It's late.
Dazai feels a little ashamed, if he were to be honest. How pathetic is it that he's unable to sleep unless in the arms of his coworker? A little pathetic. His eyebrows furrow as he begins to pick the lock to your apartment.
It's late. You're probably asleep.
He's jealous. Yeah; the clenching feeling in his chest is jealousy from your ability to sleep through the nights (a feeling of his that isn't shared towards his well-rested coworkers). You're asleep, and he should be. He will be.
The door clicks quietly, and Dazai doesn't react. How many times has he broken into your apartment? The question is left unanswered as he saunters into the place, making sure to close and lock it behind him.
You're asleep. It's late.
He makes a pit stop by your kitchen, staring blankly into your fridge like he'd do if he lived here. He counts the number of half finished water bottles littering the shelves, dispersed in between random ingredients you don't open and snacks that are dwindling in number.
If Dazai lived here, maybe he could make you dinner sometime. Gather the ingredients to fill your fridge, put a pan on the stove — however people cook, he can't remember. The fridge closes quietly; It's late. You're asleep.
With a final glance towards the sink, taking note of the dirty cutlery delicately balanced around the edges, he makes his way into the hall. Three steps and he'd be outside your door, your bedroom door, where you're asleep.
Dazai pushes away the same thought that keeps appearing in his mind. Of course you're asleep, it's late.
He turns away from your bedroom and finds himself standing in your living room. It's happily lived in - cushions that have lost their fluff, a blanket strewed across the couch haphazardly. His hand runs over it; always the same blanket. Dazai can imagine sitting under this blanket on the couch with you, the couch you two would share, watching some movie on your small tv just across the small room.
If he lived here, he'd make sure to tidy up the living room before you two went to bed. You kept a basket of blankets just next to the tv, and Dazai could easily drape the blanket back into it before following you off to bed. For now, he leaves it; There'd be no trace he was here come morning.
Once again, he finds himself mere steps away from your bedroom door. You live alone, for now, and yet keep the door closed every night. Is it habit? Are you worried some barbarian will break in just to watch you sleep? (Dazai isn't here to watch you, of course; He's here to sleep as well.) If that is what you're worried about, he could always spend the night with you, just to make sure you're safe. Well, spend the whole night with you, rather than breaking in late and sneaking out early.
Dazai turns into the bathroom.
You have the cutest rug next to your shower, one that always makes Dazai smile. A tough persona is applied at the agency, so only he is privy to your cute pink Sanrio bathmat. It's not what he would have expected for you, and that's what makes him smile. Your counter holds an electric toothbrush and has a lot of clutter Dazai wants to sort through. If he lived with you, he could place his toothbrush next to yours and keep your hair care stuff in the cabinet below. Maybe one day you'd let Dazai comb your hair, with a brush or just his fingers.
It's late. You're asleep. The same thought Dazai has been pushing down since he began the walk to your apartment fills his head once more. He's not delusional, no, but what if you weren't asleep? What if you were waiting up, just for him?
His hand touches the doorknob. It's late. You have no reason to think he's coming. The door opens slowly and quietly as he peers in.
You're asleep.
Dazai's chest constricts and he can't help the frown pulling at his lips. Of course you're asleep; He's stupid to get his hopes up. If you were awake anyway, you'd kick him out and probably call the cops. He is trespassing right now, at a time when you're most vulnerable.
Still, Dazai slips into your warm, cream-colored sheets, his hands clasped together under his cheek as he lies on his side. You're so calm, so serene under the dull light of a street lamp just outside the bedroom window. Hesitantly, Dazai's hand moves to brush a strand of hair from your face, the tips of his fingers experimentally tracing your skin.
His eyes flutter shut when you move closer. Were you used to his presence? Dazai likes to think you need him to sleep as much as he needs you. Sure, you could fall asleep without him curled up beside you, but maybe he was soothing nightmares. The thought made him frown. He shouldn't care, he shouldn't be here. His eyebrows furrowed like they had when he first broke in — this is weird. This is illegal, too.
A frustrated puff of air leaves his mouth, his eyes shutting more firmly. Tighter, tighter — why isn't he asleep yet?
He curls more into himself, feeling ashamed and embarrassed and anxious and annoyed and-
Your hand moves from your chest to his, softly resting over his heart. The small smile resides back on Dazai's face as he relaxes, slowly drifting to sleep in your bed.
Light filters in through your sheer curtains, the sun kissing your face as you quickly wake up. The blaring of your alarm was the first thing you'd noticed, rubbing your eyes with one hand as you turned to shut it off. Just a few moments of peace, and then you'd get up....
Those few moments didn't come to pass before you were hit with a boost of energy, sitting up in your empty bed. Of course your bed was empty, no need to emphasize it. You live alone, did you expect someone to be there when you woke up?
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i like to make fun of murderbot for being all "i hate everyone, i don't care about anything or anyone, fuck off" while simultaneously caring very much about the people around it and the situations it finds itself in. i love how it "accidentally" ends up caring quite a lot about the friends it makes along the way.
but i think something that i tend to forget is that murderbot actively decides to care - at least at some point in its story.
idk, as a person that struggles with depression, this paragraph from artificial condition really resonates with me. prior to all systems red, murderbot had contracts. it had routine and it had protocols. it knew what it had to do to just get by, how to perform so no one would notice it had disabled its governor module. it was deeply depressed, yes, but it was functioning (for lack of a better word).
in artificial condition, murderbot's routine is gone. it cannot go on in that state of numbly going-from-contract-to-contract, putting in as little effort as possible, consuming media to cope. that option is gone because it escaped (and note that escaping the company was not an active choice, it kinda happened to it). murderbot has two options now: it can either gather all its energy; actively do something new and difficult and distressing; change something in its life and try. or it can let the numbness and the emptiness take over and stop trying. if murderbot wants to survive as a rogue secunit, it has to try. no matter how difficult that is.
the wording in that paragraph really hits home for me. the way the non-caring sees an opportunity to slip in and to take over. does murderbot even care? does anything really matter? is anything really worth the hassle? wouldn't it be so much easier to just let your mind slip away a little, to go numb, to be passive, to watch media and wait for things to happen to you? wouldn't it be nice to stop thinking and struggling and feeling complicated things? to stop making an effort? you've been dealing with a lot lately and maybe it's time to just shut down. maybe you'll just take a little break. just slip deeper into this chair and start the show. time flies when you're not paying attention. trying is exhausting. who cares if you don't do the things you wanted to do, you were supposed to do. it'll be fine. let's just ignore those things for now. just let the non-caring take over. just stop thinking. you can deal with the aftermath later. just watch your shows. who cares.
but murderbot cares. it decides to care. it decides to fight with all it has and i think that is so brave. and i think in the later books caring is less of an active decision for murderbot. once you start caring, it's easier to keep going than to stop; and murderbot, for all its "i'm a grumpy rogue secunit, leave me alone" behavior, knows just how important caring is. so it's not that it doesn't know what's happening; rather, it lets itself care.
tl;dr: caring is not the default for murderbot, it's just the more difficult of two options. and it decides not to take the soft option. it decides to struggle. it decides to care. and so it does.
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Dick Grayson & Tim Drake: Reading Guide
Once upon a time, two kids met at a circus... and the rest is history.
table of contents:
who are these losers?
what's fun about them?
why a reading guide?
how does the reading guide work? (tl;dr: there are quick recs, a selected chronological list, and a complete chronological list)
where is the spreadsheet? (x)
who are they?
Dick Grayson and Tim Drake: the first Robin and the third Robin.
Also known as the circus boy and the earnest computer geek, the hotshot and the pretender, the slighted prince and the new apprentice, the acolyte and the hanger-on, Nightwing and Robin, Batman and Robin, Batman and Red Robin, and Marcia and Cindy (BftC 3, N 110 & 119, B 617, DC 677, Detention Comics 1, R 168, RR 14).
Or as Jason calls them, "You idiots" (TT 47).
More seriously, Dick Grayson is one of the most enduring comic characters ever - he's been around since Detective Comics 38 in 1940! He's Batman's first ward, first partner, and eldest son. When Dick's parents are murdered, Bruce identifies with him, comforts him, and takes him into his home, where Dick ultimately volunteers to join his crimefighting mission. By candlelight, the Dynamic Duo swear an oath: That we two will fight together against crime and corruption and never swerve from the path of righteousness!
Tim Drake was created in Batman 436 and formally introduced in Lonely Place of Dying. He's a lonely kid who imprints on Dick when they meet as children, and Dick hugs him and promises to do a quadruple somersault for him; he's horrified and worried about Dick in the aftermath of the Graysons' murder, which he witnesses. He watches Batman comfort Dick, deduces Robin's secret identity, and becomes a secret devotee of the Dynamic Duo. Though he admires them both, it's ultimately Dick who he idolizes and tries to emulate when Bruce is spiraling: Batman needs a Robin. No matter what he thinks he wants.
Their slow-burn strangers-to-friends-to-brothers-to-antagonists-to-brothers-again arc develops from 1989 to 2011, and it's one of the standout examples of the DC Post-Crisis era's commitment to gradual character development and careful continuity.
what's fun about them?
SO MUCH!!! But one of my favorite things is their friendship has RANGE!! They go from sweet kids to tense strangers to loyal friends to brothers over the course of real-life years and tons of comics. They fight, they tease each other, they get protective, they worry, they chase each other down, they walk away... there's just so much story here.
They meet at the circus as children, when both their parents are still alive. They meet again, years later, when Bruce is reeling from Jason's death and they team up to stop him from hurting anyone. In the early days, they're brothers-in-arms and never quite family - instead, Dick is Bruce's loyal-but-estranged eldest son, and Tim is Bruce's new loyal-but-wary apprentice, with his own family and his own semi-estranged dad. The slow process of evolving toward found-family is a delight to watch.
They work together as Nightwing and Robin over four years of in-universe time and for over twenty years of real-time, gradually forging a fierce bond of friendship and, ultimately, brotherhood.
Then Bruce dies, and they have some huge fights.
But even when they're estranged, even when they're not speaking... they never stop loving and trying to protect each other. No matter what.
why a reading guide?
Quotes from New Titans 60 and Batman 441 (1989), Nightwing 25 (1998), Nightwing 69 (2002), Red Robin 1 (2009), Red Robin 12 (2010), Gates of Gotham 3 and Detective Comics 874 (2011)
I think reading guides are cool!! And somebody asked me about one!
More generally, I think reading guides are always helpful, but especially with Dick & Tim... you know, when I first started out trying to read their comics, I got kinda overwhelmed. Because on the one hand there's SO MUCH CONTENT - they're one of the classic enduring friendships in all of post-Crisis! their relationship is a HUGE BIG DEAL! they're constantly calling each other and hanging out and supporting each other and arguing!
But at the same time, all of that content is scattered across lots of different books, in Robin and Nightwing and Detective Comics and Batman and New Titans and Titans and Young Justice and Teen Titans and Shadow of the Bat and Gotham Knights and Birds of Prey and Showcase and DC Holiday Specials and so on and so forth. There's not One Definitive Place where you can read The Dick-and-Tim Story.
So: a reading guide!
how does the reading guide work?
Dick and Tim are in over 400 comics together and over 800 comics each separately. That's a whole lot of comics! So I've made a spreadsheet with three different reading guides, depending on how interested you are in these two:
1-5 Quick Recs: If you just want to check out a couple comics, check out these quick recs for "if you like fluff," "if you like angst," etc.
200 Starter Comics: If you want to do a comprehensive, chronological Dick-and-Tim read without committing to all the comics, this list has some of their major team-ups plus some solo comics so you know what the heck is going on. Most of them have a "sneak peek" you can use to decide if you want to read it.
Big List: A complete list of all the comics Dick and Tim are in, in chronological order, with links to dc.fandom and to DC Universe Infinite. It has filter views.
This spreadsheet was a labor of love, obsession, and SO MUCH PROCRASTINATING doing other things. I update it sometimes.
where is the spreadsheet?
it's here. have fun <3
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