#the face and the mind. or something

[commander-spaceboy]

UTA

[lazylittledragon]

she's a terror. obviously

[willosword]

Fake, facsimile, forgery.

[strawbyarts]

at least they have each other

[slavhew]

two guys enter a closet

[starry-bi-sky]

no thoughts head empty de-aged blood blossom danny

if ONLY because i was at work yesterday out in the play yard and one of the babies from the one year old room walked up to me, held up her arms and went "up. up" and i caved like a wet fucken nOODLE and im inflicting that onto Bruce

so im just picturing like, roughly 18mo Danny, just absolutely teeny, walking up to Bruce in the Batman suit, grabbing his cape and pulling on it to get his attention or plastering himself to the side of his legs (<- real experience i've had) and when Bruce looks down at him Danny just goes "Bah-man, bah-man. Up."

and im teLLING YOU. Bruce would cave in a fucking heartbeat.

or if he crouches down, Danny will just crawl onto him anyways. wraps both arms around his neck and tries to raise his leg over his knee so he can wrap himself around his waist (<- ALSO A REAL EXPERIENCE I'VE HAD)

also he can't fully articulate himself yet, he doesn't have all of his teeth quite yet and phonetics are harD, so he can't say Bruce it just sounds like "boo" or "booce" like 'boost' but without the 't'.

[mightypurpurea]

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The musical episode.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[salamispots]

on to the next gift wip

[hyunpic]

daily gifs until hyune day: what can’t he do? — talented singer-songwriter, rapper, dancer, choreographer, producer, model. some other talents including: swimming, football, painting/drawing, pottery & photography: “the moment i realize, oh, i can love this too! my world expands. if i keep discovering new things that i enjoy, there’s no end to it. who knows? maybe three years from now, i’ll be completely obsessed with fishing. just imagine how happy i’d be watching the fish swimming in the water! thinking about what i might come to love in the future makes me look forward to tomorrow a little more”

[mournsblush]

EGO DEATH

[julyberet]

"don't think for a second that this guy next to me doesn't take preparation seriously"

...you know what, don't worry about it, based on that look i'm sure both of them are very diligent about it

[fatedroses]

He has, in fact, not had his coffee yet.

[bennetsbonnet]

Much has been made of Mr Darcy's "confession" to Elizabeth that he does not converse easily with strangers. It is repeatedly used to support neurodivergent interpretations of his character. And I suppose that when taken at face value, a character confessing that they do not easily converse with strangers and struggle to catch their tone or appear interested in conversation can absolutely scream AUTISM! (I say as an autistic person myself)

But this line is often taken in isolation. When considered in terms of the passage in which it appears in Chapter 31, it appears far less of a smoking gun than may initially be suspected. After some discussion about Elizabeth and Darcy's prior acquaintance in Hertfordshire, Colonel Fitzwilliam asks Elizabeth for information about Darcy's behaviour there. She readily supplies it:

'Pray let me hear what you have to accuse him of,' cried Colonel Fitzwilliam. 'I should like to know how he behaves among strangers.' 'You shall hear then—but prepare yourself for something very dreadful. The first time of my ever seeing him in Hertfordshire, you must know, was at a ball—and at this ball, what do you think he did? He danced only four dances, though gentlemen were scarce; and, to my certain knowledge, more than one young lady was sitting down in want of a partner. Mr Darcy, you cannot deny the fact.' 'I had not at that time the honour of knowing any lady in the assembly beyond my own party.'

What Darcy leaves out here is that it was he himself who chose not to be introduced to anybody. As we learn from the description of his behaviour at the Meryton assembly in Chapter 3:

Mr Darcy danced only once with Mrs Hurst and once with Miss Bingley, declined being introduced to any other lady, and spent the rest of the evening in walking about the room, speaking occasionally to one of his own party.

Anyway, Elizabeth correctly does not buy his excuses. Not only does she respond with a cutting sarcastic remark, but she tries to bring the discussion with an end by speaking to Colonel Fitzwilliam:

'True; and nobody can ever be introduced in a ball-room. Well, Colonel Fitzwilliam, what do I play next? My fingers wait your orders.'

But Darcy does not get the hint and continues conversing with Elizabeth rather than quitting while he's ahead. However, I don't believe him to be missing a social cue here. Rather, this is an exceedingly conceited man who cannot conceive that anyone would not want to speak to such a Superior Being as he and more-so, is determined to defend himself from a perceived slight against his impeccable character.

Then we come to the passage containing the oft-cited line which allegedly contains proof of his neurodivergency:

'Perhaps,' said Darcy, 'I should have judged better, had I sought an introduction; but I am ill-qualified to recommend myself to strangers.' 'Shall we ask your cousin the reason of this?' said Elizabeth, still addressing Colonel Fitzwilliam. 'Shall we ask him why a man of sense and education, and who has lived in the world, is ill-qualified to recommend himself to strangers?' 'I can answer your question,' said Fitzwilliam, 'without applying to him. It is because he will not give himself the trouble.'

Once again, Elizabeth does not buy his excuse for even a single second. She's fully aware of all the advantages a man such as he will have received in society (opportunities not open to women, might I add!) and draws attention to that fact. It's a brilliant, cutting line from her and she really set that one up for Colonel Fitzwilliam to deliver the knockout blow.

Not only do we have the testimony of Mr Darcy's cousin, that 'he will not give himself the trouble,' to appear cordial to strangers, but we have evidence from Wickham too. Although after this statement, Wickham quickly goes onto misrepresent Darcy's kindness to the poor, which contradicts Mrs Reynold's later testimony, I do believe Wickham to be telling the truth (for once!) here, when he tells Elizabeth in Chapter 16:

'Mr Darcy can please where he chooses. He does not want abilities. He can be a conversible companion if he thinks it worth his while.'

Which, again, demonstrates that Darcy is capable when he wants to be. That is the crucial point. Autistic people fundamentally lack the ability to understand social cues, they cannot turn it on and off as they please because they are snobs.

So, now we come to the infamous line about Darcy's supposed social struggles, and I hope that I've provided enough context to the line to make you see that it should not be taken at face value:

'I certainly have not the talent which some people possess,' said Darcy, 'of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.' 'My fingers,' said Elizabeth, 'do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women’s do. They have not the same force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault—because I will not take the trouble of practising. It is not that I do not believe my fingers as capable as any other woman’s of superior execution.'

Again, Elizabeth is not buying his excuses for even a single second and tells him if he feels like that, maybe he should put the effort in. She has seen him in numerous social settings and been thoroughly unimpressed with his behaviour which, when you consider his rudeness to her at the Meryton assembly, she has every right to be.

So, what do I make of the line?

Well, I think it's abundantly clear that Darcy absolutely can speak to people when he wants to. Perhaps, in his mind, he struggles to make that deeper connection and make friends easily. But making friends is not always easy, it's a process you must invest time and effort into. If you do not do that, it stands to reason that you will struggle. Plus, if you hold others to ridiculous standards (as Darcy does) without recognising and fixing the flaws within yourself, you're not going to have deep, lasting friendships.

While this quote may appear to be a moment of vulnerability where he does confess a fault of his, which is astounding given his pride, personally I do not think it was not a soul-searching exercise. It was to make Elizabeth stop grilling him. It was self-serving. Although, I don't think he's entirely lying. Darcy is veeeery careful with his words and though this statement is not considered and perhaps comes out rather abruptly, it doesn't necessarily follow that it isn't true. I can imagine that it is probably something he's felt for a while, yet it is a rather desperate attempt to defend himself from a woman who sees right through him.

I think perhaps Darcy does realise that he isn't as naturally gifted as other men he knows (such as Wickham, Colonel Fitzwilliam and Mr Bingley) when it comes to forming acquaintances. However, he looks outwards and turns that bitterness against the world rather than looking inwards, reflecting upon himself and improving his manners which would be the correct thing to do. Thankfully, he later does this, but it took him twenty eight years...

In addition, Darcy appeared to have been under the illusion that he could coast by on Pemberley's reputation... which has always worked... until he met Elizabeth. For perhaps the first time, he encounters a woman who is not awestruck by him and his reputation and delivers the rebuke that he always needed.

So, while personally I'm inclined to believe there is some truth to his statement, as Mr Darcy is many things but he isn't a liar, I think it is said in desperation. His feeling stems from him knowing what he should do, but he can't be bothered to enact it... rather than any inherent social deficiency stemming from being neurodivergent.

Although, even if he does struggle socially, it's still no excuse for the rudeness he displayed to Elizabeth! My main issue with neurodivergent readings of Darcy is when they are deployed to defend his behaviour, when they attribute his rudeness to any potential neurodivergency and when they excuse his laziness. That is an awful message! Autistic people who struggle with social cues often do not, nor should they, go around insulting others. They should and often do put plenty of effort into being considerate and polite. In fact, I think, if anything, a love of rules makes us more likely to have good manners, rather than the reverse.

Ultimately, I'm not sure this line makes Mr Darcy the sympathetic-poor-sweet-innocent-shy-boy-autistic-representation that people want him to be. In fact it makes him look even worse, if anything. On matters such as these, he is every inch the conceited proud man he was widely believed to be at the Meryton assembly. Luckily, Elizabeth is an incredibly smart woman, who doesn't fall for it and immediately calls him out on his behaviour in a way that he has never experienced before. As she should!

[turtleblogatlast]

I adore the idea of Leo developing a love for glam rock not only because he likes the music but also because of how many glam rock bands had vibrant and extravagant eye makeup - looks that his own red stripes were right at home with.

Like just imagine a little Leo rifling through his dad’s music and choosing to vibe with glam rock specifically because he was like “:0! Like me!:)”

[spacedace]

Still thinking about the Social Worker Jazz concept that @gilbirda posted about and it's slowly turning into a full Anger Management fic send help

-

Jason at length - much longer than it really should have taken really - set the resume down.

The new Social Worker’s resume. Because she was there, in his office, trying to convince him to hire her as a member of his criminal organization.

Crime Alley’s new social worker. A bright eyed Midwestern transplant from some tiny speck of a place that only qualified as a city because there was nothing bigger in a hundred miles in any direction to claim otherwise. The new social worker who had a Psy D. and three masters degrees and who had graduated Valedictorian. The one that had high paying private gigs lined up all over the country with the offering companies fighting over her.

The one who had, apparently, decided to take a shit job in Gotham’s shoddy social services department instead. The one that got kicked to Crime Alley - which was its own division despite technically being a small neighborhood in the grand scheme of things - within her first month. Supposedly for the sole purpose of scaring her off or getting her killed for all the questions she was asking and secret dealings she was sticking her nose into.

That social worker.

“I’m gonna need you to run this by me again.” Jason said, never so grateful for the voice modulator in his helmet as he was in that moment. It stripped out the bewilderment that had bled through into his words and made him sound stoic instead.

“I’d like to work for you.” The social worker - one Dr. Jasmine Nightingale - repeated primly. Back straight, clothes neat - if skewing more on the librarian side of professional - expression confident and hopeful. Completely and utterly oblivious of how fucking insane she sounded. “I was told that you’re the person in charge of Crime Alley.”

He resisted the urge to scrub at his face. It’d just look weird with his helmet on and not do anything to actually settle him in that moment anyway. “I understood that part.”

“Look, Doc,” She earned a doctorate and she was crazy enough to waltz into the office of one of Gotham’s most powerful Crime Lords, he’d be respectful about using her proper title at least, even if he suspected she was ten pounds of crazy in a five pound bag. “You’re going to have to tell me why. I was under the impression the only reason you ended up dumped on our end of the city ws because you wouldn’t play ball. But now you want to sign up for my crew?”

Nightingale frowned a little at that.

“Is that what people are saying?”

“What else are they gonna say?” Jason answered, leaning back in his seat, “Head of the department only dumps Crime Alley on folks he don’t like. And everyone knows he doesn’t like anyone that can’t or won’t play his game by his rules.”

“Alright, well. I’ll give you that.” Nightingale conceded, “Payne doesn’t like me. The feeling’s mutual. But for the record,” She added giving him a wry smile, as if sharing wry smiles with Red Hood was just something people did, “I asked to be assigned to the Park Row and Bowery neighborhoods.”

“You wanted to work here.”

“Yes.”

“Bullshit.”

Nightingale laughed. It was a bright sound. Not especially clear or pretty, but warm and welcoming in a way that carefully calculated giggles or overdone guffaws couldn’t be. Something with real and honest amusement in it, that encouraged those nearby to laugh along. Not the kind of involuntary, nervous chuckling people tended to slip into when they thought they had pissed someone that scared them off.

She just wasn’t intimidated by him at all, was she?

Behind his helmet, Jason found himself smiling. Just a bit.

“I’m serious.” She assured, blue-green eyes meeting the dark stare of his helmet without a moment of hesitation. He watched as she brushed a lock of her bright red hair behind her ear and out of the way. She’d woven it all into a practical, neat braid but a few sly pieces had snuck out to bounce around her. Gilding her quiet professionalism with a playful charm that worked well with her academia but make it cottagecore kindergarten teacher aesthetic.

“I’ll admit, Gotham wasn’t part of my plan when I first graduated. Time and choices take you funny places sometimes.” She plucked an invisible bit of lint off her soft blue cardigan, not nervous but absent as her gaze went distant for a moment. Thinking back on the events that had led her to his fine city. In a blink, those sharp eyes were back to focusing entirely on him. “But Gotham is where I am now, and I want to help.”

She looked at him, a serious, determined expression settling easily on her face. “The city as a whole has so much chaos and crime breaking out all the time.” No censure or horror in her voice, just a neutral fact to be observed. “But where the rest of the city has millions of dollars poured into it by various foundations or charities run by the Waynes, Park Row is largely ignored.”

Jason watched as steeliness sharpened her gaze, the blue-green shifting from the shine of a bird’s wing to the warning hue of something poisonous and deadly. “No one deserves that. No one.” Her chin tilted up, proud but not imperious. “So yes, I want to work here. There are people in Park Row and the Bowery who need help and I refuse to let any of them feel like they are going to be ignored.”

Jason considered her.

Really looked at her. Pealing back his initial off handed impression of her as some clueless transplant in over her head with no idea of what she was doing or what she was poking her nose into to find the real woman beneath. Her confident poise, her clear unshakable belief, her unflinching willingness to look danger in the eye and not blink. The tense curve of her frown, the lines of pain at the corners of her eyes, the simmering anger beneath it all. There was an edge to her, too. Something sharp and dangerously well hidden by the cardigan and folksy charm of her accent.

It was personal for the woman before him, Jason realized. Maybe not Crime Alley specifically, but something about the whole situation. The treatment the neighborhood and its residents received from the city at large, from those even beyond it.

Crime Alley wasn’t a place that received much in the way of charitable thought. The average joe with their house in Somerset and job at some corporate shithole hating every second of their life but thinking at least I don’t live in Crime Alley. Those asshole hoity-toites in city hall throwing money around equally between shit that’d get them re-elected and their off-shore slush funds in the Caymens doing their damn level best to pretend the black mark on the other end of the city just didn’t exist. Bruce, flooding the entire city with charitable programs and carefully constructed infrastructures shying away from the manifested grief and trauma that was the place he watched his parents get murdered.

For the most part no one from outside of the Alley gave a shit about the Alley other than as a place to avoid at all costs. And most of the time those natives that manages to claw their way out into better and brighter lives didn’t ever turn to glance back. Orpheus could have learned a thing or to from an ex-Alley Kid who managed to eek out a steady 9-to-5 and move to Burnley.

And something about that seemed to piss Dr. Jasmine Nightingale Psy. D right the fuck off.

He could see why Bill said he liked her enough to let her in.

“Alright.” He said, tilting his head, watching the woman seated across from him carefully, “Still doesn’t explain what you’re doing here. Why you’re trying to get on my payroll.”

“I’m not trying to get on your payroll.” She said, some of the glinting edge softening, but the steel remaining. Strong and unyielding. “I’m trying to get into your community outreach program.”

Jason thanked god and all the saints once again for the gift of his helmet. That baby had saved his ass more times than he could count both by keeping his head in one piece and keeping his stupefied expressions wrapped up and hidden from view. Dr. Nightingale was one hell of a woman to make him have to rely on that fact twice in one conversation.

“Wasn’t aware that was something I had.”

Nightingale, not fortunate enough to have a full face covering helmet of her own, had nothing to hide her stupefied expression behind. Jason had a feeling she might have removed it to make sure he saw even if she did though. She looked like she had caught him eating glue like it was a cheese stick.

“Yes you do.” She said, sounding deeply confused but unshakable confident in what she was saying. “I’ve seen it. The soup kitchens, the shelters, the collection boxes for donating old clothes, the after school day care.” Nightingale ticked off on her fingers, “I’ve lived here for less than two weeks and I’ve lost count of all the things I’ve seen setup to help people struggling in the area that I’ve been very reliably informed you and your organization are behind.”

Oh.

Those.

“Those aren’t part of some community outreach program.” He said, “We are simply locals offering services for our neighbors.”

He watched as her caught-him-eating-glue expression shifted into one that said she’d stumbled upon him licking electrical sockets for a mid-day pick-me-up instead. He had to give it to her, the woman was not afraid to let one of the most dangerous men in the city know she thought he was a fucking idiot.

“Let me see if I understand this right.” She said, and he appreciated that there wasn’t any kind of condescension in her voice, even though she very clearly thought he’d been dropped on his head as a baby. Possibly from the top of a three story building. “You have a large group of people working together to plan, organize and execute multiple services in your area - your community, if you will - that provide aid and support to those that otherwise would not receive it. Reaching out with your available time and resources to offer these services, that you provide. For free.”

Alright, Jason got it. He had stumbled ass backwards into creating a community outreach program. But he wasn’t just going to let her think she won this one. He was Red Hood, he had a reputation to uphold here.

“What makes you think any of that is free?” He tilted his head at just the right angle, the one that cast shadows across the planes of his helmet and made him look hell-touched and terrifying. “Just because we don’t charge money, doesn’t mean there isn’t a price to pay.”

Dr. Nightingale, dressed like a damn kindergarten teacher, laughed at him.