#and all the “”“completed”“” covers i have are seriously outdated

[miodiodavinci]

a heem heem whimper

[dykeulous]

LEFTIST MALES

sometimes they can be a dangerous misogynist in disguise, wearing a red mantle. to many they are well-hidden.

given that the previous socialist countries never dismantled misogyny or misogynist practices, it is no surprise that so many marxist males today seem to have no consciousness of misogyny. they might be working-class, but that doesn’t outdate the visible and blazing male privileges they possess. some of them truly do aim to use it for the good, but the rest ignore & completely walk over the female proletariat. a lot of them even go out of their way to indicate that only the male proletariat should revolt, and that the female proletariat’s liberation lays in going home, cleaning & getting pregnant. their leftist views tend to cover their inner, and often outspoken & outward sexism.

“he’s a marxist, he cannot be misogynistic!”– can he really not be, if he refuses to talk about the numerous ways capitalism hurts women specifically, about female unpaid & underpaid labor, or about the abortion crisis? right-wing males see women as private property, whereas left-wing males see women as public property. some of them do just need guidance & education, but we aren’t on their disposal to do that for them 24/7. if they truly cared about women & oppressed groups of society, they would educate themselves, especially given that so many marxist feminist scholars’ work is available & easily reachable to them. men are not dumb. marxist men even less so. they can educate themselves if they want to. if your leftist boyfriend spews misogynistic bs, calls women slurs & watches porn– i would, please, ask you to stop calling him “one of the good ones”. he cares about oppressed classes only when he is also a part of them, while he participates in the further oppression of the marginalized groups he’s not part of. women weren’t made to explain everything to men. we shouldn’t always run after them & explain to them why calling a woman a bitch is a bad thing.

if he can educate himself on class struggle, he can also educate himself on class struggle of women. if he chooses not to, then that’s all you really need to know. the rest of us also read marxist feminist scholars. we didn’t go out of our way asking others to explain it to us. we also have to work on unlearning our own, internalized misogyny. we have always been expected to explain feminism to males in simpler, and less bitter forms. why are we expected to explain a movement full of bloodshed with a smile imprinted on our faces? how are we supposed to explain a movement that causes pain & gets you killed in “simpler” forms, especially to a highly intelligent male who just refuses to take you seriously & won’t even after you’re done explaining it to him? the burden of educating males is not on us, it is on them themselves, and if they want to, they will. i will not “debate” my basic human rights with a man who just wants to stress me out & covers it with a “oh but i just want to learn” or a “i just want to be a better ally”. i have no problem trying to explain it once, but do NOT expect me to be kind, sweet, or calm about it. we have always been taught to stop doing whatever we were doing so we can calmly, with a bright smile, explain in “simple” forms to misogynist males what misogyny & feminism are.

i can count the numerous times i have seen leftist men tell women how they can be better feminists. they are just telling us how to make our feminism more palatable to them. they want us to dumb our feminism down & make our girls feel comfortable in the asphyxiant arms of the capitalist-patriarchy. i’m so exhausted of having “feminazi” or “terf” or whatever new anti-feminist term of the day is popular shouted at me, having to tell men how no, i actually do not want to execute them all, even though they know damn well i don’t want to do that. they keep on treating feminism as an accessory. it’s like a crystal necklace to them they can wear to make themselves more appealing to women to get laid. they will pick & choose when to be allies in order to gain validation & attention of the women they want to possess, but when they are alone in a room with their male friends, they will show their true colors.

it’s beyond exhausting constantly having to watch men who claim to be our allies be violently misogynistic to right-wing women. they truly want socialism for each other & the patriarchy for us. there is no political standpoint, no worldview, no ideology that is free of misogyny. you cannot look at a leftist male who keeps a flag of the soviet union on his wall & says “proletarians of all countries, unite!” and with safety say he isn’t misogynistic. misogyny isn’t a big deal to them, although it is one of the oldest forms of oppression. we are angry for a reason. we are angry, and we are not going to sugarcoat our feminism just to “prevent them from hating feminists”. they will hate us regardless. feminism isn’t supposed to be comfortable, it isn’t supposed to make you feel good.

once again– the burden of educating males is not on us, it is on the males themselves.

[hp-hcs]

I just had a Crazy thought. Idk if I’ve EVER read a Ton Riddle x ftm Reader before and now I’m CURIOUS. Pls （＾ν＾）

yk, i dont think i’ve ever seen one either 🤨 which is some BULLSHIT if you ask me

ANYWAYS i have no idea what this is but yk i actually finished something so that’s pretty girlypop. also GODDAMNIT i need more tom using 40s slang

phoenix tears (chapter three of phoenix tears) — 40s! tom riddle x ftm! dumbass! granger! reader

he’s babygirl i don’t make the rules

problem solving by creating more problems, a case study by harry potter and y/n fr

glad to see all of the ftms have found my acc, i love all of y’all mwah

TWs: ‘40s era homophobia; couple of outdated homophobic slurs; i guess tom misgendering reader? but he like, doesn’t even know what being trans is so-

requests? please? i beg??

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

“What’s this?” You pulled a wrinkled old book out of Harry’s trunk, sitting down on the wood floor of his dorm, crisscross applesauce.

The cover must’ve once been very fine leather, but it was now warped with water damage and age. The pages were brittle and seemed liable to disintegrate at the lightest touch. But the most prominent part of the book was that there was a charred black hole right through the center.

“Huh? Oh- Tom Riddle’s diary. His very first horcrux,” Harry glanced up at you from where he was also sat on the floor, desperately trying to organize all of the shit that was in his trunk to begin with.

“Is it dangerous?”

“Nope, not in the slightest.”

You opened the cover, the leather creaking and cracking under the slightest pressure. You were surprised to find that the diary was completely blank inside. You flipped through a few more pages; nothing. It was totally empty.

Unless Tom Riddle had only written in the center of where the odd, charred hole was. Which was, y’know, pretty unlikely.

“How’d you destroy it?”

Harry frowned to himself, trying to decide if Runes homework from two years ago should go in the keep or throw away pile. “Basilisk fang. Has Ginny seriously never told you?”

You shook your head, eyes wide. He grinned at you, handing you a stack of various important-looking documents mixed in with past homework assignments to go through, and immediately dove into his story of shallow teachers and secret chambers and blood on the walls.

You gaped at him in awe as he finished his story. “But wait- if Fawkes’ tears were all you needed to like…heal and not die, would the same work on the diary?”

Harry paused, looking up at you. “That’s…a good question.”

“Think we should try?” You asked. “Maybe Teenager Tom could talk some sense into Adult Tom?”

Harry seemed to genuinely consider it before shaking his head. “Ach, but Hermione would kill us.”

Your shoulders dropped and you frowned as you think about your sister. “But…she’s at the Burrow tonight, remember?”

“Well,” Harry said slowly, still on the fence. “If Hermione’s not around to scold us...”

~~~ “This was a terrible idea this was such a terrible fucking idea-”

The diary smoked and hissed, writhing around on the floor. The book flapped open, the pages ruffling around and fizzing.

Scrambling backwards, you clung onto Harry, praying Slughorn wouldn’t walk in. Or worse, Filch.

You’d snuck into the Potions classroom after curfew, hidden under Harry’s invisibility cloak, with the intent of finding phoenix tears. After going through Slughorn’s potion cabinet, you'd found the vial all the way in the back. Which, of course, had led to you two deciding to test your theory about the diary right then and there.

The diary suddenly made a pop noise, like someone cracking bubblegum. It then stilled all of its movement, lying open at the center of the book, when a dark liquid, ink, began seeping out from it. The ink pooled around the book, turning all of the pages black and heavy.

You mentally cursed the stain it would leave on the flagstones.

The diary then erupted with a bright light, rattling against the floor with the exertion of whatever magic it was using.

Harry pushed you back behind him, forcing you to sit down and throwing his invisibility cloak over you, then pulling out his wand. Taking an offensive stance in front of where you were hidden, he waited, every muscle in his body coiled like an animal waiting to lunge.

The light seemed to grow thicker, like honey, and started taking a corporeal form. Then just like that, the light vanished, and the form—a person, by the looks of it—crumpled on the floor in a rather undignified heap.

The person staggered to its- his feet.

Tom Riddle, you thought, holding your breath.

God, he was pretty.

He started laughing, seemingly unaware of neither you nor Harry’s existence. “O Lord and butter, now we’re cooking with gas!”

You blinked. All of that was English, but not a single word of it made sense.

How old was Tom Riddle?

Harry took a tentative step forward, hiding his wand behind his back. “Are…you alright?”

Tom whirled around, startled by the sudden voice. He looked Harry up and down appraisingly before a wild grin spread across his face. “All reet? A schnook done brought me back!” He laughed rather maniacally, eyes gleaming. “What’s your name then? I oughtta thank you.”

Harry’s lips thinned. “We’ve met before, Tom.”

Tom’s eyebrows raised. “We…have?”

Wordlessly, Harry pushed up his fringe.

Tom drew in a sharp breath. “Potter.”

“Riddle.”

“So what, you’ve brought me back to kill me again?” He sneered. “There’s no basilisk around to save you this time, Potter.”

When Tom took a step towards Harry, you gasped quietly—evidently not quietly enough though, because Tom’s head swung around towards you.

He stared straight at you. You held your breath again, praying that he’d go back to threatening Harry, or something.

Instead Tom stepped closer to you, mumbling a quiet Revelio. He smiled and leaned down, tugging the cloak off of your head.

“Well well well, what’s this? A spook?” He pulled the cloak off of you completely, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “Hm. Well aren’t you a bit of a scrag, cookie?”

“I’m…sorry…?” You questioned, baffled. “I don’t speak old.”

Tom’s eyes narrowed. “You’re a bit plain and homely, doll,” he said with a mock-apologetic look on his face. “In the nicest way possible.”

“Aw, shucks,” you said dryly. “I was worried the genocidal maniac who’s killed a bunch of our friends might think I’m unattractive.”

He raised an eyebrow at your sarcasm, looking you up and down again. “Ah. Or are you a swish?” He asked, tilting his head. “Can’t quite tell.”

“A swish?”

“You know, a queer. One of those.”

You cringed. “Harry, make him go back in the fucking diary.”

“Did I hit a nerve, doll?” Tom asked with a smug smile.

“Not really, but I have a feeling that if I have to deal with your ancient ass any longer, you will.”

“Ooh, well ain’t you got moxie, little thing? Tell me, you a dame or a fella?”

“Ah yes, the two genders,” you mumbled under your breath, causing Harry to snort and cover his mouth with his hand. “I’m a uh…‘fella’.”

“You sure look like a gal to me.”

“Yeah, and you sure look like an asshole to me.”

Tom’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, I see. You’re a mudblood, aren’t you?”

“Lot of sass coming from Mr. Pureblood over here.”

Tom took a striding step towards you, his teeth gritted and his fist raised.

“Wow, resorting to Muggle fighting? Wouldn’t expect that from you, Thomas Marvolo.”

His cheeks flared red with anger. “I oughtta-”

“It really sucks being made fun of for your blood status, doesn’t it?” You asked casually.

Tom paused.

He took a step back.

“All reet. I’ll admit, you got me there.”

Harry scowled. “Look, we wouldn’t have brought you back unless we had good reason. And Old You is now indiscriminately killing Muggles, which seems like a pretty fucking good reason, if you ask me.”

“Ah. Yes. That does seem to be an issue,” Tom acquiesced. “But why me?”

“We figured you could reason with Old You?” You jumped in. “Or at the very least, you’re the least corrupted; you have the most soul left.”

Tom shrewdly glanced between you and Harry, then back at you. “What do I get in return?”

You shrugged. “I dunno. What do you want?”

“Not to go back into that damned diary,” he said vehemently. “Never again.”

You glanced over at Harry. He shrugged. “We can try…?”

“Hipper dipper,” Tom replied dryly. “Where do we start?”

~~~

“Well that’s a barney old game the old coot’s been making you play, huh?”

“You’re just saying words,” Harry mumbled, resting his chin on his hand as you all sat at one of the Potions classroom tables. “Not a single part of that was comprehensible.”

“He basically just said that you’re fucked,” you shrugged. “You’ve been doomed to die since you were born. Dumbledore’s been raising you like a lamb for slaughter.”

Tom looked at you, surprised. “Well…yes.”

You rolled your eyes. “Smarter than I look, Thomas.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“I’ll stop as soon as you you stop calling me a fairy.”

He furrowed his brow. “Why’s that bother you so much?”

“It’s a fucking slur, Thomas. This ain’t the forties, or whenever you’re from; people are allowed to be gay now.”

Tom froze, eyes wide. “W-what?”

“Yup.”

“Well, cut off my leg and call me shorty,” he murmured, amazed.

“Wait’ll he finds out you’re trans,” Harry mumbled, snorting.

You elbowed him in the side, rolling your eyes.

“Trans…?” Tom questioned.

“We don’t have that much time, Thomas. Focus up.”

“Natch, all reet,” he shook his head. “Are we ready then? Plan all set?”

You nodded, a sly grin spreading across your face.

“Let’s go fuck some shit up.”

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

chapter four

[omorimodreverie]

Reverie Devlog - 2024 July - CHAPTER 4

Overview

It has been a while since the last update since before the release of Reverie Chapter 3, so we finally are making an update on what happened in the past 3-4 months.

What’s with the Inactivity?

First, let’s get the reasons for our inactivity (at least to public) out of the way:

Chapter 3 released around April-May, so that period would be redundant to cover in a Dev Log in that time period.

Around the same period, some people have had high school finals (like in my case, Stahl writing here), or college exams. 

Despite that, there has been steady work done in the background by others in the team. The past few weeks have also picked up in activity as well, so things are moving in a positive direction.

Chapter 4 Info

Area

As it’s no longer a much secret since it's been speculated since forever ago: Chapter 4 takes place in dreamworld. The next area involves 1 major area, Sweetheart’s Castle; and 2 minor optional areas, Pyrefly Forest and Metro Depths. This info is relevant to development, as it changes the development process quite significantly.

The obvious benefit is that many assets can be reused and modified, especially for the castle. What will be done with it though, we’ll leave up to speculation. This applies to tilesets, maps, and even some sprites like enemies, leading to far less workload than Chapter 3 had demanded with the real world.

Gameplay

Gameplay wise, this will be where the “mid game” should start ramping up, so difficulty would start spiking here as well compared to base game. Normal mode would still be accessible for most players, but Hard mode would get more aggressive in terms of mechanics, and start to really pose a challenge. Regardless of mode, both would really push for players to learn emotion mechanics properly (I mean seriously, some people still played the entire mod without using emotions at all???).

For a rough overview for what’s coming gameplay wise:

Enemies throw ailments far more often

Some enemies nullify, absorb, or repel specific emotion damage innately

Charge skills and Telegraphed heavy attacks appear more often

Troops tend to appear in larger sizes

Considering feedback received from Chapter 2, it won’t be as tedious as Cattail fields, where enemy encounters tend to be spongy and slow-paced: leading to the next point;

Battles are generally more dynamic, going in a more aggressive direction: enemies are easier to kill, but so are you.

Area conditions that spice up the initial battle a bit

Progress

As of now, Chapter 4 is going relatively fine. There is a temporary knock down in activity from external factors, but we’re still able to keep a steady pace, which is what really matters in the long run. For easy viewing, the progress will be split into sectors:

Writing is going steady, it isn’t as difficult as the real world which has higher stakes, but it still matters to write in character. 

Pixel art side of things is also going well. There is far less work needed in terms of pixel art, due to less of both sprites and maps. Basically, anything now is relatively easier than CH3.

Drawn art also is going fine, the majority of spriteworks are already done. As mentioned before in CH3 dev logs, half of the sprites were done before CH3 even started, so this is not new information.

Music is also similar to Drawn art in progress, the majority of songs having been completed beforehand. Though one major difference is that a decent amount of those assets became “outdated”, so we might need to work on replacing or recomposing. This also happened in the art side, but just not to the same degree.

And finally in RPGMaker work itself, there is also some progress made, though less than others as this would be the final step after all assets are completed. The work here so far is mostly implementing all the assets and organizing files. On top of that, we have also started working on cutscenes as well as enemies.

Final Notes

Overall, progress is going steady, despite earlier difficulties in terms of activity. All sectors are progressing in some form, which is a nice change of pace compared to CH3’s very lopsided work allocation.

Thanks for reading this far, here's a preview of some work done so far!

[archivistofnerddom]

How the Batch responds to someone who denigrates the color pink in front of them

And God forbid if this happens when Omega is figuring out her personal style, preferences, and fashion sense.

The Batch would certainly not ascribe to the belief that pink is for girls and blue is for boys. They make it their personal mission to prove that that’s nonsense.

Hunter

Guess who found pink-handled knives? And guess who will always at least two strapped to his belt at all times?

Rambo Barbie over here has traded out his usual bandana for a bright pink one. He’s wearing it with absolute and complete unfazed confidence. Giggle about it at your own risk and peril.

Just in case the knives and bandana were a little too subtle, he makes a point of wearing pink (possibly flannel) shirts regularly. Said shirts run the full spectrum of pink, but that’s fine. He thinks he looks good in the color.

He will absolutely look anyone who goes off about the pink/blue gendered thing dead in the eye and just go, “No.” That usually stops the BS in its tracks.

Crosshair

This man knows he looks good in black. That doesn’t stop him from having pink be his new go-to highlight color. All of the little accessories and details on his armor and helmet are now a lovely share of pink.

When his hair starts coming back in, he starts coloring to a nice light pink (blush) color. Just don’t mistake the pink hair for friendliness though. He’s still a snarky bastard.

His Firepuncher gets a makeover too. Crosshair enjoys taking people out with a neon pink sniper rifle. (It sets a very specific, very petty tone — and he’s here for it.)

He will also intentionally be a little shit and set people up to get verbally knocked down a peg or three. Tech has roughly five versions of the same speech about how assigned gendering colors is an outdated concept. Crosshair is going to do his twin a solid and let him loose on idiots. (He enjoys watching the chaos and panic that unfolds.)

Tech

Like I said, he will give a full lecture about the fallacy of “Pink is for girls, and blue is for boys.” Oh, did you want to see slides to go along with that? Here, he’s got those too.

Tech shows up with pink-framed goggles, a pink-cased data pad, and pink embroidery on all his pockets and pouches within 24 hours. For him, fashion is functional first, but it can also be fun and make a statement.

Did you say give the Marauder a new paint job? Why yes, it is time that it got a new look. Thank you so much for suggesting that. (And yes, Wrecker helped with the paint job and redesign. They both did such a good job.)

Tech also knows how to recalibrate his blasters so that his blaster bolts and stun rays are pink. He can show you how he did, if you ask him nicely.

Wrecker

This man comes in one setting — loud and enthusiastic support. And the best way to do that? Head-to-toe neon pink At All Times. (Seriously, this man shows up with completely pink armor and a helmet and just continues to do his normal job without commenting on his new paint job.)

Lula gets a wardrobe upgrade too. She’s now for a very cool pink jacket that Wrecker made for her himself.

Wrecker will loudly and eagerly proclaim that pink is his absolute favorite color anytime he hears a person talking shit about the color. He isn’t putting on a front either. He does love the color pink.

Guess who has pink smoke grenades and pink glitter bombs in his pack at all time? Wrecker. Why? Well, why not!?!?!

Echo

Bright pink kama for life! No, he will accept no questions or suggestions to the otherwise. His kama is pink, and he looks fabulous.

Echo may be a part of the Bad Batch now, but he was part of the 501st and Domino Squad before that. If you give him just the slightest scrap of an idea, he’ll run with it in a way that would make Fives proud . . . which is why so many people wind up covered in a violently pink glitter-and-glue mixture when they say stupid shit. (Wrecker may have helped.)

He gets Tech to upgrade his scomp to be metallic pink.

Grumpy Disappointed Mom Face gets deployed with great effect. Echo isn’t mad that you’re spouting nonsense. He had just hoped you didn’t buy into the nonsense that only girls can like pink.

Omega

Omega colors the tips of her hair to be bright pink. It’s actually a whole family project, especially in deciding which shade of pink would look best on her. She also used this as an opportunity to try some new hair styles to show off her color makeover.

She also got Tech to readjust her bow so that it too fires pink bolts. (They’re gleeful menaces on the battlefield together.)

Leaning into pink helps Omega connect with her femininity. For as much as she loves her brothers, that’s one area where they aren’t the best role models (even if they fully support her during this journey). She is the one who helped her brothers incorporate pink into their current wardrobe.

Omega also learns how to give manicures. The only polish choice anyone she gives one to gets to make is whether or not they want glitter. Everyone is going to be rocking pink nails when she gives them a manicure. (The Batch are very diligent and serious about maintaining their manicures.)

[donnerpartyofone]

I feel like there's an epidemic of businesses trying to make customers and applicants do free data entry for them and it's driving me crazy.

I have complained many times about how seeing a doctor now involves checking in online, and then entering duplicate information into something else when you check in physically, and then answering duplicate questions once you're actually inside the exam room. Sometimes somebody addresses this in a humane way: "Sorry, we're using a new CMS and we have to do all this stuff from scratch," or "Sorry, we have to use these three different systems and they don't communicate with each other." Last time I went I did all this like research into my past appointments because I never ever remember off the cuff exactly what day I had this or that procedure, and I had every impression that the clinic was dependent on me to have all my medical records memorized...so I got in there and started rattling off information, and the nurse asked "When was your last mammogram?", and I gave her the date, and she looked at her monitor and said, "...yup, there it is!" Like WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT, IF IT WAS RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU WHY ARE YOU QUIZZING ME ABOUT THIS, WHY IS THIS A TEST???

I actually asked about redundant check-in procedures on Quora of all places, figuring there had to be a few cantankerous cranks on there who could at least try to explain this to me, but there were absolutely no takers at all. As far as I can see, literally no one knows why this is happening, it's just The Way It Is.

But anyway. Now I'm having this experience with job applications where they request that you upload files for your resume and cover letter in specific formats...and then they direct you to this interface where you are made to transcribe every detail from the resume you just provided by hand, one field at a time. I've been confronted with this insanity when applying for jobs whose wages weren't even worth the mind-numbing exercise of the application process. And actually this is part of my point: Data entry is a JOB. I have had this job. I was paid to examine, reformat, and transcribe data, and upload it to a database for my company to search and cross-reference in the future. If you are an employer and you absolutely require BOTH a pdf of my resume and cover letter that a human being can read and evaluate, AND each piece of data from those documents individually entered into your database for some other form of storage and review, then it is seriously fucking Up to You to pay some wage slave to enter the data. I'm looking for a job. I'm not going to do a job for you for fucking free, in order to become eligible for a job that you might consider paying me for later. Like please don't call me a fucking idiot to my face--or at least, if it's the database part that's the most important thing to you, do not also require me to create a nicely-formatted document containing my history and intentions. Let's just get right to the forced data entry part, let's start this awful relationship from a place of honesty at the very fucking least.

N.B. I realize that there are multiple reasons an employer would do this to a person, ranging from algorithmic candidate-sorting to just having outdated-ass job site shit in place that they don't feel like reviewing or revising. I don't really care why it's happening, I just hate that it is. Recently I tried to apply for some $15/hr part-time job at a local museum that a caveman could do, and I stopped cold when I realized I had to transcribe every detail of the documents I just gave them into this bullshit backend website that looked like it was about a thousand years old. No Thank You. Currently I'm all worked up because I just applied to work at a hip, culty, local theater, and I was shocked that after completing the totally normal application routine, I received an automated email directing me to "complete your profile" as "an important part of the hiring process" on the website of the company they're outsourcing all their HR and billing stuff to. And I go look at the profile thingy, and of course it's just this needlessly complicated interface where I can individually enter each and every piece of information that I just provided in my resume--no more, no less. The theater has exactly two locations and is kind of a niche operation and it is absolutely crazy to me that they think they need to pay for this extra layer of stupidly bloated and redundant "talent acquisition" processing when they're hiring for like two or three basic ass hourly roles where half the question is going to be "have you done this normal shit before" and half will be "can we stand your personality". Nobody needs this garbage at all, least of all ME.

[talkingpointsusa]

Charlie Kirk's take on the second Trump assassination attempt was moronic and irresponsible as all hell

If you haven't heard, shots were fired at Trump's Mar-A-Lago Golf Course and the FBI is investigating this incident as an assassination attempt. As was the case with the first shooting, new details are coming in hour by hour and by the time this post comes up it very well could be outdated already. I'll try my best to cover this responsibly with the information that I have but it's important to acknowledge that political violence of any kind is unacceptable from either side of the aisle.

You know who isn't covering this responsibly? Far-right media. And that brings us to Charlie Kirk who put out an "emergency episode" this Sunday the day of the assassination attempt. It's mainly just him and his co-host spinning baseless conspiracy theories without providing any evidence, you know like responsible journalists do.

00:59, Charlie Kirk: "Ok everybody, usually we don't stream on Sundays or do any broadcasts on Sundays as you well know, I wanna thank Real America's Voice for taking us, we are here also on Rumble. Joining me is Blake for this breaking news day. Blake, this is something else. We -- we thought that, you famously said 2024 might be a boring year."

Blake Neff: "Might"

Oh great, so we have Tucker Carlson's old producer who got fired for anonymously spewing out slurs on an online forum co-hosting Charlie's very serious assassination attempt coverage. This is like bringing in David Duke to co-host your Kennedy assassination broadcast, only Blake Neff is even more of a D-squad tier figure.

Another thing that you'll notice here is that the mood here is pretty light for a video entitled "They Tried To Kill President Trump — Again" and I have a theory as to why that is.

All of these guys in the right-wing media really seemed to enjoy the weeks after the first assassination attempt because it seemingly confirmed all of their narratives about being oppressed and targeted by the government (never mind that the gunman was a lone nutjob who was a registered Republican). Now, in the wake of a debate that was a complete disaster for Trump and the right-wing media, they get to steer the conversation away from Trump's flailing performance and onto this failed assassination attempt. For these guys this is a godsend.

02:06, Charlie Kirk: "Now, we're learning a lot about Ryan Routh, the first of which is that he is a Democrat doner. Over nineteen transactions to Democrats that we know of since 2019. Ryan Routh is also a very -- he is a pro-Ukrainian lunatic, very much in favor of the Ukrainian War."

This attempt to ascribe a Democrat-based motivation to the shooter is exactly what happened the last time and just like last time it's murky at best.

Ryan Routh seems like a guy who was pretty mentally ill and his politics are all over the place. Routh's social media posts indicate that he was a Trump supporter in 2016 before becoming disillusioned with the former president around 2020 and pivoting to supporting a Nikki Haley/Vivek Ramaswamy ticket. While a man with the same name as Routh who appears to be him at the time of writing did donate to the Democrats, a large number of those donations were to Tulsi Gabbard who's as much of a Democrat as RFK Jr is. Routh did post about the War in Ukraine and his posts demonstrated a Pro-Ukraine stance, even going as far as to involve himself in the recruitment of American's who wished to volunteer overseas.

While it appears, at least with the information that we have now, that this guy leans to the right I think that it's pretty clear that this was just a seriously mentally ill guy who was as all over the place politically as he was mentally. The right-wing drive to pin this on the left doesn't help this climate of political violence that they are supposedly oh so against.

03:26, Charlie Kirk: "Now, here are two pieces of items (sic) and I want to be very clear on facts. Number one, how did this guy know that Donald Trump was going to be golfing at this moment? It's not public, it must have been a very very good guess or somebody might have leaked the information. And number two, what, if any connections did Ryan Wesley Routh have with US intelligence services? With the Department of Defense? With the Central Intelligence Agency? With NATO or the Pentagon? Considering his entire lifes work is about supporting Ukraine or trying to take out Vladimir Putin."

"I want to be very clear on the facts, now here's a mountain of unfounded speculation."

There are a million reasons why this guy knew when Trump was golfing besides "Oh, the CIA leaked it to him". He had a car that he fled the scene in, is it that hard to believe that he hung out there waiting for signs that Trump was on the course or even cased out the course previously. As a matter of fact, recently unveiled cellphone data shows that the would-be assassin waited near the golf course for nearly twelve hours. If the CIA was involved, this would've been a million times more thought out as opposed to "Oh, I'm going to hang out in the bushes and hope for the best!"

Also, Routh as of the time of writing has no documented ties to NATO or any of those other organizations and I seriously doubt that this fact will change.

So, Charlie throws it to Blake and it's just him reading Ryan Routh's deranged tweets. They probably shouldn't be showing how insane this guy was if they want to push the narrative that he was somehow stable enough to be working with the CIA but whatever. Oh yeah, and Blake is also a total moron. Here's some of his "analysis".

05:54, Blake Neff: "This was a deeply unhinged guy but he was a deeply unhinged guy deeply involved with the single biggest cause that our elites in DC care about and are obsessed with. I think the prospect that no one in DC never met this guy or interacted with this guy is quite unlikely and as we dig into this I think it's quite possible that we will discover there are people who at least heard this guy spout off about going after Trump."

I'm sure that politicians hear guys spout off about going after people on both sides of the political aisle. What that doesn't mean is that they have some kind of database with the names of every lunatic who has said something dumb on Twitter. Do you know how many people on both sides are tweeting out dumb things right this very second? Keeping track of all of them would be a herculean effort.

Also, this guy was not "deeply involved" in the war in Ukraine. We're not even sure right now if his little conscription agency even successfully sent a guy overseas. He was some Twitter addicted bit player trying to insert himself into something bigger than him.

Unfortunately, Charlie's other Z-Tier co-host Andrew Kolvet is also here to deliver his "hard hitting analysis". Andrew Kolvet is basically the guy they dragged in to replace Tyler Bowyer, a man who I previously described as being "as articulate as an intoxicated long-haul trucker". Does Andrew Kolvet live up to the lofty standard of suckiness that Tyler established? No, because intoxicated long-haul truckers are a million times more charismatic and entertaining than Andrew Kolvet is.

10:12, Andrew Kolvet: "And I think Charlie, one of the most appalling parts of this entire saga today is the piece of tape, and I believe we have it, during the press conference where they basically admitted that had Trump been the current president that they would've had the entire perimeter of the golf course closed down, no roads would have been opened, but they don't have enough resources for President Trump since he's not the current president."

It took me a little bit of time to dig up what Andrew was talking about but when I did it proved to be a nothing-burger. Andrew Kolvet is talking about something that the Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said when responding to a question from the press about how the shooter managed to get on the grounds of the golf course. Quote:

""Well, you got to understand, the golf course is surrounded by shrubbery, so when somebody gets into the shrubbery, they're pretty much out of sight, all right," Bradshaw said after a question about how the gunman could get so close. "And at this level that he is at right now, he's not the sitting president. If he was, we would have [the area around the] golf course surrounded. But because he's not, security is limited to the areas that the Secret Service deems possible. So I would imagine that the next time he comes at a golf course, there'll probably be a little bit more people around the perimeter. But the Secret Service did exactly what they should have done. They provided exactly what the protection should have been, and their agent did a fantastic job."

Ric's not wrong, ex-presidents get less protection than the current president. Keep in mind that there are only 3,200 special agents in the Secret Service and special agents are the ones in charge of protecting the president. To give you some context, that's only 31.68% of active FBI special agents (10,100) and 14.83% of active CIA agents (estimated at 21,575). The Secret Service is a relatively small agency with relatively low numbers.

This combined with the fact that there are currently six living presidents who have also received death threats and in the case of Obama had attempts made on their lives as well, multiple congresspeople who need protection, and the actual president and his cabinet to protect and you realize that the department is stretched for people and needs to prioritize. Trump's life was saved by the Secret Service and they did their job properly. Giving Trump the same level of protection as the current president is absurd given what the Secret Service has at it's disposal.

I'm also willing to bet that Trump gets more Secret Service protection than the average former president given the previous assassination attempt.

The other thing that we should keep in mind here is that Trumps golfing habit has been a notorious security risk for years. After Trump became president, the secret service warned him of the risks that his golf courses posed even going so far as to provide him with visual aids. Trump responded by shrugging off the threat. It doesn't help that Trumps visit to the golf course on Sunday was apparently unplanned which led to the Secret Service having to work on the fly. Given the circumstances I'd say that they even went above and beyond.

13:28, Blake Neff: "It's so obvious what's been whipped up here and we're having to sit through -- one of the things that's most appalling is it's like on each successive major threat you've seen the press get more flagrant with what they do. So there were like, gestures at this being unacceptable after the first shooting in Butler but after this one it's pretty much an immediate turnaround of Lester Holt saying 'Yeah, you know President Trump brought this on himself because he talked about Haitian migrants in Springfield.'"

Holt didn't say that. He talked about the assassination attempt and then said quote;

“Today’s apparent assassination attempt comes amid increasingly fierce rhetoric on the campaign trail. Mr. Trump, his running mate JD Vance continue to make baseless claims about Haitian immigrants.”

First of all, they cut off in the middle of Holts sentence which is always a major red flag. Even still, that's not saying that Trump deserved to get shot, that's a basic cable news pivot and a factual statement.

The assassination attempt happened right after Trump made xenophobic comments at the debate. Does that mean that Trump making statements about migrants pushed this guy over the edge? No, not with the evidence that I have. However, Holt isn't wrong to point this out. Trump's inflammatory rhetoric doesn't help this political climate that we've found ourselves in cool off, it only escalates things. That's not victim blaming or saying that Trump deserved to die, that's stating the obvious. I don’t really like Lester Holt or MSNBC but this is just dishonest. Everybody has roundly condemned political violence and this fantasyland nonsense will not change that.

Rounding off Charlie Kirk's quartet of bullshit is Jack Posobiec who joins the show to say basically the same things that Charlie, Blake, et all were saying earlier. This whole show is just repetitive dreck that could have been trimmed down into a 20 minute video. There was zero need to make this show an hour long. It's obvious that they did the bare minimum to prepare for the show and are now struggling to fill an hour.

As a result you get this, just rehashing old bullshit from the last assassination attempt and putting an anti-Ukraine bow on top. It's just a slog all around for everyone involved and I feel like everyone's time would have been better spent if they just took Sunday off and worried about this story during the work week. *Sigh*, well lets hear from Jack. This promises to be enlightening.

20:17, Jack Posobiec: "We're living in a situation now where political violence is not just a myth, it is not just a potentiality, it is something that we now live with on a regular basis."

So that's why Jack always condemns political violence from his side like, oh I don't know, January 6th right?

Oh. Extremely sincere political actor Jack Posobiec strikes again. What an absolute tool. The rest of the show is basically just this same redundant schtick. It'll be interesting to see how the narrative evolves with time. I'll tell you one thing, it really sucks now.

Conclusion:

This episode made the journalism major in me very irritated. Don't get me wrong, Charlie Kirk's repetitive ass BS always makes me very irritated but for some reason this particular episode really struck a cord.

I don't think there could be a more irresponsible way to cover an assassination attempt than this. I don't think I could be more irresponsible if I tried. The only thing you could possibly do to make this more irresponsible is to outright call for violence and retribution.

This is a serious event that has the potential to severely inflame people on both sides of the aisle, particularly Republicans. The way that a real journalist would cover this is by sticking to the facts and leaving speculation behind. If only because, again, this was a breaking story involving a major political figure and as a result you need to be extremely careful when you talk about it in the capacity as a person who people are getting their news from.

Charlie on the other hand barged in without preparing, randomly linked the shooter to NATO without providing any proof, implicated everybody on the political left, and then spewed conspiracy theories for an hour. The fact that they occasionally threw in "Oh, this is all speculation" isn't enough! You can't "speculate" on a news show, Charlie's supposed to be the big brain conservative that uses FACTS and LOGIC for crying out loud.

Oh well, can't expect anything less from Charlie Kirk. Cheers and I'll see you in the next one, stay safe everybody!

Sources Cited:

Falconer, Rebecca. "What to know about the suspect in the Trump golf club assassination attempt". Axios.

Folk, Zachary. “Who Is Alleged Trump Golf Course Gunman Ryan Wesley Routh?” The Daily Beast, The Daily Beast, 15 Sept. 2024.

Gerstein, Josh. "Man charged in Trump incident may have waited near his golf course for nearly 12 hours". Politico

“Frequently Asked Questions about Us | United States Secret Service.” Www.secretservice.gov.

“The Job of a Special Agent | United States Secret Service.” Www.secretservice.gov.

Leonnig Carol, Dawsy Josh, et all. "Trump’s golf outings have long concerned Secret Service". Washington Post.

[13-beutelteufel]

Paradise (tlod)- Hunted again - Part III

Paradise - The Lady of Darkness (tlod) is a connected story. The correct order is in the masterlist in my pinned post

The air was humid and filled with the strange sounds of animals unknown to Sea. This was more or less how she had imagined the rainforests on Earth to be. Except that they were, at least supposedly, rather warm in most cases. This was not the case for Forrest. It did seem warmer, but that was probably only due to the high humidity. It also smelled different. The air was saturated with strange animal odours, which together produced a smell reminiscent of musk oxen. Only not as pungent, fortunately. They walked a good distance, which felt like an eternity to Sea, but in reality probably took no longer than 30 minutes. Which could be a very long time, considering how exhausting the march through the impassable forest, which was definitely not meant for two-legged creatures, was. After the same half hour, they reached a small, inconspicuous building. It was almost completely covered in fallen leaves and Sea was amazed that the roof of the box didn't collapse under the weight. But the small station seemed stable and built to last. Its interior showed that it had been defying the conditions, which were not exactly favourable for a building, for quite some time. Sea didn't know much about space travel, but even she understood that the technology inside the box was outdated. It was cramped and dark and the whole room was full of control panels, which in turn were littered with switches and a few small lights. Not a single one was flashing. ‘And you can use it to multiply the traffic in space?’ Sea asked sceptically. The system gave the impression that it couldn't even send signals up to the treetops. If it could transmit or receive anything at all, because it seemed very dead. ‘It's no longer active,’ Rainbow explained. ‘It used to be used for long-distance traffic control, but when the transmission strength of the stations on Shakespie and Rosstal covered its area, it was no longer needed. The technology, however, was built for many more years of operation, even if it is now somewhat outdated.’ ‘Outdated is good,’ muttered Amadeus. ‘It's good enough for us.’ ‘Is there a reason why we didn't look for a modern station directly on Rosstal? With better technology and more space.’ ‘Nobody knows this one.’ Amadeus wanted to say something else, but Rainbow turned away from him and pulled a lever in a box to the left of the door. There was a sound like a large spotlight being switched on and a few small fluorescent tubes on the ceiling lit up, shaking. The lights on the desks began to glow and flash. ‘I didn't realise that our galaxies are sometimes so similar,’ Jana murmured, while Rainbow set off in search of the right desk. ‘Do you have anything like that?’ Sea asked curiously. ‘In the Milky Way?’ ‘Yes, the fluorescent tubes, the consoles. Not identical, but similar. I wonder who came up with the idea first.’ ‘And how it could happen that they are so similar if there was no exchange. And there certainly wasn't. Tell me, Rainbow, is there anything you don't know or can't do?’ ‘Huh?’ Rainbow asked from the far corner of the box. ‘Seriously, is there ever a situation where you don't have a plan, or something you don't know about?’ ‘Literary history.’ ‘Seriously?’ ‘Yes.’ Sea turned away with a snort and looked around. Which didn't take long, as the less-than-cool light revealed nothing new. It smelled of old dust and the sounds from outside could no longer be heard. The little thing had thick walls. A real bunker. ‘I've got it!’ Rainbow shouted from the left wall. Sea and Jana came trotting up to him and Amadeus. The dragon changed its position from an old steel cabinet, on which he had been crouching in the semi-darkness like the reincarnation of every child's nightmare, to the neighbouring desk without moving a lever, which was remarkable given their numbers.

Part IV:

[goldenandhappy]

my guess is an authoritarian government that is highly religious, corrupt, sadistic and violent. a classic around swana :( just happy people are being able to live. swana passports aren't worth much, especially for europe, so i hope things work out for you

eeeeh, no actually. Like, really fucking not ._. and honestly that's kinda racist ._.

Politically we're a secular state. We have our cops problems but honestly *looks at the police brutality during the worldwide protests for Gaza* by this point who doesn't. (At least here the cops here don't beat you up for supporting Palestine, lol.)

For the last 10 years, the country had to struggle with, yes, corrupt, that I can't deny, but mainly incompetent and inexperienced leaders in parliament, foreign meddling in our local affairs from the US, the EU, and the Oil Monarchies, a global rise in terrorist acts that killed local tourism, climate change, and generally just the local politician's tendency to bicker instead of actually trying to heal the country.

Consequently we ended up with the private sector doing most of what used to be covered by the state (health, transportation, and education, mainly), and that enhanced class disparities.

The educational system is also completely outdated because no one bothered to study the new job market, so now we have an overload of lawyers, doctors, and engineers, who would all be better paid abroad.

So now all said doctors, lawyers, and engineers are leaving, all our friends are leaving, and that's yet another factor that makes us want to leave.

Now seriously wtf ??? Saying religious or corrupt, i would understand, but "sadistic and violent"??? And how "it's a classic" ??? You're just "happy we're able to live ???"

Like, i get the sentiment but never in my life have I been witness and victim to such a level of casual racism against my people !!! What kind of propaganda are they feeding you in there ??? Jesus fucking christ !!!!

[northstar-academy]

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Conclusion

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[waffled0g]

Everyone gets “The 90s” look wrong so let’s fix it

If you weren’t here for part one, lemme sum it up real fast:

Okay, all up to speed? We’re being served 80s throwback stuff with the serial numbers scratched off, re-labeled as yo totally 90s. What we’ve got now isn’t completely wrong, but I’m telling you, there’s so much gold left unmined.

As we saw in part one with Memphis Milano, these things get messy. Trends don’t start and end neatly every ten years. The first wave of 90s throwback attempts focused on the early part of the decade, and nobody since really pushed to represent the other seven years. Well, if you really wanna do something, I guess you gotta do it yourself.

I have suggestions. Get your flannel ready, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover.

Analog Grunge

SURRRRRRRGE or uh, Grunge, is probably the look that defines the decade best. The big kickoff point here is Nirvana - after a shiny pop-dominated music scene in the 80s, Nevermind was like a breath of fresh smog.

Your design has to look like it survived a nuclear blast, then was run over by your parents’ Buick a couple of times.

Rust. Dirt. Scuffs and scrapes. Signs of distress.

Handwritten or scribbled illustrations.

Low-rent aesthetics. Torn paper shapes, label maker or typewriter fonts.

If there’s a Comic Sans for the 90s, it’s “distressed typewriter font.” Seriously, it’s mandatory. When I pulled images for this post I could not escape typewriter fonts. I don’t think you couldn’t call yourself a respectable designer without it. Just look at how much mileage old-timey typewriters and label makers got:

Hell, it’s the giant X in The X Files!

I think another component to Grunge is sort of an anti-digital, pro-analog message. My pet theory is home computers went from being a semi-common novelty in 1990 to an essential gotta-have-it purchase in every American home by ‘99. Desktop publishing apps made it almost too easy to make pixel-perfect, clean, uniform designs.

But digital perfection is the enemy of Grunge. Analog means authenticity.

So you had a whole gaggle of designers running in the other direction. Sure you could use a computer, but your work absolutely had to look like it didn’t come from one. As much as possible, incorporate hand-drawn artwork, scribbles, dust and splotches. Write text with chicken scratch if you have to. As much as you could make your multimillion dollar ad campaign look like it came from the margins of some high schoolers’ math homework, the better.

Factory Pomo

Not everyone was running away from digital, though. Many designers were embracing computer apps - and I think that’s where Factory Pomo first came into being. Graphic designer Froyo Tam designed the above logo as an example - Factory Pomo is one of those things that once you see an example, you can’t stop seeing it.

Strong, basic geometric primitives with inverted, contrasting colors

Tall typography

Art Deco style rivets and spikes

Want your logo to look futuristic and modern? Stick it in a circle and put some triangles around. Invert half the colors, then another half.

Max Krieger has a great writeup on the probable inflection point: Tomorrowland. As the story goes, Tomorrowland at Disney - the part of the park meant to look like it’s from the future - would very quickly look very outdated each time they tried to update it. Instead, in 1994 they decided to own being outdated. They came up with a ridiculously fun “timeless” futuristic look, mixing industrial design with Jules Verne. Factory Pomo’s signature was all over the blueprints.

The look quickly escaped the theme park and was especially prevalent in the booming mid 90s home computer market. It’s the Packard Bell cyborg, it’s the logo in Video Toaster. If you caught that The X Files logo earlier is both Factory Pomo with the tall type and X in a ring AND Grunge with the typewriter X in the background, you win 5 bonus Pogs. 

EDIT: aaaaaaa How could I forget the most famous example! The “Always Coca Cola” ad campaign!

Back to the name - “Factory Pomo” is a relatively new term - It didn’t get coined until 2017 through several Facebook design groups. It didn’t have a name for like... 25 years. How’s that possible, you may wonder? Weren’t designers following a defined style? Well, yes and no. I think people were designing stuff to look a certain way, but it’s less a game of “this is what the aesthetic looks like” and more like a game of telephone.

If you do an architecture tour in a major city, you’ll learn that every building and skyscraper is classified to a specific architectural movement. Every building that is but ones built in the last 20-30 years. Newer buildings have to wait a few decades for official classification. Historians need time and perspective to figure out what emerging trends in architecture are going on, whose work influenced who, that sort of thing.

Designing a logo for Slim Jims or Cherry Coke takes considerably less time than constructing a skyscraper, but I think the same principle holds true. It’s really difficult to tell what’s a trend and what’s a fad when you’re living in the moment. I couldn’t tell you what’s the defining aesthetic for the 2020s right now. It’ll be obvious in 2053, but right now, no clue.

Enough time has passed between the nineties and today that we can pick this stuff apart easily. Maybe if you’re lucky, you can be the first to classify these design movements, too.

Working on a part three! I’ll look into a few other trends and address the big question-- Is the Y2K aesthetic actually a 90s thing? More to come.

*A ton of these examples above are from the CARI Institute, which you should totally check out, they’ve been cataloging this stuff for years.

[silver-la-pixels]

Wrote a short scary story thing to try some stuff out

 “Entity”

Day one, Morning:

I am here to explore the area. Always wanted to, but just never had the time. I’m finally crossing the chainlink where the suburbs end and the field begins. I feel like there's something here. In the woods. I’ve looked at maps, and it stretches for miles, but it shouldn’t take more than a day to cross. I’m sure countless hunters have been through this, but I want to cross it completely, as a testament to myself.

Day one, Afternoon:

I’m taking a break. All this walking is catching up to me. The ground’s solid enough though, good thing it didn’t rain last night. I was right about the hunters, there are beer cans all over the ground and stands in the trees. I need to venture deeper though. I want to separate myself from civilization. It’s nice, the wind and smells. The birds are kind of annoying though. The crows never shut up.

Day One, Evening:

It’s not nighttime, but I’m still in pretty deep. I brought a tent though, In case of a sudden downpour or I didn’t make it within my timeframe. I planned on just going straight forwards with my compass until I reached the other end or found another path. I’ll keep going a bit more though, just until sundown.

Night One: I’ve set up the tent and am ready to call it a night. I really packed for an emergency in case I underestimated my ability to trek for a day and I’m glad it came in handy. I have a small box of matches and a solar-powered flashlight, but I didn’t want to be stumbling around in the dark.

Day Two, Morning: 

If I don’t find a dairy queen by the end of today I will be seriously disappointed. Slept surprisingly soundly, it didn’t sound like there were too many animals around. I found a small creek and might follow it if I get stuck here, so I burnt a branch and used the charcoal to write an X on the trees around it as a landmark. This is my territory now.

Day Two, Afternoon:

It's a beautiful day out but I am craving fries so much right now. I found some wild blackberries, but they're weak-flavored and tiny. At least there weren’t any bugs in them. The compass is still pointing north, but by my distance, I should have reached the other side of these woods by now. At least if I end up walking in circles for days I have a now-empty bottle and matches to purify the creek water. I even tried to scale a tree to get a vantage point, but couldn’t get high enough to see anything but more trees.

Day Two, Evening:

There’s abandoned buildings here! The maps are either outdated or these ruins are so well-covered that nobody ever put them on one. I can’t give an age to them, but theres a shed and a concrete cube. Well that's what it looks like. There aren’t any signs or names but it could have been some sort of shelter, maybe. The bigger one has a rusty door falling off what must be the front, and I tried to look around inside but it’s just dark. The shed seems alright on the outside but I don’t want to lock myself into closed quarters with a wild possum or racoon. Plus, I did some searching around here and found the creek running nearby.

If I don’t find any way back to a city, I might stay in the clearing here overnight.

…

I managed to get into the main building. If the stairs collapse, I’m screwed. The roof was easy enough to access and it offers a good enough view.of the area. Theres trees in every direction, but if these buildings are here in the middle of nowhere, there must be some sort of path out. I also saw my first non-bird wildlife out here, nothing special, just a deer crossing the clearing into the woods again. 

Night Two:

Since the building hasn’t collapsed yet, I’m pitching the tent on the roof. The stars are brightly scattered across the sky. I’ll see if I can raid either building for supplies tomorrow.

Day Three, Morning:

You’d think that for an area so wooded there would be more proof of life. The idea of mountain lions of other creatures has been on my mind but all I can do is hope for the best. It’s still very freeing though, to live without a schedule or demands. I’m going to look for an actual path out of here and then see where the creek leads.

Day Three, Afternoon:

I think I’m actually alone out here. There wasn’t a scrap of proof that the building was inhabited. Not even brand names or furnishings. There was nothing in the shed, but it smelled like salt. There aren’t even deer paths. I’m going to walk back the way I came. 

…

I’m free, running, foraging like I should be. I have no home. The wild is my home.

Day Three, Evening:

It’s invigorating to be out here so untouchable and intact, but my craving for processed foods and a hot shower is dragging me back “home”. I don’t need either but it’s not like I can get any out here. I totally feel the world getting bigger as I become more insignificant in the grand scheme of nature. One day, my flesh and bones will feed the wild, but not anytime soon.

…

It’s getting dark and I’ve just now realized that my flashlight is still sitting on the rooftop of that building. I haven’t covered that much distance to begin with, so I’m going back for it. 

Night Three:

It got dark fast and the moon's position in the sky says it's very late. I’m staying on the roof again, but at least I have everything with me. I’m definitely going to have to leave soon if I want to I am in no hurry to  l e a v e  t h e  w i l d. I m  g o i n g  f o r  a  n i g h t t i m e  r u n.

Day Four, Morning:

I woke up on the ground. My tent was still pitched on the roof, but right now I’m drenched and freezing on the grass. I better not have gotten sick from it. I’m trying to thaw out with a campfire. There were rocks near the creek and so I’m using them to heat my clothes. Still no signs of animal commute, except for some rustling I heard a bit after waking up. I’m leaving as soon as this fire completely dies.

Day Four, Afternoon: 

The woods have something in them, I’m sure of it. I don’t know how I didn’t realize it before but this creature is everywhere. The birds are scared of it. I ran out of food a while ago, but I feel fine. It’s got to be the fresh air working on me. Besides, now that the woods know I’m not a threat, they’ve let me leave. I will not look behind me. Only ahead and down. It’s behind me.

Day Four, Evening:

I found the creek with my landmarks, but they were almost completely covered by dusty tree sap, almost like it was trying to purge it out. I got some on my tent, somehow, but I might just throw it away after I reach wherever I’m going. It’s still behind me, but keeping a bigger distance.

Night Four: i t’s juST outside the tent it wants me to come out its callin g me i think im gonna die if i dont follow it im not even sure what it is its talking but its huge what even is this thing? Its like an ancient wild entity

Day Five: The unexpected subject finally succumbed and from now on will no longer bother us. We thought it would never happen. Radio waves will continue to be broadcasted in the local base, but we will be moving locations shortly. After all, it is coming for us.

[yanderemommabean]

Yandere Wasp Izuku

((Contains: Somnophilia, or something akin to it, while no sex ensues, the reader is marked while in the middle of sleeping. Anyway enjoy!))

“Izuku! Seriously, it isn't a big deal!” you try and calm the wasp breed down, hands up in defense for the person behind you who was almost sobbing in fear. The green haired hybrid was almost snarling, his wings batting angrily in a show of intimidation as he tried to lunge at the poor soul. 

“IZUKU! CALM DOWN!” you shout, shoving him back to give the person time to run, listening to the scurrying footsteps being drowned out by the fervent beating of his wings. Once you believed the coast was clear, you stepped back, hand placed on the still heated hybrid's chest. 

“What has gotten into you?! I would expect this kind of behavior from the others, but you?”

Izuku chuffs, turning his head away in shame at your scolding. His wings fold back down, and his eyes return to their softer, more welcoming presence. “I’m…I’m sorry. I honestly don’t know what came over me. When I saw them touch your hand- and how they got their scent on you, I just…My feet moved before I could think”. 

His voice was sincere, his eyes having a look similar to a scolded puppy as he gently took your hand from his chest, letting it drop reluctantly. 

You take a breath, eyes focused on the ground for a moment as you gather your thoughts. “Ok. Ok I can see you thinking of me as a hive like sibling possibly, maybe that’s what caused you to lash out. But it’s no excuse for threatening them!”

Izuku wanted to correct you, that no- you weren’t seen as a hive relative. You were seen as a MATE. One only he was allowed to be around. But, seeing as you were still distraught over the incident, he decided to work on how he would drop that information on you. Perhaps back home, maybe in your room?

No, no your room is nice, but izuku’s is better. You’ll be more protected there, covered in his scent so other insect breeds don’t get any funny ideas and have to face the evil side of his species. 

He shakes his head, eyes widening slightly as he soaks in what just crossed his mind. What was he thinking?! Keeping you nested in his room- that’s never come to light before. Sure, he’s always been protective of you, but this was becoming more worrisome by the second. 

You give a sigh, and decide to finish this little walk so you don’t possibly give a heart attack to an innocent citizen. “It’s something we can look into later. I know your species is still new to this side of earth and all, so maybe we should brush up on some customs and such to avoid any more death threats”. 

-----------

Izuku sat down as he read through some files, humming in thought every now and again as the screen scrolled on his phone. “No…That’s outdated…that one's true but…no, no. none of these are helping!” he groaned in frustration, wanting to toss the device as he slammed his head back in annoyance. 

He clicked out of the page and tried looking through the other categories and sub folders, eyebrows pinching in confusion as he searched. Finally, after about an hour, he decided to check the mating behaviors folder, taking in a short breath. 

“Possessive, mates for life, territorial and…” he continues reading on, seeing that his age range is about the time where he starts to need a mate to bond with if he hasn’t already chosen one. Tilting his head in thought, he supposed it made sense that he was so protective of you these past few months. Maybe he just subconsciously chose you, delegating you as his forever mate without a second thought. 

He continues reading, not wanting to get too lost in thought about you- despite loving every image of you he had popping into his head. He came across a few paragraphs explaining how mates are bonded, and frowns as he scrolls through. 

“Mates have to be bonded through a claiming bite while-” he blushes, swallowing slowly as he reads the process it takes to make someone yours completely in his species lifestyle. Could he really do that to you? Sink his teeth into you and breed you so full you’ll never leave his home again? Make you his and his alone?

“Hey! You find anything?” you ask while flopping next to him, turning your phone off as you turn to face him. “I could only find some sibling bonds and what not.Maybe you’re just having a bad day? Or, maybe that scorpion Bakugo finally rubbed off on you” you joke. 

Izuku nods, hiding his phone in his lap nervously as his wings slowly unfurl from his back. You smell so sweet. It makes his muscles relax, and for a moment he gets so lost in the warmth he forgets to answer you. “Oh! I uh, I'm still scrolling! You know me, I have to get every detail” he lied. 

He can’t tell you what he found. There’s no way you’d let him, love and bonding for your kind is so much more different, so much less brutal and intense. No, he plans to mark you, make you give in and take him as yours forever, but he has to hide that beast within. 

For now, anyway. 

“Hey, how about we take a break and I cook you something? Consider it an apology dinner for earlier” he half jokes, beginning to stand. His eyes turn angry when you begin to deny him, about to insist that you aren’t hungry. Before you can turn him down, he cages you in, his face mere centimeters from yours. 

“I won’t let you go hungry…Heh, what kind of friend would I be if I couldn’t provide for you and feed you? “ he bit out, barely hiding it behind a smile. You just nod slowly, not sure what to say about the odd display, clutching your phone tightly until he backs away. 

“Good! Just stay right there, ok? If you need something let me get it for you! Got it?”. 

You just nod again, watching as he walked towards the kitchen to begin cooking. Izuku just growls lowly at himself for letting his instincts take over so quickly, making a fool of himself. It seems hiding this beastly side of him will be a tougher fight than he thought. 

----------------

It’s hot. Too unbearably hot. He still feels as if he’s asleep as he gets up to walk, maybe cool off outside for a bit before heading back to bed. 

His eyes are closed as he rolls over, but they snap open when he feels a body next to him. He peers over to see who on earth could be sharing a bed with him, and he becomes overly ecstatic to see that it’s you. 

Wait. This doesn’t seem right, these sheets don’t feel like his own and the painting if the room doesn’t match the interior of his. Izuku slowly starts piecing together what had occurred, and undoubtedly he sleptwalked into your abode. 

It seems his instincts have a stronger hold on him when he isn’t awake. He should feel upset, frightened that he has no control over himself, but he’s not. He’s simply content laying next to you, inhaling that intoxicating scent, his wings wanting to unfurl and shudder from the bliss it brings. 

That heat comes back, and he sees that the unbearable warmth was because his inner primal mind was begging to come out. To take what was rightfully his. 

He should leave, he shouldn’t be here while you’re at your most vulnerable, he needs to try and quietly leave and forget this ever occurred. But…what if he just had a little taste? Something to tide him over and to get his shit together. 

His species marks and claims when mating, they’re intense and some might even say brutal. So, if he just eased his way into this, stole a simple taste, perhaps he could train himself to be more in control, less instinct controlled. 

He creeps closer to your sleeping form, mouth watering as he sees the exposed skin of your shoulder, teasing and taunting him. His tongue comes to lap at your warm flesh, and once he gets a taste, his mind goes blank.

He doesn’t remember anything, he wakes up feeling a deep satisfaction as he curls tighter around whatever it is between his arms, possessively squeezing. A hiccup causes him to wake up fully, and his stomach sinks when he sees what had happened. 

You’re covered in marks, bites and red splotches where he incessantly sucked on your skin. “Oh no” he gasped, seeing the tears in your terrified eyes as you roll away and shove him to the floor. 

“You-Izuku…Are you back to me?”

“I'm me! I'm me, I'm so sorry oh God-What happened?” he asked hastily, praying he didn’t do the unthinkable and hurt you beyond repair. You sniffle and wipe your eyes as you sit up more, taking a moment to breathe. 

“You just…Kept biting and clawing at me, and you looked like you were angry when I tried to get away. I think you wanted me dead or maybe...Maybe you slept-walked and saw me as a predator to fight? I’m not too torn up it was just…You kept biting and hissing about odd things”

Izuku swallows down the actual reason his lips were on you, knowing it’ll only make you hate him even more. He can’t have that, he won’t lose you just because he can’t control himself. He’ll play along with this story, he’ll do whatever it is you think he needs to do. 

But he won’t let you leave him. 

“Fuck. I'm sorry, I wasn’t even awake! I need to get to the bottom of why I’m like this. The last Thing I want to do is hurt my ma-” he paused, swallowing nervously. “My most important friend”. 

You just nod, looking away as you cover up a bit more. “I’ll ask some of the other wasp species what they know…Maybe even a scorpion, seeing as they love to be in everyone's business” you half joked, wanting to lighten the mood. 

Izuku slowly stands back up, feeling guilty he scared you so bad. A good mate wouldn’t let you be scared of anything, most importantly themselves. He needs to fix this, find a way to get himself together and keep you beside him. 

“Let me make this up to you ok?” he starts, suddenly becoming jealous of imagining all the other species and possible mates alike that you’d have to talk to today. No. No he’ll take care of this. You should just stay here, rest, and cover yourself in more of his scent. 

“You should just rest up here, I’ll do the searching and deep diving ok? I think they’d be more accepting to talk to me anyway. You know, since they see humans as either mate material to constantly flirt with or a meal to devour”. 

You smile a bit, seeing how upset and worried your friend had become “Humans flirt back just as bad, and if I remember correctly, some of us humans eat bugs encased in candy…so I suppose we’re more alike than given credit for”. 

Fair point. But his decision still stands. “True, but this is the least I can do for you. Just let me do the research today, and you rest up, eat good, and maybe beat me with a stick when I get back” he joked, his chest warming when you smiled at him and laughed. 

“Alright, I guess. Just be careful and text me every bit of information you get ok? I want to help you out, you’re my best friend Izuku”. 

“Yeah, same here. I think I’d go crazy if anything happened to you” he said softly, beginning to itch from not being able to just wrap around you and smother himself in your scent. He needed to get up and go, before things get worse. 

Who knows what will happen if he gives in once again? 

(Hi! I hope you beans enjoy this! It was fun! Tell me what you think pretty please!-Mommabean) 

[americxn]

𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕣𝕠𝕕𝕦𝕔𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕁𝕒𝕞𝕖𝕤 𝕥𝕠 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕞𝕠𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕟 𝕨𝕠𝕣𝕝𝕕/𝕥𝕖𝕔𝕙𝕟𝕠𝕝𝕠𝕘𝕪 (𝕛𝕡𝕞 𝕩 𝕘𝕟!𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕖𝕣)

wordcount: 2k warnings: none :)

“James, have you seen my phone?” You ask, James’ attention snapping to where you were knelt on the edge of your shared bed, tossing aside cushions and lifting up the covers. “The phone is where it always is, dearest.” He offers, gesturing to the outdated corded telephone sat on a low table by the front door. “No, I mean my phone.” You mumble, pushing off the bed and beginning to rifle through the drawers of the dark oak nightstand positioned next to the pillows on your designated side. “Oh, you’re referring to that advanced device you always carry around?”  “Yeah,” you answered vaguely, slamming the bottom drawer of the bedside table shut before straightening, your hands coming to rest thoughtfully on your hips. “I could’ve sworn I left it here but it’s gone.” As you looked around the room, James gave a small shrug, his attention falling back to the book rested in his lap.  “Oh wait, I’m stupid - I left it in the bathroom.” You spoke more so to yourself, your words falling deaf on James’ ears, who was once again wholly concentrated on the novel clutched in his hands.

“Jameeees,” you sang whilst shouldering open the door to your shared suit. Your lover looked up from where he lounged in one of the plush armchairs positioned by the cold fireplace, open curiosity painting the pale planes of his face. You walked over to him, your hands hidden behind your back. Perching on his warm lap, you revealed the box you had been hiding with a flourish, presenting it to him with an enlivened flourish. He frowned softly in curious interest, taking the box from your hands and pulling the hastily tied ribbon undone. You watched, barely able to contain your excitement as he removed the lid of the box, carefully setting it aside before peering at the item that lay within. “It’s a phone!” You exclaimed, unable to help yourself as you reclaimed the box from his grasp, pulling out the phone and showing it to him.  “Now you won’t have to sit and stare at your telephone like a lost puppy every time I leave the hotel.” Your words brought a gentle scowl to his brow, his pride bristling at your suggestion; it was true of course, but James was far too ‘busy’ to ever admit it. “You’ll be able to call or message me from any room in the hotel.” A content smile replaced his scowl in response to your words as he reached out, his fingers brushing against yours in a cold touch as he took the phone from you. “This looks like the phone that Sally has.” He mused, turning the sleek device over in his hand to examine it. You hummed your assent. “Yep, it’s the same type of phone. I thought that’d be best, she can teach you a bit more about how to use it. But look,” you snatched the phone from his fingers, swiping on the screen and opening the camera app “it takes pictures! Good quality too. And you can download any apps you like, you can get all your books on here, watch movies, read the news, literally anything. Social media too, I could make some accounts for you if you’d like...?” You words trailed away at the sight of the slightly lost look displayed on his face as he blinked slowly at you, overwhelmed with the abundance of information you had just thrown at him. “Sorry.” You smiled sheepishly. “They’re easy to use I promise. And you have plenty of time to figure it all out on your own. I’ve already put my contacts on there so you can get into contact with my whenever and wherever.” The arm he had slung around your lower back tightened, pulling you into the warmth of his chest as he pressed a lingering kiss to your temple. “Thank you, my love, it all seems extremely intriguing.” 

“My love, could you pass me a towel please?” James spoke from his spot before the shower he had just climbed out of, water running off his skin and pooling at his feet; he had forgotten to bring a towel into the room with him and there were no spares occupying the bathroom. “Dearest?” He called again, beginning to shiver slightly, his damp hair plastered to his forehead, beads of rapidly cooling water dripping from the heavy strands at the nape of his neck and trickling down the pronounced planes of his back. “Y/n?” He tried once more, a slight shade of growing exasperation entering his tone. The hard tiles of the floor were cold under foot as his bare soles padded to the door; he swung it open halfway before peering around it, scanning the room for any sign of you. His eyes stilled on the bed where you lay splayed out on your back, your eyes open as you stared at the ceiling, mind clouded in deep thought. The music you had blaring through your airpods drowned out any other sound and so you didn’t notice the bathroom door open and didn’t pay any attention when James spoke your name even louder, studying you from around the door in confusion. Eventually he pushed the door open fully with an exasperated sigh, looking right at you pointedly as he crossed the room, pulling open his wardrobe and crouching to retrieve a clean cotton towel from the compartment at the bottom. Straightening, he slung the towel around his shoulders, pouting softly as he retreated back into the bathroom, seeing that you still hadn’t noticed him crossing the room mere feet from you, completely exposed.

“Shall we go down to the bar this evening?” James questioned, craning his neck to look at where you bumbled around the room, tidying up a bit and humming softly to yourself. He waited for several beats, expecting a response before frowning when you didn’t so much as deign to acknowledge his question. “Y/n, darling?” He threw up his hands in exasperation when you still didn’t pay him any heed, focused on gathering up the few stray items scattered across the vanity and crossing the room to deposit them in the drawers of the bathroom. “Y/n.” He repeated, standing from his chair and trailing you to the bathroom, lingering outside the door and awaiting your return. You gasped when you bumped into his chest upon stepping from the room, a hand rising to cover your heart in shock. “You scared me.” You laughed breathlessly, reaching up to take one of your headphones from your ear. “What are you doing?” You asked, brushing past him to continue tidying up the room. “I’ve been trying to catch your attention, you’ve been blatantly ignoring me.” He sounded genuinely hurt and so you turned, quickly hurrying back over to him whilst shaking your head. “No, I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry; I can’t hear you when I’m listening to music.” You explained, gesturing to the ear that still housed one of your airpods, the other clutched in your fingers.  “Oh. Is that what you were doing the other day? Listening to music? Because I was calling out for your attention and you didn’t pay notice.” “Oh, I’m sorry.” you offered, feeling guilty at the slightly disheartened look creasing his features. “Yes.” He sighed. “You were laying on the bed and I thought that you were sleeping but your eyes were open. I was concerned.” You smiled softly at this, reaching up to brush the stray strands of hair away from his ear. “I’m sorry, just come and kick me or something next time, but look,” you brought your airpod up to his ear, carefully wiggling it into place. He instantly brought his shoulder up to his ear, his neck bending at an extreme angle as he tried to cringe away from the music blasting through it. You laughed openly at his reaction, watching as he reached up to rip it from his ear. He twirled it between his fingertips, his lips parted in disturbed confusion as he examined the small device carefully before passing it back to you with a shudder. “That is an invention from hell.” He stated seriously, looking on in disgust as you inserted it back into your own ear with a giggle.

“I’m just going to run down to reception,” you shouted over your shoulder, opening the front door to you and James’ shared suite. “Why?” His voice was muffled, emanating from the door to his study that branched off the main room. “There’s a microwave in the staff room behind the front desk, I’m hungry.” There was a pause as James considered your words, before responding with: “A what?” You smiled softly, your hand aching as it struggled to hold the heavy door open. “Don’t worry, I’ll only be five minutes.”

Ms Evers watched from where she stood beside the large mahogany dining table as you and James pushed open the door to your rooms, arm in arm, talking fondly to one another. Her eyebrow raised in silent reprovement, the table before her fully laid, food already piled high on the plates arranged at either end. “Sorry, we’re a bit late.” You offered with a small, guilty smile, untangling your arm from James’ and making your way over to your seat.  “The food has long since gone cold.” She grumbled, scanning the table and the food she had so lovingly laid out, her hours of labour now seeming unsatisfactory at the sight of the meals having lost all warmth. “It’s okay.” You insisted. “I’m sure it’ll be just as delicious as usual.” Hazel took little comfort in your words but offered you a tentative smile regardless, stepping away from the table and readying to leave you and James to eat. “Or we can go and warm it all up again?” You suggested. She turned, regarding you with confused intrigue. “If I put it back in the oven, it will surely burn?”  Shaking your head, you reached for your plate, picking it up before skirting around the table and taking James’ in your hand, too. “Come on.” You encouraged over your shoulder as you walked to the door. “Let me show you both the miracle that is a microwave.” They trailed you all the way to the ground floor, the full plates of food heavy weights in your hands as you pushed open the door behind the front reception desk with a foot, kicking it open to allow James and Ms Evers to follow you through. There was a small kitchenette in the corner of the room, Liz and Iris turning from their positions lounged opposite one another on the worn couches that made up the drab common area for the hotel staff. You greeted them warmly before taking the food to the microwave; you put James’ plate in first, stepping aside to allow him to watch his food go round and round in marvelling interest. He flinched slightly when the timer went off, allowing you to push past him to pull open the small door and fish out his plate. It was steaming hot as it placed it before James on the counter, replacing his plate with your own. You were too busy watched your own food get the life revived back into it that you didn’t notice when James picked up a fork that was sat on the side, using it to spear a piece of potato and bring it up to his mouth. He gasped in startled pain as it passed his lips. “No.” You scolded, batting the fork away from his mouth as he chewed fervently, the food too hot in his mouth as he struggled to swallow. “It’s way too hot.” You sighed, rubbing his shoulder as he finally managed to swallow the small piece of food, glaring down at the rest of his plate in vexation. “I’ll get you some water.”

taglist: @kitwalker02 @three-eyed-snail @forevercountess @kitwalkerangel @milly-louise @thecountessesglove @undeadcortez @kitwalker64 @samsassinparvismagna @xmaximoffic @divineruler @liandav @tatesweaterweather @evanmybeloved @tatelangdonsupremacist @ikkleroniekins @ananad1 @shlutnutt @sanni333 @mossybank @tatesimper

[avaritia-apotheosis]

Phantom Children Ch. 8

What's this? An update! Massive thanks to my betas for helping me get through this chapter <3

In Which: A few answers are given to the family and Danny is rudely awoken

[Side note: If you wanna know the general ages of the batfam, its listed in the AO3 version. I also talk about katanas in the end notes ^-^]

AO3 | Prologue | 7 | [ 8 ] | 9 DAMIAN INFORMED TODD—and Drake when he arrived on his bike sometime later on—that the boy whose face is plastered across the monitor was neither a picture of himself nor of Father.

Drake took one glance at the monitor and sighed, pressing his fingers against the bridge of his nose. “Just when I thought this day was getting better.”

“What, did that café on 5th finally let customers supersize their drink?”

“God that would be the dream, wouldn’t it?” Drake sighed wistfully. “Nah, but I did get a lead on where some of that stolen Cadmus tech might’ve ended up. I was gonna spend the night following up on it, but I guess we have to deal with,” he gestured to the monitor, “whatever this is.”

Todd leaned against the edge of the computer, arms crossed over the red bat insignia on his chest. “What are we dealing with this time, brat? A clone? An alternate universe counterpart? Magic shenanigans?”

Maybe. Perhaps. All of those were perfectly valid conclusions for the enigma that was Daniel James Fenton. (Why Fenton and not al Ghul? Or even Wayne?)

Damian, too, was a genetic experiment; a ‘test tube baby’ as Drake put it at times. Damian was born for greatness, created to be perfect. The perfect soldier. The perfect assassin. The perfect heir. Was this boy—Daniel—like him as well?

A failed one, then. Perhaps the precursor to Damian’s own existence. But that would not explain why the boy was allowed to exist for so long. His grandfather demanded perfection, especially from those of his own blood. If the boy was a failure, he would have been eliminated immediately, not sent to live with some eccentric scientists in the Midwest.

Damian was not naïve enough to think that his mother and grandfather did not keep secrets from him. On the contrary, he expected it. The League of Shadows dealt in secrets as often as it did in death. Certain information was worth its weight in gold, whether it was given or buried away.

But he could not help the sharp pang in his chest. A lightning strike, quick and electrifying at the notion that they kept secrets about their family from him.

His father’s face flashed in his mind. The shock turned into a slow, dawning horror. That flicker of light, of recognition, as he scrutinized the contents of the flash drive and cross-referenced it with a public database.

And grief.

Damian recognized the grief.

Alfred, too, nearly dropped his tray of fresh-baked cookies when he stepped in front of the monitor. His usual unflappable demeanor was momentarily broken at his father’s whispered “Sixteen years. Alfred— he’s sixteen years old.”

His father knew of the boy. He was allowed to know of Daniel when he was not allowed to know about Damian.

------

Grayson returned to the cave with a distinct lack of energy in his step. His mask dangled off the tips of his fingers, chin angled downwards and covered largely by his hand. For a split second, their eyes met. Grayson shifted his gaze away, scratching the back of his neck. Father told him, then. Damian wondered how much Father revealed to his favorite son.

Damian clucked his tongue and buried himself deeper into the chair, arms crossed and pointedly looking away. If it was not for his accursed ankle, he’d have headed out to the training ring to take his frustrations out on the dummies.

“Oh, thank god you’re here, Dickface. Damian’s completely out of it.”

Damian shot him a look. “Shut up, Todd.”

“Leave him alone, Jay. Is Tim back yet?”

Drake emerged from the changing room in a dark green shirt, a fresh cup of coffee in hand. He took one long sip before exhaling. “Yeah, I’m here.”

“O-kay…” He pressed his hands together, mouth thinned into a grim line. “Uh, hey Tim, glad to see you back safe. Bruce is coming down soon to explain some things.” He let out a deep sigh, carding a hand through his hair. “This kind of thing would probably be better with the girls around, but I—god, I don’t know.”

Todd raised an eyebrow. “Don’t know whether to call Steph and Cass in Hong Kong, or don’t know what’s going on?”

“Yes.”

------

When Father arrived, Pennyworth following dutifully behind him, it was with an aching slowness in his gait. His steps measured and precise, preternaturally quiet as he made his way to stand by Damian’s chair. Damian sat up straighter, shoulders squared and back an inch away from the backrest. The rest, even Todd, stood at attention; an ingrained habit among Robins and an amusing instinct even among the senior heroes of the Justice League when it came to facing the Batman.

His father kept a steady hand on Damian’s shoulder, and Damian, shamefully, leaned into the touch; his head inclined towards his father’s hand so much so that he could feel the ends of his hair being pushed up slightly as he brushed against his father’s forearm.

He spoke with his usual monotone, as if he was heading a Justice League meeting as opposed to unveiling the secrets surrounding that boy. He brought forward the few photos they obtained from the flash drive. “A few weeks ago, we were alerted of suspicious movement from the League of Shadows in Amity Park, Illinois. Their objectives are, as of now, unclear, though it appears to be tied to the death of Amity Park resident, Daniel Fenton.”

One photo was a standard ID picture people get for their driver’s license, the lighting deliberately horrible so that any attempt to look decent would always end in failure. Another photo was a little better; a candid scene of him chatting with two others his age, a Caucasian girl in gothic-style clothes and an African-American holding a sleek, but still very outdated PDA. His blue eyes crinkled at the corners, hand reaching up to his face to stifle a laugh. There were other photos like this, some candid, others posed. At the forefront of each, a boy that looked too much like his father, too much like Damian.

His father glanced at the photos. He shut his eyes and when he opened them again, he fixed them on some distant stalactite in the Cave. “Around six months ago, Daniel was pronounced dead in a vehicular accident. A body was present, but according to police reports, he was identified via his driver’s license as opposed to any kind of DNA profiling.” He leaned over Damian’s chair to pull up a profile of Masters. “Our source—Vladimir Masters, mayor of Amity and a friend of the Fenton family—indicated his belief that Daniel is actually alive. I am inclined to agree.”

“He’s your son, isn’t he,” Drake said, more of a statement than a question.

Father gave a curt nod. “I cannot say for certain until I can perform a DNA test, but I highly suspect that to be the case.”

“First the demon spawn, now this. Great.” Todd made a hand motion towards the screen. “You know, Bruce, not knowing you have a kid once might be a coincidence, but twice? How do you do that?”

“As of three hours ago, I was still under the impression that my son never made it to term.”

“What?”

“Over sixteen years ago I was involved in a mission that put Ra’s and I on the same side. During that time, Talia and I entered a relationship that resulted in a pregnancy. Though initially ecstatic, she eventually led me to believe she miscarried the child and pushed me away. For what ends, I do not know, but trust me Jason, if I knew—” He paused, the hand that was not on Damian’s shoulder curled into a tight fist.

Father pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why she hid it from me then doesn’t matter. Why Talia wants him back now is important. Judging from Daniel’s records, he was adopted into the Fenton family as an infant and has since lived a seemingly normal life as a civilian. His adoptive parents, Jack and Maddie Fenton, are brilliant scientists and engineers focused on the field of paranormal studies. Eccentricities aside, they have zero connections to the League of Assassins or any other concerning parties.”

“So why now?” Dick asked, shifting his concerned gaze from Bruce to the static picture of Danny’s tired smile. “Why, after all this time, decide that now would be the best time to recover him?”

------

Danny’s experienced plenty of rude awakenings before, but waking up at the ass-crack of dawn to avoid his kidnapper-slash-assassin-slash-biological-mom launching a surprise attack takes the fucking cake. He can’t believe he’s saying this, but thank god for all those late night ghost attacks that conditioned him to be a light sleeper. And, of course, the League’s insistence that everyone be in optimal condition regardless of how little sleep you actually got.

Danny kicked Talia off of him, ripping his blanket away before scrambling to his feet. Seriously, if the universe decided to spontaneously give him powers again, he’d really like an upgrade to his ghost senses, please and thank you. Something that works on humans and not just ghosts. Like spidey-senses. He’d really, really like some spidey-senses.

“Your reaction times have improved considerably,” Talia said.

He eyed the katana sheathed beside his bedroll. “Thanks. Who could have guessed that constantly challenging someone to a spar in the unholy hours of morning would make them paranoid to sleep too much? Really, how am I supposed to grow taller at this rate? ” If he could just get it--

She smiled, taking a step forward. “Prepare yourself.”

“Heh.” Danny stepped further away from Talia, keeping his back to the mouth of the cave. One hand stretched in front of him and the other, coated in a green light, was kept hidden behind his back. “Am I actually gonna get some answers today?”

“Let us make it interesting. Last 10 minutes against me and I shall tell you more about your brother.” Talia twirled her blade. “If you happen to draw blood, you may ask any one thing of me.”

“Anything?”

“Within reason.”

His face caught between a grimace and a smile. He’d rather be sleeping right now, but if he had to be awake, then he’d better make the most of it. “Deal.”

Talia’s smile dropped. She veered her body to the right, barely dodging the streak of bright green that whizzed from behind her. The ectoplasmic energy that surrounded the katana bled away as the handle connected with Danny’s outstretched hand.

She quickly glanced back at Danny’s bedding. Beside it lay an empty sheath. “You have telekinesis?”

He shrugged. “It comes and goes.” Yeah, no way was Danny gonna admit that seven-out-of-ten-times he forgot that he had telekinesis. Besides, that shit was hard to do when he wasn’t Phantom.

“A surprise attack from behind is a sound strategy, Daniel. Though it’ll take a lot more than that to harm me.”

Danny pointed to the side of his cheek. “Are you sure about that?”

Talia frowned. She reached up to her face. Her fingers brushed against her cheek and came away with a thin streak of blood.

Danny grinned, pointing his blade at his opponent. “First blood goes to me.”

------

Fact: most fights don’t last long. An average street fight could last anywhere between 25 to 40 seconds, and sword fights rarely last over a minute. Like Talia said, the goal of a fight was to end it with as few injuries to oneself as possible. Humans, even the most skilled ones, can rarely last long in a fight. Prolonged combat is suicide; it makes you tired, makes your muscles heavy. It’s nothing like what Hollywood would have you believe.

Even with Danny’s own enhanced stamina and Talia holding back, he couldn’t last a full ten-minute spar. If Talia didn’t finish him within twenty-five seconds, then he’d fall by his own human limitations.

But the goal wasn’t to spar continuously for ten minutes.

He only had to last that long.

Danny sprinted out of the cave. The sun barely peeked out of the horizon, a thin line of deep orange breaking apart the wide expanse of blue-black sky above. He couldn’t see shit; great news since that meant there’s a good chance Talia couldn’t either, but that doesn’t fix the fact that he can’t see.

Nearly stumbling on the ice, Danny veered to the left. The edges of the lake stopped at towering rocks twice Danny’s height, leaving little room for cover. Though if he remembered correctly, there should be a few crevices here and there to hide in.

“You’ll have to be faster than that, Daniel.”

Shit—

Danny stopped. He brought his sword up to parry Talia’s strike and twisted away, putting distance between them.

Well, so much for just avoiding her for 10 minutes.

He adjusted his grip, keeping his sword steady and eyes trained on Talia as they circled each other. Danny lunged with an overhead strike. Talia used one hand to block the downswing by gripping his wrists. She thrust her sword forward, the tip harshly poking Danny’s abdomen.

“Less than three minutes.” Talia let his wrist go, Danny’s arms slumping to his sides.

He sighed as he sheathed his sword. “Damn, I thought I’d last longer than that.”

“You made a good effort,” Talia assured him. “Putting as much distance between us at the beginning was a good strategy. You recognized the win conditions immediately and attempted a battle of attrition.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “I am very proud of you habibi, especially as you managed to draw first blood.”

A warmth grew in Danny’s stomach at the words, heating his cheeks. Sheepishly, he scratched the back of his head. “I wasn’t entirely sure that would work, honestly.”

“It was clever; half a second later and you might have even killed me. You are an al Ghul through and through” She brushed his hair out of his face. “What would you like as your prize, then?”

Danny’s heart clenched. He frowned, dropping his arm to his side. If I was such an al Ghul, then why didn’t you keep me? The question lodged itself in his throat, stifling his thoughts. It was something he’d been wondering for a while, actually, in the moments of solitude he had at the compound. Talia, during their training, would always remark at his potential. How talented he was, how adaptable he was, how much greater he would have been if he had been trained at a younger age.

Well then, why wasn’t he? Why did she give him up?

But each time he tried to ask, his tongue would turn to lead and the moment would pass, the question still left unsaid and simmering at the back of his mind. A Pandora’s Box that held none of the world’s evil but all of Danny’s possible shortcomings.

He could ask the question now.

He could.

He didn’t.

“Why did you take me?”

Talia tilted her head. “It is because you’re my son.”

“No. Not that. It has to be something more than that. You had sixteen years to come back for me—or, hell, you could have just never left me.” His breath hitched, fingers mussing his hair and hiding his eyes. “Why else did you take me?”

“It is true that there was more than one reason why we decided to retrieve you from Amity Park. One of which is because you are my son and an heir of the Demon’s Head.” Talia stilled. The dark skies of dawn made it impossible for him to read her. “The second reason was to protect you.”

“You kidnapped me…to protect me?”

“Knowledge of the ghosts of Amity have spread through the more insidious parts of the world. There are many out there who would pay exorbitant fees to study one of you or to use you.”

Use him? What did she mean by—

Oh.

Ghosts—Amity Park’s brand of ghosts—were a new element that the world had to contend with. Amity Park might have a crime rate of zero but that wasn’t the case everywhere else. Theft, assault, murder; the world was rampant with crimes and criminals clawing their way to the very top. Having ghosts, even ones with the most basic powerset, would be a huge advantage.

“There’s no way that would work,” Danny insisted. “Most ghosts just want to be left alone, and the ones that want to wreak havoc would never work with humans. The only reason they even work with halfas like me at times is because they still consider us as ghosts.”

“If my sources are to be believed, ghosts might not even get a choice.”

Danny’s blood curdled in his veins.

No.

Someone’s found a way to control ghosts.

[ohmightydevviepuu]

writers month prompts

day seventeen:  ice (follow the complete story, try / cry / why? (just a dream) as it posts daily or on AO3)

–

“You chose her,” Cora intoned. “And the consequences of that decision.” (2B canon divergence wherein Emma and Killian deal with the consequences.)

Every part of her body aches.

Her head feels like Leroy went at it with his pickaxe.

All of this is before she opens her eyes to the disapproving stare of David Nolan and the feeling of his absence.

“Where’s Hook?” David’s tone is disapproving, too.

(Fatherly, one might say.)

Emma tries to sit up but she can’t because that asshole cuffed her wrist to the rail and she laughs. “Fuck me,” she says, wincing away from the sunlight and the stare.

“What?”

(Prince Charming does not approve. Shocking.)

“Oh, darn,” she says, louder—pulls on the cuff for emphasis.

“Emma.” He’s speaking slowly and softly like he’s not sure she understands words. “Where’s Hook? And why are you—here?”

(Or maybe it’s the panicked look in his eyes, the oh shit look of a guy who has seen ogres and curses and dragons and witches but has never pictured the day his daughter would wake up with the world’s worst hangover in a bed that’s definitely not hers.)

Emma looks around the room like she doesn’t already know he’s gone. Aside from the cuff—astute deduction, sheriff—his coat’s missing, and she has no idea if any of his other clothing survived the accident.

(It’s seven-fifteen in the morning and way too early for this shit.)

—

All of the magic in a Dark Curse and the Storybrooke Sheriff’s Department looks like every other outdated government building he’s ever seen. Maybe that’s the point, but it’s a strange one, to think of the magic knowing, or maybe it’s just the way the magic works.

(He wonders what will happen to it, after.)

He sees her again, the brown-haired woman with the regal posture and the expensive clothes. Watching.

Just like in the cemetery.

(If he cared enough, he’d wonder what her story is.)

“Hey!” It’s a man’s voice, authoritative, and when he turns back to look at the woman she’s gone.

Again.

Neal sighs.

The man walking toward him is blond and thin and his broad shoulders are covered by a leather jacket that does not fully conceal the shape of the holster he wears underneath. He moves with purpose.

(He moves as if he’s more used to the weight of a sword at his hip than a gun.)

What’s weirder is that he looks familiar, which isn’t actually possible. Assuming this guy got dragged over by his father’s curse, Neal is at least a hundred years older than anyone else here.

“Mr. Cassidy?” There’s command in the way he speaks, and Neal knows power when he sees it. Call it another souvenir of a crappy childhood, but this guy has it. He stops in front of the building, his posture relaxed but at attention and his voice low, but assured. Neal is grateful for that much, at least; names are Power, and he does not want his father to know this one, not that there is any reason he should.

“That’s me,” Neal says, tossing his to-go cup in a trash bin on the sidewalk with a smile—no littering—and reaching into his pocket for his pack of cigarettes.

“No smoking in my station,” the man says, his lip curling.

“Oh.” Neal pulls one out and lights it up. “Your station?”

It’s foolish to be making a scene. He knows that. But the guy is seriously asking for it, and—if the scuttlebutt at the diner is anything to go by—his father’s energies are focused elsewhere.

(On a woman.)

(Not his mother.)

Neal takes a long drag to calm himself until reason wins over. He grinds out the butt and walks through the door with a sheepish nod to the man holding it open for him.

“I’m glad you’re here,” the man says. “We have some questions for you about your friend. Michael Darling?”

“Uh. Yeah. I thought I would be talking to Emma.” The man’s eyes narrow when he says the name. “I mean, Sheriff Swan.”

“I’m the deputy. David Nolan.” Together, they walk up the stairs, though Neal is certain the deputy is watching his every eyetwitch. “Sheriff Swan is—“

“The good sheriff is, unfortunately, rather tied up at the moment.”

(How? How?)

(What the actual fuck is this town?)

He’s locked up in one of the two cells, looking like he doesn’t give a shit about it and then he turns and says “Hello, lad,” as if it’s been days and not decades since they’ve seen each other.

Captain Killian Jones.

Hook.

“What the hell is he doing here?” The words come faster than Neal can stop them.

(And the bastard hasn’t aged a goddamn day.)

The deputy gives an exaggerated sigh. “He was skulking around town this morning. He’s wanted in an attempted murder, and Granny has a crossbow.”

“Of course he is,” Neal mutters, but both men ignore him.

“I was not skulking. I don’t skulk, Dave.”

The deputy whips around. “Do. Not. Call. Me. Dave.” Then he cocks his head. “So. You two know each other?”

“As it happens,” Hook says, “I was looking for him.”

(Absolutely the last thing Neal wants to hear.)

(Maybe the second-to-last.)

“You should have said something.”

“It mattered not, Dave. You knew. She sent you after me.”

It’s obvious in his body language that the deputy wants to deny it. Equally obvious is that it would be a lie. He nods, a tight movement of his head, his shoulders stiff. “You shouldn’t be out.”

Hook gestures, a move that looks strange when his wrist is blunted and tied off with a bandage under the brace. Off-balance, somehow. His leg is wrapped in a cast, immobilized from ankle to thigh. “You saw to that, didn’t you?”

“I probably saved your life. You’re welcome.”

Hook opens his mouth to protest; for a second there is a faraway look on his face before he seems to change his mind. He stays silent.

Neal clears his throat. “What the hell is going on here?”

“You need to answer some questions, Mr. Cassidy.”

That’s when the deputy punches Neal in the face.

—

Emma knows immediately when Hook is found—the feeling is strong enough to break through her hangover, which means that her mother notices. Her mother, who had sailed in at 7:20 with a to-go cup of coffee in each hand and silenced David with a single look.

“Now is not the time,” she’d said as Emma reached, one-handed, for the precious post-hangover life-giving elixir and took a grateful sip and felt the burn on her lips.

(Not from the coffee.)

She ignored the hurried whisper between them because she needed David gone and she needed him looking for Hook and saying that Hook and Neal knew each other didn’t seem to be enough of a motivation for anything except more questions.

“He doesn’t have the hook, if that helps,” she said. “It’s in the desk drawer.”

(She managed not to flinch when David’s hand squeezed her shoulder.)

“We do need to question them,” he said as he left.

But Emma didn’t say anything, just sipped her coffee and tried to sit upright in the empty bed that wasn’t hers and the handcuff that was until Mary Margaret sighed and sat down next to her. She’d put her empty coffee cup on the nightstand and her hand over Emma’s and before Emma even realized what was happening the cuff popped open.

(Right. Bandit.)

(She really should read that book of Henry’s. One day. In all of her spare time between crises.)

But now it’s 8:16 and she knows David’s found him. The coffee’s gone, the dregs cold, the silence—inviting, Mary Margaret staring at her with those tell-me-everything eyes.

“Why are you here?” Emma says, finally. “Did I—say something last night I shouldn’t have?”

“Emma, no.” The hand clasps around her wrist. “But I wanted to check on you to make sure you weren’t—leaving.”

“Hook’s the one who left,” she says, even though she knows almost exactly where he’d gone—and why.

(Because after the enormity of what she’d said to him in the place that wasn’t real, it still hurt to have him gone when she woke. She couldn’t help it.)

(His kiss—hot, hard, demanding—and the hope was there, in the corner of her mind, whether she wanted to acknowledge it or not. Because they had a connection. More than just the curse. More than the magic.)

(I need you.)

(We’re a team.)

(And the look on her mother’s face says she knows that already.)

“I didn’t want any of this,” Emma says, flexing her wrist. She draws her legs up and swings them over the side of the cot, her back to her mother’s.

“Maybe not. But it’s still happening.”

“I’m trying to adapt. You know, I just woke up one day and there was a kid at my apartment and this is my life now.”

(The Savior.)

“So I’m trying. And this—”

“Attraction?” Mary Margaret hasn’t moved. She’s talking to Emma’s back like she knows that’s easier.

Like she knows Emma’s lying.

Her hand goes back to her lips, where she can still taste the fire. And the magic.

Real.

“I’ve seen the way you two look at each other, Emma. I don’t think it has anything to do with Cora.”

She turns, a half-twist on the bed, to look at her mother.

“You have to open yourself to the possibility of a happy ending. Of hope. Let yourself be ready for the good.”

(Something new.)

(Something different—since the first minute—push and pull, give and take.)

(Fire and magic.)

(Meaning in the chaos.)

(Hope.)

“Is that what this is?” Emma snorts. “Then why are you leaving?”

“What?”

“You said you were leaving,” Emma says.

She regrets it immediately, her mother’s face for the first time resembling its namesake—white as a sheet of ice.

“Oh my god,” Mary Margaret says. “Emma, is that what—”

“I’ll be fine,” Emma says. “Whatever this is, I’ll be fine.”

“Emma—” Mary Margaret stands when she does but then she shakes her head. She says, “Do you mean it?”

That’s when she gets another flash. “Ask me tomorrow,” Emma sighs. She reaches for her jacket with shaking hands and tingling fingers.

(Her mother says nothing about the sparks.)

--

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