Unpleasant Revelations - DPxDC Ficlet Idea for the Stillborn Au
"Have you met my youngest, Damian, Mr. Masters?"
Its only from twenty years of long, hard experience and practice that Vlad doesn't increase the room temperature from 'borderline uncomfortably cool' to 'unbearably hot' the moment Bruce Wayne pulls his youngest and "only" biological son out in front of him.
He puts only in quotations because twelve year old Damian Wayne looks scarily, uncannily like one Daniel Brown. Jack and Maddie's foster son, second victim of their foolishness, and only other halfa in existence. Second only to him.
It's nauseating how similar they look. From the scowl and terrible glare on the young boy's face, to his brown skin -- which was only a few shades lighter than Daniel's, the shape of his nose, and even the strange winged edge of his eyebrow. Something that Vlad has long since come to find endearing on the child he considered a son of his own. The only difference was that Damian had dark, sharp green eyes.
Daniel's eyes were blue. The same glacier shade as his father's, who stood behind Damian with a proud, oafish smile on his visage.
It was infuriating how similar they look. Vlad might not have rapidly swung the room temperature from one extreme to the other, but he can't stop himself from letting the fury burning within his core from slipping out and raising the temperature up a few degrees.
Because it really only meant one thing.
Damian Wayne and Daniel Brown were related.
Damian Wayne and Daniel Brown were brothers.
Standing in front of him, it was clear as day. He can already picture a phantom image of Daniel standing beside Damian, the same scowl written on his face, the same glare carved into his eyes. The only difference being the dark, exhausted circles beneath them that seemed to be permanently painted onto his skin. The only thing missing being the permanent loneliness and vigilance permeating his being like a scar.
This, if revealed, would be enough to ruin Bruce Wayne's reputation. Or, at the very least, darken it quite a bit. The great philanthropist Bruce Wayne with another secret blood child? One related to his youngest? One that had been put into foster care? Seemingly thrown away?
It would be a firestorm.
One that Vlad is not keen on starting.
It would ruin Bruce Wayne's reputation, yes. But it would hurt Daniel in the process -- the harassment he would face alone might just be enough to break that fragile child completely. That was just not something he could allow. Or, even worse, bring him into his biological father's care and custody -- something Vlad was even less willing to allow.
It's not out of kindness to Wayne that Vlad will keep mum about this.
His grip on his champagne flute tightens, just a bit. He's still aware enough of the world around him to not let it shatter in his hands. His plastered, pleasant smile tightens around the corners, and he forces his focus to slide from Damian to Wayne.
"The resemblance is uncanny, Mister Wayne." He says, slanting his smile to the side slyly. Although he's not talking about the resemblance between Wayne and his son. Rage simmers beneath his skin, burning coal and embers in the core of his chest, nestled between his lungs, as he meets the man's eyes.
Wayne swaggles his head proudly, his ditzy smile widening as he squeezes his son's shoulder affectionately. Bastard, Vlad wants to spit.
He breathes in through his nose, and exhales out through his mouth. The champagne in his hand cools, and stops its unusual bubbling.
The Damian boy scoffs under his breath, his mouth still coiled upward into a scowl. With the revelation of his blood relation to Daniel evident, Vlad's not sure if he should find it endearing or not.
He is not Daniel, so he decides that it's just simply irritating. He decides to ignore it.
"And you said he was your only biological son?" He asks, voice lilting and head tilting. He knows its a suspicious question at worst, insulting at best. But considering Wayne's past proclivities, he can hardly call it an unexpected question.
Damian puffs in great offense, face twisting angrily. It reminds him of Daniel when Vlad insisted that he was wrong about something or other, and for a moment his heart swells, fond.
But this is not his child, and so the feeling quickly crashes and burns, simmering back into rage. This was not Daniel -- this was his replacement. A replacement that Wayne was free to keep.
Wayne chuckles, idiotically, as if he'd said some funny joke. Vlad's other hand, the one gripping his cane -- something he's required ever since he was dispatched from the hospital all those lonely years ago -- tightens instead. He grinds his teeth -- him and Jack Fenton would get along like a house on fire, he hates it.
"I can understand why you'd ask that, Mister Masters," Wayne says, squeezing Damian's shoulder again, "but yes, Damian is my only biological son. Although that doesn't mean I don't love my other children any less."
Bastard.
For all his posturing and flouncing about caring for his city and his children, Vlad never would have thought the Prince of Gotham capable of abandoning one of them.
But, well.
They all have their dark secrets.
And what one man throws away, another man picks up. If Bruce Wayne didn't want the treasure child that was Daniel Brown, then Vlad Masters was more than happy to take him instead.
"I see."
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Thinking about that one joke in the Book of Bill that implied Bill might be the biological father of the Flynn kids. Thinking about how Linda Flynn had a secret career as a famous astrophysicist at one point. Thinking about how we don’t know exactly what Bill was doing in the 90s, and how he seems to want to skim over that part of his life, after Ford broke up with him for good but before the twins showed up in Gravity Falls.
Thinking about how Bill frequently hung out with famous musicians. Thinking about Linda, a brilliant young woman fresh off a bizarre pop star career, wanting to make a name for herself that ISN’T Lindana, might have found a new direction with an old friend (before he showed her his true colors.)
Thinking about Bill, fresh off a devastating breakup, trying again one more time to get SOMEONE on Earth to make him a portal. Trying to make the plan WORK. Trying to get a home for his friends in the face of a home dimension that was being destroyed (again). Having someone who’s COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from the man he was obsessed with, but who was no less brilliant and no less capable. (But, unfortunately for him, MUCH less gullible.)
Thinking about how Linda doesn’t want people to know about her former career as a famous astrophysicist. How she keeps this secret, even better than she did her past as Lindana. How she keeps the lid on this even TIGHTER. How she’s almost bitter about it. As if something HAPPENED.
I’m not saying Bill Cipher WAS Linda’s partner of at least five years, even going so far as to start a family with her before she saw his true colors and filed some sort of Uber-effective inter-dimensional restraining order against him, one-upping him so hard that he doesn’t even wanna think about it, but. Holy shit. Imagine
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no cause like
motifs and themes we've had for chara are like
golden flowers (the colour gold in general)
the soul
chocolate and sweets
knives
death, sacrifice and burial
save points (I WILL die on this hill) and erasing (raw game mechanics)
gardening and plants
autonomy, choice and control
scary faces
smiles (that double as scary faces)
...
And NOW the number 9, the highest number, where nothing can hurt you, where nothing can hurt anyone.
Here's to another 999 years of Chara lore!! I cannot believe we're getting Chara Undertale in the year of our lord 2024...
crumbles into a pathetic pile
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also like au where teenaged Li xiangyi runs into also teenaged di feisheng mid fight with a di assassin, li xiangyi finds out about the mind control bug via idk overhearing the two Di kids being like 'yeah neither of us want to do this really but y'know. it's not like we have a choice' or whatever, and thus li xiangyi, baby activist for JUSTICE ends up fully derailing his sort of vauge plans to set up a sect in favour of dealing with this terrible injustice because it's, y'know, pretty fucked up and also he's been in the martial world for about six weeks max and in that time he's seen one (1) sect fully massacred like his repressed trauma backstory, presumably thrown himself into a bunch of other unfair fights, and is now faced with a guy only a couple years older than him who's digging his kind-of sect brother's grave after being forced to fight him to death because of fucking mind control slavery
(because on the one hand he's still kind of an arrogant brat, and on the other hand this shit is fucked up and also super personal and kinda complicated in a way that 'just sword the problem to jail/death' can't actually fix, given the whole mind control thing, and he is very rapidly finding out that wow, turns out everything off the mountain is actually very extremely fucked up and way more complicated than he thought.)
shan gudao shows up after like, barely a week away doing idk, sketchy nanyin related things probably, and his arrogant brat of a shidi is immediately hey guess what shixiong new plan we can get back to sect building later, also this is my new best friend he's awesome at sword and barely socialised, also also he's crashing with us now or rather I'm crashing with him and his band of weirdos he's collecting!
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"Do you know where we are going next?" I asked ART.
Y'know what, I think maybe I don't need any more Murderbot books. I think maybe ending things here is fucking perfect and as much as I love Wells's writing I'm genuinely not sure it can get better for me.
Like, so much of the books are about MB learning how to be a person, about becoming okay with being a complete individual with everything it entails. The first thing it does once it's actually allowed to decide on its own is it runs away from it all (admittedly to go on a mission to confirm some things about its past, because it genuinely just wants to be *good*). It shoves all its emotions away as much as it's able to. Then shit happens, and it makes its first friends, makes decisions based on these friendships, goes through a lot of emotionally intense situations...
And we get to this point here. MB having zero doubts about going with ART says a lot about its relationship with ART, but it also says a lot about its relationship with its humans - it knows that wherever it goes, when it comes back, the humans will still be there. Its humans actively acknowledge its struggles with being a now-free SecUnit and MB is willing to entertain the discussions to an extent and share information about its deeply personal experiences. Hell, System Collapse ends with MB admitting it might be somewhat broken, but that's okay as long as it can keep doing its job, and agreeing to basically do counselling - this is the guy what would rewatch its favourite TV show again and again in order to avoid acknowledging it even had Emotions a couple books back.
Reading this, I know that MB will be okay. It has hopes and goals and genuinely believes in itself and it has an amazing support system that its willing to lean on for the first time in its life. I'm convinced it'll go on to do great things with ART. And that's really the only thing I need to know.
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Clark Kent is fucking terrifying as a reporter.
All he does is take an interview with the suspects, before throwing down some of the hardest questions that leaves them squirming in their seats.
They see this shy man who always hunches, wears dorky glasses and assume they’re the ones in charge. But the moment he timidly asks if they can record the session, lulled by their false sense of security they end up agreeing and the tables turn so fast none of them are left standing.
Question after question, of events that could not have possibly been made public, of deals and skeletons in the closet no one has dared open.
And the man is a bloodhound.
Clark uses his superhearing to help gather information. He knows drop locations, families, the plotting betrayals and plans. So all it takes is a little investigation, connecting the dots before blowing apart the criminals’ plans.
The villains, aware of his reputation, tell everyone to lie their ass off.
Most even pass the lie detector. But Clark never uses it.
He asks them questions that don’t seem related to the case, throwing them off their game asking about their health, the weather and so forth.
And there’s just something about him that makes them drop their guards without realising it. Something that even Batman has admitted to. The fact that despite his appearance, there’s an almost non existent aura, and you don’t even realise you’re saying something confidential or sliping up.
The villains lie about everything there is, avoiding every trap yet somehow from an interview about rabbits Clark Kent now publishes a plot of robbing Metropolis’ banks along with the details all laid out.
If Clark Kent comes for you, everyone knows it’s a death sentence.
This post can be summed up in this quote
Villain *to hunched back, averting gaze Clark Kent* : Do you know how to walk on your knees?
Clark *suddenly standing straight, looking them in the eyes while towering over them* : Do you?
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