there. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

John sunk his teeth into his bottom lip to keep from yelling and let several short quick breaths out through his nose.

“What is your name?” John demanded. “I would like to make sure Congress knows exactly the kind of riff-raff General Washington has in his employment.”

“And yet here you are trying to join our ranks,” the redheaded man met John’s gaze with a sickeningly sweet fake smile.

“Hamilton!” A head poked around the entrance of the tent. An older man with the same green pin on his hat as the clerk. “Are you set to take a break for luncheon or is Lucy bringing you a tray?”

“No, I’ll come with you,” the redheaded man, Hamilton evidently, said. He straightened his desk and stood. “It’s Wednesday.”

As he came around the desk, John got his first good look at this Hamilton. He couldn’t be taller than five and a half feet. John could probably put his hands around the man’s waist and his fingers would touch. He looked far more like a boy than someone in charge of something as important as General Washington’s ledger.

“Are you going to invite your friend?” the other man asked, gesturing to John.

“Not my friend,” Hamilton grumbled. “You can join us for a meal if you want. Or wait until we leave and look to see that no one is in Washington’s office and pout about it. Just don’t touch my desk.” He didn’t bother turning toward John as he said it.

“Will my footlocker be safe here?” John asked, stepping toward the other men.

“Sure,” Hamilton shrugged. He pushed passed the other man out into the sweltering camp.

“Is he always so delightful?” John asked.

“You must have got him on a good day,” the other man joked. “He’s usually much worse. Richard Meade, Virginia.” He extended his hand to John.

This was more of the kind of welcome he was expecting. “John Laurens, South Carolina.”

“Son of the senator,” Meade smiled. “Rumor has it he’s a lock for the presidency when Hancock retires.”

“That’s what he tells me,” John nodded.

Hamilton waited; arms crossed over his chest for the others then led the way to the mess tent walking a quick clip about twenty paces ahead of them.

“Personally, I think it’ll be great for the union to finally have some southern influence at the helm of Congress. I think we’ve heard enough from Boston and New York for a bit.”

“Those men are the catalyst for the revolution,” John countered. “However, I do agree, if we are to be our own country it makes sense to listen to men from all parts of it.”

John let Meade lead him through the buffet line and tried not to gawk as Hamilton shamelessly flirted with a young brunette woman serving the warm rolls until she slipped an extra one to him.

“Is that the reason he was so eager to come to luncheon on Wednesday?”

“No,” Meade replied as they walked toward their table. “That would be Lucy. She’s around here somewhere. On Wednesdays, she helps with the dishes.”

“Hamilton is that man then?” John sighed, taking a seat across the table from Meade. Hamilton sat a little way down the table, toward the end on Meade’s side. John knew plenty of men just like that back in London. Men who shamelessly debased themselves in front of women for tiniest scrap of attention. Hamilton didn’t quite fit the usual formula for such a man, but John had to admit there was something about him that made it hard to pull his eyes away from the scrawny redhead.

Across the table, Meade rested his hat on the bench beside him. He was slightly older than John, maybe about thirty. This was the type of man John expected to find working for General Washington, a learned Southern Gentleman from a prominent family who knew the order of things. If Meade had been behind the desk when John walked in, everything would be taken care of by now.

“Forgive me for prying,” John said between bites of a watery but rather flavorful stew. “But since I will be joining this merry group of soldiers, may I ask about the dynamic of the inner circle?”

Meade laughed, his green eyes brightening as a crooked smile crossed his face. “I take it your father arranged for you to be the French interpreter we’re looking for. If that’s the case you’ll be working closely with your new best friend, Mister Hamilton. He handles most of the correspondence and does quite a bit of the planning and strategy for small missions. He’s the brains of it.”

“French interpreter was the plan, yeah, apparently a letter of introduction and a promise from my father isn’t enough to have an audience with His Excellency. I also need an arbitrary appointment and to dance for a five-foot-tall boy who thinks too much of himself.”

“Hamilton will be the first to tell you, he’s five foot seven,” Meade smiled. “General Washington is in Philadelphia today meeting with a French General who’s come to help us. He’ll be back tomorrow.”

This was supposed to be the easy part. The last couple of years had been an awful pile of hardship and stupid mistakes. Joining the army was supposed to be the first step in the right direction. All he had to do was show up and the rest would take care of itself. He wouldn’t have to deal with people looking at him sideways or whispers behind hands at society events. As he learned more about camp John did his best to remember that he wasn’t another setback, but a pause. Tomorrow would be different.

He turned toward the end of the table where Hamilton was batting his eyes at an enraptured blonde woman in a light blue gown. Something familiar started to bubble inside John, somewhere between jealousy and contempt. When the woman was called away, Hamilton slid over to join John and Meade for the rest of the meal.

“What do you think, Ricky? Will this son of Henry will fit in our merry band of aides-de-camp?”

Meade nodded as he wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin. “It’ll be fine Hamilton. The two of you should figure out how to get along. If Mister Laurens will be working French translations, you’ll most likely be sharing a desk.”

Hamilton groaned, and let his head fall back, just as enthused about the prospect as John was.

“You’re at least learned in French though?” Hamilton asked. “Fluent? We have a remarkable number of Frenchmen coming to take up this cause”

John nodded. He’d been taught by his mother as a boy and then in some of the finest schools he could be sent to in Europe. Hamilton continued to eye him suspiciously.

“I gotta head back,” Hamilton wiped his mouth his sleeve and stood quickly walking off with his dishes, handing them to the servant whose job it was to clear plates from the tables when they were finished eating. John’s eyes never left him as he smiled and laughed his way into taking an extra pear from the young woman who gave him the extra bread.

 “An acquired taste, but I assure you he’d a good egg,” Meade said, pulling John’s attention back to the last of his meal. “He’s probably the smartest person in the army, including General Washington.”

 John caught Hamilton walking backward out of the mess tent with a wink to the women at the serving stations and doubted very much that a man like that could surprise him.

“Come on, I’ll walk you out to the inn, make sure you’re settled.” Meade stood and placed his hat atop his head. “It’s decent accommodation over there. Savor it, my friend, you’ll be living on a straw mattress on the bottom bunk until we move for winter camp.”

Once settled in the single room of the inn, John dug through his belongings for his stationary to write the promised letter to his father. So far, this journey wasn’t what he was hoping for, but tomorrow looked promising with the appointment scheduled to accept him into service. He was sure his education and experience would be just what General Washington needed. If he did end up working alongside that Hamilton fellow as Meade said, he’d be able to teach that man a little bit of tack. Show him how a man from Southern Society—like General Washington himself—should act.

[kumeko]

Title: the act of living

A/N: For lynndyre, for a lotr exchange! I’m not happy about the first two pieces in this fic, but I think the rest came out decently enough. :/ I really liked the prompt of post-canon, of what comes after, and making it bitter but also hopeful.

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i. Gondor

 Despite all the damage to it, Gondor stood strong. It had always done so; years of facing enemy after enemy had weathered it into a resilient place, capable of shaking off injury and keeping a united front. Its people were even more so, their faces as sturdy as the stone that made the city.

 This was a comforting thought when directed at their enemies. Less so when it was directed at himself. There were many ways Aragorn thought the people of Gondor would treat him but even the cool indifference of a stranger would have been preferred to the harsh front to an intruder. It was even more apparent when Aragorn rode through the streets, surveying the damage with Faramir and Pippin. As their horses trotted slowly down the winding streets, as they catalogued the various repairs they had to make, Aragorn could feel his people’s eyes on him. For the most part, their gaze was hard, their lips thin, jaw set. The occasional citizen would give him a tentative smile and wave, but the overwhelming feeling was this:

 Who are you to rule us?

A fair question, perhaps. It wasn’t like he’d grown up here, it wasn’t like they were expecting the king to return. It wasn’t fair to just push him forward as a king in the middle of a war and expect everything to be fine after. Not that Aragorn was sure what he was expecting; he had never wanted this position in the first place.

“It’s not that bad,” Pippin chirped. Seated in front of Aragorn, he glanced up at him. For a moment, Aragorn thought the hobbit had read his mind. “It’ll take a little muscle and spit, but we’ll clean it all up.”

 Ah, that made more sense. His friend had thought his dark mood was over the destruction. However clumsy it was, Aragorn was grateful for Pippin’s kindness and he smiled. “Certainly.”

 “The people of Gondor are not one to back away from a challenge,” Faramir said from his right. He sat straight on his horse and while there was still something ghostly about him, he looked proud. “We have weathered attacks before. This will be no different.”

 “Really?” Pippin furrowed his brows, disbelief on his face. “You guys have fought orcs and wraiths and all of that?”

 “Well, perhaps nothing that bad,” Faramir admitted with a chuckle.

 “Thought so.” Pippin snorted derisively. “No way anyone can just rebuild after all that.” He gestured at a pile of rubble nearby, soldiers and local citizens creating a chain as they shifted giant rocks to a wooden cart. “Not without a lot of help.”

 “Fortunately the elves are assisting,” Faramir answered, glancing at Aragorn with a wry smile. “They said to consider it a wedding present of sorts.”

 Aragorn’s eyes widened slightly. “Arwen.” He glanced at the clean up crew once more. Now that he was paying attention, he could see the odd elf in the group, examining the debris and finding the right rock to move next.  The folk regarded the elves warily but begrudging accepted the assistance. “How long have they been here?”

 “Over a week.” Faramir smiled wryly. “It was a little odd at first but the people have come around to it now.”

 “Have they?” Aragorn glanced at Pippin and thought of Boromir. Of Legolas and Gimli. The oddest of companions that were now the closest of friends. There were things that you could only learn by working next to someone, to watching them toil away with you. He tightened his grip on his reins, pulling his horse to a stop.

 “Huh?” Pippin thudded against his chest at the sudden stop. Bemused, he stared up. “See something?”

 “More of a realization.” Aragorn slipped off his mount. “I’ll go help out.”

 He was never the sort to watch from a distance anyways. Aragorn had gotten this far through hard work. This kingship would be no different.

    ii. Rohan

 “Wow.” Merry stared at the garlands strung up around the Meduseld, his eyes wide with wonder.

 “Unexpected, isn’t it?” Eowyn chuckled, amused by her companion’s amazement. To be perfectly honest, she had looked the same earlier. It had been too long since flowers lined the halls of her forefathers, since the cold grey had been washed over with warmth of a blaze and good company. The trifecta of loss, a poisonous influence, and war had left her home less than it ought to have been.

 Now, finally, it was returned to its former glory.  

 “Yeah, I didn’t think you guys even had flowers,” Merry chirped, examining a wreath on the wall. There was a long silence and then his ears burned a bright red as he realized what he’d said. Turning around, fidgeted nervously. “Not that that’s a bad thing—it looked very noble before—we just have a lot of flowers—”

 Eowyn laughed, cutting him off as he cycled through excuses. “No, no, it is understandable. We haven’t had flowers in here for a long time.”

 “Oh.” Feeling relieved, Merry smoothened down his shirt with a pleased smile. “It looks good.”

 “We’re celebrating our harvest and the end of the war, so I thought we could brighten the place.” Eowyn gestured at the torches that lit up every few metres, ensuring that no darkness pervaded her home. It felt a lot more like it did when she was younger, when her brother used to chase her through these halls and her uncle…

 She paused at the thought. He would have liked how it looked, praised her with his gentle smile and kind words.

 Eowyn wished she could have seen it. That he could have seen this. Loss, she found, sprung up in the most unexpected of places and every time it took her breath away.

 Unaware of her shifting emotions, Merry replied, “So this isn’t everyday? We have flowers everywhere at home, so it’s strange to find places without it.”

 He was smiling up at her, bright and unassuming, and Eowyn shook herself out of her thoughts. Her uncle wouldn’t want her to linger, the way he had lingered over her cousin’s death. The best way to honour him was to keep moving forward. Looking down, Eowyn asked “Is that so? I have never seen that many flowers.”

 “Well, not everywhere everywhere—definitely not on the toilets cause that’s weird but everywhere else.” Merry stroked his chin thoughtfully. “And maybe not on the paths. The proper ones, that is—the ones that we aren’t supposed to take are chock full of weeds.”

 “The ones that get you in trouble?” Eowyn teased, having heard plenty of stories about angry farmers and vegetables.

 “It’s only trouble if you get caught!” Merry retorted, crossing his arms. “And I almost never get caught.”

 “Hmm, I wonder about that.” Eowyn chuckled. Every description Merry gave of his homeland gave a warm impression. It sounded like place that would produce such wonderful hobbits, such wonderful heroes. “Perhaps I should see for myself?”

 Even Farmer Maggot sounded fun to meet. Especially since she wouldn’t be robbing him.

    iii. Mirkwood

“I did not expect you to come all the way here,” Thrandruil drawled, each word carefully articulated as though each one was a jab from one of his guard’s spears. Walking through a well-maintained path in Mirkwood, his gaze was ever upward, giving one the impression he was barely paying attention to his companion.

 Celeborn knew better than to fall for that. Thrandruil was always alert to his surroundings, however he might act, and it would take one wrong word, one false step to be barred from returning to the forest elves’ realm. “I heard the forest had cleared and thought it was a good time to visit.”

 That wasn’t a lie—the forest was brighter than it had been in centuries. The spiders were finished, their webs burned through, and starlight once more graced the elves as they frolicked in the night. Mirkwood was beautiful again.

 “It has,” Thranduil admitted with a regal nod of his head. His brow furrowed and scornfully he added, “Though it is the age of man, so who knows how long this shall last.”

 “So many elves have departed these days,” Celeborn sighed. “Lothlórien feels emptier these days, as does Rivendell.”

 “As expected. They were never tied to the land like we are,” Thrandruil spit out, contemptuous. “I am only surprised they didn’t leave earlier.”

 He should have expected that remark. Despite the time that had passed, Thrandruil’s pride was infamous and it seemed nothing could change that. “You aren’t going to answer the call?”

 “One day, maybe.” Thrandriul shrugged dismissively. “Perhaps when my son is tired of playing with dwarves and the sea. Until then, this is my kingdom and I will not abandon it while it still stands.”

 “As expected.” Celeborn chuckled. “Galadriel is also considering leaving.”

 “And you?” Thrandruil looked at him now, his brow raised curiously. “What will you do?”

 “I will join her.” Celeborn clasped his hands behind him, looking up at the starlight through the trees. It glinted off nearby goblets and here still the sound laughter and life existed. “But not for some time. Lothlórien has lost its shine and diminished. Rivendell is a tomb.” He glanced at Thrandruil. “Is there room for another here?”

 Thrandruil smiled.

    iv. Rivendell

“You look worn, old friend.” Elrond didn’t look up as Gandalf stood next to him. Despite the physical changes underwent, his voice remained ever the same, as did the comfort in his presence. “What troubles you?”

 “Things that are beyond my control.” Elrond sighed. Standing on a terrace, he watched from a distance as his daughter read a book on a bench. How much longer would he be able to witness that sight? How much longer could he just simply open his mouth and call her?

 “Ah.” Gandalf studied her for a long moment before shaking his head. “You made your choice long ago. And though you do not want to admit it, so had she.”

 “I should have realized it the moment they met.” Elrond frowned, closing his eyes. “I had hoped otherwise. Her path will be a painful one, a long one, and there will be no one to comfort her in the end.”

 “You are not staying then?” Gandalf asked, his brow raised.

 “No, I do not think I can bear to see her hair grow white. And I do not want my sons to change their mind because of their love for the Dúnedain. Besides, already the world is changing.” Elrond smiled wistfully. “There is no room for our kind anymore. It is better to accept it and leave now.” Before their images of the world was tarnished, before he could see the old places wrought with ruin. He had seen what man made, what man could do, and while there were great creations, there were more often than not ruinous. Only the dwarves could match them for greed.

 “Then fret not.” Gandalf squeezed his shoulder. “There are others here to comfort her. Thrandruil—” Elrond snorted. “—I know you do not like him, but he and Celeborn will still be here when her time comes. She will not go alone, forgotten and unloved.”

 Elrond glanced at Gandalf. “And you?”

 “Perhaps.” Gandalf only smiled mysteriously. “I cannot say where I will be or not in the years to come.”

 “Father!” Before Elrond could question him further, Arwen waved to him, a smile on her face.

 There would be plenty of time to interrogate a dodgy wizard in the future. For now, he wanted to soak in every moment with Arwen he could. There would be so few of them and his years too long after.

    v. Shire

It was strange how empty the Baggins’ home was. Samwise had taken care of it for years and had helped his father for it even longer. It had been customary to find white-haired Bilbo in the gardens, writing the next page of his manuscript. Or Frodo puttering about, laughing about the latest prank Merry and Pippin had pulled.

 Now the gardens ran wild, left unattended during their mission. That was something Sam could fix. Something he would fix.

 Something he couldn’t do anything about was how silent the rooms inside were. No fire crackled in the hearth, inviting one to rest their feet and stay a spell. There was no welcoming greeting when the door opened, no soft swear from trying to open a too tight jar of walnuts. Just complete and utter silence.

 Sam stood at the foyer, not sure if he should go further in or not. It had been one thing when Frodo had left him the key to the place, another thing entirely to use it. He could just sell it but Frodo’s history, his own history was too deeply tied to it.

 What to do?

 What to do?

 Sam took a deep breath. The air smelled musty from disuse. Frodo wasn’t here anymore. He was across the sea with the elves. A place Sam could go, if he wanted to. Another decision he wasn’t ready to make. Pulling out the key, he quickly slipped out of the hole and locked it behind him.

 Tomorrow. Tomorrow he’d figure out what he wanted to do with this place. To do with himself.

 Today Rosie was at the pub and Merry and Pippin would be back from their travels and he could just soak in the act of living.

[svtmatokis]

A Bad Influence | Pt2

[Pairing]:Kwon Soonyoung/Hoshi and Reader

[Word Count]:1227

[Summary]: So far, your relationship with the idol has been smooth, other than the occasional argument about the things you do when he's not around.

[Pt1] [Masterlist]

_______

You woke up before your boyfriend, and really needed to use the bathroom, so you replaced your body with a pillow and hoped to whatever higher power was up there he wouldn't notice. After you got out of the bathroom, you saw that he wasn't on the sofa anymore. You silently panicked, thinking that he had left you, realizing how dangerous you actually were, but then your fears were sated by shuffling sounds coming from your bedroom. Fully stretching, you walked slowly to your door and opened it. There you saw your boyfriend with only boxers, looking for some clothes to wear. He was bent over, his butt fully shown to you.

You weren’t going to pass a chance like this up, since he always did it to you. You snuck up being him, and gave his backside a light but firm smack. He quickly jumped up and turned around to face you. His red face has pretty much made your entire day. He recoiled, and you saw the mischief on his face. You ran out of the room, maneuvering around your small apartment to avoid the wrath of your idol boyfriend.

You dropped off Soonyoung at the building where the dorms were, giving him a quick peck on the lips. You were going to pull away when you were pulled in for an even deeper kiss.

“Don't forget about tonight.” He told you, leaving you breathless.

__________

Sunset was coming, and honestly you were ready for sleep. Your job at the calling center had drained you. Five customers had yelled at you for their devices not working, and it took every ounce of your will not to just yell at them to buzz off. You were making your way home when you got a text. You pulled over and read it.

[Handsomehamster]: everything is set up. c'mon my pummykin ;)

[You]: please dont call me that ever again.

You roughly leaned back on your seat, and decided to turn around and go to the dorms instead of getting some well deserved sleep. When you arrived, you siked yourself up for meeting 12 boys that you've only seen through a screen or far away on a stage. You walked in and was looked up and down by the lady at the desk in the lobby. You looked down at your clothes. Black and leather probably wasn’t the best clothing choice, but at least you had a jacket to cover some of it and make you not look like a total cliché.

You took the elevator to their floor, and it hit you. Oh god, you were meeting 12 different boys with different personalities, and from what you’ve seen, they're all absolutely crazy. How did you yourself into this? When the elevator doors opened you walked over to the second dorm, like you were told earlier that morning. You let out the breath you Were holding and knocked. There was a huge commotion at the door before the one you recognized as Jeonghan opened it.

He looked you up and down before moving out of the way.

“Hi. I'm Jeonghan. You must be the girlfriend I've heard all about. Come in.”

You walked in, and were greeted by 9 other pairs of eyes. You felt like a caged animal as you walked in and stood next to the door. Your boyfriend quickly saved you.

“Jagi, hey!” he said loudly, obviously trying to fill up the silence with his voice.

“This is my girlfriend, she’s amazing.” He said, taking his place beside you.

You gave a big smile and introduced yourself.

“It's really nice to meet you all…I'm sure you've seen me at a few of your concerts, I'm a really big fan.”

The room stayed silent. The boys just stared at you, some of them even glaring.

“Can you excuse us?” you said, pulling Soonyoung into the hallway.

“How much did you tell them about me?” you demanded, your anxiety about to eat you alive.

“Everything…?”

“Everything?! What do you mean everything you mean everything, everything? My past? The stuff I used to do? The people I’m friends with?”

He slowly nodded, and you found yourself pacing.

“Oh god if they know about me they hate me oh god oh god…”

Hoshi reached out and took your hands in his. You didn't even realize you were shaking. He looked you in your eyes.

“It's going to be okay, alright? They don’t hate you okay? Even if they did, I’m on your side, no matter what.”

You quickly nodded your head, his soothing words calming you down the tiniest bit. You both made your way back into the main room, where you heard the commotion of all of the boys. It was like a controlled chaos, small groups all doing different things and not out of hand. This time they seemed to not be very tense. You must have been gone longer than you thought. When your presence was known, the mood dropped, and you were greeted with silence once again.

“Okay,” you heard a deep voice ring out, “How about we introduce ourselves?”

You looked over at the direction of the voice, and it was S.Coups, right at the kitchen. Mingyu was cooking behind him. You were not ready for this. Soonyoung led you to a part of the sofa that wasn't occupied. Suddenly, you got a fun idea.

“What if we go from youngest to oldest, and I’ll see if I can recognize all of you?”

The boys all nodded in agreement. You started your little game. You pointed your gaze at Dino.

“You're Lee Chan, the Maknae of Seventeen. You take care of your members really well from what I can see, and You’re actually really funny. You're an ace in singing, dancing, and rapping. You sure do deserve your ‘Golden Maknae’ title.” You said all in one breath.

You could see the boy blush from your compliments. You reached your hand out to shake his.

“Yeah,” he said, tentatively taking your hand, “I'm glad you know me, noona.”

Somehow, hearing Chan call you noona made you feel very warm inside. You decided to shake the feeling and move on.

You talked to the other members, all giving them compliments and observations of yours. The mood got slowly warmer as time went on. When you got to Hoshi, he beamed at you, expecting a lot of praise.

“You're Kwon Soonyoung. Next?”

The boys laughed at your short introduction for him, and Hoshi pulled you in for a small hug. You ran off the rest of the members, and when you got to Seungcheol, you couldn’t help but be speechless. He looked at you expectantly.

“You're Choi Seungcheol. You're just…amazing. Every performance you have is different in some way. You're literally never the exact same, even when you perform the same song over and over. You sacrifice your own well being for the well being of your members, and you’re a fantastic singer. You're amazing.” You breathed out.

You shook his hand awhile he beamed at you, seemingly proud of himself for making such an impact on you.

"Soonyoung never told me you'd be this pretty." He said, smiling.

Your face quickly turned tomato-like as you pulled away and settled into Hoshi's lap.

“Uh, when do we eat?” you said, trying to tell yourself that Seungcheol was not flirting with you.

“Whenever Seungkwan goes in the kitchen and checks on the food.” Vernon said matter-of-factly.

The man in question soon shot up and ran into the kitchen, checking on the food he prepared an hour before. He shouted out that the food was ready, and soon all of you were sat in various positions in the room eating. When you took your first bite, you were immediately in love.

"Woah! This is so good!" you said, taking another bite.

"You are so adorable..." Soonyoung said from behind you. You turned around to face him.

"Who're you calling adorable?" you said, giving him a fierce but playful look.

"You~" he said, giving you a kiss on the cheek. You blushed at his actions.

"Can the both of you be gross somewhere else please?" you heard Junhui groan.

"Don't worry about him." Minghao chimed in, "He's just mad 'cause he isn’t getting any."

You chuckled.

"I'm surprised," you started, taking another bite of your food, "With how you are on stage you would think that a lot of people would be wanting some."

"Are you one of them?"

Minghao hit him with his elbow. You were with Soonyoung, after all. Your boyfriend glared at him, all fiery fury.

You stopped eating and gave Jun the most seductive look you could muster.

"I could be."

His eyes widened and his jaw dropped. You and your boyfriend laughed at his surprise.

"You didn’t have to do that, you know." he chuckled.

"I know, but it was kind of funny, don’t you think?"

"I guess, but no flirting with guys that aren't me, okay?"

You gave him a small peck on the lips, catching Soonyoung off guard.

"Of course Soonie."

___________

Hi yall! It’s been a blast writing this! I love Soonyoung way too much I think…anyway, hope yall ate enjoying this series.

~Amber

[Pt1] [Masterlist]

[shin-hoseokk]

buzzcut season

Title: buzzcut season

Word Count: 4206

Ship: kiho (wonho/kihyun)

Description: 

“do you ever get tired of watching?”

changkyun’s voice disturbed kihyun out of his gloom, “excuse me?”

“you’re not very subtle hyung, don’t you ever get sick of watching him?”

Tags:  angst, underage, drug use, drinking, piercings, implied child abuse, implied sexual content, pining, unrequited love, minor showki, minor hyungkyun

ao3 // twitter

“just shave it all off”

kihyun looked at his friend tentatively as he fiddled with the electric shaver in his hand.

“are you sure dude? i don't want to fuck it up or something”

hoseok nodded and sat down on the edge of the bathtub, “hurry up before i change my mind”.

kihyun loved this version of hoseok, audacious and fearless, unafraid of the consequences. hoseok  was no stranger to bad decisions, and more often than not, kihyun would be dragged along with him.

but kihyun didn't mind.

he didn't mind at all.

he watched hoseok run his fingers through his thick black hair, he glanced back over his shoulder and flashed kihyun a smile,

“ki, what are you waiting for?”

how could kihyun say no to a smile like that?

-

the first time kihyun took lsd, it was on the floor of hoseok’s kitchen. he hadn't wanted to do it at first, but hoseok had talked him into it.

“ki, i swear, it's gonna be awesome, you won't regret it”, his eyes glittered with intensity and kihyun felt his knees turn to jelly.

he lowered himself on the floor next to hoseok and looked at the little plastic baggie in his palm. he let his eyes trail up hoseok’s arm, his broad shoulders, past his neck and finally to his smile. his teeth were so perfect, lined up like a white picket fence.

kihyun rolled his eyes and sighed, “alright you bitch, lets do it”

hoseok beamed at him, a smile so bright kihun felt his heart stop for a moment, “kihyunnie, stick out your tongue for me”, he held the tiny white tab on the tip of his finger

kihyun did as he was told.

-

kihyun sat by the edge of the pool, a beer in his hand and a cigarette behind his ear. the night air was sticky and suffocating. kihyun would've taken his shirt off and joined the others in the pool if he wasn't so self conscious. besides, he was busy watching hoseok, who was sitting on the other side of the pool.

there was a girl with him, sipping on a redbull through a straw. her hair was bleach blonde and it flared out across her shoulders like rays of sunlight.

he watched hoseok take his shirt off, flexing his chest as he lifted the fabric over his head. he watched the girl giggle as hoseok whispered something into her ear. he noticed how hoseok’s eyes drifted to the girl’s tank top.

nights like this were common. kihyun would tell his parents he was sleeping over at hoseok’s house. he would meet hoseok outside his apartment and wait for him outside the liquor store as he bought cheap beer with his fake id. from there they would met the rest of their friends at a park or they would hop the fence of the local swimming pool. It was simple, it was easy and it was enough to keep kihyun from dying of boredom. it was fun.

it was always fun, until he had to watch hoseok lean in to kiss this girl. he glared across the pool as she wrapped her arms around his neck and ran her fingers through his freshly shaved head.

hoseok looked fantastic with a buzzcut, of course he did. hoseok looked good in everything. his mother had yelled when she saw the hair in the bathtub, she didn't want her only son turning into a skinhead.

hoseok stood up and held his hand out for the girl to follow. he walked around the pool, a chorus of whistles and hollers following behind him. when he reached kihyun, he leant down and ruffled  his hair.

“dont bother waiting for me tonight kihyunnie”, he said with a wink and a smirk

as soon as he was out of sight, kihyun knocked back the rest of his beer and laid back on the cool concrete.

-

“kihyun, can i ask you something?”

kihyun was sitting at his desk, trying to finish up some homework. however that was proving to be difficult as hoseok was laying on the floor next to his desk, fiddling with his phone and asking kihyun odd questions here and there.

“yeah dude, whats up?”, kihyun pushed his chair away from his desk so he could look at hoseok properly.

he was laying on his back with his hands stretched behind his head, his feet were crossed at the ankles. he was the perfect image of relaxation, not a care in the world. his hair was longer now, kihyun thought he looked like a bean sprout.

“why don’t you have a girlfriend yet?”

kihyun almost fell out of his chair. he looked away from hoseok and struggled to find the right answer.

why didn't he have a girlfriend yet? sure, girls were pretty and soft and nice to look at, but he never found himself attracted to one girl in particular. he had considered hooking up with girls at parties the same way hoseok did, but he never really saw the appeal of it.

“i don't know, there's no one i’m really interested in”, kihyun looked down at the pencil in his hand. for some reason he couldn't bring himself to make eye contact.

“you know, jisoo and i are thinking of making it official”, hoseok rolled over onto his stomach and rested his chin on his folded his arms. kihyun thought he looked adorable, basking in the gentle afternoon light, scruffy school uniform and socked feet.

“if you had a girlfriend, you could come clubbing with us and stuff”

“i don't have a fake id dude, besides i don't think i would like clubbing very much”, kihyun resumed his homework, ignoring hoseok’s whining.

for a minute or so, there was silence. the only sounds that filled the bedroom were the scratch of kihyun’s pencil and hoseok’s soft breathing.

“kihyun, are you gay?”

this time, kihyun really did fall off his chair.

“what? no! just because i don't have a girlfriend doesnt mean i’m gay hoseok”, kihyun stood up quickly and kicked his friend in the thigh.

“ouch, dude!”, hoseok gripped his leg in pain, “i'm just asking, its not a big deal”

kihyun rolled his eyes, “it's getting late hoseok, we have school tomorrow”, he reached out to pull hoseok off the floor and tried to ignore the way his breath hitched when he grasped his hand.

-

changkyun always hosted the best house parties. his parents both worked full time overseas, meaning changkyun was left to his own devices most nights. he told kihyun he has parties because he enjoys the loud music and atmosphere, but kihyun thinks he just gets lonely in the two-storey house by himself.

kihyun was drunk, the most drunk he had been in a long time. he can't remember how many drinks he had, hoseok just kept passing him beer after beer. when kihyun thought about it, hoseok was a terrible influence. he never pressured kihyun into anything, but he still felt obliged to follow him into the dark every time. but he didn't want to think about that right now, he didn't want to think about hoseok right now. the second his girlfriend had walked through changkyun’s front door, he had been stuck to her like glue. kihyun had watched her lead him up to the bedrooms and cringed when hoseok had playfully pinched her ass as she hopped up the stairs.

kihyun escaped to the dance floor and let the music take control of his thoughts. he felt bodies pressed up against him, it felt nice to be so close to another human. he swayed his hips and let his eyelids flutter shut. his eyes shot open when he felt someone else’s hands on his hips and a broad chest pressed against his back. he turned around to find a boy, a pretty buff boy if he did say so himself. the boy had tanned skin and full lips, they reminded him of hoseok’s.

“wanna dance?”, he mouthed, the music was too loud to hear his voice, but kihyun nodded and let the stranger take hold of his hips once more.

kihyun enjoyed the feeling of bigger hands on his body, he liked the smell of sweat and masculinity.

dancing with another boy didn't make him gay, he told himself. he was drunk, this was drunk-kihyun making choices, drunk-kihyun couldn't tell the difference between boys and girls.

over the boy’s muscular shoulder, kihyun could see hoseok in the kitchen pouring himself another drink. his shirt was on inside-out and his hair was mussed in a way that could only indicate one thing.

hoseok had just had sex.

something ripped through kihyun’s chest like a bullet. he hands flew up to clutch at his chest, but they were stopped as the bigger boy whirled him around. his eyes met hoseok’s as he was turned to face him. hoseok raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth to say something, but he was silenced as he watched the boy slip his hand under kihyun’s shirt. kihyun was shocked by the warm hand pressing against his belly, but he couldn't tear his eyes away from hoseok. If hoseok was going to watch, he may as well give him a good show. he reached behind him and wrapped his arms around the boy’s neck, before sensually rolling his hips in time with the music. he let his eyes flutter shut and his mouth slip open.

when he opened his eyes, hoseok’s expression had changed. his gaze was sharper, more piercing than before. his eyes were hooded with something kihyun couldn't decode. he didnt dare to drop eye contact as hoseok’s tongue slipped out to swipe across his bottom lip.

jisoo appeared from the corner of his vision and slinked her way into hoseok’s arms once more. kihyun released a breath he didnt know he was holding as hosoek looked away from him. the hand under his shirt had slithered down to the waistband of his jeans, fingers reaching for more heated skin under the heavy fabric.

kihyun felt sick, he never got sick when he drank but he figured there was a first time for everything. he wriggled his way out of the boy’s grip and pushed through the mass of sweaty bodies until he reached the back door. he heard someone yell his name but no one followed after him.

the night air was refreshing. it was a humid night but nothing compared to the muggy scenery of the party. kihyun leaned against the side of the house and tried to regain control of his breathing. there were so many questions running through his brain, questions he didn't have the answers to. he didn't know if he wanted the answers.

he felt his phone vibrate in the back pocket of his jeans. seven missed calls from his mum, one missed call from changkyun and a text from hoseok. he unlocked his phone and opened the messenger app.

shin hoseok: ;)))))

kihyun managed to slip his phone back into his back pocket before leaning over and vomiting onto his sneakers.

-

the grass is rough underneath kihyun’s back. rough but not uncomfortable. he isnt worried about getting grass stains on the back of his white school shirt. changkyun sits next to him, his legs crossed, puffing away at a cigarette.

every wednesday, kihyun, changkyun and hoseok would skip sixth period and escape to the field behind the school. where they would smoke or nap or gossip. wednesday’s were kihyun’s favourite day of the week.

that was until hoseok started bringing his girlfriend along with him.

kihyun wasn't jealous, he swears he’s not jealous. why would he be?

they sat under a tree, hoseok had his head in her lap. he smiled up at her as she trailed her fingers down his cheek. his hair was getting long again. he had already asked kihyun to help him shave it again, but he had brushed him off with the excuse of too much homework.

“do you ever get tired of watching?”

changkyun’s voice disturbed kihyun out of his gloom, “excuse me?”

“you’re not very subtle hyung, don’t you ever get sick of watching him?”

kihyun assumed changkyun was joking, but when he turned to look at him, there was no trace of humor on his features. his eyes were soft and filled with a compassion kihyun had never seen before.

he looked back at hoseok, who was now eagerly trying to suck his girlfriend’s face off. kihyun made a face of disgust. hoseok was a huge fan of public displays of affection, but kihyun wasn't really interested.

he sat up, brushed the grass off the back of his school uniform and reached to pinch a drag from changkyun’s cigarette.

“i don't know what you’re talking about”

-

“are you sure about this? you know its gonna hurt like a bitch”

kihyun was sitting on the edge of hoseok’s bathtub, it felt weird having their roles reversed. the last time kihyun was in this bathroom, he was battling sweaty palms and a shaky grip as he dragged the electric razor across hoseok’s scalp. streams of cold water dripped down kihyun’s wrist as he held an ice cube to his ear lobe.

“yeah i know”, kihyun moved his hand and let hoseok wipe down his ear with an alcohol wipe. he didn't know when he decided he wanted his ears pierced. perhaps when he first discovered the way hoseok’s piercings glimmer when the light hit him just right. or maybe when he noticed how hoseok’s deft fingers reached up to fiddle with the silver rings that lined his ears.

kihyun thought they looked cool. he would leave it at that.

“don’t move, i don't wanna fuck this up”, hoseok picked up the needle, which he had sterilized with the flame of his lighter.

“It’s okay, i trust you”

hoseok looked up at this, a soft smile gracing his delicate features. kihyun almost melted right then and there. there was a softness in his eyes, not the same pity as changkyun had carried that day in the field. it was something warmer, it heated kihyun from the inside out.

“you trust me?” hoseok’s head tilted in question, kihyun thought he looked like a puppy.

“of course”

-

kihyun could always tell when hoseok’s dad came home. if hoseok’s bad mood didn't give it away, it was the bruises and scrapes that scattered his arms. the first time hoseok had brushed it off, claiming he had fallen off his bike or run into a doorway. but kihyun was smarter than that. plus, he knew hoseok didn't own a bike.

kihyun was sitting in hoseok’s unmade bed, wiping down a cut on his arm with a damp towel. he looked up at him, his jaw clenched, eyebrows furrowed in pain as kihyun wiped away blood. there were unshed tears clinging to his eyelashes. kihyun still thought he looked beautiful. so, so beautiful.

his head had been shaved again. hoseok had given up on asking kihyun and turned to jisoo for help. if kihyun was being completely honest, it stung. it hurt that hoseok had gone to his girlfriend instead of asking him one more time. but if he was being realistic, he knew that was bound to happen. shin hoseok didn't beg for anyone, not even him.

hoseok sniffled and wiped at his eyes as kihyun was putting a bandaid on his forearm.

“hoseok, if he keeps doing the-”

“kihyun stop”, hoseok cut him off. just like that, his guard was up again. kihyun wondered if jisoo had ever seen him like this.

“hoseok i'm just trying t-"

“kihyun i don't want to hear it”, his voice was raised and all traces of weakness had disappeared from his features.

kihyun tensed up, “fine”, he got off hoseok’s bed, straightened out his jeans and began to walk towards the door, “i'll see you at school”. as he reached for the door handle he felt a hand latch on to his wrist, pulling him back to the bed.

“wait, i'm sorry. don’t leave me yet”, hoseok gripped his arm. when kihyun looked into his eyes, he didn't see the normal hoseok: the hoseok who was confident and daring. the hoseok who had a terrible fixation on drugs and binge drinking, or the hoseok who bravely pushed needles through his friends skin for fun.

this hoseok looked small and lost and lonely, his eyes were brimming with tears. kihyun could see the young boy he used to know. hoseok was eleven when his dad had left, and he hadn't returned until he was fifteen. kihyun remembers holding hoseok as he cried. how could an eleven year-old carry the weight of a broken home? hoseok tried, he tried so hard. for the next two years, his dad would come and go as he pleased, haunting hoseok like a ghost.

“okay, i’ll stay” kihyun sat back down on the bed and put his arm around hoseok’s shoulders as he finally broke down.

“i’ll stay as long as you need me”

-

changkyun’s parents were out of town again. the boy was too tired to host another party, so instead he invited his closest friends over to light up a couple blunts and let their worries escape them.

kihyun was spread out on the couch, squished in between hoseok and minhyuk. across from them, changkyun was making out with a skinny boy who was perched in his lap. the boy’s name was hyungwon and they had met while changkyun was trying to shoplift a bottle of vodka.

whilst kihyun wasn't very fond of watching his friends suck face but his limbs felt heavy and hoseok was emitting a very pleasant warmth beside him. on the other side of him, minhyuk had fallen asleep and was happily snoring away.

“kihyunnie…”

kihyun’s mind was lifted out of the fog when he turned to face hoseok. there were very few things in the world that kihyun found truly beautiful: pretty sunsets, a piece of perfectly fried chicken, the warmth of his mother’s hug. none of these things would ever, ever compare to hoseok’s smile. kihyun thought it was the most delightful, gorgeous sight on earth. and so, as kihyun turned to meet hoseok, he found himself struggling to breathe.

“kihyun, i wanna try something”, hoseok had a smirk on his lips and mischief in his eyes. kihyun was always weak for him, regardless of whether he was sober or stoned.

hoseok reached into the pockets of his sinfully tight black jeans and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. he flipped open the pack and took out a pre-rolled joint and his lighter. kihyun watched with amusement as hoseok, in all his doped-up glory, struggled to light the tip of the cigarette.

once the joint was lit hoseok took a long drag, tipped his head back and exhaled the smoke. he looked like a dragon, kihyun though, a fluffy dragon. can dragons be fluffy? probably not. hoseok giggled as the last puffs of smoke escaped his mouth and inched around so his body was facing kihyun.

he placed his hand gently on kihyun’s thigh, just above the hem of his shorts. his fingers were warm, but not uncomfortably so.

“can you just…. just lean in a bit”, hoseok took another long puff of the joint and quickly shut his mouth, preventing the smoke from exiting his lungs.

the fingers on kihyun’s thigh had moved to grasp his chin. despite the heat, kihyun felt frozen in his seat as hoseok’s face inched closer and closer to his. his eyes darted between hoseok’s red-rimmed gaze and his deliciously pink lips. the fingers on his chin subtly tilted his head to the left and kihyun swore he felt his heart stop as hoseok’s eyes fluttered shut. he knew what happened next, he had watched hoseok do this with countless girls.

he let his eyes slip shut and swiped his tongue over his dry lips, preparing for contact. kihyun felt hoseok’s nose nudge his cheek and the hand on his chin slid up to gently hold the side of his face. for the briefest moment, kihyun felt hoseok hesitate and he began to pull away, mentally preparing for the inevitable awkwardness that was sure to follow. but at the very last second hoseok leaned in further and carefully pressed their lips together.

even though it was incredibly cliche, kihyun swore he felt sparks the second hoseok pressed their mouths together. he committed this feeling to memory, the pillowy-softness of hoseok’s lips and the contrast of the rough palm holding his cheek. kihyun opened his mouth and let the smoke pour in, hoseok’s hand slipped down his cheek and slid around the back of his neck, pulling him closer. kihyun inhaled before opening his eyes and exhaling slowly.

through the haze he made eye contact with hoseok, who was watching him with hooded eyelids. kihyun felt his heart rate pick up again. he expected hoseok to let him go, turn away with a laugh and continue smoking. but the hand on the back of his neck remained as steady as ever. kihyun felt naked under hoseok’s heavy gaze, his eyes were searching for something, reassurance maybe. reassurance that everything was fine, this wouldn't change anything. reassurance that kihyun was there with him, there for him. kihyun wanted to reach through the murkiness and tell him everything would alright, but he knew that wasn't the truth.

hoseok opened his mouth to say something but he was cut off by the shrill melody of his ringtone. his hand slithered out from behind kihyun’s neck and into his back pocket to grab his phone. kihyun wanted to beg him to let it ring out, whoever it was could wait. hoseok took one look at his phone and his face dropped, he held out the device for kihyun to see:

jisoooo <33

“listen, dude, i….. i gotta take this”, hoseok rose from the couch and handed kihyun the joint with an uneasy smile, before lifting his phone to his ear and walking into the kitchen.

“hey baby….. no, i'm not busy right now….”

with hoseok out of sight, kihyun stubbed out the cigarette on the coffee table and sunk back into the couch. what was he expecting? hoseok to blow off his girlfriend for his awkward and sexually repressed best friend? yeah right. hoseok deserved better, he needed someone as free and open as him. kihyun was none of those things. one shitty shotgun kiss wasn't going to change anything.

on the couch next to him, minhyuk had barely moved. kihyun smiled as he noticed the drool on minhyuk’s chin. minhyuk, perhaps the most outrageous and venturesome of them all, drooled when he slept. how endearing.

changkyun and hyungwon had disappeared but judging by the thumping coming from upstairs, kihyun had a pretty clear idea of where they had gone and what they were doing.

kihyun looked around the living room. his friends bags and shoes scattered on the floor, changkyun’s family photos and old school pictures, the warm afternoon light filtering in through the windows. there were traces of love and life all around him, but for some reason he had never felt more alone. his heart felt empty and heavy, hanging like a dead weight in his chest.

kihyun decided there was nothing beautiful about being seventeen and in love.

love. that's what it was right? that's what he felt for hoseok. the movies and books always make it out to be the peak of the human existence. the most euphoric and satisfying feeling. but this, whatever ‘this’ was, it didn't make him feel joyous or elated. he didn't want to scream from the rooftops or out across the ocean. he wanted to crawl into bed and sleep for a week, or until this feeling went away.

who the fuck falls in love at seventeen?

kihyun ran his fingers through his hair and stood up. he walked around the coffee table to peek at hoseok through the doorway of the kitchen. there he was, sitting on the floor, giggling into his palm at something his girlfriend was saying on the other end of the phone. their eyes met and kihyun cursed at himself for the way his heart jumped.

he turned away and shook his head. he recalled the day in the field, when changkyun had called him out for staring. kihyun had denied it at first, but these days he caught himself staring at hoseok more and more. he couldn't help it, he was drawn to hoseok like a magnet. his smile was like the sun, his laugh was the sweetest sound he had ever heard and his touch made kihyun melt.

but the sun can burn you. sounds, no matter how sweet, turn to white noise after a while and kihyun was sick of melting.

kihyun collected his shoes and his bag. he noticed hoseok’s lighter abandoned on the couch and without a second thought, he pinched it and slid it into the pocket of his shorts. as he opened the front door and was embraced by warm summer air, kihyun decided that he was finally tired of watching.

[popcartoonkabala]

Trinities, dualities, retirements and euphemisms: division into clarity (Chesed-Gevurah-Tipheret she b Malchut)                       PART II! [Batman is not Superman]

To summarize our purpose, once again: Myth and Archtype have been part of human culture since the beginning of symbolic communication. Why wouldn't there be patterns in how?

Numbers are the language of science, but they used to be the secret language of theology. Pythagoras got into something that had been the sprouted wisdom heritage of Ancient Egypt, Babylon, and beyond: The attempt to boil all the assorted deities of every land and saga into systematized essences. Because it's not that they didn't notice what the narrative commonalities amongst all the different regional gods of every nation, on the contrary: there was a fair amount of cross identification, because of recognition when we are talking about the same things, even if speaking with very different priorities and lessons in mind.  The gods of the twentieth centuries are our Cartoon characters; divine far more than it's assorted human “Stars,” Cartoon characters tend not to die the way people do. Icons of modern fear, hope, fantasy and frustration are the things we wound up being most impressed by as children, and their nostalgia cultures testify the depth of influence these kind of characters and the experience of their narratives have on the soul of humanity, as we becomes whatever it is we will be. Why wouldn't there be patterns? Why shouldn't there be a language for unzipping those patterns, to understand the world and it's relationships better?

The Hebrew word “SePhiRa” literally and essentially implies communication, like a little story being told through every CyPheR. Universal popular culture is the true law of Rome, being newly decreed every time we watch the show and laugh, shiver, or in anyway resonant. Resonance is ratification, it's official-- I feel you, and from now on, the standard is like such. Hardening the heart, refuse to accept the heart-understood new decree that HAS convinced, is the insistence on a previously remembered principle trumping the new story and it's cargo.  Everyone knows it, deep down. The narrative priority of That which everyone knows and feels. South park, for example, initiates a certain new and universal standard: once you laughed, you're in the club, the club of true knowers and understanders of How It Is, and, more importantly, perhaps an insistence on how it should be, ironically in the softest and sweetest way possible. It's been happening every so often the whole time. That's how homophobia and narcophobia are defeated in the end, and make no mistake, despite the thrashes of regressive hostility, they are done, as far as social pop-morality is concerned--- maybe-- for awhile. In some places, if not everywhere.

In the ancient schism between North and South is the mystery war between A(s)(h)ura and D(a)eva: What's God and what's Monster? The oldest religious text range between the Vedic and Iranian on this issue, with the Western and Eastern spectrum ranging some adapted terms-- “God” as a word for the highest of the high in Northern European translations of the Hebrew Bible points to a very traditional association of Mercury with the Cause of Causes or at least star of worship, to whom invocation is given as in Sanskrit. The war is over when common language is found, and so “God” has become the resting place for a broad spectrum of phenomena associated with the preferred. Poured out, some speculate based on Greek “kh”. The conflict in the Bhagva Gita, like the Teutonic sagae across the mountains and valleys, pits these cosmic forces, one valorized and the other demonized. In the Old Testament narrative, this schism contends with the internal satire going on against even-and-especially that which is identified with the so-epitheted “good” god, master (Baal/Adon) and hero/direction (El[ohim]) used for also the falsehood and also the true authority. The word for the overtly demonized sort of wild-divinity in contrast with the legitimate-but-perhaps-problematic-lordship, is Shed. The Gallic/Celtic satyric nature spirits that eventually are given the mellowed title of “Fae/fair” (to convince the listening chaos-monsters that we are speaking well of them, despite all being aware of their destructive capacity) is “Shaedu(Siddhe)”.  

This is a rhetorical struggle, to the degree that it's clear since the beginning of Egyptian and Babylonian religion that the best god is defined by success, like Batman and Popeye.  But that's until it's clear that there is a value higher than victory, an astoundingly challenging idea that in many ways has yet to be fully digested into popular human morality.  This is the degree to which Nietzsche looks to ancient religion, specifically what he calls “Indic” which he identifies, as within Greco-Roman tradition, Dionysian. For traditional models celebrating, not functionality, but inspiration, passion, intoxication and ultimately, illumination (or death). The dei that celebrate boundaries, victories, or any other conventional prizes cannot be the truest deepest highest Dio: just a certain kind of echoed reflection. So too our gods, heroes, villains and monsters reflect us, the things we couldn't see until exaggerated in theatrical other.

The place where the power comes from is not always identified with the power itself; the veils are excused any which way, and so much cosmic narrative comes to explain when and where the schism hit, so that whatever lord rules the world is known to whatever degree, as a hint as to what has needed to happen in order of power to be secured, most traditionally the defeat of some enormous and originative serpent of chaos. In later generations, it's lions instead of snakes, or dragons which are the best of both. But remember: anyone can be the bad guy, eventually. This fundamental to the Superman myth, and its counter just as fundamental to Dracula: the longer the story goes the more the good guy must become dictatorial/fascist, and the most horrific of monster-enemies enlisted to help the fight against a greater emergent evil. To this end, our personal and communal capacities to identify with a range of justification and aspiration is reinforced or even introduced; models for catharsis either accomplishing a need to resonate with some activity or mission, or passing over unnoticed except as novelty twist on some sort of comfortably familiar dynamic. This is the natural end of a charachter, the central-most erosion of their value, often saved for the end of a series, as was the case with the Paul Dini/Dwayne Mcduffie Superman/Justice League. The problem is genuinely redeeming a character (or deity) defined so strongly in one direction once satirized however inearnestly-- but the truth is, it's not hard, because more than the calf wants to suckle, the nerd wants a classic and fundamentally familiar consistent version of a character. The genius of mythographers like Grant Morrison, and Alan Moore before him, is to integrate a range of classic versions of a character, ones generally considered eschewing integration, initiated as radically distinct characters functioning only vaguely in the same capacity, but for the degrees of overwhelming inspiring or resonant previous versions.

Once upon a time, there was no such thing as a Batman. How could that possibly be true? Because there was no such thing as a city. On the other hand, someone had to be that for there to ever have been existence and creation. Do you know what I mean? It's absurd to say that any PARTICULAR deity created the universe, if not the awesomest deepest wholest one, who must by definition encompass all that ever was great before. Who was Batman before Batman? Who was God before Zeus? Maybe Cronos, but maybe Typhon? It's a meaningful position that the Greeks take, that dZeus did not originate creation, but only the present state of it, tentatively ruled and micromanaged.  

The Hebraic/biblical tradition at it's core denies the facility of this synchretism-- The only G-d that was still Is, and whoever takes his place could not be other than him himself, by definition, because of the absoluteness of the oneness that must be somewhere/everywhere. This is the degree to which the Bible god is hostile to deities perfectly analogous to him himself, Baal and Dagon, Marduk, Shemesh, Dagon or El, many of which are even epithets and terms for the acceptable hebrew All-father himself. None are tolerated to be identified with his oneness, and its even a bit of a heresy for HIS WORD and HIS LAW to be identified with Him, because the Monad must encompass all, and to take a side or isolate a perspective tests the resonance of the idea harshly, and threatens to drag Him down into all the religious polemical politics that every other All-god was ruined by and discredited through.

To be a functional hero nowadays, one must not cross the line for too long into the reprehensible pop-antivalue, the priority resented most by the populace, whose valor proves it's perfidy and wrongness. See how ruined the bible god is by the moral questions raised by a society where the mainstream itself is more committedly progressive than any archaic society could have fathomed would even be sought after, except in the panic of their most critical apocalypses. 

It can't matter in a Batman story, in The Batman's presence, who was Batman developed from or rooted in. The presence itself establishes its own context, which is why T-shirts and kickball are the ideal temple for his personification-- these things insist on trying to create their own context. Sherlock Holmes and the Phantom, Horus the lord of Light-- who cares. The only problem is: how long can a batman endure? And what would keep one functional, relevant?

There is a rich history of Bat-apocalypses, twilight-of-the-bat stories where Batman does the most natural thing he can and dies dramatically, or at least gets old. A recurring theme in Dark Knight Returns is “This would be a good death-- but not good enough.” And so it is with the world and all the great immortal heroes-- almost no death is good enough, so almost no death is possible. That's why the greatest heroes become deified, as was rumored to be Batman's “Final” fate in Final Crisis. All the heroes were supposed to be deified and perhaps replaced by their own avatars. Certainly Batman, because any other end would be beneath the grandeur of what he symbolizes-- the good winner, the dark protector inherent in justifying the imbalances in the urban situation. He cannot make a utopia, because he is too much a conservative force, holding a bad place, the great city Gotham, together, and making it safe for sustained existence, but utterly unable (apparently even unwilling) to destroy any of the chaotic or pernicious elements within it, for fear of upsetting it's balance, and his own. This is not a human being, even as much as the character keeps being humanized by loves and investments around him, and this is part of the mystery of the Batgirls and the Robins-- as well as the Catwomen and Jokers.

The two horns of the Batman-- 

hero/villain, hero/sidekick; 

villain as spouse, sidekick as sibling

The villain who loves Batman hates sidekick, and sidekick tends to either resent or couple with next sidekick, of which there are to be infinite. There are now three active pseudo Robins, and alas, only one Batgirl, but this can and will change, as meaningful-- the maximum amount of active batgirls is usually one, but that's been true about “Robin” too. The truth is Batgirl IS a Robin of sorts, or Robin could be a Batgirl-- he sure looks feminine in his early appearances, fair skinned, bright red lipped, smooth of thigh. A partner/student-- the father god is a patronizing bastard. Superman can only be one-in-himself, without child or spouse. Batman has so many children, so many lovers, but somehow only ever one or two at a time.

Arch enemies? Each individually is, and when ignored, they spiral around together, reincorporate into single teams, duos or more. Poison Ivy was certainly saved from some degree of relative obscurity and pittance until she was bound in either Harley Quinn or someone else, like Persephone's maturity only in the context of Hades, who, we'll recall, is the deity that poor deluded Maxie Zeus conflates Batman with.

The identification of Hades-Pluto with Batman actually does make a significant degree of sense, especially in light of the access to massive wealth, hidden in caves under the earth that give Pluto his name, but this identification also hints at how dismissed a character like Batman would be in Greece, or Rome for that matter. Perhaps it's the Greek ambivalence before hierarchy and abstract total concern, their skepticism that any concern is infinite rather than self interested and capricious, that makes it harder to identify any popular Greek god with Batman. The Greeks have a justice deity, “Dike” but she does not become significant until after Rome and Greece have fallen by the way-side. The main distinction between a cythonic deity like Hades-Pluto and one ultimately more exalted (though still feared, and perhaps even resented) like Saturn is how present Hades's realm of power is. Gotham is and possesses a certain degree of underworld, but it's not under control, and it is absolutely identified with life, and not after life. Saturn is more of an exile in the living world, a deposed king still able to grant the blessings of alternately Law and Liberation, ironically of course. But he's not an active player like Batman is. When introducing a gay Superman-Batman analogue for The Authority, Warren Ellis names his Superman “Apollo” naturally enough, giving him solar powers, like Superman ultimately. But he cannot name his lunar lover “Hades” or “Pluto”-- instead he goes for the overtly nocturnal descriptive of “The Midnighter,” a helpful mad master of urban ultraviolence.

Batman is only Plutonian at the end of a certain rope, dark and wealthy. At the top of the Rope, he is very much a Lunar deity, as expressed in many ways. The Moon is identified, anomalously, with Chesed the First Sefira in the Eliyahu of Vilna’s Kabbalah, based on an obscure and equally anomalous Zohar piece. This is weird. The Moon is Identified generally with Yesod in most systems. The Vilna Gaon generously justifies this association, describing the moon’s nourishing milky whiteness as the purest expression of Original Loving-Kindness. This is partially much of why and how Batman, a sort of dark and secondary hero, is actually a certain kind of Main Hero, Father God, initiator of teams and pantheons. The Moon as Chesed, as opposed to other stories where he functions more as the Moon as Yesod.

Batman does, to me, resemble a more Egyptian model of hero-- a royal defender of particular city wealth, defined by triumph over chaos, the Solar hero avenging his dead father. Horus is identified by the Greco-Romans with Ares-Mars, and that could be acceptable-- but Batman is too individually organized and motivated generally to identify too much with a national war god, although he does become that as well in many futures-- but specifically a counter-cultural one. A reigning mainstreamed Batman can only be a nightmare villain, unless he's a certain kind of under dog, ostensibly in danger of defeat, a defeat that would jeopardize the lives of the innocent and sympathetic. Maybe that's like Mars,  but it seems to me more like Horus, especially considering Horus's identification with a predatory bird, and his epic love with the mother of all Catwomen, Isis/Bast, who Catwoman's familiars are even named.

Batman is certainly the most Egyptian of Superheroes. The tragic prince, whose father-god ruled nicely until cut down by the forces of competitive disruption, he emerges to bring balance-through-violence. Horus is in the aspect of Mars, although all the hero gods also serve and express the Sun itself. This returns us to the mystery of Chesed expressed as Tipheret and vice verse.  The next level, Tipheret expressed as defeated by Malchut, is the point where the “realistic” displaces the conventional, and inverts our sense of what is real true, like when a hero is proven to be a predator veiled as altruist crusader. A favorite example of this for me was the Simpsons episode where Mr Burns decides to be Batman, purely for self indulgent violence. Rick Veitch's seminal Brat Pack expresses the decadent horror veiled through heroic pretension, as introduction to an astounding cosmic contemplation on the nature of the cartoon medium.  But since then, any Superman/Batman conflict tends to incorporate the similar danger of Batman's privilege to Superman, to testify that discipline bred power is no less abuseable than power from grace.

----

The Tzaddik, as divine as it’s experienced, the words and the deeds that emerge from them, is still fundamentally human. Batman and Superman alike are defined by their humanity, even their mortality, even if also narratively defined as ultimately invincible, or at least, unyielding.

Note again James Gunn's first utterly non-mainstream attempt at Super-hero realism before he became a master of pop-space-adventure; Super. What a gloriously disquieting film. Why? Because its about us what a Batman would be like if realized. Were a person to go out and do justice for themselves, it would need to be fueled by a strange cocktail of personal religious ideology, sci-fi paranoia, and romantic frustration. Ultimately, this clarification makes the film less of a satire and more of a serious comic attempt to give the money shot moments of catharsis that make super-hero stories work, rather than the cynical reason why they can. Spoilers! The dude who becomes a psycho vigilante superhero hits people with a wrench, savaging not necessarily the worst, but the most accessible of enemies, until his troubles and yearning for the honor of his longed-for take him to embrace the danger of attacking a progressively less accessible gangster-villain. In the end, he gets basically everything he is willing to want and aim for, and it's ultimately because he was a devoted person. Devoted to psychotic ideals, and the love of a very untrustworthy cheating and heroin addicted spouse, who, because he does actually rescue her through his violence and madness, returns to him in completeness in the end.

This is the only acceptable god in modernity-- desire, will. Urge, but not the shallow first want that passes, no. The serious burning one that will not let you be whole unless you at least try to get it to be satisfied, and don't stop. What makes Batman a nice guy, ultimately? How much he's not just trying to get the bad guys that killed his parents, no: he's trying to take care of all the other kids, to the best of his ability. This makes him the Tzadik, the Yesod/Foundation. Notice: Lex Luthor's company is called Lex Corp. Bruce Wayne's?

The Wayne Foundation. Through which Bruse Wayne does All The Good that he wants to see in the world BESIDES for the personal masked cathartic violence. This is the work of the Tzaddik is all aspects, manifested effectively.

Superman, on the other hand, is the god in the sky, the perfect standard that doesn't quite seem to ever be, but actually must if things are working out, somewhere some how. Shining Apollo, he is ultimately killed and resurrected every time he's in ultimate danger, or else almost killed, but then resuscitated at the last moment. Batman is rarely so vulnerable as that, instead, he's almost always held captive, or held back from being somewhere. Superman is actually resurrected by serious need. That's the axis they are on, the east and the west, the before (borderline primitive violent warrior king, in a viking city of warring dark shamans) and the after (futuristic civility and capacity, effortless like it will be). Wonder Woman is the ultimate resolution that realizes these both, the pragmatic and the utopian. That’s why she’s the best of them all.

Much more visceral than Superman, much more martial than all but the most dystopian versions, some triads would split the trinity between Chesed, Gevura and Tipheret, putting her on the level of Tipheret, but this doesn't work consistently to the degree that she's not the balance of Batman and Superman-- she's the fulfillment of the need to bridge the divine sensitivity with the human imperative, and in this, she is able to be realer than the other heroes. Her lasso compels truth, but she is not truth herself, she's too human to be so abstract driven, like princess Ariel of little mermaid, by curiosity, epic curiosity that becomes altruism. Not anger, not concern, not ethics per se-- but her curiosity compels her responsibility. Will, an expression of the secret clarity at the root of the crown and the heart of the tongue, traditionally. The purpose of Keter buried in the sense organ of Yesod-or-Malkhut.

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

If the Sun tends towards generally symbolizing Tipheret (occasionally used for certain forms of Netzach) what does the moon tend to stand for and from? Yesod, the West to Tipheret's east, but some say Malchut-- either way, at the opposite extreme from the Sun. The wild was traditionally identified with the moon, the hairy and savage-- werewolves and witches, woodwoses and warrior women.   The moon is the first inversion, the first response. It must be noted, that according to the neo-biblical narratives, the stars are initiated specifically to support the moon-- they are all there to support her. But of course, the moon only becomes expressed in order to glorify the sun, whom she lives to reflect. The stars are formed, and then come together to be supported by constellations, ostensibly lifted up into the heavens, and so it's turtles all the way down. Lets say that even the Vilna Gaon realizes how rarely the Moon wants to be identified with Chesed. Lets say he realizes very well how traditional is the Moon’s identification with King David, Malchut, Israel and the purpose of creation, The Sabbath, and fufillment itself. Lets say he knows all that and still would rather not: the wholeness of the moon in one system births the use of it, taken for granted, in another.

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

There's a moral problem with all the iconic super-heroes, just like there is with all gods: they are ultimately conservative forces, unless they are eternal anti-heroes, like Robin Hood.  Robin Hood is problematic only and totally in that he is identifying with another, better order, one that does in fact settle in, and so his iconic nature is certified: Long Live King Richard!  What could Robin Hood do of virtue once King Richard returns? If there was still exploitation, could he fight it? Or come to be the agent of the Man, instead of the hero of the needy?Batman and Superman suffer from this problem more than someone like Wonder Woman does, because they are citizens, and she something more like an international monitor, come to see what ails the world. She is never ultimately implicit in the conservative crimes of the world, because she is not defending any particular state, like those other two do.

All passionate acts are driven by will, and wonder woman's tends to be more specific and less abstract. What does ���Truth, Justice, and the American Way” really mean? One episode of Batman Brave and the Bold has Superman define it as Bacon Double Cheeseburgers, that most decadent of combinations, like the Justice League itself. Here it is a euphemism for that which satisfies, deeply.  Actually a shocking moment in a weird show, alive with quirk and definitive exploration, of characters ultimately at their corniest, soaked in irony, but not dripping it: Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman sit in a diner together. Superman, allowed and invited to be the jockiest jock in Americana, orders a Bacon double Cheeseburger. Ok, fine. Batman orders one too! Ok, cute... Wonder Woman orders a tuna melt on whole wheat-- and Batman CORRECTS her, ordering a Bacon DoubleCheeseburger FOR HER, saying: “You'll work it off, princess.”  What a terrible Batman! But that's the Tzaddik for you: Self-righteous, unapologetic, hard to resent too much unless you're the one he's hurting. Superman moves too fast to even have the conversation with, just like god, usually.

But Wonder Woman is moved by desire-- a will and curiosity for encountering the world, mixed with a confident will to help and support an intuitively perceived good. In most encounters, when a relationship is initiated between her and another, she is the initiator, unless they're a bad guy sneaking up on her.  This aspect of the warrior princess, associated by the Romans with the Lunar in Diana as well as the supernal in Athena is also very high and very low. How low? It manifests even as in the world, Malchut, more than as Bina/Athena, a role her mother takes, as the retconned Golden Age Wonder Woman, in one of John Byrne’s slightly unconscious innovations. Black Canary and Batgirl could approach this role, but the truth is, neither is often as resonant and Wonder Woman. She is constantly, ironically, the most human, in light of her either divine or clay origins.

The princess, Malkhuth, which I often like to translate as “The Real”, is both very human and very alien. So human, are her sympathies and sensitivities: she notices and responds to the truest need of the abused, in a way that regular super heroes cannot. Very intentionally sent on the mission to encounter humanity and guide us to betterment, it becomes revealed how much she is actually coming from true pre-traditional humanity to restore it's compassion and sense, through both violence and sociality. This is the degree to which Diana of Themyscira ascends to the throne of Mars, become the God of War itself in Brian Azzarello’s “recent” reboot, her golem origin as clay-wished-to-life denied and her divinity emphasized as she’s redefined as a daughter of Zeus Absentio. It remains to be seen what will be done with her origin in the movie coming out next week! But the distinction here is small enough to be irrelevant. Her origins don’t matter as much as her priorities or capacities, as modernism insists about us all. Kurt Busiek's straightforwardly titled maxi-series “Trinity” is the first work i'm aware of to make the Kabbalistic/alchemical relationship between the Big Three DC heroes overt, identifying Superman with the Sun (Tipheret) Batman with the Moon (Yesod/tzaddik) and Wonder Woman with the Earth (Malchuth). He does this in the context of a larger schemata that tries to put a villain in the role of every Tarot card, and address the functional meaning of these characters, this trinity, by removing them from the narrative and seeing who or what would fill that void, and how incapably. And then, he adds an amazing layer, of trying to mythically address and describe the ultimate and inherent conflict between the three, when failure defeats their efforts to rescue, who or what each ultimately blames. This is the klippah moment of anyone and everyone, in defeat and failure, raging out in the name of their own essence, and the ultimate fixing of this conflict, heroes trapped by their essences, is when they become willing to exchange roles, and embrace actually becoming each other. This is a trope from some of the earliest Superman/Batman team ups that survives into almost every incarnation, and is made radically eloquent in Grant Morrison's Invisibles, where part of what the radical anarchist cell of heroes does is to exchange roles by lottery, so that whoever was leader before gets to be something else, and the whole cell is strengthened. This happens in Worlds Finest or Justice League stories specifically in the context of overcoming someone's now familiar definitive vulnerabilities, kryptonite or not being super strong or what have you

. Wonder Woman, because she is physically distinct as a woman from the other two icons is not as easy to switch places with. So she historically has to learn to switch places with herself, something she tends to have little trouble doing, adopting a range of high pressure identities as needed, and functioning for years without powers, connections, or any of much of what she might be identified with. Aggressive feminine sexuality, and grounded realization itself, must be flexible.

Now-- in the tryptarch described above, of sun-moon-earth, Wonder Woman is, in Busiek's model, identified with Earth.  This “Trinity” parallels the Sepher Yetzirah's “Three Mothers”, and Aristotle's three branched theory of Thesis/Antithesis/Synthesis, where something is introduced, followed by it's opposite, and the two are tempered into harmony-perfection by their balance. There is the degree to which, as in Kingdom Come, Wonder Woman is the moon and Batman is earth, which would be consistent with the degree to which Batman is the most popular hero in the world, and Wonder Woman is borderline obscure. Different contexts rotate the association, but the big three are the big three, as much as they are in The Avengers as well.

Triune gods and goddesses have a long history and pre history, as do ruling trinities or tribunals. The great Kabbalist Rabbi Yehuda Loew echoes Aristotle's model for explaining the relationships between the centrality of Trinities, and their movement into more stable, friendly Quartets, in the context of the mythical Four World Empires of Jewish Mysticsm, often referred to in the context of Biblical Daniel's reading of Nevuchadnezzer's vision of the Four Metal Man. The initial trinity is where most of the innovation occurs-- the first three letters of the four letter name of G-d, ’י’ ’ה’ and ’ו’ are all distinct--

Thesis(Yod/Babylon)-- the initial (radical) innovation that creates the new field, the new genre, the new model. Put out there, and then it just takes over fast until

Antithesis--(Heh/Persia) comes along to criticize and inhibit the dominance of the thesis. Batman is kind of the anti-superman, utterly human, yet super-human in what might be a more efficient and resonant way

Synthesis-- (Waw/Greece)where the criticism of the Antithesis is resolved with the thesis to create a more powerful and inclusive harmony-- a ruling trinity. Where heroes wind up in this trinity rotates-- and this might be the secret of why the Sun is both first and third on the week chart. But the fourth is the inheritor of all that came before, and the original fulfillment-- clarified and washed of excess by a kind of secondary reflected antithesis-filter-- a new resolution into a now realized empire-- (Heh/Rome.) 

Noted Stand up comic and true-historian Colin Quinn remarked the difference between Greece and Rome- Romans had no time for philosophy-- we got it down, now we're gonna get it done-- such is the imperative of a perfect and beloved empire... except for everyone trampled by it's thus imperfected iron heel. They even assimilated democracy has universally has ever seemed to make sense. Rome or “Edom” is the great city of every later story, Latins as we all are by now, Latinized by our most efficient international legal language of technicality and superb bureaucratic detail. A perfect bureaucracy is a swift and effective one, not apparently. There's a reason things are the way they are-- there was some degree of consensus, and some degree of collusion, but mostly just kind of principled reaction.

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Zach Snyder and David Goyer's Man of Steel expresses, very intentionally, much of the conscious and unconcious purpose and meaning and glory of the Superman myth, and the degree to which America's contribution to world morality and myth are expressed through it. Man of Steel is a certain kind of sublime resolution to the split between savage idealism and cynical hero-craft expressed in his first two films, the radical and ambitious comic book adaptations that are both resolved ultimately in this effort at a 21st century Superman reboot. Man of Steel has a lot to do with the Greek-Persian conflict romanticized in 300, one of the most faithful adaptations of a comic book into movie ever. The connection of course has to do with the mystery of nationalism and personal expression into it.  

Watchmen, on the other hand, cannot be but an anti-nationalist effort, even with the amendments that Snyder makes to gently and almost invisibly circumcise Alan Moore's even more radical criticism of utopian delusion. This is the problem with morality, heroism and responsibility itself: the delusion of responsibility manifests itself as unapologetic brutality. Where in 300 this is very purely romanticized and justified as the only way of protecting freedom, no amount of whitewashing can strip Watchman of its piercing criticism of the heroic model. The two extremes of heroism in Watchmen are the urban psycho-vigilante, utterly unsympathetic in his bigotry and straight violent madness, until the end where it is ONLY his idealism that succeeds in triumphing the sinister, genocidal idealistically Machiavellian campaign of Ozymandias, the smartest man in the world. His genius, and hope for a better world order compels him to kill thousands of people, in an effort to mobilize the survivors into a better unified future against a fictionalized alien threat. Batman and Lex Luthor bound up completely into one Super-Watchman, ultimately haunted by the mystery of how much good his plot can be “in the end” when in fact there is no, and can never be, an end, a curious rhetorical conceit itself, in light of how accessible true apocalypse is nowadays.

Man of Steel lives and breathes and fights in this tension, between impossibly deluded self-righteous military bravado and genuine personal sacrifice for the sake of protecting an actual precious. Man of Steel seeks to acknowledge the generally avoided meaning and depth of Superman's identity as immigrant god, and my bias was to see the fear of the immigrant deity in it as, at least partially, a metaphor for the international fear of the Jew that Superman is long suspected to be a symbolic lionization of, as well as comfort against. Zach Snyder is not American. But American comics these last twenty years since Watchmen and Miracleman have made very clear how much the American myth is relevant and meaningful in England, in light of the triumph of immigration over nativism and race-blind democracy over controlling monarchism, at least in the romances of our highest and most honorable moral clarities. He welcomes the issue of Superman's inherent foreign identity, by treating his personal journey of self discovery as fundamental, rather than peripheral, and meaningful rather than just deus-ex-somewhere else. This is the boldest acknowledgement of the virtue of ancient wisdom and identity available in modernity, a modernity that has overcome the melting pot imperative away from foreign identification, and instead embraced diversity as ironic component for localized greatness.

Apollo, in his earliest appearances, is not a solar deity, and not an Apollonian deity as we know him now. Instead, he's an Apollonian in the most literal of senses, a destroyer. Appolyon, recall, is one of the Syriac translations of “Abbadon,” a popular New Testament euphemism for the King of Destruction, a Satanic epithet.  This does not sound like the Apollo that the Greeks came to venerate over almost all other gods, who they identify with nobility, art, and aesthetic perfection itself in a way no other divinity comes close to. No, in his earliest documented appearance, he's a vicious war god, raining unstoppable and all-piercing arrows on legions, mercilessly. This is so true, that many anthropologists have speculated that Ares and Apollo originated as the same deity, carrying so many attributes in common as they do. At some point, they become very distinctified-- Ares takes on most of the attributes of the war god history has totally identified him with, but Apollo, from his vantage point as national god of awesome, matures into exactly what Greek idealism matured into-- a sensitive and triumphant solar deity, identified with music, justice, harmony and every kind of perfection the the Greeks would come to value and identify with. In this, he is very much a precursor to Superman. Superman may fight in a war or two, may have even emerged in the context of  World War, but he has tended not to be a war god. He is a domestic protector, on the edge of all trouble, arriving mostly as a salvific figure, willing to violently engage any troubles that will not respect his concern and civic values. Civic is the operative word here-- what would Superman be without his Metropolis? As powerful, as capable, but less connected, less in tune, with both human need and human accomplishment. The contrast to this in Cinema is General Zod-- both in the classic Superman II and the more recent Man Of Steel, Zod is a classic Martial figure: a general longing to fight his campaign eternal, to rebuild the glory of his nation on the trivialized ashes of the new world: Earth. Superman's moral divinity is his commitment to his adopted earth, despite the opportunity for personal actualization in becoming the Kryptonian citizen he comes to identify as. This is the great hope an assimilatory motherland has for the immigrants and refugees who flock to her: to be appreciated so much that the original motherland can be defeated so that the new one can live. In this, superman overcomes Martial triumph for Apollonian glory, the harmony between the power of the old and the sensitivity to the new. And so Apollo becomes the Sol-Invictus, identified joyfully with the emerging beauty, rather than the furious invasion. Phew!

Judah Maccabee, notably, slays the Greek general Apollonious(!) in his defense of his people's nativity against the sublime assimilatory insistence of the Hellenists in the Book of Maccabees, and for this, he is commorated in Dante's Divine Comedy as sitting pretty in the heaven of Mars, specifically. Dante, who basically initiates Italian literature with his visionary epic, lists a traditional Seven Heavens, each named after a weekday star-god-attribute. To each, he attributes also a failing, a deadly sin and a virtue unavailable to that star-god-attribute. The great hope of all our next heroes is to integrate the virtues that even the angels cannot, defined so distinctly as they are, the poor trapped kings of nature. 

  National Gods are only as great as the place they are defined through. The hope of Superheroes of tommorow is just of bigger wider identifications. This is the ultimate difference between Apollo and Mars, between Sunday and Tuesday, between Abraham and Israel. Note that Tipheret, the third, is often identified with the solaris/sun, the first, and see how gold is made: the middle path between initial creative gesture and infinite reaction is harmonia, sometimes an asshole but a very effective one with noble and graceful standards. The hero is in the aspect of, as Heracles emerges as a sun deity after all.