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While I'm not a big star wars characters in a normal modern au person I have read a few and I'm stunned at the squandered potential of R2D2

Sure a cat is cute and easy and the energy is in the room at least. But what about an odd uncle or cousin from Padmé's side who speaks in either sign, a foreign language specifically to shit talk, or has the thickest accent you've ever shaken a stick at.

Or if you want the "someone has to have custody of the family pet" vibes but allow for sass still, make him a parrot. Macaws are/can be loud and irritant and also deeply beloved by their humans and huge nuisances (also! dodges the pet can only be so old if he's definitely older than the twins bullet because some parrots can be old as heck with proper care)

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Kept seeing neat/funny imperial Luke comics and started thinking about a serious way to actually do it. What it would take to get Luke-Sweet, Compassionate, "I wanna join the rebellion!"-Skywalker to walk the path of the dark instead. Can't have Vader injure the brat that bad or Palpatine risks breaking or losing his favorite attack dog. And as funny as Spoiled-Rotten Luke is I can't actually see that being a thing that would happen.

But. The thing about compassion. It makes a pretty fine leash on its own.

Have him be old enough and traumatized enough to attempt escaping. Let him even! Let him run, relax, slip the chain. Just for a little bit. Let him taste that freedom.

Then have Vader slaughter every single person between him and the child he'd lost once already. And Then! Tell Luke that it is. All. His. Fault. And suddenly! That becomes the consequences of eacape. That becomes the Sword of Damocles whenever he even thinks about it. And suddenly you get a songbird that will fly free for a little while but always return to its cage.

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Was daydreaming abt an AU that went off the rails hard but did have a solid scrap of a line form in my head

"Why would I care about not seeing your face when I've already learned the depths of your heart?"

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I hate. Having a brilliant concept for merch and someone else has not already read my mind and made it

Honedge line hairsticks.

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I wonder if it's just a consequence of the Submas teams being well rounded but it would be a fun little aside to make mention of them having jokingly argued about adding Shedinja to one of their squads. Or having had one really bad run in with a trainer that had one when they were on their journey because every single member of their parties has an effective counter to the little bastard

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If I ever write a Founder's Era fic I'm going to posit that at least Tobirama and Itama's mother was Hōzuki. For funsies.

The possibilities.

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I have this scene in my head. Of Nightwing sidling on towards a spot with a great vantage of where Haley's is getting set up for a visit, him finding one little ghost with a mauldin look and a heavy set to his shoulders. A soft chit chat under the dusk light as everything settles a little. Too far from the warm glow and bright laughter of that striped tent.

"You ever wonder what it'd be like if one tiny thing never went wrong?"

"All the time."

And so Wing pries out one more sob story on a chill fall roof. A surprise little one left behind in a hospital because of a heart condition there weren't the resources to care for. Not with a rambunctious 7 year old already and shows, follow ups and medications, testing and medical bills.

(The Fenton's, curiously happy to take on a little one who's already had a brush with death alongside his first breath. A little brother like Jazzy had been longing and arguing for.)

And Dick's stomach drops because he remembers. A hospital in Illinois, the worry, the strained expressions, the stress.

Can see the curve of his mother's nose, the thick fluff of wind tousled hair they share (one black, one now a luminescent white), the set of their father's eyes. In this dead and gone child's face.

(Another little brother lost far from Dick's reach)

Daniel Marcus Grayson for only as long as it took for the ink on the adoption papers to dry.

The Ghost Of A Grayson That Never Was

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I had an errant thought about Daemon aus (specifically starting with Kon) but like. What if it was just Kryptonians. what if it was very much just a Kryptonian thing.

How awful that would be from Clarks pov, growing up knowing it's one more inhuman tie. How baffling from Kara's, to have to figure out how to exist in a place without. How many clones failed because something went wrong with their manifestation.

(I can imagine in the labs it was so easy to feel. Small. How for all the bravado, Kon was just a naive kid. And bugs are so very easy to hide in dark hair.)

(this started because I was thinking how well a Peacock spider seemed to suit on the surface. Colorful, flashy, showy delicate, disgusting, and oh so easily crushed)

If I was going to actually do something with this I might have him settle as a Red-Legged Golden Orb Weaver spider because. TTK feels like such a wide web to weave (also the coloration is just perfect. or cursed. idk im tired)

One more way to put their hearts on their sleeve when a supers biggest weakness is and always will be other people

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as someone who broke something in their arm recently

I have to wonder how much of Tim (and the other Bats) casual wardrobe is muscle tanks because they're objectively a great shirt for keeping the sling strap off your skin, getting a busted joint through, and minimal squirming to get in or out of.

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If you want to manufacture an injury on a character that looks way worse than it is. If you can make them faceplant on asphalt somehow, road burn across the forehead and trailing down the cheek looks awful while being relatively low stakes (unless you want to give them like. a concussion too. for flavor)

very bloody, very mild in actuality

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Damian's not even my favorite robin. He is however one I'm having a very Distinct Thought About. A scene, a conversation that would sit best in a fic centered on the bats and their relationships and their communication therein.

I want so bad for someone to bring up how much Talia screwed up his introduction to the Bats specifically. Deliberately and maliciously and for her own benefit

Either brought up in a calm "You are aware how much of this sits on her not bringing up at all how some information gathering and a folder on the bats methods in difference to League methods would've-if not solved all the issues-at least set up for a milder introduction. B's moral coda that she would be incredibly familiar with because of their history that she conveniently forgot to bring up to you at all."

Or thrown in his face during an argument "She set the board to throw everyone involved on the backfoot! You in an unknown, assumed hostile environment, where any presumed weakness would only end up hurting you because that's how the League works! When violence is the only communication you'd ever known! And us with a truamatized and trained assassin how is also just a Kid! Unstable in every sense!

Everyone except her, still perfectly poised to manipulate you to her own ends.

She left herself as the only person whose expectations you would assume you to know completely, concisely, and clearly. On purpose."

How by setting him at odds with Tim-Damian's control, his potential for an incredible ally-was kneecapped out the gate! Tim, who knows exactly what it is like to have to force his way into the door of this family!

(But no, apparently none of the bird's are allowed to have a good relationship with their direct successor)

She may love him. That doesn't exclude (or excuse) her from using him. From hurting him.

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Trapped in a book this and sentient marble shenanigans that

Give me sentient 'cursed' sword Danny. Give me a tragedy broken Danny who had to choose whether to allow the observants to use him or trap him or end him and Clockwork give him another option. To hide and grieve and rest.

The Cursed Sword left in the League vaults that slides uselessly through any innocent and if you push? If you keep trying to raise it's blade against an undeserving opponent? Will bite back on it's wielder with frost and reflected fear

Gifted or found, give me Damian carefully cleaning a neglected old blade. Give me Danny waking once more to the gentle grind of a whetstone, a sliver of electric green shining in the space that shouldn't be. A magic blade that has never resonated with anyone that sings in Robin's hand, freezing over those with cruelty in their hearts

(Dealer's choice what reverts Danny back to his humanoid form. True love's kiss? Legitimately wanting to be a person again? A tricky situation where the Bats are stuck and he's left lying useless on the floor, unable to save anyone, this time of his own volition?)

(Bonus for if the first time he's wielded against the Joker Danny just. Mimick style eats him. Blade splits down the center, cavernous maw, swallows whole. Nobody realized that could happen.)

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Dead Serious Arranged Marriage aus are fun

If I were to do one I'd play with it a little. Give one or both of them a bit of forewarning.

A careful message from Talia, an arrangement set in soul and stone with the opening of the pits. A bit of research, an awareness of the inherent cruelty and callousness of the unliving.

A file flagged with familiar purple as Danny attempts to sort through the mess left by his predecessors. A Crown Prince as his heart still beats, but an Heir Apparent nonetheless.

A cautious meeting between affianced.

(One wary and wise, with word that any Heir Apparent of The Tyrant is not a foe to be trifled with)

(One can tell much by the ghosts the other leaves behind. A Nursemaid with tales of the vicious culture of the League. Test assassins that tell of what one will do to survive. Failed clones, empty echoes, unable to live their own lives but neither left with room for error or mercy. All drowned out by dozens of soft mewls and memories of warm hands and gentle goodbyes. You cannot rescue every animal that comes into your hands. But the echoes of attempts exist. Desert coarse fur and shared water. Danny was a goner before they'd ever even met.)

Likely a warning at 16, a meeting at 17, and a courtship lasting an age and a half

But that's alright

They've got all the time in the world

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I love finding irrelevant little details and doing nothing w them. Like. Irregardless of who the Delusion Crepus had actually belonged to, whoever it was designed for was a left handed archer.

This is evident because both Crepus and Diluc when shown using it in the Genshin Manga fall into a left handed archery stance. You draw the arrow with the dominant hand and every playable archer we have so far is shown in a right handed stance

So if I ever notice a left handed archer with a History in Mondstat. I'm going to immediately be suspicious

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The more I think about the fact that I started a Jason Todd playlist with Great Expectations from the Outsiders musical the more I feel guilty bc it fits and it hurts

I will elaborate if someone asks

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I'm honestly shocked I haven't seen Language of the Lost on any Warden Ingo playlists bc while it's rather techno. Look at the lyrics

Not only is the chorus a punch in the gut thinking abt Ingo

"Making the best of it

Never even knowing why"

"Do I know who I pretend to be? Of whom am I a copy?"

"Reset system to default

Faking the rest of it

But I can't remember why"

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Listen I get that it's still early in the summer event but like. The Office. THE MANUSCRIPT???? MA'AM?! Iykyk