#but not evil enough to change the ending

[browniesarethebest]

Hi hiii, I'd read your Robin in a nest of bats a while ago, and found it again recently. Its, I'm my opinion, one of the best reverse Robin's au's out there. I'm not sure if it's a headcanon, but pretty much every Damian and Dick fic has damian sometimes calling Dick baba. Could you write a fic where Dick see's Damian as a father figure, and calls him dad in either Romani or Arabic?

Aw thank you! You got it!

Dick believed he was cursed to lose everyone he loved.

Maybe it was an exaggeration, but Dick had already experienced so much loss during his short life. After losing his parents, Dick thought there was nothing left to live for in this world. Thankfully, Bruce had been kind enough to take him in and give him a new family. He had siblings and aunts and uncles...

...and a father again.

The pain from losing his parents would never truly go away, but his new family's presence was able to soothe it, and Dick let himself believe that he could give his heart freely.

He should have known that nothing good lasts forever.

Dick didn't really remember the moment he was told that Bruce died. He remembers screaming and screaming and screaming, but other than that it's a blur. He remembered someone holding him, though he wasn't sure who. He just knew that the arms were strong and warm, and they were the one thing keeping him from falling to pieces, never to be put back together again.

There was a terrifying moment when he came back to himself where he wondered where he would go. He had no trust in the Gotham Family and Children Services, and they certainly had no love for him. There was no way Dick would get a third chance, and he knew that if he went back in their custody, he would certainly die.

Even if it was by his own hand-

Not to mention that Jason and Tim were also under the spotlight. Tim was a little safer since he was 17, and GFCS weren't really looking to find another place for him, but Jason was 13 and also prime for the taking.

Thankfully, Damian fought hard to keep them in the family. Dick had seen Damian angry before, but never like this. He could still see the social worker cowering as Damian ripped into them for even thinking of taking his brothers away. Dick had been hiding behind him, clinging to Damian for dear life. The rest of his family surrounded him, eyes shadowed as they glared at the social worker. The man practically ran from the Manor once it was clear that Damian was not letting them go.

Dick never mentioned the fear he had seen in Jason's eyes that day, and Jason never mentioned it either.

Dick had never really cared for Bruce's money before, but he was thankful for it when Damian hired the best lawyers available. It wasn't an easy fight, but the court was no match against the unstoppable force that was Damian, Steph, and Cass.

Even after being being told that he and Jason could stay with them, the Manor still received random "wellness checks" to make sure that they were being taken care of properly. It pissed Dick off to no end, but Steph explained that Bruce had gone through the very same thing when he had first started taking in kids. It didn't really make him feel better, but he figured that if Bruce had been fine, Damian would be fine too.

Dick's family was slowly falling apart around him. Tim had run off to prove that Bruce wasn't really dead, and Stephanie had followed after to make sure he didn't die. Jason was locking himself up in the library more and more, and he knew that Cass would often sneak in and sit with him as a silent support. Dick found himself gravitating towards Damian more and more, following the man around like a duckling as he put out metaphorical fires and worked on transferring everything to his and Steph's name.

With everyone else either gone or distracted, it was Damian who primarily took care of Dick. Despite how busy Damian was with his new responsibilities, he still made time for Dick. It was Damian who read to him when he asked. It was Damian's arms he woke up in after screaming himself awake from nightmares. It was Damian who held him while he cried for Bruce and took him out for ice cream after to try to make him feel better. It was Damian who made sure he still made it to school and ate three meals a day.

"You must keep your strength up," Damian said, hands on Dick's shoulders. "You have walked through Hell before, and you can do it again."

Dick's lip wobbled, "I don't know if I can. I'm tired, Dami."

His older brother squeezed his shoulders. "You will not be walking alone. You will never be alone again, not if I have anything to say about it."

The tears spilled over. "But you can't promise that! What if you die too?"

Damian's face spasmed for a moment before smoothing out. Dick didn't comment on it, still trying to keep himself together as best as he could.

His eyes widened in shock as he suddenly found Damian's arms around him, pulling him close to the man. He tensed up, unsure what to do.

"This will not be like the circus, Richard. Father and I have made sure of it. I won't say it's impossible that something will happen to me or our siblings, but even without us, you are not alone. Were anything to happen, multiple members of the Justice League, Timothy's Young Justice, and even Stephanie and Cassandra's Birds of Prey have volunteered to step up to take you in."

"Really?" Dick asked, breath hitching.

Damian pulled back, moving his hand up to cup the back of Dick's head. "Have I ever lied to you?"

Dick shook his head, too overwhelmed with love and relief to reply.

Dick knew that Damian was trying his best, going far out of his comfort zone to continue providing care and comfort to Dick. He was putting up such a strong front that it took Dick much longer than he believed it should have for him to realize that Damian was struggling too. Even after all the years living with Bruce, Damian still struggled with showing his emotions at times. Dick knew Damian believed he had to be the strong one for his siblings, but Dick thought the others sometimes forgot that Damian had lost his father too—his biological father.

Dick saw the cracks under Damian's shield one night when he went to Damian's room after a nightmare.

"Dami?" Dick whispered as he opened his older brother's door. Dick had expected his older brother to be asleep, but he was surprised to see Damian already sitting up and jerking in surprise at Dick's voice.

Damian cleared his throat and set something aside. "Ah, Richard."

Dick hesitated at the doorway. "Are you busy?"

Damian let out a breath and waved the boy over. "No. No, come in."

Dick climbed onto the bed and leaned against his older brother.

Damian glanced down at him. "Another nightmare?" Dick nodded silently, and Damian let out a sigh. "You can stay here tonight."

"Thanks, Dami." Dick's eyes drifted over to the item Damian had set aside. It looked like a picture frame. "What were you looking at?"

He felt Damian stiffen, and there was a beat of silence.

"...Did I say something wrong?"

"No! No." Dick flinched as Damian turned towards him. Dick still didn't look convinced, so Damian sighed and picked up the picture frame, holding it out for Dick to take.

It was a little difficult to see with only the light from Damian's lone lamp, but it looked like a much younger Bruce with a very young Damian. Dick swallowed back the sudden wave of tears and studied the photo closer. Damian looked to be about his age and was frowning in the picture while Bruce had a small smile on his face. Dick stared at the young Damian, resting his fingers on the glass above the boy's face.

"This was taken just a few months after I came to the Manor. I was still getting used to being with Father, but we had had a good day that day, and Alfred wanted to commemorate it."

"You look so grumpy. Were you always as grumpy as you are now?"

Damian rolled his eyes. "I suppose I was by your definition. Showing emotion often meant weakness in the League of Assassins, so I was taught to hide them. Even with Father's and everyone else's influence, that never really went away."

Dick beamed up at him. "That's okay! I like you just the way you are!"

Damian's eyes softened, and Dick couldn't help but feel proud that he could make Damian relax. "Thank you, Richard."

They both fell silent as they looked at the picture, before Dick spoke up again.

"Is hiding your emotions why you always call Bruce 'Father?' Did you always call him that?"

"Somewhat, yes. 'Father' is a less emotional word than 'Dad' or 'Tati' as you used with your own father, as well as any other word. It also showed the respect I felt for him as I had been raised on stories about him from my mother before meeting him when I was ten."

"So, you always called him that?"

Damian was silent for a moment. "...No. When I was very young, I would call him 'Baba' around my mother. It is the Arabic word for 'father.'"

Dick blinked before smiling. He wrapped his arms around Damian and closed his eyes, nearly falling asleep due to the late hour. "'Baba.' That sounds cool. Thanks for sharing with me, Dami."

"...You're welcome, Richard."

They fell asleep not long after that, both taking comfort in each other's presence.

Dick thought about that conversation a lot over the next few weeks. He and Damian continued to grow even closer. and Dick had a crisis as he realized he was starting to see Damian the same way he saw Bruce when he came to the Manor. Dick tried to deny it—Damian was his older brother, not a father figure—but Damian had taken on Bruce's role as his caretaker, and Dick could not deny that that had somewhat changed their dynamic.

Dick ended up avoiding Damian for a few days, wracked with guilt about replacing his dad and Bruce. He knew there was nothing wrong with seeing Damian as a father figure as he had worked through this guilt the first time it happened with Bruce (and a therapist), but he still couldn't help but feel this way.

It all came to a head when Dick was injured during patrol. One of Penguin's goons caught him by surprise and got a good hit in, resulting in Dick getting a concussion. Damian had rushed him back as soon as the Penguin had been captured, cursing the entire way. Dick wasn't sure he had ever heard Damian be so vulgar.

The ride back was a blur—one moment he was in the Batmobile and the next he was being tucked into bed by Damian. Dick squinted up at Damian, struggling to figure out what was happening, but Damian was being unusually gentle, and Dick was tempted to just lay back and enjoy it while he could.

"D'mi...?"

"Get some rest, Richard. You are suffering from a concussion, but you should feel better in the morning. I will be here to wake you every few hours to check on you."

Dick hummed. Sleep was quickly claiming him, and his bed felt so nice. If Dick closed his eyes, he could almost imagine that it was Bruce and not Damian. Dick felt a pang in his heart, but he was far too exhausted for it to have much effect.

"'Kay... Night, Baba..."

He heard Damian inhale sharply, but Dick was asleep before he could ask.

(When Damian tried to bring it up the next morning, Dick would have no idea what he was talking about.)

[carlyraejepsans]

i was thinking about that ask i received the other day and how uncharacteristically upset the topic had made me when i usually just think "mh. gross!" and move on, and after mulling it over a while i realized it wasn't about the topic at all, it was the ask itself that freaked me out. i've mentioned sporadically before (for obvious reasons lol) that i used to be involved in fandom discourse when i was younger and that!! fucked me up quite a lot. between exacerbating my ocd and straight up getting cyber stalked (i almost feel guilty using that word, like i don't deserve it but. yeah that is 100% what happened to me), the topic is something I have very complex and personal opinions on but that i hate talking about in public because it still sets off my fight or flight response.

i know some people in the fandom are like "let me know if i ever rb someone who wrote/drew gross stuff" and that's entirely their choice and i respect it. but for the record, i am not one of these people. please, for the love of god, i am asking this genuinely do NOT come into my DMs about this, I don't want to know. assume I'm either living in blissful ignorance or my blacklist already covers me quite nicely & i wanna keep it that way. i vastly prefer the discomfort of stumbling into something unprepared and deciding what to do about it on my own, to the utter pit of dread i get whenever i open a message that starts with "hey just so you know-". i have blocked multiple people in the past over it. i WILL block more. be warned.

[note. this doesn't apply to people who have either hurt or behaved inappropriately with other members of the fandom, or spread bigotry and discrimination like racists and transphobes. please do let me know in those cases]

does this make sense? idk I'm kinda feverish you guys figure it out. I'm going to sleep.

[young-adult-catholic]

What's cool about the Christian Faith is that it answers the question of what happens when evil and God battle.

Satan is the literal embodiment of evil. He is so full of pride and distorted love for himself he has no love for anyone else and his number one desire is for us all to be twisted into his image-- to be as filled with hate and loathing for ourselves and others and misery and pain because of that as he is.

And then you have God. St. John tells us that God is love. He is love incarnate. He is so much love incarnate that He came human to save us and make us like Him. 2000 years ago, God and the Devil-- love and hate, good and evil-- faced off. They battled. And the outcome was that love won.

Good defeats evil. The Bible tells us that.

It's also important to note that it didn't appear this way at first. To the outside world, the disciples, even Satan himself, it looked like God had lost. Jesus was dead. God was dead. There was no hope, because you don't come back from being dead.

And then a miracle happened. Jesus came back. He rose from the dead, the tomb was empty, He appeared in the garden to Mary and he appeared to his disciples and he appeared on the road to Emmaus. It's true today. It may look like hate and evil has won and love and good has lost. But, eventually, the truth will come out. Love won. Love has won. Love is winning. Love will win.

And that gives me hope.

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

Mel for the unhinged character bingo!

yessss YEEEESSSSSSSSS

[ragnarokhound]

"reading under the red hood and it's pretty good i think" - jason todd fan who has only seen the cartoon adaptation of under the red hood

[queenofmalkier]

So help me if the world finally gave me a goddamn interesting villain who doesn't give a shit about being redeemed and then give her a bloody redemption arc I WILL RIOT.

[gotta-bail-my-quails]

i'm a bit too tired to put together an appropriately coherent argument right now, but i feel the need to speak on the 'vote blue no matter who' thing because it keeps coming up on my dash and i'm fucking tired of it.

stop trying to beg a system to get better when that system was designed to hold power over you, when it benefits from staying as is, when it wants to keep you down and on a leash. You are voting for the fucking leash man, not the person holding it. You know why negotiations for a ceasefire have been falling flat? Because Israel never cared about morals--there's no use in begging the colonial entity to have some conscience because we wouldn't fucking be here right now if they could be talked out of genocide. If there are train tracks that both go through hospitals, you don't fucking wonder which hospital has less people in it, you wonder who the fuck designed the damn tracks to go through a hospital! And then you fucking redesign them so that shit doesn't happen! You don't hire the same guy who built the tracks to do it again either because who knows if he's gonna just build them through more hospitals--you rip those rails up yourself, got it?

[antirepurp]

it's been a thought in my head for a little while but when people say that the writing in frontiers feels like something out of the IDW comics largely due to iann flynn being a writer on the comics i don't see it as an objectively good thing honestly. not because i don't like the comics or anything but because comics and video games are inherently different mediums and there are cases where you have to keep that in mind when writing for one or the other. there are much fewer limits to what you can do with a comic even within something like an american issue format. you can have a story involving multiple protagonists with their unique sets of skills in a comic because implementing something like that is as simple as hiring an artist to draw them for you. to do so in a game requires building gameplay styles for these secondary protagonists, unless your genre has very standardized gameplay for all involved characters, like RPGs, or you're doing a walking simulator or a visual novel or a kart racer etc etc. frontiers is a bit of a lackluster case of a story that would've needed the game to spend longer in development to tell itself in a way that would've done it the same justice a comic-implementation would've done. like we've all experienced rhea island in some form or another, it is one of the most glaring examples of places where story elements must have gotten cut out because there wasn't enough time to implement gameplay to support them, and unless you're hideo kojima and can do whatever the hell you want it's going to be very hard to justify including a 1 hour cutscene going over the part of the story that would've been better off as actual gameplay anyway.

obviously i enjoy the writing in frontiers it turned my brain into spaghetti but i hope that should flynn be involved in the writing for the games in the future they'll get better at writing specifically for games if that makes sense

[th3swarm]

Okay okay but u have to tell me abt the brainwashing Rollercoaster like u can't just throw out that pair of words n not elaborate

YOU DONT KNOW ABOUT THE SMILER OHHHH MY GODDD !!!!! MY FIRST BIG COASTER ?? THE ONE WHOS BACKSTORY GOT ME INTO ROLLERCOASTERS IN THE FIRST PLACE ?? THE RECORD HOLDER FOR INVERSIONS ???? I KNOW YOURE AMERICAN AND NOT SOMEONE WHO SUPER LIKES THEME PARKS BUT OH MY GOD HANG ON I NEED PICTURES

brainwashing and experimentation/medical stuff under the cut

[all my photography, apart from first and last, first is official i think ? i hope and the last one was taken by my irl friend who isnt on tumblr]

PHOTOS DONT DO IT JUSTICE OK ITS OVER A KILOMETER OF TRACK IN A VERY SMALL SPACE ITS SO MUCH BIGGER THAN IT LOOKS IN PICTURES. PICTURE 3 FOR SCALE ITS HUGE I PROMISE. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGOZL0cftQ8] VIDEOS ARE BETTER FOR SCALE AND FOR THE SOUNDTRACK (AGAIN. ITS MUCH LOUDER IRL, YOU CANT HEAR ANYTHING ELSE AS YOU WALK INTO THE AREA) . ITS FAR BETTER WITH THE SOUNDTRACK BECAUSE THERES ONLY SO MUCH THEMING YOU CAN CONVEY WITH JUST THE COASTER ITSELF . AND THE SCREEN ITS SUPER COOL, ESPECIALLY IN THE DARK OHH MY GOD I WENT IN THE DARK AND THE PISSING RAIN LAST HALLOWEEN IT WAS AMAZING, THERES ALMOST NO LIGHTS IN X-SECTOR THEY JUST HAVE THE SCREEN ITS ABSOLUTELY BLINDING

CW APPLIES HERE DOWNWARDS

ANYWAY THE BRAINWASHING PART IS THE BACKSTORY. WHICH IM NOT VERY GOOD AT WRITING OUT AT 2AM BECAUSE ITS VERY VAUGE ON PURPOSE TO BE INTRIGUING OR SOMETHING BUT BASICALLY IT BRAINWASHES PEOPLE ! MIND CONTROL UNDER THE GUISE OF MAKING YOU HAPPY! that subgenre of horror !!! theres also a computer controlling the whole thing which is the giant circle screen in the middle of all this !

there was also a scare maze aligning with the lore side of it when in opened in 2013 ! it was themed around being the hospital/facility where they did experiments to figure out how to best (??) do the brainwashing in the first place ! ive never done a scare maze im so glad they stopped doing that one because id probably go in there going "yay! smiler maze!" and then cry or something .

[rhys-ravenfeather]

Introducing Oasis to Oakwood’s second character, Benny :P

As you could probably guess from the name, he’s a retooled version of/based off Bendy from my BATIM AU...albeit older and a LOT less cheery than the pure demon babey, heh. Though I imagine he was a lot more like his original BATIM counterpart when he was younger.

Text for those who can’t read it:

‘I’m...not really sure how to feel about this guy. Okay, so Benny was the first person...or shadow, I guess, to find me after I transformed who DIDN’T freak out and/or try attacking me...at least not for long...but hey! He agreed to help me! So now we’re traveling together--he helps me find a way to get back to normal, I help him find his sister...and hope this moody shadow actually keeps HIS end of the deal. He doesn’t really seem like a fan of humans. Still, he’s pretty strong, so for now I guess I’m better with than without him...’

Bonus versions without text:

Reblogs>Likes

[optimisticllamathing]

on one hand, Nico using his powers once or twice and then passing out in his boyfriends arms is super funny. On the other, it’s annoying that he was made way less powerful after the first series and it happens to enough characters in heroes of olympus to be super noticeable. Percy losing the curse of Achilles, Jason being a big three kid and ex praetor who is said to have fought a Titan with his bare hands and just getting brain damage in a new way every time he’s in the same place as something plot relevant. A case could be made for Piper not learning how to fight with a sword in the months between her quest and heading over to camp jupiter, but in like the later half of the series.

in the Percy Jackson series, Nico has a couple instances of manipulating earth/precious metals. In heroes of Olympus, to make Hazel seem more powerful he acts like her sending a thing of gold back into the ground is way beyond his abilities. Like he routinely brings the dead back to life but she took down Gaea by herself in her first life so it was really not necessary for Nico to be less powerful.

it’d make more sense for him to be MORE powerful than in pjo because he’s older! And he’s older than Hazel!!

after Tartarus and dragging a forty foot statue across the world, yeah, that makes sense as a reason for him to be less powerful/exhausted. But despite him being a big three kid he never gets treated as consistently powerful after that and it’s infuriating.

i missed the established canon of him and the other big three kids being a huge deal and there’s so much that could’ve been done with him staying at camp and being able to do scary things consistently. he murders Bryce and all but I doubt anyone at camp knows it and he almost turned himself into a ghost doing it so it’s not like the reader ever gets the impression it’s something he realistically could add to his arsenal, even ignoring the moral qualms. so much is made about him being creepy and unsettling and he says multiple times that he has been isolated from other demigods due to being the son of hades! and yet he rolls up to camp and he never demonstrates why he has potential to be very very dangerous due to his powers. I think it would’ve been really cool to see people have to actually get to know him to see he’s not that different from them, in SPITE of a difference in ability and the disturbing nature of his powers

the most disturbing thing he does at camp in blood of olympus is nothing! he stops will from trying to save octavian. that’s got nothing to do with his powers.

[palms-upturned]

Needed to listen to some music while I did the dishes and for some reason picked “von” from the zankyou no terror soundtrack and jesus god. Experiencing emotions that don’t exist.

[absensia-archived]

if I had more time. . .   I’d try and put together a critical piece on charlotte and loneliness.  it ties in with themes of love and humanity,  but the main thing that’s on my mind lately for her and her loneliness is just how injurious it is for charlotte.  there are characters who do well with being alone and with solitude;  there are characters who learn to cope and grow into or out of their loneliness; there are characters whose loneliness comes and goes. charlotte is not one of those characters.  charlotte is an endlessly lonely person and it hurts her deeply.  

[legendaryrooftopscene]

Just thinking about the insane difference in vibes between the JonMartin Safehouse Era and the VegasPete Safehouse Era

[magikant]

the idea that thinking alignment is a bad game mechanic = “not being able to handle conversations about morality” is a fucking wild take

[infizero]

deltarune theme again :3