#self delusion

[charnel-grounds]

Carlos Fernández, “Self delusion”

graphite on paper, 2023

[drowningintheshower]

The Road is Long, We Carry on—try to have fun in the meantime

Part 1 Part 2

Robby thrives in the technicalities of life.

Technically he’s a functional adult. Technically he’s doing his job. Technically he’s not doing anything wrong. He doesn’t promise his partners anything. He learned his lesson with Janey, had it reiterated with Heather.

Maybe it would’ve been better to stop sleeping with one man before falling into bed with another. Maybe he shouldn’t be switching between beds at the same rate as Myrna switches between the Pitt and the police station. Whoops.

It doesn’t really matter. He didn’t make any promises to Jack or Brendon. At least he got that right.

Heather always stressed the importance of communication.

So with Brendon and Jack he made it clear right off the bat that this wasn’t anything. Just stress relief. Brendon looked at him like he was a moron stating the obvious. He had his typical blank, bored expression, but his eyes were narrow with interest. He then took him apart so methodically and stoically Robby finished the night embarrassed by their different states. Jack paused, Robby was sure his temporary lapse in sanity was over and he realized how fucking stupid this was. Instead he just nodded, face melting into what he imagines was Jack’s ‘soldier’ face. He then fucked Robby through the mattress.

He was always the one to call them. Never text. Never let this affect work. Always at a hotel. The less it bleeds into the rest of his life the better.

Jack once asked, “Do the others fuck you like this?” All hot and possessive and utterly lost in the illusion. Robby didn’t answer him. The end of that trist was especially awkward.

Brendon tried to leave a necklace of hickies on Robby early on in their thing. He told him on no uncertain terms if he tried that again their arrangement was done.

This was just sex. Whatever happens outside of the hotel room, whatever they are outside of the confines of the building, that doesn’t matter in here and nothing in here matters out there. He always made that clear.

Astonishingly it worked. Things like this never work for Robby. Sure there are breaks. Only a month after they started, Brendon found a woman and they were both certain he would marry her—until she really thought about what it would mean to be his wife. After she broke it off Robby let Brendon just lay on him, carding his hair and pretending to not feel him cry. Jack had a nearly year long stretch where he was drowning in another swell of guilt about Charlotte, about daring to live beyond her. Robby the friend was there for him and nothing else. But overall he’s got a good thing going.

He’s technically fine.

But it gets to a point, as every bad coping mechanism does, that it’s not enough. He really did plan to just go ride up north. But after the fucking 4th, when he touched the handle bars. It’s not what Dana said, or anyone else for the matter, it just felt final the way he knew was a warning. That if he rode off now he wouldn’t come back the same. Or at all.

Instead he finally rummages through his junk drawer for that number Jack’s given him a million times.

Therapy doesn’t fix him—shocker—but he no longer actively humors death. So small wins.

Brendon and Jack have the grace not to comment when he inevitably calls them. It’s business as normal which isn’t hard because they didn’t talk before. Outside of the hotel rooms Jack quietly slurs out he’s proud of him after they have a couple beers at Jack’s place. Robby and Brendon didn’t talk outside of the arrangement and work and the pattern continues—it takes him embarrassingly long to realize Brendon’s gotten grabbier in bed, no marks but his clever hands insistent on holding him.

Robby’s three months are up and it’s back to the Pitt. It’s like he’s never left but he is different. Subtlety of course. But his voice in disagreements is more level, he trusts Al-Hashimi more, he doesn’t move like every step costs him.

Some things don’t change at all. Mainly his arrangements. He finally had to fess up to his therapist, she blinked and went to write down something. There was a discussion. Phrases like ‘emotionally closed’ and ‘need for control’ and ‘emotionally avoidant’ are used. He knows it’s probably a good idea to feel Brendon and Jack about each other. He doesn’t.

Life unfolds.

He’s in the middle of his guts being surgically rearranged by Brendon when both their phones go off. Gas explosion at a concert venue and PTMC is the closest hospital. It’s going to be one for the record books.

Neither of them think as they get ready. Robby’s barely able to wash himself off, he and Brendon are comically squeezed in the shower. It’s all harden competency without a hint of lust. They’re already switching into professional mode.

The Pitt is in such chaos that not even Perlah or Princess notice. Robby’s switched back into Chief of the department and throwing out orders, completely in his element. He doesn’t notice his slight limp or Brendon still being in the Pitt despite always doing his best to avoid coming down for consult.

That might’ve bitten both of them in the ass because if one of them had stopped to think they would have noticed Robby’s gate was slightly off and Brendon’s subconsciously hovering at most three feet away from him.

Jack does.

[cyrwrites]

Jason is haunted by his Robin self. Literally haunted, since the damn specter follows him around, sometimes mimicking him, sometimes running around while doing its own damn thing. Eventually he got over the literal reminder of his death (because of sheer exposure), but Batman and Nightwing almost have a heartattack when they reunited in a confrontation with Red Hood.

The Batfam tries to reason with the specter to abandon the Red Hood, who is killing people left and right, and the ghost just ignores them.

Danny, who is with the batfam rn, comes across the ghost and Red Hood at some point one night and gasps in horror. The body has been reanimated, but the soul isn't connected to the body! Someone else is overshadowing Jason (points to anyone thinking the Pit). Turns out Jason’s ghost self has been disassociating all the time because he's disconnected of the body. The being in Jason’s body (The Pit) has internalized Jason’s identity and is in denial about the whole thing.

[oldartss]

Self Delusion (Beauty Behind The Madness) by Yuki Tham (2017)

[gothicseverance]

Here, the victim is using normative language in an attempt to CREATE a normative reality.

—Poe and the Gothic of the Normal

[ttrraasshh]

[wayti-blog]

“Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures, in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete bestiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself. A man who lies to himself is often the first to take offense. It sometimes feels very good to take offense, doesn't it? And surely he knows that no one has offended him, and that he himself has invented the offense and told lies just for the beauty of it, that he has exaggerated for the sake of effect, that he has picked on a word and made a mountain out of a pea--he knows all of that, and still he is the first to take offense, he likes feeling offended, it gives him great pleasure, and thus he reaches the point of real hostility.”

― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

[redacted1diotic]

I am Heavy N°1 fan, he is literally my wife and the love of my life, if anyone says otherwise, then screw you up 🖕