Shadow Puppets AU - Watching the sunrise
Astrophel dreamed of being free, of traveling the cosmos again and bringing Philip and who he assumed was Caleb with him. It was hard to tell who the third person was, but if it was not Caleb he certainly had no clue who else it could be. He knew this was just a dream and not a glimpse of the future because his futuresight never showed him his own future. But Astrophel would be lying to say that this was not the future that he wanted and he awoke feeling both sad and angry that this vision was nothing more than a dream.
"Philip?" He called, not knowing whether or not his friend was still nearby. One thing he could see was the sun coming up.
It was just a sliver of light on the horizon not even big enough to brighten the world yet, but it was the most beautiful thing that Astrophel had seen in a long time. "Philip! Look, the sun's waking up!" He exclaimed!
Philip wasn't there. He had awoken a few minutes before the Collector, with a gnawing emptiness that had him shambling around for something to fill it. He was in a near mindless state, and had briefly picked up the Amulet to attempt to devour the soul trapped within, but set it back down a moment later; a power far greater than his own kept him from reaching inside.
He could smell the collection of Palismen he kept in his cave and crawled back inside, smashing and cutting open a few to feed upon until Philip regained his senses enough to stop. Left to its own devices, the Wendigo would eat its way through the entire supply of Palismen within a matter of hours, when it had taken Philip months to gather these reserves.
Back in his own mind, he concentrated hard to regain his human shape, just in time to hear Astrophel calling out to him. Something about the sun waking up. A rather adorable way to refer to the sunrise. Philip stepped out to pick the Amulet back up and put it around his neck.
"It's a beautiful morning." He said, a rare compliment he could give this rotten world, "The sunrise almost looks the same as home." His chest felt heavy for a moment as a wave of homesickness passed through him...
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i’m sure someone on here has said this before, but i think cis tiktok really took “feminine in a masculine way” and ran with it without realizing that the appeal of being feminine in a masculine way to genderqueer people, especially afab genderqueer people, isn’t just looking hot or whatever. it’s specifically the discordance of being perceived as masculine and performing femininity.
Like, you see cis women on tiktok with the caption “trying to be feminine in a masculine way!” and then they’ll wear these super femmey suits with their hair back and like. that’s cool i guess? i’m glad you feel confident. but the angst that genderqueer people feel over wanting to be feminine in a masculine way is derived from how this feeling almost seems like an impossible goal. like, femininity is standard for women, so when people perceive you as a woman and you dress feminine there’s no perceived deviance at all. you’re just dressing and acting like how a woman should, according to the audience of people who see you on the street. The part you feel that you lack when you say ‘in a masculine way’ is the part where your femininity gets to be nonstandard.
there’s almost a kind of grossness to when cis men in particular do femininity. it ranges at times from “haha ironic comedy, isn’t it so WEIRD and WACKY when men wear skirts???” gross to something almost demonic (like how men wearing makeup were treated at the height of the satanic panic). there’s like, falseness. like the femininity is separate from you somehow, as a facade, and that there’s some kind of clash between the femininity and the person underneath. and i’m not saying those are good things- the opposite, it’s really, really bad that we treat gender deviance this way. but the longing for this experience as an afab genderqueer person is the longing to exist in a role that is non-normative without sacrificing the things we love about femininity, and to be able to be feminine without having that related back to some quintessential nature of your gender as determined by broader society. I honestly feel like Natalie Wynn described this really well when she said that for her, as a woman, there’s no “de-dragging” where the womanhood falls away from her and she ceases to be feminine in a way that a drag queen might after a performance is over. I think what genderqueer people want when they want to be feminine in a masculine way is to have that ability, to have their femininity be a costume that they can take off at will.
anyways all this to say that i don’t think cosplaying as modcloth-workwear girlboss is going to help me achieve my gender euphoria goal of old church ladies sneering at me in derision every time i wear a dress. although honestly that is a great idea for a drag queen character
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i like the idea that bruce just shows up to league meetings with his birds with absolutely no explanation offered
i mean this man frequently stalks his coworkers and knows everything that's happening in their personal lives and i think he'd forget that HE is the weird one for doing it and not everybody automatically knows when he's acquired a new child
so he just shows up at the watchtower with a new bird and literally says nothing about it . just sits at his chair with the latest robin standing next to him and literally doesn't acknowledge that anything is different and it gets even more confusing when they change their costumes and names 😭
like
20-something bruce: and containing this may be a matter of-flash did you have a question
barry: uh. yeah. sorry, what is that?
20-something bruce: (glancing at 9 yr old dick who has been next to him for 45 minutes) that's robin. obviously. as i was saying,
-
early 30s bruce, who hasn't shown up with a robin for a few years, entering with a nightwing and a jason todd robin:
barry:
diana:
hal:
j'onn:
bruce: what.
hal:
hal: do you like clone them or
-
mid 30s bruce, quietly talking with a clearly-not-sixteen-years-old robin in the corner after being without one for two years:
hal:
diana:
barry:
j'onn:
clark:
bruce:
tim:
bruce: this one followed me
-
late 30s bruce zeta-beaming in with a nightwing, a slightly older robin, and an absolutely BUILT man in a red hood:
barry: did you hire a bodyguard
bruce: no.
barry: whos mr red over there
bruce: you don't remember my second one???
barry:
hal:
diana:
j'onn:
clark:
barry: did. did that one not die
jason: got better
-
later 30s bruce, quietly showing around a blonde robin:
hal:
bruce: don't ask.
hal: i didn't say anything
-
40 yr old bruce, making intense, unbroken eye contact with a black shadow:
clark, leaning over to talk to tim: what are they doing
tim, not looking up from his fancy ipad: do i look like i know that
-
red robin popping in unnanounced in the middle of a league meeting: batman is alive.
barry: who the FUCK are you???
-
batman, some minutes later, trailed by what is CLEARLY a new robin: did red robin happen to pass through here????
barry: i have several questions
-
no-longer-lost-in-the-time-stream bruce, talking to batgirl, black bat, and the signal:
hal: did you get three more.
bruce: no. just one.
hal: i shouldn't have asked, my bad
-
mid 40s bruce wayne, stepping out of the zeta tube: sorry i'm late
diana: not to worry. let's get start-
bruce: i have a few more coming behind me
zeta tube: 🌀🌀🌀
jason: hi
cass: 👋
diana:
diana: ok should we st-
zeta tube: 🌀🌀🌀
dick, holding damian like a scowling, sopping wet cat: bruce he's not feeling polite today
damian: HISSS
bruce: okay does he need to go back?
dick: he said he's fine but hes just not feeling polite
diana:
diana: is that the las-
zeta tube: 🌀🌀🌀
steph: b i need a hair tie
diana:
diana: so can-
zeta tube: 🌀🌀🌀
duke: b did i miss rolecall
diana: no, signal, you did not. let's-
zeta tube: 🌀🌀🌀
tim: b alf is mad at you
bruce: why
hal: it's like a fucking clown car
steph: you didn't eat breakfast
tim: you didn't eat breakfast either
steph: shut.
damian: HISSSS
jason: wing. if you do not keep that brat quiet-
dick: hes a BABY!!!!!
duke: you didn't eat breakfast either, timothy
jason: hes a BITCH!!!!!
tim: who the fuck told you????
cass: :)
hal: (storming off, in tears), YOU HAVE TOO MANY CHILDREN.
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