a recluse by design

above all else, family
Fandom: Red Hood and the Outlaws (DC)
Pairing: Jason Todd/Roy Harper
Rating / Warnings: General. None.
Words: 1390

Summary: It's Roy's birthday, and Jason reflects on how grateful he his to have a place in their little family.

chai and flannel
Fandom: Red Hood and the Outlaws (DC)
Pairing: Jason Todd/Roy Harper
Rating / Warnings: General. None.
Words: 532

Summary: Roy unexpectedly drops in on Jason's morning shift, promising hot drinks. Jason contemplates the tension between them.

It’s amazing how life-changing it is making a friend who actually has empathy and compassion and gives a shit about you.

Like, today I found an old unread message accusing me of “not taking responsibility for my actions and behavior”—sent to me immediately following a period of being intensely bullied, over something I did actually take responsibility for and did everything I could to make amends for, and after being betrayed and stabbed in the back by every single friend I had right after losing my therapist and my grandma—and now I read that message and I feel angry, yeah, but I’m not going to let it eat at me.

I’m not going to internalize that and obsess over it. I’m not going to go and apologize to every single person who I ever hurt, for something I've already apologized over and over for. I’m definitely not going to apologize to the people who hurt me over it without any reason whatsoever—the people who weren’t around to see me at my worst, who claimed they were accepting and tolerant of me until someone else decided to drag the past back up—then suddenly they all dropped me like a hot stone. But not before accusing me of being a narcissist and making memes about how I deserve to choke.

I have more self respect than that.

I’m in a better place now and the things I’ve done in the past don’t define me anymore. If other people want to keep holding on to it, they can, but I’ve moved on. I’m not carrying this burden any longer. I'm ready to heal. And I think I have both my therapist and my first real friend in almost 10 years to thank for getting me to this point. I'm not sure where I would be today if not for them.




( People will stay the same )

+ Young Justice: I haven't completely finished watching this yet as it's quite long, but I've finished season one and two.

( Commentary )

+ Batman: Under the Red Hood: To start with: oh my god, this movie is incredible. I'm not normally a big fan of Batman movies but I had to make an exception for Jason Todd's Robin. And boy, did it deliver. I noticed a hint of a darker side of Robin in my viewing of Teen Titans, and though Dick Grayson becomes Nightwing, I appreciate that there is a version of Robin who does get to explore his darker side, even if it comes at the cost of a lot of tragedy. The narrative is dark and gritty, but in a way I really appreciated: it's not overdone or beyond belief, and the main conflict in the end is really quite simple, if devastating. I also appreciate that there were no unnecessary sex scenes or subplots, as while it certainly lacked any major female characters, the conflict was largely an interpersonal family issue between Batman and (one of) his sons. I was happy to see Nightwing, as well, and felt his dialogue added a nice touch to the tone of the film, though I wish he hadn't been sidelined so quickly. I can't believe he doesn't have his own movie!

+ Haken: This is a band I've been listening to one particular song by for a while now, but I've finally decided to widen my horizons and put on a YouTube mix of similar songs. I'm really into it! They're a little more heavy metal than I typically like, but I don't know, at this moment in my life I'm really digging it. Their sound is definitely more melodic and acoustic than your typical shredding death metal, and it appeals to me. My favorite songs are Somebody, A Cell Divides, and Host. I've just uploaded some of their songs onto my flash drive to play in my car and I'm excited to jam to them on my way to work, lol.

+ Opeth - In Cauda Venenum: Wow. This album absolutely blew me away. I've liked a few songs here and there from Opeth for a while now, but generally I find they go too death metal for my tastes. But I've noticed I tend to like bands which started off very heavy metal and softened over the years; and this is another one of them. Their new sound is fantastic, and this album is haunting and energetic without pushing anything too hard. What lyrics I did catch on the first listen were politically charged and profound. Definitely going to be listening to this over again for a few weeks!

+ Currently watching/reading: Young Justice (season 3), Surviving the Applewhites.

Playing catch-up with this. It's been such an awful winter that I hadn't really watched or read much on a biweekly basis, but things are relaxing now and I've been getting back into the swing of it. So here's everything of note that I've watched since my last post:

+ Mission of Honor: If rather poorly written, this film gave some insight into an aspect of World War II I was previously unaware of. It follows a squadron of Polish refugee fighter pilots who served with the RAF during the Battle of Britain, who scored the highest kill count of the Hawker Hurricane squadrons. I found the film visually striking and the characters interesting, but the plot itself was loose and there was an unnecessary romance angle that was both badly developed and wrote down the story's only lead female character as a two-dimensional tart. It definitely rubbed me the wrong way how she was written, and how the men she was involved with treated her.

+ The Secret Life of Pets 2: Fun, sweet, and touching, this was one of those sequels that came out better than the original in the end. The story follows Max and Duke the dogs as their owners have a baby and take the whole family on a vacation to the countryside. I really appreciated the lessons it taught for its adult audience, mainly that being a good parent means sometimes putting some distance between yourself and your child, because the only way they'll really learn is through their own experience. It's definitely a much-needed lesson in the age of helicopter parenting. I also enjoyed the secondary message against circus animal cruelty.

+ Cells at Work!: This anime was the perfect blend of educational, story-driven, and comedic, as well as being surprisingly heartfelt. Similar to the infamous Osmosis Jones, it follows a personified red blood cell and a white blood cell in a human body where all cells are people and their functions are their jobs. Each episode describes the typical response to a different injury or illness while also following the silly but sweet relationship between one red blood cell and one white blood cell whose paths keep crossing.

+ Teen Titans: I'm sure it doesn't need an introduction, but Teen Titans follows the DC comic hero Robin, now on his own team with teenage superheroes Raven, Starfire, Cyborg, and Beast Boy, as they fight for justice in Jump City and also grow and develop as a team and as individuals. This is technically a rewatch, though the last time I saw it was when I was seven, so I hadn't remembered much. But! It's every bit as good as I remembered, with a unique art style, compelling storylines, and character depth balanced with an acceptable amount of corniness and humor. I thoroughly enjoyed the first four seasons, but season five fell kind of flat. I'm planning to check out the accompanying comic series, which I heard continues the canon after the show was cancelled. I watched Trouble in Tokyo as well, and it warrants the same opinion as the show, except for the incredibly forced and tacky romance angle between Robin and Starfire.

+ Teen Titans Go!: This reboot of the original series has received a lot of hate, and in all fairness there's plenty that I dislike about it. The animation style is cheap, the humor is lowbrow, the stories are often incomprehensible, and there's nothing heroic about how they behave most of the time. It also seems to be aimed at an older demographic than it ends up reaching, relying heavily on knowledge of the original cartoon series and comics, doing regular parodies of media more familiar to older millenials than to gen X, and making often cynical, mature jokes. But it has its own charm, in a weird way, and it does feel like an authentic portrayal of a group of unsupervised metahuman teenagers with a lot of time and money at their disposal: complete chaos and weirdness. I also have to admit that I immensely enjoyed the Teen Titans Go! Vs Teen Titans movie, which pits the Go! Versions against the originals and openly admits to the flaws and inconsistencies of Go! in an honestly hilarious way. I haven't been able to watch Teen Titans Go! To The Movies yet, but based on the reviews I think I'll have a similar opinion of it.

+ Currently watching/reading: Young Justice, Surviving the Applewhites.

Might do these on a monthly basis from now on instead of biweekly.

Had the day off work today and did a little bit of drawing. Here's some tiny sketchy Robins.

( Boy Wonder! )

Fandom has really been getting me down. I feel like I can't go anywhere without seeing rampant homophobia, misogyny, rape apologism, and a blatant lack of critical thought or compassion for others anymore. It's not fun and it's only contributing to my anxiety and making me feel angry and sad and helpless. So I'm taking a break from it.

I've logged off of my Tumblr and I will be deleting my AO3 after all—I've decided to make a new account to run collections with, but I want to completely sever myself from all of my bookmarks and the kudos and comments I've left. I'm not deleting anything else, but I'm not going to be engaging with much for a while. I need to focus on taking care of myself.

Hopefully things both in fandom and in my own life have calmed down when I get back. Don't be assholes.

I have decided to leave AO3 due to a myriad of personal and ethical issues I have had with the running of and userbase of the website. I have deleted all of my works except for those I’ve gifted to others (those have been orphaned for the recipients’ sake). My account is still live as I will be using it to run collections for my invite-only fic events, but otherwise I have left AO3 for good.

All of my works except for those with explicit sexual content have been crossposted to my FFN @ kunstvogel. I will be posting my works there from now on. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause for those who follow my works, as I am aware that FFN is dated and not frequented by many in this fandom, but for now it’s the best option I have. I’m not sure where I’ll put my explicit works. Here, maybe? We’ll see. There weren’t very many of those, anyway.

A sincere thank you to everyone who left kudos and comments on my works, and supported and participated in my events.