tropic-of-calculus

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jason todd: i’m not saying tim is possessed, i’m just saying i watched him drink cold americano with 6 shots of expresso at 3am, mutter in binary, and then hack into a satellite

also jason: genuinely impressed

also jason: anyway he is mine now. he doesn’t get a say.

tim: blinks in five programming languages

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THOUGHT

When Bruce snaps as Brucie, like at someone who is threatening his kids, he doesn't fight like Batman, nononono

He Fights Like Alfred

full up same moves, same left hooks and kicks, same ducking and dodging

Like a mini Alfred

Because NO WAY would Alfred not teach him how to fight after the Wayne's murder

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The haunting ancient Celtic carnyx being played for an audience. This is the sound Roman soldiers would have heard their Celtic enemies make.

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Dear, sweet, Littlefoot, do you remember the way to the Great Valley?  I guess so. But why do I have to know if you’re going to be with me? I’ll be with you. Even if you can’t see me. What do you mean I can’t see you? I can always see you.

The Land Before Time(1988) dir. Don Bluth

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There is probably some 50-year-old chinese trans woman out there who gets gender euphoria from visiting family and realising that she is such a goddamn stereotypical 50-year-old chinese aunty. Showing up at the family function and she has the exact same shoes, purse and sunglasses as the other ones and none of them planned to have an uniform.

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It's so interesting how Michael Shelley (the human) was so trusting, caring and so honest, but that lead to him being deceived, tricked and lied to and made him become the living embodiment of lies, delusion and confusion.

I think that's why the Distortion chose Helen over him. Michael still had that small human part of him that was the exact opposite of the Distortion.

Michael the Distortion doesn't want to be Michael because of how the nature of Michael Shelley and Michael the Distortion contradict; one is honest and trusting and deceived while the other one lies, deceives and confuses, and this robs the Distortion of its purpose. The only reason Michael even became the Distortion is that he had the map to help him.

Michael the Distortion wants desperately to be understood, for someone to know the injustice of what happened to poor Michael, and so he lets Jon take his statement and know the honest and bare truth.

Michael got "distracted" with the feelings of Michael Shelley, leading to the door to the Distortion being locked for him and Helen becoming the Distortion.

Leaving Michael once again discarded and disposed of, for simply being too honest and human. Ironic how the first time he's discarded is when he opens the door, and the second time is when the door does not open for him anymore.

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one time my mom and i were talking about autism and she said if i got it from anyone i got it from my dad, a man who has been buying and sorting pokemon cards for several months straight and likes to memorize license plates and then quiz my mom on them. and then she remembered that my father is not actually biologically related to me (#childofdivorce) and lost her shit laughing. i got that proxy autism

[tropic-of-calculus]

something i wish more people would incorporate into their mag 200 interpretations is jon being covered in blood 🩷 he's just brutally stabbed jonah/elias multiple times, with conviction. he's gotta be all bloody and gory and sexy 🩷

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do you think the distortion has one of these bad boys in its hallways?

it's hot, it's sticky, it has a very uncomfortable layout, you have no idea where you are or how high up or how to get out and you can always see the place you want to go but don't know how to get there until you wind up lost there

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The urban fantasy show I actually want to see is a hospital drama with a dedicated wing for supernatural illnesses.

Vampirism. Lycanthropy. Cheap spells gone wrong. A woman brought in for her prenatal has to be told her baby is a lindworm. Someone is literally being followed by the anthropomorphic personification of the Black Death.

Someone somewhere out there is having their perception of the world irreparably shattered by the knowledge that magic is real, and at the other side is a team of doctors who have to roll their eyes and pull out Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales because some high school kid tried to go Carrie with a cheap spellbook and turn all the kids at prom into frogs, and the doctors have to wrangle a couple dozen teenagers into admitting if they have a true love who can break the spell.

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sam’s reveal at the end makes this a thousand times funnier

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Weird when you first start paying attention to animal noises and realize they don't actually sound like the words we use

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actually can we have Tim not being adopted into the batfamily and instead after his parents go broke and then die leaving him with nothing he just decides ‘well i know where the batcave is’ and starts living in the tunnels underneath Wayne manor because of the logic that he can’t get kicked out bcs 1. squatters rights and 2. whats Bruce gonna do? call the police and say ‘this guy won’t leave my secret lair. no im not Batman wdym’? and he manages to go unnoticed for like. a good fucking while. not even Alfred realises bcs wtf would he be snooping around down there for?

even better is this happens after Jason dies so Tim still becomes Robin and Bruce is so overwhelmed with grief that he literally never realises that Tim has never once used the front door to come over. he just kinda sneaks up from somewhere in the cave. he assumes that Alfred’s letting the kid in without telling him. Alfred assumes Bruce is doing the same.

Damian finds out first because that’s so much funnier. he gets to Gotham to 1. gain his birthright and meet his father and 2. do some reconnaissance/avenging of this replacement Robin that’s been the centre of Jason’s angry rants at the league for the past 6 months. he follows Tim ‘home’ and finds him fucking. golluming it up a 15 minute hike through the cave system and he’s like. wait what.

Damian, reporting back to Jason: Drake is a mole.

Jason, vindicated: like he’s working for the enemy?!

Damian, standing in front of an indignant Tim in the middle of his ‘camp’, phone pressed to his ear: no like he lives in a fucking tunnel.

Jason:

Tim, mumbling: slightly harsh,

Damian, angling his face away from the phone momentarily: i watched you dig a hole to unearth the protein bars you’d buried there.

Tim:

Jason, rapidly changing his opinion on this kid: ok actually lets not kill him because thats fucking hysterical and i want to know more-

Tim really likes living alone in the tunnels because he’s a weird little guy and he’s gotten used to the independence and lack of sun, and Damian grew up in the league where ‘wilderness training’ was monthly, mandatory, and from the age of three. so he really doesn’t see the issue in it. he just kinda shrugs and accepts his brother lives in the cave system. Jason is so delighted and amused by the vibes these two kids have going on over in Gotham (he gets video calls from Damian just. in Tim’s camp while they hang out together sometimes. Damian brings him water bottles and various sustenance offerings like he’s appealing so some ancient deity living under their house. Jason thinks it’s incredible) that he decides fuck the league, he needs to see this in person. killing the Joker is a side quest he did on the way; he really only came to see what his idiot little brothers had going on under Bruce, Dick and Alfreds nose. he visits Tim’s little cave home while waiting for his new Crime Alley apartment to be ready.

eventually Bruce and Dick are working on a case and they’re following a lead to do with a criminal escaping via cave systems that they theorise may connect to the batcave, so after Damian’s gone to bed they suit up and start searching around. they come across Damian, Tim, and the fucking Red Hood chilling around a small fire just casually eating leftovers Damian snuck down from the kitchen, just quietly enjoying each others presence in this clearly years old campsite, quietly discussing whether or not the weather will be clear enough next week to go to the new art museum together. Dick shines a flashlight at them and they all snap to attention like that scene in ratatouille where the human comes in the kitchen and the rats all freeze and look up. nobody says anything for a solid three minutes.

eventually Tim is just like “I have squatters rights. you can’t evict me.” and Red Hood nods and points at him.

Bruce, desperate to gain some kind of thread of understanding here: “Damian, you’re supposed to be in bed. …Tim, I’m actually not sure where you’re supposed to be, come to think of it, but I don’t think it’s here.”

“He just said he has squatters rights, father.” Damian responds instantly. “Keep up.”

Dick: “And does the Red Hood have squatters rights?”

“I have a gun,” Jason points out cheerfully. “Same thing, ain’t it?”

Dick and Bruce are so confused they become convinced that they’ve been dosed with something and only figure out whats going on after putting on gas masks and testing everybody’s blood.

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But what if all of Gotham knows that Brucie Wayne is a persona Bruce puts on for the public? Like they all saw him be a weird, quiet little boy even before his parents were killed. They saw him be a weirder, quieter little boy after they were killed. They saw him be a loner teenager who hated talking to people, who was always more comfortable keeping to himself.

Then he comes back after traveling the world and he’s suddenly a himbo playboy socialite? Either it’s all an act, or someone finally introduced Bruce Wayne to the good drugs. They’re more inclined to believe it’s the former considering they all start to notice that, while Bruce may always have a drink in his hand when he’s out and about, he never actually drinks it.

But they don’t say anything. They don’t call him out on it. He may be a weirdo, but he does his best to make Gotham a better place for everyone to live. He donates money to all sorts of local charities, he volunteers his time at soup kitchens, he donates brand new clothes and bedding and toiletries to shelters. He’s a good guy. Who cares if he’s a little odd.

Most Gothamites actually feel kinda bad that he must think he needs to play this goofball character in order to fit in, in order to be a contributing member to society.

So they let him play his role.

Then he adopts Dick Grayson, the little circus boy whose parents were just killed in front of him. Who’s eight years old, the same age Bruce was when his parents were also killed in front of him. And everyone knows exactly why he adopted him, because the parallels are too much, and they see so clearly in the way Bruce interacts with him that Bruce just wants to help him, that he understands exactly how Dick must be feeling.

And Dick is a very serious child, at first. He hardly speaks. He clings to Bruce’s hand if Bruce isn’t carrying him. He glares at people. When he does speak, it’s scathing, and he has a sharp tongue.

Then a couple years later, it’s like his personality has completely flipped. He’s goofy and silly and so very similar to Brucie. And they’re all reminded that Dick grew up in a circus, he’s a showman through and through, and they all know it’s an act. They all know Richie isn’t the real him.

But they let him perform, let him put on his show along with Bruce. Because Gotham loves the Waynes, and if they want to have a public persona to have some sort of privacy, then they aren’t going to stop them.

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The only adhd tips that work:

1. Never tell anyone what you're planning to do until you do it (you will get a premature dopamine hit and sense of accomplishment from telling them and lose motivation to actually do it)

2. Never sit down (never sit down)