#(for fun and no profit)

[bluemoonperegrine]

"Once" audiobook and gifset complete!

I recorded my fic of what happened to Jack and his family shortly after his eighteenth birthday so my husband can listen to it during a long road trip. It turned out well, especially for an amateur who's never done this before! Download a zip archive with the mp3s from Dropbox.

There's a corresponding entry on AO3 if you care to leave kudos or comments.

Lastly, here's Jack's state of mind in gif form as the story progresses.

[justawanderingbabbit]

Okay kiddos, it's time for another round of The Babbit Overthinks stuff. AKA, Babbit Rambling.

Today's subject: The scene in Reunion: Providence The Sound of Thunder season 2 where everybody gets shot but Wu Erjing.

Interested? Follow me below the cut.

The basics of the scene are simple enough. Jiao captures several of the resistance fighters, including Bai Haotian, at least one of her fellow Warehouse 11 people, Wu Erjing, Huo Daofu and Liu Sang. And he proceeds to demand the traitor to Wu Erbai reveal himself so they can be rewarded and the others killed. In a moment of craven cowardice, Liu Sang tries to claim he's the one, only to have Wu Erjing speak up and take that role for himself. After which, everyone else gets shot and left sprawled in the sand.

Now, of course, we soon find out that the whole thing was a setup intended to force the traitor to reveal himself to a disguised Wu Erbai. Our gang is still alive and just fine. Jiao manages to turn the tables on Wu Erbai, unfortunately, and Wu Erjing uses the opportunity to paralyze his former boss so he can go back and claim, heh, no, it wasn't me. I knew what was going on all along. (Sure you did.)

And the gang accepts this and just moves on because, well, time's wasting and there's lots of other things to be done still.

My problem is that this scene doesn't make a lot of sense. The only two really likely traitors are Wu Erjing and Liu Sang. The other captives were all with Wu Xie and in no position to betray information to Boss Jiao. So why were they even there, except as tools to prove to the traitor that 'Jiao' was serious? It also elides over a certain character's specialization.

Or does it?

Later in the same season, when the gang are back in the land of OSHA violations, Liu Sang tells 'Jiang Zisuan' that he knows the man is Wu Xie because he knows Wu Xie's heartbeat. This means he can identify people just by listening. Moreover, he's been with Wu Erbai's team for some time now, long enough to know what Ershu's heart sounds like. In other words, Wu Erbai's Jiao disguise is useless around Liu Sang.

This means Liu Sang either thinks Wu Erbai has gone gaga and really is going to murder everyone to find the traitor, or he understands this is a ploy to force the traitor to talk.

Now, he has to know it's ridiculous to assume anyone from Wu Xie's team are the traitor. Boss Jiao would know better, because the traitor has to be close to Wu Erbai to be effective. So they're there to provide verisimilitude to an otherwise weak and unconvincing narrative.

More importantly, he knows the people 'Boss Jiao' shot aren't dead. Their hearts have to be beating and their lungs still drawing air. And that means he knows he probably won't die if he gets shot.

So why does he try to claim the loser spot of traitor? I think he did it to nudge Wu Erjing into speaking up. Wu Erjing isn't talking because he's suspicious of the whole setup; it is weird of Boss Jiao to be doing this, after all. But Liu Sang might come up with a convincing lie that would mean Wu Erjing would be the one killed. So, in a moment of panic, he speaks up and everyone else buys a paintball.

Another clue to Liu Sang's attitude comes after Wu "Mr. Smooth" Erjing comes back and pretends that he and Wu Erbai were working together and everything's fine, really, totally not the traitor. He watches the man with a distrustful expression. One that strongly suggests that he suspects, possibly knows, Wu Erjing is the traitor. That he doesn't speak up may be to protect Wu Erbai, whose life is in Wu Erjing's hands now.

So, yeah. I don't think he was being a craven coward in that scene. I think he was trying (and succeeding) in playing along.

(I also think that wasn't the best way to get Wu Erjing's confession, but this is a Lost Tomb plot. One can only do so much.)

[noughticalcrossings]

Put thee not on Silent

[ID: A 4 panel comic made of digital paintings of a zoom meeting between the knights of the Round Table.

Sir Galahad, Queen Guinevere, Sir Gawain, Sir Lancelot, Sir Bedivere, have their own individual screens, and one screen shows a conference room with King Arthur, Sir Mordred, and others who are not named.

Both Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere have their cameras turned off, and microphones muted, the entire time.

Panel 1 shows King Arthur with a few of his knights, with Sir Mordred brooding beside him in shadows, and a hand reaching from offscreen to steal snacks from a bowl.

Sir Galahad has his microphone muted, and is in a forest, looking up and to the side. He has brown hair up above his head and very pale skin.

King Arthur asks, "Sir Gawain, canst thou see the PowerPoint slides?"

Panel 2 shows Sir Gawain, who has brown skin, black hair, green clothes, and heterochromia, with one green eye and one dark, replies, "Verily I cannot, I think it be a miasma of the sight."

Behind him for the background is a section from the Green Knight manuscript, showing faded lettering and a green knight on a green horse standing in front of someone with a large axe while a crowd of spectators watch from the sides.

Sir Galahad's screen is now slightly motion-blurred, showing a reddragon's open mouth in front of Sir Galahad's face.

Panel 3 shows Sir Bedivere, labeled Tech Support, who wears a blue shirt and a plumed knight's helm, looking exhaustedly into the camera, pushing his helmet visor up with one hand. He is lit by blue light and has bags under his eyes, asking: "Hast thou sharest the screen?"

His background is of a library. Sir Galahad's screen is now taken up by the motion-blurred side of the dragon that is attacking him.

Panel 4 shows Sir Gawain turned slightly to the side, looking derisively at the camera, saying: "Yea, but I cannot hear Sir Galahad."

The only thing left in Sir Galahad's screen is the motion-blurred, spade shaped tail tip of the dragon chasing him.

End ID.]

Description very kindly added by @describe-things

[alias-milamber]

Step one: Identify a musical theatre nerd. No, not you.

Step two: ask them how many minutes are in this year?

Step three: wait for them to take a deep breath.

Step four: remind them it’s a leap year.

Step five: watch as math and scansion collide head on.

[yourplayersaidwhat]

The party is trying to convince a little girl to come with him so they can hold her for ransom, they meet her at the inn. 

Paladin: Hey, it’s ok! You’ll get to see your parents again, I promise, just come with us!

DM: The little girl still looks wary of you.

Rogue assassin, pushing him aside before leaning in real close and slamming her knife into the table a few inches away from her hand: Do you want to see your family again?

DM: the little girl backs away and starts crying.

Bard: nice going, pussyshits. How the hell are we supposed to kidnap her now?

Wizzard: I cast sleep.

Ranger: ooh, and I put her in the bag of holding, leaving it open so she can breath.

DM: ok what the fuck you guys-

Fighter: I SEAL IT, DIE MOTHERFUCKER!

Bard: WE NEED HER FOR RANSOM HANDS OFF

DM: GUYS-

Paladin, with 5 wisdom: WAIT WE WERE KIDNAPPING HER???

Necromancer: HOW OBLIVIOUS ARE YOU?

Ranger, bitterly: Oblivious enough to not realize I’ve been flirting with him this entire time. 

Paladin: YOU HAVE???

Bard: RANGER WHEN I WAS HITTING ON YOU, YOU SAID YOU WERE STRAIGHT!

*DM has slid under the table out of their chair as the table riots* 

[prokopetz]

Concept: one-shot oriented tabletop RPG which borrows Land of OG's gimmick whereby each player is only allowed to use a specific, randomly determined list of words when communicating with other players (i.e., all communication not involving these words must be carried out via grunts and gestures), except instead of dumb cave men fucking around it's about a group of dungeon-crawling adventurers ascending the Tower of Babel, or some other suitable framing device, and each player's list of permitted words is re-randomised each time the party ascends to a new floor. Certain types of "damage" might involve modifying the affected player's word list, and one of the game's principal advancement mechanisms would entail "locking in" specific words, rendering them immune to loss or randomisation.

[radishhqueen]

my entry for @tmntfashioncompetition's born in the 80s week!

cassandra jones you will always be a fortune 500 ceo in my heart <3

this is casey from vigilantism for fun and profit, a look into what casey was doing between the end of s2 and the movie, so uhh she's just casey

[koipalm]

Have you experienced anything since the last time we spoke?

fanart for L'appel du vide by Xov

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

so glad that media is finally coming to the (belated) realization that what women really want is to wear fun outfits and go on killing sprees

[kikicolors]

:/

[the-lozowski-speakeasy]

high time we settled this (also, feel free to put your nationality in the tags!)

[oceanvybe]

With billionaires buying all of social media...

I honest to God miss when the internet was niche and I would get made fun of at school for being on it all the time

[suzukiblu]

Tim’s my blorbo so I’ll always take more Tim content

Apparently Cadmus knew Experiment Thirteen was the one to invest in because Experiment Thirteen had a soulmark.

Apparently Cadmus also considered terminating Experiment Thirteen because Experiment Thirteen had a soulmark.

Tim knows this because he broke into the place and stole a copy of Superboy's file the day after they met.

He also knows what Superboy's soulmark looks like, because these absolute bastards not only took multiple pictures of it, they put those pictures in his fucking file. Not even, like, classified or tucked away behind a firewall or a password or anything. Not even in a seperate folder. Just right there in his standard file where literally any random scientist or doctor or goddamn intern could trip right over them without even meaning to.

Forget the fucking mind control; that's fucked up.

So yeah. Tim knows what Superboy's soulmark looks like. It's a stark, dark red, all sharp angles slung low in the V of his Adonis belt and cutting from one hip to the other, looking not unlike a stylized bird in flight coming at the viewer head-on. Bold. Undeniable. Very much like Superboy himself, really.

And exactly like the mark that came in on Tim when, he now knows, Superboy was first put together in a fucking petri dish. So that's . . . a whole thing, there.

Well. At least his soulmate is only literally fifteen years younger than him, not physically and mentally.

Although that doesn't really seem like a big improvement, to be honest.

Tim didn't even know he was into guys, actually? Definitely didn't know Superboy was into guys, all things considered. Like, he would not expect somebody like him to ever be subtle about who or what he was into.

Maybe they're platonics, Tim tries to tell himself. The fact that his first thought upon learning that Superboy was his soulmate was immediately questioning his own sexuality doesn't really support that theory, though.

Though it does help explain why Poison Ivy putting her hands on the guy had pissed him off so bad.

Like. It very much does.

Tim doesn't actually know what to do about this. Bruce still thinks he doesn't even have a soulmate, due to Tim previously really, really not wanting to deal with the absolute embarrassment of admitting that said soulmate was an actual fucking baby, so Tim never got the Bat-version of the soulmate talk. Bruce'd sat him down to give it to him when he'd first become Robin, but Tim hadn't had a mark then, obviously, so they'd both just assumed he didn't have to worry about it. Tim is pretty sure Bruce had been as relieved as he had to dodge that particular bullet, really. Apparently Dick had needed visual aids and hadn't understood the "gilly talk" version. And Jason had had questions.

Lots of questions.

Creative ones.

Sometimes Tim suspects Jason might've been an asshole. Like, just a little bit of one.

So no, Tim does not blame Bruce for deciding to skip that particular talk with him, especially when they'd both thought he wasn't gonna need to know any of it anyway.

So . . . yeah. He doesn't know how he's supposed to approach this situation. Obviously telling Superboy that they're soulmates would compromise Tim's secret identity and therefore Bruce's, and everybody and their damn mother knows Superboy himself doesn't even have a secret identity so it's not like Tim can figure that out and approach him that way.

On the other hand, not telling him that they're soulmates isn't a great start to being soulmates, now is it.

Crap, Tim thinks.

Then he calls Dick, because if he has to sit through the Bat-version of the soulmate talk, at least maybe Dick will be slightly less embarrassing to hear it from.

As long as there's no visual aids involved, anyway.

"Hey, Tim," Dick greets as he picks up the phone. Tim has a carefully crafted plan of attack, of course; several, in fact. He's got all sorts of subtle ways to lead the conversation without revealing anything too damning or too specific and while keeping everything in hypotheticals. Just making the whole thing either a quick thought exercise or casual curiosity from an unmarked kid who's heard one too many soulmate stories and wants to know more. So Tim's prepared. Tim's ready.

Tim panics.

"Poison Ivy kissed my soulmate and I want to burn down her entire life," he blurts.

"Uh," Dick says. "You're . . . gonna have to catch me up a little here, baby bird. For starters, I thought you didn't have a soulmate."

"I didn't," Tim says as he starts to pace back and forth across his bedroom, because he's already screwed this up so there's no point in playing coy now. "Then some dickheads in Metropolis decided to steal Superman's dead body and make a cocky asshole with douchey shades and a leather fetish out of it."

"Ohhhhh boy," Dick says. "What'd B say?"

"I found out like half an hour ago and you're the only person I've told, so nothing yet," Tim says. "What's the Bat-protocol for finding out your soulmate is somebody in the community, exactly? Specifically somebody in douchey shades?"

"Depends," Dick says. "How'd the kid react?"

". . . I don't know how to say this without sounding like a total creep, but he doesn't know," Tim admits with a wince. "I broke into Cadmus to make a copy of his file after I met him and they just . . . had his soulmark in it. Like. There wasn't even a password. It wasn't even in an isolated folder. It was just there."

"That is the most fucked up thing I've heard since the last time I had to talk to Jervis Tetch," Dick mutters in obvious disgust. "Alright, well, how are you reacting, then?"

"My soulmate is a baby," Tim grumbles disgruntledly, dropping into his desk chair. "A baby who is also a teenager."

"Tim, you're a teenager too," Dick reminds him wryly. "You are very much so a teenager too, in fact."

"Yeah, and it sucks," Tim says emphatically. "And I have, like, actual legal guardians and a home and a trust fund. Superboy just lives somewhere in Hawaii with a sleazy businessman and his kid and some random guy from Cadmus!"

"That's, uh, actually not great," Dick says, sounding a little troubled.

"You think?!" Tim demands. "He's a baby! An infant! And he lives with his frigging manager!"

"What the actual hell," Dick says.

"Just–is it ethical to kidnap your own soulmate and does that even matter if they're not legally a person and so you couldn't actually be charged for anything anyway?" Tim mutters speculatively, drumming his fingers on his desk for a moment and then booting up his computer. "I mean, B can't get mad at me for doing it if the courts can't get me for doing it, right?"

"Wait, Superboy's not legally a person?" Dick asks incredulously.

"Nope," Tim says. "Which neither Cadmus nor the sleazebag selling his likeness for a living has in any way tried to correct, for the record. Technically he's classified as intellectual property, but Cadmus forfeited legal possession when Superman turned up alive again, presumably to avoid Superman ever finding out that they'd had said legal possession, so technically if I went and kidnapped him it'd be more like . . . salvage, maybe? Like, in the eyes of the law, I mean."

"Yeah, okay, in that case kidnapping your own soulmate might be less an ethics question and more a moral obligation," Dick says.

"Good point," Tim says, frowning consideringly as he pulls up his browser. "Do you think if I just do it as Tim Drake I can avoid compromising my identity?"

"I have no idea but if I were you I'd already be booking my flight and thinking up a cheap excuse to 'accidentally' flash a teen heartthrob superhero my soulmark anyway," Dick says.

"I am already booking my flight," Tim says mid-click of said booking. "Although, uh, flashing him our particular soulmark might require, like . . . third base, and I don't even know if he likes guys. I don't even know if he knows if he likes guys, he's like five minutes out of the cloning tube and like, I'm literally fifteen and don't know if I like guys, so why the hell would he?"

"Okay, yeah, that could be an issue," Dick says. "Hm. Wardrobe malfunction? Slutty beach day? Wet T-shirt contest?"

"I'm not above any of those options at this point, frankly," Tim grumbles, even though those ideas are all very "Nightwing" and not very "Robin". Technically he shouldn't be approaching this like Robin would anyway, because god forbid Superboy recognize his methodology.

Slutty beach day might have to be a thing, Tim realizes with resigned dread. He is really not comfortable with slutty beach day being a thing.

. . . maybe if he just gets lucky, he can catch Superboy having his own slutty beach day. Not to make any assumptions, just Tim's pretty sure if either of them were ever going to be the type to wear a speedo or low-waisted swim trunks or just walk around with their soulmark out in general . . .

Which, in Superboy's defense, well–his soulmark is already on file with Cadmus, so yeah. He might not even care if other people see it or not, considering that.

Then again, if Tim knew that a bunch of random strangers who'd wanted to mind-control him had all seen and taken pictures of his soulmark, he'd never wear anything that risked exposing it again. Like. Ever.

Possibly he'd just live and die in a wetsuit. Or coveralls. Overalls. Or just–whatever. Something like that.

. . . come to think of it, Superboy's costume is all one piece, isn't it.

Cadmus is full of assholes, Tim decides as he confirms his booking, then gets up to throw together a go-bag. He has no plan whatsoever, but whatever; it's a twelve-hour flight. He's gonna have time to think something up.

One go-through with airport security and a twelve-hour flight later, Tim has not thought anything up.

Dammit.

[horreurscopes]

watching death note and house of the dragon simultaneously earlier this year did something permanent to my galaxy brain

[yourplayersaidwhat]

The DM describes how there is a “No Changelings” sign on the door to an inn due to many people believing them to be evil due to past crime groups. The group goes into the inn, before uncovering that the innkeeper is in fact, three changelings shapeshifting to take the form of the real (deceased) innkeeper.

Ranger: Guys! We need to kill them! DM said they’re evil.

Warlock 1: Yeah, I’m with Ranger, they’re literally impersonating a dead man.

Warlock 2: I’m gonna set the whole inn on fire, and hear them all scream. For justice :)

Bard (who is secretly a changeling and sweating anxiously): ERM CAN WE CALM DOWN FOR A SECOND?

Warlock 2, disappointed: Aren’t you chaotic neutral?

Bard: For MISCHEIF, not MURDER

[pygmypouter]

i dont think he's very good at his job