"In college I had a physics professor who wrote the date and time in red marker on a sheet of white paper and then lit the paper on fire and placed it on a metallic mesh basket on the lab table where it burned to ashes. He asked us whether or not the information on the paper was destroyed and not recoverable, and of course we were wrong, because physics tells us that information is never lost, not even in a black hole, and that what is seemingly destroyed is, in fact, retrievable. In that burning paper the markings of ink on the page are preserved in the way the flame flickers and the smoke curls. Wildly distorted to the point of chaos, the information is nonetheless not dead. Nothing, really, dies. Nothing dies. Nothing dies."
—Nicholas Rombes, The Absolution of Roberto Acestes Laing
"Grief is a circular staircase. I have lost you."
—Linda Pastan, The Five Stages of Grief
"The women of mythology regularly lose their form in monstrosity. Io turns into a heifer, Kallisto becomes a bear, Medusa sprouts snakes from her head and Skylla yelping dogs from her waist. The Sirens and the Sphinx acquire unmatching bestial parts, while Daphne passes into leaf and Pasiphae into a mechanical cow. The Graiai make themselves repellent by sharing one human form amongst them, passing an eye and a tooth back and forth as needed. Salmakis merges her form with that of Hermaphroditos to produce a bisexual monster. The Hydra generates heads as fast as they can be lopped off. And of course the Amazons, as their name (a negative prefix attached to the word for "breast") implies, owe their fearsomeness to the zeal with which they adapt personal form — their own."
—Anne Carson, "Putting Her in Her Place: Woman, Dirt, and Desire"
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A long time ago, metahuman sisters Gwendolyn and Guinevere—the former a manipulator of shadows, the latter of light—were inseparable. From the water of the womb to the Gotham Metropolitan Ballet; from the darkness of their childhood bedroom to the sparkling spotlight on the theatre's stage. Twin conduits of prodigal power reared to keep the balance in Gotham. Twin vigilantes, sworn protectors of their defenseless neighbourhood in Gotham. The Black Swan and the White Swan, two sides of the same coin, each donning a mask that'd become a symbol of hope for their tight-knit Asian community.
Until one of them fell from grace, never to be seen by the other again.
Gwendolyn Ma was never one for whom things aligned perfectly. Luck, in the language of people like her, was something she had learnt not to count on. Rage, on the other hand—well, there was the blood to prove what she knew, her own beating heart a vicious animal never satisfied with just one hunt. In fact, it was her sister, Guinevere, to whom Gwen must attribute all good things to. Guinevere, the light shining in the dark, the beacon guiding her back to the beaten road time and time again. Guinevere, doe eyes and a hopeful grin. Guinevere, her better half.
Gwendolyn Ma is acutely aware that she is a creature come crawling out of the abyss of her own survivor's guilt. And yet, the abyss is all she has. What's that saying—if you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you?
In the aftermath of the Joker's relentless terrorism, Gwen lost everything in the fire. A preventable fire. She'd had known about the horrors that the world was capable of harbouring and still failed to protect them all. She had all that power, and still, she'd failed to kill a madman masquerading as a clown. Instead, it was innocent blood that'd stained her hands.
Where there is darkness, there must be light, and where there is evil, there must be good, for one could not exist without the presence of the other.
Guinevere Ma never used to see the light. Justice and vengeance often blurred the lines. Until saving the city meant caring for the people. Until it became about hope. While Gotham rebuilds, crime continues to climb to its peak. This city is never going to be clean, that's for sure, but that's okay. They're going to take it one day at a time. Once, Guinevere believed that being a metahuman meant that her life was in constant peril. All this power within her—power that she never asked for, but was born with—all this light and the world only saw someone to be afraid of. Someone to hate. Until the mask of the White Swan pushed her into the light, into her fate, and into the greatness threaded into her DNA.
After Gwen walked away from their stage, too wrapped up in her grief to continue, Guinevere stayed. It would be the first time the twins were separated since birth. Nothing would be the same. Even when Guinevere continues saving the world with the help of the Justice League, even when Gotham has pieced itself back together, something is still missing.
Meanwhile, Gwen lives half a life wasting away in her dark days, festering in her madness. Until she comes face-to-face with an old ghost of her past, Jason Todd himself, who offers to pull her out of the dark world she's walled herself into.
Bruce Wayne has always believed that the twins were never complete without each other. He could see it in Guinevere's well-hidden despair, the faltering smiles she fakes at the end of every successful mission, another victory on her belt and no one to return home to share it with. He could see it in the moments during a fight where she'd lose control of her powers. Where her sister once balanced her out, she was now fighting for total control without an anchor. For the sake of the world, and for Guinevere, Bruce sees only one solution:
To save Gwen from herself before it's too late.
Deep down, Gwen knows that it's only a matter of time before she's out there again. History turning on its gyre. It always begins with justice, evening out the score. And then it always goes a little too far. One body mutilated beyond recognition. An army of scattered thugs hunted through the labyrinth of alleys. A kingpin drawn and quartered in the name of penance. Then the good people start getting hurt. At first an accident, she hadn't meant for things to get so violent so quickly. Then the bodies begin piling up. More and more civilians reported dead in the crossfire, necessary casualties. But, in the end, they still got the bad guy. That's what matters.
Then the massacres begin. And there's no justifying that.
Gwen can write the story from start to finish before it's even begun. But Jason Todd is insistent on her discharge from Belle Reve. After Gwen walked away, Guinevere was struggling to fill the vacuum on her own, and Gotham had always been well-attuned to vulnerability. To sink its teeth in the soft flesh. Guinevere needs Gwen. The city needs Gwen, whether she comes back as the Black Swan or as something else. And Jason doesn't need a perfect hero. What he needs is the Black Swan.
What he needs is Gwen.
Gwen, and the eyes of the mask she once wore that'd seen a flood of blood and punishment in its prime.
And it calls out to her again to clean the city's filth.
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Gwendolyn Ma . . . Revenant / Black Swan
Jason Todd . . . the Red Hood
Guinevere Ma . . . Illumina / White Swan
Donovan Seigfried-Sattari
with . . .
Bruce Wayne / Batman
Stephanie Brown / Spoiler
Cassandra Cain / Orphan
Dick Grayson / Nightwing
Jude Cross / Viper
Robert Roth / Rothbart
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AUTHOR'S NOTE.
At bayports insistence for a jason todd fic renaissance, SILHOUETTES IS BACK BAYBEEEE. round 283828!!!!
Welcome (back) to my MENTAL ILLNESS!!!!!!!!
I think about Gwen so much I forget sometimes that nobody's really met her. ANYWAY! This was once a Bruce Wayne fic. Then it became a Steve Rogers fic. Now it's a Jason Todd fic. As you can see, Gwen and Jason are very mismatched abilities wise, but take this as a princess + bodyguard type situation, except he's protecting her from herself, making sure she doesn't hurt other people unnecessarily. (ironic, coming from mr Redhood himself, but it's a project that Bruce put him on to check his own violence.) And so there's the common theme between them. Will they make each other better, or will they make each other worse!!!! we'll see.
now. is there a plot?? idk you're not the only one wondering. is there a happy ending? i like to think so. this fic is a study on grief though so i'm definitely putting us through the wringer for a loooooong while so don't hold your breath.
(as usual, all the gorgeous gorgeous graphics were done by bayports .)
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SILHOUETTES
© taryn 2023