#to be quite honest tho

[divineandmajesticinone]

4 MINUTES (2024) I 1.03 "I didn't think you were like this. Like what? Like this..."

[rebouks]

“What’re we doing here?”

Oscar shrugged casually, “Hanging out?”

Robin scoffed with what little joviality he could muster, “Yeah, right…”

Oscar paused and broke eye contact, staring at nothing in particular as Robin waited. It was usually fairly easy to ascertain the direction of a conversation before it even started, given that people tended to rehearse what they’d say beforehand, but not Oscar. His mind was simultaneously blank and fit to burst; he was making it up as he went along most of the time, but that was one of Robin’s favourite things about his father. It paved the way for genuine, on the fly honesty.

“Figured maybe you’d wanna talk-..” Oscar rubbed his temple, “Ask me whatever you want.”

“Really?”

“Yeah-.. within reason.”

“Why’d you do it?” Robin blurted out; his eyes full of unbridled curiosity, though his father wasn’t looking at him.

“Willpower is a finite resource, y’know? I had a shitty day and I caved-.. didn’t really think about it all that much, to be honest.”

“What do you mean?”

Oscar sighed, backtracking slightly as he realised that wasn’t exactly the honesty he was going for. “Well, it’s not that you don’t think about it-.. I thought about not doing it a bunch of times, but the second I decided otherwise, I went on autopilot and got it over with as soon as possible so I wouldn’t have to think about it anymore. Probably because thinking on it too hard is uncomfortable.”

“Where’d you go?”

Robin wouldn’t usually have to ask such a mundane question, but he’d struggled to fill in the blanks for himself. Oscar’s memories of the previous night were fuzzy and his thoughts sprawling.

“There.”

“The bar?”

Oscar nodded, still unable to meet his son’s gaze. “You remember it used to be a vet clinic, right? Your grandma ran it briefly, years ago-.. we lived in the flat above for a little while, when you were a baby.”

“I remember.”

Oscar sounded surprised. “You do?”

“Kinda-.. you’ve told me about it n’ stuff…”

Oscar shrugged a shoulder, supposing that’d make sense.

“You don’t have to feel so ashamed.” Robin ventured.

Oscar almost looked at Robin, though his gaze fell somewhere near his shoulder instead. How could a fourteen-year-old boy conjure such compassion? Such accuracy too. Shame.

Sometimes it felt as though he were talking to a man, not a boy. He was still a child, of course; arguing with his siblings over utter nonsense, playfighting, whinging about school and homework, leaving his dirty socks all over the place-.. but sometimes it felt like he understood much more than he should’ve. Oscar couldn’t imagine many people being so emotionally mature at thirty, never mind half as young.

“Dad…”

“I’m sure I’ll get over it-.. I always assumed I’d relapse at some point, but as the years went by, I guess I got complacent.”

“How’d it start? Like, did you just wake up one morning and realise it was an issue or..?”

Oscar shook his head slightly, running his thumb over his beard in thought. “Nah, it was slower, I just ignored it. I’d always been daft and over the top with stuff like that, partying n’ shit, y’know? It was like a crutch after a while though, and eventually, I needed it just to feel normal-.. went too far to feel nothing.”

Robin opened his mouth to speak, but Oscar wasn’t finished.

“You’ll probably get some stupid cop coming to your scout meetings or your school one day and they’ll stand there n’ tell you all about how drugs and alcohol are terrible or whatever, but it’s bollocks. Sure, they’re bad for you, but they feel good and that’s the problem. At least for me it was-.. is. It shouldn’t even be legal, really, not that it’d do much good if it wasn’t-.. it wouldn’t have stopped me, anyway.”

“I’d love to forbid you from going near it, but I’m sure you’ll all try it for yourselves one day. Maybe it’s just something to do, maybe it makes a boring night more fun, gives you the confidence to do something you’re scared of, talk to someone you’re shy around, I don’t know-.. you might hate it, you might not.”

“You hate that you still like it, don’t you?”

Oscar finally met Robin’s gaze as he nodded. “So much.” He wondered if he was making a mistake, being so open, but it was too late now and Robin had yet to balk or appear uncomfortable. If anything, he seemed concerned and intrigued, glad of the chance to ask whatever he wanted-.. not that he couldn’t usually, but the invitation was clearly welcome all the same.

“All your troubles just melt away, but they’re twice as bad when you wake up and doing it over again doesn’t solve much. It’s not the answer, Robin.”

“I know it’s not.”

Oscar’s frown softened as Robin slid beside him, threading an arm around his waist.

“You prefer being sober though, right?” he asked.

“Ah, that’s a loaded question…” Oscar sighed. “I prefer my life when I’m sober, but maybe a part of me will always crave that oblivion. It’s just something I have to live with.”

“Do you think you’ll do it again?”

“I don’t know, bud-..” Oscar admitted. “I’d like to say no but I don’t think I can make any promises, that’s not how it works.”

Robin nodded understandingly; he would’ve preferred it if his father could’ve made that promise, but a harsh truth was better than a hollow lie.

“They don’t mean much if you don’t keep em.” Oscar added.

“I get it-.. thanks for letting me ask you about it though, I know you’d rather keep it to yourself.”

“You’re still young but I know it’d drive you nuts otherwise. Besides, I don’t want it to feel like a dirty secret we can’t talk about, at least between us-.. might not wanna go telling all your friends your dad’s an alky though…”

Robin buried his face in the crook of Oscar’s shoulder and squeezed him tightly, desperate to convince his father that he didn’t think any less of him.

“Nah, they’re got enough ammunition.”

Oscar couldn’t help but snort at that. “I love you so much.”

“I know-.. I love you too.”

Robin said nothing a while as his father held him - or he held Oscar - only breaking the silence upon feeling his restless thoughts return.

“It’ll be the summer holiday’s soon, maybe we could go camping or something?”

Oscar smiled fondly. “Yeah, that’d be fun…”

Previous // Next

[morgaseus]

A little brainrot abt Dr. Ratio (he is kinda giving ‘archmage of the mages tower’ vibes. He acts like he doesn’t care about you but deep down he does! He just doesnt know how to act like it😞)

Not even a year in the relationship yet you already want to divorce him. You can’t stand him! That haughty arrogance of his! It feels like hes belittling you with every chance he gets! Its getting in your nerves! He even acts like you both arent married. Not even a simple greeting. What happened to hi, hello, goodbye, i’ll be away for a while, i’ll be home late. The food that you you leave for him for dinner always goes cold and uneaten. He just comes and go and do as he please! You know its a marriage of convenience, it probably means nothing to him, its just empty promises written in a paper after all. But you still want to be civil with him, he’s the man you married after all. But you couldnt take it it anymore! So, when the chance presented itself, you stormed in his office slamming the divorce paper in his desk.

“I want a divorce” you crossed your arms “i’m done with this marriage, sign it”

He looked at the paper for a moment and then at you. You gripped your left arm, feeling nervous under his stare. But you feel hopeful, he’ll probably sign it. There’s no strings attached anyways. But to your dismay he merely put the paper to the side and went back to whatever he was working with

“I wont sign it and as you can see I’m quite busy, please see yourself out”

Yep. You feel like you’re going insane

[sophiethewitch1]

You mentioned that all the Wayne's post thirst traps. And that Damian's are like Victorian women showing some racy ankle. What does he consider a thirst trap then.

Have you ever seen a man in a dark turtle neck sweater.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Lord of the Empty Isles

sci-fi/fantasy

set on a supposedly utopian planet recovering from a climate crisis, where bonds between people are able to be seen and manipulated (by some people)

follows a young man whose brother was cursed and killed by an infamous outlaw 5 years ago, and he’s finally able to curse him back - but it rebounds, as he’s somehow fatebound to the outlaw

to find a cure and save them both they have to team up, and he quickly finds out that the resources the outlaw is stealing go to the thousands of people neglected on prison planets, and he has to go against what he thought was right to help them

no romance, aroace MC, focus on platonic relationships

arc from netgalley, out june 6

[zrllosyn-art]

Kohaku for Sipsteaandbleach on artfight

[neversetyoufree]

I saw that you said you don’t read much VNC fanfiction, but of what you have read, do you have any recs?

In general, anything by fl4nel is probably an absolute banger imo. I have three (3) user subscriptions on Ao3, and they're one of them. Blood and Thunder is a fandom classic if you want a starting point, but their less popular fics are just as good. Their writing style is absolutely gorgeous, and they nail the sort of tension that good canonverse vanoé fic requires.

I'm also fond of fortuna, choosing sides by leovenus and you're the one (i think i'll regret this) by coffeebiscuits.

It's probably becoming clear by now that my favorite genre of vnc fic is more or less canon compliant oneshots in which vanoé pine and yearn and want each other without ever fully acting on that tension. Unfulfilled yearning that you can't voice would be Vanitas's middle name if he had one. And anyway, both of the above fics do that specific thing very well. There's a certain similar mood that they both capture.

To be entirely honest, beyond that, the vnc fic I read/reread most often is my own An Act of Trust. Might be mildly tacky to self-promo on a rec list, but I unabashedly love that fic ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I think it's pretty solid, and if you want a taste of what I like in vnc fic, it's incredibly self indulgent in that regard.

For the rest of y'all, feel free to drop your own recs in the replies. Esp if y'all have recommendations for any good Domi and/or Jeanne centric stuff.

[britneyshakespeare]

i'm very interested what ppl find to be the harder shakespeare plays and which they found to be easier. bc i was googling out of curiosity and i found a sparknotes article (link if you're curious) that ranked ten of the most commonly-read plays on difficulty and it put king lear kinda down low whereas it put julius caesar pretty high because of the politics/complicated conflicts. that kind of baffled me because julius caesar was the first tragedy i read outside of the classroom and i found it very approachable; it's one i often recommend to people trying to get into shakespeare because the plot is already familiar to most ppl and you can just enjoy the poetry and how shakespeare chooses to characterize these figures. on the other hand i read king lear a few years later in my shakespeare journey, and to be honest i still kind of have a hard time with lear. maybe i just don't connect with it on some level; i'm not sure. it's not a very tightly-organized play where the action is as centered as in the other tragedies like hamlet or macbeth. that's certainly a me thing and maybe that'll change with age. but i'm always a little surprised when i find someone's experience with the plays so much different than mine.

anyway if you're reading this feel free to reblog and tag or comment which shakespeare plays you found yourself falling into most naturally and which worlds you felt like you had to force yourself into. i'm interested in what ppl feel on this subject

[cove-simp]

i don't even have any deep thoughts about baxter's dlc, just mamma mia playing in my head for the entirety of step 4 😩

Yes!!! So many fun ways to play if you! you got:

Awkward reuniting of friends/ exes

The good old "I told you so"

Angst city sad ™

Angst city mad ™

And so much more!!

[gwinverarrouz]

Redraw of a study from 2022! Wanted to do that for a while since I really liked that picture and Bisig has her own artstyle now :>

[lokh]

oh my god. a manga where everyones actually wearing masks???

edit: NEVERMIND jumped the gun here it was just for one scene cos they were at a nail salon 😭

edit 2: hmm actually. depending on how recently this manga was drawn it could just be reflective of how not everyone wears masks. the customers are wearing masks in the salon but outside usually not but Sometimes. they are

edit 3: I WAS RIGHT??

[sysig]

Pivotal bright spot (Patreon)

[manderleyfire]

heyyyy!!! we've been following each other on twitter for years but since you don't go there anymore i sneaked here to thank you for devil in winter recommendation! it was hot and lovely and simply a blast to read! pls tell me do you have any particular fancast in mind when it comes to Sebastian and Evangeline? :)

hello! if we're twitter buddies, why anon?? let me love you properly.

the pleasure is all mine! i'm always here to promote a steamy love story with a charming blonde asshole redhead protagonist ;) as for your question, there is no secret i DO have a fancast (a dreamcast even) for evie and st.vincent: eleanor tomlinson & sam reid

[suffarustuffaru]

ngl i love heinkel as a character if only bc hes like super fucking insecure but at the same time hes hit rock bottom so many times he will say whatever the hell he wants 99.8% of the time. “stfu father you were a dick to reinhard first” SO TRUE HEINKEL DO GO ON. every time hes in a scene you know youre gonna be shaking and crying and punching a wall. he puts the “shit” in “king shit”. every time things are getting a little too chummy he shows up and thats when you know its gonna be good (terribly painful). when he enters a room everyone collectively groans and goes “pls not again with this shit heinkel” (he then proceeds to go on again with this shit). and by shit i mean that he makes his problems everyones problem but hes so pathetic and cringe fail theres almost always a bit of pity mixed in with all the general disgust and hatred people have for him. like if you think about it. heinkel has a very classic tragedy for an arc. its very linear. hes so beat down by events out of his control and then he responds so poorly to them he hit rock bottom and never crawled out. if he was about 39-40 in arc 5, then he became a parent at like 19-20. became a single parent and lost his wife at like 21-22. became vice captain of the royal guard out of obligation, while him and everyone in the whole world knows he’ll never measure up. he couldnt go on the white whale mission out of fear, and then he lost his mother—potentially to his own son—AND his father, who ditched both him and his son. and reinhard loses his mother at two years old and watches his dad gradually spiral starting from that moment. reinhards dad gradually grows to hate him. the same dad who said that reinhard was “me and louanna’s treasure”………. hahah anyway heinkel is such a silly funny guy i cant wait to see what kind of cringe fail shenanigans he gets into post-arc 7 hahaha

[writingmoth]

i dont know how to say this but if you aren't ready to get your work beta read, don't get beta readers p.p

[palaceoftears]

Mahidevran Sultan + Belief in fortune and destiny

What is this you call the Sultanate? Wealth and property, land and territory? To have power over the destinies of others? Was it worth it, Süleyman?

for my dear bday girl @mc-critical <3