#world without grown ups

[onlylonelylatino]

Plastic Man and the Justice League by Mike McKone

[thestuffedalligator]

The thing was a mound of flesh and mottled skin, as big as a barn and the shape of a pumpkin. Four tentacles as thick as trees hung limp at its sides; teeth ringed the gaping mouth at the top of its head like a crown.

A huge, sad whale eye the colour of wine stared at the knight. She could see her reflection in the jelly surface.

“We don’t know what it is,” she heard. “Some kind of monster that makes a perfect copy of whatever it eats. They think that was how the Dark Lord made his armies, feeding his minions to it so that it would make hundreds of copies of them. Do you recognize it?”

The knight opened her mouth. She hesitated. “Yeah,” she murmured, drawing out the word. “We found it in the Dark Lord’s tower, right?”

“That’s right. That’s where it ate you.”

The knight turned around and looked at her other reflection. This one appeared to be about ten years older, and had doffed her armor for a loose blue tunic and breeches.

She was holding a cup of tea. She had pressed another cup into the knight’s hand when she woke up here. It had been a shock finding herself suddenly out the obsidian dungeons of the Dark Lord’s tower and into this tall room of stone and straw. The warmth of it in her hands steadied her a bit.

“Everyone else in the party was worried, but then it started making copies of you,” the copy went on, staring up at the tentacled thing. “And all of the copies helped fight against the Dark Lord, and we won, and peace was restored across the land, but then nobody could figure out how to kill the damn thing or just to make it stop. Dozens of copies of us in a day, hundreds in a week, and then someone decided that the only thing we could do is just bring the thing here, seal it off and hope it starved to death.”

She sipped her tea. “Anyways, that was two-hundred years ago and it’s slowed down a bit. It can only make a new copy of us every few weeks now.”

The knight looked down into her tea. The copy had also draped a blanket over her shoulders.

“I have so many questions,” she said.

“I figured.”

“How can it be two-hundred years? I can still remember breaking into the tower. That feels like it was just minutes ago.”

“It was, basically. Your brain is a perfect copy of the original you’s brain at the exact moment she was eaten.”

“But the quest is just — done?”

“Yep. You missed some of the things that needed tying up afterward. There was a war, and a dragon, and some business about a ring.” She waved a hand. “It was before my time. Things are pretty settled now.”

“My parents?”

“Passed away about a hundred-and-fifty years ago. I’ve been told that they were very proud.”

The knight nodded. “Um. I don’t know if you know — we had an elf in our party—”

“I’m aware.”

“I — right. Obviously. Um. It’s just, after everything was done, I was going to ask her—”

“One of us did. She said yes. She outlived her. A couple of us have tried to reach out since then, but she wants to be left alone for a while.”

The knight considered this. “Uh — right,” she said eventually. Her fingers tightened around the tea cup. “Um. What do I do now?”

Her older copy shrugged. She had let her hair grow out again, the knight noticed. There were a few strands of grey against the black. “That’s up to you, I’m afraid,” she said. “A lot of us are finding work as soldiers and sellswords. We’ve done it for so long that most armies know we’re reliable and don’t tend to turn one of us away. Most of us are just sort of spreading out, wandering the world. Some of us keep in touch.”

The knight frowned. “What do you do?”

Her copy paused, tea cup half raised to her lips. “Sorry?”

“You said it only makes a new copy every few weeks now. So you just stay here and wait for a new one to show up?”

She lowered the cup. “Well,” she said. “I guess I just — I know what it can be like, waking up here in the dark, and it — it can be horrible trying to figure all of this out on your own.

“So I thought that what I’d do is just stay here with a pot of tea, and whenever I see myself again, I tell her that — that she’s not alone.”

“We aren’t?”

“Of course not. We’re all in this together, you know.”

[orphic-gaze]

the way ppl talk about bart like he's not a person but an event that happens is so funny to me

wally why r u wrought with PTSD over ur 15 yr old cousin . there is a larger crisis going on my guy

wally when bart exists anywhere in any dimension ever during the 90's:

[zams-oasis]

Ok, so what age is Billy Batson in World Without Grown-Ups? (1998)

I'm trying to figure out what the age difference would be between him and Tim Drake, and therefore the age difference between THAT Billy and Damian & Jon. And also where Billy & Stargirl dating would land on this kind of timeline.

(I don't know why I like giving myself migraines trying to figure out the age differences between comic book kids, but here I am once again.)

[m0on-boys]

they had to make Vanessa break up w wade in the film because they'd already kidnapped her and killed her and they couldn't just have her in the film as a person like peter, obviously she could only be there if she was being used to motivate wade somehow

[lifeofdc]

Absolutely loving that in JLA: World without Grown-ups #2 , the way Tim, Bart, and Kon defeat kid Joker is by having Bart ask "why" fast enough times

[vitaspera]

unhinged calix / viorel yapping commences..

[rosemaryentombed]

evil gays spotted

[bacchuschucklefuck]

Are your future bad kids like. Living in one house together or is the friendship more casual wrt to work and stuff?

oh absolutely not they mostly have their own spaces! fabian is flying around in the seacaster mansion, adaine has an apartment around the area riz's detective office is, kristen is still based in elmville so she can keep an eye out for her siblings. fig gorgug and riz technically share a house but fig moves between like five different addresses whenever she feels like it and riz spends about equal time at his offices and at everyone's places. the thing is I don't think the adventurer circles are that big? and when you grow up with that you eventually keep running into the same people. and also the bad kids still definitely spend every single holiday together regardless of what any of them individually has going on

[bansenshukai]

While perusing the naruto timeline I discovered that the Academy was formed ~30 years after Konoha was founded. The Chunin exams, being a part of the formalized shinobi education system, were formed after the Academy as well.

And at the time of the Academy's Founding, Hiruzen and the rest of his generation (Danzo, Biwako, Koharu, Homura) are approximately age 20~21 . They didn't grow up with the Academy or the Chunin Exams! They became, presumably, fully fledged shinobi, purely through individual mentorship and field experience.

So: no Academy also means no age limit.

This had me start thinking about the kind of childhood Hiruzen led, and what he would have considered normal. People love to criticize his decision to neglect Naruto (and rightfully so), but it's also clear that Hiruzen does regard Naruto with affection. It's entirely possible he saw Naruto's childhood as sheltered compared to what he experienced growing up without the safeguards of a formalized shinobi education.

[subsequentibis]

i don't find being a dad an overly compelling or coherent part of tommo's character but i DO like that he gets to apply Stolen Dad Valor to situations now

[orphic-gaze]

mushroom bart isn't real, mushroom bart can't hurt you... mushroom bart:

[citrine-elephant]

this world is cruel and unjust

my blanket is in the washing machine

[pannotian]

[aroacettorney]

this might have been the most ludger cherish coded thing casey has ever done and yet she didnt even need to learn it from him.

[rosemaryentombed]

favorite part here is that BOTH don and barry's ghosts were maybe -2.5 seconds from appearing and beating wally's ass for losing their baby..... whiteboy wallace, when i GET YOU