the problem is that being single is seen as the consolidation prize, and not the natural neutral state of being-a-person. at the end of the movie or the book or the poetry, there is a person waiting for you at the altar, and they love you. if the play is a comedy, everyone gets married. the metaphor is about how you are not-whole. the metaphor is about how everyone is going to be happily-ever-after. the metaphor is that romantic love is the most important resource on the planet, not just all-love. all-love is not a thing, that is a disappointment. the treasure is not the friends we made along the way. the treasure is the girl you landed.
the metaphor is that you cannot be alone, that means you are broken. are you getting over someone? that is acceptable, you can be getting over someone, but not for long. you must be single because you would rather not be single. you must be single and looking to not-be-single. you must want to date, eventually.
friendship and community are never seen as being equal-to or even-better than romantic connection. that person is your one! you need to find them. you need to hunt through the sand particles until you can shift out some kind of gem. this is regardless to your own experience of the beach and the sun. you need to be somewhere with someone.
if you are taking this time alone to heal, that is so sad. everyone gives you this little pitying look. the understanding is that you are not actually happier than you were before you were single. it is seen as a sort of pity - oh, you are choosing yourself, making yourself the priority? - that isn't quite right. you must mean that you are making yourself ready for the right person. you are just laying the bed better this time. open up your heart. you'll find them, we promise!
what do you mean you're really-truly genuinely-very happy? you are probably misremembering what it was like to be in a relationship. and besides, once you meet your person, that time will look grey and bland and wasted. your person is the only way for you to see in color. so what if you have taken this time - for the first time in your entire life - to actually-for-real do the fucking work. you can be proud of yourself, sure. but the way we need to know that you got better is that you get a partner. you're healed enough for the next bad part!
people don't choose to be single, they just say they're choosing to be single - they actually mean "nobody wants to date me." it doesn't matter how many people you have gently rejected or how many times you've talked it over carefully in therapy. what matters is that you are single, and by all accounts - that means you are something worth our pity. your successes and life all seem pale in the sunlight. sure, you have done amazing things and finally found your way in life. what matters is that there wasn't a person in the room with you while you did it.
you want to tell them - that's the whole thing. i didn't know how to be alone in the room. i didn't know how to handle the silence. every moment was so sharp, and i kept choosing the wrong way to close the door. i have spent my entire life in the empty well, living in the ricochet of someone else's cruelty. for once i have built myself a ladder. for once everything i taste is all mine, every bite of sunshine and laughter. i have learned how to sleep out in the open with my memories. recently, they have started to purr.
your father rolls his eyes. listen. this isn't about you. i just want a grandchild in my future.
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Okay, so maybe Tim has no business being in Bludhaven. Tim maintains that since his parents fail at parenting, he can do whatever he wants.
Besides, it's for a good cause. Like, not letting Tarantula get her dirty hands on his big brother in another time line. Tarantula had popped up in the Bludhaven servers - by that, Tim means the endless amounts of threads and underground fronts for criminal activity that he stalks on a regular basis- by being seen with Nightwing. Tim had immediately booked a ride to Bludhaven and bought another burner. He'd try to take care of her himself, but if worse comes to worse, he'd call Deathstroke. He's totally aware of the weird tension Deathstroke has with Nightwing and Tim's kind of banking on that.
Dick's been back in Blud for two months now, Jason having assuaged his mother hen tendencies enough for Dick to get sick of the Manor. Tim hadn't meant to follow since he had plenty of projects to work on now that "SAVE JASON" wasn't blaring at the top of his head.
But then Tarantula appeared and Tim saw red, remembering the way Dick spoke about her and what she did to him.
He bids the driver goodbye. The driver doesn't question his being on his lonesome mainly because 1) Gothamites mind their own busines, 2) Tim gave him a $500 tip to make sure he remains a "good" Gothamite cabbie, and 3) Tim made sure he was dropped off in the swankiest, most ostentatious hotel Bludhaven had to offer.
"Rich people," the cab driver had muttered as Tim closed the door. Perfect.
Tim got his keycard, having checked in under Alvin Draper over the phone. Normally, they'd require an in person visit, but money talks. And people listened when Tim had a lot of things to say.
Tim even feels like he's trained enough to go out! Lady Shiva's training was ingrained into his memory, and Tim's built enough muscle to make use of some of it. He is still nine, after all. He's so much stealthier this time around. Plus, he's got almost his full tool set back. Sure, some of the tech is ancient, but he managed to finagle it to make grappling guns and smoke pellets more along the quality that he's used to.
Tim waits until nightfall, looping the surveillance around his window to mask his exit. Tim adjusts his domino, eyes scanning the city skyline as his handheld computer (god, he can't believe he has to invent wrist computers) tracked reports of Nightwing through Tweetings.
Ah. He's around Seventh. Tim grimaces as his untested joints adjusts to the grappling guns. His dark clothes make him hard to spot, to his advantage as he tracks down Nightwing.
Tim watches, perched on an adjacent roof as Nightwing takes down a crowd of goons with the flips Tim remembered watching from afar and up close in another timeline.
"Blockbuster'll kill everyone you love, Nightwing!"
Tim winces at the rather brutal crunch that followed, Nightwing having punched the guy and knocked him out in one move. He watches Dick sigh, tugging at his hair in stress.
Tim could... no, no. He shouldn't think of murder as a first option. Well, no, he shouldn't think of Deathstroke as a first option. But he'll need to take Blockbuster out before anything happens. And he needs to threaten the new Tarantula before anything happens. He won't allow her to even get close to Dick.
Maybe it's unfair to punish her for a crime she hasn't done, but unlike murder, rape can never be defended. Catalina Flores is a dead woman walking.
Tim stalks his big brother back home and then broke off to begin his short reign of terror over Bludhaven's underground. If he can't get Dick to take a break (and Tim's tried, a lot, over the years) then he'll make sure that the next month is as gentle as possible on his older brother.
Step 1. Murder Take care of Blockbuster
Step 2. Threaten Catalina Flores and her brother.
No. Wait. Tim has a better idea. He's got dirt on them, on top of the murder thing. He'll fabricate Catalina's tax returns, embezzle a shit ton of money from the IRS, and get her and her corrupt brother (because getting your sister out from murder charges is considered corrupt) arrested and locked away. And he'll make sure they stay locked away with some good old blackmail on Amanda Waller.
Tim grins, tranquilizing the building with an ungodly amount of knock out gas pellets, to riffle through the police precinct's files.
Step 2. Threaten Catalina Flores and her brother.
Step 2. Cripple Catalina Flores and her brother with blackmail and the IRS.
In three hours, Tim has everything he needs to begin a temporary hostile takeover. He's got the names of local mob bosses, the big players, and the names of practically every police officer that takes bribes and their... sponsors.
He'll have to cut off Blockbuster's lines of supplies first. Then, blacklist him from local suppliers, mobilize the police precinct against him (by imitating his M.O. perfectly- Tim's not a fucking amateur- and pretending to rob the precinct blind), and then break his knees.
Step 3. Profit
Tim takes out his shiny new burner phone, enjoying the loud sounds of the police squawking through his planted bugs. He lounges on the building next to it, keeping an eye out for Nightwing just in case the man decides to respond to the crisis.
[Unknown: It's RR.]
[Deathstroke: New phone?]
[RR: Who dis?]
[Deathstroke: What?]
[RR: Nevermind. I'll give you forty thousand to shoot someone's knees out.]
[Deathstroke:... That's it? Who?]
[RR: Blockbuster. Bludhaven. Extra twenty thousand if you tell him he's got the spine of a sea slug, kick him in the balls, and post it on Tweeting.]
[Deathstroke: What did he do to you? Deal.]
Tim ignored Deathstroke's question.
[RR: Half sent. Confirm?]
[Deathstroke: Confirmed. Timeline?]
[RR: Three weeks. 21 days.]
[Deathstroke: Confirmed.]
----
Tim grins ferally, all teeth as Catalina Flores looked on in horror at her computer screen.
"Get out of Bludhaven, and don't come back. If you even think of going near Nightwing, I will rip what's left of your pathetic, sniveling swine of a brother apart. You will not enjoy the consequences."
Tim clicks off, watching Catalina and her brother launch themselves into mad packing. He tapped out a short message to Amanda Waller for her and her team to intercept them at the state lines. They'll never get away from Tim's fury. Never.
[Waller: It's done.]
[Waller: I will find you.]
[RR: You can definitely try, Waller. Good doing business with you.]
Tim can see the blood vessel the woman popped after he sent that last message. He laughs.
He saves Deathstroke's video from Tweeting onto his actual, spoofed phone. He destroys the burner phone, less shiny now that he's dragged it through two and a half weeks of breaking heads and terrorizing the Bludhaven Underground. Nightwing hadn't even gotten a whiff of his activities, this Dick being far less experienced and known in this version of Blud.
One more week and Tim can continue his other projects.
----
Nightwing, going about his vigilante business: wow it sure is peaceful
Feral Tim Drake, Nightwing's scary dog privilege: try me, bitch
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MCYT BLOGS: PLEASE READ
hi :) TL:DR please stop posting mcyt content in the #minecraft and the #mineblr tags.
long explanation under the cut
#minecraft and #mineblr are for minecraft content. this is anything from modded, to builds, to OCs, to art. it's about the game at its core.
if you post about minecraft content creation, please do not post in these tags. please. you have your own selection of tags to post in — mcyt i believe is an umbrella category for all minecraft content creation, and sub tags, like creator names and actual SMPs exist also.
they are, at the end of the day, two different fandoms with different sub-fandoms, and mcyt is bigger and louder and (sorry) more annoying. if you're a twitter/reddit refugee and genuinely didn't know this, fair! please just cut the tags out. if you just don't care about it and want more reach you're a dick, and if it's something you've forgotten about then please start doing it again <3
i realise it's maybe hypocritical of me to put this in your tags btw but it's you guys i'm talking to. so.
this is what drove me and many other people out of mineblr and y'know. it's got to the point where minecraft is no longer an umbrella tag, but a completely different fandom, and i'd appreciate if people would treat it as such!
and then there's the even deeper rabbit hole of the fact that some mcyt content is. eh. uncomfortable. and there's people who post shipping content in mcyt and you guys get annoyed! because it's completely different content! and it's the same thing here — we don't care about mcyt because it's not relevant.
keep them separate, please. and if you're posting to minecraft because it's a big tag with more exposure then your brain has been fried by twitter and you sound insufferable
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