#in love with the mess that al is

[agena87]

Around 5AM, on a nearly full moon night, Al, heavily alcoholized (as he always is nowadays), stumbles back on the farm and runs into his farm hand, Shawn, who is just starting his day work.

S: Hey, Monsieur Dubois, I didn't know you went out. A, his words slurred by the alcohol, tiredness, and meds: Went to the club. Was bored. S: No one interesting? I see you're returning alone. A, smirking lazily: Not any more, am I? And what a beautiful sight to come back to.

Al, slightly unstable on his feet, comes to stand right in Shawn's space.

A: Wanna help a lonely soul? S: Always happy to help, Monsieur Dubois. A: Um... (crouches a little and starts kissing his farm hand's naked torso, going lower and lower, until he is on his knees) So delicious.

After Al finishes opening the fly of his jeans, Shawn stops him, both hands softly cupping his boss's face.

S: Monsieur Dubois?

Al looks up at the younger man, surprised by the interruption.

A: Wha'? S: You don't have to do that, I should be the one taking care of you. A, drunkenly giggling: Such a nice boy. I don't deserve it. Nah. Wanna do that. Need to be the one making you feel good. S: Monsieur Dubois, I meant to say it, I... A: Oh, oh... no. Don't go there. S: Please, Mo... A, interrupting, in a soft but firm voice: No. Stop it. Please. S, sighing: Can I, at least, say that you are beautiful? A: You can. But I won't believe you. S: You are, though. So, so beautiful. Very pretty. A: Am not. I'm hideous, why else would... Never mind. I'm not.

Shawn bows down, and softly, tenderly, kisses Al.

S: You're gorgeous, Monsieur Dubois. And I love you. A: ...I told you to not say that. If I ever hear you say that again, you're fired. I don't want anything to do with... that word. Not ever again. S: But... A: No "buts". Well, except mine if you're lucky. Now, let me take care of you. S: Whatever you want or need, Monsieur Dubois.

---

Bonus:

Niiiiice.

[spacedace]

Had an idea, thought I'd make it a prompt, 3k+ words later realized this wasn't a prompt anymore but a ficlet 🙃

Anyway, here's the first almost 2k of Talia being a good parent and deciding to not go with either Bruce or Ra's and go off and do her own thing and raise Damian and oops she got attached to Jason while checking in on Bruce and saved him from dying in Ethiopia. & now has 2 sons lol

-

When her Beloved and her father demanded Talia make a choice, of who she would choose, she didn't hesitate.

She chose neither of them. She chose her child. She chose herself.

Outwitting both Ra's al Ghul and Batman was no simple feat. They were both brilliant, relentless and with endless resources at their command. It was why their clashes were as devastating as they were. Immovable objects and unstoppable forces the both of them. If there was something they wanted, it was something they would have.

But not her.

They would not have her.

She had her own networks, her own people, her own keen intelligence and sharp cunning. It took time - time she really didn't have - and a great deal of pain and loss, but she slipped them eventually. Shrugged off the shroud of who she had been - who she was made to be - and stepped confidently into her new life.

Her son was born nine days after her freedom had finally, fully been assured.

He was small and perfect in every way. Soft and warm cradled close to her chest, unblemished by the cruelty of the world as he slept soundly in her arms. Even as exhausted as she was after such a long labor, she couldn't bring herself to sleep. Her attention narrowed down entirely on his every quiet breath, his downy soft hair, his round peaceful face.

In the weeks that followed his eyes would shift and change from a newborn's blue to her own green. It would take years before she could know if he inherited any of his father's features, but that was fine. He was hers and hers alone.

She named him Damian.

In another life she would name him with her father in mind. That her son would rise as Heir to the Demon and conquer the world. That he'd stand as ruler of all.

In this one, she named him with hope in her heart that what he would master was his own life. That he would never be forced to bow to the will of anyone else. To be made to act as servant or puppet. Let him tame his fate into something good and kind and happy.

She did her best to give him the life he deserved.

Lavished him with all her love and affection. Gave him everything he could ever want or need. The friends she began making for herself - not just trusted allies, but friends - laughed that she would spoil him rotten. It was probably true, but she didn't have it in her to care.

Her son would have the childhood he would have been denied if raised raised in the home of either of their fathers. Her father would have demand harsh lessons and frightened obedience and impossible standards. Damian's would have tried - she knew her Beloved would have tried - but his heart would always be for his city first and all else, even his children, second.

Talia kept tabs on both of them, covertly. Ensured she always kept a healthy distance from anything that involved her father or his people. Gathered stories of her Beloved's exploits to share with her son when he was old enough to hear them.

It gave her insight on just what choosing her Beloved would have meant. Reassured her that while not choosing her father had been the right choice, choosing her Beloved would have been the wrong one.

Bruce Wayne was a good man. Brilliant and driven with his kind heart and admirable goals. Breathtaking in his skill and ability.

Disappointing in his parenting skills.

Talia knew she was lacking as a parent herself. That her own upbringing had left its scars and that try as she might she'd undoubtedly end up doing the same to her own child over the years. But she always pushed herself hard towards improving, in making herself better for the tiny boy that she loved more than anything else. And she felt satisfied that in the very least that when presented with options on how her and her son's life would be, she'd made the one that was best for Damian.

Not the life of an assassin or a vigilante, but the life of a child.

A child who was taught some of the skills of both the worlds she'd turned her back on, admittedly, but only ever for his own protection. Damian was safer knowing how to hide, how to escape, how to fight. She had done her best, but there was always the looming threat that they might be found one day. She needed to be sure he was ready, if that time ever come.

She didn't teach him the way she was taught.

When her son fumbled or failed she gently corrected him. Walked him through what he'd done wrong, how he could improve. Made a game out of the experience so that he came running up to her on toddling feet with bright eyes begging that they have a lesson. His excitement and delight in it all made him a better student then her fear and desperate need for her father's approval and affection.

There was a day she caught sight of him, all of four years old, tiny face scrunched in a look of concentration as he practiced the form she'd taught him the day before with his small, wooden practice sword. Some of his father's features lingered at the edges of his face, but he'd deepened his resemblance to her by picking up her mannerisms and expressions. Her son, going through the same steps and motions she had when she'd been his age, little body wobbling as he turned to fast before plopping on the ground with a tiny oof.

Talia had small silver scars on the back of her hands, so thin and so old as to nearly be invisible anymore. They burned all the same as she recalled herself stumbling in nearly the same way. Stomach churning as she remembered the terror she'd felt as her instructor had snatched her up by her hair and drug her over to a low table, holding her hands in place with a massive hand. The way she'd bit her lip hard enough that her mouth filled with blood as he struck her with the thin lash, knowing that if she cried the punishment would be all the worse.

Damian only blinked his big green eyes and scowled the same way she did whenever something of minor importance didn't go the way she wanted it to. Then he saw her standing there in the doorway watching him and his face lit up, bright as the son and just as beautiful as he jumped to his feet and darted over to her. Tiny hand clinging to the loose fabric of her pant leg as he begged her show me again Mama!

It was moments like that where she knew beyond any shadow of a doubt she'd made the right choice.

Her father would have broken her brilliant, kind hearted son. Would have done to him what was done to her to forge Damian into a weapon.

Her beloved...

He would never hurt her son like that. Not the way her father and his loyal followers would. But she couldn't ignore the fact that Damian would still be hurt all the same under his father's tutelage.

Talia knew the man she loved well. Adored his strengths, but was not blind to his flaws. He kept his heart well guarded, hidden behind imposing walls of silence and razor wire of words he didn't truly mean. Still kind, but horribly distant when it came to those he cared for most. It shielded him some, perhaps, but it left those who loved him feeling lost and alone.

She saw how Dick Grayson had grown over the years. Tall and clever and lonely and bitter. Fighting for independence, for acknowledgement, for his father to speak words of love and respect. Things Bruce felt but almost never said unless he thought things were dire.

She saw too how the heavy weight of her Beloved's priorities weighed up on his second son.

Young Jason Todd who saw magic in the harsh world he'd been drawn into and desired to be the protection for others that he never had growing up. She saw much of herself in him, though he faced the world with far more hope than she had at his age. He was a bright boy with a good heart that had weathered a harsh upbringing that Talia could sympathize with. There was a familiar anger in him too, broiling just beneath the surface, flaring up and burning him as much as everyone else when triggered.

Most of all though Talia could see the desperate loneliness that had marred her own life in the boy. The soul deep fear of abandonment. The painful desire for love from a father that always seemed to stay at arm's length who spoke rarely of affection and often of missions to be completed.

She kept a close eye on her Beloved's second Robin.

When he left for Ethiopia, searching for family in a stranger that had already given him up, she'd followed.

Jason only ever wanted family and love. A good boy, bright and fierce and brave. A boy Talia saw a lot of herself in, who faced the world with such determined brightness in spite of the pain and hardship he'd known.

Shelia Haywood took that boy that Talia had grown so fond of, took his trust and his love and crushed it beneath her heel. Callously handed him over to the Joker without a second thought. As if he was disposable, as if he was nothing more than a puppet to use and toss away when it suited her.

Talia had risked everything when she'd decided she would not choose either her father or her Beloved. She'd turned her back on her entire life, everything that had ever been and ever could be on either side. She spent months running, hiding, fighting and killing, in orchestrating a plan that could outwit and outmaneuver the two most brilliant men she knew. And she'd done it all so that her son could live free, as master of his own life.

Jason Todd had come to Ethiopia looking for a mother.

Talia, with blood on her hands and a burning warehouse behind her as she carried his broken body to safety, made sure he found one.

[sarahreadstoomanycomics]

Was just sitting here thinking about how gorgeous she looks here so I erased everyone else from this panel just to admire it.

[mimi-croissant]

Sword of Summer gang ✌️

[roobylavender]

a random thought but i really am very obsessed with how deeply committed bruce is to his love of people and to the extent that it’s a regular divide between him and talia. not that she is without love, no, hardly so, but love will never come before principle for her in the sense that the principle does stem from love, but from a selfless love, not a selfish one. and i use these two descriptors purely as a means of analyzing perspective, so selfless and selfish not necessarily as moral indicators as they are often used today but merely as expressions of whether you’re acting for the sake of others or for yourself. talia is someone repeatedly acting at expense to herself for the sake of others. she gives her child away, she ends her marriage, she doesn’t say a word about it again for years despite having the chance, she takes on a high level espionage mission without speaking a word to her ex-lover, maybe to protect herself, maybe to protect him. whether those were worthwhile decisions to take is certainly debatable, but she acts near strictly from a perspective of caring about others and the world first. bruce is comparatively a very selfish person. every victim an extension of his own trauma, every grief taken to heart, every desperation for companionship so heavily internalized that he ends up pushing people away bc at some point he can’t bear to take them down under with him in his sorrow. it’s funny that he tries to be the rational voice in a room bc up to a point he is, but he also cares too much about his own personal affairs to be that way consistently

and in light of all of that i am thinking about the conversations he and talia must have in that alternate universe where damian is normal and newly revealed to both of them as a concrete concept in their lives, for bruce as the son he never had and for talia as the son she gave away, come back to them by way of fate. why did you never tell me you didn’t actually miscarry. why did you never tell me you had a son and you gave him away. why did you pretend like it was over when it never was. why did you look me repeatedly in the eyes over the years like there wasn’t something more that was there. when you said you couldn’t talk about it before i boarded a plane back home i held my tongue. when you let yourself be beaten within an inch of your life bc your city was falling to pieces i held my tongue. when my father took the contingency plans you made and used them to turn your friends against you i held my tongue. when i worked for a man who would for all intents and purposes use the knowledge of my relationship with you against you i held my tongue

how can bruce, a person so wrapped up in his love for people, not understand the number of sacrifices that talia has had to make for his own sake. her repeated protection of him, of his sanity, of his sanctity, is simultaneously her greatest crime and her greatest benevolence to him. she carried that grief of loss for years and years bc of how important bruce is to her. and bruce loves her, loves damian, too much to even begin to understand what love means outside of the parameters of his own feelings for them. that is his dilemma writ large wrt people he loves. that he can’t see the extent of what they do for him, bc he loves them too much and doesn’t know how to get out of the sheer grief and possessiveness of it

[aldoodles]

A successful museum visit (the Rubik’s cube is for Lizzie)

[hi-there-buddies]

Certain fanfics: don’t focus on the timeline it’s kinda messy lol, just read the story!

The timeline: so fucked beyond repair that it doesn’t even make sense in the scope of the plot the author is trying to tell

[norellenilia]

I am SO MAD that Izumi is considered Ed and Al's motherly figure. She's so mean to them: she speaks to them very harshly (this may be different in other dubs, but in french she uses a very angry tone when she speaks to them, when they're younger or even when they're having lunch in Dublith and she says to Ed "Eat!" with a very pissed off voice), she punishes them by violently hitting them (and we're not talking slapstick humor), she scares the hell out of them... She's very, very abusive.

And what also struck me in episode 27 is that she speaks very gently to the other kids, like she's very calm with the boy who broke his toy train and rudely says that her mending looks weak, she patiently berates him, and when Ed asks a question that, yes, is a very touchy subject for her and she knows she must prevent Ed from even considering the idea of human transmutation, she just punches him. I know this was during a training session but what was the point?

And don't get me started on the scene where she beats them up after they tell her they tried to bring their mom back to life. I can understand a slap out of anger or fear, Maria did this to Ed but she apologized right after, here we have none of that, she just beats them up and never apologizes, in a scene that is in no way meant to be funny. She beats them up after they finally decided to tell her what happened to them (and to me, the fact that they were literally too scared to tell their "motherly figure" what they had done, to seek help, advice, or just have her presence, tells a lot), Ed gets ready to get punched again but she hugs them and they lean into the touch because it seems like it's one of the very rare occasions when she actually shows affection towards them.

That, to me, is typical of abusive relationships. You get all the negative things, the beating, the yelling, the contempt, but then there are the good moments, like her stroking Ed's hair after putting a bandaid on his nose, or the hug of "comfort" after they tell her of their trauma, so you're ready to forgive the rest. And of course they're gonna accept that hug they desperately needed from her, she IS indeed the closest they had to a mother after Trisha's death.

I also remember that later, during a fight with the chimeras, she says, "I can't let any of my children die again" when she fights to protect Ed and Al, to show us that she loves them as her own children.

But if you love your child, you don't hit them. Plain and simple. I don't care if you stroke their hair or hug them afterward.

I really don't like how she's portrayed.

[hearties-circus]

Potential redesign for my big robot:]

[dirtytransmasc]

just like... a thought, not necessarily an original one, but one that's chewing at my brain like a rabid dog.

Ed sustaining a fatal injury on the field, and Roy being with him, knowing that this son will die, and he might lose the other too, and he can't be with both, that he might lose both of them and he never even got a chance to truly hug his youngest.

like, if he has the chance, he makes a desperate call to whoever is the closest to Al, begging them to find him, to stay with him, to tell him that he loves him because he can't.

he's already watching one son die, feels him dying in his arms, and his mind is on his other son, who's probably feeling the soul bond getting weaker and weaker, who probably knows his brother is dead/dying, who's just a scared little kid and he can't be there with him.

its even better(?)(in my own sick and twisted mind) if he has enough time to get to a phone himself (maybe a hospital) so he can watch his son die and be on the phone with another, trying to comfort both as they slip right through his fingers...

I'll be quiet now, I feel like i've said enough

[msmimundo]

Dr ships in a nutshell

[thenightowlintown]

I'm screaming inside.

Talia had the guts to say this to Dick Grayson.

Dick "I'm the better parent" Grayson

The guy who was forced to take care of Damian but absolutely nailed being his parent which earned him Damian's unwavering love and loyalty.

Look Tals, did you forget that time Dami chose Dick over you? Calm the f down mama bear.

[jooeeydee]

Yay, I finally decided to use photoshop again for like the first time in forever, I still suck at it but here's a pic for my newest story, which consists of a collection of one-shots that play in an alternate universe in which Sara never left the League.

[enter-the-phantom]

Out of all my favorite people whose honor I’ve had to defend from thirsty people on Tumblr, I have to say that Teemu Keisteri is the most unexpected.

….I say while reading my own very thirsty posts.

[radioconstructed]

⌖ HI, HEY, HELLO! IT’S ME, hi, I’m the problem, IT’S ME, SIMULCASTING LIVE ON AIR and LIVE ON CAMERA! I almost NEVER DO THAT! Are YOU tired of scam calls? I SURE AM! Let’s make these CLOWNS our little APRIL FOOLS! TUNE IN for WILD IMPROV, VOICE ACTING, SCAMMER MALDING, and COVERS OF THE SCAMMER PAYBACK SOUNDTRACK! ALL DAY!

[silenthill2ps2]

remember in steven universe when amethyst shape-shifted into rose to psychologically torment greg