Fae! Adjacent Danny, adjacent bc I’m really tired and can’t remember all of the rules.
Even before he died, there was something off an out Danny. It’s why his bullies existed, and why his friends were so loyal.
Danny was fae. Kind of. Different, to say the least. Those who fit in instinctually felt a sense of weirdness, of a just barely there shiver. Those who were outcasts loved it.
It stands to reason that when Danny moved to Gotham, everyone and their goddamn cousins loved him. Gotham was made of misfits, and Danny was one of their own.
A boy who could have been his own brother walked into his store. Danny glanced up at the slight ting of the doorbell. A head full of fluffy black hair, eyes bluer than the skies, and a camera hanging its heavy weight against the boy’s neck.
The boy glanced down at the circle- the very obvious circle- Danny made of polished stones and gems that was placed on the side of the counter.
The boy looked at him, nerves apparent in his posture, and stepped into the circle. Danny straightened. Ah, a customer.
“I came here to make a deal.”
“I see. And what is it that you desire?”
The boy puffed up and handed Danny a written contract.
“The full and complete revival of one Jason Peter Todd, buried at Gotham Memorial on lot #537.”
Danny glanced through the contract. It was as foolproof as possible.
“Very clever. But you’ve forgotten something.”
“What?”
Danny smiled a small eldritch thing at the boy. “There is always a price, little sparrow.”
“I’ll pay it.” The boy said.
“And what if what I want…” Danny placed a thumb under the boy’s eyes. He must learn not to be going around and making deals with beings like Danny. “Are your eyes?”
The boy trembled.
“You can have them in exchange for the contents… the contents of that paper being completed.”
“And what if what I want is… your full name?”
A terrible price. Once you gave people like him your name, you could never come back.
The boy closed his eyes. “Okay. Okay. You can-” the boy opened those eyes again and looked at Danny with determination. “But only after you complete the tasks.l
Danny wasn’t fae. He was almost one, yes, but he was always a little more human than the rest of his kind. It made him gentle. To them, it made him weak. The fae are rarely ever kind, and Danny was made of kindness.
“This price, I will not take it from you.” Danny raised a palm when the boy made to protest. “Instead, it will be taken from your… brother himself, for that will be the nature of his revival.”
“Are you sure you don’t want my name? Or- or something?”
Danny smiled.
“Not while you are within my circle, little sparrow.”
“Why do you call me that?”
Danny smirked. “One day, I might even tell you. For now, we will complete your contract. The price…”
The boy tensed up.
Danny pointed at the camera. “The price will be that camera. You may keep the pictures.”
“Deal.” The boy’s face lit up. Danny grinned with a bit with too much teeth.
“We have a deal.” And Danny released the boy with his- no, with Danny’s- camera from the circle. When he stumbled out of it, Danny gestured to the door, and flicked the switch that connected to the sign, turning it from Open to Closed.
“Lead the way, little Sparrow.”
The boy stared at him… then stuck his hand out.
“I’m Tim.”
Danny laughed. “I’m Danny. Don’t go making deals with people like me if you can help it, kid.”
1K notes
·
View notes
this particular corner of the discourse is always a hot mess because all the following are true at once:
some Jewish people absolutely call any criticism of the State of Israel or support for Palestinians antisemitic
some people who are already deeply antisemitic use Palestinian liberation as a fig leaf so they can say and do horrible things they wanted to say and do anyway
(a non-zero number of these people also hate Palestinians and would love nothing more than to see both communities turn on each other and destroy each other forever)
antisemitism is deeply woven into Western culture and many people who are not particularly consciously antisemitic can stumble into antisemitic rhetoric if they're not careful
like so many -isms, part of how antisemitism functions is dismissing any Jewish claims of antisemitism as overblown/hysterical/not real/unimportant
some Jewish people very much do want to shift the conversation to focus on antisemitism specifically so people talk and think less about Palestinian liberation
so at the same time, you have an uptick in genuine antisemitism, some of which is heartfelt and some of which is accidental (which, imo, require different responses — treating someone accidentally reflects back our culture's ambient subtextual antisemitism like a committed neo-Nazi is usually counterproductive, and vice versa), and also an uptick in people drawing attention to antisemitism, by which some of them mean genuine anti-Jewish stuff and some of them mean anything that isn't full support for the political agenda of a specific state, and all of these people are using essentially the same words to mean very different things and round and round the discourse wheel spins and it is just generally a miserable time for all involved
2K notes
·
View notes