#form handling

[idontmindifuforgetme]

“she’s aging so well!!” and the woman they’re referring to is like 27. touch grass

[batsyheere]

"So, handling your archnemesis," Danny starts. The room falls quiet, heads slowly turning to look at the man as he writes the words on the chalkboard. When finished, the characters somehow both messy and neat at once, Danny places the chalk back down and claps his hands.

"I typically call them fruitloops. Often they're in a better position than you are- older, richer, more powerful. They may have some sort of status that protects them when facing the public."

Tim wondered where Dick was right now, and if he was laughing. His brain was lagging like a computer as he tried to process what Danny was saying, and how seriously a few of his fellow teen vigilantes were taking this.

"Some of their more common tactics are-" the chalk was picked back up, and Danny writes as he speaks.

"Manipulation, isolation, conditioning, and empathy."

MICE.

Tim stares at the board, and quietly slips put his phone.

-What have I done to deserve this.

Enjoy your lessons Tim-

His head thumps against the desk. Conner leans over, gives him a pat on the shoulder but returns to taking notes as Danny goes on to explain the conditioning tactic.

[zombolouge]

The thing is, it's not about the Therapy Speak. It's not that everyone who disliked DAV hates healthy communication as a dynamic in fiction. It's not even about only being allowed to be a good guy, really, because most of us did do that anyways (though the option not being there is a loss I grieve even if I never chose it myself, but that's another rant for another day).

It's that DAV does all that stuff at the expense of being believable. At the expense of characters being permitted to have personalities. At the expense of emotions behaving the way emotions actually work for people. At the expense of letting the plot build tension through the stakes we're forced to grapple with.

Half the fics out there take the conflicts between the characters in the previous games and resolve them. I do it myself ALL THE TIME because I like to find a path to resolution through just about any conflict, that's what fascinates me about telling these stories. But the higher the stakes, the harder a conflict is to resolve. You CAN resolve any conflict, you CAN communicate healthily through any emotion, but you can't skip the time it takes to process it all to even be able to communicate it. As someone whose got CPTSD and recovered from many Traumas, I can tell you that the TIME it takes to work through it is not something you can fast track, and the ups and downs of your emotions on that journey can't be skipped. It doesn't matter if you know exactly how to do it, exactly how it's going to feel, or exactly what the end state will be, you CAN'T speedrun it.

DAV has stakes that are astronomical, but nobody treats them that way. Nobody experiences denial - a common psychological reaction to being presented with information that shatters your worldview. Nobody expresses any distrust in the establishments handing out this information - something common among cultures that have at times been at war, even if those wars are "resolved" in the present. Nobody really ever breaks down - something that any person is capable of under extreme circumstances, especially when facing multiple crises of faith that challenge everything they thought they knew about themselves. Nobody blows their lid because they've been repressing the hell out of everything. Nobody grieves for southern Thedas, the entire thing dying off screen and giving you, the player, NO way to engage with it in any way.

Not to mention there are barely any inter-party conflicts, when there should be a lot more. Why is everyone (except Spite) fine with it if Emmrich sacrifices Manfred to become a lich? Why is everyone fine with Illario potentially being set free if he was working with the venatori and Elgar'nan, two sources that have actively attacked everyone in the party? Why doesn't Neve resent Lucanis if Treviso is picked? Why doesn't Harding get pissed off at Nevarra for having a secret society of liches that never helped during the Inquisition's war against the breach and corypheus? Why doesn't Harding feel ANYTHING about Ferelden and the rest of the south? Shouldn't Harding resent the fact that she's stuck in the north while her home dies?

All of these conflicts ARE resolvable, but not easily. And it's not believable that they're never brought up. It's not believable that these characters skip through everything that happens with like, barely a frowny face most of the time. In DAO, Alistair leaves if you don't treat his conflicts with respect. In DA2, your party members try to kill each other if you don't pay attention to their conflicts/emotional needs. In DAI, people can leave or betray you, Cassandra throws a chair at Varric and tries to body him out a window. ALL of these can be resolved but it takes effort, and the characters get to SHOW that they're bothered by them and struggling the way a person would when faced with those emotions.

The problem isn't the therapy speak, or that everyone is loyal and won't leave, or that they aren't mean to each other enough. It's that it's toxic positivity. It's toxic as fuck to imply that anger or grief should be smiled over or else you're giving up, and it's damaging to people to avoid engaging with their own negative emotional responses to extremely negative stimuli. It's pasting optimism over very real, very weighty issues, sweeping it all under the rug, and you keep waiting for the lid to blow off the pressure cooker that creates, but it never does. It never becomes anything that emulates real emotions, which is why the whole damn thing feels hollow. Everything's dying and nobody cares, not even about themselves, and that's NOT healthy communication.

It's bullshit, half-assed storytelling that didn't tell us the actual story, just the vague idea of what it could have been.

[starry-bi-sky]

no thoughts head empty de-aged blood blossom danny

if ONLY because i was at work yesterday out in the play yard and one of the babies from the one year old room walked up to me, held up her arms and went "up. up" and i caved like a wet fucken nOODLE and im inflicting that onto Bruce

so im just picturing like, roughly 18mo Danny, just absolutely teeny, walking up to Bruce in the Batman suit, grabbing his cape and pulling on it to get his attention or plastering himself to the side of his legs (<- real experience i've had) and when Bruce looks down at him Danny just goes "Bah-man, bah-man. Up."

and im teLLING YOU. Bruce would cave in a fucking heartbeat.

or if he crouches down, Danny will just crawl onto him anyways. wraps both arms around his neck and tries to raise his leg over his knee so he can wrap himself around his waist (<- ALSO A REAL EXPERIENCE I'VE HAD)

also he can't fully articulate himself yet, he doesn't have all of his teeth quite yet and phonetics are harD, so he can't say Bruce it just sounds like "boo" or "booce" like 'boost' but without the 't'.

[bluerosefox]

Beloved Beyond Time

A DeadSerious Prompt where a young Damian follows his mother's advice about finding his future 'Beloved' and is smitten with a TimeTraveling Ghost King (Prince) Danny when his grandfather summoned the eldritch being.

Damian, despite being young, will want no other to be by his side once he takes over the League. Especially since the King was able to strike fear in his grandfather for even just for a moment.

Danny, whose just started taking up his soon to be Kingly title and duties, at first freaked out when a kid who just got out of toddlerhood is offering marriage. Who wouldn't. And well while he didn't fully encourage it, he found it a little adorable and tried to nudge the kid away from said... err crush feelings?

He was a little sad to have to say goodbye to the kid when his month long stay with the al Ghul's (mostly to see if they're worthy to keep the Pits) he was pretty for sure he'd never run into the kid again and if he did who knows how old they'd actually be because again.. time travel.

So Danny now at the age of 16 really wasn't expecting to be basically be cornered on his first day at his new school at Gotham Academy by a 17 year old Damian Wayne who is leaning over him and says "Hello Beloved. Time has been kind to you it seems."

Danny's poor half-alive heart is currently dying from being cornered by an older Damian.

Let this crazy train wreck begin.

[theartingace]

I've been just as obsessed with Martha Well's Raksura series as I am with Murderbot but they have been SIGNIFICANTLY harder to work out the designs so they feel right but we're getting there!

[valkugo]

gay people can never say "i love you", instead they have to be all melodramatic about how #that one person in their life was bigger than the goal they worked for during their whole life; was bigger than everything else.

bonus: viktor and griffith in their matching evil eggs!

[wuffgang-ameowdeus-moozart]

Wait actually natsu and lucy as a team are so funny. kid who was raised by a dragon that does not understand the concept of money. girl who was raised in a mansion and has never had to budget in her life. Neither has any idea what anything is supposed to cost or how much their labor is worth. Both are terrible impulse buyers. And that's not even starting with all the property damage.

[dykedvonte]

I think depictions of Anya being cruel to Curly or drawing out his suffering are artful and chilling but completely miss the point of the story and her character.

I'm not saying she doesn't deserve to have that "I told you so" moment with him but not in something callous or cold. Even if that is how it happened, she'd immediately feel guilty cause at that point she's not tormenting her tormenter or even the person truly at fault. She's doing something cathartic, similar to how Jimmy likely hits Curly to release rage he can't against the rest of the crew. She'd see herself as no different when she'd come back from the moment and see Curly cowering at her. She wants someone to take responsibility but how does being cruel to the defenseless help? Why would she want the power Jimmy has over her over Curly?

The idea of her extending someone else's pain is just so against the struggles she already faces and how she can't even bring herself to cause someone pain even to help them. Her very desire is to release herself from her own suffering and I doubt she'd even fine some sort of guilty release in being cruel to another.

[spacesheeeeeep]

Actually so tired that people mainly focus on the bdsm when they talk about La Pianiste when we literally have this dynamic right here. Like, that's insane.

What if you were a little girl in her 40's who couldn't grow up because of your mother-wife who made you sleep in her bed and forced you to repress every sexual desires and thoughts of becoming your own person just to keep you close to her ? What if you fought back and yearned for dangerous things out of her reach ? But also, what if you let her because it's all you've ever known and been taught to want ?

[tabooiart]

this hot pink bitch was named breakfast!!!

[devilstrapinthepanicroom]

Every time I imagine a scenario where John finds out that Dean's siren took the form of a perfect brother, I realize that it would be impossible to deny the wincest narrative. Like, in what conceivable world would John write that off as anything other than incest? Do you honestly think he'd take one look, just assume "oh he's into dudes" and not explore it any deeper? John would've beaten Dean into next Tuesday if he had been around for that siren hunt, and not just because John is likely homophobic. It's because Dean is weird and he's attracted to his little brother. Literally look at it from an outside family member's perspective and you realize how not normal that whole scene was.

[the-last-butter]

HC they first met a year or two after Yelan got her vision; post fighting the in abyss but when Kaeya was still navigating his identity from Kaeya, Brother and Right hand of Diluc Ragnvindr to Kaeya Alberich, Cavalry Captain and Quarter master of the Knights of Favonius.

[ew-selfish-art]

Dpx Dc AU: Ectoplasm is required for Ghosts to be visible to the human eye- And Danny creates his own ectoplasm.

Danny is visiting Jazz in Gotham and its weird how friendly everyone is. Like, the city gets a really bad rapport, everywhere he goes there is someone trying to strike up a conversation or answer his questions about getting around to the tourist spots. A few people even pointed out restaurants and ways to find off the beaten path gems! Jazz seems to role her eyes at him, but when he brings up her 'roommate' being kind of cute she flat out laughs.

Danny then comes to understand the Jazz doesn't have a roommate and that Ghosts in Gotham don't move far from their haunts- He's just been inadvertently turning these undead folks visible by accident of generating abnormal amounts of ectoplasm.

Which, is comforting in a way, he's never walking this dangerous city alone and really, most of the ghosts have been really friendly! They disappear once he's a few blocks away from them anyway.

---

Tim Drake is having a horrible day.

He'd been given intel that one of Black Mask's guys was going to snitch but that he'd died before given the opportunity to reach out to the GCPD. He tracks down the guy's last know whereabouts and yikes. Its next to the Theater. Tim was often grateful for his childhood obsessions, this time it backfired.

Tim and Bruce get into an argument about trust and respect and, worst of all, mental health. And even though Tim was vehemently against Batman accompanying Red Robin to the alleyway - that's exactly what happens.

They arrive and Bruce is closing up faster than a clam in the contaminated Gotham Bay- Clearly being in the Alley bothers him. No fucking shit. RR gets started on collecting evidence, there are a few extra blood splatters and a single left shoe... When a kid walks into the Alley.

"Uh, sorry to intrude-" The kid looks scared shitless, and runs away. And then, all of a sudden, Batman and Robin aren't alone in the Alley.

Tim can hardly believe his eyes as the dead man appears and quickly blabs Black Mask's bank passwords and what the plan had been- and While he's over joyed to have that closure, he turns around to Batman weeping in the arms of his parents.

The ghosts fade, and the emotions are certainly charged as this was never something Bruce or Tim would have ever dreamed of happening. Ghosts in Gotham. Talking, floating, granting closure.

"RR, Bats, come in." Oracle calls into their ears.

"Reporting in, but, uh, we need a minute."

"A minute? We have a case on 4th and-"

"O, we just saw the ghosts of the Waynes. It's going to be a minute."

"...Lots of Ghost reports lately then. Any chance you saw a kid looking like he could be adopted?"

"Yeah, actually, black hair and blue eyes. He was super polite before he ran away."

"We have work to do. Oracle, lets prioritize finding our person of interest and divert Nightwing and Robin to the case on 4th." Batman cut between them on the comms and he sounded... calmer than either of them anticipated.

---

Jazz is no longer laughing when Batman appears at her door explaining that he's looking for Danny (Who already flew away from town to get a good night's sleep before class on Monday). Turns out Danny reunited the man with his dead parents just briefly- and then the second guy appears and mentions how Danny had also given a guy who'd been murdered by a Mob enough time to explain the ongoing threats the city faced.

Jazz just rolls her eyes and says that it's not like the ghosts are going anywhere anytime soon and Danny will visit in another month. When pressed, she just explains that her brother is a weirdo. No of course he doesn't have powers. Gaslight and Girlbosses her way out.

And Jazz thinks that the game is up for at least another month, obviously when Danny visits more shit will stir up, but then this new guy appears.

Unlike the other Bats who are keen on watching her from a distance, the Red Hood knocks on her door. Are her eyebrows all the way into her hairline when Red Hood asks her to send his thanks along to Danny because somehow this whole situation led to his Dad expressing remorse for his actions and apologizing? Yes, yes they are.

But Jazz can smell Dissertation Data off of these vigilantes- Who is she to send them away? Jazz welcomes Red Hood into her place for a cup of tea and a small chat.

The story then devolves into Jazz getting shit done, Danny being cute by proximity and also bringing ghosts to the party, and the Bats having trauma resolve between them.

[hughmanbean]

Space Lady

When Bruce gets lost in time he sees a common sight between each jump.

A woman in a dress of nebulae, stars studded around her neck, hair a soft silver.

He asks who she is, and she does nothing.

He asks who she is, and she smiles mischievously.

He asks what she's doing. "Watching" is all he gets.

He asks what the purpose of this is, and she looks at him like he's stupid.

He tries to move around, but seems to loop back around. She looks amused at his attempts.

After Vanishing Point, during his last jump, he asks her if she knew what was going to happen.

"Aren't you the world's greatest detective? I'm sure if you put your mind to it, you'll figure it out. Now off you go."

---

It's been 2 years since Damian had been dropped into the family. Even after, Bruce felt like he was being watched sometimes.

He gets a visitor at the door, and standing there is the Lady.

"How have you been, Bruce? Doing well I hope. Be a dear and let me in, would you?"

[garlicgravy]

I don't remember this but HOLY FUCKING SHIIIIIITT LLOYD WAS CONFIRMED TO BE AT LEAST 9 YEARS OLD HERE AND HE WAS ABLE TO DO THAT??? JESUS FUCK