#joining the majority

[gardenianoire]

anyways I was so happy to get my blood work back and everything being negative and my doctor telling me my weight loss was mostly due to truvada and I had almost a full 24 hours of thinking I avoided my family's curse of just up and fucking dying in your 30s with little to no warning and my pap results came back and it's beginning to look a lot like cervical cancer

[notmoreflippingelves]

Actually going insane over the implications of Jason asking Dick to be the Robin to his Batman in Battle for the Cowl.

Like I initially took it at the purely surface-level of Jason wanting a partner in the general sense. Which made sense, it's a huge responsibility and a lonely one so an assistant/sidekick/partner seems a no-brainer if you can get one.

But then I really thought about it, because Jason is not asking Dick to be his partner in the general sense; he's not even asking Dick to be his Nightwing. He's asking Dick to be his Robin.

And they both know exactly what Jason means: "Be the light to my darkness. Be the smile to my scowl. Be the hope to my fear. "

He's saying "Be 'Robin'; be the embodiment of Love and Justice and Goodness. Be the exceptional person that you have always been. Be the slightly-less exceptional person that I was when I wore your colors. Be the person that I was in the process of becoming and might have been (or might still be), if only Joker hadn't clipped my wings."

He's saying "I am prepared to become vengeance, become the Night. And I will go further than Bruce ever dared to, because it is what is needed. I will be the necessary evil. But you don't have to be. If Batman is Gotham's curse, Robin has always been its blessing. I will be the brutal punishment to our world, and I am asking you to be its incandescent gift."

He's saying, "Be for me, what we were for Him. Be my anchor, my comfort, my hope. Remind me what it's all for, why it's all worth it. And remind yourself as well."

He's saying "Be 'Robin' again--for both of our sakes."

[neversetyoufree]

Oh man it just hit me. Mikhail chose the amusement park as the setting for Noé and Vanitas's duel to make it easier for Vanitas to kill Noé.

I'm sure Misha really would like to find out why Vanitas killed Luna, but Noé realizes after the fight that the whole thing was largely just a ploy to make Vanitas kill him, and I'm inclined to think he's right. Noé is an obstacle in the way of Misha's fantasy of reuniting his found family, which means Misha needs him dead ASAP.

I also think Misha may be drawn to the idea of Vanitas killing Noé rather than doing it himself or outsourcing the job because it serves as some sort of twisted vengeance for Vanitas killing Luna (and possibly harming Misha himself). Vanitas killed Luna, who he was supposed to love, so surely he can just kill his new annoying replacement loved one as well, right? Surely Misha can make him dispose of Noé the way he once disposed of Mikhail's father, no?

The whole vanoé fight is orchestrated by Misha to ensure that Noé ends up dead by Vanitas's hand, and the amusement park is the perfect setting to serve that goal, because it's absolutely fucking filled with astermite.

Almost immediately after the fight starts, Vanitas gets far the hell away from Noé and goes after him with automaton after automaton. The whole amusement park is filled with massive astermite-powered robots that Vanitas can use to attack Noé without getting anywhere near him, and he takes advantage of that fact with speed and skill. And Misha knew he would do that! Mikhail has his own Book of Vanitas, and he knows exactly what Vanitas's powers are. He chooses the amusement park as a location for the fight in order to give his brother that advantage.

The more astermite a location has, the more effective Vanitas can be, and I'm willing to bet that almost nowhere in Paris could have offered him more astermite than the amusement park that Misha decided Noé Archiviste would die in.

[tofixtheshadows]

Because I've been thinking about the fandom tendency to paint characters of color as conservative versus their white counterparts, who are usually valorized as progressives, I'm thinking about the way fandom often talks about Kabru (calling him a cop, saying he's Lawful Good/Evil, saying he'd be an econ or business major or tech bro in AUs, I heard through the grapevine they're calling him classist on tiktok) and absolutely refusing to see his actions- of repeatedly sabotaging an imperial force's military operations for the good of oppressed peoples- as radical.

Kabru was raised by a poor single mother in an economically disenfranchised region, then rejected a life of luxury in the imperial sphere. He explicitly aligns himself with the exploited population (short-lived races) he is a part of. He wouldn't be a fucking investment banker, in any AU he's the most likely character to be an activist. I can't scroll for three posts without seeing Chilchuck hailed as a girldad working class hero (and I'm not saying that's not deserved!) but there is barely any thought given to what it means for the brown guy to care so much about fighting against the takeover of a first-world power.

[windwardstar]

it's super nerve wracking being the first trans person in a space and just being so visibly and loudly. but like, you're never the only one. and having seen all the people who were already in the space decide to come out because it's now something they realize it safe to do, and also watch it pull in more queer people because the space is now explicitly welcoming is one of those things that's just made it all worth it. the garden will grow if you plant the seeds and tend to it.

[mayasaura]

I think the best possible time travel fic would be to slingshot Harrow from the end of Harrow the Ninth back to the beginning of Gideon the Ninth. Highest hilarity potential, highest angst potential, highest pining potential

Things Harrow knows now that she didn't before:

Who Alecto was

The names of God and his lyctors

The secret of lyctorhood

That the lyctor trials are a death trap

Gideon could be easily persuaded to die for her

Gideon dying for her is the worst thing possible

She would do almost anything to prevent Gideon from dying

Gideon's sword is haunted by a very angry and oddly familiar-looking woman who bears a remarkable resemblance to Gideon

Things Harrow still doesn't know:

What Alecto is

Gideon's parentage

Jackshit about BOE

Mercy and Augustine are both traitors

Things Harrow knew then and still knows now:

Gideon—this Gideon here and now—hates her

She owes a debt of two hundred lives and a future to the Ninth

The survival of the Ninth depends on her becoming a lyctor

[trying-to-jew]

Stop using the r-slur

[amygdalae]

[comicaurora]

just got this in the flood of college emails

[fox-guardian]

silly headcanon: alice annoys sam all the time, this is true and real. sam gets back at her by playing ed sheeran out loud right next to her and dancing to it in ways you should not dance to ed sheeran.

he doesn't even like ed sheeran he just knows she hates this

[dykedvonte]

I love that the Chairmen are like the lameos of The Strip. Like it just says so much about how the Boot Riders were that they are just so fine being like Vegas cool guys.

Everyone at The Tops sans Benny is content, happy and fine with how things play out. They just like having food, women and something to do. Like occasionally they have to use some of their tribal warrior skills when threats like the Courier pop up but they are like if you took mountain lions and gave them a kitty spa day and now they refuse to leave.

Of course, the other families think they’re boring like one of them is literally eating bitches and The Tops just has the worst Wasteland’s Got Talent contestants as premiere acts.

[gardenianoire]

I really hope things turn out to be okay for you health wise. My thoughts are with you.

Thank you but I really think this is the end. I know it's an eyeroll to but stock in "signs" and intuition but on Mardi Gras day I sat on the Mississippi River and watched a man pour ashes into the river. He handed me a glass beaded necklace (they used to be popular during mardi gras before the plastic ones. now they're pretty rare) and walked away without a word. And for a second I felt a calm. I just thought "hey when I died decades from now maybe that should be how I'm buried". It just feels like that was god's or whoever of telling me I'm next or it's coming like the grom reaper throwing you the world's worse bouquet. I never told anyone about that. Now I picture my friends in their costumes carrying my ashes to the river and giving strangers my glass beads. Would I ruin mardi gras for them? forever? What costumes would they even wear? Was this my final mardi gras? Was it because I asked god to take me instead of my 20 year old cousin when he had cancer? he always seemed cruel to me like to make himself giggle he we would kill us both a few years a part who's going to take to my sister about nothing and everything who's going to feed my cat what are they going to tell my students and the people that look for me in every krewe of goddesses parade what do I do about my parents I can't go back to cleveland and die there they'll really have to accept the reality that I didn't even want to be around them when I was dying I'll never have a chance to fix that relationship (I never was but at least they could live and die with the lie) I'll never graduate college or go to rome or fall in love I wanted that so bad to have the support and love of a romantic relationship maybe even a kid I wanted to be able look back on my life and say I survived and made a nice life for myself and now I'm out of time probably

I'm sorru to unload on you I'm just so upset

[flowerakatsuka]

gay ppl @ a summer festival, what will they do??

[flickeringflame216]

blessings roll call!!!

[arachnesbich]

I'm seeing a lot of cryptid!batman/assumed to be cryptid!batman lately, but now I'm just thinking about someone other than Batman being a cryptid and he thinks They're Just Like That TM for one reason of another.

Like, the al Ghuls are actually ghouls, just to the left of human. (I headcanon the Adams family as ghouls, so if you see Adams family themes, its because they're who I base my idea of ghouls on) Also, I head canon that ghouls can't physically hurt or be hurt by the people they love, that's why they feel so comfortable with things like throwing knives at loved ones and adding poison to one another's food. It can even be seen as an act of love and affection.

Ras and Talia have a good relationship, in their own way, but from an outside perspective it looks like they're actively trying to kill each other. Bruce knows that they 'fight' constantly, throwing knives at each other in greeting and when they're back is turned, sneaking poison into each other's food, calling each other monstrous names. He just assumes that Ras and Talia are testing each other's vigilance, in a thinly veiled attempt to kill each other. They are assassins after all.

Any time it Bruce questions why she does the things she does, she answers something along the lines: "I'm a ghoul, this is what we do." but what Bruce hears is "I'm al Ghul, this is what we do." and it reinforces his assumptions that this is a raised-as-an-assassins thing.

-----

Talia: *info-dumping about where major arteries are located and sharing her 'studies' of all the ways she can paralyze someone*

Bruce, to himself: Either she's threatening me or this is the only way she know how to make conversation, because of the way she was raised...Hmm.

He is seduced either way.

-----

Eventually Bruce leaves to Gotham and becomes Batman and Talia doesn't tell him about Damian.

Bruce was never really able to understand her ghoulish needs, always insisting that she could leave the League and "do better." That's how their relationship inevitably came to an end, with him trying to humanize her (ugh). She knew that Bruce wouldn't change just because she was pregnant and she knew her son would have ghoulish needs that couldn't be compromised just because Bruce was uncomfortable.

So she decided to keep Damian to her herself until he's old enough to know what it means to be a ghoul and shows that he wants to meet his father.

[rainrayne]

Does he look horrified enough or do I gotta up the trauma factor

Dtiys by: @ask-all-the-kindergarteners