DCxDP fanfic idea: Corporate Rivals
Bruce is really excited to hire a boy genius from a small time town. He found him by accident while scrolling through some creative writing competition past winners on various school sites. He originally wanted ideas for his own contest for the annual Wayne Young Writers Scholarship when he stumbled up Amity Parks Youth Authors.
Daniel Fenton's science fiction had won second place, and Bruce thinks he only lost due to the judges not realizing all the science of the gadgets his charaters used were real. Real, well explain and proper research. Daniel obviously knew his stuff and knew it well.
He had reached out to Daniel with a science scholarship opportunity, wanting to see what he would come up with. He gave him a basic assignment asking him to fulfill a prompt "Software or Hardware development for disabled" in either theory or model. If he created something worthwhile, Bruce would send him ten grand.
Daniel did not disappoint, not only doing the theory paper but also sending back a prototype of a pocket ASL translator. It would be an app on a phone that would have an AI watching through a camera of the person doing sign language and say out loud what the person was saying. It had a few bugs here and there, but for a high schooler, those were very impressive accomplishments.
Bruce found himself sponsoring the boy for early high school graduation. The young Fenton boy was a genius just like his parents, but he lacked proper motivation. Bruce suspected it was due to his school not challenging him enough much like Tim.
When Daniel got his diploma Bruce offered a few rid to Gotham University with the condition he would be a employee at WE. Daniel agreed under the condition it was as a proper employee and not a unpaid intern. A little daring for a kid getting already a amazing deal but Bruce liked his moxy and agreed.
Daniel Fenton was to be a worker in the RD department for WE tech in one week.
He couldn't wait to introduce him to Tim. Two young geniuses would get along swimmingly with their shared brain prowess!
______________________________________
Tim hated the new guy.
They were the same age, but everyone acted like he was amazing for finishing high school and starting university while also being a top WE reseacher and Devloper at such a young age.
Oh Tim was CEO, but as many people have whispered, he didn't graduated Highschool or have a GED so the only reason he got to be CEO was because of nepotism. Danny on the other hand got his position through hard work.
Which was ironic, seeing as the company has never done so well since Tim came on board. Their sales, PR, and production numbers all tripled because of him. Danny, on the other hand, was a sloth with little to no ambition. He didn't even work well with others! He mostly did solo projects and everyone seemed fine with that since genius "need their own space"
Tim has been networking since he was three years old, and failure to do so had always reflected badly on him and his company. He spent his entire life careful choosing his words and his actions. Even his appearance, what he wore, his hairstyle even the hand gesture when he talked, were planned before hand.
Then comes Fenton, who avoids crowds, dressed in the worst formal wear Tim has ever seen . Black jeans were not formal!- and acted like this important office was just a after school hang out spot. Now Tim was much more laid back than his board co-workers, who were all in their fifties or older, and even more relax then the mangers or superiors of lower stations but even he could not understand Fenton blaring music, bags of chips lingering everywhere and his ordination skills were none existing!
Not to mention the fact Daniel didn't believe in using computers unless he had to. His office was covered in towers of paper that he scribbled and work on! It was such a waste!
And yet, despite all of that, Daniel was rapidly becoming an asset to WE. His ASL translator app wasn't finished, but it had everyone buzzing with excitement and would be well received when it was released with Wayne Phones as a built in app.
Tim tried to avoid him as best he could least he get offended by his lack of work proper behavior
Daniel Fenton did not understand what it meant to put your all into something that you lost yourself along the way. Best to ignore him.
________________________________________
Danny couldn't stand his company CEO. Timothy Drake reminded him a little too much of the A-listers but without the bulling bit. Somehow, that made it worse.
Timothy was popular because he was well liked. He didn't need to relay on his good looks or aggression to make other yeild to him like Paulina or Dash. Even if he was ridiculously good looking to the point, Danny confused him for a siren when he met him.
He had the ability to walk into any room and take command if it. Timothy didn't even need to speak, his very presence commanded attention and awe. Not to mention how great he was at his job.
WE had always been a popular corporation but under Timothy's command they rose to one of the most important corporations in the world. Bruce Wayne was raised to run a company, Timothy Drake was born to run it. There was a large enough difference between the two that anyone could see Timothy was superior at running things.
Danny was nothing like that. He couldn't talk to people, couldn't make them like him, and often he was overlooked for his sister or his wacky but loveable parents.
He was the other Febton. The one that was there and nothing else. A few months ago he was even considered the dumb Fenton, who somehow was skipped over for intelligence.
Then he wrote a little story and everything changed.
Danny turned out to be a proper Fenton, after all, having gotten the attention of Bruce Wayne for his mind. His parents haven't been so proud of him in a long time, and he found himself accepting the job position after graduating high school early before he knew it.
Along with the job came a move to Gotham city. He went after debating it a great deal with his family and friends, but the deal was too sweet to turn down. Now he was in Gothem and he knew absolutely no one.
Danny didn't know how to make new friends here. Tucker and Sam had been the ones to approach him at the beginning of their friendships. He also was scared of getting close to his co-worker less they suspect his Phantom powers.
He knew that Metas was not welcome, and he thought Batman wouldn't care that he was technically dead and not with a meta gene.
So he focused on his work, avoiding large crowds and keeping his head down. He would turn on music to help pass the loneliness and would gater papers to write down his thoughts less they made him mad by running around his head all day.
This anxious insecurity was something Timothy Drake would never understand. He just shone like a fallen star, dazzling the masses with his neat press suits, easy charisma, and intelligent bedroom eyes. Best to ignore him.
________________________________________
Dick never really ventured to WE now that he moved out. He made a habit of trying to visit Tim every two weeks for lunch to fix this. He also really wanted to spend more one on one time with his little brother now that they reconsidled from Bruce's timeline fiasco.
He was still well known by the employees, even new ones, so when Dick arrived to the lobby he was waved in by security. The receptionists were all huddled together muttering to eachother and missed his entrance since security didn't call out to him.
Dick could tell the gossip they were talking about was juicy based on the way Lola was wiggling her eyebrows and Stacy and Isaiah's reaction.
He creeps closer to the front desk, hoping to hear something good.
"Isn't that against the rules?" Isaiah asks.
"WE doesn't have anything like that. Not since Thomas Wayne married his old PA and had Bruce. I think it's cute that Mr.Drake is following in his adoptive Grandfather's footsteps."
Dick paused, shocked. Tim liked someone at WE!?
"They aren't even dating yet, Lola"
"Yeah but you can cut the sexual tension with a- Mr. Grayson! I'm so sorry, I didn't see you. How can I help you?"
Dick blinks. "Oh I'm here to see Tim for lunch. But what was that about Tim you were saying?"
The woman pales as the other two quickly become busy with some email or another.
"Oh, um, I'm so sorry, sir. I shouldn't have -"
"It's fine I don't mind a little chat between co-workers. I'm just curious"
Lola stares before nervously blurting "Rumor has it that um, Mr.Drake has a thing for Daniel Fenton"
"The new boy genius?" Dick thinks about it considering what he knows of Tim's type and his past preferences in partners before nodding "That tracks actually"
He says his thanks and hurries away to Tim's office unaware he may have confirmed a relationship between Tim and Danny.
The gossip circles in WE exploded with the news everyone careful not to let the two subjects hear a whisper.
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nvm this is still on my brain. kim does not like to watch harry suffer… to say that kim takes satisfaction in harry’s pain is a huge misconstruing of his character.
the “getting thrashed like a schoolboy” line comes from a board game, lol. it’s a tease, not a cruelty. there’s never any line that implies that Kim enjoys seeing Harry taking actual morale damage.
he can be amused if you fail a check, but the check is always relatively inconsequential, and again, Harry isn’t taking damage in these.
Failing to pry the trash bin open:
Failing to shatter Ruby’s lorry window:
(also in both of these examples he only responds smugly if you choose for Harry to stubbornly dig in his heels. if Harry gets huffy, Kim teases. If Harry backs down right away Kim won’t rub it in, which feels significant to me! it reminds me of that recent post goin around about Kim meeting your energy!)
and here’s some reactions to failed checks where he does take damage.
Failing the jump to get your cloak:
Failing to break down Plaisance’s door:
he’s not laughing if Harry’s taking damage because he’s not a dick lol.
aaaaand here’s some other instances of morale/health damage and kim’s reactions.
alternate dialogue for failing the harbor jump:
after the call with precinct 41:
seeing bullet holes in the wall:
most significant examples to argue this point for me come when harry has done something to jeopardize the RCM’s image. which kim goes on and on about the importance of maintaining— and yet even here, he still extends worry and assurance.
telling Billie about her husband and handling it badly:
hardie authority check failure cock carousel:
aaaaand the car. this line is one of the most mask-off kim moments we get in the game in my opinion, honestly.
tying this back to the schoolboy line— that line doesn’t show up if you have a negative reputation with Kim. if you have <1 rep, it gets replaced with him calling it “about four hours of our lives that we'll never get back,” lol.
it’s affectionate ribbing!! twisting it into anything else is bizarre 2 me lmao!
anyways. kim is a foil to every other cop we meet in the game specifically because he doesn’t view harry as a punching bag or a lost cause. gottlieb does nothing but sling jabs and glib jokes about harry’s health. torson+mclaine and the others laugh at harry’s panic attack over the radio. in response to harry’s suicide-by-car attempt(!!!!) jean yells about RCM budget. all kim’s lines in response to harry’s check failures and health-damage are consistent, explicit textual contrast against the callousness of the rest of the RCM. twisting kim’s character here requires a bad faith interpretation of the whole game.
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With the tentative and rough translations out, i have to say, yeah, Hori really doesn't get what he's actually writing and if he was trying to make Toga's entire deal a metaphor for queerness, he's ended up being quite offensive.
Like first off it seems he has Toga say she falls in love easily with boy and girls and...animals. Which, I always felt the bird thing as a kid could have negative connotations, but wrote it off as 'she was a little kid and this was before her desire for blood was wrapped up in her romantic feelings' type things. So having Hori reinstate that yes, she does still love animals to the point of blood drinking desire--a desire Hori coded as sexual/romantic is not a good look.
It also just makes me question if she could ever own a pet or if she'd end up killing it because she loved it to much and she needed to drink it's blood.
Also getting her perspective on the boy she attacked isn't great either. The translation is rough and basic so it could change, but I don't think there's any translation that could make the situation not read poorly.
In the rough translations she says something along the lines of "I didn't ask to drink his blood because I was afraid he'd hate me and think I was a decent monster."
I could see an alternative translation being "I asked for his blood and he called me a deviant monster, and I sucked his blood."
Again if Hori is trying to make a queer metaphor with Toga, this is a huge issue. Her attacking the boy was always a big problem, but if he didn't bring it up again I think a lot of casual readers would have forgotten it. But now it's front and center again and brings back bad connotations for Toga and a queer reading of her character.
Because again if we read her blood drinking as queerness, and Hori has already coded it in the past as lust while just last chapter confirming that Toga sees it as kissing in the very least we get two equally bad reads.
A) Due to fear of rejection Toga did not ask for consent and decided she'd just make sexual advances toward someone she had a crush regardless.
or B) She got rejected and told no, and then made the sexual advance anyway.
With a queer reading this only becomes worse because it pays into the really negative and even dangerous idea that same sex attracted people will go after anyone regardless of consent or the other persons orientation. It continues to perpetuate the idea that queer people are sexual predators, who target straight people or in the very least do not care about consent, or are unable to control themselves long enough to get it.
But even without a queer reading what Toga did is wrong. It sucks that people don't get her way of showing love, but consent is still needed regardless. You can't just do what you want to someone because you were to afraid to ask them out. You can't just do what you want with someone after they tell you no. Even if the boy had called her a monster that would not make it ok for Toga to, essentially sexually assault him (yes, kissing someone against their will is sexual assault, which is what Toga sees her blood drinking as).
And I think that's why Toga's character is really hard to get behind for some people--because at the end of the day she's literally just saying "I can't help but sexually assault people (and animals apparently)', and the solution to this is to give her exactly what she wants and apologize for not seeing how much pain she was in when she was actively trying to sexually assault people.
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