Welcome to January everybody! Who’s ready for some statistics? My peeps, you absolutely knocked it out of the park.
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I made this year’s comparison with the numbers from the first year we ran the event, which up until now had been the high point. Those figures are the ones in blue (light for art, dark for fics) and as you can see they start out higher. However, they dropped significantly in 2021 while 2024’s, in pink for art and purple for fics, remain far more consistent. In total this year we had 112 entries whereas the best total previously was 80.
This has been such a successful year, beyond what I could possibly hope, and I owe it all to you fabulous creators and the eager audience who shared and promoted the event. In fact, I have been so buoyed by this that I am launching an additional two events during 2025, one focused on the Riddler and the other for the Penguin. Check out @riddlerweek or @penguinweek if you’d be interested in supporting either (or both) of those. And of course expect another riddlebird week next December!
A little late but here’s my last entry for @riddlebirdweek : legacy!
Thank you everyone for reading along during this week; I know the quality of my writing is nowhere near as good as it used to be but writer’s block and work exhaustion are really taking a toll on me.
***
It wasn’t the first time they had posed for a painting and it wouldn’t be the last but Oswald had never felt the passage of time as much as he was feeling in that moment. True, Martin had been figuring taller than him on the canvas for decades; true, Edward had started dying his hair to hide the white for years; true, his bad leg and bad eye had been worsening steadily. And still, somehow, Martin had never seemed taller than as he was right there and then, standing behind his chair, fingers brushing his shoulder; and Edward’s hair dye had never seemed too stark in contrast to his older features as it did as he looked down at him to fix his lapel, glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose; and his own body had never seemed to hurt as much, despite having been well-acquainted with chronic pain ever since a young age.
Or maybe he was just being sentimental - he’d only become worse on that front as the years passed and even Edward had stopped teasing him about it, his own hard edges softened by time.
If anyone would have told him that one day he’d be posing for a portrait with his adult son, who had been taking on more and more responsibilities of his empire, and with his husband, who still was the same man he’d gone and fallen in love with when he’d been a nobody still, Oswald would have politely pointed them to Arkham.
Some things never changed and Arkham hadn’t - it was comforting, in a sick and twisted way that only in Gotham could be understood.
Back to some Reeves!universe riddlebird for @riddlebirdweek day 6: cliché - I did write a riddle and it sucks, yikes
***
Edward watched the other man through lowered lids; to someone who didn’t know him, it might have seemed like he was shooting a languid and seducing stare but the truth was that he was squinting hard, legally blind without his glasses.
Not that he needed them to know Oswald, body heavy with the satisfaction of orgasm, slumped next to him amidst rumpled sheets; unbuttoned shirt still on his shoulders; cigarette smoke curling out the corner of his mouth.
He reached out, bitten-short nails raking through his chest hair, revelling in the texture of it - getting a thumb swiping his fringe out of his forehead in exchange, the absentminded tenderness of the gesture bubbling like champagne through his veins and seemingly setting on fire every little bruise, hickey and imprint that Oswald had buried in his flesh.
Edward knew that he was addicted to him: he just hoped that Oswald had no idea of it.
“I’m overused and abused, my meaning often misconstrued. Though trite and worn, I still persist, a common thread that’s hard to miss. What am I?” He tilted his head to the side “Well, what are you?”
“You didn’t like my performance, sweetheart? I’m not as well-read as you are but I’m sure calling me trite and worn isn’t exactly a compliment” Oswald slid his thumb from the other’s temple to the curve of his chin, gently tilting his head up “If you put this pretty mouth of yours to use, I’m sure I can go again in a few”
I took the opportunity to write a sort of companion piece to yesterday’s drabble for @riddlebirdweek day 5: bereft (enjoy the gratuitous Richard II quote)
***
Sometimes Edward tossed and turned in bed, clawed open by doubt: what if Oswald hadn’t really died? He hadn’t stayed behind to watch the blood bloom on the surface of the water; to watch those panicked eyes widen with the realisation he was going to drown; to watch his body plummet to the dirty bottom of Gotham’s harbour.
His body hadn’t washed ashore, that was granted - if it had, it would have been all over the news: former mayor found dead in the water.
It wouldn’t be the first time a political figure had met their demise.
Some deposed; some slain in war; some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed; some poisoned; some killed in their sleep.
All murdered.
Oswald really hadn’t been that special afterall.
Except that, no matter how much he liked to deny it, Oswald had been more than special to him: he’d been his whole world, the cocoon in which he’d turned himself inside out and had emerged as his true self.
The nightmares Oswald was plagued with were more than descriptive of how he felt: Edward breaking the ice off, coming for him, spectral and scary, thirsting for blood.
They had Oswald waking up soaked in cold sweat, trembling and fighting with the sheets that had trapped him in his tossing and turning, enveloping him in vines that felt ever-tightening.
The fact was: he loved Edward, but he knew that if Edward ever broke free, he’d come after him.
It was as simple as that.
Edward loathed his guts and instead of talking with him, trying to make him reason and explaining why he’d done some things that seemed completely insane to an external observer, Oswald had trapped him in ice.
Forever beautiful.
Forever faithful.
Forever his.
Frozen in time and place, unable to hear Oswald’s confessions of love and hatred.
For day 3 of @riddlebirdweek, I went back to the dear old Gotham iteration!
NSFW ahead!!!
***
The desk had been a fixation for Edward ever since he’d seen Oswald stand behind it, fingers tapping on the cautiously redacted schedules that Edward handed him every Monday. One would have thought that considering Oswald’s height and the desk stockiness, the man would have looked somewhat diminished while standing or sitting behind it - one couldn’t have been more wrong: the imposing desk made Oswald look authoritative; powerful; in control.
It made Edward’s skin itch beneath one of the many suits that Oswald had ordered for him, watching with hungry sea-green eyes while the tailor measured his body inch by inch, his gaze following the trajectory of the sartorial metre, lids twitching in displeasure as the tailor’s fingers feathered along the inseam of his trousers.
Edward might have been legally blind without his glasses, but it was evident that Oswald was jealous and possessive of him - he just had decided not to do anything about it, letting the both of them stew in their own desire.
It was a sadomasochistic endeavour but Edward preferred the ache of need rather than jeopardising in any way his relationship with Oswald.
The goddamned desk just made his resolve seem a lot more unreasonable.
“Ed? Ed! Are you listening to me?”
Edward swallowed as Oswald sat on the edge of the desk, trousers tightening deliciously across his thighs “Yes”
“Can we move the event at the library to Friday? I ordered fresh flowers for my mother’s grave to be delivered on Saturday and I’d like to go visit her”
Marble gravestones and mahogany desks - Edward would have ruined Oswald on either “I’ll check with the library”
“Thank you” Oswald tilted his head to the side, studying his friend “Are you sure you’re alright?”
Italian | Hella Ace | Bi Romantic | Queer | Always Accepting Prompts | Muser | Tolkien, Sherlock, Hannibal, James Bond, Gotham, DCU, WWDITS, The Boys | Aspiring writer | The beach is my natural habitat | Seafarer | Talk to me! | AO3
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