To define is to limit.

Noah Wyle & Eriq La Salle

john's had a good time. a great time even! he feels amazing, though a bit dizzy. and if he really stopped to think about it, he would notice that his breathing is more depressed than it should be. he's had quite a few drinks at this karaoke bar. it's really hitting him all at once now.

"carter. carter!" a voice is snapped at him against the overpoweringly loud music.

"huh! what?" john yelled back as he turned to see the one and only dr peter benton. "oh, hi doctor bentonnnn."

"i think it's time to take you home, okay?"

"are you gonna take me home, doc?" he said with a slur and a mischievous glint that was only intensified by the alcohol.

free-to-use “the only ship that is bad is censorship” badge

—> “proship & proud” badge

how someone sets their boundaries has absolutely nothing to do with censorship.

censorship is when someone tries to control other people what they can or can’t create and consume.

censorship is not about a random person disabling their own comments section for whatever reason. censorship is not about people blocking other people on social media as their way of setting boundaries and curating their internet experience. censorship is not about disrespecting other people’s boundaries and censorship is not about tolerating it when other people disrespect you or your boundaries.

Except Benton and Carter aren’t sleeping together at all, although Carter obviously wishes they were, and it becomes apparent that while Benton is a dick to Gant, he definitely has a soft spot for Carter and is actually kind of protective of him.

When I moved, I’m certain they understood I was leaving because I had all my stuff and gave them lots of food and compliments.

But, they chased down my friend who lived in the next burrough over. They had recognised that friend with me several times and followed them to their house when they couldn’t find me.

They adopted my friend and it was now my friend’s job to bring them snacks and receive the presents.

This was maybe 6-7 years ago.

I visited London last year. Went to see my friend. The crows all not only recognised me, they tracked me down. We got into my friend’s flat and not twenty minutes later there was chaos on the balcony.

We open the curtains, the entire fucking murder is there shouting because they wanted to see me.

Bruce is one of the richest men in the world. Bruce does not want to be one of the richest men in world.

He starts by implementing high starting salaries and full health care coverages for all levels at Wayne Enterprises. This in vastly improves retention and worker productivity, and WE profits soar. He increases PTO, grants generous parental and family leave, funds diversity initiatives, boosts salaries again. WE is ranked “#1 worker-friendly corporation”, and productively and profits soar again.

Ok, so clearly investing his workers isn’t the profit-destroying doomed strategy his peers claim it is. Bruce is going to keep doing it obviously (his next initiative is to ensure all part-time and contractors get the same benefits and pay as full time employees), but he is going to have to find a different way to dump his money.

But you know what else is supposed to be prohibitively expensive? Green and ethical initiatives. Yes, Bruce can do that. He creates and fund a 10 year plan to covert all Wayne facilities to renewable energy. He overhauls all factories to employ the best environmentally friendly practices and technologies. He cuts contracts with all suppliers that engage in unethical employment practices and pays for other to upgrade their equipment and facilities to meet WE’s new environmental and safety requirements. He spares no expense.

Yeah, Wayne Enterprises is so successful that they spin off an entire new business arm focused on helping other companies convert to environmentally friendly and safe practices like they did in an efficient, cost effective, successful way.

Admittedly, investing in his own company was probably never going to be the best way to get rid of his wealth. He slashes his own salary to a pittance (god knows he has more money than he could possibly know what to do with already) and keeps investing the profits back into the workers, and WE keeps responding with nearly terrifying success.

So WE is a no-go, and Bruce now has numerous angry billionaires on his back because they’ve been claiming all these measures he’s implementing are too expensive to justify for decades and they’re finding it a little hard to keep the wool over everyone’s eyes when Idiot Softheart Bruice Wayne has money spilling out his ears. BUT Bruce can invest in Gotham. That’ll go well, right?

Gotham’s infrastructure is the OSHA anti-Christ and even what little is up to code is constantly getting destroyed by Rogue attacks. Surely THAT will be a money sink.

Except the only non-corrupt employer in Gotham city is….Wayne Enterprises. Or contractors or companies or businesses that somehow, in some way or other, feed back to WE. Paying wholesale for improvement to Gotham’s infrastructure somehow increases WE’s profits.

Bruce funds a full system overhaul of Gotham hospital (it’s not his fault the best administrative system software is WE—he looked), he sets up foundations and trusts for shelters, free clinics, schools, meal plans, day care, literally anything he can think of.

Gotham continues to be a shithole. Bruce Wayne continues to be richer than god against his Batman-ingrained will.

Oh, and Bruice Wayne is no longer viewed as solely a spoiled idiot nepo baby. The public responds by investing in WE and anything else he owns, and stop doing this, please.

Bruce sets up a foundation to pay the college tuition of every Gotham citizen who applies. It’s so successful that within 10 years, donations from previous recipients more than cover incoming need, and Bruce can’t even donate to his own charity.

But by this time, Bruce has children. If he can’t get rid of his wealth, he can at least distribute it, right?

Except Dick Grayson absolutely refuses to receive any of his money, won’t touch his trust fund, and in fact has never been so successful and creative with his hacking skills as he is in dumping the money BACK on Bruce. Jason died and won’t legally resurrect to take his trust fund. Tim has his own inherited wealth, refuses to inherit more, and in fact happily joins forces with Dick to hack accounts and return whatever money he tries to give them. Cass has no concept of monetary wealth and gives him panicked, overwhelmed eyes whenever he so much as implies offering more than $100 at once. Damian is showing worrying signs of following in his precious Richard’s footsteps, and Babs barely allows him to fund tech for the Clocktower. At least Steph lets him pay for her tuition and uses his credit card to buy unholy amounts of Batburger. But that is hardly a drop in the ocean of Bruce’s wealth. And she won’t even accept a trust fund of only one million.

Jason wins for best-worst child though because he currently runs a very lucrative crime empire. And although he pours the vast, vast majority of his profits back into Crime Alley, whenever he gets a little too rich for his tastes, he dumps the money on Bruce. At this point, Bruce almost wishes he was being used for money laundering because then he’s at least not have the money.

So children—generous, kindhearted, stubborn till the day they die the little shits, children—are also out.

Bruce was funding the Justice League. But then finances were leaked, and the public had an outcry over one man holding so much sway over the world’s superheroes (nevermind Bruce is one of those superheroes—but the public can’t know that). So Bruce had to do some fancy PR trickery, concede to a policy of not receiving a majority of funds from one individual, and significantly decrease his contributions because no one could match his donations.

At his wits end, Bruce hires a team of accounts to search through every crinkle and crevice of tax law to find what loopholes or shortcuts can be avoided in order to pay his damn taxes to the MAX.

The results are horrifying. According to the strictest definition of the law, the government owes him money.

Bruce burns the report, buries any evidence as deeply as he can, and organizes a foundation to lobby for FAR higher taxation of the upper class.

All this, and Wayne Enterprises is happily chugging along, churning profit, expanding into new markets, growing in the stock market, and trying to force the credit and proportionate compensation on their increasingly horrified CEO.

Bruce Wayne is one of the richest men in the world. Bruce Wayne will never not be one of the richest men in the world.

Not like he’d get much opportunity. Adamson announced that budgets were being cut so that most shifts would only have one attending. Once someone was fully trained, two would be a rarity.

Jack still worked with Adamson until he called in sick, and Dr. Robinavitch (everyone calls me Robby) filled in. They each claimed half the department until a particularly bad trauma came in and suddenly they were working in Trauma One together like they’d been doing this for decades.

The first time Jack’s eyes caught Robby’s over the serrated edges of the patient’s belly, he froze for a moment.

Robby’s eyes were as dark and open as a night sky, he thought nonsensically.

After the patient was wheeled up to surgery, Robby came around to put his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Nice job, Dr. Abbot.” His voice was as comforting as a cup of hot cocoa in front of a fire, as a flannel blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

His eyes twinkled like stars.

Jack gulped. “Thanks, you too,” he managed to get out.

Working days, Jack realized, would ensure he rarely saw those eyes and heard that voice.

But if he switched to nights? He could start and end his shift with comforting dark eyes and soft voice, and the night would keep him company in between.

Years later, Robby asked if he was still not sick of working nights.

“My therapist says I find comfort in the darkness,” Jack replied. His therapist had more to say on the subject, but Robby didn’t need to know that.

Jack’s face when he says those words lives rent free in my mind.