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dandeyrain · 5 months

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i've been rotating the "this doesn't make any sense!" response to boy and the heron in my head and i wonder how much of it comes down to like...the kind of audience that engages with ghibli movies vs the kind of audience that mostly only engages with weird art movies vs the kind of audience that only really engages with blockbusters and marvel movies, and the overlap of those groups in the theater.

because, like, the boy and the heron is far and away more straightforward, from a plot perspective, than a lot of other Weird Extremely Personal Art Movies i've seen and love, but it IS a Weird Extremely Personal Art Movie even so. usually the only people seeing Weird Extremely Personal Art Movies, especially in theaters, are people who like that and expect that and have seen those types of films before and are therefore capable of engaging with them even when things aren't as clear as they'd be in an average blockbuster flick. like, nobody who only cares about Cinema to the extent of marvel movies and MAYBE john wick is going to see beau is afraid, and if they did they wouldn't have the tools to engage with such a dream-logicy movie. it would just be a weird thing that doesnt make sense to them, at least until they worked their media engagement muscles with other weird films. there's a lot of self-selection to the kind of person who usually sees these kind of movies.

while boy and the heron is weirder and more complex than a lot of other ghibli movies, as far as weird art films go it is incredibly, INCREDIBLY straightfoward. every weird plot point is explained very clearly to the audience, very little is up for interpretation from a strictly "what was the plot" point of view. boy loses mother. father remarries and moves the family. boy struggles to contend with grief. boy is pulled into a magical world by an old man who wants to use him. time is weird and fucked up in the magical world, but the movie is going to go out of it's way to highlight who's who and make it clear how the time travel works and the characters' relations to one another. the boy refuses to take over the magical world because he wants to live in the real world with the real people he loves. boy leaves the magical world having learned an important lesson about moving on. but the boy and the heron trusts its audience, doesn't handhold, and expects the audience to engage seriously and with focus to its plot and characters and stories.

a lot of people never watch movies like that! a lot of people are used to uncomplicated superhero movies and romcoms and that's it. the difference is that those people were never going to see beau is afraid, so the discussion about that movie instead comes from people who have the tools to engage with it. but because of the aesthetic-ification of ghibli, a lot of people who don't Do art films but are really into the aesthetics of cute little guys and girls in pretty dresses went to this art film and were confused that it was weird and dream-like and dark and strange and requires more of its audience than just passively watching.

anyway there's nothing wrong with not having the muscles to engage with weird art films, though i do think everyone should challenge themselves with the kind of stuff they watch. there's nothing wrong with preferring simple straightforward uncomplicated plotlines. but it is really interesting seeing people talk about the movie like it's insanely weird and doesnt make any sense meanwhile me and the friends i've chatted with about who DO have experience with this kind of film all feel insane because the movie is SO clear and SO straightforward by the standards we're used to. its just a neat crossover re: the kinds of movie fans that exist

#rain speaking!#does this make sense #its like if this was a live action more or even an animated movie from another studio half this audience would never engage with it because #it is on its face a weird strange art movie about the director working thru smth #but ghibli is as much an Aesthetic (a highly simplified 'cozy' and uncomplicated aesthetic that has very little to do #with the kinds of films ghibli actually makes) as it is a studio so a lot of ppl whod otherwise never touch this type of work #are going to be in theaters for it #WHICH IS GOOD!! i hope watching it inspires those folks to engage w more weird shit #sorry for the beau is afraid comparison they rly have very little in common it was just the first thing that came to me #when i was thinking abt other weird highly personal art films made by directors who are clearly #expecting the audience to have a really solid base under them re: their ability to engage with complicated films #boy and the heron spoilers /

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beanghostprincess · 4 months

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Sabo still struggles with memory loss. He had his childhood back, of course, he remembers Ace and Luffy and everything they did together. But he doesn't remember some stuff. Some anecdotes Luffy tells oh so excitedly? He can't recall that those happened. And if he does, it's all blurry and never at all like Luffy says. But he never says anything because that would break his brother's heart, to know his older brother isn't fully back with him, so he nods and smiles and pretends he knows what Luffy is talking about every time.

His room is filled with Post-it notes. Stupid, really. Dumb stuff. But he has all the meetings he needs to remember and the missions he has to do, along with everything he wants to write down at some point properly. The walls are covered in pictures of the people he loves (Luffy, Ace, Koala, Robin... All the others that have ever meant something to him because he refuses to forget somebody again).

He keeps writing dumb stuff down. Anything. He refuses to forget. He denies the possibility of doing it again.

But he forgets. Sabo keeps forgetting important dates. Important parts of his life, like his past with his brothers (he forgets a random adventure they had that he swore he had talked about the day prior) and crucial things he has to do. He has a hard time picturing his memories. Putting them in his brain. Turning them into images. Saying it's frustrating is a huge understatement.

Koala helps him out, of course. She's hard on him so he finishes his paperwork, but she knows it's difficult sometimes. She's his personal calendar and diary. She informs him of what he has to do during the week and always tries to talk and talk about anecdotes that she knows he still remembers but knows he loves to hear again.

His mental health isn't the best either, but he refuses to acknowledge it. There's a revolution at hand, he can't stop working. And fighting. And doing more and more and more. But sometimes it's just too much. Sometimes he goes into depressive episodes he can't control, and the medication is either addicting or the worst thing that has ever happened to him. Sometimes he's a bit too intense. Koala says he needs to calm down, that he has a problem with his fixation on the revolution and his past. Sabo keeps saying that it's fine. But he sometimes forgets or has blurry images of the fights and the people he has killed, filled with energy and excitement and like he has the power of a God. He doesn't like those. Enjoys the moment. Hates to forget it. Hates to know what he did during it too, even if it was for a good cause. Despises the look Koala gives him, also. Makes her promise not to tell Luffy about all of this.

But it's fine, he keeps saying. Sabo will keep trying to never forget anything ever again.

#hello i am very sad #i struggle with memory loss because of depression and shit and i thought wow yOU KNOW WHO ELSE STRUGGLES WITH MEMORY LOSS???#this post is kind of like 'guess the disorder' type of thing #it's bipolar disorder btw i just didn't get too much into it #i mean i think sabo is bipolar that's a personal headcanon of mine #which btw the only info i know about it is deep research and two years of psychology in high school #something something i wanted to know if i was bipolar bc i haven't gone to therapy in........... uh.... a while. but i highly doubt it #now i just have a lot of info #anywayyy got real dark real quickly right #sabo i love you i don't want to hurt you but you're just so angst material #one piece #revolutionary sabo #koala one piece #asl brothers #monkey d. luffy #tw mental instability #tw depression #tw medication

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thebramblewood · 5 months

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Read an exclusive excerpt of "Chapter 5: The Mysterious Cal and Lily" from Tangled Vines: A Complete Investigation of the Vatore Disappearances, the bestselling phenomenon sweeping Sim Nation!

The advent of the Roaring '20s put a new city on the map. Prohibition was in full swing across the nation (though often loosely and selectively enforced), but citizens were more eager than ever to revel in excess. Producers of alcoholic beverages (including the Vatore family itself, having swiftly resumed business operations despite the loss of its future inheritors) transitioned to an outward emphasis on medical spirits while moving recreational production underground. Equally clandestine speakeasys began cropping up by the dozens, but one city's winding sidewalks, grimy storefronts, and labyrinthine system of underground tunnels made it particularly well-suited to hosting these secret locales. Soon enough, San Myshuno was the pinnacle of glitz, glamor, and elegant debauchery. All who attended a party wanted to be seen. Curiously, though, two of the names most often uncovered in tabloid archives, Cal and Lily, seemed to fully avoid the increasingly ubiquitous flash of the camera. While other frequenters of the speakeasy circuit often found their grainy black and white faces in print, providing endless fodder for the burgeoning gossip rag industry, this pair remained elusive, which of course sold even more papers. Fellow partygoers pitched first-hand accounts to the highest bidders, and readers clung onto every salacious word. Lily and Cal were always observed to arrive together, but she would soon make a beeline for the gramophone while he settled in at the bar. Nearly every report calls Lily an exquisite beauty with an almost supernatural ability for drawing men into her orbit. In some instances, partygoers describe a herd of suitors nearly erupting into fisticuffs as they competed for her attention. It is impossible to say how many of these accounts are exaggerated or even fabricated. Nevertheless, it is clear she was quite the force. At the end of the night, she would leave with her chosen companion, stupefied by his stroke of good luck, on her arm. Meanwhile, Cal would watch listlessly from a distance, nursing a glass of whiskey he was never observed to actually drink. The relationship between the two was unclear, as was his reason for accompanying her, as he seemed to have little interest in the raucousness surrounding him. He rarely engaged with other guests or even Lily herself, though there is at least one report of an argument in which he seemed with little success to be dissuading her from leaving with yet another man. One cannot help but draw parallels to a certain set of siblings with suspiciously similar names. Despite being younger, Caleb Vatore was always said to be protective over his sister Lilith's interests, even if she rarely heeded his advice. Digging into the newspaper archives at Myshuno Meadows Library unearths several more disturbing accounts. Increasingly, there were whispers that the men Lily seduced completely vanished from San Myshuno society after coming into contact with her. While there was a small spike in unsolved murder cases at the time, a concrete connection between the victims and the mysterious Lily cannot be made. In one story, which admittedly reads like a hallucinatory drug trip, Lily is described as a succubus with glowing red eyes and sharp blood-stained teeth. This account was clearly dismissed, for its revelations were never entertained further. All at once, the champagne and glitter dissolved into a more sober era, and these socialites vanished from public life just as swiftly. In isolation, similarities between Cal and Lily and the disappeared Vatore siblings may seem like mere coincidences. In truth, it cannot even be proven that they existed. No official records matching either individual have been discovered. One could argue that they were works of fiction concocted to boost sales or composites drawn from several individuals. However, considered alongside the evidence to be presented in later chapters, the theory that this duo and the Vatores are one and the same becomes too tantalizingly probable to dismiss.

#ts4 #sims 4 #sims 4 story #ts4 story #simblr #story: hzid #lilith vatore #caleb vatore #oops i dropped something #thanks to the magic of storytelling i've obtained the footage #anyway i've decided lilith only kills men (on purpose anyway)#she doesn't count the accidents #also i realized while writing this that it was very subconsciously inspired by this kind of obscure british film called bright young things #(which is itself based on the novel vile bodies by evelyn waugh)#i remember it mainly being about vapid awful people in a downward spiral of increasingly debauched behavior #(in other words highly recommended)#but specifically there's a reporter character played by james mcavoy who picks up intel at parties #and then feverishly dictates his reports by phone in the middle of the night to ensure they make the morning edition #that's exactly what i'm picturing here #it's like the '20s version of celebrities being papped #anyway if you read everything under the cut and then also made it this far you're a real one #gonna cool it on the lore for now and hold onto the more interesting bits a while longer

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sneez · 1 year

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more of my oc tervis (any pronouns), the creepiest most miserable little weirdo in town. which is saying something [id under cut]

/ ID: four digital drawings.

The first image is a series of drawings of Tervis on a paper-textured background. A heading at the top reads 'Tervis (Humble)'. One is a coloured headshot of Tervis looking to the left; they have a gaunt face, short receding hair, a scar bisecting their lip and right eyebrow, greyish skin, and are wearing a red shawl around their neck. An arrow pointing at their right eye reads 'one blue eye (mostly blind)'; another arrow pointing at their left eye reads 'one brown eye'. They have a serious, hostile expression. The second drawing is an uncoloured full-body sketch of Tervis. Next to this is the same drawing but coloured and with more polished lineart. Tervis is a thin, hunched figure wearing a long, dark brown robe, a greyish bag on their back, and a red shawl around their head and neck. They are barefoot, and are leaning on a walking staff with both hands. An arrow pointing to the walking staff reads 'needed for walking, useful for hitting'. Tied to the belt around their waist are several long scrolls of paper with writing on them. An arrow pointing to the scrolls reads ''blessings' they paste on infected houses'. Tervis is looking warily out at the viewer from beneath their eyebrows. An arrow pointing to their head reads 'scar from getting hit in the face with a brick (also knocked out a tooth)'. Alongside these drawings are a series of bullet points giving information about Tervis. These read:

indeterminate age, indeterminate gender

religious fanatic (unclear which religion)

lives alone somewhere in the steppe

dislikes everyone but is nicer to children than anyone else

has every disease

The second image is a fake screenshot from the video game Pathologic. Tervis is looking out at the viewer; the background shows scenery from the steppe. The text on screen reads:

CHANGELING: I still don’t see what you could have done that would make you personally responsible for this plague. TERVIS: Responsible… no, not merely responsible! This is my plague, cast upon my head alone. I am the originator; my sin is at the root of all. I have ventured into the town. I have seen the canker there. No matter how many houses I bless, my sickness sinks deeper. The rotted limb is the death of the body… Surely you understand me. You are a healer, are you not? CHANGELING: What is it that you are asking me to do? TERVIS: Let me be the lamb, worker of miracles! My blood shall wet the earth, and bright flowers shall grow… My putrefaction will provide the soil within which new life will burgeon, pure and free of sin and decay. Let it be done. I am ready. My failing flesh is but little sacrifice; in death my weakness will be my strength. Soon these torments will be at an end.

Below are two dialogue options:

You’re insane!

What makes you so sure your death would solve anything?

The third image is a fake screenshot from the video game Pathologic 2. Tervis is looking out at the viewer, and has been painted in semi-realistic style. The text on screen reads:

Tervis: Why do you force me to live? Damn you! Your cure is poison to me. Now I shall never be blessed. You should have left me to bleed.

Below are three dialogue options:

Don’t be absurd. I wasn’t going to watch you die.

What makes you think you deserve suffering?

I wish I had.

At the bottom of the image is a line of dialogue which Tervis has just spoken:

The air is foul. There is rot in this place. The stench of corruption shall be – what was it? What was it? The stench of corruption shall be… swept aside…

The fourth image is a coloured scene depicting Tervis and Clara. They are central in the composition; around them is the steppe, which has been rendered in a loose, painterly style. Tervis is kneeling, their walking staff cast aside, and are reaching out their hands to Clara in a desperate, pleading gesture. They are crying, their face contorted in an expression of agonised ecstasy. Clara stands beside them, one hand reaching out, the other held above Tervis’s head as though about to touch their brow. She has a solemn, pained expression. Behind her head, a break in the dark clouds gives the impression that she is haloed by sunlight; rays of the same light fall onto Tervis, illuminating their face and red robe. End ID. /

#artwork #pathologic #tervis!!!!!!!!!!!! :-D #sorry i know ive already posted that fake p2 screenshot i just wanted to keep all my tervis images in one place. please forgive me #i am having. So Much Fun. i would explode and die for tervis shes the worst i adore her #making fake screenshots is so enjoyable i love trying to match the fonts and copying all the little ui details it's so fun highly recommend #i have a lot of tervis lore which i am still developing but hopefully these drawings give you some idea of his character #hes just a mess really. hes got every imaginable problem #that last drawing is her getting sacrificed in the humble ending. she is SO happy about it #also if you didnt see my last post tervis was originally a warhammer 40k oc (which he still is ive just made a bonus pathologic tervis now)#but ive tried to keep a lot of 40k stuff in her design like the blessing scrolls and the uh. Posture #that's also my reasoning for why nobody knows what his religion is. the watsonian explanation is they are just spouting incomprehensible #disjointed passages from some obscure scripture which nobody can identify (and who would want to try really. tervis is not good company)#but the doylist explanation is that it's literally just the cult mechanicus. just ignore all the references to the weakness of the flesh and #the glory of the machine it will all be fine nothing weird here at all #anyway :-) i could talk about tervis forever but i will stop now #i hope you are all well my dear friends! i am on holiday now wahoo #i am also aware that i have several messages to answer which i will do very soon i am so sorry for being so slow as usual #i love you all i am giving you individual kisses on your individual heads. mwah

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mid-nightowl · 6 months

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untitled lil fic #1 (jason todd and gotham war)

here's some gotham war rewrites i needed to get out of my head, the brainrot was killing me omg

warnings for violence, cursing, whatever the hell Bruce is doing (just Bruce as a full warning tag, the man is more unhinged than Joker in this)

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“Oh Jason. How I’ve missed you, my sweet boy.”

The words are sickeningly sweet, poison-saturated words falling from bloody red lips. Delivered with a crooked smile, Joker looks up at him, uncaring at his position. His fingers curl in the clown’s suit collar, lips curling with a snarl.

Jason punches him again, the clown’s jaw cracking and his body straining against the ferry railing. Joker merely giggles, head lolling around through the air before his mismatched eyes meet his mask.

“Shut the fuck up!” He snaps, unholstering his gun and digging the muzzle into Joker’s cheek.

His murderer raises his hands, waggling his fingers in surrender, grinning and smirking and smiling.

He hates it, he hates it, he hates it.

“I want you to think about this real carefully,” He digs his gun into his skin. “This could be the last joke you ever make, you understand? That’s what you want to go with?”

“You know,” His nightmare giggles, chuckles like a wind-up toy before he wipes the amusement off his face. The clown looks up at him, head tilted, pleased and patient and thoughtful. There’s not a single sliver of hate and destructive menace, or anger or disappointment or suspicion.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, he thinks. There’s something wrong here. There’s something wrong with Joker—and not in the usual way.

“The best jokes deliver a difficult truth, but hide it with a fun fiction,” Joker explains, smushed but coherent words strung together despite the gun halfway in his mouth. “Without humor all we have left is being mean and lying.”

“What?” He can’t stop the words before they stumble out of his mouth. He doesn’t let the gun go lax in his hand despite the way the clown’s words throw him off guard.

Off-kilter is a genuine feeling that digs into him, shocking him to the core. The clown does this, he knows it. He knows this is how he does things, how he worms his way out of every situation and every attempted manslaughter, he knows how the clown operates, intimately.

Jason knows him.

Joker, historically, has been so many things. But he’s always been a psychotic, impulsive mass-murderer. Someone without restraint, without limitation.

It’s why he’s always been Batman’s true nemesis. Bruce, he needs a fine-tuned control of everything and everyone. He is someone who has limits and restraint.

Controlled, focused, and without limitations—Jason is almost the happy medium to both of them.

Almost.

The three of them are similar, different, opposites and identical. It’s like walking in one of those mirror mazes where you can’t tell who the real you is.

Who is the real Bruce Wayne? The man who cherishes his children or the one who maims them?

Who is the real Joker? The cold, purposeful mass murderer or the dumped-in-acid man who can’t tell the difference?

Who is the real Jason Todd? The bloody crime lord or the declawed crowbar wielding vigilante?

Joker simply smiles and pats his arm, as if Jason’s not trying to kill him.

He slams the clown against the railing again, snarling.

“Enough games!” He growls and flips the safety off. The noise doesn’t even phase Joker, if anything he grins harder. His mismatched eyes—one red-brown, one green—flick above them before returning to his.

“Are you really going to use that big bad gun of yours with Daddy watching? He’ll be so mad at you.” His murderer grins, letting his head hang limply in his grasp.

“What? Batman-!” He jerks back, head snapping up to the ferry roof cover.

Empty. No looming monster demanding a painful compromise is here.

Joker’s hands push him back, and he grunts, stumbling into the ferry wall. The clown tumbles over the railing, disappearing from view. His laughter haunting the air.

“No!” He shouts, dashing to the railing.

The clown is gone under the waves and ice, sinking into the dark of Gotham Harbor.

He’s not dead. He can’t be dead, Jason thinks, gripping the ice-cold railing, I haven’t killed him yet.

He’s not dead.

But that was mean.

The last words Jason hears remind him of his grave.

No, not the one he was buried in. Six feet of dirt above him and smothered in satin, watched over by that stupid weeping angel.

There’s a memorial in the cave with his name. ‘Good soldier’ and nothing else but his name. Both of them: Jason Todd and Robin.

A monument to Bruce’s failure, his greatest mistake, a grave to his complicated teenage years, his love.

“You’ve always been a good soldier. Rest now.” Bruce told him, jabbing him in the neck with the needle.

A grave, a memorial, a monument. It makes him sick. The reminder that he will always be the dead Robin, the sad Robin, the angry Robin.

Dead, dead, dead.

The violence done to him, inflicted and imprinted into his skin and bones was more important. The guilt and the lesson were more important than his cries for justice, for his life’s blood.

The monument and altar, raised after his murder, were never for him, but for Bruce.

He was dead, why would he care?

The story Bruce will tell would never be the truth, just excuses and wrong-doings. He would take accountability after the fact, but not before.

Bruce would let his murderer walk and let him rot.

Maybe that was why he buried Jason six feet under, so he wouldn’t have to face the decay and decomposition. That he could keep this golden, blurry image of him as Robin, as the straight A student, the good son. And not a weightless body splinted a thousand different ways to look human.

But now that he’s resurrected—not in Bruce’s image, but as something broken and jagged, something lost and filled with dirt and green-green-green—Bruce refuses to acknowledge him. Refuses to believe this is who he is.

Refuses to believe that he remade (destroyed) himself from the ruins, from the broken bones and empty veins and black thread that mended his corpse back into the image of Jason Todd. Refuse to think that if a girl can come back as a soothsayer, that a boy can come back as a gun.

“Hnnng…Bruce,” Jason groans softly, heaving himself off the couch.

Batman turns to him, looming with his face mask in his hands. The fluorescent lights, a nauseous lime-yellow, cut over his figure, his face, his mask. Almost a green-green-green, almost a pool of rage, almost a pit of madness.

His mask crackles alive in Bruce’s hands, Selina’s voice wavering between annoyance and worry.

“Red Hood? Hood, please check in and let me kno-” Batman clicks his comm off.

The resounding silence smothers him.

His exhale comes out shaky, his heart beating too fast behind his bruised ribs, a chill crawling over his exposed skin.

Something’s wrong. Something is very wrong.

“...Batman? You…” He swallows roughly, mouth filled with dirt and blood and thread. “Wha…What did you do?”

“Nothing I’m proud of, Jason.”

His heart sinks and skips a beat at the same time, stomach twisting with anxiety and fingers trembling against the ugly brown couch cushions.

Inhale.

He pushed too much.

Taking Selina’s side?

He went too far.

Hood didn’t kill anyone?

Exhale.

“Hh! Ho…” Jason croaks, getting his boots on the ground. “Y-you…you..”

“Take deep breaths, Jason.” Batman turns back to the computer hub glowing behind him, ignoring his attempts to speak, to demand answers.

His arms shake as he holds himself upright, but when he tries to stand instead he chokes, falling to his knees in front of the couch. Gasping for air, he lays his palms flat against the cool tiles. His legs are quivering, heavy and unable to hold his weight.

His whole body trembles with it, this feeling unfolding through his blood and bones, engulfing his head and voice.

Fear, fear, fear.

“Years ago I created my backup personality, Zur, using techniques I learned from an old mentor and this machine that I built,” Batman starts, monitoring the screens in front of him with one hand on the keyboard and the other on his belt.

Bruce doesn’t turn to look at him, to face him, someone he calls son, someone he considers family, and explain what he’s done to Jason.

He never has.

“I can’t change your personality with it, Jason…” Batman sighs, low and quiet. “But I can add to it. A small thing: your failsafe.”

Failsafe. He slams the heel of his palm on the floor, cheeks tingling with his telltale sign of tears. A failsafe?!

Because Red Hood needs a failsafe instead of justice.

“What?!” He tries to snarl, to hiss and yell and scream his rage. But his voice fails him, anxiety chewing at his throat and tongue, voice tilting too high, too unsteady, too weak.

“Now when you have heightened adrenaline, when you’re about to do something dangerous, your fear kicks in,” Batman continues explaining. “It…I’m sorry Jason. But it’s the only way.” He clenches his eyes shut—inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale—and tries to ignore his rabbit heart battering against its cage, pounding to the frantic rhythm of fear, fear, fear.

“I love you.”

The words feel like gunshots, the knuckle prints on his skin after the two of them fought over Penguin, the smack of Selina’s whip against his fingers, the crowbar on his skull, his legs, his ribs, over and over and over.

“I love you, but you are a murderer,” Bruce condemns him, over and over again. “You’re a bull in a china shop and I go round after round with you, trying to figure out how to help make you a better man, to heal you.”

“H-heal me?” He whispers, rage cut off at the roots. “This isn’t…this isn’t you, Bruce.”

Batman, finally, turns to Jason. He looms, tall and foreboding, darkness dripping around him, drenching him in fear, fear, fear.

Batman takes a step forward and he crashes back against the couch, spine digging into the wooden frame painfully.

He can’t breathe. Batman moves and he knows it in his bones, knows it down to the scars Gotham and its guardian have left on him, that he’s not here to save him, to help him.

“I got you a new identity. A place in Metropolis.” Batman keeps walking forward, despite Jason’s growing hyperventilation, despite the way his blunted nails scratch at the floor. Despite the way he shakes, black stitches snapping apart, the pieces of him falling to the floor of this slaughterhouse, at the feet of his butcher.

“B-bat…Batman,” He whimpers, hand twisting into the fabric of his suit.

“You can live a normal life. Fall in love, do meaningful work. This isn’t punishment, Jason,” Batman kneels in front of him and removes the cowl. “I love you.” Jason shrinks back, shoulders back and legs curled to his chest. Bruce’s face is sharp and pale, with bags under his eyes and days old stubble on his jaw.

His eyes are dark with absolute rage.

Batman is going to hurt him. Batman is going to hurt him.

Bruce is going to hurt him again.

“This is a gift. Any way you look at it, you should be in prison for all the people you’ve killed,” He chokes at Bruce’s words, barely smothering the terrified cry in his throat. “This is me saving you from that. Save you from yourself.”

Jason can only stare at the man before him—the man who took him in, who raised and trained him, who loved him—does his best to bury him.

fear, fear, fear.

“Please..don’t…please,” Jason pleads, covering the girl with his frame, caging her in with his bruised and burnt arms.

“Let’s begin.” Scarecrow’s voice reverberates, it shakes through air to match his erratic breathing.

“P-please, I’ll do anything you want, anything,” He begs, fear, fear, fear burning in his veins. “Please. Just stay…stay away.”

Scarecrow closes the gap between them, rocking back and forth on his crooked, long legs. His mask distorts and mutates, a familiar green-green-green splashing over the darkened void of his gas mask.

“You’re going to die tonight. I know you know this,” Crane looms over him, green-green-green trickling out his eyes, gushing out like an open wound. “But we can still have fun, can’t we.”

The girl trembles underneath his chest and Jason tries to smother the whimper begging to pour out his lips. It’s gnawing at him—rabbit heart frantic in his chest, hands trembling from the burning pain and anxiety, smoke and ash gathering in his lungs—fear, fear, fear.

He can’t think of anything else.

“Those fools were right. Your terror…it’s real and it isn’t mine,” Scarecrow sneers, kneeling in front of him. “There is no thrill in driving terror into the heart of a baby bird.”

Scarecrow takes his jaw in his hand, needles tickling at his exposed skin, forcing Jason to look at him. He can’t help but jerk his head at Crane’s touch, needles pricking into his cheek when Crane holds him tighter, another inescapable cage around him.

His chest heaves with every shaky inhale-exhale, his anxious fear fanning over the rogue’s mask. Scarecrow leans in closer, the glass over his eyes gleaming, reflecting the fire roaring around them. Jason can hear the screams in them, watching the shadows morph around them and the straw on Crane’s shoulders wiggle.

“This is my moment of triumph, and it is snatched away from me by..by him?!” Scarecrow shakes Jason’s head in his hand, needles scratching into his skin but still not drawing blood.

Scarecrow lets his head drop, needles disappearing from his sight before they’re clawing at his throat, wet and cold against his clammy skin. Jason whimpers and clenches his eyes shut, unable to do anything but beg.

He knows praying for someone to help him is futile.

No one is coming to save him.

“Never let it be said Scarecrow has no pity,” Crane says, voice cutting in and out his head like radio static. “I will quickly finish what your daddy started.”

“Doesn’t mommy get a say?”

A voice slices through the flames licking at his skin and the fear smothering him. And when Jason’s gaze finds him, he can’t help the tears.

“Step away from the vigilante, pervert.” Joker grins, dark red lips stretched too wide, too thin. Ash rains down on his green-green-green umbrella, rolling down the crooked dark patches and shamrock-colored nylon.

“You’ve already killed him once. It’s time you learned to share, Clown.” Scarecrows speaks with thin, razor-sharp disdain, glaring over his shoulder at the newcomer.

“You should know this by now, Doc. I don’t play well with others.” The clown throws aside the umbrella, knife materializing from thin air as he descends upon Scarecrow.

“You’re not even really him, are you? Do you think I don’t know about you? Delusions and megalomania with-” Scarecrow baits and taunts the clown, before the two of them are ducking and weaving and slicing at each other with barely concealed rage and annoyance.

“Blah, blah, blah. Do you know why you’re always going to be a C-List villain, Johnny?” Joker jokes and Jason can imagine the sharp grin on his face. “Because doctors aren’t scary. They’re annoying.”

He ducks his head down and curls tighter around the girl. She cries underneath him, hiccups soft under the roar of flames closing in on them, the screech of metal on metal and creaking of deteriorating wood.

He can’t move. He can’t do anything but try to breathe. But all he tastes is smoke, choking him, billowing down his throat and in his lungs. His heartbeat is so loud, jumping under its bone-cage, a heady, heavy thing—badump-badump-badump-badump. It’s too fast, erratic, out of control.

“You’re a bull in a china shop and I go round after round with you, trying to figure out how to help make you a better man, to heal you-”

Always out of control. Jason whines, hands scrambling against the wood below him. It burns, seering through his fingertips. It hurts-it hurts-it hurts, he can’t do this. He can’t.

He can’t breathe.

“Ahhhh! Ack! Achhhhh!” Scarecrow screams, guttural and wobbly and when he looks up, Jason can only watch as Crane crashes through the fifth story window.

Tears continue to stream down his face, his heart trembling in his chest and the realization strikes him then, cracking down on his skull like a crowbar, over and over and over.

Joker saved him. Joker saved him. Joker saved him.

His murderer saved him.

“A-are you real?!” Jason cries out, fingers curling into the withering floorboards. “Is this real?!”

“Oh, don’t worry about him. I didn’t even give him a real dose of Joker Gas. I ran out. Heh!” Joker laughs, rubbing at his jaw. Blood and green-green-green stain the edges of his mouth, smeared down his chin and throat before disappearing under the orange sweatshirt he’s wearing.

“But now, it’s just you and me. And…your daughter? Did you have a daughter and not tell me?” The clown tilts his head in question, tucking away the green-green-green gun in his hand. He steps closer, uncaring of the flames licking over his pale skin.

Jason can’t tell if it's real or an illusion, can’t tell if his murderer is here and saving? rescuing? tricking? him. He can’t tell if this is just another nightmare he’s trapped himself in, or if this is the real punishment Bruce promised him.

“She’s just a kid. Please…don’t,” He pleads, the tears searing down his ash-stained cheeks.

Joker leans down, bringing his face close to Jason’s. His mismatched eyes—one green, one red-brown—bore into his and the clown smiles, too wide, too cracked and broken, too bloody and green-green-green.

He sobs, cracking under everything. He can’t do this, he can’t.

“My, my. Even like this you still think you’re the hero. Batman would be proud if he didn’t hate you,” His murderer says, before his bony hand is cupping Jason’s face, calloused fingers dancing over his skin.

Jason clenches his jaw when it threatens to wobble and tremble, but knows the fear is shining in his eyes. Knows the clown can see it, knows he recognizes it in his baby-blues. He’s been here before.

They’ve been here before, together.

“But don’t worry my sweet boy, I’ll find a way to fix you. Nobody is going to hurt you. I won’t let them. Because I need you.” His voice is honeyed and threatening, curling and clawing and cloying into his head like a sickness. Joker pets his hair, gentle and caring, and Jason knows he means it.

He’s going to fix him. He’s going to heal him.

He’s going to save Jason.

“Don’t worry, sweet boy. We’ll see each other soon,” Joker pats his cheek with a crooked green-green-green smile. “I promise.”

His heart beats frantic to the words—fear, fear, fear—eyes unable to look away from Joker.

Jason believes him.

#unholy screeching and too much caffeine #my writing #the brainrot was literally killing me i wish i was joking #havent been able to FOCUS on anything else #i just cant get over divorced batjokes playing tug-of-war with their murderous and highly traumatized kid (jason)#im not entirely sure if i like this? it feels very rough draft to me #but i really just needed to get it down and out of my head so i can focus on my other wips T-T #would also love to hear anyone's thoughts if they have any<3 #might have missed some grammar stuff and yadda yadda but im kind of tired of looking at this:))))#i do think i want to add to it thou--maybe a scene with selina another with the batkids #ill probably come back to this after the final issue for the actual event (which comes out next week!) and joker's comic #i just really wanted to write how jason was dealing with all this; how he might take the fact that joker is saving his ass rather than bruc #but im not sure if it came across the way i wanted it to??#jason todd #jason todd and bruce wayne #jason todd and joker #writing

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thefirstknife · 1 year

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Since a lot of people have been talking about possible antisemitism and racism in Bungie's writing I wanted to add something that always bothered me.

I think that Saint-14 as a character is at least influenced by some pretty anti Slavic stereotypes. He's the only major character of Slavic origin (accent) and he just so happen to embody the stereotype of "Slavic brute". He's strong and kills hordes of enemies not showing almost any remorse. And the Season of the Splicer even managed make it worse! Even when he's portrayed as having some deeper thoughts and agency he's still constructed as being unable to be subtle with his words (despise speaking English)

I really like Saint as a character but it's unpleasant to see that he's clearly created as a stereotype

I respectfully disagree. I've seen this line of thinking around A LOT, especially during Splicer, and I don't understand where it comes from outside of people being unable to treat non-native English speakers right. Source: I am Slavic. Not American with Slavic heritage, I am a Slavic person living in a Slavic country and English is not my native language.

Saint is as far away from a brute as possible. Ever since he's settled down in the City, he is dedicated to protecting, not attacking. He feeds birds and sings songs with the children of the City. He dedicated his time to learn to bake cookies for the Eliksni and was considerate to find a recipe that is specifically for Eliksni. He fights when he has to, but has largely settled down and would rather plough fields and plug holes in the wall than fight. He is incredibly emotional and emotionally intelligent and understanding. He is aware of his own and other people's emotions and he's open about it unapologetically.

He is so non-aggressive to the point of many in the community, including big lore youtubers, wishing for Osiris to DIE, just so they can see Saint being angry and aggressive enough to go on another bloody rampage. Because Saint is too tame for them. Too passive, too peaceful. Where is he a brute right now?

Saint has been "brutish" before Season of Dawn, because we never saw him anywhere outside of a couple of lines. He essentially didn't exist as a character until Season of Dawn and the only thing we knew about him was that he was a legendary Titan who went on a crusade against the Eliksni and killed many of them. That's definitely brutish!

When we met him in Dawn, we met him in the middle of his crusade, at the time where he lost countless innocent people to Eliksni in the middle of the horrible conditions of the Dark Age. He is... rough, and angry. Reasonably. He just got to Mercury to save civilians and he lost them and he almost died. He thinks in black and white terms; Eliksni bad, humans good. He is harsh and lost.

But, that's when we find him in a bad position and when he's yelling on comms because he's under fire. He also speaks in broken English and with an accent. People are prejudiced when they hear it and immediately assume less subtlety and less eloquence. That's not on Bungie. That's on the prejudiced audience.

In written text, he speaks perfectly fine. Observe this and this. The issue arises when he speaks out loud (with an accent) or when he's talking to friends casually or when he's making jokes. I don't know why people expect him to speak like he's giving a speech at all times. He can speak perfectly fine, but for non-native speakers, that can be exhausting. He is allowed to drop the eloquence in a more relaxed situation.

Pointing out Splicer is incredibly strange to me because in Splicer he made the biggest possible turning point when he was confronted with how other people see him as a brute. The cutscene where Mithrax tells a story about how the Eliksni view him as a monster shook him to his core. He has been on a path of redemption ever since and dedicated his time to gently protecting Eliksni. He even started learning their language and culture.

I would understand saying that Saint started off as a brute, because he did. But Bungie pulled the biggest flip of a switch on us when they showed us that Saint is actually a huge softie, a gentle man who was pushed to war only to protect, someone who lives for peace and quiet. He is good-natured, trusting, perceptive, kind and empathic.

How is this man a brute (this is just a small selection of his idle lines):

Food reserves are dwindling. New land must be ploughed. I can do this! / Everyone is so accommodating, I- I will think of ways to give back to them. / Shaxx, ugh. Glory is for the selfish. We fight to end the fighting. / To hear the children laughing. This is the peace we fight for. / The city breathes, ships flow through its veins. There is life here, and it is thriving. / I walked the City walls, plugged holes. Every small act brings us closer to peace. / The Traveller teaches us in these quiet moments. We are not defined by our scars. / The Light does not make us heroes, friend. Power is only good when it is used for good. / I am glad to see birds still nest in these old walls. / This life can take its toll. Come to me if you need to talk. / Yesterday, a child came to me. He carried a painted shield of paper. I turned to him and he threw the shield at my head! A young Titan, I love it! [laughing]

Saint-14 is the gentlest man in the whole damn setting. Bungie said "fuck toxic masculinity in particular" when they decided to treat us to a Saint so kind that people in-universe are surprised to learn that's THE Saint-14, the one who fought at Six Fronts and led a crusade against Eliksni. Eva's assessment of this:

"That's right," he said, spreading a little more birdseed. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Eva."

We sat a little longer together, watching the pigeons and the clouds, before I finally had to excuse myself to go back to my work.

As I said, I'd heard the legend of Saint-14 before. Many legends of remarkable Guardians make them seem like mythical figures, so far removed from anything the civilians of the City will ever see or experience. The legendary Saint-14 does not seem that way to me at all.

In fact, I think he is a very nice young man.

Saint is deeply ashamed and regretful of his violent past. Because he DID have a violent past, much like pretty much every Lightbearer. Saint and Shaxx discuss this, as well as Shaxx and Mithrax. But as much as he fought and as powerful he is, Saint does NOT enjoy war or fighting. He endures it because he knows that sometimes you must take up arms to protect those who can't protect themselves, but if he had the option to be sure that the City will stay safe without his aid, he would hang up his armour forever.

I've talked a lot about how much I appreciate that Bungie took a big powerful manly man who went on rampaging crusade before and presented him to us as a gentle and kind person who loves children and birds, who prefers domestic tasks over war and who is deeply emotional and thrives on kindness. It's quite strange to see people saying that he's a "Slavic brute stereotype." He is literally the opposite of it.

If there are specific instances in lore that someone thinks are stereotypical and brutish, I would love to see them so I can address them in context. I'm also not sure what "subtle with his words" means exactly, but if there are examples of this that you'd like addressed, I'm happy to investigate. Bungie is obviously not perfect so there could be instances where they messed up, though I can't currently recall any in regards to Saint and the fact that he's Slavic.

#destiny 2 #saint-14 #long post #ask #bungie is in general really good with their portrayal of men. saint zavala and shaxx are all very good depictions of men who are gentle #even shaxx who can be highly aggressive is overall incredibly good to people and emotional #in which other game would a pvp vendor yell how he's going to marry every guardian unapologetically #or reminisce about his fallen friend and contemplate about his past mistakes #pretty much all characters like this are multifaceted and well-developed

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