#that's just par for the course for him

[strong-with-the-sarcasm]

Part 23: never as lost

"I'm not ashamed to own my pain, never as lost but I found my way, always knew I'd show my scars one day." -Black Sheep by Dorothy

Regent Masterlist A03 Mundane Macabre Part 22

Jason could keep a secret from his family, that was a given, but he would sooner let Titus use him as a chew toy before he kept something so wonderful from his grandfather. 

It was as if Gotham herself felt his happiness, the shadows embraced him with warmth where there should have been fingers dragging down his spine. No, it seemed the Lady of the city he loved was happy for him too. 

(He loved the Lady, for all she sacrificed to bring him back.) 

(Without the pit clouding his mind, he could find it in himself to be grateful for his chance at life.) 

He wanted to scream the news from the rooftops. 

His love, his soulmate, is having their baby. 

A blend of the two of them- Jason’s fortitude, Jazz’s strength of will. Her determination to protect those she loves, the lengths she would go to made him ache with his love for her. 

That wasn’t to say that they were without fault, no they were flawed beings that would make mistakes in the future. But Jason knew in his bones that any kid of his would be offered the chance to make mistakes without a fatal outcome. To be a kid before having to grow up. A luxury so few got to have. 

Jason decided to call Alfred, unwilling to leave Jazz for longer than he had to. She wasn’t ready to leave her haunt quite yet. 

The private line rang once, twice, three times before the familiar accent answered.

“Wayne Manor.” 

“Hey Alf.” 

“Master Jason! It is good to hear your voice.” 

“You too, Alf.” Jason paused for a second, giddiness bubbling up in his chest before he squashed it down, “I have some great news, but the bats can’t know just yet.” 

“I will not share whatever it is you wish to tell me.” 

Oh yes, his grandfather was the greatest man he would ever know. 

(Suck it Bruce.) 

Jason let the giddiness rise up, just a little, “I’m gonna be a dad.” 

There was a gasp on the other end, “Oh Master Jason that’s wonderful news! Congratulations!” 

“Thanks Alf. I wanted you to know before everyone else.” 

“Thank you Master Jason, I’m honored.” 

“I’ll let everyone else know soon, but it’s not safe right now. I’ll keep you updated, but I have to get back to Jazz. Love you,  Alf.” 

“Love you too, my boy. Whatever you need-“ 

“I have your number memorized. Bye Alf.” 

“Goodbye, Master Jason.” 

She hadn’t been able to hold down much food, morning sickness striking with a vengeance now that she’d been forced out of her cluelessness. 

When Jason stepped outside for a minute to call his grandfather, Jazz had tried to choke down some yogurt to no avail, but it only made her retch into the sink. Jason tied her hair back and made her sit on the couch with her favorite blanket as he made her some soup, pressing a kiss to the top of her head as he moved to the kitchen. 

It was…domestic. 

(She wouldn’t say that their lives together hadn’t been domestic, but it was in the way two vigilantes could orbit around one another.)

(They were two halves of a whole.) 

(Both vengeance and protection.) 

Their child would be born of the most liminal being in existence, the Regent bearing the Crown, but would its fragile heart be able to bear the burden of liminality? 

It would break hers if she lost the life she now carried. 

Perhaps she was meant to be pregnant now, to defy the odds she’d been given, if only to bridge the gap between her existence as Danny’s protector and as her own person. A person who would be a mother to a child born to a couple who had blood dripping off their hands- maternal grandparents murdered to protect their uncle Danny. Paternal grandfather a Kevlar-clad vigilante who was born into tragedy. 

(Perhaps, she and Bruce had something in common.)

(Other than Jason, of course.)

Jason had the sin of the Pit weigh on his soul, held down down down by rocks in his gut to the bottom of the harbor. A bright soul meant for more than what he had been given. In another life, Jason might’ve been a different man. Not better or worse- different in all aspects, all his rough edges that she loved. 

(If she can love his broken parts, why couldn’t he love hers too?)

(He did.) 

No amount of redemption could ever wash away the blood. It was a fact they would have to contend with for the rest of their lives. 

(In another life, Jason Todd would never meet Batman in that alley.) 

(He would never die at the hands of the clown.) 

(He would find his faith in the Catholic Church.)

(Father Jason.) 

(He would never meet Jasmine Nightingale.) 

(Not better or worse.) 

(Just different.)

“…about seven, eight weeks along.” 

If Jazz did the mental math, she would come to the conclusion that her child had been conceived on the same day the Anti-Ecto Acts had been demolished. 

However, this wouldn’t come until far later in the day as both Jazz and Jason watched, enraptured, by the strange black and white image on the monitor. 

Their child. 

The undeniable mix of two souls, two vigilantes, two death-claimed- was visible right there. 

If Jason hadn’t been squeezing her hand in an iron grip, Jazz would’ve convinced herself she had fallen prey to a Dijon. Her buried dream of a family, of children, rested underneath her heart safe and sound. 

“Alright mom and dad, got some pictures printing out. We’ll see you back here in a month for another checkup, alright?” The nurse gently prodded the couple, a knowing smile on her face as she walked them back to the waiting room. 

A month. Four weeks. Jazz would be eleven or twelve months along. 

This was really happening.

With how toned Jazz’s frame was, given her rigorous training and vigilante schedules, any differences to her body was rather noticeable. 

She had to be in shape for the armor to fit properly, because it was crucial for her vital organs to be protected. 

With her pregnancy about to surpass the second month a small slightly curved bump had been her reward. Just above her waistline and obvious to a trainee eye, Jazz had taken to wearing her least restrictive clothing around the apartment. When in the presence of others (bar Jason), her layers were doubled using the approaching winter season as a reasonable excuse. 

As for Jason, he had been supportive of Jazz’s choice to wait until the second trimester to reveal the pregnancy to their loved ones. 

(Jazz had heard Jason on the phone with his pseudo-grandfather.)

(She had no qualms with him telling the patriarch he respected so much.) 

It had taken Danny walking into the living room a few days after her appointment for him to know. 

His head cocked to the side as he came to a standstill, a confused look on his face as he appeared to be listening intensely to whatever had caught his attention so suddenly. 

“Danny?” Jazz sleepily called, book open on her chest where she’d fallen asleep reading it. She stretched out her limbs from where she’d been laying across the couch, taking a moment to rub at her sleep-encrusted eyes before focusing on her little brother. 

The teenager in question offered no sign of having heard his sister, his gaze stuck to the far wall as his head remained cocked to one side. 

“What’s wrong?” Jazz asked, moving to stand, but Danny stopped her with a fervent ‘shh’ motion. 

Shrugging, Jazz leaned back into the couch and sighed. Late night patrols were not the best idea with a passenger leeching energy. Should she still be patrols  by? Probably not, but she wasn’t going out unarmed or un-armored- short of driving a tank, Jazz was as protected as she could be and the Ridge needed to see her out and about alongside Phantom before they got any funny ideas. 

Danny’s neck made a sickening sound as his head snapped towards her direction.  “What the fuck is that.”

[A/N: Happy Holidays! This ended up a lot longer than I intended so I cut it off right with Danny there. Its not quite angst, but the undercurrent is there, but way subtle. (If you haven't picked up on the "mix of the two" hints...) Anyways, the next part will be a while, considering I'm working on a new one-shot I promised for 700 followers and I rewrote the ending of Regent again. If I don't post for Christmas, consider this your present. Stay safe out there and keep warm!] Thanks for reading!

[stil-lindigo]

the sunset.

a comic about two outlaws who loved each other, despite everything.

creative notes:

--

all my other comics

store

[hollow-keys]

Instinctively calling for Jamie FOUR regenerations later.

[sysig]

“It could be that the loss of her children drove the Queen deeper into her darker desires...but, I don’t believe she was fighting against them that hard before that particular tragedy. No monster does.” (Patreon)

Bonus:

Hmm, wonder what he could cover those holes with :3c

[diamondcitydarlin]

'wow beetlebabes shippers have NO media literacy didn't they see how TRAUMATIZED Lydia was by her past with Beetlejuice????!? she's literally TERRIFIED OF HIm omg yall are SO DUMB'

I mean...she literally summoned him again to get his help and then brought up marriage within 10 secs of doing that and, at worst, just seemed mildly annoyed by the idea/him. See, I think if you actually have unbiased media literacy, you can recognize that Lydia's issues don't stem from Beetlejuice specifically, she isn't inherently frightened of him (and to suggest so is to completely misunderstand and infantilize her character imo, she never was frightened of him give me a fucking break lol) so much as she is by the reminder of her inherent connection to the afterlife, which ironically she's trying to fight against despite having a successful show about it. Like, again yall, it's fine if you don't like the pairing. It's fine if it grosses you out. What is wholly unnecessary is the suggestion that people who do like it are somehow media illiterate or just 'not as smart as you' or just not getting some elusive concept that only super intelligent moral people can for not also thinking it's gross. You aren't smarter, you just have a different preference for interpreting and enjoying the story. There was a time more people understood that concept.

And not for nothing, but despite your HIGH INTELLIGENCE some of yall still don't know how to tag your anti posts so they don't show up in the shipping tag- though I kind of suspect that's on purpose to try to start shit where there doesn't need to be any, but still, show me how so much smarter you are than me by censoring beetlebabes in a hater post just once challenge (level: impossible)

[ninjasmudge]

arena au swk and maq are so wild that no-one actually believes they could be together

[andromedaa-starss]

man i love the les mis musical but it really doesn't do its characters justice 😭

[kismetconstellations]

♡ ♡ ♡ for @sockdooe

[doortotomorrow]

james cole - atari

[oswaldthatendswald]

This is not a new observation, but I think One Piece handles Doflamingo's backstory-- how it continues to affect his behavior and choices, as well as how it fits into the overall story-- exceptionally well. The villain who is evil due to a tragic past is a very well-established trope, but it is increasingly done quite poorly. Attempts to flesh out a villain and garner sympathy for them can become misguided justifications for their actions or goals, muddying the themes and tone of a story. My point isn't that morally complex characters can't be interesting when done competently and purpose; it's that when the villain with a tragic past is meant to be evil but his past becomes a justification, the writers' intended dynamics of the story are damaged.

Doflamingo's story never has that problem. His backstory makes it perfectly clear why he does the things he does, but it never implies that he is right to do them. It is a reason, not an excuse. The reader gets the sense that Doflamingo is very much the product of his childhood: first the golden excess of a Celestial Dragon, then the abrupt fall from grace into hatred and pain. It's the perfect storm to set a person down the worst paths possible.

But I think the reader might also feel (or at least I did) that this wasn't a fate set in stone. Doflamingo could have unlearned the ideology of a Noble and perhaps that the harm done to him doesn't justify further harm-- except that the only guidance he ever got was worship by Trebol and the other Executives, who were the nail in the coffin for any redemption Doflamingo might have had. Their appearance only validated and affirmed the beliefs Doflamingo already held regarding his place in the world.

Instead of ham-handed sympathy bait, Doflamingo's backstory is a beautifully executed extension of the worldbuilding and themes already present in the story. It is another tragedy in a world of tragedies, another story where children are put through hell. But without the external guidance and support the heroes get, Doflamingo takes the other path, becoming another perpetrator of tragedies, and a reminder that our heroes are the people they are as much (or more) because of the love and mentorship they had than due to innate goodness. It's the road less traveled, but they still might have traveled it.

[realest-nilou-kinnie]

and while i'm on the subject, Leona is actually NOT lazy or arrogant or selfish at all but some of yall are not ready for that conversation lol

[6ebe]

personne va te toucher Jules

[goldenhand9107]

if we never see tommy again i'm gonna be pissed

[lumibye]

🫧 💭 — feel like sycamari tea & mug collection is oddly extensive - not only because ppl that don't really know your interests will buy for the one thing they know you like ( ie . coffee ) - but marianne likes to buy him cute mugs whenever she spots them + it's rlly cute to be like " do u want the flower mug or the cloud mug " n__n

[sysig]

Experimentation (Patreon)

[villainous-queen]

Harry Morgan is a complex character. I think trying to pigeon-hole him into either a bastion of perfect morality or a horrific abuser reduces not only him as a character but also Dexter as a character.

Harry was a man.

Harry couldn't predict the future and he wanted certainty. He didn't want to loose another son, he didn't want to have to watch as his child went to the electric chair. So he made a choice. Therapy may have worked instead sure, but it was no guarantee and let's not pretend that the therapy of the early 1980s was the therapy of today.

So Harry made a choice. It was a choice driven in part by a twisted sense of justice, of a sort of cosmic triage. If Dexter had to be a killer, why not kill the ones who killed? To "sacrifice the wicked for the sake of my son". But Harry bit off more than he could chew, Harry wasn't like Dexter and was repulsed at what he had made, and that's also his burden he bore.

Doris Morgan may have looked in Dexter's eyes and saw the possibility of good but Harry looked into those same eyes and saw everything bad and still chose to love him. It's easy to love something that does good, it's incredibly hard to still love something that does bad but he did.

Could Harry have told Dexter more often that he could change? Could Harry have taught Dexter a different code? Could the world had have been spared from the dark passenger of Dexter Morgan? Those questions won't ever be answered because that's the point! The actual point of Harry Morgan, the core of his character is that question that lingers and shall never be resolved. Did Harry Morgan make the right choice?