helecthra

Latest Posts by helecthra

Had this strange really lucid dream about yet another AU of my AU (that I am never getting around to write) in which Bruce “died” like in Final Crisis # 6.

Now, for obvious reasons, Dixie can't really stand in for him, because the kind of work it would take to make her look like her dad would be enormous, but Jason (who has a really good, really strong, relationship with Dixie) can.

And it's very traumatic for him, but both him and Dixie know that it is what ‘must be done’, so he does.

But the end result? Hilarious.

Because Nightwing follows Batman around like a concerned mother hen and Robin (Damian) just REFUSES to listen to Batman (he can occasionally be reigned in by ‘Wing).

It's obvious and yet no-one ever figures them out, up until Joker escapes from Arkham and has a face-off with Batman and the Dark Knight has a full-blown panic attack.

And yes, Jason is trained, he is capable, he craved a confrontation with his murderer ever since he came back, but…but doing it wearing his dad's suit, his dad's skin, feels wrong. Hence the panic.

And Joker is convinced to have finally bent the Batman, until Nightwing just pummels herself from the darkness and bashes his head out with her escrimas, all the while laughing like she did as a kid: bright, joyful, just shy of manic.

Crooks are terrified.

Utterly paralyzed in horror.

And that horror only amplifies when Nightwing, once again more like Nightwing and not the horror dressed in a traffic-lights suit she once was, hugs Batman and manages to calm him down, all the while she is completely drenched with Joker's blood and brain matter.

Some witnesses say Robin critiqued her technique but gave her praises for her brutal efficiency, but those witnesses also checked themselves in Arkham spontaneously, so who knows.

Tim still went on his world travels trying to prove his theory, so I guess that's why he didn’t appear.

Behind Blue Eyes entry 2

Bruce loved his daughter’s eyes.

Those eyes that have always been as blue as his father’s.

It was a quiet comfort, looking into her face and finding echoes of the man who made him.

But now, they’re different.

And it hurts.

Because Thomas Wayne is gone forever, and without those eyes, the illusion that he ever lived is harder to maintain.

His daughter's eyes aren’t Wayne eyes anymore.

But neither are they Al Ghul's.

And in that, Bruce finds strange solace.

His daughter's eyes are something left behind (just like her), unclaimed by legacy.

Would you like for me to add a Lian's pov for the "I would (only) be your girl" section of "In another life"? I kinda started writing down ideas in an accident and the idea stuck.

One of the things that I will NEVER stop going feral for when reading comics is the general notion that

When Dick is young, Bruce focuses so hard on his work as Batman and his assertion that Batman is the truer and more important of his two identities, that he accidentally creates a Dick Grayson that thinks he is worthless if he is not Robin.

I was reading Robin: Year One and (SPOILERS FROM THIS 2001 COMIC) Dick gets fired as Robin after Two-Face nearly kills him. And once he has recovered, runs away, and he leaves a note for Bruce that contains the line "You don't want a partner. And you don't need a son. I'm sorry I failed you." and I lost my ENTIRE mind.

And to me, this always has to be a MAJOR part of why Dick is so hurt when Robin is stripped away from him permanently. Yes, it is his mantle, and yes, he thinks that his work as Robin is generally important, but ultimately, it stings so much because he is convinced that if he is not Robin, then he isn't ANYTHING to Bruce. Because Bruce doesn't need a son. Because if he's not Robin, then he has failed him.

Writing the fanfic of my own fanfic with music on shuffle and accidentally hearing the perfect song for the mess Dixie is in that story is a preciously heartbreaking thing.

Anyways The Crane Wives might have a stronger chokehold on me than what I previously tought.

P.s. the song was "Allies or Enemies"

https://archiveofourown.org/series/4163446

https://archiveofourown.org/series/4830169

It may take me a while to finish writing and publish the 18th instalment of Robin's Blues (I am after all, once again, in exam season) but I will make it up to you all with some snippets of another work of mine!

Behind Blue eyes, entry 1

Alfred both loved and hated his granddaughter’s blue eyes, Thomas’ eyes.

He loved them because they reminded him of the man who once laughed through halls and who smiled like he held all the secrets of the universe.

He hated them for the same reason.

And now, they’re gone.

It should be a relief.

It is a relief.

But it’s also a wound.

Something sacred has vanished.

And Alfred is nothing but pain and reprieve held in the same trembling breath.

Because Thomas is gone.

Because Thomas will never really leave her (him).

https://archiveofourown.org/series/4163446

It's strange working on the same series for over a year.

It's strange because the protagonist slips into your bones (she already has my soul, that pours into her with my very breath).

Dixie by now is almost flesh for me.

I guess it's fair.

I made her haunted and she haunts me in return.

I guess it's fair.

Me, in mourning because one of my favourite fanfics has been deleted.

Also me, trying to remember if I downloaded said fanfic.

So, I guess, your reminder to download your faves

Apparently people who don't have executive dysfunction think that actually working on something is the hardest part of doing something. And that's why they get mad that you call the rest of the project "easy" after you've finally worked through doing the plan and know what to do when you're working.

So when you're through with the epiphany of how to make it physically possible to make the thing you're making, and you're sharing the plan with excitement, because the hard part is over, and now you only have to get your hands moving and do it, they get mad at you like

"it's not that easy! It's a lot of hard work! >:C"

they mean it, because

to them, working is the hardest part.

They don't have to fight their brains to get started. They don't have to fight their way through making the choices, making the plan, making yourself make the thing. People who don't suffer from executive dysfunction think that the hardest part is actually doing the thing.

I added a whole chapter on my bonus series, and all it managed to do is making me cry. I don't think this is healthy.

Idk if Ao3 is playing tricks on me by showing one inexistant extra comment on one of my fic or by hinding said comment from me.

If it's the second instance I am very sorry for my missing reply, but I quite literally CAN'T see your comment.

As I wrote some posts ago, the Bonus instalment of Robin's Blues will have more than one ending, one with Roy (obv) and one with Wally.

What I would like to ask you all, is if you'd like a third ending too?

Wow, now there's a bot going around on Ao3 telling people that the "moderators" will delete works from "deprecated" fandoms and impose bans.

Fearmongering bullshit, but it's fearmongering bullshit that seems to be taking advantage of the recent spotlight series in order to trick authors into deleting their fics.

Just. Why.

What the hell does anyone get out of making these bots.

fanon really built up "Cass is Bruce's favorite child" and meanwhile I'm sitting over here with a whole stack of panels in a folder labeled "Dick is Canonically Bruce's Favorite Child" adsfghjkl

I might have cried (multiple times already) while writing the anniversary bonus work of my series Robin's Blues.

THIS THING ISN'T FAIR

https://archiveofourown.org/series/4163446

Letter to my father

I hate the 15th of may.

I had my first cycle on the 15th of may.

It was at your home, not at mom's.

I panicked.

I knew what was happening, and yet I cried anyways.

You didn't say a thing.

Not that it was normal.

Not that it was growing up.

You just rubbed my back and left me some pads while you went heating an hot water bag.

When I came out of the bathroom you were there, ankward, handling me the bag and some painkillers.

You said you didn't know if I would need them.

I felt like a little kid crying in your arms that afternoon.

Like I felt at three years old when you would holst me up your shoulders and the whole world felt so far away (when I KNEW you would be there, and that you would never let me fall).

You were more kid than what I ever managed to be.

It wasn't always a good thing.

It wasn't always a good thing, but you had a levity of living I always lacked.

I never knew how to be a child.

I was always too cerebral, too strange.

But then you would pick me up from school on windy days, a kite in one hand, and I managed to be a kid, too.

Someone once wrote that grief was like walking up the stairs to your bedroom, in the dark, and finding a step missing.

It's not wrong, per se.

Sometimes I find myself wanting to call you, before remembering that your phone sits in one of my drawers, battery dead, and that no-one, least of all you, will ever pick it up again.

I hate the 15th of may.

I hated it at ten and now I hate it still.

But maybe hate too, is just another word for absence.

Maybe hate too, is just another way of saying “I miss you”.

Need you guys to know I am soooo anti generative AI. In case that wasn't clear. It's bad for the environment, unethical, theft, and will never be as freaky as me. It is inferior in every way

Writing the AU of one of my own AUs, I discovered that, in my mind, Wally West enjoys the musicians of the summer of love.

Idk why, it just kinda fits, expecially because I dare you to look me in the eyes and tell me that Wally West wasn't made to belt out at the top of his lungs " With your love" by the Jefferson Starship (I know, back in the '60s they were the Jefferson Airplane, but alas) half-jokingly serenading the love of his life.

Okay, I might have teared up a little

reblog if you have skilled writer friends and you're damn proud of them

I've been thinking a lot about Dick Grayson as I often do. Because like You are ten years old, and you've never really been normal, have you?But normal has never really mattered either. And why should it? You're ten years old, and you can fly, and every night your very existence is met with thundering applause and adoring crowds. You're not normal, but you've never needed to be.

Then it all gets ripped away. The crowds, the lights, and everyone who loved you, all gone the second you hear those bodies hit the ground. You are not normal, and no longer in a way that is okay.

You are eleven years old, and you can fly again. Not on the trapeze, but across Gotham's rooftops. You feel more alive than you have since the circus. Part of you starts to believe that Dick Grayson hit the ground with his parents while Robin flew away. You've done nothing but inhabit a corpse since that night, but behind the mask, you're alive again. Alive. But not normal.

You're in middle school, and the other kids like you alright, but they realize you're not normal. You put on your best act to convince them otherwise. It almost works. You play their games with false smiles. You become known for your charm. But it's hard. You have to make them like you, but not too much. Nice, but impenetrable. You're eleven years old, but you've watched Bruce very carefully, and you know that having people close to you is dangerous. You are not normal and you can never let yourself be.

You're a teenager now, and you spend more time in your mask than out. Dick Grayson has friends, sure, but Robin has teammates. And teammates are far more valuable. You have your Titans, and you finally fit in again. Right? It doesn't matter that they're older than you, but you've trained for longer, or that they have powers and you don't. You're still one of them. And they may not know Dick Grayson, but Robin is more complete, isn't he? Robin didn't die that night at the circus. Robin doesn't have to play normal to fit in. But you're still alone. Or, at the very least, still lonely. Lonely, and not normal. Even among aliens and superheroes.

You're an adult now, and your days with the name Robin seem like a lifetime ago. Dick Grayson still isn't a complete person, but you refuse to be like Bruce and hide forever behind that mask. But sometimes you still feel like you're doing little more than puppeting a shell. Nightwing is more grounded. Nightwing can still fly. You're not normal, and you've come to accept that you will never be, but you wonder if you could have ever been. Was it Bruce that sent you on this path, or did he catch you before you fell somewhere worse? Did Gotham make you like this or is there something in your soul that is just fundementally incorrect? Something that stops you from ever being normal? That makes your smiles false? Morphs your natural charisma into a character you play both behind and in front of the mask?

You will never know. It's one of the things that stops you from ever being normal.

A little gift/ preview for @freezer-bride-your-sweet-divine

(Thank you for your support in navigating tumblr and your endless feedback, I REALLY appreciate it)

This piece will eventually be part of my series,

https://archiveofourown.org/series/4163446

Or maybe it won't, but I felt like it was a waste to scrap it entirely!

Unnamed Grief

Chapter 0, Prologue

It’s not that Bruce doesn’t love his sons.

He does.

Fiercely.

To the point of agony.

To the point of madness.

But they are sons.

They are legacy and reflection and consequence.

Dixie was origin.

Dixie was genesis.

Dixie was the very first moment he knew what it meant to live for someone outside of himself.

The moment that reshaped the architecture of his soul, rerouted the pathways of his cold, calculating heart.

Dixie didn’t make him Batman.

She made him Bruce, in the softest, most staggering ways.

He can explain why the others matter.

Jason needed saving.

Tim needed purpose.

Damian needed undoing.

But Dixie?

Dixie needed nothing from him (except, maybe, understanding, the one thing he was never able to provide her with) and yet she became his everything.

She wasn't the best of them because she was flawless.

She was the best of them because she was HIS.

His In every ugly, broken, radiant piece.

She was never built to be a soldier, even if she learned to fight before she learned to laugh.

She was not meant to carry the burdens she bore, and yet…God, she CHOSE to.

She chose to carry them.

Her brothers.

Their world.

Him.

Always him.

Even when he failed her.

Especially when he failed her.

Bruce knows all of his sons.

He can break them down, read their patterns, identify every fracture in their psyches.

But Dixie? Dixie remained unreadable, unknowable, even being the one he has known for the longest time, even being the one whose bones were shaped just like the ones he has known since before his own birth, his mother's.

She was his daughter in a way the others could never be, not just by blood, not just by name, but in understanding.

She KNEW him.

She knew him in the way a mirror knows its subject.

In the way a grave knows its dead.

None of the boys have ever looked at him the way she did, like she could see every ruin inside him and still believed something beautiful lived there.

Jason rages at him.

Tim studies him.

Damian judges him.

Dixie forgave him (Dixie raged and she studied and she judged too, but in the end she forgave him, she ALWAYS forgave him).

Again.

And again.

And again.

And that was a terrifying, holy thing.

Because forgiveness, real forgiveness, from someone like her…it CHANGES people.

The boys push him.

She grounded him.

The boys rebel.

She resisted.

She defied with love, with laughter, with hands that mended what others destroyed.

She wasn't his soldier (even if he knows she often viewed herself that way).

She was his compass.

He is not a man of poetry, but she made him one in the quiet moments.

Made him remember what lullabies sounded like.

Made him believe in softness.

Made him ache.

And he knows…it’s not that his sons are less.

It’s that Dixie was more.

More Bruce.

More memories.

More mystery.

More herself, in ways that none of them ever dared to be.

His sons always belonged to the world. She always belonged to him, not by ownership, not by right, but by that old, unshakable bond formed in the abyss between his birth and hers, between his grief and her grief, two wounded things clinging to each other like breath.

She was the child he never asked for, the one who became his first everything and the one who saved them all.

How could anyone ever compare to that?

They couldn't.

They never will.

Me, in a creative slump (that I can't even call writer's block because I AM writing, I just don't think what I am writing really fits into my series without sounding repetitive/superabundant).

Also me, panicking because the first anniversary of "Robin's Blues" is fast approaching and I would really like to publish something in that date.

Anyways, how would you all feel if, before a confrontation of sorts between Dixie, Bruce and Talia, I talked a bit more about what happened just after Dixie's death? Specifically focusing on Bruce, Talia and Damian?

I KNOW for a fact that my own genderbent version of Dick Grayson is far more serious in her out-of-the-suit public persona than she is in her in-suit public persona, but I think it would apply to most female reinterpretations of her character.

Let me explain:

1 being the daughter (and not the son) of a billionaire Dixie/Rikki/Rachel/Mary/Whatever is ALWAYS gonna be considered shallow, there is no way around it. Even the way she dresses herself (because, let's face it, she is a girl, she HAS to go out dressed half-way decently if she doesn't want to be submerged in hate mail) is gonna paint her that way, because half-way decent for an heiress is a VERY expensive thing.

2 She wants to change the world, in any identity she takes, but she can't do it from the bottom. She can't. Too beautiful, (perceived as) too soft, too delicate, all things to say “TOO FEMALE” to ever be a cop either in Gotham or in Bludhaven.

So, wanting to change the world, she has to take a different road, the attorney road, which demands seriousness and respectability from a man and absolute and total seriousness and respectability from a woman, especially one raised by Brucie Wayne.

3 If she is too easy-going, too joyous, too her, she is gonna be criticized and she is gonna have EVERY aspect of her life put under scrutiny, not only the private ones.

Those are the reasons Why, I think, in the end, Nightwing will always be fem-Dick more joyous and (in some ways) spontaneous side, because Nightwing is an Heroine and, even being both women, she is gonna be allowed some kind of leeways her unmasked self could never achieve.

https://archiveofourown.org/series/4163446

Idk Who would be interested in this, but I kinda ended up on a creative roll that, instead of bringing forth the main continuty of my series "Robin's blues", ended up exploring a sliding door aka 'What would have happened if, at the wedding venue (described in the first chapter of "of loving Nightwing (Titans edition)", Roy said the RIGHT thing and Dixie decided to take time for herself and heal instead of going on a self-destructive roll?'

The work would explore much of Wally's, Roy's and Lian's relationships with Dixie and would have two different outcomings.

Like I said before, idk who would be interested in it, but I kinda already wrote a LOT of this what if universe and I am kinda curious of the feedback it may receive

https://archiveofourown.org/series/4163446

me every time I post something

Your username - Helecthra - beautifully.

♥️

Hi!!! I would really like to know what are your favorite movies and songs? ^^

Hi!!!

Nice question, and quite tricky (at least the part about my favourite songs) because I have a LOT (Which is partly because I grew up in a multilingual household and I don't have a fixed language for music).

That said Films:

"Missing" starring Jack Lemmon, has the very rare hability to make you understand extremely horryfying events without ever becoming a splatter. It was an extremely brave film when it came out, because it specifically and explicitly talked about the USA involvement in Pinochet's golpe.

"The treasure planet" one of my favourite childhood films, and one of the very few I didn't have to wrestle agaist my siblings to watch. " I am still here" slaps too, which I guess is only a bonus.

"Brokeback mountain" because it's the only film that makes me cry every single time I watch it, and sometimes I just really really need to cry.

"Requiem for a dream" , because I was an angsty teen and I LOVED this film, and I honestly love it still.

And Songs:

"A little bit off" (five finger death punch) and "lonely" (palaye royale (I am honestly quite fond of their whole discography, I went to see them twice)) are in this list both because they are wonderful songs and because they represent something deeply personal and impactuful in my life: my depression. They both came out in 2020 and, while they aren't "easy" songs, they helped me immensely because, while "a little bit off" made me feel less alone, "lonely" made me understand that, even if I couldn't really see it, I WAS feeling better, because I did see myself in its lyrics, but it wasn't the present me, but the past one. On this line of thinking, also "Formidable" (stromae) and "Jester" (Badflower) are some of my faves.

Murubutu like everything this man wrote. I would give him head. I would snort with him. I would crack his head open just to understand HOW he manages to write as he does. Anyways, some personal favourites are : "Scirocco", "Markus e Ewa", "La musa insolente" and "Ulisse" but honestly his whole discography is spectacular and it only gets better as the years go by.

A classic "Work song" (Hozier) loved it since 2015, it's technically also my and my partner's song.

"Fullen", because a witchly rave in the woods is always a good idea.

"Empty wallets" (5sos) idk, there is something about the mundanity of this love song that I really like. I also have "Teeth" among my favoutites ever since I first heard it.

"Providence" (poor man's poison). Idk how to describe this one. I love this one.

"La pesc gnará" which I am pretty sure I only love because it's one of the very few songs actually written in my first language.

"Tous les mêmes" (Stromae) which has quite sad lyrics and yet is extremely fun to sing.

Now the REAL classics

"People are strange", "love me two times", "the crystal ship", "peace frog" and "When the music's over" all by the Doors, because you don't forget your first love.

So those were my favourite movies and (a lot of) my favourite songs (I tried cutting their numbers a bit, but honestly this was the best I could do)

I feel like Dick grayson embodies so well the song "Stay frosty royal milk tea" it isn't even funny I swear.

You mean to tell me that this

"I think I got too many memories getting in the way of me/ I'm 'bout to go Tonya Harding on the whole world's knee"

Or this

"Some princes don't become kings/Even at the best times I'm out of my mind/You only get what you grieve"

Or even this

"The only thing that's ever stopping me is me, hey/The only thing that's ever stopping me is me, hey/I testify if I die in my sleep/Then know that my life was just a killer dream, yeah"

Or, lastly

"Seems like the whole damn world went and lost its mind/And all my childhood heroes have fallen off or died/Fake tears, we are living fake tears/But the alcohol never lies, never lies"

Doesn't SCREAM Dick Grayson to you too?

In my works I often delve into themes such as pregnancies, abortions and parenting and Idk who needs to ear this, but I woke up with the visceral NEED to say a couple of things about it all:

I was born in an extremely religious country in which, strangely enough, abortion was legalised fairly early on. This doesn't actually mean it's easy to access to it, because of society's views on it, that trickle down on gynaecologists as well. About 70% of gynaecologists in my country consider themselves conscientious objectors, which means it is basically impossible to access voluntary interruption of pregnancy, except if the woman's life is at risk (or if you pay a shit ton of money in a private clinic, money that, often enough, one doesn't have). This (sadly) doesn't mean we receive any kind of sex Ed in schools (no, not even the crappy kind often showed in films) or any real help/guarantees for new parents, so basically you just have to pray that the condom won't break, because it's near impossible to actually have an abortion and you have almost zero support if you actually decide to keep an unplanned baby. That said my country is now also trying to make those laws even more restrictives (ex banning abortive pills, prediliging the hiring of doctors, nurses and anestheticians who are C.O.etc.), hiding the way our governement tries to rule over women's bodies behind our rapidly decreasing fertility rate.

One summer, while I was still in high school, me and my friends had to drive for over ten hours to reach the only region of my country where the objectors rate it's lower than 15% because one of my friends couldn't wait two months for the only gynaecologist who performed it in our area.

I was the only other girl in my friend group and, at my friend's request, I stayed with her the whole time. It was a traumatic experience, even not being the one having to undergo the procedure. Half of the nurses treated her like dirt and one of the counsellors (that are hired to help women or, more in general, people with a female reproductive system, in this kind of situations) started ranting about hell and damnation, while gripping my friend's wrist so hard it bruised. I literally had to pry the woman away from my friend and to throw her out, and I only managed to do so when I threatened to press charges.

While I always knew on an abstract level that in other countries, countries extremely close to my own, having access to abortion (or even to a morning after pill) was easy, easier than in my home country and decisely less frowned upon, it was all just news for me and I never really paid it much attention.

Then I left my country and studied abroad for a while and, during this time period, I met my partner. A couple of years later I discovered I was pregnant and I panicked. I was scared shitless because while I love kids, I hadn't planned on having one back then (or even now, to be honest). Even then I thought about it. If I decided to keep the baby I would have had actual support from the institutions, both economical and time-wise so my choice was actually mine and mine alone, not influenced by a frightening lack of resources.

I decided not to continue the pregnancy. I went to the clinic with my boyfriend and the procedure was quick, painless and nobody tried to make me rethink anything by guilt-tripping me with tales of eternal damnation.

I never felt any kind of guilt about it while living there. Nobody was forcing down my troath pro-life Ads or picketing the clinic when I went to do a check up specifically meant for people who had had a "traditional" abortion.

Even now, when I think about a traumatizing abortion, I don't think about mine, but my friend's.

Even now, when I see my nephews or my little cousines faces I don't ever regret having walked into that clinic.

Even then, the tinge of guilt in me resurfaces, sometimes, now that I live in my home country. A tinge of guilt I can't really explain, because I was lucky enough to be raised in a pro-choice familial enviroment. A tinge of guilt I shouldn't feel, because it was my choice (as it should always be) and I don't regret it.

What I am trying to say is that, even if you don't know it there IS a right way to do things and we should all fight to make them available to the largest number of people we can.

Religious guilt is never gonna be the answer.

My country tried to make it as such.

Now our fertility rate is at an all-time low from which I don't think we will ever recover and there are whole generations of women literaly terryfied of falling pregnant, because they do they are gonna lose their jobs and everything they worked for in their lives, without the possibility of actually making a choice on their bodies.

Religious guilt is never gonna be the answer, the possibility of chosing in authonomy for your body and for your future is.

Falling down a minor obsessive focus about The Crane Wives thanks to a beautiful animatic of the Batfamily (thank you @greenix) and listening to their whole discography only to discover how perfectly "Never love an anchor" fits my characterization for Talia.

Crying, screeming, ecc.