#THE BALANCE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH

[noisilyscreechingsong]

Eyes

Dp x Dc Crossover Writing Idea

“Red Robin!”

When he backtracked to find the owner of the voice he was a bit surprised to find a young boy, maybe eight years old if he had to guess, dressed in a red sweatshirt that dwarfed him and a pair of gym shorts that had seen better days.

Not many Gothamites called out to the vigilantes, a silent agreement to stay out of their way and not to look too closely. This kid however stared up at him with bright blue eyes unafraid of getting the Red Robin’s attention.

A fan?

Before he even opens his mouth, the kid gives him a small, hopeful smile, eyes shining with something that reminds him of himself when he was that age and following Batman and Robin with his camera around his tiny neck.

“I brought you a gift,” the boy say with nervous excitement. He enthusiastically swings off the backpack he had on to dig through the contents, taking his eyes off the vigilante and showing his unwavering trust that nothing bad would happen to him while Red Robin was here.

The boy pulls out what appears to be a jar wrapped in newspaper, the worn page ripping in some spots to show the clear glass underneath. Small hands present it like it’s Red Robin’s birthday (which it wasn’t).

He takes it cautiously, the kid hasn’t been hostile but this was still weird, and pulls it closer with enough space so if it’s a bomb it doesn’t blow up in his face.

It’s got weight to it and the slight sloshing tells him it’s filled with liquid. He carefully unwraps the ‘gift’, keeping his eye on the boy who stands waiting anxiously.

Tim almost drops the jar as soon as he sees what’s inside. Only his reflexes from over the years held on and his expression turned neutral.

A pair of eyes sit at the bottom of the jar. The orbs were crudely extracted, tissue floating around them like a mane of hair around a head.

He turns the jar to see the irises and… he knew these eyes. The slimy green is filmed with death, but he recognized these eyes from the number of times the owner locked them onto him, the cruel possessiveness they possessed when they gazed at him. Never again apparently.

Tim doesn’t speak for a while, not knowing what to say, but also thoughts racing too fast to form any proper sentences.

“Do you like it?” The small, nervous voice interrupts those thoughts.

What an innocent question on an equally innocent looking face.

“How did you get Ra’s Al Ghul’s eyes?”

The teasing chatter over the comms immediately hushes into shocked silence.

“I took them from his body, so you knew he was dead. I burned the rest so you don’t have to worry about him coming back again. The Pit there is gone anyway,” the child explains easily, not fazed in the slightest from the words he speaks.

“Grandfather is dead?” He hears Damian whisper over the comm.

So many other questions were flying through Tim’s head. He looks the kid over again.

Black hair and blue eyes. In any other situation the kid might have been a possible Wayne adoptee. He’s not a clone from what he can see though. Despite the coloring he doesn’t really look like any of them. Pale skin like Tim, but has freckles. The same kind of nose as Damian, but wide, round eyes. Jaw kind of like Jason, but his body shape is too narrow. Bright, almost icy blue eyes like Dick, but eyebrow shape is flatter. Lip shape like Bruce, but from the kid’s anxious lip biting he could see the faintest trace of dimples.

“Who are you?” He asks instead of the other million and one questions.

The boy blinks almost like he wasn’t expecting the question. He’s cheeks color pink with blush as he grins widely.

“I’m Danny!” He introduces cheerfully like he didn’t just hand a vigilante a jar of eyes.

“Hi, Danny,” Tim greets almost dumbly. “Want to tell me why you gave me this?”

Danny scoffs his shoe against the pavement in what appears to be embarrassment.

“Well, I know when you ask someone for something, it’s nice to give a gift or something. Like I did something nice for you so maybe you’ll do something nice for me?”

He takes a moment to absorb that child-like reasoning.

“So you want me to do something for you and you thought I would like Ra’s Al Ghul’s eyes in exchange?”

Danny studies him and fidgets with the large sweatshirt sleeve.

“I just thought you would like proof. Like the whole ‘bring me the heart of my enemy’ kind of thing. Do you not like it? I couldn’t just take a picture ‘cuz I didn’t have a camera with me, I know you like photography. I can do something else for you if it’s not enough,” he offers worriedly.

Tim freezes.

“How do you know I like photography?” He demands.

Danny tilts his head curiously.

“Because Tim Drake likes photography,” he says like it’s obvious, “and you’re Tim Drake.”

Well. This is less than ideal.

“Red Robin, take him back to the Cave,” Batman instructs over the comms.

Yeah, he was getting there.

“Do you know the other’s’ identities?”

Danny nods and hums affirmatively. Tim waits.

“Oh! Yea. Batman is Bruce Wayne. Robin is Damian Wayne. Red Hood is Jason Todd. Nightwing is Richard Grey-“

“Okay. That’s enough.”

Tim glances around the empty alley they were standing in, checking to make sure no stray people heard. Luckily they were truly alone.

“Danny, do you want to come back with me?” He asks, but it’s not really a question. The kid was coming back regardless, it would just be better if he went willingly.

Unsurprisingly, the kid lights up like a little sun at the offer.

“Really?” He nearly shouts in excitement.

“Yeah, kid. I parked my bike a few blocks from here. You ever rode a motorcycle before?”

Danny shakes his head, nearly bounding on his toes.

“Not in this lifetime.” And wasn’t that odd wording? “Are we gonna grapple there?”

“Think you can hold on?”

“Yeah!”

He kneels down so the boy can climb onto his back and lock his arms around his neck and hook his feet together around his torso. Danny is worryingly light as he stands.

The kid is the picture of an excited and overeager child as they carefully fly over rooftops and then drive back to the Cave. Even when they park inside the safety of the Batcave, Danny’s eyes are filled with child-like awe and wonder, so curious and chattering with questions and wild imagination. It would be cute, endearing even, if the jar of eyes wasn’t sitting heavily in his pocket.

Alfred came down not too long after their arrival with a tray of healthy snacks and some waters. Danny happily munches on the apple slices as he wanders around where Tim can see him.

The rumble of the Batmobile can be heard almost an hour later after Tim has to tell Danny not to touch the weapons for the fourth time. The kid’s attention is drawn to the sleek black vehicle as it parks by Tim’s bike. He trots over with wide eyes as the doors open and Robin exits, then Batman.

Unfortunately, Dick is in Bludhaven and Jason is visiting Roy and Lian this week. Cass and Steph were gone as well and Duke was sleeping. It was just the three of them and this kid with Alfred as the only buffer.

Danny stares openly, curious, as the duo makes their way over to the computer where Tim has claimed his sit.

Tim turns the jar that he set on the table so the eyes are facing them and slowly leans back again, suddenly very tired. Damian flexes his hands into fists tightly while Batman is very still.

“Hi,” Danny chirps like nothing is wrong, oblivious to the tension in the air.

Batman takes a measured breath. Robin glares down at the child, but remains silent for now.

“Who killed Ra’s Al Ghul?”

Danny blinks blankly.

“Nobody.”

“You’re saying he just dropped dead?” Damian sneered in sarcasm.

“Death took him,” the child says simply as if that explained everything.

“How?” The word is demanded and emphasized.

“Like Death takes everyone. His expiration was overdue.”

Bruce frowns and Damian almost snarls.

“I demand you start making sense!”

Danny glares back in offense.

“I’m being very clear! Maybe you should ask better questions!”

The twelve year old growls at the smaller child and Batman has to place a firm hand on his shoulder to keep him from attacking.

“Danny?” Batman questions after a tense moment.

The boy’s arms are crossed in irritation, but he blinks out of his glare to stare up at the man.

“Yea?”

“How do you know our identities?”

“Oh, memories.”

Danny looked like everything he said made sense and it was driving Tim up a wall.

“Memories,” Bruce repeats.

“Uh-huh,” Danny nods confidently. “From the Lazarus Pit.”

A jolt goes through Tim as he recalls what the boy said earlier about the Pit.

“Didn’t you say the Pit was gone?” He asks before Bruce could continue his line of questioning.

Danny turns with a bright smile as if he was proud Tim remembered.

“Yea! Well, gone from this world anyway.” Tim was concerned. “I took the memories from it before sending it back where it belongs.”

“Okay. How did you know how to ‘take the memories’ and send it back? Back where?”

“I was born from it. Duh. It went back to the Realms or I guess you’d call it the Afterlife,” Danny actually rolls his eyes as if they should already know this.

“Born from it?” Damian asks with a wavering voice, hidden well from the child but not from them. “Nothing has ever been born from the Pits.”

“That you know of.”

And wasn’t that the kicker.

“So, to clarify, you come from the Pits. You know who we are because you took the memories from said Pits. Death took Ra’s because his time was up. And you took the eyes from his corpse to give to me because you thought I would like it as a gift so I would do something for you.”

Danny positively beams.

“This is why you’re my favorite!”

Damian grinds his teeth harshly.

“What is it you want Red Robin to do for you?” Batman asks in strangled hesitation.

“Oh!” Danny perks up like he remembered and hops over to Tim with pleading hands. “Can you please make me an identity? You’re really good at all that stuff and I was hoping you could find me a family. Someone to adopt me. A nice family, with a bed and family dinners and a dog. I always wanted a dog.”

Tim has the sudden urge to scream.

[coyoteclan]

I'm a little late to the party but man. What a cool cat huh

@fallenclan's Lee as a (not so quick) warm-up :)

[gingermintpepper]

One of my biggest pet peeves is the assumption that something has to be sad for it to be tragic.

I've always been a big believer of the 'Apollo has an awful love life'/'Apollo is plain unlucky with love' line of thinking but it does bother me that the general reasoning for that statement is given to the concept of 'Apollo is somehow undesireable and thus rejected' (Cassandra/Daphne/Marpessa) or 'his lovers die young and thus their love is unfulfilled' (Cyparissus/Hyacinthus/Coronis). I personally think that's a very unfortunate way of looking at things - not only because it neglects the many perfectly cordial entanglements and affairs Apollo has had, both mortal and divine - but because it presents a very shallow interpretation of the concepts of love and loss and how loss affects people.

Apollo can still grieve lovers that have a long, healthy life. The inherent tragedy of an immortal who knows his lovers and children will die and cannot stop it does not stop being tragic simply because those lovers and children live long, fulfilled lives. The inherent tragedy of loss does not stop being tragic simply because someone knows better than to mourn something that was always going to end.

What is tragic is not that Apollo loves and loses but that loss itself follows him. Apollo does not love with the distance of an immortal, he does not have affairs and then leaves never to listen to their prayers again. He does not have offspring and then abandon them to their trials only to appear when it is time to lead them to their destinies. He raises his young, he protects the mothers of his children, he blesses the households that have his favour and multiplies their flocks that they may never go hungry. He educates his sons, he adorns his daughters and even in wrath he is quick to come to his senses and regret the punishments he doles out.

Apollo loves. And like mortals, there will always be some part of him that wishes to protect the objects of his affections. Apollo, however, is also an emissary of Fate. He knows that the fate of all mortal things is death. He knows that to love a mortal is to accept that eventually he will have to bury them. There is no illusion of forever, there is no fantasy where he fights against the nature of living things and shields his beloveds from death. Apollo loves and because of that love, he also accepts.

And that, while beautiful, is also tragic.

[justaz]

i love merlin being so enamored by life and nature and all the beauty of the world around him, but as magic incarnate (a force that is neither good nor evil, it just is) i would love to see morally grey merlin. like ik we kinda get that with him killing people in arthur’s name and forsaking his people for the man he loves, but i mean like sorta dark and unnerving merlin who finds beauty in death and destruction and is fascinated by it. merlin who was conditioned on right and wrong but who still feels a pull to what others would consider wrong. finding wolves gorging on a carcass in the woods and feeling this pull to join them, to revert to a wild thing, to be animalistic and uninhibited. just forest nymph merlin where he’s so natural he’s unnatural.

[driftingballoons]

Hey man good for you

[kayawolfhorse]

Shaking esmp!Pearl around she’s the blorbo ever

In life, Pearl is the farmer queen, responsible for much of the server’s food supply. She is quietly powerful in this sense; no one thinks about the farmers in the field but their absence is felt in every rumble of an empty stomach.

She is a warrior, protecting her kingdom with a grin as sharp as her blade. She held her own against a demon with practically limitless power; he had to essentially blind and freeze her to finally kill her. Those who are her allies are grateful for her, those who are not know not to go against her.

Her very lifeblood is intertwined with the fields of wheat and crops she so carefully tended over. When her empire went up in flames, her body, too, burned; the queen and kingdom died alike. Her soul was not lost, and she rose as a saint.

Santa Perla is a warrior goddess, her name one blacksmiths whisper over their blades and archers ask to land their arrow true. Her spirit can be felt on battlefields and in spars, both in the wild celebration of a win and the courage to get back up, draw your weapon once more, and try again after being knocked down.

She is a goddess of crop, often hailed as the patron goddess of farmers, and by extension all those who work thankless jobs that society would ultimately collapse at the loss of. Sunflowers are often planted at the edges of fields as tribute to Pearl.

She is a goddess of light after death, offering a strong, steady hand to those who need it. She knows when someone has played the game well, and greets soldiers with a warrior’s camaraderie, workers with solidarity, lost children with comfort. She is proud of the fighters and the resolute, admires the preservering glint in a player’s eyes. Strength in many different forms.

Also she’s very silly and a little murderous. And I love her

[deckofflora]

Does anyone else think of the differences in the way their wizard’s magic manifests?

Like does your wizard use some other type of magic via combining multiple types? Do their spells look different from the norm? Do they use a spell in a different way than the norm?

[dimpledummythicc]

my constructive criticism of the qsmp puragtory event is that it should be the life series

[artemx746]

What I think the Ta characters (+extras) would be in the atla universe

Disclaimer - I have not watched Lok because I hate love triangle plots and I've heard that that show has a really bad one

Ethan: Water bender (look I know I compare him to Zuko a lot but do you hear how much the waterbenders talk about balance). I feel like he would either be a southern water tribe boy and go to the Northern to train only to realise how much sexism there is or he was there from the start, either way he would hate the Northern water tribe

Alabaster: Fire Nation. Idk if he would be a bender or not but he definitely has an unrelenting loyalty to the fire nation, (Maybe he'll get lightning scars from trying to leave 👀👀)

Luke: Non-bender. Living in Ba Sing Se and trying to plot a rebellion. (And we know how well that ends for people)

Silena: Non-bender living in the northern water tribe. (The vibes are just there)

Chris: Also a non-bender in Ba Sing Se but probably a merchant having a weird romance with the aggressive ex-fire nation girl who frequents his shop

Clarisse: Ex-fire nation firebender now living in Ba Sing Se and getting increasingly more annoyed with the weirdly cute merchant who keeps trying to talk to her

Drew: Water tribe non-bender (again like with Ethan i'm not sure which one she'd be but she and Ethan are friends.)

[squuote]

death becoming a word with no meaning to characters who don’t/cannot just die or always come back in some way has a deep meaning I can’t really seem to word properly. the loss of life through the loss of ability to die. or something of the sort

[tinotika-arts]

[Beings of Creation]

“So where did you get this flower from, Alex?”

“That’s a secret.”

“Pity, I’m sure the Priory would love to document it. It’s unlike any I’ve seen in their records.”

“I’m sure they would.”

---

More indulgent Beings of Creation thoughts. I ran a few variants where Trahearne remembers he is the Being of Death instead of Alex remembering he is the Being of Life, but this is generally my favourite. Death!Trahearne is for when I want really OP-ness to come for funsies.

The flower may have been a joint creation by Life and Death, and they both use it as a gift of endearment to each other. Currently, Life!Alex is the only one who remembers.

[tea-cat-arts]

Something that genuinely baffles me about HoD Seele's design: they actually took away some of the more obvious death/funeral symbolism that was present in her other designs

-butterflies: typically associated with rebirth, passing, and transformation. I think this one was the weirdest of the two to take away from Seele since isn't she supposed to be the hersscher of life and death (or at least that's what I thought the PE one was given Abyss Flower kinda covers both)? I'd think butterflies would've been a pretty good symbol there since it draws from both sides

-white flowers:

Are there more missing? Maybe, these were just the ones I noticed off the top of my head

[welcometoteyvat]

read baizhu’s stories. he wins for most balanced character of all time

[nonhumen]

" we have a saying in the port mafia: the greatest misfortune for dazai's enemies is that they are dazai's enemies. if he wanted to, he could ever have a picnic in the middle of a firefight. dazai was practically born to be in the mafia. "

" his body was covered in scars, the price he paid for his success. in other words, the man was a mess. the was always a part of his body that was under repairs. once again, it really made me conscious of how dazai thrived in the center of violence and death. "

" i looked at dazai. there was something invisible to the human eye. you could've called it demons of the mind -- something that could never be seen -- just something compelled to destroy all. "

" dazai's expression as he placed a finger on his forehead and approached the enemy -- that of a child about to burst into tears -- remained burned into my eyes. "

" somebody probably should've tied him up, pried his chest open, and stuffed a vacuum cleaner inside. then, as he screamed and cried until they needed to punch him to shut him up, they'd suck every last bit of darkness out of his chest and stamp it into the ground. "

" he's sharp-witted with a mind like a steel trap. and he's just a child -- a sobbing child abandoned in the darkness of a world far emptier than the one we're seeing. he was too smart for his own good. that was why he was always alone. "

-- excerpts from dazai osamu and the dark era. or, all the times odasaku saw the darkness within dazai's soul.

[francesderwent]

I gave a little sigh. “Okay,” I said. “If you say so.”

Lockwood grinned a sooty grin. “In six months, when have I ever let you down?”

I was just opening my mouth to start the list when the ceiling above the desk gave way. Burning spears of wood and chunks of plaster crashed down behind us. Something struck me on the back. It knocked me out and over the windowsill. Lockwood tried to grab me as I fell. He lost his balance; our hands snapped shut on air. We seemed to hang there for a moment, suspended together between heat and cold, life and death—then we both toppled forward into the night, and there was nothing but rushing darkness all around.

[deathdxnces]

— MORAL ALIGNMENT

true neutral

True Neutral people believe in the ultimate balance of forces, and they refuse to see actions as either good or evil. True Neutral individuals do their best to avoid siding too strongly with any one force, whether that force is good or evil, lawful or chaotic. For this reason, True Neutral personalities sometimes find themselves drawn into rather peculiar alliances, friendships, and life paths. To a great extent, they side with the underdog, sometimes even changing sides as the previous loser becomes the winner. Such people often see good, evil, chaos, and laws as simply prejudices that lead to dangerous extremes. Like the Taoist masters of ancient China, they tend to believe that the universe functions best when the light and the dark, the yin and the yang, are in balance.

TAGGED BY: @mercless ♡ TAGGING: @witchcraftandburialdirt (for robin and haru) @deathfxnds @vulpesse @windchaser (but only if y'all feel like doing it ♡)