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oh-mother-of-darkness · 2 years

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“Howdy,” said Jason, dropping from the ceiling. He gave the man in the top hat a little wave. “Can I have a minute?”

The Mad Hatter bolted for the exit so fast that Jason considered a white rabbit joke, then decided against it. The Wonderland bit was, in his opinion, overplayed. Instead, he hit the release switch on the nearest piece of equipment.

A pile of netting fell out of the machine claw, directly onto Hatter as he attempted to flee. Tetch dropped immediately, hopelessly entangled in the mess of knots and unable to get up again. Jason sauntered over, not bothering to wait on backup; Tim would get there when he got there.

He did, however, remove his helmet when he got within Tetch’s reach, just in case. He had a domino mask on underneath, same as always, so his identity wasn’t at stake. Jason reached his free hand through a gap in the nets and grabbed Tetch by the collar.

“Hi,” he said. “Let’s chat.”

“About?” “About the twenty-three people that claim that they wore some form of headgear this week,” Tim interjected, from behind, “and then became trapped in their own brains. Sound familiar?”

“No.”

“I can give you a list of names, if that might spark your memory.”

“It won’t.”

“Uh huh. The thing that really interests me,” said Tim, “are the four instances where non-victims— people that weren’t wearing the hats with your tech in them— say that they got dragged into the, I’m quoting, ‘mindscapes’ of the hatted folks regardless. How did you do that? How do you put one person in a different person’s brain?”

“I don’t.”

“It would be pretty cool if you did,” said Jason.

“Pretty evil,” said Tim.

“It can be both.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Hatter.

“Whatever.” Jason released his grip on Tetch’s collar. He wasn’t learning anything new.

“Wait!” said Tim, as Jason turned away, sliding his helmet back over his face.

Too late. Jason caught a half-second glimpse of something metallic stuck to his hood, and then the world spun, and the room went hazy. He blinked, and his vision cleared. He was standing in the same spot in the same room that felt, somehow, profoundly different.

Jason reached a hand up to swipe away Hatter’s machine, but the place that he had seen the metal was empty now— just smooth helmet. Jason froze.

Tim swore quietly from his place a few steps away. “Hood?” he asked.

“I’m fine.”

“No, we’re not. Look around.”

Jason did, from Tim and Tetch to the rest of the warehouse. A small sound from the ceiling caused him to look up long enough to see a semi-translucent image of himself blink in and out of being, up in the rafters, where Tim and Jason had been minutes before.

“What was that?” he asked. “Did you see that?”

“Yeah.”

“A memory,” said Tetch, smiling from the floor. “I’ll answer the first question free.”

“You’ll answer all the questions,” Jason growled, stepping toward him again.

“Don’t,” said Tim, pulling him backwards. He pointed at a door that would lead them outside. “Let’s go.”

“I’ll—”

“Not in front of him,” said Tim shortly. “Let’s go.”

For a half-moment, Jason expected the door to stick and trap them inside, but it didn’t, and they walked through it into the last rays of afternoon sunlight. The river lapped gently against a line of abandoned docks. A few pigeons hopped over the cracked pavement, then scattered at the sudden presence of people.

The door closed behind them with a very realistic-sounding thump, and as Jason turned away from it, everything seemed… almost normal.

Another translucent figure appeared on the concrete a half-dozen steps away— a kid that Jason recognized as himself, aged eleven, bundled in a winter coat, arms outstretched and spinning in a phantom snowfall. The apparition skipped carefully over the cracks in the sidewalk. Jason could hear it—himself— humming quietly.

It was… odd to see himself like that. Jason shook back a wave of apprehension and turned to find Tim glaring at him through the slits of his domino mask.

“Well?”

“Well what?” Jason asked, suddenly defensive.

“Get us out of here.”

“How?”

“You know as much as I do,” snapped Tim, crossing his arms. “Some Hatter victims broke out of their mindscapes through force of will. Just… concentrate and see if you can do it.”

Jason didn’t care for the if, or Tim’s tone, or Tim’s expression, but he closed his eyes anyway and tried to… breathe? Meditate? Search his feelings? Ridiculous. He didn’t feel anything except foolish, and the pressure of Tim’s eyes on him while he visibly failed.

“I don’t know what I’m looking for,” he said, eyes still closed.

“Do you feel any different?”

“No,” said Jason. He tried his best to empty everything from his head: images, thoughts, emotions. As far as he could tell, he did fine pushing it all away.

He opened his eyes. No effect. The younger him on the sidewalk stared up at the sky, translucent cheeks flushed slightly more opaque in the cold.

“Try again,” said Tim.

“You try! Maybe this is your mindscape. How would we know any different?”

“I wasn’t wearing a helmet around the Mad Hatter,” Tim said, rolling his eyes, “and that isn’t my memory dancing in the snow.”

“Fine.” Jason closed his eyes again, trying for blankness. He leaned back against the brickwork for a moment, concentrating.

Nothing happened. He could hear Tim shifting beside him, and some birds in the distance. Jason was calm, he was, and it wasn’t working.

Experimentally, Jason let the calm drop away. It wasn’t difficult, not while he was trapped in his own head and he couldn’t control anything and Tim was watching while Jason stood like an idiot and—

Several things happened at once. Somewhere to Jason’s side, Tim gasped. Gunshots went off at a distance Jason couldn’t pinpoint. He yanked open his eyes to find the space in front of them crowded with grayed-out apparitions that shifted in and out of being in a confused mess— a couple staring at the river replaced by a woman screaming in fear while a group of men blinked into being. One pointed ahead, down the concrete sidewalk. Jason’s younger self took off running.

“What did you—” Tim began, and then cut off immediately as the world began to dissolve around them, fragmenting like a bad powerpoint transition. When it finished, they were standing somewhere else.

“Oh,” said Jason. “Yeah, I feel it now. It’s like knowing you’re dreaming, trying to open your eyes.”

“So wake up.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” “I just— I can’t.”

“You have to,” said Tim. “Where are we?”

“Old hideout,” said Jason. He took a moment to look it over— the cracks in the familiar green walls, the overladen shelf, the mattress on the floor, and the few ratty posters barely hanging upright. The whole place smelled aggressively like cigarette smoke. As the thought entered his head, a younger version of himself blinked into view on the mattress, blowing a stream of smoke up to the ceiling. Another paced at the other end of the tiny room.

Tim appeared to look them over.

“What were you thinking about,” he asked, “when the warehouse disappeared?”

“Uh.” It took Jason a few seconds of searching before he had an answer. “I was watching that— memory, whatever, of myself— running away, and I thought about being that age and somewhere safe. Then we were here.”

“Okay.” Tim reached out a hand for the pacing, younger Jason, like he intended to grab him. The apparition flickered into nothing before he could make contact. “That’s good. That makes sense. You thought of going somewhere safe, and we went there. You’ve got some control over whatever… this is.”

“Control seems like a strong word.”

“Try moving us again,” said Tim. He peeled the corner of a skull poster— Poison Idea— away from the wall, staring intently in a way that Jason hated. Jason hated that Tim was around in the first place— he didn’t want him in his head or his old room. Those were private spaces.

He tried thinking of the warehouse door again, how he felt standing outside it, watching the river and the docks. Nothing happened. The world stayed solid.

“Did you try?” asked Tim.

“Yeah.”

“Did it work?”

Jason glared at him. Of all the obvious questions—

“Just checking,” said Tim, shrugging. “Alright, you can’t do it on purpose. What if I started talking about another place, like that safehouse on Fifth Street that you set up last— oh, perfect.”

Jason’s old room shattered into pieces, replaced by a half-constructed Ikea dresser and a twin bed. Jason nearly tripped over the bucket of paint he’d left on the floor.

“You’re not supposed to know about this place,” he grumbled, unsure in the moment whether he was mad at Tim for finding a safehouse or for moving them when Jason couldn’t.

“Right,” said Tim. He sat down on the bed, reaching for the abandoned instruction booklet.

“Get out of my room, Tim, before I—”

He cut off with a curse as the world dissolved again, spinning slightly into a red-walled bedroom that he didn’t need to look over to recognize: Wayne Manor, years ago. The much larger bed was unmade, dresser covered in empty mugs and half-read books. A younger Jason, maybe fourteen years old, flickered into transparent being, rifling through drawers.

Tim smiled in what looked like triumph. “Stay there,” he told Jason, before taking off himself— he ducked through the door into the hallway, outside of Jason’s line of vision. He came back within a minute, still so smug that Jason really considered taking a swing at him.

“What?” Jason asked.

“Nothing,” said Tim. A door slammed somewhere on a floor beneath them. “Wonder who that is.”

“Stop trying to make me think things.” Jason shook his head as reality began to splinter again, pulling away to reveal the same room, just blanker. The drawers were clean, pillows straightened, not a trace of dirt on the floor. For a brief moment, he saw himself sitting at the end of the now-made bed— not a translucent memory of his past but a solid, grownup person who half-waved at him before falling back on the blankets.

Jason gritted his teeth and fought the shards back together until he was standing again in his messy childhood bedroom, back when he was the child that lived in it. He looked over at Tim, feeling vindicated.

“Wait,” said Tim. “What was that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Go back. I need to see.”

“Stop telling me what to—”

“I’m stuck here too, you know.”

“I don’t give a shit, it’s my mind, and—”

“That last you was solid, and it acknowledged us. The others haven’t done that, so—”

“I couldn’t go back even if I wanted to!” Jason snapped.

“Just think about the manor,” Tim shot back. “Wayne Manor, Wayne Manor, Wayne—”

“Shut up,” Jason tried, but he was too late. His bedroom fell away for the second time, replaced by another reality.

It wasn’t the last vision. They were outside the grounds this time, looking through the iron gates at the front garden while shapes flickered in and out of existence along the path and in the lawn. Jason spotted a cloudy version of his adult self climbing through a window, but most of the figures were much smaller— Damian lying in the grass, chasing his dog across the garden, stabbing the tip of a sword into the ground in apparent frustration, waving a knife at a stray Tim that backed away down the garden path.

“Come on,” said the real Tim. He pushed through the gate and marched up to the doorway. Jason followed him through and back up the stairs to the red-painted bedroom.

The other him was still lying flat on the bed. He didn’t seem perturbed by the company— just gave Jason another wave and Tim a vaguely irritated look.

“Do you mind closing the door?” he asked.

Tim ignored the question. “If I try to touch you, will you disappear?”

“That’s kind of a rude line of questioning,” said Other-Jason, sitting upright. He raised an eyebrow at Jason, nodding in Tim’s direction. “Can we not do something about him?”

“Not that I can figure out,” said Jason, “but maybe you know more than me.”

“He’s a figment of your imagination,” said Tim. “He can’t know more than you.”

“You sound confident,” Other-Jason noted.

“Am I wrong?”

Other-Jason shrugged, stretching.

“You aren’t a memory,” said Tim, “and we’re in his brain, which means you’re his representation of something. So what is it? What are you supposed to be?”

“Why are you asking him,” Jason put in, “if it’s the same as talking to me?”

“Because I—” Tim appeared to think for a moment. Jason took the opportunity to take control of the conversation himself.

“So?” he asked the Other-Jason.

“I’m you,” said Other-Jason. “Part of you, anyway.”

“But not all of me?”

“More like a specific version.”

“Which version?”

“The one that’s here,” said Other-Jason, gesturing around the room with a finger. Jason heard a door open somewhere down the hall. A translucent version of Dick drifted past the open doorway to Jason’s bedroom.

“My condolences,” said Jason.

“I said I wanted that shut,” Other-Jason muttered. “Look, have you ever felt like… like you’re one person in some environments and another when you’re out?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s like that. The part of you that’s in this house— the me part— is a distinct section of yourself.”

“Is that why I can’t get out of here?”

“Sort of,” said Other-Jason, grimacing. “Not exactly.”

“Well?” said Tim. “Explain the problem, then.”

“Can you shut up?” Jason asked.

“God, please,” said Other-Jason, rolling his eyes. “I’m seconds from stabbing you.”

“Would that work?” asked Jason.

“Worth a try.”

Tim produced a knife from somewhere in his uniform and held it out in front of him— a clear threat.

“Yeah?” Other-Jason asked, pulling his own blade. “Why don’t you come over here and—”

“Enough,” said Jason. “That’s enough, we’re leaving, don’t worry. Come on, Tim.”

“I still need to know how—”

“Come on,” Jason repeated. He grabbed Tim by his non-knife arm and hauled him into the hallway, shutting the door behind them.

“We should look in the cave,” said Tim.

“No.”

“There might be another version of you down there.”

“I said no.” Jason peered carefully over the banister, checking the path to the door. It all looked empty. He didn’t see any sign of—

The world began to dissolve into fragments again. Fuck.

The second reality resolved into a dark alley, Jason sprinted towards the mouth, boots slipping on wet cobblestones. He made a left and kept going, dodging around buildings and whatever memories popped up around him. It seemed rude to run through them.

He skidded to a stop a few blocks over and dropped onto an empty bench. Tim took the other seat moments later, panting a little, presumably from chasing after him.

“Crime Alley?” Tim asked.

“Yeah.” Jason didn’t want to talk about it.

The sun had gone down. The last of the skyscrapers lit up one by one. As Jason stared at the rooftops, cloudy figures began to appear, then disappear all over them: Batgirls and Robins of all kinds, Nightwing crouched on top of a chimney, Black Bat turning a cartwheel on a narrow ledge.

A translucent Stephanie wandered by their bench, chattering into her intercom while Oracle’s voice answered. She faded away a few paces later.

More gunfire drew Jason’s attention to the top of a tower across the way; a fully solid figure in a red helmet waved to him from the rooftop, then bounded out of sight.

“That’s another one,” said Tim, pointing at where the other Jason had vanished.

“I saw.”

“That you was in uniform. I bet it’s like, Red Hood, the concept.”

“Whatever.”

“You get that we have to problem-solve to get out of here, right? You could be more helpful.”

Jason leaned forward on his bench, scowling. “Do you think you’re being helpful right now?”

Tim ignored him. “The shadow-people are memories, but there are multiple versions of you running around that are pieces of your identity, like that asshole in the manor and the Red Hood on the rooftops. You can’t control the mindscape on purpose, but your unconscious thoughts can move us around and create the shadow-memories. What am I missing?”

“I don’t know, a brain?”

“You know what I’m missing, don’t you?”

“No.”

“Why’d you run from the alley?”

Jason gave Tim his best, flattest mind-your-own-business stare. Tim ignored that too.

“Do you want to break the mindscape?”

“Yes.”

“Then you need to figure out what’s making you—” Tim hesitated, like he was picking his next words carefully. “—unable to pull yourself together, and—”

“Hey!” said Jason.

“—and fix it! So if there’s something you’re avoiding, stop avoiding it.”

“What are you, my goddamn therapist?”

“If I have to be!”

“You don’t! Leave me alone!”

“While I would love to do that,” Tim snapped, “I am, regrettably, stuck in your brain. Trust me when I say I’m not thrilled about it either! I want to go home, so suck it up and stop fighting whatever the hell it is you’re trying to hide.”

“Go to hell,” said Jason.

“Coward,” said Tim.

They sat in silence for a few moments.

“Fine,” said Jason. He wrenched off his helmet as the night air around them began to shift and shatter into pieces. “Just— fine, whatever, let’s fucking go.”

They materialized at the top of Wayne Tower. That part was unexpected.

“I thought… Ethiopia,” said Tim, softly. “Is it not—?”

“No,” said Jason. “Not Ethiopia.”

He shoved away the image of smoke trailing up into a blue sky. Now wasn’t the time. It wasn’t Ethiopia. He had known that beforehand.

The Tower was still confusing. Jason hadn’t been at the Tower for this. He remembered a small room at a League base somewhere far away, but he supposed it didn’t really matter. He was in his own mind, not the past, so if he had been thinking about Gotham at the time—

“I don’t get it,” said Tim.

“Yeah,” said Jason. He made his way across the rooftop, towards the figure sitting crosslegged a few feet from the edge.

“Hey,” Jason told him.

“Hey,” said the figure. He gave Jason the briefest of glances, then went back to staring out over the city.

Jason took a few steps backwards, to give him some space, then beckoned Tim over.

“I don’t get it,” Tim repeated, once he stopped a little behind where Jason stood. “Who is that supposed to be?”

“Me.”

“He’s younger.”

“Yeah.”

“The you at the manor was your age.”

“Yeah.”

“And the Red Hood we saw had the current costume.”

“Right.”

“So if that’s one of your… identity pieces, or whatever, he shouldn’t be younger than you.”

“Well he is,” said Jason.

“Helpful.”

They both stared for a moment at the Jason on the edge— younger, maybe seventeen, depending on how you counted, but definitely and visibly different.

“Okay,” said Tim finally. “That’s good. That helps us. This is the thing that’s wrong. There’s part of you that’s not… moving on?”

“Yeah.”

“But moving on from what?” Tim asked. “What is he doing?”

“Deciding,” said Jason. He didn’t feel like elaborating much. “He got some news.”

“What are you—”

They both stepped back as reality flickered for a moment, from the top of the Tower to a dim gray room with a handful of photographs tacked to the wall— five shots of a kid in a yellow cape.

They weren’t pictures of Jason.

“Oh shit,” muttered Tim.

“Yeah,” said Jason, as neutrally as he could. “Shit.”

Jason gave it awhile before he turned around. When he did, he found Tim watching him cautiously, like he was expecting an attack. That was fair, Jason supposed, all things considered.

Tim pointed at the Jason near the edge. “He just found out about—?”

“You, yeah,” said Jason. “He knows that Bruce got another Robin.”

“Well that’s—” Tim cut off for a moment. “That’s why we’re stuck? That’s the thing you can’t get past?”

“Fuck off.”

“So what, this is my fault?”

“Yes,” hissed the Jason at the edge.

“No,” said Jason. “Well, not— It doesn’t matter.”

“What do you want from me?” asked Tim, glaring. “If you’re waiting on an apology, keep waiting. I don’t intend to—”

“Will you shut up?”

“No, and you can stop asking! I’m sure you’d love some sympathy right now, but if you want me to stand here and say that I was wrong, that Bruce was wrong—”

“Shut up!”

“Does it not occur to you that you died? You were supposed to be dead, and neither of us knew any different, so pardon me if I didn’t consider the optics from the perspective of someone who was buried in Bruce’s backyard—”

“Oh my god.”

“I’m not sorry for what I did. I was helping Bruce, and it sucks that you got hurt, but I would do it again, and—”

Another see-through memory appeared in the space between them: a translucent Jason holding a metal staff over the crumpled shape of a translucent Tim lying on the ground.

“—and that!” finished Tim. “You almost killed me, you self-righteous, arrogant piece of—”

“I’m sorry,” said Jason.

“What?”

“I said I’m sorry.”

“Oh.” Tim fell silent for a moment. “Well, thanks.”

“Yeah.”

“Look,” Tim said. “I don’t know what it looked like to you, but it wasn’t Bruce’s fault. I asked to be Robin. I was the one that convinced him that… you know.”

“Batman needs a Robin,” said Jason, bitterly. “I know.”

“I’m still not sorry for that, but I… promise that none of it happened because Bruce didn’t… love you or anything.”

The Jason at the edge laughed at that, but Jason shrugged. “I know,” he said again.

“If you just understood what happened—”

“I know what happened.”

“You don’t.”

“Shut up.”

“No, I won’t,” said Tim. “I’m in your head, I can see your thoughts, and I can tell you right now that your reality is warped.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s holes everywhere, Jason. Do you not see them?”

“What are you fucking talking—”

“Look,” said Tim, pointing at the concrete beneath their feet.

Jason didn’t see anything— just a few cracks and the outside surface of a skylight. It all looked normal to him.

He blinked. The cracks shifted.

“What was—?” Another blink, and the cracks were gone, the concrete smooth under his boots. The skylight shifted away, towards the other side of the roof.

“Why is it moving?” Jason asked.

“It’s been moving the whole time,” said Tim. “Did you not notice?”

“No.”

“The contradictions? The empty space?” Tim pointed again, out over the city this time. Jason looked— at the skyscrapers across the way, then the light of the houses in the Narrows, then…

Then nothing. The world beyond was blacked out into nothingness.

Oh.

A translucent memory appeared at the far edge of the rooftop: a smaller Jason with his Robin cape flapping in non-existent wind. When Jason looked at it— really looked at it— there was something… wrong.

It wasn’t as complete as the others he had seen. The face was blurred away, the shape of his nose and mouth barely distinguishable. It shifted weirdly as he tried to focus on it.

“Have they all been like that?” he asked quietly.

“Most of them,” said Tim. “Some of them are better than others. I think it’s just… how well you remember.”

“Right.”

“Things move around a lot, and sometimes it’s like— like you’re filling in the gaps with things I know are wrong. The manor was like that. Most of the rooms were empty or in the wrong order, and the newer parts of the house were just these sort of… abstract walls.”

“Interesting,” said Jason. He meant “leave me alone,” but he didn’t think now was a good time to say it outright.

“You’re not seeing things as they are,” said Tim. “You don’t get it.”

“I do get it,” Jason ground out. “You know damn well how human memory works. This is normal. It’s going to look shaky.”

“If you understood what really happened—” Tim began again, and Jason well and truly lost his temper.

“I know what happened.”

“Your memories—”

“My memories are fine!”

“Oh yeah?” Tim came forward a step, arms crossed. “You aren’t missing anything?”

“Shut up.”

“No,” said Tim. “Where’s Bruce? You’ve got all these shadow people running around, but I haven’t seen Bruce once, and you ran out of the alley like you knew it was—”

“God! Please shut up!”

“He’s not the monster you think he is,” said Tim.

“I don’t think he’s a— you don’t know anything about what I think.”

“I’m in your brain.”

“You’re an idiot,” said Jason, too angry to think of anything better.

“Prove me wrong, then.”

“Fine!” Jason kicked at a crack in the cement as it rematerialized by his foot. “Fine, I will!”

God, he felt like he was going to explode. Jason was enraged and exhausted and so, so tired of being stuck under Tim’s microscope, of being stuck in his own head while he tried desperately to hold himself together. Fine, fine! He would stop trying. Tim could have what he wanted.

The memories appeared as soon as he wasn’t consciously holding them back: a slew of Bruces on the tower top. A translucent Bruce surveyed the city while a Bruce turned away from an invisible screen, towards the pair of them. Bruce laughing in the alley. Bruce in a tuxedo, holding a champagne glass. Bruce smiling, disappointed, in pain, mouthing Jason’s name, in costume and out of it. Bruce’s face when he was amused and trying to hide it. Bruce looking at them with pride, then in pride. Bruce angry. Bruce dripping phantom blood on the floor.

A Bruce held Damian’s limp body. Jason blinked, and then it was his own corpse in Bruce’s hands. He looked away hurriedly, focusing in turn on the other apparitions. Even under close inspection, they all looked… whole.

“Satisfied?” Jason asked.

The him at the edge of the rooftop laughed again. For the first time, the younger Jason turned fully away from the cityscape and fixed his eyes on Tim instead.

“Well?” he said.

“Fine,” said Tim. “That’s— fine, okay.”

“I think I have a pretty nuanced view of Bruce,” Jason told him. “I like to think I’m fair about it.”

“Then why are you still stuck here? Are you just… mad at me?”

“I don’t give a shit about you,” said Jason. It was a lie, but he didn’t mind lying.

Tim nodded. “I just… wanted to tell you what it was like the first few years, before you appeared again. He was always… everything was always about you. He didn’t come back from losing you.”

“So they tell me.”

“I think it sort of— I don’t know, I think he loved you more than he can love anyone now.”

Jason took a few seconds to stare at Tim, to let the words sink in and make sure that he heard them right. “Are you… blaming me for that?”

“What?”

“Are you blaming me for Bruce not loving you enough?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“It is,” put in the Jason at the edge.

“It’s not!” said Tim.

“Jesus Christ,” said Jason.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“How else could you mean it? It’s not my fault if Bruce treats you or anyone else like shit. That’s his problem. That’s what he does.”

“He doesn’t—” Tim began, glaring.

“What do you get out of taking his side? Wake up, Tim! He’s not a good father.”

“What, because he took me on and he didn’t kill the Joker?”

“Yeah, actually.”

“Grow up,” said Tim, rolling his eyes. “Batman doesn’t kill people.”

“He should,” said the younger Jason. “Would, if he cared.”

“He does care,” said Jason, “but who gives a damn.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Tim spat.

Jason shrugged. “I know he loves me. That’s not the issue.” Why did people always assume that was the issue? Jason was so, so tired of talking about it.

“Then what do you want? Why does it matter if he kills the clown?”

“I want—” Jason began the sentence and then found that he didn’t know how to finish it, so he stopped and tried again. “It’s— I know that Bruce has a code. We all have a code. I have a code.”

“Fine.”

“I just wish I wasn’t— It’s like he has his morals in place and his worldview locked down, and I wish that— I wish that when I was in pain, it was enough to change his mind.”

Jason watched the cracks in the concrete shift for a moment. “To change him, I guess,” he added. “I wish I mattered enough to change him.”

“Whatever,” said Tim.

“Yeah? How did it feel when Dick forced you out of being Robin? He was doing the right thing, wasn’t he? For Damian, anyway.”

“Shut up.”

“Did it matter that it hurt you in the process? Or were you just the cost of doing business?”

“Shut up!”

“How does it feel to be a price worth paying?” asked Jason. He set his face in his best imitation of Damian’s sarcastic smile and adopted the kid’s intonation. “An acceptable outcome.”

The Jason at the edge whistled.

“Fuck you,” said Tim, quietly.

“See? You get it.”

Jason rubbed at his own eyes with the hand that wasn’t holding his helmet. It didn’t do much with the domino mask still in place. “It is what it is,” he said. “It happened. It’s not changing. Bruce isn’t changing. I’ll deal with it.”

“You aren’t dealing with it,” said Tim. “That’s why we’re stuck here. Address it.”

“No. I’m tired of playing shrink.” Jason walked forward, closer to his younger self. “I’m not interested in spending the rest of my life litigating my childhood, and I’ve had enough of obsessing over Bruce-fucking-Wayne. This isn’t about him. He’s not my problem, and he sure as hell isn’t the solution.”

The Jason at the edge raised an eyebrow. “Who then?”

“You,” said Jason. He knelt carefully in front of his younger self, mindful of the ledge.

Odd, he thought again. It was odd to look at himself, especially when himself was a child in an oversized hoodie. For a moment he was very aware of the weight of his gun in its holster, and he wondered what would happen if he brought it out and shot his younger self in the head. He wanted to— not out of hatred, but out of pity. If he didn’t, the child would become…

Well, him. Maybe he did hate himself. Jason pushed the idea aside.

“You’re a kid,” he told his younger self.

“I guess.”

“You’re in pain, and you’re overwhelmed, and you think that you’re about to die, so nothing matters.”

The Jason at the edge nodded.

“That’s not how it goes,” Jason told him. He held out his helmet. The kid took it. “If you— when you decide to wear this, it’s not the end. You come back to Gotham, you see Bruce again, and the Joker. You survive, and then you have to keep living and living, and it just… goes on.”

“Okay,” said his younger self.

“I’m sorry you’re in pain, but you have to… you have to find a place to put it down, because if you don’t, you’ll be stuck like this forever. I don’t want that for you.” Jason shrugged, half-embarrassed. “You don’t deserve it.”

For a few moments, they watched each other in silence. Then, slowly, the younger Jason handed back the helmet.

Jason took it, and the mindscape shattered around him.

-----

Happy New Year, my loves

TWs I can’t put in the tags anymore: mental illness, suicidal ideation, guns, depression, unreality

#CANNOT overstate how much time and effort this took #it's 6:13AM and I've been writing nonstop since 1 last afternoon #i'm so exhausted i no longer care if it's good or bad #I really hope putting the warnings at the bottom works but tellme if it doesn't and I'll figure something else out #jason todd #tim drake #bruce wayne #batfamily #fanfiction #original

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mymarifae · 2 years

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there's like. an unfortunate hole in my brain and heart in which berdly occupies. like he's annoying and he's a jerk but there's a lot about him that really. really, stands out in a strange way.

i've talked about how he has two jobs and the immense amount of stress he has to be under, and i mentioned that his home life probably isn't great. i didn't really expand on it because frankly, the fact that he feels the need to hold two jobs at his age says plenty. but to look at it a bit more...

he says everyone always forgot him when he was younger. no one remembered his name. so um... who was taking care of him? obviously you could say "well he was clearly just talking about other kids his age" and write this off pretty quickly, but ... no, he wasn't. i say this because for one, he's very well-spoken; he speaks clearly and firmly, and never leaves room for confusion or that sort of ambiguity. he said what he said. no one remembered his name.

second, that spelling bee was the first time in his life that he was noticed and praised, nooooot by other kids his age, but by adults. the audience of a spelling bee is going to primarily be composed of parents and faculty, not so much other children. besides, what kind of child audience would respond to the winner of a spelling bee Like That akfjdngldj? anyway. this dumb little spelling bee was the turning point in berdly's life. i don't think being noticed by other kids his age was the issue. i think he was sincerely neglected. that was the point of the bluebird of misfortune sequence.

i don't like making conclusions like this about characters so young unless that's just. what's on the table. i'd looooove to say "no he just struggled with making friends but he definitely had parents/caretakers who remembered he existed" and leave it at that but i can't and it's because of queen actually.

i'm not the first person to point this out, but if queen parallels noelle's mother, who's to say she doesn't parallel Something for berdly too? ralsei keeps telling us that darkners only exist to assist lightners, and from what we've seen so far, the dark worlds really do mold themselves around the lightners who step inside... (i dont like this and i think ralsei's Wrong but in a cosmic-universe-story sort of sense. he's probably right.) since they were the first ones there, i think berdly and noelle (mostly noelle) are really important to how cyber world has currently arranged itself. and queen is likely the first darkner either of them met, so it only makes sense that she represents something major for both of them.

queen is unequivocally a mother figure. that's just a core part of her personality. she's a mom. sooooo we have this parental figure who, when it comes to berdly.......

cannot remember his name.

who avoids him and ignores him when she cannot reasonably avoid him.

isn't that interesting? and *gestures at her wine glass of battery acid* i don't think she's shown Drinking and drinking a lot for simple comedic reasons. that could be another parallel to noelle's mother but i kind of doubt it. just considering what we know about her so far. i think it says something more about berdly's um, parents? than noelle's.

despite aaaaaaalllllll this. berdly kinda insta-clings to queen. he desperately seeks her approval and just... attention. but he's not stupid. in the alley when he and kris first form trucies, he knows queen is avoiding him - we can see this from his overworld sprites and facial expressions. he's just not going to admit it out loud, especially not in front of kris. he knows that noelle is the important one here, that once again, he really doesn't matter. he'll always just be a forgettable little bluebird.

but wouldn't it be nice? if he could do something really spectacular? maybe then queen will pay attention to him. he might learn what it's like to have an adoring parent.

berdly's character arc feels largely incomplete / neglected (......well.), but there really is a lot there, beneath the snootiness and annoying exterior. he's just a kid, y'know? going through some shit. just like all the other characters. i think he's very much a side character and i super doubt there will ever be a circumstance in which he joins kris's party like noelle did, but it'd be nice to see a bit more resolution for all these concerning little details. pick your head up, kiddo; you're going to be alright...

#deltarune #berdly #i was going to try and get into his friendship with noelle but like i kinda made myself pass away writing this out #and going into any details from snowgrave rn is. a big no no.#but God he really does care about her. just look at how he acts. how fast he sets aside all his bs for her sake #despite noelle begging him to run. he's incredibly stupidly painfully brave for! her! sake!#contrasted with his behavior in any other route. when noelle is obviously fine and not in any danger #the 'noelle i will save you blahblah' nonsense is very much just an act. i think he's just...playing #this is like the first time in his life that he has the opportunity to be a kid. no school no pressure no work #and he's just not aware of his own strength. he needs to calm down a bit.#*puts my head in my hands* these kids i need to adopt them all im so stressed.my god #i love queen loooots btw and i do think she cares about berdly but it's a sadly absentminded sort of care #like when she realizes he's actually missing in snowgrave she spends hours searching for him...yknow. but.#yeah.#turns into something

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hunny-bxscuit · 2 years

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I heard you had a backstory for your Human! Sun and Moon AU 🌚 Drop it rn or this rat is getting it 🐁🔫

I've been avoiding this ask for more than a week now but here it is JDHSHDKJS hope I'm not too late to save the rat ಥ‿ಥ

‼��Short drabble under the cut for a lil bit of "LoRe" context <33 (Also quick note English isn't my first language and I'm not a good writer so heads up for the shitty writing lol)

Sun stood in front of the man before him. Clad in navy jeans and a button up vest, with ever-so-prominent patches of vitiligo on his skin, along with amber eyes that threatened to spill tears.

"I finally found you." He said.

It was Moon, his long lost brother. After being separated for countless years, the twins have finally been reunited in the most unexpected time. Moon looked happy– more than happy, actually– he was beaming with so much joy that he immediately went in for a hug that slightly startled his brother.

Sun, however, didn’t have the same smile as his brother had. His shoulders stiffened as he bit his lip from uncertainty and awkwardness. He was flabbergasted– not once did he think that Moon would actually find him even after he willingly left without a trace to live with a family friend. Moon had no idea where Sun had gone to and was always told that someone came to take him away for good. Moon never questioned it, but it still plagued his mind.

After a few years Sun learned that Moon became a model in a company with a high reputation via news, and he couldn't be happier with the decision to leave the family. He was merely a distraction, a failed golden child, and giving the title to his brother was a much better option.

He left Moon because he wanted to see the potential of his brother bloom without him getting in the way; by disappearing into the shadows, watching, admiring, all in contentment and happiness that Moon indeed grew into a talented young man. Of course, it still hurts. Sun wanted to come back so bad, he longed for the feeling of a family that's always there to watch his back, to support him and to love him unconditionally.

But he couldn’t.

He feared that his brother already forgot about his existence, maybe even moved on from his disappearance without much thought– or worse, Moon would hate him with his entire soul. Despite these thoughts, what was happening in real time told another story.

Albeit being hesitant to return the hug, Sun finally wrapped his arms around his brother. He felt Moon's tears dampen his sleeves and sighed before patting his back.

It wouldn’t be that bad to lie about his disappearance for a while, would it?

#hunny answers #hehehe we get Sun's pov of the story #daycare attendant human au #human au #they're separated brothers and i can't express how much i love this troupe sm #ALSO IM SO SORRY FOR IGNORING YOUR ASK ANON LMAO THE AU WAS IN THE WORKS SO I HAD TO PUT IT OH HOLD #fnaf #fnaf daycare attendant #moondrop #fnaf sb #sundrop fnaf #fnaf moon #we're cookin up a lil sad backstory moment for Moon here oop #and yes my human moon has brown eyes don't come @ me #my art

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unproduciblesmackdown · 2 years

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exercises in drawing sooo expediently (putting last night’s hours spent on few, tiny edits & putting down flat, stylized colors into a drawer)

#and the initial effort that involved yknow like 95% of the lineart...maybe still a couple of hours. which Is relatively quick for me lol #certainly still considering [can i draw goosebumps the musical Visualization Manifestations] lol daunting....things take me so much time #and you Know im wrestling myself like Stop cleaning it up so help me lol...always drifting towards Honing in efforts at more spontaneity #or flexibility or what have you...which is easier to try out when first of all i'm working off of smthing already drawn/sculpted/stylized #corned beef #luca #Takes An Inhale....haha no i can't max out the tags i intend to go do kitchen things impendingly. try to sprint through unending remarks #first of all my not being able to put entire lengthy tails in composition uncropped here: tries not to look hurt =(#second of all i love when things have the vignette energy so much. that is exactly what i want yes please thanks. just hangin out #who all put on thinking caps so hard like Caps For Sale guy that all this was possible like. how did this get so grounded lol how's it so #like mostly Various Phases Of Hanging Out. it is so everyday. of course it's not completely like ''and that would def happen like that irl''#and of course saying ''wow it's not very fantastical huh'' is like so a premise is magical fish people. the point stands like my god....#hanging out everyday grounded Distilled To Essence goings on like. you go ''what if these ppl were just hanging out'' & You Get That....#speaking of Distilled To Essence that sure applies to ''ya we know our Core here is 'what do/will you do for your friend here. vice versa'''#like that's so obviously front and center throughout like just. starting to think however things were whittled down to the core of things #it's like when you Do distill things to the point you absolutely know what all Things Are About here you can execute things epically winsome #head in hands for a moment like my god.....setup payoff.....it's fine. we're all fine #i love vignette energy i love people having cool dinosaur raptor type tails and otherwise galaxy brain fish designs that i think pwn hard #i also love successfully / strongly executed setup payoff b/c you know what your story's about and could and did distill to that essence #i love when the essence is what can/must/should/will you do for your friend; furthermore i love. arcs kicking off with / ft. serendipity #sometimes Getting Going on your emotional arcs involves happening to run into other ppl even if for characterful reasons #just little sometimes you can't do xyz on your own for yourself but why don't you go have some experiences with a kindred spirit or two #wherein there need not be any particular distinction between friendship and [friendship that Could be the foundation of romance] b/c #how would you know when there's no Real World internality in stories and b/c in what way is such a distinction Meaningful in many stories #and then when you'd normally go ''oh they forgot sauce in my order =('' & glumly move on you can/do immediately request sauce for the bestie #we've all been there....also the visual style i'm like is that watercolor influence i detect....do we have art direction? directing art?#anyways i'm so. and i'm also glad to take advantage of like ''ok time to try drawing spontaneously / loosey goosey here''#just little [screaming as billions impends] and [hypothetical practice at such processes]....we have fun #see i didn't get to thirty tags (i think. surely) not b/c i truly zoomed to the kitchen it's like idfk half an hour later. im. riled #oh my God no this is tag thirty lsdjfsd;jf im soooooooo. i gotta go

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technicolourtelevision · 2 years

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"There's things like that where, maybe, to do the job, it needs to go into that- to find the place where it really lives. But not everyone feels that way, I think." {x}

#i'm.... i have watched this so many times #i feel like when he does interviews for this he's both proud of his work and also like #it brings him back to the headspace he put himself in for the role and if he talks about it too much he looks like he's going to cry???#like in this interview he talks about how it was 'heavy' and even watching it back feels heavy for him #like look at that last gif the second he stops smiling he sort of has this pained.. 'ohgodjustgethroughthisinterview' look #idk man idk i'm just a girl who feel feelings don't look at me i'm going through it #jeremy strong #sarah snook #alan ruck #interviews #gif #my gif #succession #succession cast

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archangelraphael · 3 years

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Do you guys also think about how Raphael is portrayed as the most distant and cold of the archangels but yet she was the only one to actually come to the verge of tears on screen or...

#i do #everyday #it's just the way that Raphael behaves. like she doesn't care like she is always angry is literally just a mask to hide #how hurt she is and how much she actually cares #of course she cares. she was build to do it. but in this world? where even michael seems too busy to check up on her?#where gabriel didn't care enough about her to stay ? where lucifer didn't care enough to put his family in first place?#what use it is caring when only you do it? how do you keep a family together when you're the only one working for it to happen ?#huh. an apocalypse and then paradise. sounds fine considerating what she lives daily #at least they get to have an ending this way #spn raphael #archangel #raphael #shut.up.maggioli

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transpat · 2 years

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pre-relationship pranpat and haq

the word 'haq (हक़)' in hindi doesn't have an exact eng counterpart and translates smth around the meanings of rights and entitlement. in context of relationships, we use it to describe the entitlement ppl we keep close are allowed over us. in our culture, with every bond we form and built, we owe those ppl certain rights over us. like our filial duty to our parents, supporting our siblings and relatives emotionally and/or financially, the loyalty to our friends. lovers and spouses are ppl given all the rights of a family member by choice and obv other stuff like touching u in ways others can't, sharing worries and secrets you wouldn't indulge others w, the permission to carry and lighten ur burdens.

that's why i wanted to talk about pran and pat before they began dating, when they didn't even consider each other friends. theoretically, these two don't owe each other shit, shouldn't be assuming any rights over each other. but pat continues to push into pran's room even when he's verbally told not to, and pran who bottles his feelings up from everyone else, wears his heart on his sleeve (literally) around pat. pran gives pat a glimpse into his every emotion, and pat catches them, stores it away to process later, when he uses it to channel the courage to knock on pran's door.

also. all of this starts in college. after they reach a truce and add each other's numbers. it's not there back when they were shy high schoolers, fighting in public and treading along the delicate beginnings of a friendship. back then, before their meager advances culminated into smth fruitful, it was snatched from them, ripped from their unsuspecting hands. it didn't turn their efforts null thou, doesn't return them to point zero. when they met again, they faltered and stumbled, but they make their way back to how things could have been back then. they found their way back to the path they were paving as kids.

their sense of entitlement isn't just smth they assume either. it's the haq they've willingly granted to the other. we see pran pushing pat out of his room repeatedly, but pat only walks in bc he knows if he was really unwelcome pran wouldn't open the door in the first place. bc like how pran never pushed him out of the room in his parents' house, pat is certain that once pran's fear of being discovered lessens (he doesn't know his interpretation is all wrong, that it was bc pran was in love w him and afraid for himself), he'll be welcome to stay as long as he wants. when he asks pran if he can stay the night, its bc he knows the answer might not be no. pran has a soft spot for him.

likewise, pran lashing out at him is bc he knows that unlike how it is w others, revealing his emotions to pat won't come at a price he can't afford. when he's under all the pressure of rebuilding the bus stop and saving his friends' academics careers, he smiles for his friends, assures them he's fine, he can manage. its only around pat he displays how deeply he's affected by this, lets pat see how he let him down, how much stress he's in bc of this. bc he knows pat listens, pat understands, pat wants to listen and understand. pat makes breathing easier.

in the beginning its just that. pran says they're not friends, but subconsciously hands pat every right of one. the teasing banter, the rude nicknames, the knowledge that he too wants to compete w pat in the freshy contest as badly as pat wants it. he helps him by texting his location religiously, and then when pat's friends screw up, he lets pat help him w the bus stop. here's where things get begin to get convoluted, where the lines begin to blur. letting pat sniff him, letting pat pull his head under his shirt, letting pat massage medicine onto his shoulder, cleaning pat's face for him, allowing pat to pet his head, asking him if he had dinner, asking him about his crush. obv like. none of these things r very platonic, and pran allowing these to occur isn't w platonic intentions either.

and that's bound to happen. ofc it will when pat's in love and only hasn't worked it out yet and pran's been harboring suppressed desires for years. in some ways, it's always been there, it was always hurtling towards this. the level of comfort they share w each other, how little reservation they hold towards touching the other, its as if they haven't been raised as enemies, but have grown into the only ppl who know each other so intimately.

i'm talking about these:

pran doesn't even flinch when pat's hand touches his thigh, and you could argue that's ohmnanon, but honestly it's v in character for them. pat puts his hand over pran's mouth, places it high up his thigh: pran allows it. pran tickles him, pins down on the bed: pat allows it. pran tackles him unnecessarily long during rugby matches, hauls him into hidden corridors? pat giggles about it. pat asks pran to feed him drinks, to let him stay the night? pran pretends its a hassle and readily indulges him.

pran understands what's happening. he watches it all unfold, how pat's entitlement over him grows, mushrooms, into pat constantly making boyfriend jokes, pat pushing his limits w pran in public, pat expressing his displeasure over having to pretend to be enemies, pat walking into pran's faculty w pran's shirt on. and pran lets it happen. he complains and groans about pat in his room but lets him stay, lets him have his breakfast, lets his nosy ass unlock his desktop. he draws the line at first, but always, always ends up letting pat cross it. like how at the music store he scoffs off pat's attempt to ask him about his relationship status, but in the privacy of his own room, discloses his mother and wai's dynamics when questioned, even though he finds it strange for pat to care (he misreads pat here, thinks its out of pat's desire for friendship that he wants to know more about pran, so he's happy to share).

i came to talk about this bc i was (again) rewatching bbs and now that its completed, the fight scene in ep5 hits a different way (again). pran shuts wai out (refusing to divulge the secrets of his and pat's dynamics, a direct contrast to how he freely talks about wai to pat) and sends him home, then turns and looks at pat like this:

he stood there, waiting for pat to look at him and then when pat did, he let all his disappointment and anger flood into his expression. and i saw this and thought wow, that's one of the loudest displays of haq he's expressed over pat until now. he knows what he's doing, he knows this is going to hurt pat and he does it w that exact intention. (also does anyone else think this kinda looks like an owner reprimanding their dog?) its not smth he would do w wai, or anyone else in his life. its smth only pat is allowed, only pat is allowed to see how profoundly disruptions upset him, only pat is allowed inside his head.

this scene makes it clear that the way pran and pat treat each other is no longer 'friendly'. here, we're explicitly shown the haq pran's granted his friends over him, and that doesn't extend to oversharing. yet, pat's allowed that. pran would never tell his friends if and when they hurt or frustrate him, but he's stopped hiding the same from pat when pat chased him to the new dorm insisting he should move instead. pat may be the one who crosses the line when helping pran out w the bus stop, but its pran who first muddles it by avoiding pat to express how mad he is. later again, its pran who dissolves that line completely by reaching across and asking pat if he's had dinner.

back to the fight scene: earlier, when pat waited out for him, told him to 'come here' in front of wai, that too was a display of haq, of the authority he felt over pran. and pran followed. pran obeyed, moved towards him, was only stopped by wai. that's why i said: none of the entitlement they feel towards the other is overstepping, they only exercise the rights they're certain they've been handed. when pat says 'come here', he's one hundred percent sure pran will. he knows he's different from wai, that he's special, that he's someone pran could choose over wai. and so its a petty move. its such a petty thing to use the secret privilege pran entrusted him w in a moment of drunken jealousy, and pat regrets it soon.

but pran's the one who upset the balance first. by playing that song. their song. where most of the haq they feel over each other is abstract, this is the one thing put in cement. that song is one rope fastening pat to pran's side - the other being the guitar - which he's been using to steadily climb the peak pran stands on. he'd expected pran to be waiting for him above, as eager to help him up as pat is to reach him. but pran played that song with others, with wai, and abandoned that post, uncaring if pat were to fall. and pat fell. he fell, fractured his bones, and would still plow past the sharp ache had it been pran alone. bc that pain dulls, disappears, in pran's presence. but faced with wai, with pran's hurtful pretenses, with pran prioritizing wai in that moment, his resentment overflows, pushes him to hurt pran in the same manner. 'that lousy song', he calls the very first song pran wrote, the song pran poured his heart and soul into, the song he's recently realized might have been about them. and he does it, he breaks pran. now, pran's got a shattered heart to match pat's splintered bones.

then, on the rooftop, pat asks him why he played the song. pran doesn't answer him, denies the haq in his demand. telling pran he didn't like it was another haq he'd assumed. and here, pran realizes they've come too far. here, pran knows there's no pretending this is normal or friendly anymore, bc wth they're not even friends. here, he knows if he lets this continue, pat will continue to treat him like a lover while telling him he likes some other girl. so here, pran tries to build a final iron wall, and asks pat smth he shouldn't be able to answer: 'why are you doing this to me? who are you assume those rights over me?' except pat's figured it out at last. his feelings, his love. so, he recognizes what pran's doing, panics, and blurts his truth. vomits out his feelings to try and soil the line pran's drawing.

yeah and then we saw how that went. well, after that, these vague figures of their haq finally come into sharp focus during ep 6. this was the ep everyone praised pat for his respect of boundaries, but that was really always there. pat is smart and perceptive, and pran is the subject he's spent his whole life studying. ofc he'd understand when pran means business and when he's bluffing. so when pran used to push pat put of his room, they both knew his efforts were half-hearted (ofc he'd want his crush in his room, no matter how afraid he is of losing control). although pat doesn't take him srsly at first, he does respect his decision in the end. now, when pran tells him he doesn't want to talk about their kiss, pat knows he's serious, so he immediately shifts the subject.

and last about their bet? even if before these two were subconsciously dancing around the boundaries of romance and friendship, with the bet on, there's no hiding behind denial anymore. still, this is a new territory they're trudging along. esp pat, who's new to the discovery of his own feelings, who doesn't know where pran is mentally, and doesn't know what he's allowed and what not.

pran realizes this soon enough the next morning, when pat uses that kindergarten technique of 'i won't give you my snacks unless you become my bf'. and pran - who's spend years fantasizing about this very thing, who has an idea of the depth of pat's feelings - demolishes the last wall. the finger-lick is pran telling pat where they stand now, both giving and assuming every haq of a lover. and he does it so confidently bc pat's already given him that haq the night before, when he didn't refute pran's accusation of harboring a crush on him.

('fine', he says. 'let's compete then.' instead of the outright way pran had denied his crush. bc never lying to his lover is the haq pat would give them, is what pat gives pran from here on. pran continues to lie bc he has yet to give pat the same regard.)

yeah and this is before they start dating. before pran's ready to jump into a relationship. but he's already given pat every right only a boyfriend would hold over him: calling him to his room to fix his printer, cooking his favorite dish for him, letting pat stay over whenever he wants (like how he'll always return every loving act, every courageous one pat's done for him). when pat makes that unreasonable demand of bringing nong nao over to his room, pran can't refuse him bc this is the haq he's given to pat.

asking someone for help or assistance is smth that requires a truckload of pran's spirit. but pat's someone who just wants to do things for him all the time, and when pran sees that requesting help from pat is also pleasing him, asking pat becomes easy. for someone who's had to shoulder responsibility for every other person in his life, its delightful. to be loved by someone who gets giddy about lifting his loads for him, who's contentment comes from making him happy. that's what makes the printer scene so significant, why pat's eyes shift when pran tells him he wants pat to do this for him. pran gifts him that knowing how important it is to him, later uses the same knowledge against him in that scene w wai (when he asks wai to unscrew his bottlecap for him).

most importantly, he lets pat see his every emotion now, presents him full transparency. we see him let pat in freely into his room, but that was a right pat already had - pran's only hesitation was bc of his feelings. but before where pat's rights extended barely to getting a glimpse of pran's hurt, after which he would be firmly pushed away, now pran allows him to see how upset he truly is, allows pat to alleviate his mood. like a lover would.

and now pat returns that favor, smth he's never done before. pat's never let pran see him hurt before, but now bc he, too, has granted pran every haq of a lover, when he's wounded or mad, he lets it show. after the wai-guitar thing, he waits for pran to return, shows pran every aching emotion that flits across his face, later allows pran a chance to appease him when he's called to the rooftop. although, then, he knew pran probably didn't know why he was so mad, so he's sure pran's calling him for smth he needs. going anyway is bc pran has that haq over him.

these two rooftop scenes also parallel each other. each time it was wai who drove a wedge btw them, not by simply existing, but by stealing a fragment of their lives pat firmly believed was theirs and theirs alone. the song was theirs and only pat had any haq over it, till wai came in. by keeping that guitar safe w him for years, pat assumed haq over it, which was again snatched away by wai. the first time, after wai's exited, it's pran who waits for pat to look at him, so pat can see how he's hurt him, before leaving him behind. this time, it's pat who waits for pran to return, shows him his pain then shuts him out. both times it's the rooftop pran turns to, first to get away, second to fix things. and both times pat arrives later, first to explain himself, next on pran's request.

the reason the whole guitar situation wasn't resolved explicitly onscreen was bc there was no need for it to. pat's hurt and upset came from his insecurities about his place in pran's life. he understands nonverbal implications enough to know he can do this and that w pran, bc these two know each other that well. but he's the kind of person that needs blunt, verbal confirmations about where he stands in someone's life. and that pran's attempted confession gives him. ik he's hurt pran tried to use smth so personal as a winning card against him, but he's also relieved, bc pran's disclosed he definitely wants pat to be his boyfriend. pran wants him. and that's what pat needed to know.

another thing done in ep 7 was how they finally gave us clear context to pranpat's dynamics. like we understand that pran doesn't fully mean it when he pushes pat out of his room, or that he'd be happy to let him stay if it wasn't at the risk of his feelings burgeoning, but it still seemed rude of pat to neglect his pleas and saunter past his protests. ep 7 showed us that sometimes when pran or pat verbally retracted the other's haq, they would contradict themselves louder w their actions.

like this:

and this:

a bit more on the former: its never been flashed boldly onscreen, just mixed in naturally, but food is pran's love language. food is a large part of our cultures honestly, and ensuring someone's stomach is full articulates ur love more blatantly than the words 'i love you'. so when in ep 4 pran asks pat if he's eaten, it is a huge leap. thanks to nanon's acting, with how nervous pran looked about it, everyone interpreted it as such.

then in ep 5, pran lets pat have his sandwich. and i'm positive it was meant for pat. handing it to pat himself, so pat would know he made it for him would literally be the same as saying 'i'm in love w you', so obv pran puts on a show. but he's been up for a while, he's eaten. this was for pat.

again in ep 7, where both of them kind of know pat's the one who'll likely give up (pat relenting first was always part of their dynamic), when he calls pat over and cooks for him, he's genuinely surprised pat didn't cave. later when he goes over to pat's room with food and drinks, you could argue he was planning to play the same game, but he'd cooked enough for both pat and pha; he didn't intend to take it back this time. also in the last scene, the curry must have been cooked by pran. what pran's saying in that first scene entails both cooking and feeding. cooking for pat (and pha) must have been smth he'd already been doing.

and the latter: pat here has already caved in, and then tells pran it's smth he'd do for his 'lover' as if he hasn't already forsaken the bet, as if its still on - just in case pran isn't ready yet (bc the bet itself was for pran to adjust). 'letting his lover win' and acts of services are pat's love languages, thou the former is entirely pran-orientated. ofc for someone so competitive, relenting willingly to someone else is a huge deal, thou this has already been part of their dynamic since the watch scene in their childhood (and pran is the only competition capable of driving him). first it was out of gratitude, then it was out of guilt; but somewhere in between a more concrete reason blossomed: love. (it was also partly bc of their parents' dynamics.)

yielding is one thing, going out of his way to fix things for pran is another. conceding was smth he'd always done for pran, long before he fell in love, and although he says 'lover' in that scene, he v specifically means pran. bc this is a haq reserved uniquely for pran (like how this rivalry is unique to them. he didn't have a frenzied rivalry w any other love interest, so who else would he eagerly relent to as an act of love). the latter was smth that resulted only from his romantic interest in the other. pat cutting a pick out of his id card for pran, pat going to extreme lengths to help pran w the bus stop, pat begging the prof to let them back into the competition bc he knows pran wanted badly to participate, pat keeping his guitar polished for 3 years, pat following him to a rural beachside surrounded by the enemy state, pat continuing the play despite fearing his father's wrath: all of it was bc he was that deeply in love.

this diff is enunciated best in the first 4 eps. where first pat was unwilling to back off from his fight w wai, he later forces his friends to delete that video and manipulates them into helping w the bus stop. where earlier pat was visibly reluctant about shifting even as he offered to switch dorms (bc this was more out of guilt than love), he later gives pran his earphones w/o ever planning on taking them back (more out love than guilt).

anyway there's no purpose to this lol. i just wanted to rant about pranpat and the haq they'd assumed over each other long before the began dating bc i thought it revealed a lot about where they subconsciously intended their relationship to head down. haq is smth given only to those who play a pivotal role in your life, a loved one, a cherished friend. it's the way we daily say 'i love you' without words, it's how we continuously express our gratitude. and it's not smth enemies or even strangers can hold. pran and pat were told not to befriend each other, but gave the other every haq of a friend at age ten. when they found a safe ground to nurture their budding friendship in the dorms (and a shorter period in high school), the flower it blossomed into was that of romantic love, and it didn't come to either as much of a shock. like they'd known it was already destined, like it made sense to them that this is where they were headed. what they said about about going from two ppl who couldn't be friends to two ppl who couldn't be just friends was true.

#bad buddy #pranpat #is this to say that pranpat were always destined to fall in love?#yes. kind of.#they're two ppl who've always been drawn to each other #who compliment each other #who understand love not only as what it means to them but also how it manifests in others #they work so well bc they're both such active participants of their romance of their friendship #we've seen how one-sided pran's painstaking efforts in handling his friendships are #but with pat its pat who puts all that effort #all pran has to do is meet him half way #we know pat's been used by his past lovers #but pran being someone who gets scared easily and tends to hide #fights for him #i say destiny but its not as much destiny as it is them #its only destiny that they were born in houses next to each other #they were meant to meet the other #from there on their relationship was their own #but given the kind of ppl they were? it would always land on what they have now #bad buddy series #patpran #my writing

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countlessgifts · 3 years

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My favorite kind of Mer-Danny swims through the city not the sea, I want this to be an AU

#danny phantom #mermaid #mer-danny #sam manson #phandom #danny phantom au #spectral sea #danny fenton #my art #countless art #fanart #i wanna make an au #but i dont know how much work i can put into it #Vlad is a pirate #thats the important part

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clusterbuck · 3 years

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So we know Eddie is a sweet little technophobe right? And my tiktok feed keep showing me videos about smart appliances for home, and apparently there are even smart pans that shows what’s the temperature and how you should grill your steak m and so on, and I just can see Buck being curious about it and wanting to try and Eddie being like: no smart pans on our houses Buck lmao

so this, uh, how you say, got away from me a tiny bit. idk man i'm not in control of my life. (once again rip to my job)

it starts, like—well, like almost nothing ever does—with the late-night shopping channel.

look, it's not that buck makes a habit of watching it—it's just that it's the middle of the night, and he's the only one on shift who is apparently incapable of sleeping, and there's nothing else on tv, and he's far too comfortable in his nest on the couch to get up and start fiddling with any of the gaming systems.

and, okay, maybe he kind of finds the ridiculous cadence of the salespeople soothing.

and, okay, maybe he's a little bit fascinated by the sheer variety of things on sale. gadgets he's never even considered might exist, but which he is now increasingly convinced he needs.

his phone is in his hand before he fully knows what he's doing, and he's pulling up the website listed in the corner of the tv screen. when the site asks for delivery address, he puts in eddie's house without thinking about it.

it just makes sense. he does most of his cooking at eddie's house, anyway. it just doesn't seem worth it cooking for one when he's alone at his loft.

it's not because he's in love with eddie. really, it's not. it just makes his life easier when he doesn't have to try and adjust recipe ratios so he doesn't make too much for just himself and end up with leftovers slowly mouldering in his fridge.

really.

the alarm goes off just as he hits confirm, and in the only mostly controlled chaos of the apartment fire they're sent to, he forgets all about his spur-of-the-moment purchase.

until he's on eddie's couch watching a movie with christopher and the doorbell rings, and eddie comes back from opening the door holding a package and looking confused.

"it's—for you," eddie says, looking at buck. "why are you getting mail sent to my house?"

"i'm not—oh!" he says, practically leaping off the couch. "i forgot!" he grabs the package from eddie and heads into the kitchen.

"forgot about what?" eddie asks, trailing behind him.

"i was watching the shopping channel the other day—"

"i'm pretty sure nothing good has ever come of the sentence i was watching the shopping channel," eddie interrupts.

"then you're clearly not talking to the right people," buck says, working to get the box open. "anyway, so i was watching the shopping channel, and—" he pulls out the contents of the package and brandishes it at eddie. "see?"

"what am i seeing, exactly?"

"it's a singing pasta timer!" buck exclaims. "look, you put it in with the pasta, and then it starts singing when the pasta is done."

eddie takes the box buck is holding out and inspects it. "he looks creepy."

it's... not an inaccurate assessment. the timer is made of white plastic, and shaped like a rotund man in a chef's hat with uncomfortably pursed lips.

"i don't think you're really supposed to look at him," buck says. "i mean, you know what they say about watched pots and boiling."

eddie huffs. "still creepy, though. and putting a humanoid thing in boiling water also seems creepy."

"he's plastic," buck points out. "i don't think he's exactly bothered by the heat."

"i don't want to teach my child—"

he's interrupted by a laugh from the doorway, where christopher is leaning on his crutches. "he's not real, dad."

"there you go," buck says. "chris knows that he's plastic. why are you so opposed to letting the little pasta man help you stop overcooking your pasta?"

"i'm not—" eddie starts, and buck raises his eyebrows.

"fine," eddie sighs. "i just don't—how does he know?"

buck blinks at eddie for a second before he realises what eddie means, and then he's laughing before he can stop himself, so hard he has to grip the kitchen counter for support.

"eddie," he says when he can breathe again, trying hard to keep his tone as neutral as possible. "are you afraid of the little plastic pasta man?"

"no!" eddie says, and it would be a lot more convincing if he wasn't still holding the timer and eyeing it warily. "i just don't like it when things know things."

"it's hardly hildy," buck says, still trying to hold back laughter. "it's just a thermometer and a timer, look, it just senses when the water starts to boil and counts time from there. i promise you it doesn't have any kind of unnatural knowledge of pasta."

he gets a glare for that, but it melts into a sheepish grin soon enough. "well, in that case," eddie says, sounding like he's acquiescing to something much more harrowing than a plastic pasta timer. "i suppose he can stay."

they try him out that very night, and eddie almost jumps out of his skin when the timer starts singing. buck only laughs at him a little.

later, once they've put christopher to bed and get started on cleaning the kitchen, eddie tries to hand the now-clean timer to buck. buck stares at him, uncomprehending.

"don't you want to take it home?" eddie asks. "it had your name on the package, i assume you bought it for yourself."

"good thing, too," buck says. "i'm not convinced you wouldn't have tried to exorcise it if you'd opened it without me around."

"no comment," eddie says, and buck laughs.

"i was gonna just leave it here, though," buck says. "assuming you're not going to try and cleanse it with holy fire in the middle of the night?"

"i make no promises," eddie says. "why? don't you want it after all?"

"it's not that," buck says. "i just—don't really cook so much at the loft. not when it's just for me."

"oh," eddie says. "well, i'm happy to share custody. full visitation rights."

"perfect."

"we already co-parent an entire child, what's one unnecessarily humanoid kitchen appliance on top of that?"

buck freezes with a glass in his hand, suspended halfway to the cabinet he was returning it to. they haven't talked about christopher, about any of it, not since eddie was released from the hospital. they certainly haven't talked about co-parenting. "eddie—"

"buck."

slowly, buck turns to face eddie. he doesn't know what he's expecting—regret, maybe, or that fish-out-of-the-water face eddie sometimes makes when he says the wrong thing without thinking—but all he finds on eddie's face is fond amusement.

"you can't tell me you're that surprised," eddie says.

"no, i just—we haven't really—you've never said," buck says.

"only because i didn't think i needed to," eddie says, barely holding back an eye roll. but unlike when other people roll their eyes at him, it doesn't make buck feel small. just warm.

"i'm saying it now, okay?" eddie continues.

"okay."

two weeks later buck is watching the late-night shopping channel again when eddie emerges from the bunk room and settles on the sofa next to him.

"what are you—no," eddie cuts himself off when the words smart pan flash across the screen. he snatches buck's phone out of his hand and hides it in his pocket.

"eddie," buck whines. "i was just going to—"

"no, you're not," eddie says. "i can accept the pasta man, but you are not bringing a smart pan into our kitchen. i am drawing a line. the line is drawn. no artificial intelligence that also controls temperature, not in our house."

and eddie's staring him down like he's expecting buck to argue, but buck's brain is stuck on one thing. one specific word, to be exact.

"our kitchen?"

eddie gives him the same look he sometimes does on a call when buck doesn't immediately get moving. the one that means catch the fuck up, buckley.

"we share custody of a child and an upsettingly realistic pasta man," eddie says. "how is this news to you?"

"you keep not telling me things!" buck says. "what else are you not telling me? are you secretly royalty or something?"

"no, but i am in love with you," eddie says.

buck stares at him. "if you're just trying to distract me from the smart pan, that's a dick move."

"just trying to—jesus christ," eddie mutters. "okay, do you believe me now?" and then his lips are on buck's and, okay, maybe it wasn't just a distraction. because buck's kissed a lot of people in his life, but very few of them have kissed him like this. like he matters.

eddie pulls back just enough to look buck in the eye. "okay?"

"okay," buck says, and leans in to kiss eddie again.

some time later, eddie pulls away again, and this time he's frowning at buck. "you better be trying to feel me up right now," he says. "you better not be trying to get your phone to order that unholy frying pan."

buck grins. "i can multi-task."

#911fic #buddie #technophobe eddie my beloved #arrenemris #emma writes #ask emma #please note i just found this timer on the internet this is not a product endorsement i have no idea if it actually works #this is so dumb i'm sorry my hand slipped #do you know how much i struggled not to put a salad gadget in here lmao #at least i broke out of my writing funk i suppose

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