#idk. i feel like i might be seeing a little domino line being set up here. and im Nervous <3
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ON THE TOPIC OF BARNABY. as well as his relationship with Wally.
So. To kick this off - Riv (@funonion) and I were Speculating, and they introduced me to the johari window:
They put Barnaby in the “facade” section, and I entirely agree. To quote them;
“So he’s Wally’s guide, right? He’s the “knowledgeable” one of the two and is always the one teaching him new things. And you know, it’s one thing if you’re just teaching him how to laugh or how to tell a joke. But.
Clown has given us two doors. One says that Barnaby understands Wally in a way the rest of the neighborhood doesn’t, and is willing to do his dirty work so to speak. The other says that their friendship was not a natural occurring thing and had to be enforced repeatedly within the show. HOW THAT’S BEING ENFORCED IS ANOTHER THING ENTIRELY but it is worth it to note.
What is Barnaby willing to keep? What is he willing to bury for his little buddy? I can’t say anything definitively yet, but the fact that I even have to ask is telling. The class clown archetype is usually used as a way to cover up for something else a character might be experiencing”
And my response, (I won’t directly quote because I have little things in the phrasing & elaboration to add / tweak );
Barnaby being a Comic Relief Character immediately raised so many alarms in my head. I love comic relief characters. They’re always so fucked up in one way or another, and Barnaby is almost certainly SO inauthentic. He’s wearing a comedy mask just as opaque as Wally’s own mask. In everything we’ve seen about him so far he’s either Teaching Wally, wisecracking/joking, or… pretty much nothing else. We got that moment of concern in audio 14-14, but that doesn’t reveal anything beyond genuine care for Wally.
Comedic characters have the best disguises. Their poker faces & ability to deflect is always top tier [and practiced], and just look at comedy-focused actors and entertainers - so many of them have severe issues, either with their mental health or life. From what i’ve observed both in that aspect & with fictional characters, they play it off & work hard to entertain/deflect [one in the same] right up until the end. Sometimes it’s a coping mechanism. Usually it’s both. If they laugh loud enough and make people think they’re lighthearted fools w/ nothing underneath, no one will look any deeper and thus they’re “safe”.
& I’m a little suspicious that Barnaby’s red/orange/yellow spots aren’t naturally those colors. While yes, he could be (in-universe) designed that way to echo Ms. Beagle, there’s a strong possibility that that’s not it. What if he paints them to feel a connection to her, or it’s a physical manifestation of Barnaby covering up his insecurities/issues - what if it’s part of him striving to convince the world that he is what he paints himself as.
The laidback funnyguy with a loving mom and not a problem in the world.
And I mean, Barnaby claims to be a natural blue and I believe him! But the other colors? I’m doubtful
(I was going to include the Cast As Lil Kids Designs in this since Barnaby has all blue spots, but given how early in 2021 it was posted and how there seem to be little discrepancies from the ~official~ designs, I don’t want to provide it as evidence.)
& on the topic of Wally and Barnaby’s relationship being both real and not - disclaimer, this conversation happened before my Updated Thoughts On Them post, so there may be some minor rephrasing here from what I originally said - I’m sure that the relationship started out as inauthentic. Wally was assigned Barnaby as a best friend and technically vice versa, but I don’t doubt for a second that it became real to some extent. Clown wouldn’t treat their relationship outside of “canon” WH stuff the way that he does if they weren’t actually friends. They’ve said that Wally & Barnaby would be friends in every universe (which melts my heart <3 platonic soulmates my beloved <3), so then I have to agree with Riv. what WILL Barnaby do for Wally? I touched on this in the Milk Theory, but especially if Barnaby prides himself on “knowing Wally better than anything else”, what would Barn do to preserve that?
This relates to another conversation we had - Barnaby possibly having abandonment issues. It’s such a choice to have him of all characters be explicitly stated as an orphan. That and while every other Neighbor with a mentioned family have a somewhat large one (Howdy and his gajillion relatives, Julie and her three siblings, Poppy and her crowded tree [note: Eddie has a mentioned mother, but that info is tenuous and who knows if there are other Dears]), Barnaby has also explicitly stated that Ms. Beagle is his only family. That’s it. And farm life can’t be a sociable way to grow up, not with all the chores he must have had and how rural he might have grown up. Barnaby jokes that Home is the “Big Apple”, which could just be a joke - but jokes often come from a place of truth, and Home might be the most populated area Barnaby has lived in. Who’s to say!
Either way, Barnaby was orphaned one way or another, and I don’t doubt that it weighs on him. Especially if his birth parents really did abandon him. That added to a possible life of loneliness… I wonder if he’s latched onto Wally emotionally, which would hit all the painful places if it turns out that my “Barnaby is more attached to Wally than Wally is to Barnaby” theory has merit. Abandonment issues could also strongly back the apparent walls he’s plastered over with circus tent fabric
Back to Barnaby & Wally: the fact that, at present, Barnaby and Wally seem to have the best disguises / strongest masks. That. looking at 14-14, i suspect that Barnaby is excellent at keeping his up, but as soon as Wally’s mask cracks, so does Barnaby’s.
And then there’s the side of their dynamic that we could look at - it seems to be a very multifaceted relationship. The way that Barnaby genuinely cares yet in the 00 Halloween audio Wally was left off to the side and Barnaby was just “checking on him” while socializing (then again, this could be part of Barnaby understanding Wally & respecting his space / Wally wanting a break from that socialization). Barnaby is patient with Wally and yet he seems to sometimes treat Wally as his sidekick / let him fade into the background and yet Barnaby kept checking in on Wally during the 14 bug audios (this last one I could tie into the abandonment issues theory).
Then there’s how Barnaby calls Wally kid & can tend to treat him like one despite both of them being in the same age group. The way that all of this could, in a way, relate to the infantilization of autistic people (no matter how well-meaning or unintentional) & internalized ableism.
Note: Riv pointed out that Barnaby does seem to be doing the best with what he has, and that this can connect to the Johari Window’s blind spot / unknown.
I do agree with this wholeheartedly! And I have to mention that - and making a Very educated guess here - the interactions we’ve seen take place in the very late 60s / very early 70s, so Barnaby’s behavior towards Wally is actually pretty fucking stellar given the time period. We can’t expect him to be perfect or do everything / say everything right. That would be boring I think! And one thing I deeply appreciate about the Neighbors & their dynamics is that they feel like real layered people, not cardboard cutouts being perfect caricatures of what people are “supposed” to be like.
Riv also presented this:
We likely are going to reach a point where Wally asks Barnaby something that he can’t / doesn’t want to / won’t answer. And like.. Ok. This is a slight tangent but I swear it’s related! When I first discovered WH and learned the Wally basics, I wondered two things.
Are we going to watch Wally “discover” new emotions? Because he certainly has them. Clown has said that Wally only ever feels happy, and a lot of people took that to mean that Wally can’t feel anything else. I don’t think we should take that answer at face value, because. I mean. Look at the project & creator we’re talking about. Layers, guys. Indirect direct answers. I think that Clown meant that Wally only ever feels happy in the Neighborhood because he has no reason to feel any negative emotion. Everything is as it should be. Until it isn’t - and I think that’s where he’s going to have to struggle with new emotions as he encounters them through new situations/events unfolding as the “story” starts to deteriorate. We’ve actually seen this a little bit - in Wally’s record audios (i believe the chronological second to last?), the way he says “Let Me In” so insistently. That’s definitely not a positive emotion being expressed.
How will the topic of death be handled - because it will be handled, it’s stated in the project warnings. I was wondering this even before I read the list, because I was presented with a blank slate puppet character and so went “oh fuck, this dude doesn’t know about death, does he?” Obviously I wanted to know how that would go. I want to know how it Will go!
How would Barnaby explain emotions that Wally doesn’t know how to convey? How would Barnaby explain death in a way that Wally would understand - given that Barnaby (& all the Neighbors sans Wally) knows what death is - and would Barnaby be willing to explain such a thing? I have a feeling we may find out.
And in a way, I suspect that if none of them know, Wally will find out himself and have to process it without help. But then again, how can something die if it was never really alive in the first place? Unless the death warning relates to human characters… I’m currently assuming it relates to both humans and puppets.
In conclusion: Barnaby has a carefully fabricated facade, he's doing the best with what he has but it likely won't be enough, and uh. shits fucked!
#AGH I HOPE IM PUTTING THESE POSTS TOGETHER CORRECTLY.#I HAVE TWO DAYS TO WRITE AND POST THEM ALL#but anyway another thing i was wondering in relation to barnaby & wally having an imbalanced relationship was#the possibility of:#howdy < barnaby < wally < home#as in the <[x] character is more important to the [y]< character than [y] is to [x]#because howdy does seem to like barnaby a whole hell of a lot but we don't know if barnaby feels so strongly back#idk. i feel like i might be seeing a little domino line being set up here. and im Nervous <3#what happens if the first domino falls? who will it be? how hard will it fall.#who's to say if that has any merit i just wanted to mention it! its intriguing to me#(& to be clear since im aware of my laughingstock rep - im not talkin about shippy dominoes)#(i take off the shipping goggles for analysis. howdy can fully cherish barn as a Friend while still being [y]<)#homebogging#welcome home speculation#wh speculation#i feel like i have more in my brain but. im dealing with minor flu symptoms and im exhausted <3#today was a Lot <3#so i'll queue this for around 10 & hopefully I'll be awake & with the next post written for you guys!
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Elija Mikaelsaon Dating a Black S/O Headcanons
Did anyone ask? No, did I deliver? Yes.
- Alright, so Elijah and the Mikaelson’s have been alive for a while. Never got a specific date, but we have vikings. And as Elijah has been alive for a minute, he’s had flings, situationships, lovers, and at some point out knight in shinning armor was probably a fuck boy… don’t @ me.
- What I’m trying to say is man probably did it all, Asian, Latinx, Caucasian and African American and maybe even African and Caribbean… Maybe even fucked around with his sexuality for a second because he got it like that and the writers were too pussy to put this shit on
- Tbh probably the originals tried all the genders and non-genders, change my mind. But elijah strikes me as a free for all who loves something refreshing that’ll take him out of Klaus’s bullshit for a minute
- But here’s were this shit gets spicey… Elijah… with a black s/o….. Just hear me out poc who been waiting for someone to give them good fucking food on poc x tvd/ the originals, I got y’all… unless college comes back.
- OK so, I feel like if you’re rocking with Elijah he’d dress you up and ice you out because he can. Nothing under $5,000 for his s/o… We talking furs, diamond, real leather, snake skin, hell even a whole ass snake if you wanna be on your Bruce Wayne shit一 better yet, your T’challa shit with a whole ass panther (black panther ain’t real soooo y’all can get a black puma and call that bitch a panther lmfaoooooo)
- He’s asking you to a dinner date and then you say you’re ready…. Wearing pretty little things…. Missguided… honey. (Nah ain’t shit wrong wit those brands, they be having bangers tbh and sales like a bitch) Let him upgrade youuuuuuu. You only wear Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent, Burberry, Balmain, etc. Try walking out there looking a damn mess and distasteful… just try it sis
- Speaking of which… my mans got you with hair too! Fuck you mean ?1?!
- He had a black s/o in the past, even though her hair had loose curls… we won’t discredit her. He has some knowledge on how curl hair works, and if he’s lacking, he as a whole library and might fuck around and ask Bonnie in exchange for some witchy ingrdients (im cdfuuuuuu)
- Name, braids, twists, locs, finger waves. Wanna shave bald??? He’s for it, let him get you his barber. Fuck it, he’ll get you Marcel’s barber. Lined up and all that shit, throw in a fade too
- And coming in for wash day, he’s sitting behind you days in advance helping you take down your hair after a month or two. Grey sweatpants, scissors in hand, spray bottle to the side with Netflix as background music…. Fuck with it. You’re all tired after doing like 8 and he tells you to take it easy, with vamp speed and the deterixty of those fingers…. *chefs kiss*
- He sets up a lil wash day station for you, or if he’s on the clock just books a whole salon for you alone already paid for. But if he’s doing the work, best believe he spent the coinssss COINS for the organic shampoo shit you have the refrigerator and the deep conditioner, AND THE FUCKING LEAVE IN. He’s keeping your shit moisturized in the winter. His big hands and gentle fingers helping detangle your hair, you in a fluffy robe, enjoying being loved on….
- Y’all didn't even get me started on him doing twists… or plaits, or the bantu knots, the concentration on his face
- IDK why I gotta say this… nails done too, he loves the feel of your nails gliding on his scalp and down on his back when he’s giving you those slow strokes.
- This doesn’t have to do with anything, but the fact that the originals were set in New Orleans which is mostly BLACK BLACK BLACK BLAAACCCKKKKK and I saw like 3 black people in that bitch, ong….. Julie Pleck, you basic bitch
- Anyways, I feel like Elijah in a trench coat coming to pick you up from work would be such a vibe and a mood. Like, he knows when you get off and you might just take public transportation or something to have some sort of independence. But he shows up after work when you’re leaving with some friends from work…. Nigga shows up in a dark blue cadillac, trenchcoat with the collar up, leather gloves… and a fresh cut
- Who tf let him out the house??
- And ik you’re friends trifling too asking who is he, a damn fine tall glass of milké
- And he’s just leaning against the door waiting for you and once he sees you, he waits for you expectedly and kisses your forehead in greeting and gets the door for you
- Speaking of driving, Elijah be too damn serious, and that’s were you come in.
- I need him and the Miakelson’s at a cookout doing line dancing, the electric slide, cupid shuffle (and give Rebekak some goddamn friends shit, she everyone stay chasing love and shit but have 0 friends and boundaries, they drag family though the mud)
- Like I need him out his suit and in some dark jeans, a solid white v-neck, rolex on his wrist, and white air forces
- Sitting there, kinda out of place until he settles in. Like I deadass see him asking where the tables are at the cookout and like… you break it to him he’s gonna have to do the table legs for that shit
- And the plastic cutlery! LMFAOOOOO his soul is slightly quaking
- And its finna be a whole ass test when an uncle comes up and grabs him by the shoulder in a greeting and tries to fill in the seat for spades or even worse…. Dominoes…. That’s it. It’s over. Elijah been alive for too long and knows every play in the book and can bluff his ass off
- But if we talking dominoes… we gon have the boondocks animation version of a nigga moments cuz y’all fights will be started, money will be lost…. To Elijah. In the end he gives it back bc he’s a good sport and bc humiliation is a greater victory
- Lmfaoooo and the quiet drive back, you’re exhausted but the music station is playing throwbacks and Usher’s climax comes on and bitch… the high notes, the lamp posts that give you both a glimpse of each other’s side profiles. And for once Elijah is relaxed and coming down from his amusement. No one is trying to kill him or his siblings, and good food albeit greasy in his stomach.
- Dare he say he felt human for a moment
- You staring out the window and softly singing along enjoying what the day was, Elijah loving the ambiance created. Mmmmmm such a mood
- THAT BEING SAID imagine you and Elijah on a long drive and “I Mean It” by G- Eazy comes on and you start singing along bc data is expensive over long ass drives and being stuck in traffic. And Elijah is giving you a bemused look, you in all your glorious wonder and you just make the lyrics more dramatic ashit trying to be a heartbreaker and all that. But, the true heart breaker is Elijah
- He comes in on the verse and gives you all eye contact, lips completely sync but your can kinda hear his voice keep the tempo…. Bitch this makes me feel some type of way… and as he’s going on he grabs your face and tilts your chin up OOOOUUUU gets up all close and personal and finishes the lyrics which is perfectly timed with when the light turns green and turns back like nothing just happened. There yo are aping like a fish bc tbh if anyone could rap it’d probably be Kol, he’s like the emnemin mixed with busta rhymes type, but tone it down….
- Bitch imma go fantasize rapping Elijah, y’all been slept
- And for those asking yes, I do write for black readers, mor specifically female but I can try male
#elijah mikaelson#elijah mikealson x reader#black reader#black!reader#poc!reader#tvd imagine#tvd x reader
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remember when devin grayson wrote about green arrow flirting with teenager dick grayson and then bruce and dick have an incestuous relationship............................
Listen, I have no idea what this ask says, I just see a string of random letters followed by dot dot dot.
In completely unrelated matters, the only dynamic between Dick and Ollie I abide by is one where the nicest thing Dick’s ever said to Ollie is something like “hey why does your face look like you killed a squirrel and glued it to your chin, is that what you were going for or do people just not like you and so nobody ever told you til now that that’s what it looks like.”
And even there, that’s still just the best Dick could manage (or was willing to even aim for) after Bruce gave Dick a totally and one hundred percent genuine and sincere Talking To about how he needed to be more polite to Ollie. Cuz the way I envision it, all that’s after Dick initially opened with something like, idk, “hey wanna hear a funny joke, it goes “what do you call a known Errol Flynn fanboy who thinks putting on a domino mask when he fights crime with a bow and arrow like, magically makes his goatee invisible? A dumbass who doesn’t get how secret identities work, that’s what. Get it, its you, you’re the joke.”
LOL for the record, I don’t actually hate Ollie and have no really strong opinions on him one way or another, it usually just depends on how he’s being written in whatever story or issue I’m reading with him. Its just canon that Ollie is like, one of the few people that Dick just openly can not stand, pretty much, with this stretching back far enough that personally, I like to headcanon it goes all the way back to even before Ollie took Roy in and has absolutely nothing to do with Roy whatsoever.
Idk, its just really fucking funny to me to picture that like, for whatever reason, ten year old Dick Grayson decided upon meeting the Justice League that they were all awesome except for Oliver Queen. Dick doesn’t know why, he doesn’t care why, he just knows that like, “I do not care for that Oliver Queen guy, not one bit, and no, I am not open to constructive criticism on this matter, UGH BRUCE STOP TELLING ME I SHOULD AT LEAST TRY AND BE NICER TO HIM, I SAID HE WAS A BUTTFACE AND I MEANT IT, WHERE’S THE CONFUSION.”
Because see, while Ollie is not Actually The Worst, he IS one of the League heroes who is prideful and petty enough to like, absolutely take offense to someone hating his guts for no discernible reason, while considering this more than reason enough to hate their guts right back. Even if that particular someone happens to have both miles and years left to go before they hit either puberty or the top side of five feet tall, and thus in the meanwhile, Ollie must literally lower himself in every sense of the word in order to return fire at his pint-sized and prepubescent critic.
Like, if Dick for whatever reason decided he just doesn’t like Superman or the Flash and he’s not gonna and you can’t make him, then I mean, Clark or Barry or someone else along those lines would just be like, oh, okay, that’s fair I guess. No, its totally fine Bruce, the adorable little human incarnation of glitter, cotton candy and all things Cute and Precious and Wee that you just took in is allowed to hate me if he wants to, its absolutely *wheezing sob* not a big deal. I’m a big boy, I don’t need you to intercede on my behalf with him. Now if anyone needs me, I’ll be wallowing in my room for the next 84 years, trying to figure out if I was some kind of monstrous puppy-kicker in a previous lifetime and that’s why my fate here in this one is to be despised by a ten year old with the superpower of Absolute Preciousness. Its my punishment, clearly, for being just the worst kind of monster to ever exist, the only kind that could actually be hated by someone like your adorable little Fun-Sized sidekick of joy and sunshine and l-l-laughter......no, don’t look at me, I’m hideous! *bursts into tears and scurries away to hide from the light*
But see now, Ollie, on the other hand, like.....he’s not a monster but he’s not about to let even some paragon of preciousness go around painting him as one. Why the fuck does he spend so much money on publicists if he’s just gonna roll over belly-side up the first time one of the people bad-mouthing him just happens to be like, a toddler instead of the usual TMZ?
So Ollie’s not about to admit that he’s actually miffed and even a little bit wounded that this cherub who seems to like even most supervillains more than he likes Ollie, just like, can not seem to be in his presence longer than sixty seconds before drawing his weapons and stabbing Ollie with words that hurt, dammit, because he has feelings too, y’know, he spent a lot of money on pricey therapists figuring out that yes, those are feelings he’s feeling and he can even name some of them.....
Like, he’s not quite on board with actually ACKNOWLEDGING that hey this stings, and that he really just wants to know what the hell this kid’s deal is and why don’t you like me, tiny human, what did I ever even do to you??? But all of that is like......Advanced Level Therapy stuff that he hasn’t quite gotten around to finishing yet at this point in time. Like yeah he’s already dropped a mint on the A-list of the head-shrinking world by now, but apparently he was supposed to keep coming back or something like that, they all keep making a really big deal about that for some reason, and look, he’s been busy. So he really just hasn’t had the time to finish up the course on How To Make Peace With the Fact That Sometimes Tiny Humans Don’t Like Me Even Though I’m A Fucking Delight, Dammit.
But even if the why of this kid getting under his skin so much eludes him for the nonce, Ollie is perfectly clear on one thing: he doesn’t typically go around making enemies of the twelve and under set, but if you prick him, he doth in fact bleed, you little prick. So if this knee-high nightmare is gonna keep coming at me and trying to start shit, then I am more than willing to throw down, is basically Ollie’s take here.
“He wants to dance? Then c’mon, let’s do this thing. We can dance if he wants to. I’ve got the time,” Ollie says to himself and any other nearby Justice Leaguer who might be looking at him with that swiftly-becoming-familiar expression of mingled judgment, pity, exasperation and something a bit more ambiguous but which probably lands somewhere in the ballpark of “We honestly don’t know what to make of all of this but we’re all a little concerned This Is Not A Good Look, Bro. And also, we would like to formally request by way of this petition with all 200+ signatures of Leaguers and auxiliary members and support staff: please don’t escalate this into something where Batman might actually kill you, because that’s definitely not gonna make any of this less awkward for the rest of us, and uh....not to be indelicate here, but all those times we’ve all said things like no Ollie, we don’t think Bruce is a better fighter than you and we absolutely agree with you, you could totally maybe take him in a fair fight if you had your bow and arrows on you and he had the flu probably.....like. Umm. How to put this....Okay, soooooo....here’s the thing. There may, perhaps, ever so slightly be a possibility slash definite hardcore certainty that there were fib-like qualities to those conversations. A little bit. Oh hey, look at the time, we gotta run, there’s a fire somewhere, hopefully. Lol wait whoops did we say hopefully, that’s so weird like where did that even come from. We definitely meant to say probably. There’s a fire somewhere, probably."
But look, at the end of the day, the thing is, Headcanon Ollie is not like, proud of any of this, but he’s not unproud of it either. He is hashtag justified and he wouold appreciate some validation of that Ugly Truth, even if it might go against the grain and not ever exactly be a POPULAR opinion with the “please don’t tell the ten year old that nuh uh, his face looks like a hairy butthole, nobody wins there, that is not the victory you are looking for” crowd.
Honestly though, at this point Ollie’s list of Big Asks is quite small. Miniscule, even. All he wants, all he really really wants, is for someone, anyone, to join him in grasping the one essential corn kernel at the heart of this whole clusterfuck. The thing that nobody but Ollie seems to get and that Ollie’s pretty sure would be enough to allow him to die happily, if he could just manage to find one other person to sign on to the one single extremely obvious observation he keeps trying to point out to everyone, with a whole lot of nada to show for it:
Because see, the one thing about all of this that drives Ollie just absolutely up a wall, is that for some reason he can’t seem to get anyone to understand that like.....this whoooooole ridiculous mess, just like, even in terms of its very existence in the first place?
None of it is Ollie’s fault.
Dick started it!
Mere moments after frustratedly trying to convey this to Dinah for the umpteenth million bajillionth time:
“Okay, could you at least say something?” Ollie asked exasperatedly. “Anything? Seriously, I would take you counting to ten in Cantonese as an acceptable response at this point.”
“I’m just trying to decide which concerns me more,” Dinah said at last. Several epochs and the equivalent of the entire Jurassic Period later. But whatever, its not like Ollie was holding his breath at this point or anything. “The fact that you are genuinely trying to find and occupy the moral high ground in your feud with....a ten year old. Or that you actually think you’ve found it. That this is it, this is what that looks like. ‘The ten year old started it.’”
That was apparently all Dinah had to say. She fell silent again, and said silence lingered through a recreation of now the entire Cretaceous Period, before continuing into a revival of the whole Paleozoic Era from start to torturous finish.
“Well?” Ollie said with a patience that belied the urgency of the many pressing matters he had to attend to. Like the vanquishing of a ten year old archnemesis most foul.
Dinah just continued to frown pensively.
“Hang on, I’m still deciding.”
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finished the covers for my caleb and adam playlists! putting them together because like......... i have to. i can’t separate them
there is a caleb/adam playlist too but i’m gonna post that cover separately bc i have a different idea for that one
playlist notes under the cut!
caleb
yes, this playlist is 40% sleeping at last. no, i am not going to apologize for that. they have an album called emotions, it was kind of impossible to not use those songs.
falling for the first time- barenaked ladies: this gives me some strong caleb vibes, and i think it’s because it’s kind of an upbeat but also vaguely self-deprecating song? i mean, come on. I'm so cool, too bad I'm a loser/I'm so smart, too bad I can't get anything figured out/I'm so brave, too bad I'm a baby/I'm so fly, that's probably why it feels just like I'm falling for the first time
son- sleeping at last: And I will try, try, try to breathe
'til it turns to muscle memory
I'm only steady on my knees
One day I'll stand on my own two feet
And I'll run the risk
Of being intimate with brokenness
Through this magnifying glass I see a thousand finger prints
On the surfaces of who I am
soul meets body- death cab for cutie: it’s got some caleb/adam elements, but ultimately i chose to use it as a caleb song, because it feels more specifically like caleb seeking out adam’s emotions because they make him feel more like himself; So brown eyes I'll hold you near/'Cause you're the only song I want to hear/A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere
joy- sleeping at last: i just really love the way emotions are described in the songs on this album (well, except for fear, which has no lyrics and is also not on this playlist). i also just really love The clumsy start of adolescence/The glue that mends our broken remnants/An overwhelming sense of reverence/It's a glimpse of light in a mine of gold for caleb
a new mission- josh whitehouse: ah. this song. this was the song that made this playlist really, really difficult to make, because it was the first song i added and it set a very high bar for literally every other song on the playlist. it just feels so perfect as a caleb song to me, especially early on, when he was still figuring things out and he was constantly overwhelmed by all the feelings around him and in him.
Sometimes I can't control a feeling that I get inside my chest
Even with those who are close to me, the ones I call my best
I lose sight of all my confidence, in a heavy single step
It's happened ever since my childhood, things I thought I'd put to rest
I can keep my mind intact by getting on with a new mission
I can push myself, having heavy ammunition
When something gets me down, for a second I'm distracted
I look back amongst the lights I consequently lit my path with
anger- sleeping at last: I mean, it kinda feels like this song has to be on here, yknow? especially with this part, which genuinely feels like how caleb describes anger sometimes: Like wildfire, it starts in my chest/The silence grows louder, ringing out in my head/I feel the Earth shaking under my feet/I feel the pressure building until I can't breathe/And it takes everything/And it all spills out, reckless but honest words leave my mouth
if i say- mumford and sons: aaand now we’re at the sad part of the playlist, because i can’t make happy playlists apparently. this one is definitely a safehouse caleb song; Show me your hands/Are they cleaner than mine?/Show me your face/Did you cross the line?/Show me your eyes/They any drier than mine?/Your soul survives/But peace, you'll never find
organs- of monsters and men: also a safehouse song, but more aftermath than in the middle of things. it’s sadder, more subdued.
sorrow- sleeping at last: more safehouse! who would’ve guessed!
I feel out of focus, or at least indisposed
As this strange weather pattern inside me takes hold.
Each brave step forward, I take three steps behind.
It's mind over matter-- matter over mind.
Slowly, then all at once
A single loose thread and it all comes undone
up with the birds- coldplay: caleb likes coldplay, so i had to include one of their songs, and this one is just. kind of perfect?
The sky is blue,
Dreamed that lie 'til it's true,
Then takin' back the punch I threw,
My arms turn wings,
Oh, those clumsy things
Send me up to that wonderful world
And then I'm up with the birds
--
adam
some of these songs are here for tone; the line between what adam would listen to and what helps me draw him is very thin compared to most characters. i did try to make sure they were all songs that fit him at least a little bit, though.
all the kids are depressed- jeremy zucker: i mean. i feel like the title kind of speaks for itself here, honestly. also the lyrics fit pretty well. there isn’t a ton of explaining that needs to be done for this one.
three- sleeping at last: yes i am back on my sleeping at last bullshit no i don’t care this song is perfect go look at the lyrics they’re all good here’s some of them: Maybe I've done enough/Finally catching up/For the first time I see an image of my brokenness/Utterly worthy of love/Maybe I've done enough
velodrome- dessa: this was one of the songs i included primarily for the tone; it’s one of the songs i listen to full volume on my Nice Headphones when i’m feeling too much at once because it kind of just gets rid of everything somehow. it just creates this kind of,, pleasant hollow feeling, if that makes any sense at all. but i realized after i added it that some of the lyrics do kind of fit: With a bell to tell us when we're hungry/There's a bell to tell us when we're tired/A bell that tells us to rise and fight/A bell to rise and die/It's just all bells/Sometimes I ring myself/To see if I might chime
drowning- jay brannan: a lauren playlist song, because like. fuck. that is all i have to say on this song: fuck
trapdoor- twenty one pilots: adam is a top fan because of course he is. i listened to this one a lot in high school so i’m passing it on to adam, and it also felt like a good follow-up to drowning
marching bands of manhattan- death cab for cutie: god this song is perfect. also, another song i listened to a lot in high school.
And it is true what you said
That I live like a hermit in my own head
But when the sun shines again
I'll pull the curtains and blinds to let the light in
Sorrow drips into your heart through a pinhole
Just like a faucet that leaks and there is comfort in the sound
But while you debate half empty and half full
It slowly rises, your love is gonna drown
nine: sleeping at last: god, this song. it fits way too well and it hurts. it’s genuinely difficult to choose lyrics from this song, and i recommend looking at the full lyrics because holy shit, but like
Who am I to say what any of this means?
I have been sleepwalking since I was fourteen
Now as I write my song, I retrace my steps
Honestly, it's easier to let myself forget
Still, I check my vital signs
Choked up, I realize
I've been less than half myself
For more than half my life
Wake up; fall in love again
Wage war on gravity
There's so much worth fighting for, you'll see
Another domino falls either way
better days- radical face: 90% of my playlists have radical face songs. adam especially needed one, though, because his playlist notes mentioned he’d probably actively seek out queer artists, and also there was a youtube q&a where ben cooper said he never writes songs while he’s happy, and honestly the whole discography has adam vibes imo. anyway: When you're always drifting out to sea/Because the ground won't stay beneath your feet/And your head is pouring gasoline/On the person you prefer to be/Try to remind yourself/That it's probably gonna take some time/But there are better days to find
the little things give you away- linkin park: it just has that drowning vibe. i mean, it makes sense, they reference drowning, like, a lot in the song, but i feel like the tone of it adds a lot to that too. like, i can feel that guitar, you know? or maybe that’s just me. idk, it just works, i think.
in a week- hozier: you ever just listen to this in a dark room lying on your back with your eyes closed and yeah? because like, i do sometimes, and i kinda feel like adam does too. i needed a hozier song on this playlist and this felt like the most fitting one to add, and a nice subdued end to the playlist.
#the bright sessions#caleb michaels#adam hayes#i am v proud of these playlist covers honestly#i think that might be one of the best calebs i've ever drawn
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Enjoy drinking my white tears in this post?
I've been seeing a few posts from white people saying "I understand that I will never understand, but I support you" and rationally I definitely get it, but emotionally I do not, so yeah I need to unpack that somehow. Because, that seems to be the correct place to be at... like, the respectful place. I never want to invalidate or undermine a Black person's pain, grief, and trauma by saying I "understand" it ... even if I think I do just a little bit (bc of my own complex trauma and the whole disability injustices thing)? I saw another post saying that a white person will never be able to put themselves in a black person's shoes so just forget about doing that... and I'm just... but... that's how I fucking navigate the world? I'm not trying to be an asshole, I'm legitimately kind of stuck right now. By instinct and survival, I put myself in the other person's shoes, I climb in their head and almost ... respond according to how I predict their behavior will be. I know that's fucked up and possibly a weird form of manipulation. Thanks trauma.
That's why this situation is so fucking difficult for me. It's all trauma energy. And its setting off ALL the signals in my nervous system, as if I wasnt already in survival mode from Covid (as if I wasnt still 3/4 in survival mode before Covid??)
I just want to help- and I have been, I've been sharing action items and donating and signing petitions and talking with people and... calling some people out even, cuz I'm so angry and hurting over this- I'm just a dumb smol bean who wants to heal the world and tell everyone how beautiful and loved and worthy they are. I know that's not enough to be effective lol I want people to stop being fucking killed, murdered, hurt, treated unjustly. Like... if this can finally push past the point it's at and be successful and we can enact change and get some actual reform... theres hope for other minorities and could it be like a domino effect?
Idk, I'm obviously not healed enough with my own shit to be incredibly effective. Maybe I'm so focused on Doing The Most? Like I start taking on the Responsibility like it's up to Just Me to change the fucking world (even though I rationally know it's not true, hello). Idk. Maybe I'm just confusing being passionate about making change with looking desperate? Like, they arent the same? But for some reason theres only a thin line separating them in my head? And it ... all comes back to being harshly judged by people (but WHAT people and WHY do I fucking care??) if I'm doing The Right Thing, and YES IT FEELS RIGHT IT FEELS GOOD TO STAND FOR THIS. THATS ALL I KNOW.
Omg and please know I dont want an "Award" for being "'white' and not racist" or something. Idk who might end up reading this but this Ain't Fucking It. You dont know me or the language I'm actually speaking in. I actually hate that I have to make this edit and that I even have to put in words that I've legitimately made donations and shit so people dont come for me.
Wow just re read this like 5 times and theres absolutely some shame vibes going on, this is fun to analyze idk how to parse this all out lmao where is my therapist
#i need to take a break#yeah#:(#why is mental illness so hard lol#can there be a course created called Activism While Mentally Ill#i need that#long post#personal
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12 Days of Christmas - *8*
Pairing: Tom Holland x Female Reader
Warnings: none i dont think???? shocking i know
Word Count: 1353 (she’s a shorty fillery thing)
A/N: Yada yada late upload etc etc. It’s before 4am though so that’s something, right? Full disclosure, I heard a woman on tv say the line about cheese and @spiderboytotherescue thought it was about dick so I mean I had to put it in here. Also hope you guys get the Love Actually reference otherwise the last line will be extremely confusing. I haven’t proofread this and nothing really happens in it but heyho xx
December 18th
If there was one thing that would persuade you to go out on a four-degree December day, it’s a Christmas market. And as luck would have it, there was one such market not ten minutes from your flat - and a particularly good one at that.
Bundled up in a knitted jumper, your winter coat, black jeans and an exceptionally cute cream beanie-scarf-gloves combo, you all but dragged Tom by the hand through the high street. You wandered through the stalls, peering into each little wooden hut as you passed. Most were selling food; homemade jams and chutneys in jars topped with gingham-printed lids populated one stand, another overflowing with different cured meats and cheeses. You stared longingly at a huge block of stilton, but Tom pulled you away, wrinkling up his nose at the strong smell. If there was one thing you would change about your boyfriend, it would be his aversion to, shall we say, more sophisticated cheeses - i.e. ones that require their own drawer in the fridge.
“So disgusting,” he grimaced.
“And yet I still want to put it in my mouth,” you sighed, ignoring Tom’s smirk and quirked brow.
Reluctantly, you left the food stalls behind to browse through a selection of handmade jewellery. You chatted with the owner, trying to ignore your growling stomach as the woman described the spiritual properties of each of the stones in a necklace.
“Which one’s the Mind Stone?” Tom murmured in your ear, pressing against you as he pretended to inspect a truly hideous pair of earrings.
You faked a cough, bringing your gloved hand up to your face to conceal your giggle and nodding earnestly at whatever the woman was saying about auras. You had been quite interested in what she was saying, but now Tom had planted the idea in your head and you couldn’t stop picturing the necklace around Thanos’ giant purple neck.
Excusing yourself as politely as possible without actually buying anything, you squeezed past other shoppers to rejoin the stream of shoppers looping around the perimeter of the market. Stopping occasionally to look at a stall or point out a dog in a coat, you made your way around until you were back at the food stalls. This time though, you spotted something you hadn’t seen the first time, and Tom’s arm very nearly popped out of its socket from the force with which to pulled him to the counter.
“One Nutella crepe, please!”
You watched hungrily as the owner poured batter over a cast iron plate, spreading it thinly across the hot metal as it cooked. Pulling your gloves off with your teeth (cream gloves and chocolate spread don’t mix well), you recorded a Boomerang on your phone as Nutella was drizzled over, melting deliciously over the golden batter. By the time the owner handed you your crepe, folded over on itself and wrapped in a napkin, you were salivating.
Biting into the hot pancake, chocolate oozing into your mouth, you moaned, your eyes rolling back in culinary pleasure.
“Enjoying yourself?” Tom smirked, chuckling when you nodded enthusiastically. “Think you could handle getting a hot chocolate or will that push you over the edge?”
Licking a smudge of chocolate from the corner of your mouth, you nodded again. Looking around for a moment, you jabbed your crepe in the direction of a nearby bench. With melted chocolate sticking to the roof of your mouth, words were not an option, but Tom got the gist.
The metal seat was cold beneath your thighs when you sat down, your legs bouncing to keep warm as you waited for Tom to come back with your drink. Munching happily on your crepe, you took the opportunity to people watch. Being a Tuesday afternoon, it wasn’t exactly heaving, but there were a fair few people out. You watched a young mother crouching down in front of her son’s pushchair, trying desperately to shove his woolly hat back on his head after each time he tore it off. Kids are weird, you thought, I wouldn’t take this hat off if you paid me.
Taking another bite of your rapidly disappearing crepe, you turned your attention to an elderly couple across the street. You’d seen them about before, the man with his walking frame and the woman walking in front of him, pulling him along by the frame like it was a supermarket trolley with a wonky wheel as opposed to a walking aid. You watched them shuffling along the street together, contemplating what their story might be as you ate. Were they childhood sweethearts? Maybe they were on-again-off-again lovers in their youth, separated by some twist of fate, only to be reunited as divorcees some forty years later? Maybe they weren’t even a couple, maybe they were siblings, cousins, friends - you’d never know, but that’s all part of the fun.
“Stop staring at that old man.”
Tom’s voice pulled you from your speculations, a steaming cup of hot chocolate in each of his hands.
“How do you know I wasn’t staring at the woman?”
You nodded matter-of-factly when he shrugged, popping the last of your crepe into your mouth. Wiggling your legs as you got to your feet, you tried to regain some of the feeling in your thighs that you’d lost from sitting on the freezing metal.
“Apparently that’s how you get piles,” Tom noted as he handed you your drink. “Sitting on cold surfaces.”
“That-ah-” you took a sip, panting when the hot liquid burned your tongue. “That’s not true, but can we please not talk about piles?”
Taking your hand, Tom gave an exaggerated sigh.
“You never want to talk about anything fun.”
You pottered around the shops hand in hand for a while, sipping your drinks once they’d cooled down (and a couple of times before - you never learn). You snapped a few photographs as you went - one of the Christmas tree in front of shopping centre, one of the phone boxes toppled over like dominoes on Old London Road - and a couple of Tom looking startled with fans who mustered up the courage to ask for a picture after not-very-subtly following you around John Lewis for twenty minutes.
“Why do you look so terrified?” you laughed as you walked away. “You’re literally on camera for a living but as soon as someone goes to take a picture it’s like you lose control of your face.”
“You’re such a bitch, anyone ever tell you that?”
“Once or twice,” you shrugged, squeezing Tom’s hand as he linked his fingers through yours. “No one important though.”
By the time you left the department store, heavily laden with bags and most of your Christmas shopping complete, you were about ready to head home and fall onto the sofa in a heap. You were just about to suggest this to Tom when he stopped dead in his tracks, a panicked look on his face.
“Oh shit-”
“What?” You rejigged the bags in your hands, the handles cutting into your palms as you looked over your shoulder at him.
“I forgot to- hang on.” He stepped to the side, out of the way of people coming in and out of the store before setting his bags down. “Wait here, don’t follow me, I’ll be back.”
He pressed a kiss to your forehead, leaving you bewildered by the umbrellas as he scurried away back into the depths of the department store.
Five minutes later he reappeared, slightly out of breath and his cheeks flushed pink.
“Ready to go?” He smiled brightly at you, picking up the bags he’d set on the floor.
“You know I can see the box in your back pocket, right?”
Tom’s face drained of colour, his mouth opening and closing uselessly as his brain flicked through possible excuses.
“That- well - it’s-”
You shifted your bags to one hand, holding his jaw still with the other so you could bring you lips to hover just over his.
“If that turns out to be a fucking Joni Mitchell CD I will murder you.”
--
tags:@starksparker, @bi-writes , @snowflakespideys , @buckyparkerish , @thwippeter , @cutiehollands , @loserparker , @madmadmilk , @hollandlovely@spiderboytotherescue , @santahollands @dtftomholland @moonkissedtom@cabbagebag @iknowisoundcrazy , @spiderman-n, @luvnyuh , @parkerpuff @thwip-it-real-good @positiveparker @ap93mcu @popculture-parker@christmas-marvel @younglove16 @girlreaderr @pineapplwz @thequeensardine@idk-who-cares @hollandroos @mikalaka @thot–holland @awkwardfangirl2014 @booksaremylife602 @learning-howto-be-myselfx3 @dacrekaydaddict @lovelyspidey @summernykole @smashley816
@unicorn-princess-1999 @uwu-peter-parker-uwu @sleepwalkingdragon @adisneygeek01 @hs-medicine @thelazypangolin @curlyhairedparker @curlytoms
#12 days of christmas fic#tom holland x reader#tom holland x you#tom holland fluff#tom holland fic#tom holland fanfic#tom holland christmas fic
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lenny back at it again… i warned y’all about the intros dump. anyway, off to this bitch:
&&. isn’t that [ DEBORAH ANN WOLL ] walking around the hamptons? oh no, nevermind it’s just [ ADELAIDE MONTSERRAT ]. y'know, the [ 19 ] year old [ CIS FEMALE ] known to be quite [ CHARISMATIC and DETERMINED ] but also [ CUNNING and RUTHLESS ]. currently, the police has them as [ A PERSON OF INTEREST ] in the case of samantha wheeler, because they [ WERE PART OF SAMANTHA’S FRIEND GROUND ]. but they go on about their life as [ A STUDENT ]. i wonder what secrets they’re keeping? [ lenny/23/gmt+3/she/her ]
TW: eating disorders, addiction, mental disorders, possible suicidal thoughts/mentions
DON’T YOU EVER TAME YOUR DEMONS,
ALWAYS KEEP THEM ON A LEASH.
In the eyes of Adelaide Montserrat, there was never a girl to be found. If you dare to pry, you will not find what strangers see when they pass her by the crowd. You will look into a bottomless void that threatens to swallow you whole and it will look back at you with smiling teeth. Little Addie, once a girl with pink tutu’s and ballerina shoes, was never one to be meddled with - she would captivate all her teachers and classmates with rosy cheeks and a clever tongue beyond her years, but there was nothing warm or kind about the little girl whose parents held so close she nearly choked to death.
History goes, her father — her biological father, anyhow, was a very powerful politician before he dropped dead. Nobody really knows what happened that night - all everybody seems to know is that all her loved ones seem to fall like dominoes. Her father died when she was 16, during a robbery. The men were never caught, but little Adelaide was left bawling into her mother’s lap. Surprising as it may be, she was actually the product of a one night stand and poor lack of judgement, or so her mother likes to tell her - but Catherine Montserrat was no fool, and she took him for all he had - and as it turns out… That was a lot.
That doesn’t come cheap, for Adelaide, anyways. Being a part of a new family meant she now had a new player to share her inheritance with - and damned if she didn’t do everything she could to throw them off the board. In the eyes of her parents, she could do no wrong - she was pure and pristine and everything they hoped their little girl would be. You’d assume being the younger sibling meant competing for attention - but she never competed. She never even considered it a competition. She won, plain and simple. Her half brother, that man who called himself her “father” now were but pebbles in her shoes, nuisances she had to navigate through to continue on with her luxurious lifestyle. They didn’t understood her, didn’t particularly wanted to, and it was easier to smear on some foundation and bake it with powder than let explain why her skin was cracking. It was easier to strap on those old ballerina shoes and put on a show until her toes were bleeding, than to try and show them what was behind the curtains. And all jewelry in the world, all praise, all money and countless designer bags she accumulated every year could never fill up that gaping hole, that detachment she felt towards the outside world and inability to connect with things and people - even those supposedly closest to her.
You see, Adelaide didn’t lose, because she tailored the game to her whims and batted her heavy set of lashes to make it seem fair. And if she did lose - the game be damned; she’d destroy it and any evidence of her failure with the wrath of a woman scorned. She didn’t want to be a little sister, or a daughter, or something for men to gawk at. She wanted to be something else. Anything other than this vile thing dripping with self-loathing , cloaked in a veil of perfectionism. Something that wasn’t rammed into this golden mold before she even took her very first breath.
Addie’s behavior as well as their parents favoritism only blurred the lines between love and hate between the half-siblings, complicating her understanding of relationships even further. And it certainly didn’t help that her new brother was just as stubborn and competitive as she was. The children were picture perfect, carrying on the legacy of their parents on their backs as if it weighed no more than a feather - while whatever had been good or soft in them began to rot.
But just who is Adelaide Montserrat? The reincarnation of the Virgin Mary to most. The girl with perfect hair, perfect hair and a perfect family. In truth, Adelaide could be seen only as a terror taken human form to those who opposed her, and a perfect, exemplary girl for those who keep a safe distance. What she is, what she truly is, is a game of smoking mirrors - a fragmented girl, scattered into so many pieces to cater to the whims of crowds, that now, when she looks into a mirror, the image that looks back is something recognizable; distorted.
Fueled by her own securities and desire to obtain perfection, paired with the crowd of rich kids that were offered to her as friends growing up, it didn’t take for things to escalate; by the age of only fourteen, poisoning their blood with alcohol, snorting up enough cocaine so she had to carry around wipes and kicking each other in the stomach while crouching over the toilet became somehow ordinary. Encouraged, even. All that deep-rooted self-hatred had to spill someway, somehow. She grew to resent how boys were granted more freedom, more room to misbehave and make mistake. She resented girls for being themselves, for not wanting to scream every second of every day. And she resented Samantha for how genuinely she could smile - for how easily everything came to her, and for how she was everything she could never be; while she was lying in a grave she dug herself - shackled to the image of perfection she’d crafted, held to the highest of regards, expected to never falter nor stutter. It was hard to define the relationship between her - one moment Addie was sweet, the next she was cruel. And as to that unfortunate Halloween night, she claims they parted ways before she could see anything.
All the harder she tries to cling to this illusion of control, the deeper she dives into that well. Parents often say kids will “grow out of it”; their fits of rage, their apathy towards other children, their unwillingness to share, their manipulative, spoiled ways of obtaining what they want- but Addie never did. Somewhere inside there’s still that little girl who’d rather break her toys in half than to share it with other kids. Who’d bump into other little girls at school, and tell the nurse they tripped. Who’d rather set her arm back in place herself than say “you were right”. The little girl who’ll sit in an empty throne all alone, built with the bones of the people she once claimed to love.
PERSONALITY-WISE:
Adelaide is emotionally unstable and has a very competitive, volatile, manipulative personality; she doesn’t forgive, and she sure as hell doesn’t forget, and she can lash out in incredibly ruthless ways due to her extreme lack of empathy for hers. Her addictions and unwillingness to ever speak to anyone in depth about herself only worsen the state of her BPD. Despite all this, on the surface, she can seem like just like any other pristine, privileged girl. It’s not usual for people to find her charming - she does exude that sort of magnetic aura that’s very easy to fall for, because people tend to see what they want to see - and therefore, it’s easy for her to adjust her personality to the expectations of whomever she’s trying to captivate. In a way, her entire personality has merged with her addiction: being friends with her feels a lot like moment of high in exchange for an eternity of sorrow.
She can be a loyal friend, to some extent, although she’ll never put anyone above herself. She’s also very insecure and prone to fits of rage (in private) whenever she doesn’t get what she wants (think broken mirrors and glasses), as her self-image is heavily dependent on what she can achieve and how others perceive her. Deep down, this all stems from jealousy - she so desperately wishes she could connect with other people and things the way everyone around her does, but in the end she can’t, and she’s left feeling like an outside looking in. If she’s miserable, why shouldn’t everyone around her be too?
HIT ME UP TO PLOT U COWARDS !!
for reals, though - i know this was unnecessarily long, but oh well. you can be ex friends with her? don’t know why they’re not friends anymore - but i’m willing to bet it’s addie’s fault.
maybe some sort of competitor? academic or otherwise.
maybe there’s some poor ex out there who knows what a headcase she actually is? but probably can’t say much bc they fear for her life lmao.
she wouldn’t openly date anybody who could reflect poorly on her reputation, so secret hookups??? give me someone who’s getting sick of being used pls. ( she’s a closeted bisexual. society isn’t very welcome to the idea rn ) so girl crushes yes pls let girls have crushes on her. let her manipulate them bc she knows. i need.
also gimme someone who deals drugs to her tbh, bc this needs to be kept SUPER lowkey, but it’d also be hilarious bc she wouldn’t have to fake her personality around them & it’s like bitch what the fuck this girl is dr jekyll and mr hyde.
i’d love love to see a fake relationship - but i don’t mean the ‘secretly have feelings for each other’ - i mean the… secretly despise each other but they’re image-obsessed people and like being seen as the golden couple.
oH and pls someone give me a… dare i say sisterly connection? mostly, a girl who idolizes her or puts her on a pedestal, that she might or might not have a soft spot for ( which in addie’s handbook just means she’ll be that much crueler whenever she feels like it tbh ) & see it as some sort of protegee.
idk i’m open to anything, these are just suggestions thrown at the wall here. the point is… plot w me u cowards. and yes, my muse does bite.
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I had to block all the character blogs for this fandom, they're all acephobic and it breaks my heart. 💔 This fandom was my safe haven and now it feels like a lie. Idk I'm deeply hurt and just wanted to come to the best yyh tumblr there is. Thank you for listening ❤
[For reference: original post is here - https://yusukeurameshi-ask.tumblr.com/post/174274818838/damn-it-you-rp-blogs-are-pissing-me-off-with-how]
Anon, I’m really, really sorry to hear that you’re feelingthis way. I’m taking a little bit of time to respond because I want to be fairto your feelings, the anon who sent in the original ask you mentioned (as I don’tknow if you’re the same person), the ask blogs, and the community as a whole(ace and YYH). We are a beautiful community that I want to see thrive. Thatcohesion is truly indispensable to me, which is why I’ve taken the time toconstruct this response in what is hopefully a respectful, comprehensive manner.I will also say that I am woefully ignorant when it comes to complex dynamicsof asexuality. I’ve read many interpretations of it and don’t actually know acredible source that makes anyone more correct than the other. After as muchreview as I can arm myself for a response, let’s break this down a bit into parts.
So first, I have been incredibly absent from tumblr as awhole. I’ve heard bits and pieces lately of new ask blogs and I am so excitedto see this in the fandom. I want to keep this momentum up, because I feel thatwe’ve been in a lull (again, not through my own view, but generallyunderstanding more of the longer-standing blogs have been quiet lately). I amstoked to know people are reinvigorating the fandom. That being said, Ireceived this anon ask above this morning and decided to further investigatewhat was going on to grasp the context. After asking around a bit, a friendsent me a link to the above post from a reblog on another ask blog.
There are several things that seem to be going on here –first being the ask was sent in a very tonal manner. Building upon this, theresponse is set in the same tone, paired with the fact that it seems to also bein-character for the ask blog (it is supposed to be sent to Yusuke, after all).However, I would like to cut in right here and mention that two negativelycharged responses do not make a right. I want that to be very clear. This wasfurther snowballed by the other ask blog’s response, also technically in-character.
That being said, I think that there is still the likelihoodthese ask blogs are not intentionally being insensitive. Where I do draw aline, is the snowflake comment buried in the notes. This is my own personal gripe that snowflake issuch a poor thing to call people and undermines most issues people have atheart, projecting or not. It can further domino others’ responses to completelyundermine the original point as well. Choosing sides and calling others namesis not productive. That being said, getting over tonality like this is noteasy. However, I expect better from both ends in this community. I know you arecapable. If you care that someone is doing something that offends you and you trulywish to talk through the behavior, approach it in a more dignified manner. Phrasingthings more as a question (e.g., I see you’re using this definition like X, buthave you considered how it is sometimes used as Y? I want to have an openconversation to understand why you’re coming at this from Z angle.) can be abetter opener. Even disclaiming you are trying to approach it with an openmind, as mentioned in the example, can clear a bit of space to go forward inthe conversation. If you come at something in a charged manner and find youregret said action, apologize. You will find that more often than not, theother party should be somewhat amenable. This is not particularly directed at oneside, but a good general point to consider for anyone.
Where I would really, really like to go from here is alearning perspective. I see a great deal of divergence in the definition ofasexual (e.g., there is a biological definition that actually does fit canonYukina – that is, she can reproduce without a partner). Once you delve intowhat I am currently categorizing as sexual orientation (or lack thereof), itgets a bit muddy. Even after reviewing just this Wikipedia article to scratch thesurface, there are many, many subfacets, some which contradict. This is notuncommon in complex social constructs. It’s actually not uncommon in mostscientific or specific-speech attempting to clearly define and categorizethings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asexuality
So, what I would love to encourage is a more open mind,anon. If you find you cannot continue to support these ask blogs, that is obviouslyyour own prerogative that you are justified in having. Furthermore, I encourageyou to calmly approach anyone that you find does the ace community adisservice, intentional or not. But, I truly encourage you to try to do so in amanner that will be well-received. I do not know if you are the same personthat asked the Yusuke blog or just another person that saw it and was as sad asI am about how it all unfolded.
It is so easy to call people names, take the simple route,and judge. This response alone took me a few hours to construct to what I believeto be an acceptable level and receive feedback where I might be miss-steppingor misinterpreting. That is incredibly useful to have when you are trying toconvey complicated matters.
We are all human, we have flaws, but we need to know how tocommunicate. That is how you stick together. It’s how you thrive as a team. I wantthis so badly for the community as a whole. Please take these points intoconsideration going forward and I openly encourage you to send me more asks(anon or not – it’s all fine) to talk through these points, especially if Ihave somehow misconstrued anything. I want a space where everyone can talkfreely, but also logically. It’s the best way to continue and reinforce thecommunity.
Tagging referenced blogs because I also encourage theirinput, in a calm, civil (including out-of-character) manner. We’re all equalhere. Please correct me if I misrepresented or assumed anything incorrectly. And thanks if you took the time to truly read through this entire beast of a response.
@yusukeurameshi-ask @ask-master-genkai
#yyh#yu yu hakusho#asks#anon#everyone love everyone please#i will glue you together with bricks and popsicle sticks i swear#forever fornever
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:a Not which one is right but which one is more like you Let's start now // this is a few makeshifts on the deity,
dint realize y i was gettin poor marks in college till i realized comic sans wasnt mla format for essays, but i kept on with it bc im anti establishment and my dope ass literary insights should speak for themselves.
my 'experimentation' as one nonplussed professor put it, with the font, progressively got crazier, and in the end i was doin all caps zapf wingdings mized wih herculanum
needless to say, i got my degree.. IN BEIN A BOSS.
na but yeah i got kicked out of that school. still bummin on campus actually, and probably psychotic from this ecstasy i keep taking. this guy in f comp makes his own, has a pill press nd everything.
the shoes i original got as a college present from my parents got stolen, or in any case i woke up in a snow drift next to the commons dumpster without them on, so i just wear slippers. my toes are purple. ther always feels like there is something in my teeth or throat i cannot dislodge. i am the campus transient, avoiding th. RAs and ignoring the eviction notices. like raping the willing, one cannot be evicted if one is homeless. with the help of a few friends i sold drugs to when my rents still gave me money and i was still enrolled, i alternate between various dormitory hovels, hiding out from the campus police like some ghastly dysfunctional version of anne frank.
i havent taken my pills and smell. i emaciate my already rejected body, rejected by the establishment goons, with cocaine, and remind myself of the leftover chicken carcass and neatly lined bones whose tomb was a disgusting box of dominos buffalo wings i ordred and consumed my first semester here and that remained in the same place until i abandoned that radioactive dormroom to die slowly and painfully, and metaphorically, since living quarters do not possess life. i am starting tho to wonder if i myself possess that as well or if i did once and now am but a structure, a part of the collegiate landscape, sniffed at by diligent students and attempted to get thru to by intellectual slackers, decadent addicts themselves on their way to where i am, and wooks who need someone to smoke with on a sunday 4 am and know i always keep track of what festis are goin on on campus; i receive the next round of empathy from a new stranger who maybe heard of me or has seen me around and wondered what i was still doing here.
empathy, empathy, curiosity as to the quirky insane dude fried by mdma and a shitload of adderall for no purpose bc i have no practical skills. a monotony of empathy ripping off and using for the metaphorical shit on my metaphorical ass, like swquares of toilet paper who fancy me a hobo poet in need of on top of text books i never opened, on a desk i used as a trash receptacle. and speaking of wings, i think i might be literally going into a dissociative state because all the leaves on the trees look like zapf wingdings. my clavicle is not only visible but sticks out of my body further than my chest does.
watch out for hell day today,
for something godlier than god.
i deliver it.
The effect I wish to give, as it always has been, is that of a truth clearly viewed, in utter horror. Gods factotum, shuffling thru abandoned files that sometime held a secret forgotten, tho no less true now, and the horror perhaps, that we forgot something so crucially, fundamentally true, and so long ago.
this work is twisted, sad, manic, strange, fluid, stilted, inappropriate, foolish, magnificent.
if god doesnt exist, neither does the version of myself with dreadlocks
. . . . . . .
one has no choice in the end but to resign oneself, and drop their head. and yet, where do they look, if one in shrinking away for the purpose of humbling hisself afore the god of anxiety, and receiving his respite, knows nothing more than but to resign? where is the clarity here? there is no clarity 'here'. it is there, and come upon in moments of fear and trembling at the dread chaos, the doubt in a heart and split in a mind.
it is there, for one is staring at the ground, awaiting an end to the necessary aversion from the sight of a higher morsel of GOD.
. . . . . . .
atheism should not be an opinion it is not the result of not believing in god it is simply living life without a thought as to a religious god. we are not reacting to religion we are IN reality just as the catholic is IN reality. saying "I don't believe in god" is like equating nothingness to a lack of everything. there is no reactive state to atheism at its purest. it is not an acknowledgment, in other words, of no god, but an acknowledgment of what is before one's eyes, this vast neutral space I defy you to say is different from the religious folks' apprehension of objects and desires, all before them, swimming in ghostly revelry or not, only figurations anyway. o this insanely divided world.
i have a secular conception of god based on my teleological hypotheses re the nature of a causa prima, causa sui. it's the definitions that need defining, not the thing with a name on it that needs explaining. physics already does that.
remove intent for the case of nihilism, and you will have what i am saying here. no case at all. no 'response' so to speak. atheism can be evangelical
im not an evangelical atheist because what i believe changes based on the day but is always just as real haha. belief is tenuous. i go by that
it's the definitions that need defining, not the thing that needs explaining.
my conception of god is that it is the only thing that does not exist. so in a way, yes, i am an atheist.
'God' as defined in its easiest terms, is an ultimate uniquity. like, an outstanding substance. anyway, idk. at the end of the day idk haha
Kant's own a priori notional form of perception comes to mind. in front of our eyes is what is real. the observer initiates the ocular nerve, and the thing or situation burns into the receiving blankness of the mind.
like, have we reaped all the possible benefits of fire by now? surely the wails of prometheus fall not on deaf ears!
. . . . . . .
twisted, sad, manic, strange, fluid, stilted, inappropriate, foolish, magnificent.
. . . . . . .
green tortilla chips
my ass. he said with no attempt
at disguising incredulity, wiping the tears
from his brow.
. . . . . . .
whereas god is all, i am only myself, knowledgeable of only myself; therefore, unless god is simultaneously aware of being myself alone along with being everything, and of that everything knowledgeable of each and every thing as if god were only that thing, i am then let in on an experience of individuality that god is unaware of.
this is a question of how to be the most purely omniscient, omnipotent, etc. that is the question that our conception of god is asking.
corollary: if in the case of being simultaneously the experience i have of myself, and being all, then it is quite logical to say that our experience in life is in fact a godly experience, since i, too, would be unaware of being all, as goes the route of any human perception of things.
when i say i am only aware of myself i mean it in ontological terms, fyi -and also in, i will admit, somewhat absolutist terms. of course as people, psychologically, we can put ourselves in another's shoes, step outside of our comfort zone, change an opinion [or five] and every person is an environmental sponge -we can adopt varying personality traits from the culture we is born into etc. -this argument presupposes an absolute view, kinda,- in that, IF this were how it went, it wld go such nd such -this statement of mine does not examine a phenomenological or spiritual connection between people but examines the relativity and possible logical gaps in -the idea, or notion if you prefer- of omniscience.- there is only theory haha <#
we create our gods but they exist as much as we do
. . . . . . .
turn your back, find yourself faceless, at least, to someone.
. . . . . . .
wondering if I got a problm w. th prostate bc sometimes when I feel a shit coming I piss n it goes away. Don't change much re bathroom routine tho since I already sit down wen I pee in the first place, and according to my second ex wife this means I am a lazy fat whore
interested in the concept of the devout as being the truest sceptics.
. . . . . . .
Thought has the coherence of being but is not being, i.e. beginning and ending in our living heads as something not itself alive, but a mere transfer of connection willed consciously to create that inert unbreathing grand called the magnificent bullshit, the idea.
the quiet horror of the mundane dailyness.
. . . . . . .
i think something elitist and say within, Well that was elitist wasnt it, dan. then pat myself on the back at my ability to check my arrogance, specifically when i see the thought thru the lens of something a cousin of mine with generally liberal views and empathy who fishes in alaska for money and lives off the grid would remark to himself. then, i get slightly nauseated after mentally leafing thru all the times i have been proud of mentally criticizing myself for something in the first place outwardly bad. and there goes on the circular drudge of ugliness, not evaded outright, but felt the pangs of guilt in the says within, that say me again and again in my inertial brood, of void i would hope, of searching for clarity i wish, but that is probably more like a moralizing, limited gauge, like feeling better about something ugly that is yr fault by feeling bad about it for a little so you can get that part over with without the possibility of another harder wave of guilt for not feeling bad at all about the ugly thing, and therewith reacting with doubts to doubtful reactions, until yr whole value system is a wilderness of mirrors.
. . . . . . .
im a perfectionist when it comes to sensation. the beautiful feeling must be experienced in the proper setting that would maximize its potential. i think this is y i used to do lots of drugs, which by nature are the commodification of sensations. probably also y i was super miserable doing them and kept doing them despite that. there is a certain ring of the hoarder or magpie in this perfectionism that wants to connect physicality with ego that i see as well in the idea of paying money to literally feel specific sensations; equally, the result of this on the psyche is as tenuous here as with the futile idea of thinking the perfect setting for doing drugs is always at hand, which it rarely is, or at the least there is something to mar the perfect dream, that dragon, that pursuit of happiness, life, and liberty via thinking on how best situate the chains to, in essence, 'maximize' your mobility, but nathless remaining held in doom. the drug world, uh, is itself volatile; perfectionism and volatility dont jive so well, usually. and so on. hm. hegh.
heh.
. . . . . . .
I only like Eminem rap and that one NWA song like hell naw the rest is garbage now let me go back to my trailer in the woods where I live in harmony with the Elves who have seemed to appear more frequently now that I have that bathtub meth dungeon set up in my basement where skynerd plays ceaselessly from an unlocatable place. My hero is Ed Gein. But I don't do the lampshade thing. I do however have a human skull I bought from my buddy who owns a war relics and parephernalia shop, he had to go in the back to get it and lock the store so nobodys would come snoop. Turns out some folks comed snoop to see if he figured any more available and he got mad at me for blabbing, an I said, Giles, ya know I ain't blabbing, but he dint believe it, an now we just kinder avoid each other at the local NA meetin. People tryn cop there and some do and theys go behind the water tower tagitit, I int do that part tho, a tad fucked up I mean, these people try n getting clean an all, why make it harder n it eyis? But if y'all wanit I get it tiya, come by and share a chaw almighty God. Gib ye a gude price too. *PATOOEY* I. Uh am sober myself. 20 yrs. but damn ye ye make a buck more n working garbage detail selling home cooked meth I reckon ye. Don't touch the stuff I don't anymore after I heard this queer fella from out a town got his arm chopped off when he mainlined eyit. Tryn I guess do some sex stuff and a days travel from the city. City folk don't know it's diffeRent strength down here's doe. I reckon. *MEDITATIVE PATOOEY* yes sirn. Huhm.
. . . . . . .
The thing abt the Sex Pistols is, tho they engineered the punk genre immeasurably, they seem to no longer be in the cultural conversation, except within factions of grey haired aficionados. Even the more radio friendly The Clash seems notably absent in this regard. Has punk developed beyond its early stages, or is punk, being the genre that it is, dependent on whatever the moments youth zeitgeist is? punk is visceral because it is held in time this way. first gen punk, cbgbs headliners of ago and ago, do not exert these days the same walbreaking feel, bc I think there's so much virtuosic music being made today that the path of what will develop is harder to determine. Musicians in throes break down walls without batting an eye. Any musical iconoclasm expressed in the music of the past, then, especially to the contemporary ear, is bound to seem bathetic. Like microaggressions as expressions of racism, our society's opening of mind leads to a closed mind, as one can justify not being racist by simply saying they do not think they are better than marginalized peoples, have never done anything racist, think we are all equal, are not clansmen lol. what ruffles feathers is less obvious, in turn, bc expressions of the ersatz new and the real new are harder and harder to determine. The surplus of media, ideas, and opinions, I think, will lead us to a place where "cultural norm" becomes an oxymoron, hopefully. But then, what else will be left to invigorate, if so much is already so much done out, already? Does there exist a perspective, artistic or no, that is not liable to become passé? Or even some thought never thought before? I know there is, I for one know there is, because as a poet I see much to fix, and much that I work to do bc I see it nowhere else; and this most crucially is not an impression of mine based on today's lit but every days lit there has ever been, throughout history. Just I can literally not even yo, yo
. . . . . . .
Mathsmatics can transcend thru the grandeur of its implications but not thru the means towards said implications; philo can do the same, but it's better penchant is for transcending thru means to electrify a mundane conclusion or give a system of reason to a general thought-trope such as, "reality is an illusion" or whichever flat idea u prefer to follow. Since it is pure logos, philo differs from math in being more readily universal; tho the applications of math are more readilly useful than the positives that come with mental clarity at the understanding an achieved unified system. Poetry is all means, so then must dazzle, and needs no evidence, conclusion, or even subject, but need only sway with beauty. Therein is the problem with the existential issue of selfhood. Reductive analysis of self becomes psych, and the only pure philo to be had in selfhoods exegesis is not to be found in anything like a system of proofs or syllogisms, etc. selfhood, as Kierkegaard recognized, is poetic bc it exacerbates reality, exhausts all of it. it is individual, and so copious a thing has no one forged path to what it is, or even any path at all, to what it is, since like Pascals God the self is a circle whose point is everywhere and circumference nowhere. Figuring out a reality via a teleology or thru logic is nicer to attempts at systems. But individual self is too mucky for any proof to say it exists; the murkiness shines, as it always does, when the means are prevalent, since the means, being held moment to moment, rely on nothing but expose a variety of paths to more variety. Philo then is better at least than Math for finding out something obfuscated, but nothing but poetry can so deeply probe the self, as its humility is lain in the respect for a complete dissembling of systems.
. . . . . . .
the iconic ny jewish deli sandwich is in essence a robust mountain of roast beef held feebly between two unnecessary pieces of sad, chickenshit marble rye
the roast beef, of course, wld be kosher.
I create; I waste. Yet nothing is perfect, nothing, nothing. Not even dignity.
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I know you're already writing The Librarian, but I'm greedy. If you're still doing Flash fics - Bruce and Selina? Or Selina interacting with one of the bat kids? Thanks :)
Rating: T? Maybe G? Idk it’s pretty darn mild.
French Fries
“Just a coffee?” he repeated, to make sure. Catwoman studied her nails with a slight frown and nodded at him, a little distracted.
“That’s all,” she said. “Black.”
He didn’t sigh or shrug or give any indication that he felt any particular way about this aside from a pause that stretched out a bit long even for him.
“A coffee,” she repeated. “Un café.”
“You’re not going to steal my fries,” Batman said sternly, more a declaration than a warning or a question.
“Me?” she asked, lifting her goggles to blink at him. “Steal?”
“Hnn,” was all he said. His cowl hid any expression around his eyes and underneath the cowl, his discipline smoothed out any expression that might have dared show itself anyway, but one corner of his mouth quirked up just slightly.
Catwoman slid her goggles back down and moved closer to him. How the hell he managed cursive with a pencil while wearing the gauntleted gloves was beyond her, but his script neatly filled part of the white notepaper all the same. She tried blowing on the lower part of his cheek to see if he’d react. He didn’t.
She traced his jawline with a fingernail and he did not flinch or jerk away, but the pencil stopped moving and he exhaled long and slow and soft. It would have been sweet if it wasn’t clearly a noise of irritation. Catwoman glanced down at the paper, where the pencil mark made a long, marring gash through the words above his present line. She grinned and sat back.
Batman did not bother to erase the line, but finished the short list and then stood and stepped off the edge of the roof. Catwoman yawned and sat back, propping her weight on her outstretched arms, and a second later there was a snick as the grappling hook caught the concrete.
Down the building face, he tucked the folded paper into a windowsill while hanging from one arm, then pressed the recoil button and soared vertically with his cape fluttering around him. At the top, he swung up over onto the roof again.
Catwoman was examining a batarang and he glanced down at the compartment on his utility belt and bit off his own compulsion to sigh. He held a hand out for it and she laughed and shook her head.
“Finders keepers,” she said, spinning the flat edge around on a finger.
“That hardly applies to pickpocketing,” he retorted.
“I thought your belt was ‘impossible,’” she smirked.
“That wasn’t a challenge,” he said, turning to gaze across the city instead of look at her. If he did, she’d know how close she was to eliciting a laugh and it wasn’t exactly the sort of behavior he wanted to encourage.
“Just like ‘take off your pants and get in the van’ wasn’t a challenge?” she asked, snatching his cape and pulling hard. He actually staggered a step back before whirling to scowl at her.
“That was an emergency,” he said, irritated. “And you were wearing that ridiculous disguise. You can’t possibly think that was intended to be flirtatious.”
“It’s hard to tell with you sometimes,” she said obstinately. She reached up to hand him the batarang, which he accepted gingerly with two fingers as if it might explode. She shivered when she realized it had been an actual possibility, considering him and his arsenal.
He actually clicked open the eye visors in the cowl to meet her gaze.
“You know what I do during daylight hours, my reputation,” he said, as if they hadn’t had this conversation half a dozen times already. “If I’m flirting with you, you’ll know. That was a matter of safety.”
“Damn, but you’re prickly tonight,” Catwoman complained. “Are you hangry?”
“I don’t know what that means,” he said stiffly, though she guessed he had to know somehow or other. She didn’t explain.
The roof access door opened just a crack and a paper sack and drink carrier were set on the roof, then the door clicked shut.
“Delivery, too,” she said, whistling. “You don’t even really need to go home if you don’t want to.”
He ignored this and strode over to pick up the food.
This time when he rejoined her, he sat down next to her and handed her the coffee. The other drink looked like it might be a milkshake.
“Are you eating with the gloves on,” she asked, when the burger was halfway to his mouth. He froze for a second and then took a bite as an answer. She rolled her eyes. “It’s a wonder you aren’t dead already.”
For a few minutes, they were quiet and the quiet shifted to companionable, like it usually did these days. He turned his head to scan the skyline, his eye visors still retracted, and Selina snuck a French fry.
She sipped her coffee immediately after, making it soggy, but he’d looked back and she didn’t want to risk her mouth being visibly occupied with food.
It happened again, and then again. He’d let his gaze drift over the city and her hand would creep into the thin cardboard package. Even as good as she was, he had to know she was doing it, so she figured he’d stop her if it really bothered him.
He wadded up the foil wrapped from the burger and tipped the fry container up. It was nearly empty.
“Selina,” he exclaimed, sounding a little shocked. It probably would have sounded flat to most people but she’d known him a long time.
“What?” she asked, a little surprised herself that he apparently hadn’t noticed and feeling a little triumphant that she hadn’t lost her game. She raised an eyebrow even though it was pointless with the mask and goggles and she slurped his milkshake.
His jaw tightened and he reached forward and took it from her hand.
“I could have gotten you anything,” he said.
“It’s more fun this way,” she answered.
But now that the glow of victory was fading a little, she realized that he seemed…distracted. He’d sought her out tonight so it probably wasn’t that she wasn’t interesting, otherwise, he wouldn’t have wasted his time.
He was sometimes infuriatingly unromantic and practical like that.
“You okay?” she asked, bumping his knee with hers. She sipped her own coffee this time and admitted to herself that it was actually really good coffee for a midnight diner.
“Hn,” he said without looking over. “I’m fine.”
“That’s great,” she said, taking the milkshake from him and sucking down a drink again. She put it back in his motionless hand, his fingers still in a C-shape she fit the cup into. “Now how about the truth? I don’t like playing therapist so I’m not asking again.”
Batman scoped out the rooftop and surrounding buildings before setting the milkshake down and pushing his cowl off his head. His hair was slightly damp with sweat and he still wore a domino mask, but it was much more like looking at Bruce than Batman.
Selina pulled her goggles down around her neck and tugged her own mask off. She wasn’t wearing a domino but she didn’t ever care as much as he did about the identity thing.
He finished the French fries while they sat and she’d nearly given up on him actually saying anything more when he spoke, facing the city instead of her.
Their shoulders were touching after she’d scooted closer but for a brief moment, it felt like there was an actual barrier between them as he looked straight ahead; it was like being dragged to confession as a child, but as the confessor for once.
“It doesn’t matter how much I do,” he said. “It’s not enough.”
Selina wanted to tease him about midlife crises, but she held her tongue.
“There was a drive-by tonight,” he said. “I didn’t get there in time. A pedestrian died on the scene.”
“If you think that was your fault, I’m going to scratch your face,” Selina said seriously.
He looked at her then, his slight frown belying the intensity in his eyes. She didn’t scratch his face.
“It all feels like my fault,” he said levelly. “Every time I’m not fast enough. It all matters or none of it does.”
“That sounds like a shitty way to live,” she observed, she hoped neutrally.
The city had his attention again.
“It is,” he said in agreement. “But I can’t settle for the alternative. Too many already do.”
Selina opened her mouth to point out how stupid this sounded, as if his sense of guilt negated the lack of care others might show, but she reconsidered and said simply, “I’m sorry.”
His posture dipped a little and then straightened again and he nodded.
Selina put an arm around his waist and leaned her head against his shoulder. She put her hand in his free hand, intertwining glove and gauntlet.
“For the record, the apology was not for the fries,” she said quietly.
He chuckled, a coarse and cut-off sound, and said, “Noted.”
They didn’t move from the spot for a long time and when the sun began to tinge the eastern horizon faint purple against the dark sky, he lifted her chin with two fingers and kissed her.
It wasn’t hard or passionate, like some kisses she’d had from him or other men. It was gentle, for all the confidence in his movement, and when she ducked her head after he pulled back, she frowned at her hands and then looked up at him again.
“What do you say we get out of here?” he asked. “I know a place.”
“If it has a bed and a nap, count me in,” Selina said, stretching.
“I think that can be arranged,” he answered. “As long as you promise to not steal the blankets.”
“I can’t promise something against my nature,” she retorted, standing and stretching again. “I’ll meet you there, Bat.”
“Selina,” he said, just as she was about to run and leap. She hesitated and looked back. “Thank you,” he said.
“You’re too hard on yourself,” she said in reply, and then she jumped.
He repositioned the cowl and made the journey alone back across the city and through the outskirts and into the Cave.
She wasn’t there.
Bruce climbed the stairs into the Manor thirty minutes later, after writing patrol reports and storing the suit and repairing a utility belt compartment. It was fully dawn outside but the house was still quiet.
He didn’t hear the shower running until he was in the hall leading to the master bedroom.
Tim was sitting on the floor, back propped against the bedroom door, looking groggy and half-asleep.
“Is this an authorized use of your space?” Tim asked, yawning and rubbing his eyes.
“Selina?” Bruce asked, holding out a hand to the teen.
Tim nodded and let Bruce pull him to his feet.
“Yeah,” Bruce said. “Thanks.”
“M’going to bed,” Tim mumbled in reply. “Don’t let her steal the silverware.”
“Has she ever stolen the silverware?” Bruce asked dryly, raising an eyebrow.
“No?” Tim said like it was a question. He disappeared around the corner.
Bruce went into the bedroom. The bathroom door was cracked open and the shower was still running and on his bed was a paper bag. Curious, he wondered over and tipped it to look inside.
It was full of French fries.
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