#And no one can fucking stop me

[imjustmarcy]

Thought back to how everyone went off with the parallels between Lucy and Katniss bowing and. Guys. GUYS. Yes there's some of Lucy in Katniss (more so with her singing) but no, Peeta is the one who reminds Snow of Lucy.

They're the ones with the endless charm who convinced the Capitol to like them, the sweetheart that won over everyone with words and smiles and knew how to play the games before they went into the arena. They knew how to perform and did it flawlessly, and knew the games started as soon as they were picked as tributes.

Katniss is Sejanus. The one from the districts that infiltrated the Capitol somehow, who always wants to do the right thing even if it comes with major repercussions. They're reckless, and they care way too much about their own people to the point it gets used against them.

[starbuck]

about a quarter of the way through making the WORST PANTS IMAGINABLE and i’m feeling GREAT

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

The Sculptor

Chapter 4 - Questions and Assumptions

[Masterpost] [AO3]

-/-

Lan Wangji lays on Wei Wuxian’s bench and stares up at the ceiling, nothing to break the silence but their out-of-sync breathing and the sound of Wei Wuxian’s pencil scratching irregularly at his easel. It’s peaceful - somehow more peaceful than the total silence Lan Wangji usually wants when he meditates. Wei Wuxian is a gregarious sort of person and Lan Wangji had half-feared that he would talk so much that Lan Wangji would find himself stressed, but instead he’s found himself in the unexpected position of wishing Wei Wuxian would actually talk more. Not because he doesn’t appreciate the silence, but because Wei Wuxian is a puzzle he would very much like to solve.

He’s curious about his life, his work. He wonders if it’s thanks to the fact that (despite his defense to Wen Qing about his cousins being art historians) he really doesn’t understand the art world at all. How does Wei Wuxian find steady enough work to keep himself housed and fed? Does he get regular clients with so much disposable income that they can afford to pay another man’s wages themselves? How many clients does he have? How did he become a sculptor in the first place? How does one even come to think of it as a viable career option to the point where they’re willing to put in the years of work Wei Wuxian so clearly has in order to become so well-established?

Lan Wangji’s life had been laid out very neatly for him from his childhood, just as Lan Xichen’s had been for him, and Lan Qiren’s before them. They were to be good nephews, quiet and obedient children. They would excel in their studies - and they had, they’d both graduated top of their classes. They would continue on into university, they would find wives, they would marry and settle down comfortably as soon as possible so that Shufu could rest assured.

He’s done that. All of it. His marriage is, of course, not the most..conventional thing like his uncle had so obviously expected of him, but Wen Qing is smart and polite, from a good family - even if her cousins, the main family of the Wens, have been Shufu’s bitter rivals in nearly everything for his entire lengthy career. Outwardly, there’s no reason for their families to oppose the match, and it had helped his relationship with Lan Qiren tremendously when Wen Qing had approached Lan Wangji with the offer to get married purely to distract their families from looking too closely at their romantic lives.

And it works for them, at least. Lan Wangji appreciates her steady, no-nonsense friendship, and he knows Wen Qing appreciates that he doesn’t care at all if she wants to spend a night or with the women she dates, though those are few and far between. Or rather he cares, but only in that he wants her to be safe and look after herself (without endangering him in the process). 

Still - as unorthodox as a gay man and a lesbian getting married may have been, they’d done it so secretly that not even his brother suspects they’re not truly in love, so he wonders if that really…counts. In every other way, though, his life has been exactly what it was expected it would be.

Did anyone expect Wei Wuxian to become an artist? Was he encouraged? Scorned? Lan Wangji chases the unanswered questions around and around in circles as he lays there with his eyes shut to help him focus. He knows he could probably ask - Wen Qing had told him before he’d left the house that morning to try making small talk today if he could - but he’s not the kind of person who’d exactly be inclined to break a silence without proper motivation. And snooping around Wei Wuxian’s personal business doesn’t feel like proper motivation, it just feels rude and invasive.

“You still doing alright over there?” Wei Wuxian calls, quietly enough that if Lan Wangji were asleep it wouldn’t disturb him. He opens his eyes again and turns his head to look at the man half-hidden behind his easel.

“Mn. Do you need me to move?”

Wei Wuxian shrugs, loose-limbed and lazy, and returns to his sketching. “You can if you’d like. I just finished up another one so now’s the time if you want to, but you don’t have to.”

“If I were to change my position, what would you suggest?” Lan Wangji asks, having come to the end of his ideas for posing already. After all, it’s not like he’s done this before, nor does he really know what Wei Wuxian would conceivably want out of a model. He’s been kind so far in letting Lan Wangji choose what he wants to do, he assumes in an attempt to help him acclimatize to the unfamiliar situation, but if Wei Wuxian isn’t willing to direct him they’re going to end up with a very lifeless portrait in the end.

“Ah?? Just whatever you want, Lan Wangji!” Wei Wuxian laughs as he continues skating his pencil across the page in long, seemingly thoughtless lines. Lan Wangji watches the motion of it telegraphed through his entire (distractingly expressive) body for a moment before he sits up.

“I do not know how else to pose,” he admits and Wei Wuxian’s eyes fix on him again, crinkling up a bit at the corners as he smiles.

“Ahhh I see, the professor becomes the student now, hm?” he teases with a tap of a fingertip against his nose. He leaves a graphite smudge behind, and Lan Wangji decides not to tell him, for reasons he’s not quite sure how to define. “Hmm. Well I don’t want you to try to hold anything too wild and end up getting a muscle cramp, trust me that isn’t fun-”

Lan Wangji blinks and tries not to imagine Wei Wuxian’s lithe frame stretched out for some faceless artist, contorted into the sort of pose that would create such strain.

“If you want to keep laying down I suppose you could try it on your side, with your head in your hand. If you want to sit up for a while then try relaxing a bit and lounging backward? You can choose.”

Lan Wangji has never once in his life been the sort of person to lounge, but he’d known the moment he saw the ad and thought about pursuing it that this would be an experience full of firsts, even before he’d truly registered the possibility - the inevitability, he supposes - of having to get naked in front of another person during the process. He takes a moment to take stock of himself and then he very deliberately leans backwards, one arm stretched out along the back of the bench and the other resting lightly against his stomach, hand loose and relaxed between his spread thighs. He didn’t spread them very far, of course, just enough to make room for his hand, but Wei Wuxian still blinks at him a few times without sketching anything at all.

“Is this alright?” he asks, sure that if Wei Wuxian is staring he must look more awkward than he feels.

“That’s great. Perfect. Stay just like that,” Wei Wuxian is quick to reassure with a little start, hand jerking into motion again at the easel. The studio is once again quiet save for the scratching pencil and the occasional rustle of paper when Wei Wuxian changes to a fresh sheet. Lan Wangji thinks that his image has been created more times in the last two days than it has in the entire rest of his life, and though he would have previously expected the thought to make him uncomfortable he finds he actually doesn’t mind it so much. After all, he’ll have to be alright with his image - or some version of it - becoming permanent when Wei Wuxian switches to sculpting him. He’ll just have to get used to it.

Lan Wangji doesn’t change poses again before they’re done for the day, and by the time he’s allowed to sit straight again he’s glad to return to something not quite so…brazen. It had been comfortable enough to hold, he reassures Wei Wuxian when the man frets over him, but Lan Wangji can practically hear Lan Qiren’s voice in the back of his mind criticizing such slovenly posture. Again, he thinks maybe Wen Qing has a point. Maybe it’ll be good for him to have someone reminding him to loosen up.

“Hello dear, how was work?” Wen Qing calls the moment he steps through the front door about an hour later, and he knows from her tone alone that they have a guest. She wouldn’t call him ‘dear’ if they were alone, nor pitch her voice to sound so honeyed and saccharine, and he appreciates the warning as he slips his feet into his house shoes while he braces himself for whoever it is.

He rounds the corner into the living room to find the couple from across the street seated comfortably on the couch under the front window, cups of tea in their hands and a plate of Luo Qingyang’s lavender and honey cookies arranged neatly on a china plate – their wedding china, he notes - on the coffee table. Lan Wangji leans down to press a kiss to Wen Qing’s cheek in greeting, both for show and as a silent comfort for having to act the dutiful housewife for their nice but very traditionally-minded neighbors.

“Work went well,” he answers her question and then turns to offer their guests a nod that’s really more of a very shallow bow with the way his shoulders dip into the gesture as well. “Hello Andrew. Margaret.”

“John!” Andrew says with gruff enthusiasm. “Alice was just telling us you’ve gotten a little job for the summer.”

“I have,” Lan Wangji forces himself to actually say instead of just humming. Wen Qing always reminds him to play nice with the neighbors if at all possible, and he’s found that most people tend to find his reticence a little unnerving. “In town.”

“Good, good, good, never hurts to have a little extra nest egg tucked away! Listen, if you’re interested in investing what you make down there, you know who to come to..”

Lan Wangji manages some approximation of a smile as he nods again. “I do, thank you. I will bear it in mind.”

“Andrew, darling, let’s head home and let Alice get started on supper,” Margaret murmurs with a hand on her husband’s arm. “Alice, are you sure your friend won’t mind sharing the recipe for those cookies?”

“Oh no, she won’t mind at all,” Wen Qing reassures with a sugary smile - she’s so much better at this game than Lan Wangji is. “I promise! I’ll have it for you by next week.”

Lan Wangji stays at Wen Qing’s side through the usual drawn-out process of pleasant goodbyes, and he pretends not to hear Andrew start a comment about the length of his hair that will likely precede a suggestion that he get it cut; Margaret interrupts him before he can really start anyway and hustles him away before he can cause offense. Lan Wangji and Wen Qing stand in the doorway together to wave to the pair one more time before social niceties will allow them to retreat inside the privacy of their own home again, where the moment the door is closed Wen Qing slumps against the wall with a sigh.

“Ugh. Ugh!” 

Lan Wangji can’t help but agree wholeheartedly. “How long were they here?”

“Three hours! Three hours, Wangji!!”

“Mn. An eternity,” he says in solemn sympathy. “Were they kind, at least?”

“Of course, of course,” she grumbles with irritated flaps of her hands. Lan Wangji follows her deeper into the house when she storms off to begin aggressively straightening up the living room. “They’re always nice. They’re always pleasant! They’re always fake and prying into our personal lives to make sure we’re as disenchanted with marriage as they are - and if I have to dodge the ‘oh you’re not getting any younger, and aren’t you just the perfect age for children!’ conversation one more time I’m going to scream.”

“We will hopefully no longer be required to do so after this summer,” Lan Wangji reminds her as he picks up the empty teacups and half-empty plate of cookies to return them to the kitchen.

“I would say I’m above using my baby cousin like that but you know what? He can take it. He’s three, he’s old enough to be a shield against nosy neighbors.”

Lan Wangji smiles a little at that and helps himself to a cookie as Wen Qing storms into the kitchen after him to snag one for herself as well, crunching on it with a glare that abates a little as she eats.

“A-Yuan is sweet, I am sure he will not mind being helpful. Are you going to see Mianmian this evening?” he asks. Considering Wen Qing’s disquiet and that she’d promised to get her girlfriend’s recipe, it makes sense. Sure enough, Wen Qing nods immediately.

“She just got back from visiting Jin Zixuan and his new wife, she called this afternoon just before those two showed up.”

“Mn. Tell her I say hello.”

“Already did, but I will again since you asked. You really like her, A-Zhan?”

Lan Wangji picks up another one of his wife’s girlfriend’s cookies and cuts a sideways glance at her as he takes a bite, the shortbread practically melting on his tongue with a floral burst of honey. She snorts at him, the last of her bad humor fading, and nudges his shoulder with her fingertips.

“Alright alright, I know. She’s good for me and she makes me happy, and you like the constant stream of baked goods.”

“Mn.”

“Noted. So, really - how were things at the studio today?”

Lan Wangji dusts his hands off carefully over the plate and leans against the counter ever so slightly as he thinks how to answer, ordering his thoughts carefully as Wen Qing bustles around him to clean up the tea-things to make space for them to cook dinner.

“Pleasant,” he finally decides, because it’s the truth. “Wei Wuxian wished me to thank you for the lunch. It was well received.”

“You told him not to expect me to be Little Holly Housewife, right?” she checks, half-muffled as she rummages in the fridge. “I’m not making you a lunch to take every morning, let alone two for you to share.”

“I did. He said thank you, he appreciates the effort you went to for today’s meal.”

Wen Qing straightens up again to fix him with a Look, though he can tell she’s mollified by the acknowledgement of her work, rather than it being seen as an expectation just because she’s his wife. “An artist with manners, huh? Not the usual stereotype one hears.”

“We do not listen to stereotypes,” Lan Wangji reminds her somewhat needlessly. After all - just look at them.

“Damn right we don’t. Help me with dinner?”

“Mn. I will change,” he replies easily and heads upstairs to do just that. When he slips out of it, he checks his shirt again for more graphite smudges from Wei Wuxian’s fingertips but his collar is as pristine as when he’d gotten dressed that morning. Wei Wuxian had helped him with his jacket again today, and Lan Wangji tells himself that no he can’t actually feel the ghost pressure of the man’s hands on his shoulders nor is it normal to think that he can, as he had wondered the day before. He shrugs into soft, lightweight linen hanfu and returns downstairs to rejoin Wen Qing in the kitchen for their usual evening routine.

When they’ve finished eating, he sends her off for the night with the lunchbox from earlier - now washed out and refilled with leftovers from their dinner for Luo Qingyang to enjoy - and gets ready for bed in the quiet. After an entire day spent nearly in silence with Wei Wuxian - too much silence - for the first time in a long time the quiet slips under his skin and buzzes unpleasantly. As he lays down to go to sleep without even the white noise of a fan or Wen Qing’s breathing to break it, he thinks that tomorrow he’ll try to get Wei Wuxian to open up enough to talk, even if Lan Wangji is a less-than-stellar conversationalist.

Someone as friendly and open as Wei Wuxian wouldn’t mind that so much, would he?

[andthebeanstalk]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

[clouvu]

Nothing in the world belongs to me But my love, mine, all mine

[petricorah]

scenes i loved from Real Enough to Get Me Through by @marriedzukka <333 [ids in alt]

[heartorbit]

so when's the wxs phantom of the opera set

[latenightsundayblues]

Just remembered that one picture of Leigh standing next to Cary lmfao

Adam wants to get down for the sake of his dignity, and totally not because being hoisted up kinda freaks him out a little

[yesokayiknow]

man the fact that martha jones would take one look at clara oswald and say Absolutely Fucking Not really makes me want to put them together like post s9!clara is visiting earth when she has a run in with unit and accidentally kidnaps her and can't manage to get her back to earth. aka clara spends several months trying to seduce her except she's clara so martha's like what the actual fuck is wrong with you. stop that

[greenglowinspooks]

(DCxDP) The obligations of a rogue versus those of a parent (Pt. 4)

—

Tw: descriptions of body horror, Dr. Crane has PTSD and Does Not Realize, Crane has an actual panic attack and just doesn’t care, the Riddler makes one (1) sex joke about Batman

Will be crossposted to AO3 eventually

(Pt. 1 here) (Prev here) - (Pt. 5 here)

(Masterlist here)

—

Dr. Jonathan Crane is in his lab, the acrid scent of chemicals filling the air, and his hands are shaking.

Danny’s health, for the first week that he had him, had been steadily improving at an extremely quick rate. However, his healing had begun to stagnate. Danny said that it was because his body had run out of ectoplasm, and that while there was a lot of ambient ectoplasm in Gotham, he needed a stronger type in order to heal.

And so, that led Dr. Crane here.

He had stolen the research notes from the Penguin years ago regarding his experimentation on him.

(He quite vividly remembers the sound of bone creaking and groaning as it twisted, lengthened. The squelching of shifting tendons and muscles, the strange fabric-like tightening of skin. The feeling of going from man to monster, of losing all claim to his humanity.)

Danny had called him Liminal, part ghost. He had said that he was transformed by, among other things, a kind of synthetic ectoplasm.

Danny needed ectoplasm.

Crane had the research notes. He had every ingredient necessary. And yet, attempt after attempt failed.

The chemical smell burns his nose. His hands tremble.

Dr. Crane is not afraid.

He doesn’t feel fear anymore. He’s tried to, many, many times, but nothing has worked. And yet, his hands are shaking still.

(The horrifying sensation of vertebrae pop-pop-popping along his spine, growing and lengthening. The unbearable itching beneath his skin as toxin glands begin to form. The feeling of his teeth sharpening and elongating, of his skull growing, of his vision changing and brightening. The awful stench of chemicals. The awful stench of ectoplasm.)

Jonathan takes careful note of his shaking hands, his blurring vision, his accelerated heart-rate and shallow breathing.

(Human hands. Human vision. Human heart and lungs and organs.)

He takes note of them, but he does not let that distract him from the task at hand. Danny is not a chemist, but Jonathan is.

The boy knows enough about chemistry in theory, but he won’t go anywhere near Crane’s equipment. He seems to have some sort of intense fear of laboratory settings, probably developed during his stay with the GiW, and Crane is willing to respect that, if only because he cannot afford to lose him.

As such, Crane is the only one qualified to do this. And, unfortunately, if he isn’t successful the boy may very well die.

He heats the chemicals to precisely the right temperatures, adding each one to its correct container.

Dr. Crane thinks of the Scarebeast, that creature born of cruelty and greed and a sense of superiority. That creature which he tries to ignore is a part of him, that can never be removed. A damage which cannot be undone.

He pours the contents of a small beaker into a larger flask, watching the liquids swirl together. The stench in the air is becoming closer and closer to the one burned into his memory.

Crane’s whole body is wracked with unpleasant sensations. It’s truly unfortunate, he thinks, that despite his mind’s lack of fear, his body still reacts so harshly.

Jonathan’s eyes wander, eventually settling on a purple and green card sitting innocently on the corner of the table.

Right.

Even if they wiped out the GiW tomorrow, and even if Danny could survive without ectoplasm, he would still be in danger.

Crane has to get him back to good health. It’s the only way he can be sure that the boy can defend himself properly.

The solution in the flask begins to foam, and Jonathan does not hesitate as he adds the final ingredient. He pours the mixture into a new container, capping it and placing it into a freezer set to -40 degrees.

Hopefully this time he got the timing right.

Jonathan tries to relax, the ventilation in the room slowly but surely clearing the familiar smell from the air.

He thinks of the letter.

Surely, he thinks, that man can come up with some better material for his jokes. Or, at least something new.

Same old threats, same old attempted poisoning.

Aiming his threats at Danny, though, that was new. New and utterly unacceptable.

Scarecrow did what he had to.

He doubted that his solution would last forever, of course, as with that man it never did. As such, he would prepare both himself and Danny for the inevitable moment that his choices came back to bite them.

However, for the moment, they were safe. Danny could rest and recover, and Jonathan could figure out a plan to minimize possible damages.

Jonathan is no longer shaking.

He’s exhausted. This is his fifth attempt today, and each one leaves an unfortunate strain on his mind and body.

With a sigh, he settles himself into his seat at a nearby desk, opening up his computer and logging his most recent attempt. He still has to wait for it to chill to know if it was successful, but he can always update the logs later.

Once he’s done, he stretches, joints popping loudly as he walks to the freezer.

When he sees the results of his tireless work, the ghost of a smile flits across his face.

Success.

Jonathan picks up the jug of ectoplasm and leaves the lab, which is in all actuality the basement of the new apartment that he moved himself and Danny into after receiving the note. The scrappy old woman who was his landlord had told him that as long as he paid her five hundred dollars up front, she would let him set up in the basement without any questions or cop calls.

And so, the most expensive apartment in the Narrows was his.

At least, he thought, the distance between the basement and the apartment was short enough that Danny didn’t have to sit in while he was doing his labwork.

Jonathan knew that he didn’t exactly have a strong grasp on the concept of ‘lab safety,’ proven by his built-up immunity to almost every toxic chemical he’d ever encountered, and he doubted that Danny should be around such an environment.

He was back to the apartment quickly, not bothering to hide the self-satisfied smile on his face. Danny is sitting in his armchair, trying to read one of his books. Danny looks up, ready to greet him, when he sees the jug in his hands and pauses.

“Is that..?”

“Synthetic ectoplasm,” Jonathan says proudly, “I found the Penguin’s research notes and decided to recreate it, since you said that you needed it to heal properly. I’m not sure if it’ll work the same as what you usually have, but I hope it’s helpful all the same.”

Danny is standing, now, and looking at Jonathan with a strange look in his eyes. He looks, Jon thinks, like he’s about to cry.

Then Danny is rushing forward and wrapping his arms around Jonathan, his scrawny form shaking.

Jonathan is, for a moment, horrified. Did he do something wrong somehow? Why is this child, who’s so afraid of touch, hugging him?

And then he hears Danny’s voice, and he knows that it was all worth it.

“Thank you,” he’s mumbling, over and over, “thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you so much.”

“Of course,” Jonathan says softly, because what else can he say?

The boy cries in his arms for a while, and Jonathan briefly wonders what his life must have been like before, if a person like him can be seen as a comforting figure.

Then, Danny pours himself a small glass of the synthetic ectoplasm, putting the rest into the small fridge which had come with the apartment, and he settles back down, sitting in the armchair once again.

Jonathan sits opposite of him, and they chat with one another as Danny drinks.

Danny talks to him about the stars and tells him about different spaceships, and Jonathan makes sure to pay attention and ask the boy questions.

He doesn’t miss the way that Danny lights up every time he asks him something about his interests. He’s so passionate, so smart, a trait that he seldom sees outside of his fellow rogues, and Jonathan wants to encourage that.

It’s…nice. Peaceful, almost.

And then the front door flies open, because Jonathan isn’t allowed to have nice things.

“Jon,” a familiar voice rings out, “what the hell?!”

Danny is frozen in place, clearly terrified.

Jonathan heaves a sigh, turning to face the nuisance who’s entered his apartment.

“Eddie,” he drawls, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Edward’s face is red with anger as he invades Jonathan’s apartment.

“Oh, I don’t know! Maybe it’s the fact that you sent a bunch of rogues a cryptic message and then dropped off the face of the earth for two weeks! I was worried, Jon!”

Jonathan hums in acknowledgement.

“I didn’t think it was that cryptic,” he says, picking up a book in order to pointedly ignore the Riddler.

“Oh, of course you didn’t, you straw-stuffed hickory dickory dickhead. I swear, you’re always—” he pauses, finally having noticed Danny sitting opposite of Jonathan, “—who is this?”

“My apprentice,” Jonathan replies, dreading the upcoming headache he was no doubt going to develop from Edward’s company, “he’s helping me hunt down the GiW. His name is Danny.”

Edward gasps dramatically.

“You—an apprentice?! And you’re letting him sit in the old man chair?! You don’t even let me sit in the old man chair,” he wails, draping himself over the headrest of the couch with a flourish, “Jonathan, I thought I knew you!”

“Edward,” Jonathan says, “get out of my apartment.”

“Oh my goodness, this is incredible. You’re becoming the bat!”

“I am not becoming the bat, Eddie, now get out.”

Edward has a shit-eating grin on his face as he waltzes over to Danny. Danny, who seemed terrified when he first appeared, is now looking at him with obvious amusement written all over his face.

“I mean, look at him! The hair, the eyes, the scrappy build. If you put him in one of those traffic light vigilante costumes, he could easily pass as a Robin!”

“I’m not doing this with you today, Eddie.”

“Riddle me this, Jon: I am a treasure hidden inside of a chest. You can break me, or steal me, or give me a rest. I can flutter, or pound, or attack, or drop, but if you don’t have me, you’re certainly fucked. What am I?”

Jonathan pauses for a moment before he groans, dropping his head into his hands.

“Eddie.”

Danny sits still, a confused look on his face as he repeats the riddle silently. Then, his face lights up in delight.

“A heart!”

“Jon, I like this one,” Edward says with a smile, ruffling Danny’s hair, “you are correct! A heart, something that I wasn’t aware that our dear Jonathan had!”

“Eddie, stop.”

“No, no,” Edward says, “I was worried about you, you deserve this. I mean, you even missed girls night! You never miss girls night!”

“Girls night?” Danny asks, absolutely delighted.

“Oh, of course,” Edward says, sprawling over on the couch, dangerously close to just laying in Jonathan’s lap, “we have it once a week. I’m invited because of Selina and Jon’s invited because Harley likes him.”

“And what does girls night entail, exactly?”

“Eddie,” Jonathan groans, “please.”

“Well,” Edward hums, “we usually paint our nails, or watch a movie, or gossip about the other rogues, and occasionally, we tell each other about any ‘encounters’ we have with Batman,” he says, raising his eyebrows up and down.

Danny’s jaw drops.

“Edward, shut up,” Jonathan says, an irritated tone in his voice that wasn’t there before.

“No way,” Danny says, “I thought that Batman, like, hated you guys or something. You mean he actually..?”

“Oh, the Bat is much like a bottle of liquor or a cheap cigarette, in that he was made to be passed around.”

Danny chokes on air.

“Edward Nygma,” Jonathan hisses, getting out of his seat and looming over the man, “get the hell out.”

Edward pales.

“Leaving, leaving!” Edward says, dashing away from Jonathan. He pauses, turning to flash Danny a quick smile.

“Remember Danny, I’m your favorite uncle! Not any of the other rogues, me!”

With that, he leaves, the room falling completely silent.

And, as per usual, that silence does not last.

“You full-named him?” Danny asks gleefully, “and it worked?”

Jonathan just sighs, sitting down on the couch and rubbing at his temples.

“Please, don’t take anything Eddie says seriously. He’s a moron.”

“Dr. Crane, please let me come to girls night with you,” Danny pleads, his eyes sparkling, “I promise I won’t embarrass you.”

Jonathan groans.

“Of course you won’t, Eddie will do it for you.”

“Come on, please?”

“I think we’re a bit busy with the GiW at the moment,” Jonathan snaps. He pauses as he notices the crestfallen expression on Danny’s face.

This boy is going to be the death of him.

“Perhaps, though, when all that is taken care of…”

Danny cheers, grinning wildly, and Jonathan is not at all relieved to see him happy again. Certainly not.

The rest of the day is relatively normal.

Danny works on trying to get information from the GiW database while Crane refines his his fear toxin, both preparing for a raid on the GiW base they located in Gotham.

It was only a temporary base, nothing of note, but there was a chance of discovering more bases through it, and that wasn’t something either of them were willing to give up.

Still, something like this would take time. Rushing would only lead to failure.

…

Late in the night, long after Danny is fast asleep in his room, Jonathan pauses.

The GiW are not the only threat out there. They aren’t the only threat to him or to Danny. Perhaps it could be helpful to reach out to someone with greater resources than himself.

He sends a quick message to Red Hood.

Hopefully, he thinks, everything will go smoothly.

—

[bizarrelittlemew]

top/bottom discourse and dom/sub truthers this and that, none of that can touch me because i headcanon them as vers and switch and whatever is best for the bit and therefore always win. look at all the beauty in the world

[useful-boy]

So a friend told me about Maushold today and I knew immediately what I had to do

[aroaceleovaldez]

Nico and Percy's dynamic through the series is eternally funny to me, because it's just. like.

Percy's having a constant mental struggle between his fatal flaw of loyalty with a promise he made to Bianca to protect Nico, versus his Big 3 kid desire to maim other Big 3 kids / Poseidon descendant urge to totally maim Nico specifically. He hates Nico so so much. He thinks Nico's annoying and weird at best, and creepy/sketchy when he's older. The only positive thoughts Percy has towards Nico are "He's Bianca's brother and Bianca was my friend and I owe her/He's Hazel's brother and Hazel is my friend and would kill me if I was mean to him," "He's a powerful asset and useful ally (if questionable)," and "He's kinda pathetic and I feel maybe a little bad about it." Percy has multiple occasions throughout the series where he strongly considers - and on one occasionally actually goes through with - throttling Nico.

Meanwhile, Nico is following around Percy like a lost puppy. He explicitly can never bring himself to even dislike anything about Percy no matter how hard he tries. He has a whole bit in BoO where he's mentally going "UGH he's so stupid BUT IT'S ENDEARING HOW DARE HE." He's totally smitten. He's making deals with his dad for Percy. He's making convoluted plans to help Percy stand a chance against Kronos. During the entirety of BoTL it's like he's playing tsundere - "I'm helping NOT PERCY SPECIFICALLY with this quest! Me helping Percy would be SILLY because I DEFINITELY HATE HIM." Then he proceeds to show up to Percy's birthday party to basically ask him on a weird date and spend the entire next book scrambling around trying to help him or protect him or impress him. And Percy could not give less of a shit.

Just. That dynamic is so funny to me. Percy is the founder of the Nico Protection Club in that he's the one they're all protecting Nico from and meanwhile Nico is throwing himself at Percy to the point where the literal god of gay love calls him out on it.

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt in Memes 4

Another prompt, but in memes because trying to gather my thoughts is hard sometimes lol.

[heynhay]

will you break and take all the words from my mouth?

[redactedcrowart]

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