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autumnblogs · 3 years

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Day 4: You eat a weird bug and don’t even care.

Starting later than usual today because I’ve been absolutely swamped with work. Let’s get down to business to defeat the Huns.

https://homestuck.com/story/644

I’ve never really gotten why John falls asleep here. Seems an odd place to fall asleep, especially with the adrenaline rush that must have been. Maybe he’s passing out from exactly that? Alternatively, maybe Vriska is putting him to sleep.

I also forgot that John Sleeps/Skaian Magicant is split between two flashes.

https://homestuck.com/story/651

Ah here we go. John has what are, if Jade is to be believed, lousy dreams. He dreams of his Dad, of clowns, of baked goods, of Fruit Gushers, of his own symbol, the weird knock-off slimer, and Harry Anderson, before finally Jade appears.

I am not a psychologist or therapist. I am not even anything more than an amateur literary critic. But let me give you my take on that. It’s clear that John is dreaming about all kinds of things that are giving him anxiety here, if Jade’s assessment about his dreams being lousy is true.

Harry Anderson is, as he’ll say later, kind of a weird mutual father figure for him and his Dad, and as a stage magician and comedian, he represents John’s aspirations.

John wants to grow up to be a great stage magician and comedian, and if there’s anything we’ve seen about the Heir of Breath so far, it’s how extremely self-critical he is of his abilities - he’s screwed up every disguise and magic trick he’s tried so far.

The other things are pretty self-explanatory - he’s anxious about his relationship with his Dad, he’s anxious about his Dad’s identity, he’s anxious about his own identity - with the exception of the gushers. Are gushers just symbolizing Sburb for John? Does he have a premonition that the gushers are tainted by the hand of his archnemesis, Betty Crocker? Maybe that one’s just silly.

Maybe they’re all just silly!

https://homestuck.com/story/652

I promise I will have more to say about Jade’s conversations once she is actually introduced, but until then, she is too enigmatic for me to talk about :^)

I will say, if the fact that John is stressing out about everything in his life and just not vocalizing his anxiety, it’s probable that he thinks Jade is just as mysterious as his pals think she is, and is just not talking about it.

I think John, like Jake, is way more intelligent than he lets on, and probably just keeps a lot of things on a simmer, thinking about them without necessarily opening up about them. He talks a lot about surface level stuff for sure, but he seems a lot more hesitant to talk about emotions, theories, that sort of thing. It actually reminds me a lot of how Kim Kitsuragi from Disco Elysium, far from his highly imaginative partner the player character, writes his thoughts down in a notebook to keep track of his through processes, hunches, case details, etc, whereas the Detective organizes everything in an interactive Thought Cabinet that serves as one half of the game’s Inventory and Progression System.

For example, John’s ability to describe and his ability to theorize is on full display in the FAQs that he writes, but when he talks, he’s often just as disorganized as he is everywhere else. Maybe John needs to take up journalling.

Huh. I wonder if Kim is a Prospit Dreamer and the Detective is a Derse Dreamer? That would make a lot of sense. Once @bladekindeyewear finishes playing Disco Elysium (which he is playing at my behest), I’ll see if he’s interested in assigning Lunar Sway, Classes and Aspects to the two of them.

https://homestuck.com/story/665

Dave Owns. The Narrative switches between character perspectives often right before there’s a major climax so that lots of characters can all have climactic encounters in sync with one another.

Eye imagery is on full display here as Dave ascends to the highest point in the building. The Sun over Dave’s house is drawn differently from other abstractions of the Sun in Homestuck, and this particular drawing of the Sun will later be juxtaposed against Terezi’s eyes as Alternia’s Sun burns them out.

The Sun as the Symbol of Light is also juxtaposed with Rose’s eyes later when she uses her seer powers, strengthening the connection between the Sun and Eyes. Near the very beginning of the comic, Rose compares the Sun moving on from the east coast to the west as him casting his lurid gaze on younger parts of the world, or the country. I’m not recalling the exact phrasing at this time.

Lil Cal’s creepy eyes are also highlighted by the Camera here. Through the vehicle of Lil Cal, Lord English is watching and quietly giving approval to all of this.

I choose to interpret the camera’s focus in this flash as giving us a glimpse into what Dave is paying attention to. And boy does Dave notice all of these eyes on him. Between seeing the sun as a malevolent eye watching him, to Lil Cal’s glassy gaze, to the Cameras bro uses to surveil him 24/7, Dave feels like he’s constantly being watched, and I think it’s safe to say it gives him the creeps.

https://homestuck.com/story/673

WV’s self-estimation isn’t much better than John’s.

https://homestuck.com/story/678

I wonder if we can get some insight into the strange minds of the Carapacians in the way that before he’s even finished receiving the commands, WV acts on them. WV is even more impulsive than John.

https://homestuck.com/story/684

Oh yeah, WV’s self-worth is way worse than John’s.

https://homestuck.com/story/685

Luckily almost as soon as his thoughts come, they go. He doesn’t spend too much time brooding over his self-loathing and survivor’s guilt, so good for him.

https://homestuck.com/story/688

A whole bunch of things that are symbolically related to the cast!

While WV’s can town playtime functions as foreshadowing for us, it serves as a replay of the extremely recent past for him, at least in terms of events that we know about.

https://homestuck.com/story/694

The light on Serenity’s belly looks a bit like the Sun, and therefore, an eye.

https://homestuck.com/story/699

The Blue Trees of Can Town call forward to Terezi’s forest, but I don’t think this is probably more substantial than something fun Andrew decided to call back to when he was writing the trolls.

IDK. Maybe Blue Trees = Democracy = Justice?

But Terezi’s brand of justice has nothing to do with Democracy.

https://homestuck.com/story/709

Tab, like GameBro, is an artifact of a bygone age.

https://homestuck.com/story/711

It’s a lot easier to become a citizen of Can Town than it is to become a citizen of the United States!

https://homestuck.com/story/714

I wonder who input all those commands before WV got on board? Maybe whoever was in charge of building these contraptions in the first place - a Carapacian Lab Rat in the Veil.

Always felt like the unseen actors making Sburb run behind the scenes were one of the nicest touches, they lend an air of sinister mystery even beyond the Guardians.

https://homestuck.com/story/721

I am not good at chess.

Maybe sometime, I will have my friend who is good at Chess analyze this game, and see how he feels about it.

https://homestuck.com/story/735

WV’s Self Esteem is very, very bad.

https://homestuck.com/story/752

Our first introduction to the laws of time travel in Homestuck - the past is a place that materially exists, and in only one specific configuration that can be interacted with. You can only bring things forward from the past if nobody else got to them before you. You can’t go back and undo things that somebody else (or you) has already done according to the canonical configuration of events.

https://homestuck.com/story/757

This is ridiculously cool.

Homestuck’s huge climactic story events are arguably one of the things that makes it so special as a story. I can’t think of a story that does such a good job of building up tension in multiple storylines before having them all converge.

https://homestuck.com/story/760

https://homestuck.com/story/765

I wonder what the exact mechanism is by which Jade is aware of the gaming abstractions and commands to the degree that she is? Is it just her Skaian dreams? This could be a one-off gag, but it could also be an indication of a degree of clairvoyance greater than that which I feel like the visions she has as the Prospitian Moon passes through Skaia.

https://homestuck.com/story/768

Jade loves to watch things grow.

It’s a Space Thing.

https://homestuck.com/story/777

According to BladeKindEyeWear’s Inversion Theory Jade’s complicated and carefully orchestrated time loops, which she uses to connect people with possibilities, is an example of her inverting under extreme stress, acting more like a Seer of Time, her opposite, than like a Witch of Space (in much the same way that Rose acts an awful lot like a Witch of Void for much of the comic’s first half!)

I expect a real Seer of Time wouldn’t need quite so many contrivances to keep track of everything going on in the past and future. Eventually, Jade stops using her colourful reminders, which is probably an indicator that she is no longer attempting to play outside of her lane.

https://homestuck.com/story/789

Pretty much all of Jade’s interests cast her immediately as someone with a pretty strong maternal instinct, something that she shares with other heroes of Space. Jade is a caretaker.

Her playthings are dolls so she can roleplay the part of a Mom. She grows oodles of plants, and seems to have a knack for it. She likes animals, and though the only animal in her life takes care of her, she puts in some work to take care of him too.

Her interests definitely mark her as the more classically girly of the two between her and Rose, and like her brother is preoccupied with manhood and Dadliness, Jade seems to preoccupied with Momliness - which is odd, considering that she doesn’t have a maternal figure to aspire to! (Maybe the White Queen?)

https://homestuck.com/story/790

Jade is not of course, only girly. The same way that Dad’s culturally out-of-place baking hobby marks him as transgressively feminine to John’s dismay, Jade’s scientific and artillerist hobbies are transgressively masculine.

Although it’s tempting to say that Jade loves the sciences because Grandpa raised her to, or because she’s aping him after he died, she’s clearly born to it. I think about the question of nature and nurture a lot in Homestuck.

I think on the whole, it falls pretty far to the side of Nature. Characters who share a common ancestry also share common character traits more often than not, even in the absence of shared cultural touchstones, shared geography, shared timeline. The same character only has a limited number of possible choices that they could have made, as Aranea will later say.

On the other hand, some characters turn out very different in one life than they do in another. Dirk doesn’t turn out nearly the psychopath that Bro Strider is by the time that Homestuck Proper concludes.

https://homestuck.com/story/795

Squiddles are, as everyone knows by now, a manifestation of the Dark Gods of the Furthest Ring, but I think there’s more going on with them too - they have kind of a horny energy that I can’t quite place. I’m going to come back to that. Any case, they seem to be one of the symbols that Rose and Jade share in common, although Rose subverts the colorful and cute squiddles into icons more of the extradimensional beasties that they actually represent.

Maybe I think Squiddles are a symbol of horny for the same reason that snakes are lewd to Cherubs - there’s definitely something phallic about tentacles, and definitely something intimate about the idea of becoming someone’s tangle buddy. The very first time I read Rose’s handle, I thought it read Tentacle The Rapist, which I suspect is kinda the point, and some of Andrew’s other works have variously described the process of interacting with tentacles as being molested and so on and so on.

Rose and Jade actually share a huge number of symbols in common between the two of them, which I think is great, but also sad - Rose and Jade clearly actually have quite a lot in common, and the two of them don’t really interact very much.

https://homestuck.com/story/797

I’m going to eventually decode Jade’s fascination with animals too, but for now I want to remark that it’s not just the idea of looking like an animal that excites Jade - it’s the idea of being like an animal that excites her. The exact same little poem is later reiterated by Serenity in WV’s nightmare, as he dreams of losing control of the power of the Ring of Orbs Fourfold and killing everyone he loves. What would be a nightmare for WV though is a fantasy for Jade. The idea of being out of control is thrilling for her.

Dave is also a furry.

https://homestuck.com/story/798

The trappings of a proper gentleman. Monocle. Pipe. Top Hat. Little White Gloves. A proper gentleman without these is a piss poor excuse for a proper gentleman indeed.

SYMBOLS.

https://homestuck.com/story/800

Another spot where Jade is able to interface directly with the audience, in some form or another.

https://homestuck.com/story/802

Jade may have fantasies of transforming into something more animalistic, but she’s not willing to indulge them.

https://homestuck.com/story/803

Jade completely rejects the symbols of witchcraft that Rose so readily embraces.

https://homestuck.com/story/804

Jade contemplates engaging in some Vriskaesque behavior. Is it just because Vriska is watching her? Maybe she’s picking up some Vriska-esque vibes through the feed as the Thief of Light practices her mind control.

https://homestuck.com/story/808

I think it’s safe to say one of two things is going on here.

Jade is either literally cognizant of the audience and interacting with them, putting her on a layer of the story that is quite a lot closer to us than you would expect of someone as innocuous as Jade (maybe the immediate presence of the Fourth Wall upstairs could facilitate that relationship?)

Or Jade has an active imagination, is extremely lonely, and likes to interact with her imaginary audience as a way of projecting a friendly and hospitable demeanor onto the world around her in sort of the exact opposite way that Rose imagines the worst of everything and everyone?

Or, as it often is in Homestuck, it could be both motherfuckin’ things.

https://homestuck.com/story/829

Did I mention Dave is a furry? Dave is totally a furry.

If we read Squiddles as a symbol of intimate contact with living things, Jade’s computer having Squiddles front and center is appropriate - it’s her point of contact to all the people in her life.

Tune in on the morrow to watch Dave’s Bro beat the shit out of him.

Until then, this is Cam signing off, alive and not alone.

#homestuck #liveblogging #commentary #disco elysium #bladekindeyewear #inversion theory #squiddles

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theartofdreaming1 · 6 years

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Partners - Part 3: Haly’s Circus

Pairing: DickBabs

Rating: T

Summary: The circus is in town, and Dick and Barbara decide to go. Their visit ends up... complicating things. Read this chapter over at AO3 here. Part 1 can be found here (my blog) or here (AO3), Part 2 here (blog) or here (AO3).

Haly’s Circus *1

They were patrolling the streets of Blüdhaven again, when, coming to a halt at a stoplight, Barbara noticed it - a big billboard announcing the arrival of the Haly Bros. Circus.

“Well look at that, the circus is coming to town!” Barbara exclaimed joyfully, the colorful sign bringing back many happy memories from her childhood.

“I still remember the first time my Dad and I went to the circus… I just had the best time there - the music, the animals and performances - I ended up loving it so much…. Maybe I should go again, it’s been a long time since my last visit… - What about you?”

Just as she had voiced that question aloud, did it dawn on Barbara that for Dick, a former circus acrobat who watched his parents fall to their deaths during their performance, “memories of the circus” wouldn’t be a pleasant topic to talk about. She glanced nervously at Dick, an apology regarding her insensitivity already on her lips, when she saw that he was actually smiling brightly, sharing her enthusiasm.

“Oh I’m definitely going; can’t let the opportunity slip by to take a whiff of the smell of sawdust and popcorn and cotton candy…” Dick trailed off, letting that colorful description hang in the air. Barbara could swear she could almost smell these very things inside the stuffy police cruiser the were sitting in.

“Do I have to worry that I’m gonna be without a partner again soon, because it sounds like my current one is gonna run away to re-join the circus?”

Dick gave her one of his ridiculously charming smiles: “Why not make sure I won’t run yourself? I’ve actually been meaning to ask you if you’d like to go with me to have a look around on Saturday or so?”

His facial expression was as open and friendly as ever, but Barbara couldn’t help but feel that Dick’s suggestion was less casual than his tone of voice let on.

Despite her inclination to say yes, Barbara hesitated for a second, giving Dick a searching look. Going to the circus together was quite different from grabbing a drink after a shift...

“As in a ”partner/friends” kinda thing, right?” she said haltingly, feeling a need to clarify his motive behind this get-together.

“It’s not a date, Babs,” Dick assured her, “I just thought that we both are in need of some downtime and since you said that you also want to see the circus, I thought we could do it together.”

Barbara could feel her shoulders relax, a tension she hadn’t even noticed building up in them falling away. Then again, the emergence of the hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach and its potential implication was something she chose to push aside deliberately.

“Some downtime sounds like a good idea,” she agreed.

Dick’s smile broadened.

“So it’s settled then.”

They met up at the fairground on Saturday. The place was bustling with people, the air filled with cheerful music and the scents Dick had described so aptly just mere days before. Barbara let her gaze wander, trying to find Dick in the crowd.

“Hey, Babs,” a familiar voice sounded right behind her, giving Barbara a start.

“Good grief, Dick!” she shouted, clutching her chest, “you almost gave me a heart-attack!”

“Sorry,” Dick said, the mischievous grin on his face making him not look sorry at all.

“Jerk,” Barbara laughed, swatting his arm in mock-annoyance.

“That may be true,” Dick conceded, before his grin widened and he presented Barbara with two strips of paper, “but I’m the jerk who already got us tickets for the next show.”

“Dork.”

Barbara just rolled her eyes and took a ticket, pulling out her wallet, “So, how much do I owe you?”

But Dick just made a dismissive gesture, saying: “It’s on me.”

“Come on, Grayson! We’ve already established this is not a date, so there’s no reason to go all gentlemanly on me.”

“Just because this isn’t a date doesn’t mean I can’t act like a gentleman, I would argue,” Dick retorted, before adding: “And I got these for a special price; so you really don’t owe me anything.”

Barbara eyed her partner and the ticket quizzically: “What, you get a circus discount or something?”

Not caring to elaborate, Dick just flashed her a grin: “Something like that.”

They went to see the show, which, in Barbara’s eyes, was everything a circus ought to be: goofy, bright, colorful, and just delightfully corny. Barbara couldn’t remember the last time she’d had this much fun.

She and Dick were now roaming the circus’ grounds, with Dick still teasing her about the enthusiasm she had displayed when the tigers had come up (so what? She liked tigers. They were cool.) Barbara was just about to respond with a witty comment, when they both were approached by an older man, who addressed Dick by name and with a kind smile.

“Checking up on me, son?” the man said teasingly, putting a hand on Dick’s shoulder in a cordial gesture.

“Just enjoying the smell of sawdust with the other rubes, Mr. Haly,” Dick replied humbly.

Barbara, who was observing the exchange intently, trying to figure out what was going on exactly, realized that she and Dick must have the owner of Haly’s circus before them…

“”Mister Haly”,” Mr. Haly repeated amusedly, exchanging a conspirative look with Barbara as if there was a joke going on she should be aware of (she wasn’t), “listen to him!”

Mr. Haly shook his head at Dick’s silliness, before dropping the bomb on Barbara: “Like he doesn’t own the whole place.”

Dick owned the freaking circus!?!

It took Barbara a considerable amount of effort not to let her surprise show on her face, while Mr. Haly introduced himself to her as “Harry Haly of the Haly Brothers Traveling Circus” and shook Barbara’s hand heartily when she introduced herself to him.

A sideways glance at a flustered Dick let Barbara know that her partner was feeling very uncomfortable about the entire situation. Good.

Harry and Dick chatted for a few more minutes, before Harry left the two of them alone again, wishing them a fun visit.

With slight satisfaction, Barbara noticed that Dick’s cheeks were still flushed.

He seemed to be fumbling for words: “Babs, um, I-”

“Well, at least I feel a lot better now about not giving you money for getting our tickets,” Barbara remarked dryly, and then, just because she couldn’t help herself, jokingly added the question: “Do you own a lot of circuses, or just this one?”

“Co-own, actually,” Dick clarified, before adding in a quieter tone: “Just this one - the one that I grew up in.”

Oh… OH.

“You grew up in this circus?”

“Hmm,” Dick hummed in affirmation, continuing their stroll.

For a moment, the two of them walked side by side in complete silence.

“Does it… Does it hurt to come back here?” Barbara asked tentatively, thinking how they had just spent two hours under the same tent Dick’s parents had died in.

Dick mulled over her question, before replying carefully: “I guess… no? It’s just… this, the circus, it’s always been more than just a place to me - it’s home. The people that are part of this circus - they are my family. Haly’s circus and its people are another source of support for me, I suppose… I came back to this place during a semester break, when I realized that studying business wasn’t really what I wanted to do with my life; I could have gone home to Gotham, to the manor, of course - but it had just felt right coming back here, my first home, to figure out where to go from here… Being here grounded me, made me realize that I wanted to become a cop - and when I later found out that the circus was experiencing financial difficulties, was in danger of having to shut down; I just knew that I had to do something, had to preserve all of this,” Dick opened his arms wide, a gesture meant to encompass the entirety of the circus.

“Keeping this circus alive is not only about saving my childhood home, but also about commemorating my parents, I guess.”

Barbara noticed a soft smile playing on Dick’s lips.

“I never feel more connected to my parents than when I’m flying on the trapeze or talking to the people who knew and loved them back in the old days.”

Barbara could feel unshed tears stinging her eyes.

“God, now I feel like a real jerk for being mad at you for not telling me that you own the circus,” she admitted to Dick.

“Nah, you were right to be mad; I should have told you instead of having you walk right into this…It’s good to talk. I guess I was just nervous of saying all of this out loud… I shouldn’t have been afraid to trust you with this - we are partners, after all. And I do trust you.”

How Barbara had gotten so lucky to have been assigned the most genuine and honest person as her new partner, she had no idea.

“This means a lot to me, Dick. I know that opening up about this can’t be easy - but I’m very glad you did. It’s good to know that in this partnership, trust goes both ways - I know that you always have my back, just as I have yours.... It’s not something I had with my previous partner… I’m really glad that we do.”

Dick smiled.

“Yeah, me too.”

They both stayed silent for one awkward moment, before Dick said: “Now that you know about the circus… would you like a behind the scenes tour?”

Barbara couldn’t help the impish grin forming on her lips.

“If that means that I get to see the tigers again, sure.”

Dick let out a snicker.

“Okay, I’ve changed my mind - I think I should just stay on the ground,” Barbara said uneasily, making Dick laugh.

“Oh, come on, Babs; you’ve already climbed all the way up!”

Barbara peered over the platform she and Dick were standing on; the sight of the 40 foot drop did not help matters. She was starting to think that this part of her special tour she could do without…

The tour had started out innocently enough: Dick had shown Barbara around the circus, introducing her to the many people working there - old friends of Dick’s such as Irving Carberry, the accountant of the circus and former strongman “Mr. Hercules”, his wife Lydia (former “Princess Felina”; who was now in charge of travels and bookings), the roustabout Danny Poteet, and Zitka, an elephant lady that surprised both Dick and Barbara when she ‘greeted’ Dick by wrapping her trunk around his torso for a hug (it certainly rang true that elephants have excellent memories). Everyone was extremely kind and open, and it really felt more like Dick had taken her to a family reunion than anything else (complete with stories about and photographs of little Dick Grayson, which embarrassed Dick and amused Barbara endlessly.)

Towards the end of their tour, Dick had introduced her to Alyssa and Oleg, the circus’ current trapeze artists, and relatively newer additions to the circus. The three acrobats ended up talking shop for a few minutes, and Barbara couldn’t help listening completely enraptured, and managing to drop in a curious question once in a while. Apparently, she hadn’t been as inconspicuous about her fascination with the trapeze as she thought she’d been, because Dick suggested they could go ‘flying’ if she was interested. Barbara would have been lying if she had claimed not to be interested, and Alyssa and Oleg readily offered to burrow her and Dick some training clothes.

Which is how Barbara ended up where she was now.

“C'mon, Babs, I'll help you with your first transfer – it's gonna be as easy as pie, you'll see!” Dick said confidently, reaching for the nearest bar.

He held it out to Barbara, gesturing for her to take it.

When she hesitated, Dick went on to elaborate: “You and I are both gonna hold on to this bar, hop off the platform and just swing – and when we get to the next bar,” he pointed at another bar, halfway across the distance of the next platform,” all we have to do is wait for the snap and grab it – I'll tell you when, don't worry – and we'll swing over to the next platform. Easy.”

Barbara couldn't help but think that “easy” was a debatable term for the routine Dick had just described; but his calm instruction of each step certainly made it sound doable.

“Okay,” Barbara agreed and was met with a positively exhilarated smile from Dick.

She grabbed the bar he had been holding out for her. Dick gently pulled her closer to him, adjusting her stance, so she had a better grasp of the bar. He then also took hold of the bar, giving Barbara a reassuring smile: “On three.”

Oh boy. The thought of letting go and climbing back down crossed Barbara’s mind.

“One...”

Technically, she still could… - but no; she was going to do this.

“Two...”

‘Easy as pie’, right?

“Three!”

And with that, she and Dick jumped.

The rush of adrenaline, the wind in her hair - it was a wonderful feeling.

“The next bar is coming up,” Dick pointed out, pulling Barbara out of her reverie.

He gave her an easy smile, like he knew of the delight Barbara was feeling right now.

Dick’s gaze got more focused then.

“Wait for the snap…” he instructed. Barbara felt another rush of adrenaline coming up.

“... Now!”

And in one synchronous motion, they both grabbed the next bar, swinging until they reached the next platform.

“So, you liked it?” Dick asked with a knowing grin, while making sure that Barbara had good footing.

Barbara grinned back.

“I loved it it!”

“Told ya,” Dick said, looking a little self-satisfied, before an idea appeared to cross his mind: “Oh hey; how about a simple flying transfer?”

Before Barbara could even reply, Dick had already jumped off the platform, swung to the middle of the trapeze, backflipped to the other bar and gotten to the opposite platform.

“You’re kidding, right?” Barbara exclaimed disbelievingly, panic rising in her chest, “I manage one simple transfer - with your help, I might add - and you expect me to do a ‘simple’ flying transfer, whatever the hell that is?!”

Dick seemed to have a more easygoing view on the whole idea: “You’re gonna do just fine, Babs - you have really good body control, and it’s really easy: I’ll be on this bar, being catcher, and you’ll be the flyer; you’ll just jump off the platform, swing on your bar,” he pointed at the bar closest to Barbara, “and when you reach the highest point of your momentum, you let go and I’ll catch you.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“It’s gonna be fun. Honestly.”

Again, with that sincere look on his face. Barbara could feel her resolve crumbling.

“I should be climbing down right now,” she said, but without much insistence, “This is crazy.”

“This is going to be fine,” Dick disagreed in a soothing voice.

“Trust me, Babs. And yourself. You can do it.”

‘I’m so gonna kick his butt if it’s not going to work out’, Barbara thought, before she replied with a disgruntled “Fine.”

Dick just sent a infuriatingly charming and reassuring smile her way, before he jumped off his platform and assumed the ‘Catcher’s lock’; hanging from the bar in the catcher’s position.

“Now you,” he said, sounding way to cheerily for Barbara’s taste.

But nevertheless: she jumped.

When Barbara’s swing had reached its highest point, she let go of the bar - and for a brief moment, Barbara was flying.

A second later, a pair of strong fingers wrapped themselves around her wrists, and Barbara felt something in her stomach flutter. Must be from the excitement of the maneuver. She looked up into the brightly smiling face of Dick.

“Damn, Babs! You’re really good!”

Barbara returned that smile with one of her own.

“Well, I trained a few years in gymnastics before I focused on jujutsu when I was a bit older…” she confessed impishly, the euphoria from her stunt coursing through her veins.

Dick let out a delighted gasp: “Barbara Gordon, you’ve been holding out on me!”

Barbara didn’t bother to stifle the laugh that was bubbling up inside her.

When she safely returned to the platform she had leapt off before, she saw that Dick was still swinging on his bar, a knowing look on his face and his eyes sparkling with mirth:

“Wanna go again?”

Still giddy with excitement, Barbara grabbed the bar swinging back towards her and grinned.

“You bet!”

“So, how did you like your latest visit to the circus?” Dick asked Barbara while they were walking back to Barbara’s car.

The wide smile on her face probably was answer enough, but that didn’t stop Barbara from saying: “I had a really great time - I think this visit is up there with my very first one.”

Dick beamed brightly at her.

Not wanting him to let his ‘success’ go to his head, Barbara then adopted a bit of of a sterner expression:

“I still can’t believe you abandoned me 40 feet above the ground and just asked me to jump!” She hit Dick in the shoulder for emphasis.

“Hey!” he protested, but was grinning nonetheless,”You had fun, didn’t you?”

“I had,” Barbara admitted, “but still.”

She raised her hand to deliver another playful hit; this time, Dick caught her hand easily.

“I had a really great time, too,” he said, an earnest look on his face.

Barbara noticed that Dick’s hand was still wrapped around her wrist. Her heart began to beat harder.

“Maybe…,” Dick hesitated, his dark blue eyes scanning her face with an intensity that Barbara had never experienced before. The fluttering in her stomach emerged again and this time, Barbara couldn’t blame it on acrobatics.

“Maybe we could do something like this again?” Dick asked tentatively, his voice tinged with a bit of hope.

For a brief moment, all Barbara could think of saying was ‘yes’. But it didn’t take long for her brain to catch up with her emotions and remind her of all the ways this was not a good idea.

“Dick...,” she started delicately, while carefully entangling her arm from his hold.

She could see him deflate at that. Barbara slightly turned away, under the pretense of looking for her car keys, so she didn’t have to see Dick looking like a kicked puppy.

“I just don’t think that would be a good idea,” she finally said, feeling awful.

“I mean, we work together… and it’s a dangerous job at that,” Barbara felt compelled to add, “It would only… overcomplicate things.”

Not to mention if any of their fellow officers found out that she was dating a colleague… they would never show her any sort of respect… And if her goal was to clean up the BPD, she would need to be taken seriously; she couldn’t just be the “newbie’s sweetheart”.

Barbara took a deep breath.

“Look, Dick: you are a really nice, great guy and I had a lot of fun and an amazing time with you today - but I’m really not looking for a romantic relationship right now and I hope you can understand that.”

She risked looking at Dick, and the look on his face just made her feel worse.

“No, of course; I get it,” he said, lowering his glance.

It didn’t really help with Barbara’s guilty conscience at all; because of course he would be understanding and respectful about getting rejected. This was a really shitty situation. Barbara almost groaned from frustration. She figured that she should just go (and maybe drop by the gym on her way home - she felt the need to kick something. Hard.)

“Thanks again for tonight,” she said to Dick, just barely stopping herself from putting a comforting hand on his arm,”I really had a lovely time.”

And with that, Barbara walked the last few steps to her car and left.

To be continued... here

Notes:

Birds of Prey #8: The entire chapter is heavily inspired by this lovely issue: Dick and Babs visiting Haly’s Circus, meeting Harry (although here, Babs obviously knows that Dick owns the circus) and going up the trapeze... and lots of romantic moments that make you go “come on! get together, damn it!” ;) Trust is also an important underlying theme in this issue (so much, that many submissions for dickbabs week 2017, day 1 “trust”, referenced this issue... my own included ;), so I decided to focus on that aspect in this chapter

A Lonely Place of Dying: In which Dick saves the circus from financial troubles (someone actually sabotages the circus; Dick figures out who did it with the help from an unfamiliar kid - Robin III to-be ,Tim Drake, - and buys the circus) - I think this all happens in the issue New Titans #60; unfortunately, I don’t own this story arc, so I’m not 100% sure

Robin Annual #4 (from 1995 - my birth year!): Dick’s old circus friends (Irving Carberry, Lydia Orenstein and Danny Poteet) are from this issue; they are also mentioned in...

Nightwing: Secret Files and Origins #1: in the profile page of “Haly’s Circus”; in this issue, Dick and Babs also talk about exciting first experiences in “Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana?”, during which Barbara mentions how much she loved her first circus

Nightwing #88: Alyssa and Oleg are from this issue (okay, in this issue, Oleg is found dead in his trailer and Irving asks Dick to take Oleg’s place for that night’s performance - but this fic isn’t dark and gloomyTM , so everyone is alive and well here :) and the Zitka hug is also from the same issue (funnily enough, the elephant in A Lonely Place of Dying is not named Zitka, but Elinor - the elephant in Dick’s origin story from Batman: Year Three (Batman #436) is also named Elinor... - I guess the name changed due to Zitka from the Batman: The Animated Series’ episode “Robin’s Reckoning”, which aired in 1993? (”Robin’s Reckoning” is also an insanely good two-part episode I can’t recommend enough - it didn’t win an Emmy for nothing!) Anyways, both Batman #436 and New Titans #60 came before that, in 1989... Personally, I prefer the name Zitka... how about you?

Batgirl: Year One #1: Babs is enrolled in a jujutsu class under a sensei named "Dragoncat" in this issue

Barbara doing gymnastics is something I burrowed from Batman: The Animated Series' episode "Shadow of the Bat" (Barbara's first introduction as Batgirl; in the beginning of the episode we see her practicing gymnastics) and from the The Batman's episode "Batgirl Begins, Part 1" (you can see Barbara on a balancing beam in a picture on her nightstand in that episode)

#dickbabs #dickbabs fanfiction #dickbabs fanfic #barbara gordon #dick grayson #I write sometimes #my fics: Partners

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spicynbachili1 · 5 years

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