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bigskydreaming · 2 years

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That last reblog has me now contemplating.

What if to mess with his shiny new little brother, but like....gently....when they first started hanging out Dick told Jason a couple of slight falsehoods as umm. A training exercise. That’s it. It was about helping Jason get up to speed with his information gathering skills and also his bullshit detection. So in the interest of being helpful and A Good Big Brother, Obviously....Dick sowed a few.....less-than-entirely-factual details about the more fantastical elements of their lives. The stuff that isn’t common or public knowledge to most of the DC Earth. And then he just.....waited to see how long it took Jason to realize Dick had fed him a handful of straight up lies when briefing him about All Things Superhero.

Look, it was for Science. That’s Dick’s story and he’s sticking to it.

Thus, for the first couple months of their new sibling relationship, Dick had Jason convinced that Atlanteans were actually aliens who landed here thousands of years ago, speedsters can run so fast they can travel back in time, and Superman once accidentally let out a burp so forceful it created a shockwave that shattered every glass in a quarter mile radius so whenever he starts to look....gassy....your best course of action is to hit the deck. Don’t even hesitate for a second, just dive to the ground and grab some floor until he’s got it back under control. And oh yeah, Diana has her Lasso of Truth, but Donna’s version of truth-related powers is that she can sense when people are up to no good....only, the way this manifests for her is she suddenly registers a distinct bad smell in her vicinity, alerting her that bullshit is afoot.

“You’re kidding,” Jason said flatly. “You expect me to believe that Donna can literally smell bullshit?”

Dick just raised an eyebrow. “Like that’s somehow less plausible than Gar being able to change into any kind of animal but only in shades of green? And oh yeah, speaking of green, Green Lanterns can do just about anything with their rings....except protect themselves from yellow paint? I don’t make the rules, Jace. The truth is sometimes superpowers aren’t super-glamorous and not everything related to magic or gods or other planets is as....sophisticated...as we presume. I mean, its not like these things exist just to match up to our expectations for them. Why should alien civilizations or the rules of magic be influenced by whether or not our society would find something weird or ridiculous?”

Jason chewed his lower lip contemplatively. He lacked an official bullshit detecting power himself, but he did have good instincts. Unfortunately for him, his shiny new big brother gave good Lying-to-your-face Face.

“Plus, if you really think about it, it does make a kind of sense,” Dick continued to explain helpfully. But only according to certain specific interpretations of ‘helpfully’ that actually mean ‘like a liar.’ “Our brains are constantly translating all kinds of input and stimuli into shapes or patterns we can actually process in a way that means something to us. So we can make use of that information. This is just the same thing. Donna’s power takes however many variables are involved in registering something as false or something she needs to be wary of...and just condenses it into a simple ‘red alert’ indicator that takes all that abstract, ephemeral data and makes it something actionable. Something she can actually do something with. Her power - or how her brain perceives it - just didn’t actually consult her or give her a choice of notification settings, because why would it?”

“I guess that makes sense,” Jason begrudgingly agreed, with a frown that suggested this particular ‘truth’ Offended his sensibilities.

“I mean, you can ask Donna to explain it herself if you want,” Dick said with a shrug. “Just a heads-up though....she’s not really a fan of how that power works either. Its not exactly a superpower anyone wants to be known for, and she’s heard allllll the jokes about it by now. Roy, Wally and I were perhaps....not the most sensitive when we were younger and she was honing that particular skillset? Though in our defense, I maintain that most of our jokes were hilarious. But anyway, just saying. If you wanna bring it up with her directly, go right ahead! Its definitely one of her favorite topics and Amazons are for sure known for how well they handle being self-conscious.”

And that’s the story of the three months Jason spent convinced that Atlanteans were from another planet, confusing the hell out of Garth with his occasional references to ‘your homeworld’ and his numerous questions about all the Atlantean Green Lanterns that he for some reason seemed convinced the Green Lantern Corps must obviously have a long history of.

And its also why Jason spent those same three months getting wide-eyed and nervous any time he noticed Donna’s nose so much as twitch when he was around. Which it did a lot more often than usual, thanks to how often Dick got horseradish to go with whatever he was having for lunch, knowing full well that Donna can not stand the smell of horseradish. (Dick’s actually not a fan either, and he hates how it tastes, but he’s not afraid to Suffer for the sake of Shenanigans. Its a fundamental part of the Robin experience and persona, after all.)

But it was the Donna thing that gave Dick away, ultimately. No matter how hard he tried to keep a lid on how entertaining he now found the sight of Donna’s occasional nose twitch...even a Batkid poker face can’t keep an empath and telepath from finding this a mystery worth untangling after the tenth time it happens.

(Not that Lilith or Raven are gonna apologize for prying any time soon. They had an obligation as his friends and teammates to investigate when he’s acting bizarre, y’see. What if its because he was brainwashed again? “We’re intrusive because we love,” Lilith insists with zero shame. Raven clarifies: “I was intrusive because she was already doing it so there seemed no point not to.” Lilith points out that this could also be construed as a sign of strong leadership potential. Dick glowers. Lilith waves a hand dismissively. “We can circle back to that later. That’s fine.”)

Anyway, the truth came out at last, Jason cites this as the Moral Justification for every single time and way he was a pain in the ass to Dick in the years to come, and Donna - who was Not Amused - gave a pointed sniff and called bullshit when Dick tried to claim this was an important Bonding Opportunity for he and Jason, wherein they became brothers ‘for real’ instead of just via Bruce. “There are intricate sibling rituals to be observed,” Dick insisted. “I did my research! We had so much time to make up for, I had to speedrun through my shenanigans to get us all caught up! Would I have done all this if I didn’t care?”

Every Titan in the room, familiar with the lengths he’d gone to when messing with Rogues and randos as Robin and thus distinctly unimpressed: Yes. Absolutely. One hundred percent.

Dick foraged on heroically. “Regardless! That’s not the case here, as all of this was clearly done in the name of brotherhood and bonding! We’ll laugh about this someday, you’ll see!”

Ten years later, after Jason’s returned as the Red Hood and reintegrated with the Batfamily to varying degrees, enough so that he accompanies Dick and the rest of the OG Titans on a mission where they’re ambushed, captured and trapped in a supervillain dungeon they’re now trying to escape...

Dick: Definitely kicking myself for not seeing that ambush coming. Where’s a bullshit-sniffing power when you really need it, huh?

Jason: Still not laughing yet.

Dick: Oh come on!

As far as the rest goes, Jason does get a kick out of the speedsters discovering that actually, they can run fast enough to travel through time. He’s like, despite your best efforts you accidentally got one right. And Dick’s all ‘was it an accident or did I actually know or have strong suspicions all along’....but Jason shuts that down. “Nope. Not giving you this one. Try it with someone else.”

However, that still left one last card in play, long after everyone - even Dick and Jason themselves - had all but forgotten about it.

See, every Batkid knows that the best lies contain elements of truth. And that’s why Dick only peppered in his fake trivia very, very sparingly amidst a massive info-dump of actually accurate and useful info he gave Jason about all that stuff, way back when.

So despite the handful of things Dick had told him that Jason eventually discovered to be untrue...the vast majority of it did check out.

Which means even once he did catch on to Dick’s game....that didn’t change his acceptance of the stuff that had turned out to be true or verified by others. But in the end, there was only one little fib that slipped under the radar. Because the scenario it was based on just never happened to come up until long after Jason had returned....and thus Jason never had reason to put much thought into actually questioning whether or not it was true. Not until long after he’d stopped scrutinizing stuff Dick had told him, in search of possible ‘traps.’

And THAT is the story of how Jason - on one of the rare occasions that he joined the Titans and Justice League for an all-hands-on-deck kinda teamup - just happened to be in the right wrong place at the right wrong time to notice Superman suddenly start to look queasy after trying some alien cuisine....

And without a second thought, Jason just instinctively dove for the floor. With this followed by Clark letting out an extremely normal-sounding burp and a sheepish apology.

Everyone else, staring at the infamous Red Hood ducking for cover because Clark had a moment of indigestion: umm. wut

Dick, staring wide-eyed at his brother and trying not to laugh: Oh shit. I totally forgot all about that.

Jason, almost conversationally, while climbing to his feet and stalking ominously towards his big bro: Hey can you believe that after all the shit we’ve been through and all the times we’ve fought over like...actual life and death stuff, THIS is the thing I’m actually gonna kill you for?

Dick, backing away, hands raised placatingly: Hey, c’mon now, Jace, we called a truce about all this ages ago, remember? It was a much younger, dumber me who did all that in the first place, y’know? You’re better than this!

Jason: I’m really not.

Dick: Well then can I just take this opportunity to mention again how sorry I am for any creative embellishments I might have once come up with, in the mistaken belief that I was honoring important traditions of brotherhood, and....

Jason: Hey, where’s Donna? Can anyone see if her nose is twitching?

Donna and the rest of the Titans, blatantly amused and offering no explanation to the very confused Justice League: Oh, bullshit absolutely detected. In the interests of Truth and Justice, you should totally proceed.

Dick, jabbing his finger at his teammates before dashing for the door: Betrayal! J’accuse!

Donna, shrugging: Sorry, Rob. Justice demands impartiality. Our hands are tied.

Jason, running out the door and down the hallway in pursuit of his fleeing brother: Yeah you better run! I’ve waited ten fucking years to get back at you for this shit. Where you going anyway, bro? I thought you wanted to laugh about this someday!

Dick (offscreen): I regret nothing! It was all worth it! You should have seen your face!

Jason (offscreen): You couldn’t even see my face, idiot! I’m wearing my fucking helmet!

Dick (offscreen): Semantics! If something’s funny enough, you can sense what someone’s face probably looks like! If you know, you know!

Jason (offscreen): Oh yeah, go ahead and make up some more shit, Grayson, that’s definitely the right way to go here!

Batman, looking to the Titans and waving his hand at...whatever all that is offscreen: Explain.

Roy: Hey don’t look at us. You’re the one who made them brothers. This is on you.

Batman: What does that even mean.

Lilith: If you know, you know. Dick’s right about that much at least.

The Titans all nod like an actual, self-evident truth was just expressed. Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose, and starts muttering under his breath.

“You need to encourage Dick to seek out and make like-minded friends, Alfred said. It’ll be good for him, he said. Its what he needs and definitely not the point everything starts to go downhill.”

Lilith picks it up loud and clear, because of course she does, and incidentally, the smug, obnoxious know-it-all teenage psychic who started hanging out with Dick when they were teenagers has absolutely nothing to do with Bruce’s profound dislike of telepaths, nooooo, that would be ridiculous and irrational, to bear a grudge against everyone with a particular skillset because one of your son’s childhood friends was a royal pain in the -

Lilith: Oh, that’s adorable. He thinks we’re the reason Dick’s so profoundly weird and inexplicable.

The Titans, in unison: LOL.

Roy: The self-deluding, it is strong in that family.

Bruce is suddenly extra glad he’s wearing a cowl that hides what is definitely not a pout but might be mistaken for one by the uninformed thus its better to just dodge that issue entirely. He crosses his arms and stares down the collection of his eldest son’s friends, whom he has been unfairly plagued by since most of them were pre-pubescent little demons. Literally no one has suffered like he has.

“I don’t like you,” he informs them officiously. Not sulkily. Officiously.

Several of them snort. There’s a couple giggles. An eye roll from Roy. An aborted response hastily turns into Wally coughing into his hand. Blatant dismissal from Victor, his attention clearly on whatever he’s browsing online. Three varying shades of raised eyebrows: unflappable bemusement from the sorceress, patronizing amusement from the psychic, naked incredulity from Donna. Garth gazing off into an empty corner which he has on very good authority is basically the Atlantean version of the middle finger.

“Yeah, no shit,” Roy drawls, apparently on behalf of the whole group.

Ugh, they’re just. The worst. Why couldn’t Clark have had a kid Dick’s age so he never had to go looking elsewhere for socialization? That’s it. Clearly this was all Clark’s fault. He can’t believe he never realized that before.

Dammit Clark.

#this started out as Dick and Jason shenanigans and then somehow morphed into Bruce really doesn't like his kid's friends #because I firmly believe the Bruce vs the Titans antipathy is one hundred percent a two way street #and not so deep down Bruce (super rationally) blames them for some of the distance between he and Dick over the years #the world's greatest detective is like 'well Dick and I (mostly) got along just fine until THEY came along and then all of a sudden it was #oh sorry Bruce I cant hang out cuz I gotta go play with all my friends who hate you because they're horrible little goblin children #and look I've connected the dots' because correlation is definitely causation #cut to Bruce grumpily slouched in the Watchtower's monitor room watching the Titans mop up the Fearsome Five #to loud public acclaim #Clark hovers nearby. both figuratively and literally. he is Concerned #'Bruce you do know that resenting Dick's friends and holding a grudge against a bunch of fifteen year olds because #your kid doesn't always want to hang out with you anymore is Not the solution to repairing your relationship with Dick that you're looking #for right? please tell me that you know that'#Bruce. testily. 'yes Clark I know that'#Clark: okay. good. I was just worried because it. umm. doesn't always LOOK like you know that #Bruce: well I do and you can stop bringing it up. friends dont rub their friend's irrationality in their faces #Clark: see I dont think I know that rule #Clark: Im pulling from the book that says friends dont let their friends declare a feud against teenagers they've decided #are their personal mortal nemesis in some not-super-healthy war for their son's time and attention #Bruce: well your book sounds stupid and wrong and you should throw it away and get a better book like mine #Clark. Sighing because apparently today is a day where Bruce has decided to just Be Like This and resigning himself to letting it go #for now and trying again to get through to him in a week or two instead #'Sure B. Ill get right on that.'

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foxgirlmoth · 10 months

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I don't talk about this stuff on here pretty much at all, but a past relationship really broke a ton of bits and pieces of my brain and heart in weird ways (I'm finally thinking about him almost never but the shit he pulled was abusive as hell and still affects me sometimes). Being in love with my current girlfriends for a while felt almost. Painful? Almost like I should be ashamed I can fall so deeply in love with people, and especially how quickly that can happen sometimes too. Thats how it kind of felt. I tend to get overwhelmed with emotions if I'm feeling them very strongly, and that has been extremely embarrassing and also felt almost like I was being a burden to those I love (which love is the main emotion that can 'get dialed up to 11' for me). It IS debilitating in some ways!!! It hasn't gotten bad enough I've been nonverbal in a really really long time but that happened this past week and it was wild to me.

Things are getting better now though! Therapy in the past has helped, and honestly having such patient and understanding partners has made a world of difference ;w;. my wife is someone who was one of my best friends and I had a huge crush on and now I can ask for cuddles and we can nap together and I've fallen so much in love. Her and her presence are literally heaven for me, I don't know if anything has ever made me happier than just laying next to her and feeling her warmth.

Worries of course flare up and I feel like I need to lean on her a lot during those moments, but I don't feel like too much of a burden to her. I love seeing the posts that say stuff like 'Its okay to be a burden' or 'its okay to be annoying' because really truly I think I need to be those things to survive sometimes. I can be 'a lot' and I can be a little bit obsessive and those things aren't inherently bad or evil of me. I just make sure I'm feeling okay during and after and make sure I'm checking in on myself often. I'm a bit of a broken girl, but that doesn't mean I'm not extremely happy and living a life I love. I've written poems and everything about how it feels like it must hurt to love me and my broken jagged edges, but hey, even if it does a little bit, it doesn't mean someone like my girlfriend/wife won't go through a little bit of burden to love me, and I'm more than happy to return all of this and more for her as well if she's ever in need or feels broken ;^;

#Not to be too gay but I wanna build my life with my princess more and more #She's. So good to me and she's so pretty and she's so beautiful and attentive and she listens to me in ways I feel no one else has #She understands me so well!! And I hopefully make her feel the same #But yeah I've been a burden a lot to people due to autism (which I didn't know I had for fucking ages) adhd and physical disabilites #And she feels like she isn't taking care of me which is good because I'd honestly hate that #But she understands me and makes me a better person and that's exactly what I've wanted for forever.#And being demi/aspec is awesome with her since she's aspec too and there's no pressure for sex or sexy times but if we both want it #It can still be super fun!! We gotta figure more of that stuff out if we want but knowing each others kinks (and sharing a good bit) rocks #Idk its so so so so easy to love my wife Maxie #She's so dear to me and we've only been dating for 4 months but they've been 4 months I've felt the most alive and seen #Its so easy to be cringe but free with her too idk #She makes me better and I hope I do the same for her. I don't want either of us to stagnate yknow?#But anyways yeah this is just a big journal entry of some kind I might do these every once and a while #Not to like. Brag??? I guess. Or show my mental illness so much. Its just kind of nice if friends know where I'm at in my life I guess #And idk having outside input on thoughts can be good. If any friends see this and go 'Hey Runa this is real weird maybe tone it down'#I can look at that stuff a bit more #Gonna tag this in a way I can find it and others in the future too #Runa diary logs #But yeah you're not hearing this from me but I wanna be with Maxine for the foreseeable future more than anything.#Gotta get my degree and a good job too and she's ofc not the only person in my life (I have Sara who is so very dear to me too ;w;)#Nor is she the only 'goal' I have either. I wanna make games I wanna make art. I wanna make something that other trans people #And queer people and just minorities in general can look at or play or experience and just go. Life is worth living #I love my life right now and I'm so glad I've made it to my late 20's.#Its only uphill from here :3 #Wanna add on when I say she's not the only person in my life I mean that I have so many friends and people I love who love me too :3 #♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

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