REVERSE TROPE WRITING PROMPTS

adulthood is just a constant struggle of, “man, i want cookies for breakfast, but I also recognize this is a bad nutritional decision.  On the other hand, the only one who can stop me is me.  i know that fucker’s weaknesses.  i could totally take me in a fight.”

Damian Wayne: I need Grayson there.

Damian Wayne: I need someone to exchange glances with when people inevitably annoy me.

So, tattoo shop AUs are really popping off lately and personally I love it. What’s more romantic than bleeding for art? Nothing!

But as someone married to a tattoo artist, I have been experiencing some mild She Wouldn’t Say That regarding tattoo culture. So here’s a few quick tips that may help inform your AU. With a grain of salt for my mostly-second-hand knowledge:

NO ONE REPUTABLE SHOP WILL TATTOO A DRUNK PERSON. EVER. or even a person they suspect of any kind of inebriation. This is not just for Regret reasons, but also because alcohol is a blood thinner. If someone is on an acute dose of blood thinners, you generally do not want to stab them dozens of times per second.

Maybe this is regional, but in my experience most tattoo places don’t call themselves parlors anymore. It has a kind of seedy vibe. I see shop or studio a lot but rarely parlor.

Most tattoo artists are hot, yes, but none are as hot at my wife

Tattooing janks up your hands. Sometimes in a RSI way but definitely in a changing-gloves-every-five-minutes-fucks-up-your-skin way.

Artists themselves are rarely if ever employees of the shop. They will be independent contractors who pay the shop either a cut of their sales or rent on their station like a hair dresser. They are also (usually) responsible for taking care of their own supplies, tools, etc. except for the stencil printer. What kind of dweeb would have their own stencil printer?

There is always a line for the stencil printer. Always.

Artists generally spend orders of magnitude more time working on art, replying to emails, doing consults, etc compared to time with their needles in skin.

A typical schedule for an artist might be: wake up at noon and guzzle half her body weight in coffee, one appointment from 1-4, and another from 6-9. Home to eat one (1) real meal at 10 pm. Drawing until 5 am. This is good for her actually and good for our marriage and she’s so healthy all the time.

An ideal shop receptionist needs to be friendly, knowledgeable, and encouraging. They also need to be willing to get out the baseball bat that is kept behind the counter.

If a shop has to choose between “good people skills” and “will promptly rebuff Nazis and the obviously inebriated” the later is often a more important consideration.

At any given moment in any given shop there’s going to be at least one apprentice or someone bumming around hoping to be taken on as an apprentice. They spawn on tic and this feature cannot be disabled.

Again I can not overstate how hot my wife is

Dick is kind of a big brother who knows what effect he has on his siblings's friends, and he never misses an opportunity to make himself look even cooler in their eyes. But Jason? Oh, Jason has no idea that people even consider him pretty and interesting.

It pisses his siblings even more.

Jason, on his bike, with the most insane face card: Hey, Replacement, hop on. We have work to do.

Kon, twirling his hair: Is your brother, like... free?

Bernard: Yeah, on Friday

Tim, with his eye twitching: I will kill you.

Jason, absolutely unaware of what is going on: ??? WHAT THE FUCK DID I DO

***

Jon, waving enthusiastically at Jason, who passes by kitchen: Jason is so cool!

Damian: ...

Jon: And kind!

Damian: Calling Todd kind is definitely a choice.

Jon: But he read me a bedtime story the last time I was staying here 😕

Damian, frowning: ...

(Damian, later that day: Why did you read bedtime story to Jon and not me.)

***

Jason: Why Tim's and Damian's friends keep fucking glaring at me? Or stumble when I am around? What tf am I doing wrong?

Dick, trying to hide his laughter: Eh, no idea

Bruce, absentmindedly: I, actually, have the same problem when I am around other people

Alfred, amused: No DNA test required, that's for sure

I fucking hate that the general response to RFK Jr's eugenist take on autistic people is "autistic people do pay taxes, autistic people do work, autistic people do date!"

Some autistic people don't and that shouldn't make them less worthy of life. Some autistic people do need constant help and support and that shouldn't make them less worthy of life.

Once again we're falling in the right wing trap of :

They make a hateful, fascist statement

Instead of focusing on the fact that it is hateful and fascist we try to show them that they are factually wrong

We throw our own allies and the most vulnerable of us under the bus in the process

We legitimise an only slightly less hateful, fascist view as we go

They have completed their goal of making us accept the still hateful, fascist second version, hurrah. What a victory.

Right now what we're getting to with that is that autistic people who can work and pay taxes are okay, and the others aren't. Fuck this shit.

Same thing happens with the people who are being deported ("they have a visa!", "they didn't even have a criminal record!" -> even if they didn't have a visa, even if they did have a criminal record, deporting them and detaining them in what's essentially a concentration camp wouldn't be okay, you absolute tools of fascism.)

i do think there should be more stories and shows and stuff about guys falling in love with butch women actually, i think that’d be a good thing. and not ‘this is as butch as twitter can handle’, i mean butch as can fucking be without apology, and making those boys weak in the knees about it. i think it’s great actually to have f/m romances that exist to break gender norms, too. i think it sucks that the only mainstream het romances that exist are either about women who are already feminine or with women who are just a little too scarily masculine and have to be fixed into being girlier. that’s shit.

When the League meets Baby Robin(Dick), they are genuinely surprised, as it seems impossible that Batman is raising this little ray of sunshine who appeared from between his cape and then proceeded to greet them with the brightest smile they've all ever seen, completely adoring Superman, saying how great Wonder Woman is, and actually laughing at Barry's jokes.

Bruce takes care of his work, but occasionally stops to, in fact, help Robin who is trying to do his English homework. The other members also help out, of course.

So, Hal arrives at the Watchtower, and Robin, seeing the man his dad mentor has been so grumpy about because of the last meeting they had (Hal doesn't understand that Batman is the best at his job and is the one giving directions for a reason, duh!), decides he will exact revenge.

He carries on a normal conversation with the man just as he did with everyone else, subtly leading the topic until Hal falls into the trap:

Hal: What about your mom? I can't imagine anyone putting up with the old bat.

He speaks with all mockery, but then his smile freezes when he sees the tremor in the little boy's shoulders.

Dick: *shuddering and holding back a little sob* my mummy died in front of me a few months ago.... I...

Hal is pale now, because the child actually sobs, and runs off to hide in the cape of Batman, who was now standing, ready to stitch up his child.

He's not the only one, Superman and the others are already there too, looking at him angrily because he made the little bean cry.

Hal is in a panic.

And if he sees how the boy smiles at him when no one is looking, sticking his tongue out at him while moving his lips to send him the message "Don't bother my dad", no one would ever believe him, not while the little boy is now clinging to Batman tightly as he slowly blinks away tears that not even the best actors could ever pull off.

Only Hal knows the devil behind that angel face.

Batman knows it too, but he adores his precious little demon.

Bruce truly hates magic with every pump and beat of his heart.

What kinda curse is Slang, anyway?

“This is the best day of my life.”

“You thought you ate that.” Bruce physically feels a full body shiver, charged with nausea and cringe. “This is level 10 cringe. Can’t have shit in Gotham.”

Dick is his earth bound angel, but he laughs like a demon at him, holding onto Jason for support, pledging his eternal loyalty to Zatana and her pettiness.

—

“Hey, old bat, hook me up with an adrenaline shot.”

What he wants to say is Jay, do not try and fight with 6 bullets in your stomach.

What comes out instead, through Bruce’s grit teeth and intense, fierce glaring, “Not you trying to go back to your corpse era. See how I only took 2 shots? Very demure. Very mindful.”

Jason passes out from blood loss, but mostly laughter.

—

“Chat, is this real?”

Stephanie barely bites back a full belly cackle. “I think he just asked us if we copied.”

“I wish I was Jason, 15.”

—

“This is not a slay environment. Killing is flop behavior.” He keeps his eyes shut and buries his face in his hands. Trying to convince Damian not to stab someone doesn’t seem to work.

Damian gives him a pat like he’s a pitiful cat. “I’ll only stab the non lethal areas.”

“God, I wish that were me.”