because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.
you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.
you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.
don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.
if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.
you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:
how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!
aren't you happy yet?
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“Tinkers with home appliances (bad habit)” Me too, Marina. Me too.
(I wonder if Pearl has ever walked in on Marina sitting in a pile of deconstructed toasters with an absolutely devastated expression.)
Oh you bet it has happened
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Dp x dc AU: the watchtower gives out very strictly limited passes for visitors. They don’t need the world knowing that their HQ is in space after all, but sometimes family needed to visit.
Batman was the one to install the day pass system back when Dick was Robin- he needed the excuse to send Dick home to Alfred after a certain amount of time has passed and it just stuck. Unless you were a full time member, day passes were the best you got. Engineers and other supportive staff that weren’t members weren’t afforded day passes however- but Jazz is determined to be the one exception.
Jazz Fenton has been a psychologist for the JL for a year now (she just had a very productive performance review, thank you very much) and it’s been killing her to not tell Danny her office is in space. They do weekly dinners that he portals in for, and he knows that she takes a Zeta tube to work, but he’s technically not allowed to know that her office is a satellite. So, she sets a meeting with the man who started the system in the first place.
Batman is hard to read for most but she’s been his therapist for a while now, and she can tell he’s at least considering her request. Dinah couldn’t speak more kindly on Jazz and she’s been an asset to the JL in many ways since she was hired. Jazz’ arguments aren’t preposterous either- she’s submitted all of his identification papers, his background check, his job description and all of his friends names. She assured him that Danny will be able to keep a secret but when pressed she doesn’t reveal if he has any of his own.
Turns out, months of back and forth and negotiations were going be basically worthless- the second Danny got his little wrist band day pass, made it up via the zeta tube and got presented the view of Earth from the observation deck: he immediately transformed. Like zero caution, just went ghost and hyper fixated on the stars.
“You could have mentioned your Brother being Phantom. He’s been an ally to us for a while.” Batman grumbles in the way that only his family and she can tell through his deadpan.
“Yeah, I just thought that would’ve been a second visit conversation.”
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