#He doesn't know how long he stands there

[delta-pavonis]

OKAY. OKAY.

HEAR ME OUT.

Hellknight!Hob wearing this. Chest hair and tiddies out, full happy trail, all of it...

Of course, I think about that, and that inspires a ficlet. And then that ficlet turns dark. So... *shrug* *shoves new baby out in the world*

Rated T

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first time Hob sees Dream is when the latter has the audacity to enter the Morningstar's realm. He watches as the Dream King intimidates Squatterbloat into bringing him to the Palace. The demon is stupid and gullible, easily swayed, and Hob has a mind to bury his morningstar in the moron's fleshy head, but he would rather observe the visitor and his raven from the shadows.

Hob trails them, the straps of his armor expanding and morphing to cover his body with the mottled charcoals and midnights that are the palette of Hell. Squatterbloat leads the King in a circuitous route to their destination, passing a cell whose occupant not only commands the attention of the sovereign of the Dreaming, but whose pleading pains him. Curious.

He follows the pair of black figures beyond their guided tour, all the way into Lucifer's Hall, sliding unnoticed through the crack in the main doors. Hob is good at his job. He hadn't been successful at being a bandit and cutthroat in life for nothing.

Hob takes a place in the long shadows of one of the pillars and observes.

Apparently the Lord of Dreams and Nightmares is here in Hell to retrieve his helm, one of his important symbols of office. And of course it is some overly ripe idiot like Choronzon who has it. Sometimes Hob just wants to kill them all and promote new individuals to the positions of power, sometimes the house can't be cleaned, it needs to be razed and rebuilt.

But what is truly awe-inspiring is watching the battle between Dream and the Morningstar themself. The Dream King wins, although not handily. It makes the victory even more impressive. Hope. Of fucking course. Hob is quite sure that he has never seen the Lord of Hell so visibly angry in all his 600 plus years in the underworld.

Helm secured and confidence restored, the Lord of the Dreaming is proud and... well, he is incredibly beautiful. He is sharp angles in soft greys and blacks, luminous white skin draped in flowing ink, spikes of hair wafting against gravity.

Curiosity getting the better of him, Hob follows Lord Morpheus and his raven back outside. They walk slowly through the barren, twisted landscape, calculated and careful. Imperious.

Hunger ripples down Hob's spine. He wants.

The Lord stops, body going more still than death. "I am here in my official capacity as King of Dreams and Nightmares. You have followed me for long enough. Show yourself, fiend."

The Dream King's voice is so much deeper and darker than Hob expected and now it is directed at him and it goes directly to his cock. He decides to drop any pretense all at once.

Hob has no shame as he steps out from hiding, the shadow-plates sliding back and leaving him in what really amounts to a series of leather straps and a loincloth, buckled to accentuate the triangle of his torso and the strength in his chest, with sleeves from biceps to palms. The Knights of Hell need no metal protection - they shield themselves in darkness and guile - and so Lucifer Morningstar gives them intangible weapons: the ability to inspire lust and envy as much as wrath. He drops his physical weapon and holds his hands out to his sides.

"Dream King," Hob inclines his head. "I am not here to harm, nor am I here at the behest of my Lord, the Lightbringer." He meets the King's piercing blue eyes and has to grit his teeth to hold in a gasp at how sharply they cut into his breast.

That look trails from Hob's head to his toes slowly, then back up. Judging. Assessing. "So why do you dog my steps, Hellknight?"

He shrugs and takes a step forward. There is no reason for Hob to not be bold. He has long been dead. He has been a resident of Hell and served the Devil themself, has lived that fate worse than death, for almost seven centuries. He has, quite literally, nothing to lose.

So Hob nudges a the magic at his disposal into the cant of his hips, the tilt of his head, the purse of his lips. He lowers his eyelids and takes another step towards the luminous being of black and white before him. "I merely wish to look my fill before I can no longer."

"Bossss..." The raven flies a nervously tight circle above them. He is summarily ignored.

"You wish to more than look, Hellknight, for I can taste your dreams." The Lord of Nightmares snarls as he takes multiple steps to get into Hob's personal space. "You dare-"

Hob laughs loud enough to interrupt him and those ice shards widen in shock. "Oh, yes. I dare." He steps up once more and now their faces are within inches of each other. "How do you think the Morningstar trains their knights? Do you think there is anything you could do to me that would be worse than 700 years of this?"

The resonant chuckle that curls across Hob's skin should probably worry him, but he cannot muster such sense when he is watching the pupils of the Dream King's eyes bleed black outwards, eclipsing his eyes entirely, and wholly captivating Hob. "Lucifer Morningstar's sins often get in the way of their... creativity."

A pale hand shoots towards him and Hob braces for impact, for pain.

He gets nothing of the sort.

Fingers that are the coolness of a lake in summer skate with hedonistic gentleness across Hob's cheek. The palm cups Hob's jaw sweetly. Honeyed breath caresses Hobs lips before they are pressed together. Then he is being kissed with the fondness and warmth of a dear lover.

And that is when Hob realizes that he has vastly miscalculated.

Against his better judgement, Hob is lost to the tide of it. The softest touch of tongues morphs into lazy familiar licks, mapping Hob's mouth as if to memorize, immortalize.

The King of Dreams pulls away and Hob is left panting and hazy.

"I touch you, I kiss you, as I would a lover, as I would my beloved." The King whispers it like a benediction. Hob gasps at the horror that settles into the marrow of his bones. "And never will you feel it again."

And then he is gone.

Hob watches, frozen, as each stride the King takes covers miles. It is only when they have disappeared over the horizon, both Lord and Raven, that Hob realizes tears are streaming down his face.

[starheirxero]

For the record, I think soooo much about a potential AU where Eclipse really commits to the "false hope" plan and grits his teeth through every act because he's like "the more I seem genuine and the more they believe me, then the worse they'll feel when I finally stab them in the back!!" and every act of kindness he commits is under his idea of "oh man they're falling for my act sooo hard rn"

and then when he's eventually been completely integrated as at least a friend to the celestial siblings, he sits back and goes "man. now would be a great time to betray them right?" and then he finally looks at it all and realizes he doesn't truly want that now and he's just like "oh. oh." and is probably wildly conflicted and emotional about it

[silverwhittlingknife]

How do you feel about Jack Drake?? What are your thoughts on him and Tim’s relationship?

Anon, I hope you were interested in a novel, because look, I am fascinated by Jack Drake.  He’s key to a whole lot of what I find compelling about Tim as a character, and if I were in charge of DC, I’d bring him back to life.  This would make Tim unhappy but would IMO make for good plotlines.

Jack and Tim’s relationship is Complicated (TM)...

Jack and Tim hug in Nightwing 20 / Jack impulsively yanks a TV out of the wall in Robin 45 / Tim grieves in Identity Crisis

“I could tell the truth.  But I don’t.” - Robin 66

...and it involves a whole lot of Tim lying, and feeling guilty about lying, and thinking about telling the truth, and choosing again and again to keep lying.

And I think that’s great.

Below the cut:

Shorter version - key points about Jack

Really long version - my gentler take (vigilantism is choir and Jack loves sports) vs. my harsher take (Jack has some major flaws)

Final thoughts

Shorter version - key points about Jack:

He’s a bad parent.  He’s self-centered, he consistently prioritizes his own comfort and interests over his son’s, and when upset, he does things like order Tim off to boarding school.

But he’s never a bad parent in an actionable way.  He’s not like David Cain or Arthur Brown, who are abusive monsters.  Jack’s not a monster!  He just...kinda sucks.

He genuinely loves Tim. If Jack’s aware that Tim’s disappeared or is in trouble, he’s always worried and upset.  He periodically resolves to be a better dad, and IMO he’s always sincere.

And Tim loves him, a lot.  Tim’s protective of him and worries about him when he’s kidnapped or in danger, and when they’re reunited, Tim’s really relieved and usually hugs him (and Jack hugs back!). 

...But they have very little in common, and that’s a problem. Jack doesn’t value the things that Tim values, or respect the people that Tim admires, or care about the things that Tim’s interested in.  Tim lies to him a lot, but that’s partly because he correctly guesses Jack wouldn’t respond well if he knew the truth of what Tim’s up to.

The Batfamily is a surrogate family that Tim’s drawn to because of the ways his real family doesn’t meet his emotional needs…but also he feels guilty about that and disloyal. (And to the extent that his dad recognizes what’s going on, he's jealous and resentful!)

Very long version:

(LISTEN I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS)

Okay!  So first: Jack’s a character who IMO is pretty up for interpretation.  You can interpret him very charitably, and make excuses for the bad behavior, and fill in the blanks sympathetically when situations are ambiguous; or you can interpret him uncharitably, and emphasize the bad behavior. I don’t think either approach is invalid - it depends on what kind of story you’re interested in!  I have enjoyed Bad Dad stories and also stories that redeem Jack.

My personal take on canon is that Jack and Tim’s relationship is in a gray area.  Jack's definitely neglectful, and he does prioritize other things over Tim, but he’s never so bad that Tim can easily reject him, and he's never so bad that Bruce could justify taking Tim away.  He's just...not great.  Tim loves him, and feels loyal to him, but it’s a very mixed-up complicated love.

I have a gentler take and a harsher one which I switch between as the spirit moves me. xD

My Gentler Take (tl;dr: vigilantism is choir and Jack loves sports)

Here’s the core conflict: Jack and Tim are very different people with different values.  Tim idolizes Bruce and Dick and vigilantism, and secretly gets involved, knowing his dad will hate it. He gets increasingly wrapped up in his secret world and lies to his dad...because if his dad finds out, he’ll make Tim quit.

This is a great setup for an ongoing comic.  It’s practical, because it provides endless potential for plotlines, and it’s nicely thematic, because it maps closely onto relatable real-life situations with extracurricular activities:

Tim the drama nerd whose dad thinks he’s playing football and not in the school play; 

Tim the closeted-queer kid secretly getting involved in his school’s politically-active Gay-Straight Alliance; 

Tim the choir kid whose dad only values making money and wants him to go into the family business (and Tim keeps promising himself he'll give up choir soon, definitely soon, but maybe he'll stay in just a liiiittle longer, because they need him, you see, the last tenor left town, so...); 

Tim the computer geek with the sports-obsessed dad (this one’s just canon);

etc. etc.  

The extracurricular metaphor works pretty well for Tim’s relationship to vigilantism.  Tim's involved in his "extracurricular" because he genuinely thinks it's important and fulfilling, and he values it and wants to be good at it. He idolizes Bruce and Dick because they're good at it. He's been collecting information about it since he was a little kid, and hiding it from his parents because he knows they wouldn't approve. And mayyyybe there's also an element of low-key rebellion against his dad, and maybe that's secretly part of the appeal. And yet also as Tim gets more and more invested, he starts to daydream: maybe I could tell my dad and he'd be proud of me and supportive. But he doesn't, because actually he knows his dad would be upset and angry and make him quit.

And - again, just like with lonely kids and extracurricular hobbies - one of the things that happens is that Tim starts getting his unfilled emotional needs met ... by people he knows through this secret hobby. And people like Bruce and Dick start turning into a surrogate family. Which Tim feels guilty about. And also as Tim gets more and more wrapped up in their world, he has to lie to his dad even more, which means the distance between Tim and his dad gets bigger and bigger and more and more unfixable.

I love this dilemma. It's simple, it's recognizable, it provides endless sources for conflict, and there's no obvious solution! Tim can't tell Jack: he'll make Tim quit! And Tim doesn't want to quit, because he loves choir / art / theater / whatever.  Yeah, it’s difficult, and there are challenges, and sometimes he has doubts...but at the end of the day, he cares about it a lot.  And everything he values is there, and all the people he admires and cares about are there, and all he wants in the world is to feel like he's one of them and belongs there. So he has to lie, even though he doesn't want to lie, and he feels guilty about it...

...but also he ends up lying more and more.

(Sidenote: I think it's important that Tim chooses to keep lying - Tim's narration often glosses this as "I have to lie to my dad," and that's certainly how it feels to Tim, but this... isn't quite true. He has to lie to his dad, because if he doesn't, his dad will get mad at him and try to stop him, not because he literally has no choice about it.)

Other Reasons Why I Like The "Secret Extracurricular" Interpretation

(tl;dr it complicates not just Tim's relationship with his dad, but also all his other relationships)

Tim's problems have some obvious parallels to Steph and Cass, who both become vigilantes while rejecting their evil supervillain dads. But Jack isn't evil. And that means the Tim-and-Jack relationship is ambiguous and complicated in ways that I like. Steph and Cass can just leave their Bad Dads in prison, and say good riddance, and feel very righteous and triumphant about it! Tim’s more complicated. Tim gets into vigilantism ostensibly out of duty and altruism, but secretly, he's also involved for straight-up selfish self-fulfillment reasons. He's lonely, and bored, and his life feels pointless, but he thinks that Bruce and Dick are cool and amazing and he wants to be a part of the things that they do.  When his dad gets jealous of Tim’s relationship to Bruce, and feels like Tim’s looking for a surrogate family, he’s... not wrong.

And the ways in which Jack is not Actionably Bad complicate things from Bruce's POV.  If Jack was a straight-up villain, it’d be an easy call to keep in touch when Jack finds out and makes Tim quit...but he’s not a villain, not really.  So what do you do?  Do you try to surreptitiously stay in touch with Tim even though you’re ignoring his dad’s express wishes and thus forcing Tim to sneak around?  Do you respect his dad’s wishes and stay away from Tim even though you have a years-long relationship at this point?  

Again: a bit similar to the extracurricular analogy.  Say you’re the choir director and you’ve built this whole relationship with a kid in the choir, and you’re an important mentor to him and you care about him etc. etc. etc.... and then right before a big performance, his dad finds out he’s been secretly involved, and yanks him out.  How would you react?  Well, maybe kind of in some of the ways Bruce reacts.  You replace him. You’re annoyed with him. You miss him. You want him to come back. You’re also worried about him.  You’re upset with his dad.  But also... what should you do, exactly?

Bruce and Alfred and Dick care about Tim as if he were part of their family, but he’s not part of their family, and there’s a lot of interesting tension there.

My Harsher Take

Jack never hits his son.  But his temper is a big deal.

In his worst moments, he takes out his anger on Tim’s stuff - wrecking his room, or ripping his TV out of the wall and confiscating it.  When he’s worried about Tim, he usually expresses that fear by yelling at him / punishing him / sending him away - threatening to send him to boarding school in Metropolis in Robin III, or threatening to send him to military school abroad in Robin 92, or actually forcing him to go to an all-boys' boarding school post-NML.  

This is bad behavior!  It is Not Good!  

And you can easily connect the dots to a bunch of Tim’s terrible coping mechanisms, like the constant lying and or the fact that Tim’s go-to methods for dealing with interpersonal conflict are 1) repress it and pretend it never happened (most of his fights with Bruce), 2) withdraw from the relationship until he can pretend the conflict doesn’t exist (when his friends get mad at him in YJ, he quits the team for a while), or 3) literally run away from home.

Also, Jack is a Manly Man with firm opinions about how men behave vs. how women behave, and he thinks boys shouldn’t be scared and thinks Tim should date hot girls and pushes Tim to work out and wants him to play football and expresses period-typical sexism, etc. etc. etc. ... and though obviously this wasn’t what the writers had in mind at the time, all of that is certainly interesting to read backwards in the light of Tim as a queer character.

More Disorganized Thoughts on Jack Drake

Tim’s our hero, so we’re naturally more sympathetic to him, but it’s also true that relationships are a two-way street, and Tim doesn’t value any of the things his dad values, either.  Jack at various points is shown to care about grades, business, money, boarding schools, archeology, football, a kind of macho bragging-about-dating-hot-women ethos, and a very public and performative kind of caring. Tim tends to respond with discomfort or disinterest or even disgust.  When Jack gets on TV to try to rally the government to save his son from No Man’s Land, Tim isn’t touched—he’s mortified.  When Jack makes some bad investments and loses money, Jack’s deeply upset and his self-image is majorly impacted, and far from being sympathetic, Tim’s annoyed and kind of contemptuous of the idea that this is a problem.  Jack thinks fishing in the early morning and going to tennis matches is a fun father-son activity; Tim finds it exhausting and tedious.  And so on.

This means that Tim often longs to be closer to his dad in theory, but this longing is more tied to fantasy than to reality. He rarely seems to enjoy spending time with His-Dad-The-Actual-Person.  So for example, when Tim’s deadly ill with the Clench, he has an extremely poignant fever dream about telling his dad the truth and getting hugged…even as he insists in real-life to Alfred and Dick that he does not want them to tell his dad what’s going on.

The same is true of Jack, who IMO genuinely wants to be closer to his son and is continually declaring that he’s going to turn over a new leaf and get closer to his son…and just as continually backs out of activities or loses his temper when faced with spending time with his actual son.

Tim and his dad sadly get along best—by far—in Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder situations.  When Jack gets kidnapped or is in danger, Tim worries for him (and Tim grieves him deeply when he dies).  When Tim disappears or runs away, Jack’s genuinely worried about him.  So e.g. they have a really moving emotional reunion and hug when the earthquake hits Gotham, and Tim panics about his dad’s safety and comes running home (and meanwhile Jack’s been panicked about Tim’s safety!).  It’s the day-to-day, regular life stuff where they don’t connect.

Jack's written quite differently by different writers. Mostly, Tim's parents are at their least likable in his early appearances and early miniseries (this is where you get, for example, Jack and Janet being nasty at each other while a pained employee looks on, and Tim disappointed to once again get news of where his parents are via postcard - "I guess that sums them up! Never know where they’re going to be–or when–or even how long!” - and Tim alone on school break, and Bruce and Alfred thinking there's something weird going on with Tim's parents, etc. etc.). Jack's more sympathetic but still often unlikable in most of Tim's Robin solo, and he's almost invisible (but positively treated if he does show up) in Tim's team books.

For obvious reasons, Jack's remembered way more sympathetically after his death. Tim's completely devastated by Jack's murder, which he arrives moments too late to prevent, and he basically never gets over it. We see him grieving Jack again and again in Robin, and also in Teen Titans, and also in Resurrection, and again in the Halloween Special, and again in Batman: Blackest Night, and all the way up to the end of Red Robin. Tim also grieves for an extended time over Janet - he hallucinates a happy reunion with her when he's feverish in Contagion, and hallucinates her in the final issue of Robin, and the reveal-your-buried-emotions song in Robin 102 brings up his grief for her too (meanwhile, other characters dance or laugh or otherwise get giddy).  Tim’s grief over his parents’ deaths is intense and long-lasting.

I'm not going to clip comic panels because this is long enough, but if you're curious, here's a nice and fairly lengthy compilation of comic panels with Tim and Jack.

If you're interested in a Jack-centric story with a softer-but-still-recognizably-canon take on Jack, I really like the way Jack’s narration is written in the one-shots Heart Humble (set shortly before Jack dies) and Never a Hero (Ra's resurrects him during Brucequest, and Jack's archeology skills turn out to be unexpectedly useful).

[amarriageoftrueminds]

daydream about an AU where will & hannibal are transported back in time (yes overdone I know)

decide on an arbitrary age for will

look up what hugh dancy looked like at that age

realise the sight of him would give hannibal some kind of coronary event:

[fractiflos]

Yoichi would definitely have the other users do a group costume for Halloween.

There's only so many group costumes for 9 people though, so they did a Wizard of Oz theme:

Yoichi is Glinda the Good Witch. He enjoys bopping people with the wand.

Second said he didn't care, so Yoichi made him dress up as the Wicked Witch of the West. Look who cares now. Too late. He refused to put on the makeup, but the others tried anyway, so he just has random streaks of green paint on his face.

Third saw what happened to Second and chose to be the Wizard of Oz, since it didn't look to bad. It is also a multi-layered joke that not even he fully gets.

Hikage is the Cowardly Lion. Banjo forced the costume on him, but it was actually really comfortable and he uses it to sleep.

Banjo is the Tin Man. No reason for it, he just thought the costume looked cool.

En was voted to be Toto since he's the shortest. He then went feral and bit Banjo for laughing, further convincing everyone they made the right choice.

Nana is a flying monkey. Everyone was surprised she picked it and was prepared to laugh at her, but she pulled it off really well. She also kept grabbing people and floating them up, then dropping them (not high enough to hurt).

Toshinori is the scarecrow. I think we all know why. Don't worry, he had a lot of fun, and as a bonus, no one recognized him. No one was scared of his face either since they assumed it was part of the costume, so he enjoyed being able to make children smile instead of flinch away in fear.

And finally, Izuku is Dorothy. Yoichi had him do it because he's clearly MC material. "Just ignore him," says Second. That, and he already has the red shoes.

[so-called-quail]

'Trapped in the end!' said Sam bitterly, his anger rising again above weariness and despair. 'Gnats in a net. May the curse of Faramir bite that Gollum and bite him quick!' 'That would not help us now,' said Frodo.

Sword in hand Sam went after him. For the moment he had forgotten everything else but the red fury in his brain and the desire to kill Gollum. But before he could overtake him, Gollum was gone. Then as the dark hole stood before him and the stench came out to meet him, like a clap of thunder the thought of Frodo and the monster smote upon Sam's mind.

Now he tried to find strength to tear himself away and go on a lonely journey – for vengeance. If once he could go, his anger would bear him down all the roads of the world, pursuing, until he had him at last: Gollum. Then Gollum would die in a corner. But that was not what he had set out to do. It would not be worth while to leave his master for that. It would not bring him back. Nothing would.

Sam and vengeance in today's entry

[spider-man-2o99]

i don’t think we talk enough abt how when miguel first got his Spider Powers it was at least partly because his coworker genuinely tried to murder him on a whim just for being. like. kind of annoying at the workplace. utterly deranged and iconic behavior from aaron here

[roomy-ghosted]

why has nobody literally thought of using disguise self to show astarion what he looks like-

[fluffs-n-stuffs]

Thinking about Eusine's hairstyle in my style tonight ✍️✨

Lil' bonus under the cut ->

[omgeto]

OKAY PEOPLE WHAT IF I TURN MY BABY DADDY!GOJO AU into FAMOUS CELEBRITY BABY DADDY!GOJO AU. what difference does it make you ask? none really? BUT it spurred in my head as I watching a TIK TOK.

[justarandomlambblog]

I don't feel like coloring so please accept this, it's messy but I like it well enough

that moment when your usurper doesn't spare you and you suddenly wake up 1000 years ago and think it's purgatory but then you get your kits and decide fuck it last time didn't work out so this time i'll just be a dad, purgatory or not (spoiler alert it's not purgatory)

[quietwingsinthesky]

Benny: Thanks for not giving up on me, brother.

Dean: Don't give me a reason to.

(im going to throw up)

[musical-chick-13]

I'm the LAST person to suggest that you have to preface every single comment you make about a character/fictional relationship/etc. you like with a reminder that you Know™ it's pRoBLeMaTiC, but I DO question what the point of acting genuinely for real like there were no problems is.

[emile-hides]

2 things, where is my lauxus essay and ur the most correct I've seen about mira and Elfman ever but listen its not lisannas fault she's written as an after thought I live her with my whole chest😤

I feel you I feel you trust me trust me I love Lisanna so much I just wish wish WISH she'd gotten to be a character!!! I want to see her with my eyeballs when everyone's just hanging out at the guild and she's just!!! Never there!!!

But shh shh it's okay I got it I can fix it listen listen.

What if after Edolas and the 7 year gap and such we got a Lisanna centered episode. My beloved Catholic Arc would have to take a hit for this but listen it's worth it okay hear me out.

Everyone's treating Lisanna like glass now that she's back. She can do basically nothing for herself. Mira's all over cooking and working around the guild and serving drinks so don't worry about it Lisanna just have a seat and hang out and if you need anything be sure to ask Macao or Wakaba they're not doing anything important anyway so whatever you need

She does one little stumble and now Elfman just HAS to carry her everywhere because what if she was to fall??? Get hurt??? He's also got a pillow for her to sit on because this new guild's seats just aren't comfortable and Warren better give up his seat for Lisanna or we're gonna have a bit of a problem.

The only one's I could see treating her like normal is Natsu, because he's just Like That to everyone, Lucy, and Wendy, who didn't know Lisanna before she "died"

Eventually I imagine she gets tired of all this babying; being chaperoned everywhere she goes, having every door and jar opened for her, having all her food temperature tested to make sure it's not too hot or too cold, being told to "Stay back it's not safe" when she tags on jobs with Elfman, hearing "Knock it off you could have hurt Lisanna!" when her guild mates get into fights. She's exhausted, she's irritated, she just needs some space.

So she grabs a job on the board, probably grabs Lucy and Wendy just to vent to some one, and sets off to finally do something for herself for once sense getting back home.

I can hear the exhausted complaints as they walk to her job, how sweet they're all trying to be but they're treating her like a BABY! Yeah she's the "little" sister but that doesn't mean she can't DRESS HERSELF, MIRA!! Lucy and Wendy in the background giving that look of God Damn yeah that sucks girl.

Cut back to the guild Elfman and Mira are freaking out, in their own separate ways, because where a monster hunting job use to be on the board is now a note from Lisanna telling them not to worry and that she's on it all her own!

They, and Natsu who's just upset Lucy would take a job without him, set off to follow the Girls and get them back before they can get hurt.

Only you know. They handled it just fine. They get there just as the girls are packing up to head back, reward in tow, monster's defeated. Lucy and Wendy even admit to not having to do too much, Lisanna's amazing! Natsu complains about traveling all this way and not getting to punch a single monster, then smiles and high fives Lisanna because he was "pretty much expecting that"

Elfman and Mira get a bit of a wake up; Lisanna's not helpless, she never was, she's a wizard same as them and deserves to be treated as such.

We get a family hug, happy ending, credits roll.

And then after the credits we see Mira still trying to spoon feed Lisanna and Elfman still bullying Warren out of his seat for her because some things never change they're still over protective of course.

[worm-wood-words]

Too tired to write but also can't stop The Scenes™ from playing out in my mind.

[pixelgreen]

thinking about my ghibli wizard wilbur.. i will ramble in the tags again;;