#they're baby goths raised by a Bat

[redrobin-detective]

Other cities kind of make fun of Robin.

Batman, he’s cool no matter who you are but Robin seems like kind of a joke to those in Keystone and Metropolis and Star City. The kid in the traffic cone outfit. The Brat to the Bat. The cute, peppy flipside to the Dark Knight’s grim terror. And Robin is all those things but it’s different in Gotham City.

To Gothamites, a bird is just as scary as a bat, hits just as hard and gets things done. Criminals taken down by Robins 1 and 2 used to get teased. By the time 3, 4 and 5 came around, people knew that Robin was no joke. Kids will play act as the Bat but just as many of them will idolize the Boy/Girl Wonder. 

Other cities make fun of Robin because they don’t understand. They don’t know what its like to be out as 2am and vengeance rains down from above with escrima sticks or bo staffs or swords. They haven’t been interrogated by someone who’s maybe 5 ft and hasn’t finished puberty and is still frightening enough to make them wet their pants. They haven’t realized that the most poisonous of animals wear the brightest colors.

So let the other cities laugh at the incongruous pair of Batman and Robin. It’s just another part of Gotham that people who aren’t here to live and breathe it will never understand. To most, Robins represent hope and rebirth. However, native only to Gotham City are those sweet songs birds also predators. 

#batman #idk just some thoughts #Robin as a concept is meant to be bright and cheery to B's darkness #but also those kids are damn scary #they're baby goths raised by a Bat #the idea of other cities making fun of pixie boots and scaly pants #while Gotham understands that beneath the frivolties Robins are dangerous #people in GC knows whats up #you see a Robinyou make yourself as small and nonthreatening as possible #those birds have claws

[littlestickfish]

Went to see Voltaire at the Church in Dallas (he signed my cane!)... and it was when I found myself vowing to memorize the lyrics of It's So Easy When You're Evil so I could join the Beelzebub Philharmonic Choir next time he comes through that I really became conscious of how much artifice there is in modern christianity. Like, there are seriously droves of people out there who would take that as evidence that I'm not serious about being a pastor. There's legitimately an expectation in modern Christian circles that I would have to stop going to goth clubs and listening to artists that joke about the devil to be a "real" pastor.

Voltaire talked about his early life and why he wrote Raised by Bats, and it made me think of (not only my early life but) the people Yeshua hung out with. People who were what they were, and got cast out of society for that crime of nonconforming existence. It gets portrayed as largesse, or charity, but I think he chose those people, talked to them most because he recognized that they were starting from a place of honesty that most of his mainstream audience would have to work to achieve. It's easier to comprehend God's love when you go without the human variety every day than when you're surrounded by it and think that means you understand what love is.

When I go out "normal" places, people see my cane and ask "what happened?", but tonight when I went to the Church people came up to me and said "I love your cane!" and "you look so awesome/badass" and I had a baby bat tell me I looked like an aristocrat and I should come to the Vampire Ball. Nobody asked why I needed it, how long I've "been like" this, they just went "you're awesome! Do your thing!" And that was so rare and real and special.

My life has, to put it charitably, not been easy. I've picked up more than the triumph of the human spirit getting where I am. I have acquired darkness and irreverence and morbidity and sexual liberation. These things are a part of the same me that talks to angels and studies scripture. They're not bad, or wrong, or evil just because they aren't bright and pure. They're human.

I don't have to give them up. I more than don't have to, I shouldn't. Because that would be lying.

I could put on airs of innocence, but I'm not innocent. I could cut myself off from the dark and the wacky and the irreverent, but I wouldn't actually lose interest. I could put on airs of chastity, but it wouldn't stop me being a sexual person. I could easily make myself into what modern society thinks a pastor is like, but it wouldn't make me more deeply religious. It would just make me repressed, alone and miserable. That doesn't serve anyone, least of all God.

Not everything that saves you will be pretty. Not everything that speaks to you will be pure. Being a "good" Christian isn't removing everything that doesn't fit the current notion of what "godly" things look like, it's being able to recognize the hand of God wherever it appears regardless of its outward appearance. If you're on a journey back to faith, if you're in a battle to keep your faith, you don't have to walk away from something good because it "looks" bad.

Artifice is the seed of hypocrisy.

#ramblings #idk there's at least one homily in here but it's past 2am and i not brain so good