[Jason gave Nothing some art supplies and a few moments of kindness. That does not erase taking every single thing Nothing said in the wildest directions, from taking Nothing wishing it could spend more time fighting the police to mean Nothing thought Jason had it easy to taking it to somehow mean Nothing thought it was the other one defending the city to all the other things he made up that no one ever said. That does not erase Jason saying "you really don't give a shit, do you" or pretending Nothing saying quadruple homicides got to it meant Nothing thought that didn't get to Jason or watching Nothing break down and rant about all of its' stressors and replying "stop feeling sorry for yourself".
Paints don't make up for that, for making things up, putting words in its' mouth, and then when it got distressed enough to open up out of sheer despair, calling it a martyr who needed to stop feeling sorry for itself.
This is how this relationship works: Nothing tries to show its' face and tries to extend the olive branch that is giving someone its' name, it tries to say the right things, it tries not to invoke anger in Jason, tries to keep the peace and tries to keep its' statements simple enough that they can't be twisted into insults. That brings out a different Jason entirely who seems like a completely different human being, one who cares. The Jason who fabricated things out of thin air and refused to take anything Nothing said as anything other than a 'fuck you' is somehow in the same body as one who cleaned Nothing's face and wrapped its' ankle. The same Jason Todd who induced pure despair in Nothing and made it feel like trash is now holding its' face and acting like he didn't call it a self-righteous martyr. And the same Jason Todd who called Nothing a self-righteous martyr somehow didn't like it when Nothing walked away from paint supplies to focus on work even though 'suck it up, stop being upset about things and focus on work' was the thesis statement of the argument. Stop having feelings and work with me, no wait, not like that, have feelings and paint, damnit.
Once, Nothing thought riling Jason up was fun, but that was before he showed how much contempt he could have for someone out of nowhere, how suddenly he could go from friend to furious, how he could take a statement and make it a personal insult and turn it into a reason to rage. Most people generally do not like being hurt. Most people, upon being hurt, act differently around the person who hurt them.
This is not unusual. One person lashes out and twists words and gets angry and then thinks of himself as a victim. One person hurts and endures and tries to speak softer and kinder the next time, trying to believe the compassionate part of the other person is the real him. The first person would take that as an insult, thus proving the point that speaking softly and tiptoeing around is necessary. Lots of people do this, learn to live with the lows in order to accept the highs, tread very lightly and try to do what the other person wants.
Nothing is trying so hard. It's showing him its' face and giving him its' name and trying to establish some kind of shared moment, some shared sense of caring about one another, comraderie, in spite of the slap in the face that was everything Jason said before. It is trying hard to believe Jason is mostly good and only intermittently furious, that the real him is good and tender and sweet, that they can manage to arrange this into a functional friendship where they're both happy. It is trying to make them both happy. It believes Jason can be better than the asshole who made Nothing retreat into not thinking of itself as a person to cope with how much he loathed it. If that's toxic, then sure, it's 'toxic', the same way Nothing wishing it had more time to fight the police was a secret 'fuck-you' - only to Jason's mind, not by any other metric.]
I think your knowledge is probably serving you better than mine is. There's real-world applications for what you know, after all.
[There are no real world applications for Nothing's knowledge pool outside of making itself happy and content. That's hardly impressive.
Nothing shrugs. Body issues aren't something it has any real knowledge on how to fix. Frankly, that's outside both of their skill sets entirely. Neither of them is a therapist.] I don't know. I don't really know a lot about this kind of thing. I tried looking up things online, since it's kind of like poor body image, but... [People writing about poor body image didn't write for people with this kind of involuntary, growing discoloration. That's not a common issue, so advice tended to be focused elsewhere.
Oblivious to how trying to be nice could be considered "pretending" to be nice, blissfully unaware that trying to keep the peace is a "toxic" thing to do, living in gentle ignorance of how even trying to not upset him could potentially be viewed poorly by Jason, Nothing takes the offer at face value and mulls it over for a few seconds. Does it like being touched? Does it dislike it? It tries to pull from distant memories and comes up with no solid answers.]
I don't remember enough about being touched to even know if I like soft touches or not anymore. Plus I'm too tired to think straight right now, so that's probably not helping my memory any. I guess we could try it? [Worth a shot, when they've both had some sleep and aren't dead on their feet.]
Also, you're a total badass regardless of what you like. You stole hubcaps off the Batmobile, your badass cred is basically untouchable at this point. I'm the one who used to paint and unironically watch opera.
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Paints don't make up for that, for making things up, putting words in its' mouth, and then when it got distressed enough to open up out of sheer despair, calling it a martyr who needed to stop feeling sorry for itself.
This is how this relationship works: Nothing tries to show its' face and tries to extend the olive branch that is giving someone its' name, it tries to say the right things, it tries not to invoke anger in Jason, tries to keep the peace and tries to keep its' statements simple enough that they can't be twisted into insults. That brings out a different Jason entirely who seems like a completely different human being, one who cares. The Jason who fabricated things out of thin air and refused to take anything Nothing said as anything other than a 'fuck you' is somehow in the same body as one who cleaned Nothing's face and wrapped its' ankle. The same Jason Todd who induced pure despair in Nothing and made it feel like trash is now holding its' face and acting like he didn't call it a self-righteous martyr. And the same Jason Todd who called Nothing a self-righteous martyr somehow didn't like it when Nothing walked away from paint supplies to focus on work even though 'suck it up, stop being upset about things and focus on work' was the thesis statement of the argument. Stop having feelings and work with me, no wait, not like that, have feelings and paint, damnit.
Once, Nothing thought riling Jason up was fun, but that was before he showed how much contempt he could have for someone out of nowhere, how suddenly he could go from friend to furious, how he could take a statement and make it a personal insult and turn it into a reason to rage. Most people generally do not like being hurt. Most people, upon being hurt, act differently around the person who hurt them.
This is not unusual. One person lashes out and twists words and gets angry and then thinks of himself as a victim. One person hurts and endures and tries to speak softer and kinder the next time, trying to believe the compassionate part of the other person is the real him. The first person would take that as an insult, thus proving the point that speaking softly and tiptoeing around is necessary. Lots of people do this, learn to live with the lows in order to accept the highs, tread very lightly and try to do what the other person wants.
Nothing is trying so hard. It's showing him its' face and giving him its' name and trying to establish some kind of shared moment, some shared sense of caring about one another, comraderie, in spite of the slap in the face that was everything Jason said before. It is trying hard to believe Jason is mostly good and only intermittently furious, that the real him is good and tender and sweet, that they can manage to arrange this into a functional friendship where they're both happy. It is trying to make them both happy. It believes Jason can be better than the asshole who made Nothing retreat into not thinking of itself as a person to cope with how much he loathed it. If that's toxic, then sure, it's 'toxic', the same way Nothing wishing it had more time to fight the police was a secret 'fuck-you' - only to Jason's mind, not by any other metric.]
I think your knowledge is probably serving you better than mine is. There's real-world applications for what you know, after all.
[There are no real world applications for Nothing's knowledge pool outside of making itself happy and content. That's hardly impressive.
Nothing shrugs. Body issues aren't something it has any real knowledge on how to fix. Frankly, that's outside both of their skill sets entirely. Neither of them is a therapist.] I don't know. I don't really know a lot about this kind of thing. I tried looking up things online, since it's kind of like poor body image, but... [People writing about poor body image didn't write for people with this kind of involuntary, growing discoloration. That's not a common issue, so advice tended to be focused elsewhere.
Oblivious to how trying to be nice could be considered "pretending" to be nice, blissfully unaware that trying to keep the peace is a "toxic" thing to do, living in gentle ignorance of how even trying to not upset him could potentially be viewed poorly by Jason, Nothing takes the offer at face value and mulls it over for a few seconds. Does it like being touched? Does it dislike it? It tries to pull from distant memories and comes up with no solid answers.]
I don't remember enough about being touched to even know if I like soft touches or not anymore. Plus I'm too tired to think straight right now, so that's probably not helping my memory any. I guess we could try it? [Worth a shot, when they've both had some sleep and aren't dead on their feet.]
Also, you're a total badass regardless of what you like. You stole hubcaps off the Batmobile, your badass cred is basically untouchable at this point. I'm the one who used to paint and unironically watch opera.