msviolacea · 2 years ago
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A not-so-short word vomit on a complaint I saw about 6.3. It was just a couple of people, so this is definitely not a “why is fandom like this” sort of thing, but the conversation I saw just made me think and I don’t have the time or energy to engage in a direct back and forth on Discord right now. So, I word vomit here, as one does.
I saw a thing the other day (here? Twitter? who knows, time is an illusion and brain cells are in short supply) that asked if you’re the kind of person who came to FFXIV from Dragon Age versus ... somewhere else. I am obviously from the Dragon Age side of things. And if there’s one thing DA fandom taught me, it’s that a game suffers when all players are expected to know what happens in ancillary non-video game materials in order to fully appreciate the story. Thus, I come down hard on the side of “what the game itself says is exactly what the characters should be expected to know and reference.” 
And the FFXIV spoilers begin below. Assume spoilers for everything through 6.3 here. 
So 6.3 - and 6.2 to a lesser extent, thanks to Zero - is full of references to Zenos and, quite frankly, what a terrible person he was. And that’s perfectly understandable, given what everyone knows about him in game. (And even what we know about him out of game, but more on the nuance of that later.) Yes, our WoL knows that he made one big gesture at the end of his life that helped us save the world. That’s great! But after that, he immediately challenged us to a fight and very nearly killed us - would have killed us if not for semi-divine intervention. Because in the end, he didn’t come to the end of the universe because he’d discovered a conscience. He came because he was a deeply selfish man who only cared about getting One Perfect Fight, and Alisaie’s words stuck in his head only to the point of “well if I do a thing for them, they’ll do a thing for me.” He only progressed to the point of understanding equivalent exchange in a similar way to the voidsent of the 13th.
That may have been vaguely fine for a character in another position, but he was supposedly running a country. Whether he wanted that is something else entirely, and we’ll get to a bit of Emet Selch and his crimes in a bit, but regardless of what he wanted, he had an obligation, and he failed it entirely - he refused to even consider it. And an entire nation suffered for his lack of care. That was one of the points of this patch. We met Zero in 6.2, learned that she’d been attached to Zenos against her will. That was mostly background to the rest of the dragon and void stuff in that patch, but in this patch, we bring her to Garlemald, where she sees more of the consequences of Zenos’s selfishness, outside of her own situation. And after observing us, our friends, and the people of Garlemald trying their best to survive together, she shows that she can choose something different - that despite the many, many years of darkness and selfishness she’s had to survive in the 13th, she has the capacity to desire something different. 
Maybe Zenos would have displayed that same capacity if he’d had more time. But that wasn’t the story this game was telling. Not every character is going to get the same opportunities. 
Not every villain gets to be redeemed. 
I understand that we have a relatively robust history of redeemed villains in this game, compared to others of its kind. But that’s been a mixed bag. Emet Selch is one of the best examples of villains in general in the video game genre - the game itself showed exactly why he was the way he was, without excusing the atrocities that he committed along the way. (Fandom is a different story on the excusing - I am deeply uncomfortable with the “but he didn’t see humans as equals” argument being used in earnest - but that’s a different post.) And then they gave us an opportunity to see who he was before the sundering, before the trauma, and that once his full memory was restored and he had the opportunity to understand the full scope of what happened, he would gladly (though with characteristic grumbling) help us put the world to rights before his truly final curtain call. 
Zenos did not have the same narrative opportunities. If that disappoints you, I understand. But it’s not a failure of the game, it’s just a narrative decision. 
(Briefly - Gaius is a very, VERY different story, and one that I think is actually a failure of the game’s narrative. Gaius Baelsar should have remained dead, and the person we met in the Burn should have been an entirely different Garlean leader who defected and decided to help us. That one change would have saved that entire storyline.)
But, Zenos. We, as players, have the opportunity to read some ancillary materials to understand more about him. Side stories, lore books - we find he was neglected as a child, raised by narcissists and molded to be the person he was, to a certain extent. We can sympathize, we can understand the narrative threads that denied him a real chance at being a good person. But do not confuse what we the players know - or even the space the game writers give us to play with our headcanons - with the knowledge and opinions the characters should reasonably be expected to express in in-game dialogue. 
What does the Warrior of Light know about Zenos in game, through actual in-game sources? He’s the great-grandson of Solus/Emet, his father was a xenophobic zealot, he gave zero shits about anything other than fighting and let a lot of really shitty people do his governing for him, he killed a ton of people and threatened many, many more, the Ascians brought him back to life and as soon as he got his body back, he allied with Fandaniel and let a civil war turn Garlemald into a smoking crater just so they could get to Zodiark, and when Fandaniel used Zodiark for his own purposes, he just shrugged and went wandering on his own because nothing in Garlemald was any use to him anymore. That’s pretty much it. Yes, he came to our aid at the moment we needed it most, but he did so for his own ends, and we gave him what he wanted. You can headcanon the reason why your WoL did so, but that doesn’t change the basic facts we know from in-game sources. 
Your WoL doesn’t canonically know anything about his childhood. And, quite frankly, even if they did, do you think it would be reasonable to “well actually” Zero and the Garleans in dialogue at this point? 
Zenos is a tragedy. Zenos also caused tragedy, and those two concepts can coexist in our minds as players. But in-game characters can’t be expected to view Zenos in a sympathetic light, not even our WoL. External lore sources are not in-game lore. Our headcanons are not in-game lore. The writers cannot avoid every single instance of our dialogue possibly deviating from our headcanons, not without eliminating dialogue entirely. 
(There’s an ancillary topic here, about how the current shape of the world makes it very inadvisable for writers who give a shit about society to gloss over atrocities committed by a rich ogliarch in their narrative, no matter what players headcanon about that character, but that’s an aside to the points I’m making. But while I’m all in for villain-fucking and blorbo-appreciation in a fannish space, fandom is a totally different space than canon.) 
In the end, Zenos died a villain. A complicated, interesting one who made a fascinating decision at the end of his life, but a villain nonetheless. We can do whatever we want with him in fandom - that’s what fanworks are for. And we can be disappointed that the canon narrative doesn’t share our points of view. But we should also understand that there are very good reasons for those POVs, and that not sharing our POV is not a failure of the narrative. 
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noodles-and-tea · 2 months ago
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Haha… yeah… that’d be crazy…
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ionomycin · 9 months ago
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Maiden of Light
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intercrusher · 2 months ago
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ill-timed lovers
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lotus-pear · 1 month ago
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charm stat at debonair ‼️‼️
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dogearedheart · 7 months ago
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they're alive. they're on a date. they're in love.
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newttxt · 6 months ago
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crisis of disbelief
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spookberry · 10 months ago
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"danny's ghost side struggles to leave amity park (his haunt) behind when the class goes on a field trip "
Happy Holiday Truce @sillysugargliders !!! I was your assigned gifter. I kept it kinda short, but I still hope you like it 😊
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philsmeatylegss · 2 months ago
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If I were Dan and Phil I would never hard launch because it’s so embarrassing that we were right. Like what do you mean you were so in love a bunch of thirteen year old’s clocked it? I would never give that satisfaction.
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toqiuh · 1 year ago
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My friend showed me this new au yesterday and I've been possessed ever since
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giantkillerjack · 1 year ago
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Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".
[plain-text version of this post can be found under the cut]
Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"
And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".
Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.
At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.
So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!
Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!
Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!
Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.
Plain-text version:
Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".
Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"
And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".
Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.
At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.
So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!
P.S. Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!
Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!
Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.
#hlep#original#mental health#my sympathies and empathies to anyone who has to rely on this kind of hlep to get what they need.#the people in my life who most need to see this post are my family but even if they did I sincerely doubt they would internalize it#i've tried to break thru to them so many times it makes my head hurt. so i am focusing on boundaries and on finding other forms of support#and this thing i learned today helps me validate those boundaries. the example with the milk was from my therapist.#the example with the towing company was a real thing that happened with my parents a few months ago while I was age 28. 28!#a full adult age! it is so infantilizing as a disabled adult to seek assistance and support from ableist parents.#they were real mad i was mad tho. and the spoons i spent trying to explain it were only the latest in a long line of#huge family-related spoon expenditures. distance and the ability to enforce boundaries helps. haven't talked to sisters for literally the#longest period of my whole life. people really believe that if they love you and try to help you they can do no wrong.#and those people are NOT great allies to the chronically sick folks in their lives.#you can adore someone and still fuck up and hurt them so bad. will your pride refuse to accept what you've done and lash out instead?#or will you have courage and be kind? will you learn and grow? all of us have prejudices and practices we are not yet aware of.#no one is pure. but will you be kind? will you be a good friend? will you grow? i hope i grow. i hope i always make the choice to grow.#i hope with every year i age i get better and better at making people feel the opposite of how my family's ableism has made me feel#i will see them seen and hear them heard and smile at their smiles. make them feel smart and held and strong.#just like i do now but even better! i am always learning better ways to be kind so i don't see why i would stop
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hoshizoralone · 1 month ago
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you cant see it but he’s wearing a shirt that says “i love my ai wife” under the armor
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poh4k03e · 1 month ago
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waiter!! more transmasc dipper now!!! please (ft. a very supporting sister)
i like to think mabel was, obviously, the first to know and has been very supportive ever since. cutting his hair, buying the necessary things for him. defending him . teasing him obviously.
whatever i love them i like to project on them
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m4xwell16 · 9 months ago
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man makes pancakes so bad they undo years of nerve damage, asked to leave bistro
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barblaz-arts · 9 months ago
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It's like catholic guilt or something idk
I'm not one for the who fell first who fell harder debate usually, but Charlie definitely fell first based on that flashback. And I don't need to elaborate who fell harder, cuz it's definitely Ms "I'll be your armor, I'll spend my life being your partner".
I like to think Vaggie spent some time kindly brushing off Charlie's advances because she was still holding out hope that she could somehow return to heaven. But eventually she decided that Hell's worth staying for as long as Charlie is with her, and that she'd help her achieve her dream of getting other sinners to ascend instead to make up for all the souls she destroyed.
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totally-here · 2 months ago
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3 times Phantom's Guardian was Mentioned + 1 Time He Showed Up
One
Phantom’s introduction to Young Justice wasn’t as dramatic as Empress’ or Slobo’s, or even Arrowette’s first introduction to the cave. No, it wasn’t during the Olympics, or on a battlefield, and he didn’t come in injured and looking for help. 
Impulse just brought Phantom in one day and insisted that he should join because he’s their age, interested in justice, and now that Greta’s human again they need another ghost member. So Phantom stayed, popping in and out for missions but never really sticking around all that long. 
Today is one of the days that Phantom’s with them on a mission, that being looking around a lab of the Brain’s that had an energy surge recently, despite it being presumably abandoned. 
Kon got paired up with Phantom to check the rest out first, since they both have better hearing than Anita and Tim, who were both still in the main room working on checking the computers for previous activity. 
The room is dark except for the light green ball glowing slightly above Phantom’s hand. He waves it around enough for it to reflect off of glass, then throws it up to the ceiling. The light expands enough to illuminate the room. 
Phantom mumbles about not knowing he could do that. Kon ignores him and moves closer to inspect the glass tubes to the side of several monitors set up. 
“Looks like cloning equipment,” Phantom says, casually. He drags a finger through the dust gathering on one of the monitors. “Don’t think they’ve been activated recently, though, so that’s good.”
“What? You got a problem with clones or something?” It’s a quick and defensive answer, and Phantom puts his hands up in surrender. 
“Not in concept.” He shrugs and joins Kon near the tubes. “But not a lot of people ask before making clones.”
“So I don’t need to sic Superman on you?” Obviously Kon could chew Phantom out himself, but few can do a “not mad, just disappointed” face better than Clark. 
Phantom scrunches his face. “Why would you need to?” 
Kon stops pretending to inspect the tube and stares at Phantom. “You do know I’m a clone, right?” The blank look on Phantom’s face tells him that no, he did not. “Well I am. Clone of Superman, though we’re pretty much brothers now.”
“Cool,” Phantom says, not a bit less friendly. He hesitates for a second before continuing, “Could I maybe ask you how you got there? Me and my clone have landed on cousins, but that was also, like, given to us by her evil dad. So.”
Phantom trails off. Huh, that makes three members of the team that have been cloned. Not a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened three times. 
“You’re making sure she feels accepted, right?” 
“Yeah! Well, whenever she’s around. She,” Phantom waves his hand around, looking for the right word, “She’s a wanderer. Exploring the world and stuff. But Richard has a room for her at home, and I remind her of that whenever she does stop by.” 
“Well, first of all, don’t push it so hard,” Kon says. Phantom nods enthusiastically. “And second, who’s Richard?”
Kon doesn’t know a lot of Richards, and he doesn’t think that Phantom ever mentioned one before. Or even if he remembers his living life. 
“Oh, he’s my, uh, guardian? I guess that’s the best term. The guy I’m living with who forces me to go to school sometimes.” Phantom looks away and back to the tubes. 
Before Kon can ask for more details, Robin and Empress come in with a report of dead computers and wanting to know where they’re at with the cloning room.
They’re unimpressed with their lack of progress.
Two
Wally doesn’t really need to come by the Hamilton Lodge that often, not when that’s Young Justice’s territory and he doesn’t want to get involved in all of That.
But Red Tornado said that the team has a file on a planet that’s very quickly becoming a league problem, and he figured it might be a good time to try to check in with Bart, anyway. Make sure he hasn’t run any cars off cliffs again and all that. 
So he stops by Manchester to ask Bart about the file, then they both head East to actually find it. 
When they arrive at the hotel minutes later, Wally’s surprised to actually find it… clean? There’s no visible trash or overturned furniture or anything else he’d expect from an abandoned hotel filled with teenagers. Well, maybe not filled, lately. He doesn’t think anyone’s living here currently, with Greta at Elias’ for the school year and Slobo gone. 
Still, the room smells slightly of artificial pine scent, and Bart perks up before disappearing and reappearing rapidly, holding a teammate up by his armpits. Said teammate just accepts this, his legs folding into a wispy tail, and head rolling against his shoulders. 
“This is Phantom!” Bart holds him up higher. Phantom waves. Wally’s only heard of him through Max’s updates, the same way he would hear about Preston or Carol, but with more wariness about the supposed ghost. 
Actually looking at the pale face and glowing green eyes contrasting against the darker than dark jumpsuit, Wally’s a little more ready to accept his claim at being undead. 
“He stress cleans,” Bart explains, moving to carry Phantom under his arm. Wally bites down the urge to tell him to put him down, but only because Phantom doesn’t resist the hold, only moving to get into a more comfortable position. His hands are touching the floor. “So what happened?” 
Bart directs the question downwards, and Phantom heaves a very dramatic sigh. Definitely a teenager. It does raise the question of who exactly this kid’s mentor is. Hopefully he does have one. Maybe he’s the Spectre’s kid?
Phantom phases through the arm holding him only to lay on top of Bart’s hair. “I accidentally called Richard dad. And then fled.” 
Bart nods sagely. “Classic. One time I accidentally called Max dad, so I had to start a fire to distract him.”
Phantom sighs again, almost dreamily. “Genius.” 
Wally doesn’t have time to unpack all of that. Well he does, but he’s not going to, because there’s really only one Richard that comes to mind that might have the heart to take in a dead kid, even if he doesn’t go by his full name.
But surely Dick would have told him, or any other Titan, if he had adopted a kid. Right?
But there’s still a little shadow of doubt. Maybe Dick wanted it to be a secret, or it was really new or had a rocky start. Phantom doesn’t seem to hold himself like a Bat, but it’s not a guarantee Dick would have trained him. 
“The lodge looks nice,” Wally offers out loud, which Phantom shrugs at and wraps his tail around Bart’s head to keep secure. “Anyway, Impulse. The file on Myrg?” 
“Oh yeah!” Again, Bart disappears then reappears a few seconds later with a paper file. They really need to start digitizing more of these things. “That’s the planet where we played baseball so that they wouldn’t destroy Earth!” 
“You what.” 
The prospect of Dick following in his dad’s footsteps is forgotten in the face of what the hell Young Justice got up to on Myrg. 
Three
Tim may be in a…Predicament. 
It’s not his fault. Really. He knew what he was doing. He couldn’t let a civilian fall for the trap. But they were already so close, so he just, kinda, pushed himself into the rope instead. 
So there Robin is, tied upside down in a warehouse, with the Joker below next to an overly complicated control panel. The clown’s rambling about bombs hidden all over the city that Tim knows Batman is already tracking down with Batgirl. 
Tim’s not really paying attention to the rant because of that, more focused on wiggling enough to get the spare mini-birdarang out of his glove to cut the rope without notifying the Joker. 
“Yikes, bad time?” Asks Phantom’s voice beside him. Based on the source and accounting for the slight echo, he’s floating with his head near Tim’s, likely upside down. “Want some help?” 
Tim gets the birdarang out and starts sawing at the thick rope. They should be fine anyway, but stalling the Joker for extra time would be helpful. “Can you possess the Joker? Just hold him still.”
“The correct term is overshadow, but sure.” The voice disappears, and a few seconds later the Joker freezes. 
His body jerks forward, then backward, and a laugh chokes out of his throat. His hand claws over his mouth at the noise and he hunches over. All movement halts before he rights himself, shaking out his hands and rolling his shoulders. Phantom looks up at Tim and his eyes are glowing. 
Tim cuts through the rope, kicking and using the momentum to right himself and land on his feet. He brushes past Phantom in Joker’s body to handle the control panel. He turns off the radio broadcast and dismantles the bomb strapped to the panel.
Threat handled, he turns to Phantom and holds up some handcuffs. “Let me arrest you?”
Phantom obliges, turning the Joker’s body around and putting his hands behind his back. Tim lets him walk by himself out of the warehouse and moves the handcuffs around a lamppost. The Joker’s body jerks again, then slumps forward, just as Phantom reappears next to him, scowling down at the unconscious body. 
“That felt really slimy. Zero out of ten, would not do again,” Phantom grouches. 
“Why’re you in Gotham?” Tim asks. It’s not like Phantom makes a habit of visiting. The last time he came into the city, he complained about feeling the dead under the streets. Fortunately, that let Tim uncover a few tunnels that Talons travel through. Phantom, however, was unnerved by the Talons and left quickly. 
“Oh, Solomon Grundy’s back in our sewers. Richard said I should probably tell one of you Gotham heroes, since you keep track of those guys.” He shakes out his hands like they were cramped in the Joker. 
They hadn’t seen Grundy in a while. Tim assumed he was currently in a less violent personality. “What’s he doing?” 
Phantom shrugs. “Just chilling. Mostly underground. I tried to talk to him but he only grunted back at me. He also tried to pick me up, dunno what that was about.”
“Maybe because you’re both dead?” Tim guessed. That would be a surface level connection. Ivy and Woodrue have had more luck working with Grundy than anyone, and Phantom definitely doesn’t have the connection to the Green that’d help with that. 
Police lights turn around the corner, and Tim shoots a grapple to get to the roof above them. Phantom follows, but disappears as soon as they’re on the roof. Going back home, probably. 
Cass drops down from the roof she was listening on. “Richard?”
“Not the same one.”
They both stick around long enough to watch the Joker get put into the cop car. 
Plus one
A spaceship landed in the forests of New York, and Cassie’s team was the first to respond to it. Technically not respond, but check it out, since there wasn’t any alert or anything. 
Still, Wonder Girl has Empress, Robin, and Superboy on the other side of the ship, watching what looks like the back door, while she, Impulse, and Phantom watch the other door and main window. She has binoculars, but the windows are so tinted she can’t quite make anything out. 
No aliens have come out yet, and she hesitates to have anyone go in, in case whoever inside does turn hostile. 
Impulse has offered to run through a total of five times already, and it’s a testament to his restraint that he hasn’t, and a testament to Cassie’s that she hasn’t yelled at him yet. Phantom at least isn’t being annoying, but he’s not necessarily helpful, either. He’s not even watching the spaceship anymore. Now he’s trying to make a flower crown out of dandelions. 
“Door’s opening on our side,” Robin says from the comms. “But no one’s coming out.” 
“Alright, good enough to try to get in,” Cassie decides. She turns to Phantom, who’s closing off the circle of flowers. Beside him, Impulse has since pulled out a gameboy. “Phantom, go in invisibly through the open door and report back. Try to see what their plans are.” 
“Oh, sure. One second.” Phantom finishes the crown and tries to put it on Bart’s head. It doesn’t quite fit over his mane of hair, but Phantom shrugs and leaves it sitting there anyway before going invisible. 
“Maybe I should shave my head again,” Bart says as his game character dies. 
He gets a resounding no in response. 
Half an hour later they have a very annoyed Green Lantern lecturing them about league jurisdiction and knowing when to call someone else. 
Apparently, the alien ship was just stopping to complete some maintenance, and did not appreciate any spying on them, and especially did not appreciate who did it. Green Lantern was more than happy to explain that Wonder Girl’s team is not really a part of the Justice League and he can help with their maintenance. They denied his help and left to find a place with less people in it. 
“-and you!” Green Lantern rounds on Phantom next, but Cassie knows none of them are really listening. Sure, they messed up by freaking out the visiting aliens, and yeah maybe they should have contacted the league about it, but they’ve dealt with stuff worse than this! It’s not Cassie’s fault she thought that this would have stuck to the formula. 
“Who even are you?” Green Lantern runs a hand through his black hair, stupid green gauntlets shining in the sunlight. “Do I need to call your mentor?” He frowns. “Or do they know you mess up alien technology by just being around it?” 
Phantom scoffs and rolls his eyes. “How was I supposed to know their tech would go all fuzzy when I came in?” 
“You wouldn’t have to know if you just stayed out of the spaceship!” 
“Hey!” Cassie cuts in. “Technically that was my call. It’s not all on Phantom.”
“I still could've been more careful,” Phantom says to her, ignoring Green Lantern as they argue about blame. 
“Cut it out for a second, okay?” Green Lantern puts a hand between them and they stop to glare at him. He pulls the hand back. “Look, can I just talk to one of your adults about this?” 
Robin glares. “We don’t need an adult. We have this under control.”
“Only because I’m here now.” 
“I’ll call my mentor,” Phantom says. Kon opens his mouth, most likely to offer to call Superman instead in hopes of a lighter sentence, but Bart covers his mouth, smiling like he knows something Cassie doesn’t. Tim and Anita share a look, and don’t intervene as Phantom pulls out a phone from his chest. 
It rings once before it’s picked up. Cassie can’t hear the other side of the conversation, but Kon’s eyebrows scrunch in confusion. “Hey, do you think you can pick me up? Green Lantern wants to talk to you.” Phantom looks Green Lantern up and down then says, “No, this one doesn’t have a cape.”
Phantom says goodbye after rattling off their coordinates, hangs up, and stares at Green Lantern in silence for a few seconds. 
And then a swirling mass of black seeps into the space next to Phantom. The end of a cane steps out of it, followed by a leg, then the rest of the immaculately dressed man holding the handle of the cane that’s shaped like a bird’s head. 
“Phantom,” The man says. His voice drips with condescension in only a way a british accent can, yet Phantom smiles up at him. The shadowy portal behind him disappears. “What, exactly, happened?”
“That’s the fucking Shade,” Anita hisses to Robin, who shrugs noncommittedly at her. Green Lantern seems to recognise him too, taking a step back and clenching his hand that holds his ring. 
“Well, the team and I were staking out this spaceship–super cool, by the way–and I went inside to check it out, but my presence messed with their tech–which was an accident–and they freaked out, so I freaked out, and then we kinda got into a little fight until Green Lantern came to mediate.”
“Hm. Is that right?” The Shade asks Green Lantern, who nods slowly, still anticipating an attack. “It seems like the problem’s fixed, then.”
“Well, yes, but–”
“And it does seem about time for these kids to get home, doesn't it?” The Shade pulls out an actual pocket watch, chain and all, from his suit pocket and takes his time in checking it. “I’ll see them home.” 
Shadows grow from behind the team, swirling until they become a giant, gaping maw that swallows them up and spits them out in a different forest, or maybe just a different part of the same forest. 
Either way, Cassie has to take a moment to make sure she doesn’t throw up from the sudden vertigo the shadow portal caused. 
The Shade looks at Phantom, and raises an eyebrow. “You can’t expect me to always bail you out.” 
Phantom shrugs, looking guilty. “I know. Thanks, Richard.”
Oh, so that’s who Richard is. Annoyingly, neither Tim or Bart look surprised by this revelation.
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