Umber

Noelle: I feel so stuck in place and unable to deviate from the role I've been assigned that I'm willing to literally kill myself just to prove I can change something about my life

Susie: Even if it's scary, I have to learn to make friends and be myself, and to hope for a better future!

Don’t they know that murder is illegal? You just know there are a bunch of homicidal maniacs out there who love to read those stories. They write them, too, in between killing people. 

Brother Herbert's Big Onion

Jason was frustrated with life, of course he was a revenant without a way to get revenge with Bruce’s no kill rule. Doesn’t say he can’t get others to kill for him, so when he gets captured by cultists he decides to take a leap of faith and make his wish to the Ghost King before the cultists can make their stupid wish about world domination or something.

Danny: I'm half ghost. And uh, the government made it legal to hunt/kill me. So. Red Hood, protector of the downtrodden, avenger of the dead? Pretty safe bet to keep me half-alive that bit longer.

Jason: I have titles??

Lady Gotham doesn't out Danny as King. Just calls him Amitys protector. One of his earliest titles.

Now imagine the batfams reactions to this knowledge. Red Hood jr existing at all. Followed by wearing an armoured hood under the drama bucket?

They are just like.... Is this timeline shenanigans? Is this your future child???!? Past you? Are we sure he's not related. Actually fully sure!

Jason: He followed me home one day. He looked like a sad raccoon. How could I abandon him!

Danny: Oh! He saved me from human traffickers and I got attached.

Jason: He found me stabbed in an alleyway. Decided I clearly needed help getting home.

Danny: I'm from a different dimension, I'm pretty sure Jason is my alternate counterpoint!

Jason: I took him in as payment for a debt.

Danny: Oh! My parents tried to kill me. You know how Jason feels about that sort of thing!!

Jason *wheezing and crying in the background*

Nightwing: And me! Am I big brother shaped????

Also I feel like Jason and Steph would make absolutely hilarious and brilliant chaos siblings and Jason often drops Danny off with Steph when he needs to go off to do slightly more dangerous stuff.

So NOW you have Batman suddenly coming across Hood Jr. following Spoiler. Batman's attempt at parenting him and Steph at that point leads to Danny tossing a glitter glue grenade and disappearing with Spoiler following after, "Too bad Bossman! Not our parent!"

Goon: I'd rather not know thanks.

Goon 2: Yeah. That one scares me!

Danny:... You work for Hood? And Spoiler scared you?

Goon 2: Look. Hood might kill me if I Fuck up. Spoiler? Will destroy a man's will to live. And then make him keep on living.

Danny: She's gonna be thrilled when I tell her you said that!!

---

Jason: Danny. Why the fuck was Ted crying?

Danny: Spoiler.

Danny: well- I mean I would if I could grow up.

Jason:

Danny:.. I've not grown even an inch since the accident...

Did some early arcade games cause people to suffer hallucinations, memory loss, and short-term personality changes? Yes, they did – because many folks who played them were experiencing close range exposure to bright, rapidly flashing lights for the first time in their lives, and – at the time – public awareness of photosensitive epilepsy was practically nonexistent. Most who had it were undiagnosed, and its symptoms often weren’t recognised when they arose – and if you have no idea what photosensitive epilepsy is, those symptoms might look a lot like alien mind control!

Were early video arcades frequented by serious-looking men in dark suits? Again, yes they were – because they were suspected of being money-laundering fronts for illegal gambling rings, and thus were routinely placed under federal surveillance. And those suspicions weren’t unfounded – it later transpired that many early video arcades were, in fact, money-laundering fronts for illegal gambling rings.

Did arcade cabinets with strange titles and indecipherable gameplay quietly pop up in out-of-the-way places, then vanish shortly thereafter, never to be seen again? Absolutely – because a thriving black market in off-brand bootlegs arose almost immediately. Quality control was nonexistent, so many such cabinets had operational lifespans measured in weeks, and you’d most often see them in arcades with poor locations simply because they were cheap.

what does this have to do with boiling your surgical tools? well look, the boiling water releases bubbles of steam which carries the malign influences up to heaven. you boil a knife, you send all the miasmic particles off with the steam to heaven. if you rinse the knife off in a bucket the water isn't hot enough, the particles go into the water and then right back on to the knife. you gotta boil it to get the particles all the way away. how can a tool or rag or a bed have miasmic particles on it when you can't smell them? humans have a lousy sense of smell. look at your dog on the hunt. are there no rabbits in the woods just because you can't smell them? we know that miasma is carried on the air, and is what makes stench so dangerous, and we know that humans can't smell worth a damn compared to dogs cats horses etc. a dog can smell if a rat died in a corner of the room last week. you can't. do you think licking the spot where the rat died is going to go well for you? luckily, what humans lack in snout we make up for in brains. we have extra brains where our sniffers should have been. God set that up for a reason.

and why does a rinse with wine spirits work? man, look how fast alcohol evaporates. my guess is that because wine contains a lot more vice than water, it evaporates a whole lot faster, in sort of an equal and opposite way that a rock falls faster than a feather. if you want the miasmic particles to get off there FAST, you dunk it in something that's going back to heaven at a gallop.

"baptise me in hot dog water"

Hot dog water - there's a Tumblr post out there I've seen saying hot dog water is the opposite of holy water, due to the fact that a single drop of it will contaminate what it touches. I assume this was partly inspired by this allusion but who knows for sure.

Also the the idea of holy water as inhuman and cleaning vs hot dog water as the remains of feeding someone - often a child - and entirely human. It may be dirty and I do not want it on me but God hot dog water has some memories. You will not wash away my sins. They're mine. Also, anyone can make hot dog water but holy water is refined, restricted (yes anyone can make it in an emergency but lay people are restricted from it)

"you and I both know"

Unlike baptism for babies, this one is done between two people who are both aware of what is happening. The one receiving the baptism gives the orders about what they want to happen. The giver and receiver are portrayed as equals. They are equally aware of their humanity.

"the holy stuff won't take"

Ooof heartbreaking, amazing line. Raises so many questions. What does it mean when the water "takes"? What has the receiver done that makes them unfit for holy water? Or, what has the holy water done that makes it to weak to help, to be a part of your life?

Meter

There are two readings of the poem's meter that I immediately identify, the first is how I'd want to read it, and the second is how a normal person would probably read it, but both make the same point.

In my interpretation (left), the first line is four wholely irregular feet: an iamb into a dibrach into two trochees; The second line is two trouches into a hanging stressed syllable; And the third line is three iambs.

In the more normal interpretation(right), the first line and second line are six trochees all together plus that hanging syllable in 'knowing' which transitions the poem to iambic trimeter.

And look at the interesting result of that laid bare:

In English poetry there's a tradition, all other things being equal, that iambs are considered the sophisticated foot with trochees often being contrasted as the vulgar or common foot.

The vulgar in specificity "hot dog water" is put in trochee, while the respectably vague "the holy stuff" is afforded iambs. Without the poet having thought of the stress things the pattern actively, this incapulation of the English poetic tradition is astounding. Especially when you consider the

Chiasmus

Chiasmus is a figure of rhetorical construction, in which two pairs of ideas are laid across each other, A B B A. It's one of the more popular figures of rhetoric and if you're looking for it you'll see it everywhere.

In the most literal sense, it's about repetition; but, you can apply it more liberally to ideas, thoughts, or in this case, parts of speech:

The nouns and verb pairs in the first and third lines crossover each other. They are in chiasmus. Structurally, the inversion makes the poem feel more solid, while still furthering emphasizing the contrast between the idea of hot dog water and the holy stuff.

vlad, seething: well that was OBVIOUSLY a photo taken when the ghost wasn’t expecting it look at how sexy that ghost looks normally [posts a selfie with a flower crown filter]

Danny mocks him for it on Twitter.

Peter Parker: -on meeting Loki, offers his hand- Hi, I’m Peter!

Loki: -shakes his hand- Loki of Asgard.

Peter: Aren’t you like…a bad guy?

Loki: It varies from moment to moment.

Peter: So like…on a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst evil imaginable, like…killing puppies, and one being I’ll spit on your hotdog…where are you right now?

Loki: …maybe a three?

Peter: Cool. Lemme know if it gets above a six.

It was hard living around these heroic Avengers, hard trying to stay close to Thor. And when he felt his need for mischief rise too high, when he felt exasperation with these Midgardians turn too close to spite, he would casually say “Six.” to the young man, or sometimes “Seven.”

Loki, climbing over the wreckage, twisting his feet through still-smoking metal, breathes in the thick, curdled air. There’s a shock of silence. A heavy, tight, chest crushing silence that clutches about Loki. His hands reach out, fluttering towards Stark, still kneeling. Dropping them. 

Everything aches, filling with a hollowness. A dreaded, awful, terrible, forever sort of empty. 

The dust on Stark’s hands drifts about. The dust on the ground nearly all pressed into the dirt, or taken away on the gusts. 

“Ten,” chokes Loki. Stark doesn’t look up. Neither do the others, who have been struck by their own silences. Their own griefs. Their own, strangling shocks. “Ten,” he says again. “Ten, ten, ten, fucking ten-”

There’s the expectation (the hope, the foolish, awful, horrible hope) that Peter will spring up out of some ash pile. Too large smile and too bright eyes. Everyone evacuate, he’d joke. And then he’d drag Loki to some rooftop and get them hot dogs from a cart filled with water Loki swore was fresh out of the sewer grates running about the city. Sometimes they’d talk. Other times they wouldn’t. 

It was an unwritten law that should a number be announced, Peter was to take charge. Loki was a God. Unwritten laws were his bread and butter. Promises were hallowed. Drawn in blood and ink and past lives. 

Peter had promised. 

Peter had promised. 

Peter had-

“Ten,” says Loki to Peter. Not Peter. To the entity of Peter. The Lack of Peter. The Peter of ash and clasped hands and silence and don’t feel so good. 

Loki moved. Tried to move. Didn’t move. Managed to take a step. One, then two, then three, towards the ash, and then past it. Tony Stark didn’t look up. Neither did anyone else. 

He says it again, and again: “ten. ten. ten.” Softer, quieter, tinged in rust and fallen ash. “Ten.” As if Peter would hear. As if Peter would

Peter Parker didn’t rise from that ash. And Loki, shrouded in that eternal emptiness-

ten, ten, ten

-counted down his evilness, his anger, and now, his all too cloying grief.