Disclaimer: I do not now own, nor have I ever owned the rights to Teen Titans. The characters portrayed herein are the intellectual property of DC Comics, Inc., a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., which is itself a subsidiary of Time Warner Inc. I make no claim of ownership thereto.
Ascension of the Beast
Chapter XIV
A Greater Mischief than Despair
Immediately upon entering her room, Raven quickly locked the door and leaned breathlessly with her back against it, hand over her heart. She'd said she was going to meditate, and she surely intended to, but she also needed time for reflection. "Was that what I think it was?" she asked herself. "Did we really almost kiss?"
The situation was a surprise to her. She had been cognizant of her feelings for the changeling for a couple weeks now, but as far as she ever knew, she wasn't really his type. "No, that couldn't have been it. He likes blondes. He likes girls who will give him all of the attention he wants. I could never give him the attention he needs and he knows it. We almost kissed, but maybe he's just not thinking clearly. He hasn't been himself lately."
Then it dawned on her. "Neither have I!" she proclaimed in a voice full of concern. Walking to her bed, her mind was now full of doubt. Doubt of what he could possibly feel for someone like her, and doubt of what she had been thinking she'd felt for him. "The stress he's been under changed his personality," she concluded. After thinking for a moment, she quickly turned her attention to her bookshelves. Walking over, she selected a large volume pertaining to the subject of personality psychology.
Psychology had always been something that had interested Raven. Partly because the psychological states of those around her had always affected her via her empathic powers, but there was more to it than just that—within her personality, there had always been an innate curiosity about how things worked and what made people tick. In addition to her volumes on magic and her recreational reading materials, she had also accrued a large number of theoretical works dealing in matters of natural science, physics, engineering, philosophy, law (which became particularly important, given her former career), computer programming, medicine, and, yes, psychology. As an interesting side note, her interest in these topics actually helped to cement her relationships with her teammates—her interest in natural science brought her closer to Beast Boy, her interest in physics brought her closer to Starfire (who, despite her naivety with regard to terrestrial customs, was absolutely gifted in her understanding of this particular field), her interest in law brought her closer to Robin, and her interests in engineering, computer programming and medicine had brought her closer to Cyborg.
Surprisingly, when she took up an interest in philosophy and psychology, it had been Beast Boy more than any of the others who seemed interested in these topics. Then again, as asinine as he could be sometimes, Garfield also always had a remarkable curiosity about the world to him. She remembered a line David Keirsey had written, which she thought perfectly fit the changeling under normal circumstances: "not unlike puppies, sniffing around to see what's new and then barking to let everyone know what they've found."
Raven had picked up her first book about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator about a week after she turned seventeen; she devoured the contents of its nearly three hundred pages in the space of two days, during which she had only set the book down when she had to sleep or go out on a mission. Over the next month, she acquired many more books about the subject. As her knowledge grew, she began to type herself and her teammates. She determined that she was herself an INTJ, which was an exceedingly rare type, especially among females. Dick, she determined, was an INFJ—her companion type, which made a lot of sense within the context of her friendship with the leader. Kori was an ENFJ—her tribesman type, which informed of her own relationship with the Tamaranean. Also of interest, Raven recognized that, although ENFJ was not the ideal match for an INFJ (then again, she didn't know any ENTP women), Kori and Dick were nonetheless a healthy coupling, seeing as they thought and felt much the same way, except that Kori was more extraverted and had the ability to draw Dick out of his isolation whenever he closed himself off from the world. Raven figured that Vic was an ENTJ, which was, interestingly enough, her 'pal' type.
Gar, she determined, was an ENFP, which had bought her relationship with the changeling into context—which showed a surprising amount of similarity between his and her cognitive functions, but of course with some important differences. They both had intuition as their dominant functions, but her intuition was introverted, while his was extraverted. They both had sensing as an inferior function, but his sensing was introverted while hers was extraverted. Moreover, her secondary function (extraverted thinking) was his tertiary function, while his secondary function (introverted feeling) was her tertiary function. Overall, this meant that they thought and felt much the same way, except that each had insights and strength that the other lacked, he drew energy more from social interactions while she drew energy from introspection and alone time, and feelings had more priority to him while rational thought had more priority to her.
Carrying the book with her, she began to thumb through its pages as she sat down at the foot of her bed. Finding a section about reactions to stress, she suddenly had a revelation. "That's what happened!" she exclaimed. As it turned out, under extraordinary stress, cognitive functions can reverse their order of dominance. In this case, the reversal transformed Beast Boy's normal functions of Ne-Fi-Te-Si to Si-Te-Fi-Ne. "The stress has basically turned him into an obsessive and awkward version of an ISTJ," she noted to herself.
"But why have my functions reversed too?" she asked herself, as she got up from the bed "Either my empathy is acting up, or I genuinely do care for him. Damn it, Gar! Why do your problems always seem to become mine?" Returning the book to its shelf, she next retrieved a familiar mirror from her dresser. 'I suppose now would be as good a time for a conference as ever,' she thought to herself, before looking into the magical item.
For some time, Knowledge and Wisdom had both recognized that this moment was eventually going to occur. During the preceding weeks, Raven had not been acting anything like herself. She was feeling more than usual, she wasn't analyzing things as much as her nature would normally require, and frankly, they were largely responsible for it. Sure, the stresses created by the situation with Beast Boy helped, but, in truth, Raven's emoticlones were more actively engaged in this situation than the empath consciously knew; and the twin aspects representing Raven's more cerebral aspects had actually planned this entire exercise to begin with. The events which occurred since New Year's Day were merely convenient catalysts; Nevermore had known the subconscious truth of Raven's feelings for the changeling for years, and its inhabitants had been waiting for the perfect moment to bring it into the conscious realm.
Seeing all of the bad things which had happened in Garfield's past had provided just enough stress to eliminate Raven's resistance, allowing Knowledge and Wisdom to switch the order of dominance of Raven's cognitive functions. This action basically switched Raven personality from a stoic, inexpressive INTJ to a warmer, more emotional and more emphatic ESFP. Of course, the switch making her more extraverted had its side effects; Raven became less introspective during this time and hence the last time there had been any communication between her and the aspects of herself which comprised the inhabitants of Nevermore was on the night of Rose's party, but the heightened priority of the feeling function really made such communications unnecessary, as it was extraordinarily easy for the emotions to have their way in her decision-making process.
Which, of course, had been the intent of the switch to begin with. All of the emoticlones admired Garfield, each for her own reason, but all of them forming a coherent whole which expressed a cause which actually could be explained in rational terms, if Raven ever gave them the chance. The problem, of course, was that Raven's denial was so strong that she never would have. Knowledge and Wisdom had calculated that Raven's denial could be worn away if her emotions were given a stronger role in her decision making process, so they made it happen; what they did not anticipate, however, was that they had unknowing allies in the outside world. Nevermore collectively owed Rose Wilson a great debt of gratitude; they'd been expecting a slow process, but Ravager place Raven in a situation where her jealousy and protective instincts could quickly and easily overcome her denial.
But the switch had always been on shaky ground. To be honest, Raven was not actually under enough stress to warrant such a change in her personality; it had been an artificial action undertaken by Knowledge and Wisdom in order to fulfill a specific purpose. Since the change did not occur naturally, they knew it was not going to hold for very long. Just one moment of introspection could reverse the entire thing; and now that moment had come. However, knowing that this moment was eventually coming gave them an opportunity to prepare for the backlash in Raven's conscious mind.
Looking around the table at the other personifications, Wisdom knew they were ready. Well, all of them except for Timid, that is—the feed from Raven's conscious mind was really messing with Timid right now, who didn't know what was what and was very scared. Still, conveniently seating her green-cloaked sister near her was helping to allow her to keep her composure.
"What the hell has been going on here," Raven, extremely annoyed, chose to dispense with the pleasantries of any greeting, not even allowing the personifications of her aspects an opportunity to welcome her as she entered the conference room in Knowledge's library. "Why was my personality so different?" she asked, looking to Knowledge and Wisdom with an extremely serious look in her eye.
"Please, Raven," Knowledge began, "have a seat and we will explain everything." The empath, wanting answers, begrudgingly complied with the personification of her subconscious intellect's request.
"You know very well how shadow personalities work," Wisdom noted, without mentioning why Raven had reverted to her shadow type for two weeks. "Too much stress and you become an ESFP, just like how too much stress has turned Garfield into an ISTJ. You needed to turn inward to gain the mental energy to switch back to your normal personality, which you did when Victor interrupted you and Garfield before you could complete what we certainly believe was most likely going to be a kiss."
"But I've been under worse stress than that before, and the only other time I can remember this happening was when the World was going to end," she noted.
"We've been foregoing any repetition of the things you saw while you were inside his mind, to avoid traumatizing Timid and Affection," Wisdom noted. "But rest assured that what you saw truly had more effect on you than you remember. Moreover, the experience of watching him as he was nearly raped and not doing anything about it until Rage and Affection intervened with a display of protective jealousy is also another major source of stress, both in the form of empathic emotions felt for him and guilt."
"But, why?" Raven asked the question that was nagging her conscious mind the most. "Why would I love him? How can I even be sure that I actually do love him? I never thought I loved him until I was under the effect of that personality change!"
"If it's a question of whether or not you love him, you're asking a very pointless question," Wisdom noted. "Your emotions are unanimous on this topic; every one of them adores him." Raven raised her eyebrow in a gesture that invoked more sarcasm than inquisitiveness.
"As much as it pains me that I can't hate the stupid elf," Rage noted of her own emotional conflict, "the zen bitch is right. Even I love him." Rage's emotional conflict was quite apparent as she was speaking, as she emoted melancholy when she spoke of being unable to hate Garfield, yet lust as her mind turned to his furrier alter-ego while she explained that she cared for him as well. It was certainly disconcerting for Raven to watch this—Rage should not have any ability to feel either of those two emotions. Or, certainly not melancholy, at least.
"If you want, we can go around the table and tell you exactly why each of us adores him," Wisdom noted.
"Alright," Raven said as she panned her vision through all of the personifications in a counter-clockwise motion. "We'll start with...er...Sloth?" she said as she looked at the emoticlone seated to her left. This was odd—she never sat next to Sloth (mainly because that emoticlone constantly smelled like the time she escaped wasn't the only time she'd gone dumpster diving). Either way, Sloth would go first...
Except Sloth did nothing. In fact, she was laying her head on the table, using her arms as a pillow, while snoring somewhat quietly. "Sloth," Raven said as she began to shake the emoticlone, "wake up!"
"But Azar, I don't wanna train today," the still-sleeping emoticlone said in a groggy voice. As Raven continued, Sloth finally awoke. "What?"
"What do you like about Beast Boy?" Raven asked the brown-cloaked emoticlone. She was not even remotely pleased, but being a sloth was kinda Sloth's thing.
"Oh, that's easy," the emoticlone replied. "He'll never look down on you for expressing me. I mean, seriously, you could go a week without a shower and he'd probably still want to be your bad-joke-telling shadow. And he'll never think any less of you if you act like a couch potato or sleep in or make a mess, or anything really," she said before yawning and laying her head back down again.
"Well, to be fair, he'd have think there was something wrong with sloth and sloppiness before he'd ever think less of us for anything like that," noted the orange-cloaked emotion who was next in line to answer, "and he's not exactly Mr. Clean, or very active for that matter."
"Okay, Rude," Raven said with a slightly more satisfied voice, "I'm pretty sure there's nothing you like about him, so please tell us why this is a bad idea."
"Sorry mistress," Rude said with more than a little sarcasm, "I actually do like him. I mean, her illustriousness the princess of Air-Freshener-Land over there is probably gonna say a lot about how sweet and cuddly he is, but let's face it, the guy isn't the most polite person you'll ever meet either. He'll tease, he'll prank, and more often than not, his verbal filter will fail catastrophically, and you of all people, Raven, should see the value in this. He doesn't sugarcoat things, he says what's on his mind. He is normally the absolutely most candid person we can really say we know."
"Okay-" Raven said, being cut off by Rude before she could finish the thought.
"And let's be honest," remarked the orange Raven, "he has the cutest ass of any of the male Titans, with the exception of perhaps Garth, and I will bet you anything that Garfield is hung. I mean, seriously, he's got the entire Animal Kingdom locked away in his anatomy. He's got sharp claws, he's got pointy ears, but I've never seen hooves, or a mane, or any feature from a horse. Where's the horse in him? I'll tell you where—it's in between his legs!"
Rude's rant about Beast Boy's phallus visibly frightened Timid, who took cover cowering behind Brave. "Damn it, Rude!" the green-cloaked emotion interjected, "you scared the shit out of the poor girl. Don't worry Timid, I'm sure it's not that big."
"Yeah, uh, Rude," Raven was a bit distracted by the thought of Beast Boy's penis, but she was keeping herself mostly grounded in the conversation nonetheless, "that was...um...inappropriate."
"In what reality would it be appropriate for me to be appropriate? Inappropriate is kinda my thing—me being appropriate is like weepy over there being chipper or Happy thrashing shit. It just wouldn't be right." No one could argue that Rude didn't have a point. "Besides, we all know your little secret—you love thinking about sex."
"Be that as it may, this was an unproductive line of conjecture," Raven noted, trying to keep the situation under control. To be honest, she couldn't deny that she loved thinking about sex. From the moment she entered puberty, this had been one of her deepest secrets. More specifically, she loved conceptualizing the different ways love could be made, devising different theories and creative ways to achieve truly exciting sex. Though, she was hampered by a lack of real-world experience in that regard. She used to dismiss her sexual thoughts as a manifestation of her demonic heritage, but when she started learning about personality types she ended up learning that this was actually not unheard of for humans of her personality type either. More troubling, though, was that Rude's comments about the changeling's genitals gave her ideas that she now couldn't get completely off her mind.
"Your turn, Rage," a somewhat flustered Raven declared, "why on Earth would you love Garfield, of all people? I would have thought you hated him."
"I did hate that little shit once," Rage noted, "but ever since the Beast saved us, I've found myself unable to feel more than just mild annoyance toward him. That Beast is just soooo damn sexy; I mean, where else have you ever seen that kind of raw, primal passion? Nothing—not even our own teammates—could stop him from smiting anything that threatened us. The Beast likes smiting, I like smiting...there's just too much common ground there for me to ever hate the Beast. I love the Beast. And since the Beast is nothing more than a feral aspect of that green idiot, I guess I have to love him too."
"I like him because he can kick some serious ass and he's so fearless in battle that it's almost like he's got a death wish!" Brave wasn't waiting for anyone to tell her it was her turn. "I mean, he doesn't go all out a lot, but when he does, holy shit! Even if an enemy can bring down the Boy Wonder, the Green Machine'll still bring them the beat down!" Brave was making various hand and arm gestures with an energy level that made Raven wonder if the green-cloaked emotion had been smoking meth before the meeting, but the empath was really most irked by her emoticlone's use of the term 'Green Machine.'
"And, you know, we now know he was always like that. I mean, when we saw his memories, the whole thing with the snake and his mom. Even as a little kid, he was able to snap to action quick enough to save her life and absolutely destroy that snake!" Brave added, still displaying way too much energy. "He's almost as powerful as us, Rae. If we hooked up with him, we'd be like the most epic battle couple ever."
"B-b-battle s-s-s-scares me," Timid responded. "B-but h-he does m-make me feel safe! An-and he m-makes me feel less sad. A-and I feel r-really safe around th-the Beast."
"He always knows how to have fun!" Happy added, with an energy level that made her look like Brave's tweaking partner. "And he's always trying to include us in it, too. Remember when he actually convinced us to dress as Robin? That was wicked fun! And, as much as the rest of you hate his jokes, he can be funny sometimes too. Like, I know how much reminders of Terra are hated around here, but remember that first day we met the blonde traitor? Beasty Boo couldn't even say his own name. Bass Boot! That was hilarious!"
Waiting for her pink-cloaked sister to finish, the purple-cloaked emotion added her part, "and that's part of the thing about him. He can bring us out, he can free us. And for some reason he can do it without there being that many negative consequences. Seriously, Rage is definitely the most powerful of your emotions, but even she seems to be able to direct herself against him without destroying everything. He can bring joy, spontaneity and creativity to our life. He can anchor us closer to our humanity. And most importantly, he has always been very loyal to us."
"But what makes him so special?" Raven asked. "A lot of guys could probably do that."
"To be honest, I don't know," Affection replied, "I have never felt this strongly about anyone before—not even he who's name we don't mention. But it's hard for me to really describe my process; you have to remember, I'm an emotion after all."
"But Affection does hit upon some important points," Wisdom added. "And our relationship with Garfield is really symbiotic. He keeps us grounded in our humanity by making it easier for us to feel, and we keep him in line and give him stability and direction. If we combined our minds, we'd probably have an unstoppable intellect, actually. He doesn't think with a lot of depth, but his breadth of thought is amazing sometimes. We, on the other hand, do think with a lot of depth, but it helps to have him bringing some of the ideas he picks up with his breadth of thought, for us to analyze it with our depth of thought."
"And let's not forget what insight the field of personality psychology has to offer," Knowledge said. "Everyone from David Keirsey, to Azar knows how many MBTI theorists have provided very compelling arguments in favor of ENFP and INTJ being each other's ideal matches. Of course, this doesn't mean that it would instantly work, but it does mean that those two types have a better chance of success with each other than either has with personalities of other types. You're both intuitives, so you think in basically the same language. Our introversion means that we create our own mental energy, which his extraversion can then latch onto and draw into the open, serving as part of the basis for our bond with him. A relationship with two judgers is like a ship with two captains, with a constant conflict over dominance; in a relationship between a judger and and perceiver, each has their own role, with the judger giving opinions and making decisions and the perceiver considering the judger's opinions and giving feedback. And then there's the thinker/feeler distinction; our strength is rational and analytic, his is emotional and moral. In a relationship with Garfield, Raven, you would be the brain and he the heart; he would benefit from your intelligence and rationality, while we would benefit from his emotional warmth and that self-sacrificing nature he shares with us. As long as we can be considerate and sensitive to his needs, respect the differences between us and him, and consider his needs, and as long as he can be direct and honest, respect the differences between him and us, and consider our needs, there's no reason in the world why it wouldn't have the potential to be the perfect relationship. And the process to getting to the point has been ongoing for the past four years; we're already pretty much there."
"But he's not even an ENFP anymore," Raven retorted, weakly. She couldn't argue with what Knowledge and Wisdom were saying—she knew better than to try to dispute their points. Of course, that didn't mean her present argument was strong either.
"Garfield has only been acting like an ISTJ recently because his mental energy has been so tapped by the stress he's been placed under that he had to revert to his shadow type," Wisdom noted. "And even then, his ENFP true self has shown through the cracks a few times as well. I don't think it will take much to bring him back."
"Since he is an extravert, he gains mental energy from social interactions," Knowledge noted, "and I do believe there is a major social gathering coming up pretty soon on our calendar."
"Bruce Wayne's wedding?" the question was kind of pointless, considering this was actually the only social event on their calendar at the time.
"Think about it, Raven," Knowledge replied, "there will be no shortage of friendly and familiar people in attendance, with whom Garfield can mingle during the reception. I'm not a gambler, but I'm willing to wager he'll be back—more or less—to normal before even the first dance."
"And I would suggest that you find a moment during that night to pull him aside and tell him how you feel," Wisdom added, "to find a better time in the near future would be extremely difficult."
"But I probably won't even be able to get his attention," Raven retorted. She did not have to elaborate, for all of the aspects present knew what she was thinking.
"B-B-Bette K-Kane will b-be there," Timid noted, in a tone that emoted a mixture of sadness and hopelessness.
"That blonde bitch better keep her hands off from him!" Rage interjected.
"I'm sure his feelings for her are purely platonic," Wisdom noted. "They're good friends, but he has never indicated or shown any signs of any romantic attraction toward her, and we've never seen her show any romantic interest in him either."
"I think she likes Matt," Happy was very excited for the opportunity to gossip.
"I could see that," Rude noted. "She'd never be as sickeningly hopeless for him as she used to be for Dick, but I could totally see it." Rude also loved gossiping, mainly because Raven thought it was impolite.
"Enough with the damn gossip!" Rage, on the other hand, found it annoying. "All that matters is that she keeps her mitts off from our man."
"Don't worry, sisters," Affection joined the fray, "I'm sure he loves us. He almost kissed us tonight, remember?"
"And remind me to throw that damn half-robot out a window the next time I get a chance," Rage added.
"B-but what i-if it w-was just h-his horm-m-mones, and h-he d-d-doesn't really l-love u-us?" Timid voiced her concerns.
"I understand your concern, Timid, but I don't think that's the case," Affection retorted.
"Enough!" Raven was finding the back and forth between her aspects quite annoying. "I'll tell him how I feel the next time we're in an appropriate moment, okay? Can we leave the matter at that?" All of the emoticlones quickly accepted her decision, although Timid was still quite scared and Rage was still exhibiting violent tendencies toward the thought of anyone getting between her and her Beast. "I have another question, and this will be more along Wisdom's and Knowledge's fields of concern. I really meant to ask the last time I was here, but as you recall, things were kind of a mess then. Why don't I have an animus?"
"The simplest answer is that you do, but it's too weak to manifest into a personification of its own," Wisdom responded first.
"He's manifested his own personification before—primarily whenever we've achieved emotional harmony," Knowledge added, "but otherwise he has always tended to be weak and his functions are usually divided among the rest of us."
Author's Notes
I figured that this chapter would create a break from the story's emotional undertones. It also provides a nice opportunity for me to say this without it hurting too much: after a lot of thought, I've decided that the rule of "Anyone Can Die" will be in effect in this story and all of its sequels, and that when a character conclusively does die, "Killed Off for Real" will be effective within the entire storyline of this fic and all of its sequels (so anyone who dies anywhere from the beginning of this fic through the end of its last sequel will not be returning at any point in the timeline...that is not, however, to preclude characters who apparently died, but their deaths could not be confirmed in story, from returning later). ACD's reach includes both Raven and Beast Boy as well, even though they are the two main characters. I'll say that it's unlikely that I'll kill either of them off in this fic, and especially unlikely that I'll kill Raven off, but it could still happen and I'm not presently sure who all is going to die. I have decided on some characters who are going to die within this story, and there's going to be serious tearjerker moments in a lot of those cases, but I'm not sure of the totality of it all.
I'm also ready to confirm two things about the overall series. Firstly, although I'm not going to spoil exactly who or how, one of the five core Titans will die early in the first sequel; but this character will remain vitally important to the foregoing plot of the series, even in death. Secondly, I intend to eventually write a side-story about Robin's and Starfire's time on Tamaran, which will not be a true sequel to this story because it will occur simultaneously within the in-story timeline. The first true sequel will be both a sequel to this fic and to that fic.
Anyhow, this chapter has a very clear theme related to Raven's character development. I had been intending to have a chapter taking place during Batman's wedding reception be the fourteenth chapter, but I ended up deciding that Raven needed a moment to pull her back into her natural personality (which, due to a few years of maturation, will still be slightly different from that she had in the series), and particularly to restore her cognitive functions to her normal Ni-Te-Fi-Se set and re-engage her left brain (which had been abnormally submissive to her right brain for much of the story so far). I figured the immediate aftermath of the almost kiss would be the best timing for this to occur, and I used the basis that (ironically, considering how INTJs naturally tend to avoid the feeling in question) Raven touched onto a kernel of doubt in her feelings about Beast Boy, and as a result ends up having to analyze her potential with him.
pikachewy1- Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed review. As far as the bit about Beast Boy's backstory went, I decided that I wanted it to be very emotional; I'm usually a very rational introvert myself, so I set the bar to where it would actually evoke an emotional response from myself when I wrote it. If I wasn't welling up when I wrote it, I wasn't satisfied with it, and that's the result of using that criteria. As far as Beast Boy not transforming during the Candi and Mandy ordeal—I figured that if he transformed into something too big, he could hurt them (which...he'd catch flak both for being a man who caused physical harm to women and a metahuman who caused harm to physically-normal civilians); if he transformed into something too small, they could hurt him; I already used the amoeba bit and didn't really want to use it again in the same chapter; finally, I would figure it wouldn't be so abnormal for the weirdness of the situation to kinda paralyze him (he has been known to freeze up when nervous). Albeit, none of those explanations is particularly strong. As far as the hole with Raven and Rose goes, there's no rational reason for them to have let that happen, but this chapter kinda subtly lampshades that at one point. Finally, as far as the Lamumban situation goes, I don't want to say too much, because at this point it would be a spoiler, but the sorts of concerns you invoked have very much been on my mind.
Lover of A Good Story- I agree completely with your argument, but felt I had to lampshade the United States' alcohol consumption laws at that point. Had they been almost anywhere else in the developed world, having a drink now and then would not be a problem for them at all at this point, though.
Hairul The Nightrage Beast- When you look at Corey Feldman's filmography, there's actually a lot of films Beast Boy could conceivably like. I mean, seriously, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Gremlins, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, The Goonies, Stand by Me, The Lost Boys (and both its sequels), the 1990 adaptation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (and its sequels), Bordello of Blood, etc. etc. are all films I could totally see BB LOVING.
Annatheavidreader- I'm normally an INTJ myself, although I've had to fight against my own personality in writing a lot of this story (for example, if I let my perfectionism take over, the prologue probably wouldn't even be complete yet). I think my personality's actually part of why I find myself writing more often from Raven's POV—I can understand BB for the most part, but I can understand Raven better. It's also part of why the OOCness is bugging me personally, as I do what to get to a point where it's showing off the ENFP/INTJ dynamic. As far as Belial goes, that mention of him was the closest he is going to get to being introduced into this fic, though I will note that at least one of Raven's paternal relatives will actually be present as a minor character in this fic (for a clue: BB's going to experience some minor confusion). I can see what you're saying about the impracticality of a gown in combat, although, to be fair, it's not quite as impractical as it would have been if Raven relied as much upon physicality as Gar and Dick do. But I more or less just wanted to move Raven and Gar closer to their wardrobes from the comics as a way to mark an easily perceived difference between them as adolescents and adults (and Gar's eventual wardrobe change is actually going to have major significance to some things in the plot).
LiumD- He was just too excited about winning that bet.
JasonVUK- I was actually considering three possible endings for that chapter. Of course, I went with the ending that had them on the verge of kissing but being interrupted. The two alternatives I considered would have had them actually kissing, or just cuddling, but I ended up deciding the almost kiss was the best choice to go with.
tsk91- I'm actually using it more the further I get into the story, too.
shugokage- Thanks. This chapter (intentionally) probably won't pack the same punch as that one did, but I'll say that you can look forward to seeing some more fluff next time around.