probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.
we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."
at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.
the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.
the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.
what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.
here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.
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Danny’s Wayne adoption bait. The guy that owns the bodega knows it. Everyone and their mothers knows it. Danny, on the other hand, had no clue. To be fair, he had just crash landed in this dimension a week ago and his back was still sore from the weird design the car had.
(It’s only three weeks of homelessness later does Danny realize that he crash landed on the Batmobile. Whoops. Oh well. He’ll blame it on Clockwork if the vigilante asks after repair costs.)
(Bruce, on the other hand, is scouring the streets for this kid the car cams caught- oddly static filled footage- because his mind jumped to the worst case scenarios: a suicidal meta or a meta being threatened or a meta in a trafficking scheme or even worse all three at once and Bruce just can’t because there is a child in danger, he doesn’t have time to sleep.)
Danny rubbed at his back, eyes going watery at the memory. Sure, his wounds have healed over by now but the- heh- phantom pain is no joke. He shuddered, huddling closer to his threadbare hoodie. His only saving grace from getting jumped while walking the streets of Gotham at night is his invisibility and intangibility. Also, he’s floating, so “walking” doesn’t apply to him.
He’s gotta check on the kid he saved yesterday from a mugging, so Danny hurried along to the depilated apartment complex the kid was squatting in. Turning visible and tangible as he turns the corner, Danny glanced around for Amy.
“Danny!”
“Hey, kiddo. Doing alright?”
“Yeah! Come meet my gang!”
Danny felt his eyebrows rise to form Jazz’s exasperated look. Ouch. Waving the pain of losing Jazz away, Danny smiled at the excited girl.
“A gang? I wasn’t aware I was being brought to your almighty group.”
“Yeah! Uh, you actually helped a bunch of us so…”
Danny thought back to all those times he punted crooks away from robbing kids and shrugged. Yeah, what Amy said was likely.
“Kay, kiddo.”
She scowled, and Danny didn’t have the heart to tell her it looked more like a pout.
“You’re just a teenager.”
“Well, you’re a just a kid.”
Danny cackled as she chased him down the street, trying to kick his shins.
Life is good, even if he’s homeless and hungry.
——
“Jason.”
“Old man.” Jason mocks back, pausing his tasks. He waits as Bruce struggles to put his thoughts and feelings into words.
“There’s… a meta.”
“In Gotham?” Jason tilts back, hands halfway to his guns as a silent offer. Bruce shakes his head.
“A child. In Crime Alley.”
“In my turf?” Jason’s disquieting demeanor quickly swapped to a protective one.
“Trafficking, I think. Male, black hair…”
“Shit. Get Dickwing back here, he’s good with traumatized kids. I’ll go look for him.” Jason’s already moving, mind filtering through the kids he knows might have information to offer.
Bruce nods, shoulders relaxing. Jason smacks down the lump in his throat at the subtle sing of trust. “I’ll get Oracle and Red Robin on it.”
Jason morphs from Jay to Red Hood in one smooth step, helmet firmly placed on his head. He grunts in agreement, slinging his legs over his motorcycle. He roars off, mind half filled with tearing apart whatever traffickers dared to shit near his territory and the other half filled with worry for this possible kid.
——
Danny, as the Bats become aware of his existence, hands Amy and her kiddie gang a bag of fancy beef jerky.
“Try these with peanut butter, it’s kind of good.”
Amy stares at him, the judgement of an eight year old more piercing than anything he’s ever experienced.
“You’re fucking weird-”
“Language!” He squawks.
“-but sure, whatever you say, boss.”
“Boss?!”
The kids ignores his alarmed face.
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At first I was willing to have those conversations about homophobia in Palestine and the existence of homophobic Palestinians doesn’t excuse a genocide but now I just don’t care - because the entire conversation has devolved into people who are not Palestinian going on tangents about how “yes Palestinians are homophobic but they still don’t deserve to die” as if we’re some kind of hive mind with all the same ideas.
We are apparently all barbaric, ignorant, bigoted people but hey I guess it makes it okay and not racist to say if someone says genocide bad. I’m tired of people talking about us as if we’re some kind of alien beings who can’t be discussed with directly and will always be outsiders even in conversations about us
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