I’m also anti-pit madness! What’s your reason? I’m not a fan of it because it isn’t canon and I find it triggering because it’s often used as an excuse for characters *cough cough* Jason *cough cough* to behave abusively without any repercussions.
for the me it's mainly because it takes away the character's agency and accountability.
all the bad things they did, the change/development of their character - whoosh! explained away by "oh they were being strongly influenced / they were temporarily insane & out of control it wasn't their fault <3". it reduces the situation/events/character to a mindset where it simply couldn't be helped.
like no!!! they were in control!!! they made those decisions!!! they're the way they are now not because of the pit, but because they've gone through life events and come out changed!!!
to get specific with Jason (bc we all know that's who this is about):
Jason becoming a crimelord, killing lots of people, and nearly killing his family was FULLY premeditated. Jason is wicked smart. you better believe he thought that shit out down to the letter before acting.
was he incredibly angry? yeah. was his character suddenly drastically different than who he was when he died? yeah. BECAUSE HE DIED AND CAME BACK, THEN LIVED FIVE WHOLE YEARS AWAY FROM GOTHAM. OF COURSE HE'S FUCKED UP. HE'S NEVER GONNA BE THE SAME AGAIN AND THAT'S THE POINT.
'pit madness' completely takes away the impact of that. and even if pit madness was canon, you're telling me that in those five years of training and travel etc he STILL had zero control over it? c'mon.
i'm just... i hate it when fucked up events and actions are "fixed" by a borderline deus ex machina like pit madness. not only does it put everyone else in a bad position and often forces them into a corner of guilt "we should have known, i'm sorry we didn't see it, we still love you, no no you don't need to apologize we get it" - it takes the pit-dipped character and makes them kinda pathetic, honestly.
suddenly, despite their development (please note that development does Not equal positive growth), they're backtracking right to where they started. they have to grovel for forgiveness. they've got that "ough im unforgivable, im out of control, it would be better if i stayed away even though i wish i could go home" self pity
and again talking about jason specifically: whenever i read a fic where all he wants is to go home but thinks he can't, i roll my eyes. if he wanted to 'go home', he'd be having tea with Alfred every sunday. Bruce and the others would not be able to stop him. he would not give up his guns for fuckin ANYONE, and especially not Bruce.
and would you look at that - most fics i read where he's given up his guns also has pit madness. and guess what - in those, he gives up his guns because of the pit madness, because it, say it with me, ~made him kill people~.
actions have consequences. people change, often in an unpleasant direction. pit madness spits in the face of that and i hate it.
Robin!Jason: Okay, let's go put a bullet in Joker's head.
Batman: No, if we kill him we're no better than he is. If we kill him, he wins.
Robin! Jason: Yeah. Except we are better than he is, and he doesn't win. He doesn't anything. He's dead. That's the point.
I do not like having jingly keychains, but I like that my father does. His chain has the car keys, a Swiss army knife, a longer Swiss Army knife, a small metal Captain America shield, and a few other trinkets that he wears in his belt loop with one of those big clips (the metal ones for rock climbing- carabiners).
Anyway my dad has been wearing that specific set of trinkets for my entire life. It is not loud but because of the trinkets it makes a very specific jingle.
So when my brother and I got lost at a Disney park during one of your extended family vacations (25 people is a lot and very easy to be overlooked), we tracked down the rest of our family by walking around the general area in a circle to hear down the different streets until we heard it. All the way from the opposite end of the street and around a corner.
We got back to them fast enough that nobody knew of our little crisis and all because of my Dad’s obnoxious key chain.
having a little jingly keychain is all fun and games, until you’re walking around somewhere that’s dead quiet…..like oh i’m sorry i just my trinkets are jangling around……n suddenly your the court jester and everyone is pointing and laughing at you for your noisey fucking keychain…..bobo the clowncore
“Hey, it’s okay. You’re safe now.”
(art by the wonderful @gotham-gargoyle )
Some ranting, theory-crafting and inspiration behind this commission under the cut :)
Keep reading
I saw a post where everyone in the batfam had adopted the airhead Brucie Wayne cover except for Damian and of course Alfred. So I wanted to add to the pile. :)
All of them are sitting in a restaurant
Brucie: … wait this has a little label for vegetarian on it but it doesn’t have any meat in it. I think you forgot to label it vegan!
Waiter: … this has whipped cream, eggs and milk in it sir.
Dick: Wait whipped cream isn’t vegan?!?
Jason: No, I’m pretty sure it is.
Dick: well if it isn’t I messed up my vegan challenge week and nobody told me!
Tim: can’t we just pay someone to find out if whipped cream is vegan?
Brucie: Good idea! [Takes out $100 bill and hands it to the waiter] Is whipped cream vegan?
Waiter: uhh
Damian: PLEASE STOP! NONE OF YOU HAVE DIETARY RESTRICTIONS! WHY DID THIS BECOME A DEBATE?
Dick: that’s not true I’m a pescatarian now! I really miss eating fish but it’s worth it!
Damian with head in hands: that’s not what- ugh forget it!
The waiter now confirms to everyone that they come across that Damian Wayne is indeed the holder of the Wayne Family Braincell.
Tabloids dub this conversation the dessert debate. It becomes a trend to ask what Bruce thinks is vegan during interviews.
damian : [creeping behind jason to stab him]
jason, loudly : I hope no one is about to attack me from behind because I'm thinking about making cookies later.
damian pausing :
damian : ...what kind?
batfamily twitter but it’s tim drake being a rapscallion
This was an idea I had wanted to put in my current work, but couldn't fit in:
Marinette wanting to make a website that is protected (old one could have been damaged by Lila), but doesn't have the experience or time to figure it out on her own, so
a) she asks Penny if she knows anyone who could help her out.
or
b) she posts an ad on a forum
The first response she gets ends up being from Barbara, and the two of them become good friends fast. Marinette designs something for Barbara as a thank you, and the bat boys are trying to figure out how she managed to get a custom MDC.
(this could also be either daminette or platonic maribat).
idk if i'll write this, but if someone wants to, please tag me?
The saying ‘someone walked over my grave’ and everyone assumes Jason is just being morbid. He’s not- he shivers every time someone steps near the casket. The family doesn’t know how he can always tell when one of them visits his grave but he will blow up the group chat complaining about it.
When Jupiter collides with autumn, a single moment is born between two entities. Equal harmonies with balance, dancing along a fine line of too far and too near, of brightest and dimmest, of perfect alignment. People say that on an equinox, the sky divides into two parts, golden light and silver darkness.
For Damian Wayne, it meant heading to the rooftop instead of sleeping peacefully in his bed, staring at the sky, but not seeing anything. His eyes would remain blank as they stared up at the twinkling stars almost covered by the rancid smog. He learned at too young of an age that life was not about myths and fairytales, but of monsters in the form of flesh and bone which held their smiles on their face and their daggers in your back.
The equinox meant facing the demons of his past.
He always knew he was never the best person. He wouldn't ever be as selfless as Dick, he wouldn't be as level-headed as Tim, or even as passionate as Jason. He wouldn't have his father's ingrained need to help the dying cesspool they lived in, and he would never have Alfred's heaven-bound level of patience. There would always be that selfish, rash, cold-hearted, narcissistic, impatient prince lying inside of him, waiting to rear its foul head. It surfaced every second he held a blade in his hand, at every mob member terrorizing innocents and criminals alike, every abuser, every villain. A voice inside him purred to rid the world of their filth, of their moral grime. And every single time, it grew louder and louder and louder and louder.
Each time a criminal escaped through his grasp was another chip in his fortitude.
Each time an innocent civilian broke a smile at him, only to die minutes later from an explosion was a stab in the wall between morally good and vengeance.
For every stabbing heart, for every gutless cry of a mother who lost their child.
Wouldn't it be so much easier to erase them before they could commit such barbarisms?
The cold kissed his cheeks, so much like a viper's poison, and he shook his head, banishing the thought from his mind. Ah, she's still inside my head.
Maybe symphonies are built on a beautiful melody. However, the melody would never work if they worked on different concepts. The one his father blasted into his mind was a righteous march, darker in tone than most melodies, but an overarching victory for Good reigned. It taught him patience, morals, ethics, light against darkness.
But, his mother taught him the cellist's devil nature. The darker tones, the echoing, vibrating puppet master giving the audience the illusion that the melody is in control, but in reality, all the melody can do is fall victim to the villainous, tragic whirlpool of misery, murder, and fascist brutality. She placed the blade in his hand, had him earn her love through feats of glorious atrocities, built him up from the ground up into the perfect weapon, too jagged and unpredictable to be used for Good, but whittled down, rusted and corrupted for far too long to be remolded into something useful.
Now, he didn't know where he belonged. Did his melody rise above the dark cello nurtured in him? Or will the melody drown under the alluring, tempest bass driven through his heart, buried deeper than the center of the Earth?
The wind, maybe sensing his demise, could do nothing but blow harder to calm his feverish head filled with questions he could not answer. The somber cold stung the sweet chapped lips all too used to the desert's ice and fire of his childhood, but it stung more bitterly as the North Atlantic ocean blew in the new change in season. Gotham was an outlier. A ghost town of improbabilities and plausibility all clashed together to create a cesspool of madness, hate, and impossibilities.
He wondered why his father, or his ancestors before him, would ever want to stay in a city like this for the rest of their rich, detached lives. Why they would ever choose to spend their lives in this miserable landfill, giving what they have to make the ever-draining city a better place. Why they gaze at the buildings and streets with fond gazes. Why they find it so easy to smile at a Gotham native without feeling like they will get a knife's edge poking their sternum the moment they show their backs.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he cursed God that he was not given this ingrained sense of belonging and mercy to Gotham like all of his family before him.
Pages rustled on in the breeze, and, by miraculous luck, the cover tipped open. Blue light shone through the darkness beyond his closed eyelids, but he did not notice beyond the salty river squeezing through the crevice.
"S'il te plaît, ne me dis pas que tu pleures." Please, don't tell me you're crying. Soft French carried over the quiet din. "I never know what to do when you are crying."
He pried his eyes open, and a vision filled his eyes. A girl, no older than he was, but with a more youthful smile cracked in sorrow, dressed in a midnight blue evening gown glowing in the darkness, blowing in the wind to its own rhythm as it reflected the stars ten times brighter than Gotham Fair's lights. She floated over the torn book of ancient Tibetan magic he brought with him that night, just like he did every solstice, her legs crossed underneath her in an informal squat. Cheeks blossomed like dusky luminescent wisteria, and constellations made of stars brighter than Rigel lost across the bridge of her nose. Her blue crown of hair burned a halo around her, framing bluebell eyes that looked older than a thousand of his lifetimes staring deep into his own green eyes.
The only word he could say was, "Marinette."
Her grin made his heart's symphony subito pianissimo. "Hi, Damian. Happy Autumn Solstice."
================
not me wanting to make this a full fic ;v; (hence the chapter title "theme")
for @jumpingjoy82 for the maribat gift exchange 2022 (i posted on time on archive, just not on tumblr ;v;)
"We hope this email finds you well" babe, the only emails I'm excited to get is the ones from Archive of Our Own