#hell give us another tt special

[looneysmackdown]

been almost 24 years and im still wondering why we got pinky elmyra and the brain and not a slappy squirrel spinoff

[arty-shadow-morningstar]

Con Man's Daughter

Posting this because there isn't enough biodad! John Constantine content.

[Masterlist]

(Part 2)

-----

I feel like this should be a Damianette story or just platonic relationship after Jon got aged-up to seventeen and Damian wanted a friend his age but doesn’t want to admit it.

So basically there is this big bad in Gotham using magic that Batman was fighting at the time and enlisted John Constantine to help out.

John realizes that the villain is using a Miraculous.

“Oh. I think I know how he gets his powers. And lucky for you, Bats, I know an expert on this special brand of magic.”

And he did the smart thing and called up Marinette who at the time was already Guardian and was looking for other lost Miraculouses like in the Treasure Hunter AU I wrote.

He calls her at a really bad time. She was in the process of being chased by the guardians of the place. Monsters and evil spirits.

“Hello, Dad. What do you need and can you do it quickly?”

“Hey, sweetheart, it’s me. How is my little cupcake up to these days?”

“You called at a bad time.” Gunshots.

“WAS THAT A GUN I HEARD? WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU, YOUNG LADY?!”

“Somewhere in Japan. Getting a Miraculous. And why can’t you call me to check in on me and not ask me to help you with whatever mess you got yourself into.” More gunshots sounds and it was telling that Marinette was using a gun.

“Where did you get a gun? And don’t you have school?”

“It’s summer break. Don’t worry Maman and Papa know. Well, the fact that I am in Japan anyways.” Marinette sounded a little out of breath. Roaring and horrifying sounds at the other end. “Can we do this later?”

“As it happens, there is a villain going around Gotham with what I think is a Miraculous.”

Swears on the other end.

“Oi. Watch your fucking language, young lady.”

“How about a No and move the fuck back, old man. I am coming over right now.”

“Old man? I am not that old-” as a magic blue portal opens up in the Bat Cave.

And a red Chinese dragon comes out with someone riding it.

Its rider was a black-haired girl. She had a trench coat similar to Constantine's. I imagine her with a fedora. Like Carmen Sandiego style but not red. Sometimes red but only when she has to steal it from a museum or high security places and she leaves a name card with the name Carmen Sandiego. A sword strapped to her back and a dagger to her thigh.

She had a gun in her hand which she used to shoot the monsters as it was halfway through the portal and yelled out the spell to close it.

“Brilliant entrance but you are in lots of trouble, little lady. What were you thinking about going to another country unsupervised? And isn’t there still a butterfly problem in Paris?”

“One, I wasn’t unsupervised. I had Tikki, a billion years old being and a sort of god. Two.Well, it got boring trying to track Hawk-bitch down. And I found this legend about a guy with a Miraculous who disappeared in the temple and thought hey, more miraculous could mean another edge to defeating Moth-man.”

More bickering and John grounding Marinette who was acting very nonchalant about it.

Okay, at this point, I should say that Batman and Robin are in the background trying to make some sense.

Batman is surprised to find out that Constantine has a daughter who is also involved in magic like her Father but an apparently more specialised kind called the Miraculous. He is a little miffed that he didn’t know about John having a daughter. He did consider it weird at first that she had a slight french accent unlike her father’s Liverpool accent although she pronounced some words like he does.

He also connected some dots that she is also the Parisian heroine, Lady Rouge who Wonder Woman introduced to the League a while back and had declined to join the Young Justice or Teen Titans until everything in Paris was resolved.

Damian on the other hand was suspicious of the new arrival and came to the same conclusion as his father about the daughter thing.

Batman after a few minutes, clears his throat.

The Constantines stop arguing.

“Bonjour. Batman. Robin. Pleasure to meet you. I am Mari Constantine and yes, I am this homeless looking man’s brilliant daughter.” “Hey”

“Well, Mari. Your father thinks you can help us with this new criminal turning Gotham upside down. Literally in some cases. He said that you might be able to help us.” Batman said as he pulled up zoomed in picture of the Miraculous.

Mari looks through the Miraculous grimoire and tells them all about it and power-ups, basically the most effective thing to defeat the guy is to get the Miraculous off them. Plus a spell that would make the Miraculous ineffective if casted within a certain radius of it.

“Thank you for the information, Mari. Constantine, let’s go.”

Mari made to follow them.

“You young lady are grounded and staying here.”

“I don’t need another supervillain using the Miraculous which are my responsibility as Guardian to retrieve them for their own misuse and wreaking havoc on the city. And what if there is an akuma in Paris? I can’t go there if I am grounded in the Batcave although it is a cool place to hang out.”

“You can portal back to Paris but you are not going to follow me. Understood?”

“yes. crystal”

“Good. After me and Batsy get the Miraculous, you can do your Guardian duties.”

Damian snickers. Until Batman cut his mood short, “You are staying behind too. Robin.”

“But Father, why? I am much more capable than Constantine.”

“Hey!” Both father and daughter.

Damian is staying behind too because of the Miraculous power or other reasons and keeps an eye on Mari.

Damian stays behind and there were some protests about mari mad about having a babysitter and Damian doesn’t want to be a babysitter. Despite the two of them being around the same age.

“I got an eye on you so no funny business.”

“Okay, Dad, I am not going to have sex with Robin.” Mari said with a shit- eating grin. Robin definitely didn’t blush.

“I hate you sometimes.”

“I love you too, Dad. Go save the world. Byee.”

John eyes her suspiciously because she is not one to give up that easily usually.

He casts a spell to watch her as they leave. and which she totally knew about.

“So...I have one question.”

“Tt, ask and don’t bother me anymore.”

“Is Batman Bruce Wayne?”

Damian looks up, totally caught off guard.

“I am going to take that as a yes.”

Puts sword at her neck. “How did you find out?!”

“Opened up Google Maps and saw that we are under Wayne Manor. Connected the dots. Also I already knew when Dad made a bet with me once to find out Batman’s secret identity but he never did confirm it for me. And can you please not tell your father about this? I don’t feel like being interrogated by the Bat in the future yet.”

“Father must know about this.”

“I saw you looking at Scarlet here. An animal lover then? You can give her some belly rubs. She deserves it after helping me outrun those monsters.”

His silence was brought. To pet a dragon.

One thing after another and he ends up bringing out his pets-Jerry the turkey, Goliath the dragon-bat, Titus- and her introducing him to her other pets like a hellhound, griffin and other mythical creatures who mostly roam free but come to her when she calls for them and also the kwamis, at least the ones who came with her.

After 30 mins have passed, “So Robin how do you feel about disobeying our fathers?”

“I am in.”

“Depends. Are we going after the (villain's name) ?”

“Yes.”

Awesome montage of them getting rid of the spell John casted and flying out of the Batcave on their respective giant flying pets to the villain’s base.

Meanwhile, their fathers are not doing so well and are trapped in a death trap. John can’t say the spell because the villain made him unable to talk.

“At least, the kids are staying put.”

Cut to Damian and Mari jumping off their pets and onto the roof. Taking out the guards posted there and going into the building all sneakily and also taking out the guards that come their way.

They dropped into the room where their fathers and the villain is.

“Why am I not surprised?”

Villain starts an evil monologue about his mastermind plan to which Damian cuts it short by trying to cut him down with his katana. Mari goes to deactivate the death trap.

They are evenly matched with Damian’s training and the Miraculous.

Mari steps in as Damian was about to be killed. Taps on the shoulder of the villain and when he turns around, gives an awesome right hook that knocks him out.

Takes away the Miraculous and curses him. Wiped the dude’s memories of it.

“When I said stay in the Batcave, I meant stay behind at the Batcave. What point of being grounded, don’t you understand?”

“You mean, Oh, Mari, light of my life, my wonderful daughter, thank you for saving my ass. You are the best.’ by that, right?”

-----

Mari and Damian exchanged numbers and email addresses.

As she was about to leave the Batcave, “It’s been nice meeting you, Mr. Wayne.” and leaves with a wink.

John ‘ungrounds’ her for the look on Batman’s face.

-----

After this, Marinette and Damian become friends who bitch and vent to each other about their alter egos and various villains of their respective cities. (In codes, just in case) They also share updates about their pets and love of drawings.

They have that type of friendship where they trade favors. Mari calls Damian to Paris sometimes to help out with the akuma of the day and Damian sometimes calls her in when Bruce doesn’t let him go investigate a case so he can sneak out by magical means or as back up for when his brothers were too annoying to deal with.

It’s summer break so no missing school.

John and Bruce are aware of their friendship and some of the shenanigans the pair gets into behind their back.

-----

-----

Right. how this all started...

John and Sabine first met when the latter was still in college somewhere in France. John was tracking down a demonic entity which was targeting Sabine for some reason and she was the next target.

John saved her life and exorcised the demon. There was a heat of the moment thing and they had a one-night stand. There were a few more flings and hook-ups after that night.

And nine months later, Marinette Cheryl Cheng-Constantine was born.

When Sabine first found out, she called John to come over and he thought that it was a call for another hook-up and was very surprised to find out that it was not and that he was going to be a father.

They both like each other but do not want to be in a relationship together so they both remained as friends and John agreed after some strong-arming at the very least to meet his daughter before he goes to do his job. And pay for child support. And help Sabine during her pregnancy.

Pregnant Sabine was someone you don’t want to mess with. And John has never met a demon or anyone scarier than her.

He was at first not into meeting his child and there was a self-pity party he threw himself with how the child was going to live a bad life because he was the dad and how he destroyed every good thing in his life.

That’s why he is going to meet the baby once and leave maybe a letter and the occasional birthday present and stay out of their life. Forever.

The day Marinette was born and it took one look into her eyes for the HellBlazer to fall under the spell and all of his plans to stay out of her life to burn away.

At first, he tried. He really tried but he couldn’t do it.

Lasted 4 months before he came back, wanting to place protection spells on her and sigils around the house to keep away the forces of Heaven and Hell and other entities so they won’t use her against him as a bargaining chip.

Sabine calls him to babysit. He could have refused and Sabine would have easily found a babysitter. He moans and whines about how he is a great mage and not a bloody babysitter. Sabine retorts that it is actually called parenting since he is Marinette’s father. He grumbles but in the end, agrees.

The great John Constantine is wrapped around the little girl’s finger.

He was around for some of Marinette’s firsts. Her first word was “John”.

It made him cry. He wasn’t a good man and he doesn’t deserve someone this precious. His daughter doesn’t deserve someone like him as a father but fate made it that way and what can you do about it.

After an exhausting week of doing the usual and coming back from Hell, he saw that Sabine had sent him a video. It was Marinette taking her first steps.

Chas swears that in all the years that he has known John Constantine he has never seen the man look so happy.

------

When Tom came into the picture, John was there to take care of a toddler Marinette while Tom and Sabine went on dates.

Insert John threatening a much bigger Tom while holding a baby Marinette with wide eyes and hugging a teddy bear with the same coat as John’s. (It was something Sabine brought on a whim and to tease John when he came around.)

Tom is supportive and treats Marinette like his own flesh and blood.

John resolved to leave for good now that Tom would be there to be a father figure for Marinette.

That plan fell into the drain the moment he was going to leave for what was supposed to be the last time before Sabine pulled him back and knocked some sense into him.

His face was a big giveaway. Sabine knows that despite his claims of being a terrible father for Marinette, he was a good one and damnit she was going to make sure that Marinette would get to know her actual father.

Tom later made an awkward talk with John about how he was not going to replace John’s role as Marinette’s father.

Marinette was the flower girl at Tom and Sabine’s wedding. John was there too.

During bedtime, John would read her stories and use his magic to make it come to life. Although he would feel a little drained afterwards, it was worth it to see her smile.

Sometimes he told stories about his tamer adventures. (After cutting out some of the inappropriate bits)

------

When Marinette was about 5 or 6, Sabine was out on an errand and Tom was at home with Mari and helping her with her homework. There was a crash downstairs at the bakery. Tom went down to check it out to find John lying on the ground.

With a weak cough, he said, “Close the door. Close it.” Before losing consciousness

Tom did before a man with pitch black eyes slammed against it.

Thankfully John had installed heavy wards around the bakery when it first opened.

They held against the demon on John’s tail. Tom brought John inside and unsure of what to do, grabbed a rolling pin on the counter.

The man outside started pounding on the glass door and every time his hands touched the door, light glowed outwards, showing the invisible magic barrier around the bakery. Sparks and steams fizzled with every pound.

Despite the reddening and burns of his hands, the not-human didn’t slow down.

“ʝօɦռ....ʏօʊ ӄռօա ȶɦǟȶ ɨȶ'ֆ օռʟʏ ǟ ʍǟȶȶɛʀ օʄ ȶɨʍɛ ɮɛʄօʀɛ ɨ ɮʀɛǟӄ ȶɦʀօʊɢɦ ȶɦɛֆɛ աǟʀɖֆ. օռƈɛ ɨ ɢɛȶ ʏօʊ,” He laughs, the sound sends chills down the large man’s spine, “ȶɦɛʀɛ ǟʀɛ ֆօ ʍǟռʏ ȶɦɨռɢֆ ɨ ɦǟʋɛ քʟǟռռɛɖ ʄօʀ ʏօʊ.”

Tom knew that Marinette’s father was a con man. Come on, Master and Practitioner of the Dark Arts and Occult. But he was a good father nonetheless despite all his flaws and Sabine liked him enough so that was good enough for him.

Before today, magic was just the sleight of hands and use of fancy tools to sell the illusions. Now, with a could-be-a-demon knocking on his door to get to the father of the girl he sees as his daughter, he’s not so sure.

“Tom? Qu'est-ce qui se passe? (What’s going on?)” A little voice came from the stairs, “Dad!” Marinette padded across the floor to the body of her passed out father.

She shook him awake and there were a few soft slaps to the face.

“Dad, what’s happened?”

John mumbles, “Demon…. possessing some rich guy….. Exorcism…. Doesn’t like me very much…Don’t worry...wards going to hold.”

John manages to stand before falling down and Tom catches him before he hits the floor. He has a concussion. Tom turns to Marinette, “Go, Hide and don’t come out until It’s safe.” which she did

Unfortunately, a while later, Sabine returns from her night out and the demon upon seeing Sabine. “ɛӼƈɛʟʟɛռȶ..”

The demon possessed Sabine and the previously possessed dude hit the sidewalk with a thud.

“ɨռȶɛʀɛֆȶɨռɢ....” The voice coming out of Sabine didn’t sound like her mother which scared Marinette a lot. “օքɛռ ȶɦɨֆ ɖօօʀ օʀ,”the demon pulled a knife out of thin air, ,“ȶɦɨֆ ɮօɖʏ ɢɛȶֆ ɨȶ.”

Tom hesitated until the demon put the knife on Sabine’s neck and put enough force for a thin line of blood to be shown.

He opens the door and the demon knocks him out. Stepping over his unconscious body and looking down on it, “ʄօʀ ȶɦǟȶ, ɨ ǟʍ ɢօɨռɢ ȶօ ʟɛȶ ʏօʊ ʟɨʋɛ ʊռȶɨʟ ɨ ǟʍ ɖօռɛ աɨȶɦ ʝօɦռ, օʄ ƈօʊʀֆɛ.” and cackles. The sound was so wrong and unnerving and little Marinette tried very hard for her sobs not to be heard.

Too bad the demon had super hearing. “Come out, my little blossom. Maman is home. Why don’t you come out and give me a hug?”

It sounded so much like her mother and she nearly believed that it was her mother and not some entity in control of her body.

But she knew better from John’s stories of dealing with demons and how they would use the voice of loved ones to lure them out and into a trap. (Definitely not something one should tell as a bedtime story but Marinette was very different and had an unconventional childhood with John Constantine as her father.)

Wait...she got struck with an idea but she wasn’t sure if it would work.

Before she could do anything, the door of the cabinet she was hiding in was opened and she was dragged out.

The demon lifted her a few feet above the ground by the collar of her dress.

It heard Marinette saying something. “աɦǟȶ ǟʀɛ ʏօʊ ֆǟʏɨռɢ ƈɦɨʟɖ, ֆքɛǟӄ ʟօʊɖɛʀ?”

“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica.” Marinette was now screaming the words at the top of her lungs. She repeated the spell over and over again with fierce determination.

John, being his paranoid self, taught her the spell for an exorcism, just in case. Demons spared no one, not even a girl.

It screamed “NO….” as Sabine’s body contorted in strange angles before a dark shadow seemed to be dragged down into the ground. It made a desperate attempt to possess John before it was pulled away and disappeared. There was no sign that there was a demon attack.

After John woke up, he managed to piece together that his 5-years-old (Sorry 5 and a half) daughter sent a demon back to hell.

He was a very proud dad. (He was a tad worried about the consequences from this event and demons hold one hell of a grudge. He wanted his daughter to live a very safe and happy life. The bakery’s wards also need an upgrade.)

He also got the job of explaining what he actually did to Tom. And lots of reassuring.

Sabine, on one hand, was not happy that Marinette knew how to do magic. That is until John told her that he did it just in case so she can protect herself and later it was agreed that Marinette can learn some Magic spells and charms to better protect herself and when she is older, she can decide if she wants to continue or not.

----

(Part 2)

[ilovebeing-weird]

K-pop craze

Batfamily one-shot (fluff)

Read this on Ao3

It all started when Dick heard Blackpink for the first time. Ever since then he's been obsessed with the K-pop group. And the main problem? The main problem is that Dick dragged Damian into the fandom too!

Now you must be wondering, 'what do you mean? It's Damian, the Ice-prince, he can't like Blackpink. He is just too…...icy for it'

If it would've been some months ago, I would've totally agreed with you. But, now, things are kinda different. Different? How? Don't worry all of your questions will be answered.

It was a normal morning in the manor…… well as normal as it could be there. Damian was fighting with Tim, nothing new there, Jason was… he wasn't there. Cass was looking at the two boys with interest. Bruce had that, 'Why did I adopt so many children? Oh right, because I am dumb' look on his face and was pinching the bridge of his nose. Alfred, who was so done, was trying to stop them from fighting. And Dick, Oh right, where was he?

That's when he came down the stairs chirpy and happy as always, with, wait is that earphones? When did he start using those? Well, living in the manor, you gotta use something to cut the noise.

He came down saying something that Bruce couldn't quite make out. Wait, why was he saying about killing Love? Did he have another Break-up Bruce didn't know about?

"Good morning Dick" that caught his attention

"Oh, good morning Bruce!" He replied happily and chirpy, nothing seemed wrong. Why was he killing Love then?

"So, how has your life been chum?" How is life? Can he be more lame than that? It's his own son goddammit! He has been living with him for years now. Even Tim and Damian stopped fighting to see how lame he was.

"Life's been pretty good."

"Anything new I don't know about? Like something major? A break-up maybe?" What the hell! Now, he would guess something is definitely wrong, and if he didn't, he would be damn disappointed in him.

Dick's brows furrowed in confusion and he looked at him weird-that's his boy-but answered anyway, "not really, Wally and I have been going pretty strong. I am even thinking of proposing to him."

He couldn't hold it longer, he just asked the question "so, why are you singing about killing this love?" There, he said it.

"Killing this Love?..... Ohhhh, I am not killing Love because I am upset or betrayed, I am just listening to Blackpink. It's a great k-pop group!"

"K-pop? What's that?"

"Bruce, you don't know what k-pop is?" This time it was Tim "I mean I get you're old and all. But k-pop, everyone knows about that!" Cass agreed with him. "Now I understand where Damian gets his sense of music!" Damian attacked him again.

Is this k-pop thing such a big deal? Why hadn't he heard about it before? How dare he call him old? Is he really getting old?

"Oh B, you really need to be aware about what's happening nowadays."

"Well, what is this k-pop."

"K-pop are korean songs, and groups like Blackpink and BTS made it famous."

"What's this BTS now?"

"Nothing, Nothing." The rest of the morning went peaceful with Tim with a stab wound made with a fork on his arm, and Damian with a bruised lower jaw and swollen eye.

"Damian~"

"What do you want Grayson?" Damian asked annoyed

"Wanna listen to some songs~"

"-TT- Is this your stupid Black group that you were talking about? No."

"First of all its Blackpink, secondly pleeease." Dick gave his best puppy eyes.

Damian groaned, no one and he means, NO ONE is immune to Dick's puppy eyes, and the worst part, Dick knows it. "Fine, but Grayson I am going to listen to just one of those atrocious songs."

"Yayy!" Dick squealed like a fangirl. "You won't regret it!"

"I will." Damian grumbled, after all his and Dick's choice in song never matched.

So Damian listened to the song. And, the worst thing, he liked it. How could he!? He's Damian Al-ghul Wayne. He doesn't like these types of songs. There must be something wrong with him. Yet, he found himself sometimes unintentionally singing the lyrics of the song.

He decided just, just to get the song out, he will listen to it again. And he did, but unfortunately the song still stayed and he couldn't get himself to forget it. Rather, he wanted to hear it again.

So, he decided that he will listen to that song, in private without telling his brothers or his father. But, he forgot that his family is full of detectives, or just decided to ignore that fact.

It was one of those rare days when Jason was visiting the manor. Dick and Tim were whispering to each other.

"Hey Dickie-bird, Replacement. Whatcha whispering about?"

"Damian" Tim answered

"What did Demon-spawn do now?"

"He is behaving weird." Dick answered looking concerned

"More than usual you mean?" Dick just gave him a look

"It's like he is trying to hide something."

"Do you think he has a girlfriend?"

"Nah, who is her right mind would date him" Tim answered making a weird face

"Fair point."

"Well, anyway, we gotta figure out what he is hiding."

"Maybe it's just his hormones." Tim and Dick looked at Jason "What, he is a teenage boy, everyone has that stage."

"Uhh, let's just hope it's not that."

"Want me to investigate?"

"We shouldn't invade his privacy."

"Dickhead, you wanna know what he is doing or not?

"Yeah, but….."

"You wanna know right, so no buts!" Dick still felt like he should not do it. "See, take it like you're saving your little bro from danger. Maybe it's Talia again. Maybe he is a clone. Maybe he is doing something illegal. So don't worry and feel sad 'kay?"

"Okay."

So Jason searched, he searched his room, bathroom, under his bed just what was left was his closet, and he didn't want to open it. What? He respects people's privacy, he knows how bad he will feel if someone invaded his privacy. Still, he opened the door of his closet and what he found was something he will never forget.

That person is a Blackpink stan! The fuck! How does he even know what it is!? Is he finally growing up!?

Whatever if Damian thought it was good he had to give it a try. Maybe he will like it. Damian rarely thought anything was nice.

He didn't tell anyone what he found. He just told them to dump their concern out of the window and that he is totally not hiding anything.

So, Jason did, he gave it a try. And honestly, he thought it was adequate…… okay, find, he loved it! But, can you blame him? Dude, they are so amazing, their voices are so bold and so are their dances! He is in love with that band. He could listen to it for hours without getting bored.

Now, Dick was concerned, Damian was still hiding something. Yeah, he was hiding something, no matter what Jason says. And Jason was also acting weird, yeah, he didn't live with them in the manor, but he checks up on him regularly. What? You can't blame him for caring! And not only him, even Tim felt something was fishy.

So, he did what any big brother would do. He interrogated him.

"Okay Damian, you're hiding something. Don't try to deny it, I know you are."

"-TT- I am not hiding anything, Grayson. Now let me go!"

"No can do little D, you haven't answered my questions yet."

"I already told you I am not hiding anything! Don't you get it!?"

"Damian I am your big brother, I would know if you are hiding something."

"If my words are not comprehensible for your small brain, let me break it down. I. Am. Not. Hiding. ANYTHING."

Dick sighed "Guess I will have to use my special trick."

"What special trick?" Damian asks a little wary but doesn't let it show because emotions are a weakness and blah blah blah.

"I am going to give you a last chance if you can find out for yourself."

"My answer will not change. No matter how many times you ask me."

"Okay well, you forced me." Dick runs towards Damian ready in a stance "1, 2, 3 and here comes the tickle train!!" Damian tried to run away but Dick was faster and caught him and started to tickle him.

"Grayson…. let….. me…. go….. at…..once." Damian said between laughs

"What are you saying Lil'd, I can't understand you~"

"Grayson…. Leave me!!"

"Whaaaat?~" Dick has the audacity to look innocent, just you wait, there will be consequences for your little stunt and they would be bad. Damian just laughed and laughed trying to grab his dagger or anything that will get him rid of this, but Dick was smarter and already took all of his weapons, How and when? Only he knows that.

Bruce and Alfred passed the room and smiled seeing them behave like normal kids. They didn't know the truth.

"Grayson...... if you…..if you……. don't unhand….. me at onc……. once….. you'll…...you'll regret it!"

"Not until you tell me what you're hiding~"

"F….fine."

"Good." Dick got up from him but still kept a hold on him so he can't run away or try to hurt him. "So, you gonna tell me, whatcha hidin'?"

"I-I….." Damian started to think of an excuse that would let him free ".......do drugs."

"No you don't." Dick wasn't even shocked, if he was being honest he was expecting it.

"Fine….." Damian grumbled "You remember that pink group you told me about?" Damian's face was red with embarrassment

"Blackpink?" Damian nodded "yeah, what about them?"

"I-I…...listen…..to it." Damian was now fully red

"Oh my god! Dames I am soooooo proud of you." Dick kissed Damian's cheek. To which Damian responded by trying to hit him.

"-TT- if this news is known to anyone else, I am gonna kill you."

"You can trust me with your secret Li'l D. No one's gonna know it."

-TT-

Dick went to one of Jason's safe houses to tell him that yeah, Damian was indeed hiding something. That he was NOT paranoid or crazy.

When he went inside, instead of Jason's annoyed voice what greeted him was music blasting from speakers. And it was not any normal music, it was BLACKPINK, so Jason knew what was Damian hiding.

"Jase!"

The music stopped in an instant. Trying to keep his voice leveled, but failing miserably Jason answered him "Yeah, what do you want Dickhead?"

"Come out please."

"Co-coming." Coming out he was greeted by Dick standing on at the gate with his arms folded and feet tapping.

"So, you knew?"

"Uhhh, knew what?" Jason tried to keep his cool and tried not to show his emotions on his face. Honestly, he was not doing so well. Considering the fact that he worked with BATMAN you would think he would be better at this.

"That Damian was hiding something."

"Yeah?"

"Oh Little wing." Dick unfolded his hands and went towards Jason "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want you to make fun of him or me." Jason moved his face to the side.

"Look at me." Jason looked at Dick's eyes and what he saw was comfort. "Do you really think I would make fun of you or Damian just because you like Blackpink. Hell! I am the one who introduced Damian to it!"

Jason wasn't honestly surprised. Damain would never hear their songs by himself. Smiling Dick kissed his forehead, which was a little farther than he could reach so he had to stand on his tippy toes.

"I would never make fun of you just because you like something. Okay?" His eyes told him that he was stating the truth. Nodding he backed off

"Okay, now tell me why you're here." He tried to keep his image as the emotionless asshole. Which Dick knew he wasn't, because Dick knew how you're feeling always, but at least he tried.

"Uhhh…..I honestly forgot. Anyway, do you have something to eat?" Chattering they went towards the kitchen.

There was peace, and it felt good.

[onyxiana-is-obsessed]

hey! i hope it’s ok if i send a request here! (also, my english it’s not the best sorry TT). could you do a fem reader x bakugou where she’s like sUper powerful and competitive, so they’re always fighting for who’s the best lol. she also loves to annoy him for fun bc it’s funny when he’s angry lol. and then one day baku realizes “i? like?? her??? lol nah, impossible.” but then his friends notice that he’s been less competitive around her and annoy him until he asks her out. love your writing! xx

Hello! This was a pretty cute request and I had fun writing it! I hope you liked it! Normally I wouldn’t choose your quirk for you, but I ended up doing it here. I don’t have an instance where you use it, so you can change it to whatever you like. I’ve also decided to try titling these things so my master list doesn’t look bland. So far, I hate where it’s sitting. Pronouns used: She/her Length: 1.5k

Full Name: (y/f/n) Quirk: Soul Barrage; the user has the ability to create powerful shields/barriers that when destroyed, deal damage to enemies. The user can also turn their soul energy into powerful beams of destructive energy. Age: 16

Attraction

Katsuki Bakugou thought he hated (y/f/n). She was annoying, she always messed with him, and not to mention they constantly fought each other. Though he wouldn’t admit it, her powerful quirk schooled him almost every other time.

Katsuki knew he was the best and (f/n) wasn’t going to prove him wrong. He came to UA to become the best hero, to become number 1. She wasn’t gonna get in his way, no matter how impressive that stupid quirk of hers was.

“Hey, Kacchan!” (f/n) giggled as she ran up behind Bakugou. He felt the fury build up as his face turned red from anger but he kept walking.

“Stop calling me that!” She really likes to push his buttons and he learned that early on. Because of her powerful defense quirk, she wasn’t very scared of him.

(f/n)’s quirk was called Soul Barrage. It let her turn her own soul energy into powerful protective barriers, which also had the capability of exploding and causing damage to the enemy. That wasn’t all, however. (f/n) also had the ability to turn that same energy into light beams from her hands which allowed her to destroy anything nearby. The destruction heavily depended on the amount of energy she put in.

(f/n) had the perfect counter to Katsuki’s quirk and she wasn’t afraid to show it. (f/n)’s barriers were powerful and could withstand quite a bit of abuse, which with effort, Katsuki could destroy. But if he did manage to shatter the shield, its destruction was followed by an explosion. Something Katsuki couldn’t counter.

“Or what Kacchan?” She asked, making him growl and turn around. Katsuki’s hand was aimed at (f/n)’s face and he let loose an explosion. (f/n) flinched but her barrier was up immediately, causing her no damage. After a moment, she burst into laughter infuriating the blonde even more.

However, Katsuki opted to shove his hands in his pockets and walk away. (f/n) did all of this to get a reaction out of him and he always gave her one. That frustrated him even more! Maybe if her stupid eyes weren’t so beautiful, he wouldn’t want them to look at him even more.

What?

Katsuki came to a halt in front of his classroom door as he tried to process his own thoughts. Did… did he just think that (f/n)’s eyes were… beautiful?

No.

No.

Hell no. Over his dead body would he think her stupid eyes were beautiful. Nope.

***

“Hey, Kacchan?” Katsuki rolled his eyes at the familiar female voice behind him. He didn’t even bother answering her and kept walking towards the cafeteria when she called out again. “Kacchan? Come on, Suki! I’m trying to talk to you!”

“What?!” He asked, abruptly turning around and glaring at the girl behind him. She sighed and crossed her arms.

“Let’s fight.”

“What?”

“Did I stutter? I said let’s fight. Spar with me.”

“I don’t have time for you shit, dumbass.” This time, (f/n) rolled her eyes as she followed him.

“I’m not messing around, I’m serious. Fight me.” She went on a little tangent but Katsuki just drowned her out as he kept walking, refusing to give her any attention. Her angelic voice was pretty hard to ignore though.

Woah.

Katsuki came to a halt and his eyes widened. Again? What the hell was wrong with him?! With a loud growl, Katsuki turned around and flared at (f/n).

“For once in your life can you be anything but a nuisance?!” He could tell that hurt a little, but that expression quickly disappeared and (f/n) shrugged, walking off.

For the rest of the day, all Katsuki could think about was how… not ugly (f/n) looked that day. She… her hair looked… decent. It was annoying and he wanted to stop! She wasn’t that special! She wasn’t anything. She was just another stepping stone on his way to being the number one hero.

“Hey, Kacchan! You’re staring again.” Katsuki’s eyes widened as he looked over to Kaminari, who had a huge smile on his face. He blinked and realized he’d been staring at (f/n) this entire time!

“No, I wasn’t Pikachu!” He grumbled, his eyes looking down at his food. No, he wasn’t, he was looking behind her! Why would he want to look at her?!

“You like her don’t you?” Kaminari teased, making Katsuki glare at him.

“No, I don’t, dumbass!”

“You sure?  You stare at her a lot and you’re not as competitive with her. You let her get away with quite a bit of stuff.” Kirishima commented, taking a sip from his drink.

“You like her! You like her! You like her!” Kaminari and Mina chanted, making Katsuki growl.

“I do not!” However, for the rest of the day, Katsuki wasn’t able to get their words out of his head. Could… he like her? Was that a possibility? He didn’t like people in general, so why would be romantically interested in some stupid girl? These dumb thoughts were even more annoying than her.

***

“Hey, Kacchan!” Katsuki immediately grumbled at the voice as (f/n) ran up to him and clung to his arm. He tried to pry it out of her grasp, but she held on tightly. “So! About that sparring match of yours! We should do it this weekend! I was thi-”

“NO!” He yelled as he shoved her off and glared at her. “I don’t want to spar with you. Now leave me alone.” Of course, she didn’t and followed after him as he walked towards his class.

“Why not?”

“I don’t have time.” That was a lie, but the less time he spent around her, the better.

“Oh come on, you always have time to fight someone! Hell, you made time to fight Izu that one night!”

“Just leave me alone.”

“Hey, answer me! What’s been up with you lately? You’ve been so weird!”

“Go away, idiot!”

“I’m just trying to ask-” Katsuki abruptly stopped and glared at her, a type of glare that even she hadn’t seen before.

“No.” With that, he walked away leaving (f/n) standing in the halls, confused and a little unnerved.

***

“Just ask her out!” Kirishima exclaimed for the umpteenth time as Katsuki still denied his attraction towards (f/n). All of his friends knew and they were desperately trying to get him to ask her out. It was like pulling teeth with him! It was painfully obvious that Katsuki had a crush on (f/n), but he refused to do anything about it. All because of his dumb pride.

“I don’t like her!”

“Yes, you do!” Sero argued, his own frustrations getting to him. “You like her and it’s ok! Just ask her out!” They had been going at this for almost an hour now and they weren’t the only ones getting frustrated.

“Fine! Fine! I’ll ask her out! Now shut up and leave me alone about it!” Mina, Sero, Kaminari, and Kirishima sighed in relief, falling onto their backs on the ground. Katsuki rolled his eyes at their antics and mentally prepared himself for rejection.

***

(f/n) was sitting in her room, doing her homework when she heard loud banging on her door. She jumped at the loud sound invading the silence of her room and quickly stood up. Opening her door, she saw her favorite blond waiting outside.

“Hey, Kacchan!” She greeted him with a bright smile, which he tried to ignore. She looked pretty damn cute in that outfit of hers. His eyes slowly slid down her body as he took in her form. They trailed back up, to meet her curious eyes which widened as she realized what he’d done. A blush appeared on her cheeks which almost made him smirk.

“Go out with me.” He said, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“Wh-what?”

“You heard me. Go out with me.” Was… that a request? Seemed more like a demand.

“I-I um… wh-what?” It was clear that (f/n) wasn’t grasping the concept here and it made Katsuki sigh in frustration. He wasn’t sure if she liked him or not, but he was going to take his chance. Taking a deep breath, he took a step forward. He gently pushed (f/n) into her room, closed the door behind her, and pressed his lips against hers.

Unlike his personality which was rough and harsh, his kiss was the exact opposite. It was soft, gentle, it wasn’t demanding, and it was very hesitant. (f/n)’s body stiffened, but within seconds, her eyes fluttered closed and she melted into his touch.

Her lips moved against his slowly and carefully, meaning she was also scared to make a mistake. His hands landed on her hips, pulling her closer as her arms wrapped around his neck.

The kiss wasn’t too long and they pulled away, staring at each other with red faces.

“Will you go out with me, (f/n)?” She smiled, the words finally making sense in her head.

“Of course, Kacchan.”

[berrymeter]

idk anything about the grace period for deltarune u can just keep this ask in the attic until that’s over.. anyway.. i really liked chap 2 i played it in one sitting 😭 the rpg combat is enjoyable enough and just the right amount more complex than the undertale combat is, although not very difficult. very touching power of friendship moments minus that fucking bird man. some of the dialogue felt quite fandom tropey and surface-level, and queen’s lines (love her tho) were hit or miss for me. i think the biggest frustration i have with it is all the useless random encounter characters clogging up your world 😞😞 there’s only so many wacky one-liners toby can give them and i am not invested enough to care! also some of those designs are uglie!! there are better ways to make a world feel real and lived in. same thing happened with undertale.

BUT it was a great time! i liked the juxtaposition between the ultimately harmless antics and charming banter with the gang and queen, and the more sinister plot going on in the background. most obviously in the ending. toriel and susie making a pie while kris RIPS OUT THEIR SOUL….spoiler warning.. did u see the theory that the soul aka red heart is you the player operating kris the vessel? i’m definitely not a theorist but i like seeing all the loose plot ends i’m having a good time. i love noelleeeeee 💞💞💞💞and i liked susie a lot more this chapter. when ralsei taught her a healing spell 😖😖 i still don’t really care about ralsei though 😓

special shoutout to the spinning teacups ☕️☕️☕️ and special NOT-shoutout to the mice games with the rotating blocks i never understood how to do that.

it was a very feel-good game. it made me feel good. standards for video game passed. what did u think tho!! i mean i assume u liked it but for the same reasons? different ones? feel free to respond with an excruciatingly long essay of ur own <3 we are back to the tt anon blocks of text i restrained myself for a bit but we are back -tt

hiii tt anon <3 back at it again with the asks that i am looking forward to answering. if i post this a little before the 48 hours i will be forgiven bc i will use the deltarune spoilers tag and also the long post tag LMAOO anyway anyway oh btw never refrain urself from sending blocks of text if my followers are mad even though i tag them long post that's ON THEM. everything u say is worth listening to & same for everything i say so that's my final stance on this 😌

i also played it in one sitting it was so GOOD. i don't care that it was 2 am here when it was released i wasss ecstatic and the game was so fucking GOOD tonby the fox delivered!! it was so so worth the wait! the music was so much better than in chapter 1 imo, like... my castle town? the cyber fields theme? the queen's fight? spamton g spamton??? rouxls' "fight"?? BANGERS. i only see bangers. the new gameplay mechanics were also very fun!! i for one kinda struggled with the mice puzzles but not nearly as much as that one section with the traffic jams where you have to go down and back up or whatever. what the hell was that? i'm surprised i actually got past it. i loved the parts in cyber field though where you had to move on beat with the music that was sooo fun!! more of that! i prefer the fighting system in undertale ngl but it's mostly bc the undertale bosses are... just so good. the one boss who rivalises for now to me is queen, although rouxls is also very fun.

as for the story itself... i liked it :) susie & noelle are fucking ADORABLE. i think they deserve to be happy forever like not even together just individually as characters they're the fucking best. susie's grown so much that's my girl... wough... ralsei i do like but... i don't trust him :D i don't think he's evil but he knows too much and tells us too little until he can't keep it for himself and i don't like that. like bro you're gonna get us in trouble stop. but ALSO some ppl speculate that himself is being misled and that the fountains wouldn't bring the roaring, which is an interesting theory. (also i miss lancer being more relevant)

uhh kris is... well... kris... :)... yeah i did hear about that theory i'm in a discord server where ppl have been going on and on about theories since the game dropped LMAOO we're all insane. um. my personal theory is that there's another knight, or that kris is at least also influenced by an "evil force" or whatever, and we're the good force influencing them bc otherwise they're just a normal albeit mischievous kid. and the stretch part is that uhhh there's two knight pieces on a chessboard, ik this isn't about chess at all but king of spades does tell you at the end of chapter 2 that you'll meet a more powerful foe = the queen, coincidentally in chess the queen is stronger than the king. hmmmmmmmmmmm. lmao i don't think my parallel here is right but it's fun to think about anyway

did you see the superboss? i didn't fight him myself but he's so fun. also @ everyone who said he's gonna be a tumblr sexyman i hate that you're right shut that shit down HJKSNFKJSDHG. also did you see the secret fucked up pipis route? it's horrible. genuinely... i watched a streamer play it and 😳 uh. well i didn't even hate berdly before anyway yeah he's annoying but like he's a snot-beaked kid i'm not gonna wish him... whatever happens in this route. legit scarring. and poor noelle... pffbbgtbg. hate this so much. but i think it was done so bad and horrible on purpose, with how specific your gameplay has to be for you to be able to complete it tonby really was like "you wanna be an asshole? undertale wasn't enough? fine. work for it. and also suffer" nskjshf. i'm never doing it <3

lastly FUCKING QUEEN!!!!!!! QUEEN MY LOVE!!!!! BEST CHARACTER. i love her sosososo much it's unreal. and i didn't mind any character designs much, i'm not too complicated in that regard shfkjsdfh i love the tasques and tasque manager though :) also the... idk their names... the butler dudes? they're so cute. swatch's design is neat

so those are my thoughts <3 can't wait to hear more from u!!!

[pl-panda]

Of Heaven and Hell

Credits: Miraculous Ladybug team for the elements I take from MLB show. DC for their characters, @ozmav for the AU, @maribat-archive for giving me access to so many different stories to have take inspirations from, @ethelphantom for the cover I use at Wattpad and FF.Net and Me for the plot.

------------------------------

Of Heaven and Hell: Part 1

--------------------------

Of Heaven and Hell

From Encyclopedia Demonica

[...] and while many people consider angels epitomes of good, they are mistaken. Indeed, this regal beings are more closely connected to order than to goodness. They perceive divine law as imperative and hold little regard to human lives, as long as they serve their goals. And yet, most of the times they chose to not involve themselves in mortal affairs.

Typical angel have two forms. First look very similar to human, but they retain most of their powers. Such form is also much more durable and their physical capabilities exceed everything you could expect from a mortal. Second is close to the first one in appearance, but differs in terms of power and abilities. In this form Angel spreads his wings and feature specific to his sub-species appear. 

Angel’s powers differ on subspecies, but universally include flight, enhanced senses, enhanced agility, strength and durability, large magical potential, access to magic unique to their species and high resistant to other types of magic. Specific subspecies have different additional powers. Each Angel also possess an ability that is unique to him. Usually, it reflects his personality and present itself when it reaches maturity. [...]

--------------------------------

Six years ago

Damian cursed under his breath. The temple was under attack. His mother told him to get inside. And he did. He ran to his room to grab his sword. A beautifully ornate weapon with guard in shape of two intertwined pairs of angel wings pointing toward the blade. Great for complicated maneuvers. The pommel held a teal pearl also protected by a pair of angel wings. It was a gift from his grandfather for his eighth birthday. The weapon was perfectly balanced and suited Damian’s style perfectly. 

With the sword in hand, Damian unfolded his wings. His tunic had a special holed cut in the back to accomodate for them and he didn’t destroy every shirt he wore. A pair of large white feathered wings appeared and he dashed forward to battle. He couldn’t let his mother die. A small orb of white energy appeared in his hand before he launched it at the wall in front of him. The explosion created enough of a hole for him to pass. 

In front of him opened a large yard. Usually, a new acolytes trained here under careful watch of angelic masters. Now it was simply a blood bath. Bodies were lying everywhere. But what shocked him the most was that angels were fighting one another. Some wore League’s armors, but overwhelming force was dressed in black-and-orange suits. He wanted to dash forward and into the battle, but someone grabbed him and pulled him into the shadows. A slender figure of his mother looked at him sternly.

“I told you to go inside.”

“Mother! I came to fight with you. I must fight with you. By your side. Together. It’s my destiny!”

“Your destiny is to live Damian.” She scolded him. “Now quickly. Let’s move. Some battles can’t be won.”

“But… what about the mission?” He asked confused.

“Mission will live in you and me. Now let’s go join your grandfather in the tunnels.” She started leading him away.

--------------------

Damian woke up from the dream. He instantly grabbed his sword and swung it around. Only then he realized that is was just a memory. He looked around his room, assessing any dangers. Once he was sure that nothing lurked in the darkness he got up. It was still night and quick glance at the electronic clock told him that it was 3:30 AM. Long time before others wake up. But Damian did not want to go to sleep anymore. He never did after this kind of nightmares. 

He got down to the holo-training room and activated the highest setting. A series of ninja shimmered into existence. Without as much as a second of hesitation, Damian dashed forward. His silver sword cut through them as he zoomed through the arena. With each move, he took two of the enemies. A slight golden aura around him intensified as he burned through his anger. Finally, he collapsed, panting heavily from exhaustion. The “kill counter” showed that he was halfway to a thousand vanquished enemies. He was weak. He was useless. He ran away. He was no warrior but a mere coward.

But it was not true. He did the right thing. Because he ran away he met his father. He actually started to protect people instead to only try to control them. He was a nephilim, half angel, half human. He had all the powers of his angelic brethren and yet freedom to choose. He didn’t need to follow orders of higher beings. He could make his own decisions. And he chose to be a hero, not a warrior. Now, each day he reinforced this decision. First as Robin, fighting side by side with his father, now as… still Robin, but as a part of Teen Titans. 

“You okay Demon Spawn?” A voice of Dick Grayson, better known as Nightwing, came from behind. Damian instantly spun around and stopped his blade less than an inch from his neck. 

“Don’t do that if you want your head to remain where it is.” he scowled at the sight of his adopted brother’s patronizing gaze. “And don’t look like that.”

“Like what?” Dick asked confused. 

“Like I am a baby in need of your care. I am sixteen-years-old Nephilim. I am more than capable of taking care of myself.”

“So that’s why you are awake at five in the morning? Taking care of yourself?”

“Get lost.” Damian barked and started to practice katas with his sword. He had his back turned to dick when suddenly he spun around just in time to block a projectile that was tossed at him. 

“Come on bro. You and me. One on one. First to score three hits.” Dick taunted. 

“I am stronger, faster and more agile. You stand no chance.” Damian said in emotionless expression. He looked at Dick for a moment before taking off his tank-top. “And I can fly.” He grinned at the surprised Nightwing. A pair of white-feathered wings appeared on his back. 

“And yet I kick your rear every time we fight.” Dick smirked and drew his staff. Both ends started to crackle with electricity. 

Damian boosted himself forward with a single flap of his wings. His silver sword met with the staff, but before he could cut it, Nightwing sidestepped and allowed blade to slide down. He used the Angel’s momentum to his disadvantage. Damian’s blade stumbled upon crackling electricity, sending a powerful shock through his arm. Normal humans would be paralyzed by this, but Damian only growled. It hurt, but he could fight. Damian tried several more times, but Dick always reflected or sidestepped before the blade could do any real damage. Finally, the Angel changed tactic. Flapping his wings, Damian rose into air. His off-hand glowed with golden light which next formed a runic circle around his fist before several projectiles flew at various arcs toward Nightwing. The hero had to dodge it quickly, but got caught by the last one and got sent into the wall. Damian didn’t bother to check on him. Instead, he dashed forward. Before Dick managed to get rid of flying stars around his head a silver blade was less than an inch from his neck. 

“I win.” Damian proclaimed, looking smug.

“Nope.” Dick said, popping the ‘p’. He then used his staff to jab Damian’s stomach, then jump on his fit and separate his weapon into two escrima sticks. He then started to barrage the teenager with series of swift hits. While they would not usually hurt given angelic durability, the crackling electricity made it a bit painful. Damian shielded himself with his wings, but Dick found an opening and landed third and final hit that ended the fight.

“That is cheating! I had you!” The teen argued.

“So? You lost me. But good fight D. Maybe next time.”

“tt. That’s unfair! I want rematch!” 

“Boys!” Kori joined the discussion. “As much as watching you fight is… entertaining, I made breakfast.” She said cheerfully while walking to nightwing. “And something special for you later.” She said seductively.

“Bleh.” Damian faked vomiting. “I will never understand humans.”

“You are part-human.” Dick pointed out

“And so is neandertales. Yet he doesn’t understand humans.” The teen deadpanned. 

“I heard someone say breakfast!” Beast Boy barged into training room.

“I made pancakes.” Kori cheered.

“With maple syrup?” Gar asked 

“And ‘love’.” Damian gave a sarcastic remark.

“So the best ones.” Beast Boy said with dreamy face. “I reserve the first batch!” He said while already dashing to the kitchen. 

“Scarab said he detected pancakes!” Beetle said while zooming past the room in his full armor. Damian, Dick and Kori walked in normal pace, only to find Gar and Jaime staring wide-eyed at Rachel sitting there and calmly eating her breakfast. 

“Took you long enough.” She said with a small smile. The red gem on her forehead pulsed weakly, but it was ignored in favor of consuming inhuman amounts of pancakes. Damian himself didn’t even realize that he finished three plates before Dick pointed it out to him. He turned pink for a moment before jumping away and claiming the remote for the day. 

After the morning of cartoons Titans spent rest of the day on the beach near the island. Half-way through Dick and Kori disappeared and when the sun started to set Rachel and Garfield also went somewhere. Jami, Damian and their newest addition to the team: Cyborg, were completely obvious to this as their discussion came to sport. 

“I’m just saying. Futball is the best game. Soccer is cool, but it’s for kids.” Victor argued.

“You say that, but last I checked Soccer was much more popular around the world.” Jami pointed out proudly. “Besides it requires much more skill and finesse. Futball is about pure muscle mass.”

“As if! Have you got any idea how important tactics, positioning, territorial awareness and condition are in Futball?”

“tt. The best sport is sword-fighting anyway.” Damian grinned at them. Inwardly, he loved this family. Sure, living with his father was great, but here he finally had one thing he missed so much: friends. They weren’t patronizing like Todd. They weren’t constantly trying to prove something to him like Drake and Grayson was even bearable here. That is if he didn’t act all sugar-eyes for Starfire. Is he even aware she is an alien princess and he is a peasant acrobat? 

As the sun was finally down, the titans made a giant bonfire on the beach and roasted marshmallows. As Damian was about to eat his, suddenly a large yellow balloon sailed toward him. He tried to catch it, but his enhanced strength made him accidentally squash it instead. A wave of water assaulted him and made him wet to the very bones. 

“Beast Boy!” He roared in anger. One thing he hated in the Titans were the constant prank wars that lasted for weeks. 

*gulp* “Will it help when I say that I aimed at Jaime?” Garfield asked weakly. 

“No hermano. It will only make it worse.” Blue Beetle looked practically offended, but he had a small smirk on his face. 

Damian took off his t-shirt and tossed it at Beast Boy. His hand then glowed and a runic circle materialized around it. Garfield tried to run, but a golden beam hit him in his rear and suddenly his fur turned completely gold. He looked like some some hardcore sports fan supporting his favorite team.

“That’s not fair! I only tossed a small water balloon. You could cool off a bit bro!” Garfield tried to argue weakly while massaging his rear.

“Suck it up like a man and stop whining like little girl…” Damian said, but then looked at Rachel who sent him a death glare. “Not that I have anything against little girls?” He added quickly.

After that the atmosphere were great. Garfield was still a bit sore on the subject of his new color and decided that he will appreciate his green from now on. Finally, Damian excused himself and went to the tower to go to sleep earlier. As he entered his room, he felt a breeze of air going on. He distinctly remembered that his window was closed and nobody would enter without his permission. A glyph on the doors made sure of that. His sword appeared in his and and a glowing runic circle formed above his head. A less known fact about Angels was that their Halo was in fact a spell that allowed them to sense other Angels in close proximity. It also gave enough light to serve as convenient source of light. Not that they needed it as they saw in anything but perfect darkness. Damian would never admit out loud that he used it when he wanted to draw something in the middle of the night. 

“Hello… Mother.” He said with disdain in his voice. 

“It’s good to see you too Damian.” She responded with sarcasm. 

“Why do you grace me with your presence?” If Talia’s voice was dipped in sarcasm, Damian drowned in it. 

“I need your help.” She said, ignoring the obvious disrespect. “There are several demons in Paris.”

“So?”

“The city is warded against all things celestial. And magic hides it from your precious Justice League. Had any Angel tired to go there, he would not be able to enter the city. Should anyone else hear about the situation, they would forget it as soon as the discussion ended.”

“So? From what you are saying is true, Mother, then I am twice as locked out as anyone else. I will forget about it the moment you leave.”

“That’s why I need you.” She said with almost pleading voice. “You aren’t a full angel, but your mind is protected from the spell. You should be able to enter the city and remember everything.”

Damian pondered it for a moment. It did seem like something serious. If what she said was true, the whole city was at the mercy of those vile monsters and couldn’t even hope for any external help. “Fine. I will go there.”

“Good. I already enrolled you at Collège Françoise Dupont” She said with a wicked grin. With a flap of her two pairs of wings she was gone, leaving only a thin folder on his desk. Damian cursed under his breath. 

“Looks like I’m going to school. tt. I hate teenagers.”

--------------------

Taglist: Open

[vixxenfox]

Things I’ve noticed after watching the pilot over and over again

And things I just find amusing

- is it just a coincidence that when Charlie says “I wonder if it could be me” the center angel’s face lights up?

- not important but the “F*ck you heaven!!!” Sign is hilarious

- I hate Valentino with a burning passion, look at him texting Angel

- people drop from the sky to get to hell, more importantly without clothes which means each flippin person has to get specially made clothes for their weird demon bodies like sir pentious needs clothes to fit his snake body and stuff... idk just interesting

- the place beside the “we couldn’t come up with a catchy slogan but we sell hardcore drugs” building is called “begg slut”

- imagine dying, going to hell, and realize that you’re an egg

- egg #23 is the best

-one of the eggs like does a weird walk thing with their hand on sir pentious’ tail

-Cherri Bomb’s clothing is so asymmetrical and I love it like she is literally wearing a high-heel boot on one leg and like a tiny shoe on the other

- really just poor Tom he’s great

- Vaggie says “it’s all highlighted” but none of what we are shown is highlighted

- Also read the parts of the list we can see, it’s adorable

- “I don’t touch the gays” I find Katie great

- Jeffrey Dahmer obviously (Also the sticky note saying “who approved this show?)

- When Charlie scans the crowd another tv head just says ‘words’

-The person Vaggie punches isn’t in the crowd

- I love Razzle and Dazzle TvT

- Those two owl demons in Inside Every Demon is a Rainbow are most definitely references to Timber

- CHARLIE YOU JUST KILLED A PUPPY

- I love that there is a boo section

- Tom watches Angel Dust’s stuff confirmed

- I love the sonic spring noise when Angel launches an egg into the air

- Sir Pentious probably has a son that might be in hell so look out for another snake

- Do you see how happy Cherri Bomb is near Angel Dust, best friends! :D

- Aawww Angel pushes Cherri out of the way

- Angel didn’t just sprout a third set of arms, he also pulled an entire gun out of his body sooo... what’s with that

- I think you would just stop existing if you died in hell Angel

- That creepy fan has a body pillow of Angel

- Charlie takes off her pink... jacket(?) in one scene and the next she has it on again (you see her wearing pink in the closeup)

- Lilith is an absent mother

- There goes everyone’s fanon about how Lucifer acts (why couldn’t we get a nice stupid one T~T)

- I think they changed Alastor’s knock but I’m too lazy to check

- They fixed Alastor’s disappearing monocle

- I like that the mic has an eye sometimes it’s cool (how many “sentient-ish” things does Alastor’s have, first the shadow and now this)

- Alastor can teleport at least short distances and he appears as the shadow for a second

- They really make Alastor a very animated character and I love it

- (we knew this already but) Alastor clearly puts himself on a different level than the other sinners, he thinks of himself as justified and better (he doesn’t say “us sinners” he says “loathsome sinners” w/o him in the picture)

- Valentino, Rosie, Lilith (obviously), the girl from the porn studio, and the tv head dude (Vox, thanks @lavipsi) are all some of hell’s “strongest demons”

- TV head (Vox) is in the middle and top so he must be very powerful and behind him there’s also a green and red demon that reminds me of the wolf/fox demon from the bar scene

- Husk is very blocked out by Vaggie’s face but he’s clearly in the picture with Alastor (it looks like a fight but I don’t want to assume) like we know they know each other and stuff but it’s just weird that Husk is in the art when Vaggie says he’s “a dangerous Blahblah” and has entire speech of how dangerous he is

- I love the symbols that float up when Charlie isn’t looking and then the squeak as he turns to a more “innocent-like” Alastor when Charlie looks back

- Alastor rolls his eyes at Charlie when she says “No trickster, voodoo strings attached.”

- Talked about this before but the way his smile gets wider when Charlie says “for as long as you like”

- Why does Charlie have at least 2 posters about alcohol up if she didn’t want it in her hotel?

- I love how Niffty comes in and her bug-like noise when she appears

- You can see their reflection in Niffty’s eye during the closeup and Charlie is too adorable in it, Angel and Vaggie look ready to kick her out XD

- Everybody’s reactions to Niffty rambling on is beautiful, just watch them go from defensive to confused

- Alastor just following Niffty’s every movement as she zooms around

- Please tell me I’m not the only one who didn’t immediately see Husk as a cat? I honestly thought he was a dog for a while because he looks sort of like a Husky and his name is Husk, which got me thinking about the contradictions with Alastor not liking dogs... then I realized Husk was a cat.

- “are you sh!tt!ng me” “no I don’t think so” and “you think I’m just some clown” “..maybe” are some of my favorite lines

- Was I just supposed to know that on the bottom of Alastor’s boots (shoes? Hooves?) there were deer prints?

- So did Alastor really just teleport two sinners and basically copy part of the bar Husk was at and it’s just going to be there forever? Like you can see where the bar’s like territory ends because it’s walls are green while the hotel’s is red

- No like seriously Alastor you can copy a part of a bar but you can’t make the walls match the rest of the hotel’s walls?

- Husk seems slightly taller than Alastor

- Also Husk also has yellow teeth and if we go by Alastor’s teeth are yellow because he’s a cannibal, Husk might have been a cannibal when he was alive

- Husk clearly knows Alastor, he’s not afraid of him (to an extent, he was still a little shaken by the... Sir Pentious thing). Husk obviously voices his complaints without restraint and isn’t afraid of Alastor hurting him (I guess), and even when he was shaken up he was still the second person to follow Alastor back to the hotel.

- The entire relationship between Husk and Alastor is very intriguing to me! Husk doesn’t fear Alastor, Alastor called him a friend (obviously another jab at Husk but still), and they were in the same picture when Vaggie talked about Alastor being dangerous. I’m guessing they were probably friends once, maybe the picture is them both fighting another demon or fighting each other in like a fall-out.

- Vaggie is very exaggerated when she’s complaining about the bar and it’s beautiful

- Husk in the background as a still image just chugging booze is beautiful

-Angel’s angry face as Vaggie complains about the bar just before he leaves to lunge at her is beautiful and my favorite face

- 27:46 Alastor flipping FLUTTERS HIS EYES AT VAGGIE and you can hear a small sound effect of it and I just thought that was beautiful

- At the same moment Charlie is just rubbing her cheeks and it’s cute

- Right before Alastor starts singing, he throws some red... fire in the air and Charlie follows it with her eyes and she just so awed by it

- The fireplace in the background has an eye and a top hat above it and it just reminds me of Sir Pentious

- Alastor’s song has so many Friends on the Other Side vibes and I love it

- There are so many Christian symbols (and Satanic symbols) in the background of this song and I just don’t want to spend that time looking at each one :l

- Alastor’s shadow is also here further nailing the Friend on the Other Side vibe (not to mention the other shadows and voodoo doll things)

- Poor Niffty, she should never get hurt

- When Sir Pentious is talking and it shows the chibi characters, Charlie, Angel, and Niffty are looking at Alastor and when it zooms in for a split second Angel’s face is the most innocent bab ever

- There’s a building in the background with (again) one eye and a top hat, there’s also a cat building right next to it

- You can see heaven as a planet with a halo...

- There’s also a sun(?) or moon(?) or planet(?) with a pentagram on it

- I know that Egg Boi #OUCH is just a joke, but what if after 666, Sir Pentious just started giving them stupid names like that?

- Again, religious symbols float around Alastor that I’m not going to look into because I’ve taken so much time T_T

- Niffty is actually unfazed by Alastor summoning tentacles and destroying Sir Pentious’ ship. Really she has a normal smile and face and she immediately follows Alastor when he walks back to the hotel

- Angel is still flirting with Husk

- Charlie reassuring Vaggie is adorable

- Are we not going to talk about the carousel and gigantic steam boat that’s just protruding from the hotel

- I also love how the windows at the top of skull designs <3

- There’s an eye on the top of the building and the sign of Happy/Hazbin Hotel could also look like a top hate (why are there so many one-eyed top hats like Sir Pentious’...?)

- Stay tuned TM

- Not from me but, Alastor changes the name to Hazbin Hotel and Hazbin means something that was great before but is terrible now or something that is meaningless

- So Alastor liking terrible jokes is now canon? The dad joke thing wasn’t just a stream thing, it’s actually canon?

- Alastor actually has a red ‘X’ on his forehead, you can see it right after he destroys Sir Pentious’ ship

- The art in the credits shows Cherri Bomb having a tattoo

- I would like to talk a little about the design that’s in the background during the credits. So in the middle is an apple that’s being held by two sharp hands, there are three snakes coming out of it with only one snake fully out but still seems to have originated from the apple. The snake that’s completely out is on the top and has some designs around it that emphasize it, making it look more like a king (the devil, duh). The other two snakes are going down (probably referencing Adam and Eve maybe? Even though they also seem evil I just think of Adam and Eve.) Under them is another snake head. There are two sets of eyes around the top snake, one set has a line going down the middle of each eye like a scar while the bottom set has eyelashes. Even though the bottom set looks more “girly”, it reminds me of Lucifer because of the dots under them. If you want to grasp at straws the complete bottom snake’s tongue sort of looks like the bottom part of the symbol of Lucifer. The three snakes that clearly originate from the apple in the middle can also look like “Three snakes and one charm” if you squint. The symbol above the top snake looks like the infinity symbol combined with the cross, but it’s not the leviathan cross, so maybe just eternal... crucifixion?

- The smoke coming from the pit that Alastor made has souls in it

- I think #23 is depressed because he really wants to be shot... and he was just sitting there next to a bunch of dead hims

- Vivziepop said on a stream something about Lucifer being “generally goofy, but it depends on his voice” or something like that, please correct me if I’m completely wrong. This makes me things that Lucifer is going to have multiple voice actors.

-The Loading Crew “Everything We Know About Hazbin Hotel” brings up a point that it seems like the only things that can kill demons and sinners are the Exterminators’ weapons which are sometimes left behind that demons scavenge, Vaggie also appears to have one. I recommend watching his video, it’s very quick but also brings up points I haven’t addressed. 

And yeah, that’s all for now! ^_^ comment if you have something else to add or think I should change something

[bisexualsforprompto]

The Black Mercy

This is for my secret Santa @18-fandoms-unite-08 I tried something different from my normal style so I really hope you like it! Also thank you @caffeinetheory for beta reading!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Marinette woke up realizing two things. One: she was on an amazingly comfortable mattress that felt like a dream and two: she was being held by something. She opened her eyes groggily to be met with the sight of two tan, toned, strong arms around her. Snuggling up closer she got a glimpse of the sleeping man next to her.

He had black hair that complemented his gorgeously bronze skin. His eyes were closed shut and his chest was rising and falling calmly.

“Dami,” Marinette whispered into his ear. Damian stirred but only to pull Marinette in closer. She giggled as she watched his arms subconsciously pull her into his chest. “Damian.” She singsonged into his ear.

“TT. Five minutes.” Marinette chuckled to herself, normally it would be her who was grumbling about more sleep. She slipped out of his grasp and stepped out of the fluffy white covers.

She inadvertently reached towards her bare ears feeling an odd sensation when she brushed against only flesh. She couldn’t remember exactly what she was supposed to find on her ears but she ignored it and continued walking out of her room. She heard a slight shuffling from her bedroom as she walked over to the kitchen to make breakfast. She hummed a tune that felt vaguely familiar, yet worlds away at the same time. Marinette opened the wooden cabinet above her sink and pulled out two china plates.

Sleepy footsteps approached her as she set some pancakes she’d made the day prior in the microwave. She turned around from the kitchen to be greeted with Damian sitting at the table. Grinning, Marinette took a seat next to him.

“Sleep well?” She asked noting the bags underneath his eyes that had decreased.

“Always when I’m with you Angel.” He responded causing Marinette to blush, “Although I would’ve preferred to sleep a little longer.” Marinette rolled her eyes, “Jon and Adrien are coming soon, we have to get ready.” Damian stretched his arms, flexing his muscles inadvertently,

“TT.” He yawned as the timer on the microwave went off, “Beloved, why must we invite the Kents over?” Marinette chuckled as she pecked Damian on the cheek, walking over to the kitchen once more.

“Come on Dove, they just got married, we should celebrate with them.” Marinette smiled as she took the pancakes and set them down on plates.

Damian started to grumble under his breath, “I still don’t see why we had to-

~~~~~~~~

“WAKE UP! Angel please wake up!!!” Damian yelled as he shook Marinette who was lying down peacefully with a look of bliss on her face. She was covered by a blue hospital sheet that Jon had given them. If Damian didn’t know what was under that sheet he would’ve let her be, she looked fine, for all he would’ve known she was calmly sleeping.

But he did know. The monster that lurked underneath the sheet that decided to attach itself onto Marinette was giving his beloved beautiful pleasant dreams. Letting her live peacefully.

That was why Damian had to stop it.

~~~~~~~

“To family!” Jon toasted as he tapped his champagne with Adrien. “Cheers!” The blonde sunshine boy grinned. Marinette raised her glass and smiled to the scowling Damian on the couch next to her.

“Something wrong Dames?” Marinette teased, in truth she knew that she could barely wipe that scowl off his face, and she wouldn't have it any other way.

“Cheers.” Damian grumbled as he took a long sip of his champagne causing Jon to burst out in laughter.

“I love you guys.” Marinette said placing her arm around Damian’s shoulder. He became less tense at her touch.

“Well we love you too Maribug, but is that just the alcohol talking?” Adrien smirked. Marinette rolled her eyes and threw a pillow at him with her free hand. Adrien set down his glass and raised his hand in surrender.

“I’m serious! You guys are my family. I can’t think of anything more perfect than being with all of you.” Marinette smiled genuinely. She gestured to Damian, “the love of my life and my two best friends.” Adrien beamed and Jon shared the same look.

“This is a dream come true for me.”

~~~~~~~

“Clark, you’ve dealt with this before. How should we get her out?” Bruce asked as Jon and Clark Kent walked over to the unconscious Marinette wearing a smile on her face. Clark sighed, “Ultimately, it’s her who must choose to leave. Kara was able to get some help though, I’ll contact her to see what needs to be done.” He said as he left the room dialing a number on his phone. Bruce narrowed his eyes and Jon looked down at his friend who was holding his hand on top of Marinette’s.

“Damian-“

“Save it.” Damian snarled, “I just want her out.” Jon took a step back, never hearing so much bite in his friend’s voice. Bruce tensed, feeling helpless once more. Damian whipped his head back, breaking his gaze from Marinette’s pale face and gesturing to what was under the blanket covering her, “And are any of you going to tell me what the hell this is?!”

~~~~~~

“What the hell is this?!” Laughed Adrien as he poked at the dangling robin on the ceiling fan.

“TT. I told her to get rid of it.” Damian pouted, side-eying the glass robin. Marinette rolled her eyes and flicked Damian in the ear,

“And I said no.” She smirked, “Look at his expression, it looks just like you Dami!” Marinette started to chuckle looking at the robin’s stone cold expression. For some reason Marinette felt the name robin was familiar, like it had some other meaning. A voice startled her out of the puzzle pieces she tried to sow together,

“Hey, she’s right!” Jon exclaimed as he mimicked the robin’s stoic frown. Adrien began to laugh even harder causing Damian to brood even more. Marinette fixed that with a simple peck on the cheek, causing him to brighten almost immediately.

“Just teasing love.” Marinette smiled warmly brushing Damian’s hair out of his face. Jon and Adrien could’ve sworn Damian smiled for a split second. He gave her a quick kiss in return.

“Get a room!” Jon yelled, making Damian shoot a glare at him. He focused his eyes back on his beloved,

“I love you.”

~~~~~~~

“I love you.” Damian whispered quietly, “I’m sorry I never had the courage to tell you.” He drew circles on the palm of her hand trying to ignore the fact that Jon, Clark and Bruce were speaking outside about Marinette’s fate.

“You came into my life and wrecked it. Nothing was the same.” Damian stated trying not to cry. “Please come back and change my life again Angel.”

~~~~~~~

“Did you enjoy yourself?” Marinette asked as she traced circles on Damian’s bicep as they laid down in their bed.

“Agreste and Kent are tolerable.” He said as he turned over to face Marinette, “So yes. I would say I did.” Marinette gave him a soft smile. Damian returned it, but something was...off.

Damian smiled at her, sure, but only small smiles that were quick but enough to make her heart melt. He’d never mirrored her smile and kept it on for so long.

Something...something wasn’t right. Marinette felt a pounding in her skull before she heard a ringing in her ears as she fell back into bliss.

“You alright beloved?” Damian asked worriedly.

“Of course darling.” Marinette said, almost robotically as she drifted off to sleep, cuddling him.

~~~~~~~

“She’s been in there for a day.” Damian said plainly to his father who had walked behind him, “Are you finally going to trust me?” He spat not breaking his eyes from Marinette’s gorgeous face whose smile had diminished slightly. “Are you finally going to tell me what’s going on?”

Bruce cleared his throat. The information could break his son. He knew it would make him a hell of a lot more stubborn.

“It’s called Black Mercy.”

~~~~~~~

The birds chirped outside of Marinette’s window. She groaned as she felt the sunlight wash over her eyes. She turned to Damian’s side of the bed to find an empty space.

“Dames?” She whispered softly. She heard a creak at the door as it slowly opened. She got slightly nervous until she saw it was only Damian in the doorframe.

“Beloved, I brought you breakfast in bed.” He smiled as he placed the tray over Marinette.

“Aww, Dove!” Marinette smiled throwing her arms around him, almost spilling the food. “You’re so sweet, you didn’t have to!” Damian embraced her, “I wanted to do something special for you. Besides, I love cooking.”

Marinette felt the pounding come back again, only stronger than the night before. ‘Damian doesn’t love-‘

“Thank you darling.” She responded as if she was using a script. She took a bite of her food.

~~~~~~~

“Kara was able to be saved by her sister. She told me the machine they built to let another person enter into the mind of the victim of the Black Mercy. If I give you the model of what she sent me do you think you can recreate it Bruce?” Clark asked as he rubbed his temples feeling a migraine at the whole situation. Marinette never deserved this. He still remembered what it was like, pure tranquility and bliss. That wasn’t the part Marinette didn’t deserve.

She didn’t deserve the pain from waking up.

~~~~~~~

“Dove,” Marinette spoke as she sat on the couch next to her husband. Damian looked up at her with bright smiling eyes. Another headache.

“D-dove, do you ever feel like something is w-wrong?” She squeezing her eyes shut at the massive migraine.

“Whatever do you mean Beloved?” Asked Damian placing an arm around her, “Everything is fine. This is our dream life remember?”

She nodded.

A dream.

~~~~~~~

“One of us needs to go in and save her.” Clark said as Bruce placed a small device on Marinette’s head. Jon stood up, “I can-“

“No.” Damian said looking at Marinette’s closed eyes. “I’ll do it.”

Bruce nodded. He shared a look with Clark, they knew that he would’ve volunteered. “Damian, you need to know that whatever happens to you in there happens out here. If you die in there…”

“I don’t care.” Damian growled, “She’s the only person I ever...Just fucking put me in there.” Clark’s eyes widened. Bruce sighed and Jon looked away.

“Ok.”

~~~~~~~

Marinette walked over from the couch as she heard a knock at the door.

“Wait!” Damian called. Marinette looked back to see him twitching slightly. “Don’t answer that.”

“Oh Dove I know you’re paranoid but what’s the worst that could happen?” Marinette chuckled, “Nothing bad or dangerous has ever happened to us. Like you said, it’s our dream life.” Marinette walked over and pressed her hand on the door handle. Suddenly, Damian was right beside her grabbing her wrist. Clawing his nails into her arm.

“Don’t. Open. That.”

“Dove, you’re-you’re hurting me!” Marinette cried.

Then she was thrust backwards into the ground as the door was kicked in. She landed with a soft thud. She groaned in pain.

~~~~~~~

“Her vitals are going crazy!” Clark exclaimed as Marinette jolted.

“Damian what are you doing in there?” Bruce murmured.

~~~~~~~

Standing in the doorway was Damian. Marinette did a double take. Damian was right next to her glaring at the door frame. Two Damians? Her head was spinning.

“W-what’s going on?” She asked wincing slightly at the pain in her arm from where the door had collided with her. The Damian that had been standing in the doorway who had a weird looking device on his forehead.

“Angel you have to listen to me, this isn’t re-“

“Who are you?!” Asked the other Damian as he pressed a hand on the Damian who had just spoken’s neck. He was slowly choking him.

“What are you doing Damian?! Stop!” Marinette pleaded as she ran to her husband’s side. She placed a hand on him to try to get him to stop only to have him push her to the ground with his free hand. Marinette squeaked when her face burned from the impact of the floor.

Then black.

~~~~~~

Damian saw red. This imposter, some man who the Black Mercy concocted for his Angel had just struck her. He had never broken free from a chokehold so quickly. He kneed the fake Damian in the groin and ran over to Marinette.

“Angel, Angel are you alright?!” He asked as he looked over at her. She was barely breathing and her eyes were only starting to flicker open. When they opened fully they were as wide as saucers seeming Damian there.

The fake Damian rushed over to Marinette’s other side.

“Beloved, come to me! I’ll protect you from him!” Said the imposter as he turned Marinette over towards him. Damian stood up from his crouched position. “Angel, don’t listen to him! This isn’t real it’s all made up by a monster called the Black Mercy.”

“Lies!” Fake Damian exclaimed as he shoved Damian to the ground. Damian groaned and tried to get back up only to have the other Damian place his foot one the real Damian’s windpipe. Damian gasped for air, looking at Marinette’s bewildered expression and pained eyes.

“Angel, remember-“ Damian wheezed as he felt his throat being pushed on even more, “Once I was on patrol as R-robin and I b-beat a man bloody.” He said as he tried to take the fake Damian’s foot off of his neck. “And you-you wouldn’t talk to me. I vowed- I told you I would never be that violent again.”

Recognition flashed in Marinette’s eyes until she drew back in pain, her face a blank mask once again. “I don’t know what Robin is.” She stated blankly. The fake Damian smirked as Damian writhed. The deceiver took his shoe off of Damian’s windpipe and walked over to Marinette. He kissed her on the cheek, “Come on beloved, he needs to leave.”

Marinette nodded dutifully as she walked over to Damian giving him her hand. He accepted it and pulled himself up. “Please Angel,” he whispered, “You have to wake up for me.”

The fake Damian was at her side in an instant. “Don’t listen to this crazy man Beloved. Come, let’s escort him out and then I’ll make you lunch.” Damian wrinkled his nose.

“I hate cooking.” Damian said, folding his arms at the same time as Marinette whispered, “Damian hates cooking.” Damian looked down at his Angel. He saw a spark in her bluebell eyes that hadn’t been there when he entered her fantasy from the Black Mercy.

“Remember Angel.”

~~~~~~~

Clark breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the Black Mercy recoiling from Marinette.

“We’re not out of the woods yet.” Bruce noted as the Black Mercy clung onto Marinette, seemingly fighting to keep her.

~~~~~~~

“No.” Said the fantasy Damian. Damian glowered at him. “This is Marinette’s choice and does not concern you.”

“You really think she’d give up her dream life with me for someone like you?!” Fake Damian sneered. “I am you.” Damian shot back.

“No, you’re the flawed, imperfect version of me. Marinette wants someone who will smile for her, someone who will cook for her, not someone like you. You’re not even good enough for Batman!”

“W-what? Who’s Batman?” Marinette asked as she felt another pounding in her skull.

“Angel you have to remember,” Damian said looking into her eyes, “I’m a hero, a vigilante. This perfect life will never be ours and I’m sorry. Once-once you told me that protecting others was all you wanted to do, but you can’t help others if you don’t wake up!”

~~~~~~~

“It’s loosening!” Jon cried. Clark breathed, “She’s almost there.” The Black Mercy was hanging onto her by a thread. Bruce took a practically unbreakable glass test tube and got ready for the defeat of the Black Mercy.

~~~~~~~

“Beloved, you can’t actually believe him!” The fake Damian scoffed. Marinette held her head, she wasn’t sure what to believe anymore. She fell down to the ground from shock with the word “remember” still echoing in her head.

“You fight for what is right Marinette,” Damian pleaded as he ran over to her. He picked up her slumped form and cradled it in his arms, “This isn’t right.” Marinette groaned and opened her eyes. Damian’s green one’s stared intently at her as the fake Damian started to disappear. “Remember who you are.” Damian whispered into her ear.

“I- I- I’m Ladybug.”

~~~~~~~

Marinette sat up with a gasp. Damian followed suit shortly after. “W-what happened?” She asked rubbing her head.

“A parasite named Black Mercy latched on to you.” Bruce said twisting the cap of the test tube in place which held the grotesque black creature. “What is the last thing you remember?”

“I- I think-“ Damian sat up from the table he was on. He swiftly removed the device on his head that allowed him to save Marinette. He silently walked out of the room, not even giving Marinette a look of recognition. “I’ll be right back.” Marinette said softly. She sat up wincing from the damage the Black Mercy had done. She limped over to the exit. Damian had left the manor without a trace, but she knew where he went.

“Dami?” Asked Marinette softly as she sat next to him. They were on a beautiful ledge overlooking Gotham’s skyline and the sunset that was cresting over the city. Damian kept his eyes straight forward not acknowledging her. Marinette folded her knees and rocked gently beside him.

“Do you remember what happened?” Damian asked dryly, “In the Black Mercy.” Marinette nodded slowly. Damian turned his head. Marinette’s lip trembled as she saw his eyes were slightly puffy.

“Dove I-“

“Am I the kind of person you want?” He asked folding his arms.

“What?! Damian of course you-“

“In the Black Mercy.” Damian started as he stared into her bluebell eyes. “The Damian you fantasized about, the one you were married to...he wasn’t me.” Marinette gave him a confused cock of her head. Damian sighed, “That Damian smiled, he cooked, he was perfect for you. Maybe we aren’t as good for each other as we thought.” Marinette winced. Did he really believe that?

“O-oh.”

“I don’t think I can ever be the guy you want...the guy you deserve.” Damian said plainly as he focused his gaze back on the sunset.

“You are the guy I want.” Marinette whispered, “Ever since we met each other. Yeah we’ve had our fights, it’s impossible not to. I don’t want a guy who’ll smile at me all the time or even cook for me.” Damian twitched his head, “That was your fantasy, your dream.”

“I don’t know,” Marinette sighed, “When that Black Mercy Damian attacked you...I would never want that.”

“The Black Mercy creates your desires.” Damian stated.

“Do you really think I’d want you hurt?” Marinette choked. Damian avoided the question and stared at the Gotham skyline in silence. “Wow.” Marinette scoffed with a sob. Tears trickled down her cheeks, “Then I guess you are right. If-If you knew me you’d know I’d never want anything bad to happen to you. I-I love you.”

She stood up ready to walk away. She brushed the tears from her eyes. Damian stood up and whispered,

“I love you too.”

~~~~~~~~

Whew sorry it’s so long! I went for something different this time! (Also this won’t be continued).

Taglist (everyone on my Maribat list):

Maribat taglist

@northernbluetongue

@queen-of-the-trash-planet-tm

@luciferge

@legendaryneckjudgestudent

@interobanginyourmom

@beaversuenightly

@worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry

@mochinek0

@shamefullove

@emjrabbitwolf

@actual-disaster-human

@littleredrobinhoodlum

@elijahcoser

[miss-choco-chips]

Put a ring on it 2

Gonna drop this here super quick and then go back to cram for my finals. Who allowed me to schedule six finals in one week? I’m gonna die. Pray for me.

Tagging @jedissica ‘cause they asked me to, and @animemangasoul who I think will like this.

---.---

-Batman, here we are. It’s been a while since you last called an emergency meeting. Is everything okay?

-Were you aware that our children eloped together?

-...what.

-As in, my third kid, your first one, Diana’s second, and Barry’s… grandchild. I’m not exactly sure about who married who, but there was more than one wedding and they have a group chat called ‘hubbies and waifu’. Whatever that means.

-...

-...

-That’s my girl. I always told her, go big or go home.

-Diana, no.

----.----

Cassie’s phone went off again with her specific Diana ringtone, and she gave up, turning it off and throwing it on the pile with Kon’s, Bart’s and Tim’s (the last one had four all by himself, so it was quite a big ‘phone tower’; Hah, pun intended).

-You’re gonna freak out so badly over this when you actually wake up -she informed Tim’s fluffy hair. 

Said vigilante only released a cute little snore, face buried on her lap, legs thrown over Kon’s, one hand that had fallen from the couch resting on Bart’s head where he sat on the floor in front of them.

-Well, they were going to find out one way or another. And this was probably among the best scenarios.

-How? I’m sure this one was top five on Tim’s ‘worst case’ nightmare list.

-I was there and saw their faces. I didn’t even know Batman could express any emotion other than ‘cold’ and ‘overflowing with rage’. That image will bring me joy in future distressing times, I’m sure. My patronus memory, if you will.

-I’m soooooooo jealous, dude.

Cassie snorted, carefully not moving an inch, fingers cradling through Tim’s hair. Over her dead body would he ever cut it, now that it was finally long enough to make itty tiny braids all over it, her favorite therapeutic iddle work.

-We’ll make Tim give us footage when he wakes up. He has to provide for us, after all.

Kon let his arm, resting on the backrest of the couch, fall over Cassie’s shoulders- Be sure to include footage from after we left, too. Nightwing’s  ‘As in more than one?!’ part was solid gold.

-No kidding, I want that as my ringtone for you and Tim -chimed in Bart, carefully moving Tim’s hand back to the couch and then running to the kitchen- Ice cream?

-Do you even need to ask?

---.----

By the time Tim woke up, the hero gossip network had done it’s thing, and almost everyone with a costume was aware of the news. Even Cissie, who was officially retired, and Zachary Zatara, away on his shows and usually out of reach, had called, the first one to offer congratulations and ask if the thing was real emotionally-wise, the second to just laugh at them for full six minutes before hanging up. 

He did text them later, asking when the celebration ceremony would be.

-It’s not a bad idea -mused Cassie, showing them her phone screen with the magician’s text- a party, I mean.

Tim, from his place working a case on the Titan’s main computer, tuted- Batman might actually kill me for that. I think we’ve survived this far only because there are no written records making this official, and a part of him must think it’s all some elaborate prank.

-It’s not -insisted Bart, head poking out of the kitchen- we are family now, officially. No take backs.

Their Robin shifted in place just enough for them to see his smile, a gift on itself- I know, guys, and the sentiment is much appreciated. But from a legal standpoint, it’s not that different from what a few kids on a playground could do while playing family. Only place this could stand against judgement would be the future, some ancient Amazonian tribe, or Krypton.

-Doesn’t matter, as long as it’s true for us. And, I mean, we didn’t want to cut your options if you ever wanted to actually get married the classic way.

This time, their bird actually turned around, a warmth on his expression that he usually reserved for his team. It made them feel special like nothing else.

-Yeah, I know. Thank you for that. It was really considerated.

As if they would drag Tim into something like legal marriage without previous consent. The fact that he even felt the need to thank them for showing him basic human decency was making their blood boil with the need to punch a bat on the face.

Kon flew over, the high chair preventing him from draping himself on his best friend’s back, but not from hugging his neck and messing his hair.

-Back at my point -cleared her throat the amazonian-, your former mentor can suck my metaphorical Freudian dick. We could throw a party, and it would only be different from a normal one because marriage celebrations include gifts, which I’m totally for. I haven’t seen Zatara, Cissie, Greta and Anita in a while, and Miguel, Raven and Gar might murder us for not telling them about our plans and not making it up to them with a party. No ‘adults’ out of the ones on team, or mentors, invited, enough alcohol to re-drown Atlantis, fancy food bought with Bat’s credit card…

-You are right, it does sound kinda nice -hummed Kon, floating just out of Tim’s range when former Wonder Boy tried to slap his hands away. Silly bat, always denying affection.

-All in favor?

-I don’t know -giving up, Tim went back to his case files- I have a lot to do this days, and there’s a lead that might take me to Asia…

-Isn’t Cass there? Ask her to take over it for you, as a marriage present or something. C’mon Tim, do it for the gifts. Imagine what Zatara might get for us. So crash.

-If  it’s a magical object, I won't want it anywhere near me. We bats don’t have the best track record with that stuff, and I swear to god if I get deaged I would use my non-prosecutable age to murder someone. Probably Zatara himself.

-Adorable as that might be, it totally won’t happen.

----.----

-....can you repeat it one more time? Slower, though. I think I’m getting hearing problems.

Raven, through the video call connecting the Cave with the Tower, didn’t seem fazed by Nightwing’s slightly threatening tone.

-I said, the team had a party, everyone got drunk, and it was fine for a while. I was watching over them, but then I needed to use the restroom. When I got back, someone had gotten ahold of Zachary’s gift for Tim, Cassie, Kon and Bart, and…

-Why for those four? -asked Hood, standing right by N’s side. He had came in during Raven’s first explanation, and felt like there was something he was missing.

-It was a marriage gift. Moving on…

-A what?! Since when is Lil Red married? The fuck happened while I was in Russia?!

-...someone had gotten ahold of the gift -Raven kept going, cool as a cucumber. On the background behind her, teen heroes were running back and forth, people were screaming and something was smoking-, which happened to be some sort of magical artifact. Zachary wasn’t really aware of what it did, he just randomly choose it from among his collection of magical tools when he remembered at the last possible time a gift was mandatory for a wedding party. I returned from the bathroom and everything was a mess, the couch was turned upside down, a pipe had burst, the tv was on fire and Tim had been de aged.

There was a battle scream, in a distinctly childish voice, somewhere on the room out of view of the camera, and Raven’s eyes left the screen for a second as if looking at it.

-Was that Red Robin? -Batman, because of course he was listening in, started typing at the console, frantically trying to get a new angle to see what was going on on the Tower.

-He’s unharmed, and everything is under control.

Another scream, this time louder.

-...that didn’t sound under control -mused Dick, apparently still processing the information. Bruce typed faster. Robin gripped his sword tighter, as if readying himself for a war.

Jason still looked utterly lost.

-Marriage? She said marriage? AND YOU ASSHOLES KNEW ‘BOUT THIS?!

-He’s… throwing a tantrum -the woman ignored him, still looking only at her former leader-. Something about using his age to kill Zatara without being convicted. I’ll need to leave now, I only called to ask you to take over Tim’s cases while we solve this issue.

-Wait! Rae, if Timmy’s a kid, he needs to be with us. We are his family, it’s our jurisdiction.

A green bird suddenly landed on her shoulder, halthing whatever response she might give. Gar pecked her on the cheek lightly before turning his beak their direction.

-Husbands and Wives get priority, N, you know that. Cassie, Kon and Bart are looking after him, and keeping him from killing Zachary, while the rest of us research how to turn him back. Zach is actually trying to contact his cousin, maybe the great Zatanna will quicken this process. So, yeah, no Bats allowed on the Tower until then!

-But/!

A loud crash, followed by a wail, made Gar wince and Raven’s head to snap to the side and growl.

-Whelp, gotta go, Tower out! -a ‘Tim!’ could be heard in the background just before the screen went dark.

-...

-...

-...

-...Anyone gonna fill me in?

-Drake eloped thrice over without informing us and has been living in sinful unworthiness with his three partners since last month or so, that we know about. Probably more.

-...Partners?

-You heard her. The speedster, clone and amazonian.

-...

-...

-Dickie, how t’fuck did ya allow’is to happen?!

-IT’S NOT LIKE I WAS ASKED FOR MY BLESSING, JASON!

-B, what the utter hell, ain’t ya supposed to keep track of this kinda shit?!?

-...

-Don’t bother, Father has been broken since learning of Drake’s mistake, and will go unresponsive at the most inconvenient times.

-...

-Fuck, I need a drink. Also, ’m going there.

-You heard Gar, Jay -pointed out Dick- we can’t just walk in there, and the Tower is legally his. We have to be smart about this, plan this through, and/

-Yeah, no, he said ‘no bats’-gesturing at his gun holsters, he started to walk to where his bike was parked-. RIP ya’ll, but I’m different. See ya.

-...

-...

-Tt. Useless. I’ll go back to training. Father, Grayson, should you two, as the plebeians say, ‘snap out of it’ and come with a good plan to get Drake back under our tutelage, I’ll be by the mats waiting.

-...

-...Don’t look at me like that. I raised him for a few months tops, but he’s your kid, not mine. Same with Tim, and Jason’s entirely your fault.

---.---

Meanwhile, back at the Tower, Kon let out a screeching ‘Tim!’ before diving out and catching the baby bird in his arms, halting his fall from the ceiling rafters where he had been climbing. Behind him, Cassie let out a relieved breath.

-God’s above, you almost gave me a heart attack. Okay, new ground rules, this two little feet stay on the ground.

Tim, as proudly as a three year old toddler could, frowned at him.

-Don’t patwonize me, Kon. And lemme go, I havta cacth Zac/ Zat/… Magic-boy.

Bart materialized by their side, arms looping below Tim’s armpints to carry him to the recently put back to its correct place couch. He dropped there, tiny bird in his lap, cooing all the while.

-Aww, you’re precious.

-I could still huwt you -pointed out the toddler, resigning himself at being manhandled.

-I know -replied Bart lovingly, softly stroking his turf of hair.

Somewhere on the side, Cissie clapped her hands, as if getting rid of the dust there.

-Okay, I putted out the fire, so now I’ll be heading home. This magical bullshit is way out of my ‘retired’ comfort zone.

Cassie landed by her side and gave her a quick hug, while Greta walked up to them- I understand, thanks for coming.

-Give us a call when this is solved, we can have a coffee while you complain about your husbands. And… child, now, I guess. God, it was already weird calling Tim your husband, but now he’s a baby and it's doubly weird. Figure this out quickly.

-Will do. See you guys later.

One by one, they all left, some offering their support (appreciated, but not needed, thank you, we’ll manage), some still laughing. In the end, only the Core Four, Gar, Raven and Miguel remained. Zachary probably was there somewhere (if he dared leave without helping them fix this, he was dead meat), but out of the enraged toddler’s sight, which. Wise.

Even if said little human being was pint sized and cow eyed, he was probably still the most dangerous person in the room, unarmed or not (you know what, scratch that; if time with Tim taught them anything, was that no bat was ever unarmed. Even bare handed, their own bodies were weapons).

-...So... What should we do while we wait for Zatara’s solution?

-I vote movie night. It’s not like we can keep on drinking, with a kid in the room/ Auch! Pointy elbows, Tim!

Kon swooped in, picking Tim from Bart’s not invulnerable lap and cuddling to him on the couch by the speedster’s side. Tim knew better than to hit the Boy of Steel without proper equipment, so he let himself fall back against the broad chest. Cassie, talking to the older members of the team on the side, smiled softly at them before returning to her conversation.

As mad as his current situation made him, Tim couldn’t bring himself to pout too much. It had been a fun night, all things considered.

-----.-----

[z-exo-l]

Long-Ass Opinionated Word Vomit w some Gulf Kanawut Appreciation thrown in

(I’ve been putting off posting stuff about the special episode until this monstrosity was finished, and I think it’s as close as it’s gonna get, so hopefully tomorrow night I can actually rb all the beautiful TT posts in my drafts!!!)

WARNING for positive discussion involving the TharnType shower scene, and some vague shade thrown at SOME, NOT ALL, bl actors. Remember kids, this is entertainment, and we all take in entertainment differently. This is also extremely verbose (seriously I talk too fucking much, good god!) for a sentiment I could probably express in just a paragraph, so I’m sorry in advance, but I’ll try to get on with it.

Topic: I’m immensely thankful that Type was played by Gulf.

This is for many reasons, of course; I’ve said repeatedly in my tags about how much I love Type and how fully fleshed out he is, all thanks to the care and research Gulf gave the part. But one of the biggest reasons I’m grateful for him is the kiss scenes. And just so it’s clear that I’m not speaking (entirely) superficially, let me offer a bit of context:

Anyone familiar with live action BL knows what awkward kissing looks like. It’s gotten much better recently, but there are innumerable examples of a bl couple nailing the adoring stare, or doing perfect witty banter, only to fall utterly flat during kiss scenes. I shit you not, I’ve actually given names to some of the kinds of bad kissing I’ve seen over the years. (The Balloon Knot, the Pac Man, the Clench...etc)

It sounds quite comical, and sometimes it is but, and again, this is just my opinion, it’s very hard to believe an onscreen couple is into each other if they can’t kiss decently. And sadly the biggest cause I’ve seen of this is some actors’ reluctance to kiss another male. It’s not the case every time, of course! Censorship is to blame in some circumstances, or an actor being generally inexperienced, poor directing; there’s a plethora of reasons that aren’t related to underlying homophobia. I’m not suggesting some insidious conspiracy here.

I have to admit though, I went into TharnType pretty much expecting that sort of reluctant-awkward kissing. I wasn’t worried about Mew, because I had seen his love scenes in What the Duck, and I was vaguely aware that he was a member of The Community. So I was sold on him. I was just worried about This Other Guy (Gulf) back when I started watching the series, and I think that was a little before episode three aired. I had tried the first two eps, then a couple days later episode three was out. Which, as you know, episode three has the shower scene. Aka, the first mutual kiss scene. Let me do a quick (subjective) breakdown:

At first, Type’s mouth is Clenched (tm) shut, but he purses his lips first, and then he gives the biggest indicator that he’s at least somewhat enjoying what’s happening: he’s kissing Tharn back. He eventually pushes him away, but there’s confusion on his face when he tells Tharn to let him go. After that his expression melts. He doesn’t try to stop Tharn again, and even starts to caress and fondle him back. It’s not fully reciprocal, but it is close.

Throughout the whole episode to that point Type’s dealing with a burgeoning attraction to Tharn, someone that he believes he should still harbor hatred towards. It’s this mental conflict from the character that makes his hesitation in the shower kiss understandable. But even though it was in-character for that scene, I still wasn’t sold yet; I’m so jaded in this subject I *fully* expected the rest of the kissing scenes to play out as the Clench.

Then episode four happened. It’s worth noting that I started watching episodes live at that point, and in the live airing all you saw of that epic love scene was the first shot where Type grabbed Tharn around his neck and kissed him (his arm censoring the mouth-to-mouth contact, of course.) So after that I was still nervous going into the uncensored segment, compounded by Type’s lack of response during the overhead kiss shot. But the second they changed camera angles, and Type initiated that second kiss, holy shit, it was incredible!!! He was fully reciprocating, his expressions were on point, and there was no awkwardness to be seen. It wasn’t just good kissing, it was sensuous kissing, between two equally enthusiastic participants. Cut to me mentally eating my words.

Now with Type’s character background and resulting homophobia, lesser actors (I won’t name names but yes, I do mean lesser) would have taken that as an out for the kissing parts. ‘Wait, this guy’s homophobic, I don’t have be into the kisses! Phew!’ Thus giving us really unnatural love scenes. Instead what Gulf did, especially in those initial kisses, was convey Type’s desire overcoming his resistance through meticulous use of nuance. (Nuance is another thing I constantly praise Gulf for.)

But I don’t think that kind of portrayal would have possible if there had been an actor in the part with reservations *cough*homophobia*cough* about kissing other men. And ftr, Gulf said upfront that he didn’t see a difference between bl acting and doing a m/f character, long before the show aired. He said it was an actor’s job to portray whatever the character is. (And let me take a moment to squee about Mew’s proud thumbs up when Gulf said that.)

I think it’s thanks to that lack of prejudice, plus their indomitable chemistry, that Mew and Gulf were able to do such beautiful kissing scenes. Every single one is immersive and natural, so I didn’t doubt for a second that these characters were falling in love with each other. Additionally I wasn’t sitting there wrinkling my face wishing they’d just be done already. (Quite the opposite, in fact, but I digress.)

All of this babble just to say, that I’m so grateful for the Type that Gulf gave us. And like I said, his talent extends far beyond love scenes. How many of us cried during episode four when Type talked about the molestation?? And the confession in episode six??? How many of us at the end of the series found ourselves in love with a guy who made his roommate’s life hell just for being gay way back in episode one??? I won’t keep rambling but seriously, someone give this guy an award, ANY AWARD, he’s such a great actor and he’s a frigging ROOKIE!!!

Tl;dr. Mwah, Gulf Kanawut. Thank you. ❤️

[furby-science]

The Making of Sterling the Super Furby: A Brief Overview

“I… I can’t look! I think I’m gonna… *HUEEEGH*!”

Before I get into this post, I want to list a few things I didn’t know shit about when I started Sterling:

Electronics

The Python coding language

Furby anatomy

Single board computers

After creating Sterling, I’m happy to say that now I have approximate knowledge of some of these things, but keep the above in mind as you read onwards. This little gremlin child was a learning experience from start to finish, and one I am incredibly proud of myself for sticking through. This also means that I am in no way an expert on everything I’m getting into okay? Okay let’s go!

The Hardware

First, a rundown of the hardware. I took heavy inspiration from the Furlexa mod shown here, and that was what I initially sought to create. The mod had three computer components to it:

A raspberry pi zero w single board computer for the AI to live on, with a mini USB microphone plugged in;

A pimoroni speaker PHAT to use as the sound system;

A motor controller to drive the furby’s motor.

My main problem with Furlexa was that this initial build took a lot of soldering, and I am a wussy who had a number of bad experiences with soldering irons in shop class. So, what’s a novice electrician to do?

Enter the Adafruit Crickit HAT. By sticking this little fucker on top of the raspberry pi, I was gifted with an amplifier, a speaker jack, capacitative touch sensors, and a motor driver all in one, no soldering needed if I bought the raspberry pi zero w h! The main challenge it posed was powering it. The Crickit insists, for some unfathomable reason, on being powered by a bulky DC jack, the kind you’d plug into a wall outlet, and the converter plug to use a battery pack with it was way too bulky to fit into a furby. I needed Sterling to be portable for maximum huggability, so this just wouldn’t do.

One fried raspberry pi and Crickit HAT later, I found the answer! By soldering the original furby battery pack to the underside of the Crickit board’s DC connection, these fuckers right here…

I was able to bypass the need for a wall plug or converter, and power him directly through the battery compartment like God intended. S/O to my friend Nick who is way less of a dumb bitch than I am and helped me figure this shit out I owe u some bread man.

So the tl;dr of it is, I effectively reduced the required computer components from three to two (excluding the speaker). Speaking of (heh), Sterling has an impressive 3w speaker in him, allowing him to be audible even without the use of the built in amplifier. It’s got such good bass on it, he even rumbles when he purrs without the aid of the motor!

And yes, when you pet him, he purrs. And complains if you manhandle him! The aforementioned capacitative touch sensors on the Crickit HAT made it all possible with the help of a few cables and some foil tape.

Wait, did you say soldering!?

Yup! It was a necessary evil; at the end of the day I had to pick my poison: soldering 80 pins on the speaker PHAT, or soldering like four contact points on the Crickit. I chose the more merciful option.

But wait, that whole outfit is really bulky still! How did you fit it inside the furby?

Subtractive methods, subtractive methods, subtractive methods! ;D Someone who actually knows things about furby anatomy and/or electronics will probably vaporize me for this, but… if I didn’t need it, it got the boot! That included prying off anything on the Crickit board I wasn’t using at the risk of destroying it completely - which probably isn’t ideal, but it also worked by some miracle, and again, I am such a basic bitch electrician that calculating the proper voltage for LEDs is still basically witchcraft to me, so… what I’m saying is I made it work. And that I really, really hate soldering! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You can see an early video of the end result here, and a later video of the outfit inside the naked furby here. This was back when he was still having auditory processing issues. Apologies for the shoddy quality, I was too excited everything was working to care about that at the time.

The Software

My other beef with Furlexa is… well, it’s an Amazon Alexa, and I’m a shitty little anticapitalist hermit who hates Amazon with a passion. Google Assistant was just as bad in my book. Mycroft was open source, but had a snowball’s chance in hell of running on the raspberry pi zero’s 512mb of RAM… I also wanted my assistant to have a degree of customizability to it. I wanted the furby’s AI to have a unique personality, identity, and preferences, much like classic furbies themselves did. A big box AI just wasn’t going to cut it!

Enter the Jasper Project. Yes, it’s old. Yes, it’s a bitch and a half to install. Yes, you have to know Python to get anywhere with it. However, it was free, open source, capable of running on a raspberry pi zero, and highly modular, meaning with a few lines of code, I could make it all my own - even to the extent of changing the AI’s name and voice (which is gr8 because I know a Jasper so naming my furby that would be Weird), or - the best part - writing my own, custom functions! Customizability-wise, I struck gold.

Ah, and glad I am that Jasper is modular, because I had some work ahead of me…

The STT Engine

The STT (Speech to Text) engine is what Sterling uses to understand what’s being said to him. Jasper’s proprietary STT engine is PocketSphinx, a fully offline STT engine, which sounded great in theory before I quickly learned it’s a nightmare to install, and also more inaccurate than a stenography machine powered by a single potato when actually being used. I had to compromise my morals a bit here and opt for using Wit.ai instead, which is free, but is also owned by Facebook. Big data is frustratingly inescapable in these cases.

There is one light at the end of the tunnel, and that is the training of acoustic modules. This has the downside of taking for-fucking-ever and requiring a quiet recording environment, however, and I don’t have the time right now to read through the pages and pages and pages and pages of computer theory right now to fully understand how to train one. So, improving PocketSphinx and running Sterling fully offline remains a stretch goal.

The TTS Engine

The Text to Speech engine is basically Sterling’s voice. This one was a bit easier to customize, and I’m thankful for that, because Jasper’s OG voice is a bit er… 90s computing for my tastes.

I shopped around for decent, human-sounding TTS options, and settled on installing Mimic1 TTS, Mycroft’s TTS engine, by hand, and modifying the Jasper source code to support it. Of all the TTS engines I tried, I felt that this one had the most natural intonation out of all of them. I liked the gruffness of the Scottish accent, and I think it really helped round out Sterling’s endearing, if a tad prickly, personality.

The Audio

This was another unforeseen hurdle. Turns out that I had his mic volume turned up way too high, because I greatly underestimated the capabilities of my tinyass five dollar USB microphone to pick up noises from within a furby. It took a bit of hacking in PulseAudio to get him hearing things properly, and I’m still not all the way happy with it, but he’s running wayyyy better than he did!

Another issue was the amount of time he actively listened for. It was way too short for my liking with the hardware I was using, so I had to edit Jasper’s mic.py source file a billion times before I hit a sweet spot. Even early on, my little shit child never liked to listen to me. :P

Pimp My AI

Once I got all that in working order, it was time to browse GitHub for modules to add! I found a surprising amount that were, as expected, outdated, janky, non-working, or in need of a complete rewrite. A non-exhaustive list of modules I rewrote and added to Sterling’s AI includes:

Wolfram Alpha integration

His translation function

The IMDB module that searches movie titles

The Dictionary and Thesaurus modules (minor additions to improve user friendliness)

The morning greeting module

The holiday countdown module

There are also plenty of modules I wrote on my own, that I’ll be showcasing here in due time, but I want to give special mention to the one I’m most proud of. You see, when I was a wee dumb bitch, I was… well, a wee dumb bitch! When I was informed furbies learn English, I thought they really learned English. Like, fluent English. I envisioned these kids straight up having full conversations with their lil robots with reckless and envious abandon. I was, as it happens, too poor to afford a furby at the time, so I didn’t realize until embarrassingly later that they only learn some words, and certainly can’t hold much of a conversation (in English at least).

Fast forward to twenty-bi-teen. I’m surfing GitHub, and I happen upon a Cleverbot module for Jasper allowing the AI to work as a chatbot. Fuck yeah, I think, because I had no life in 2008, or friends for that matter, so tormenting Cleverbot was my favourite pastime. Nostalgia trip GET!

…can you guess how much the silicon valley capitalist scum are charging for the once-free Cleverbot API now? A hundred and twenty. McGoddamn. Dollars. A YEAR.

So, to make a long story short, I turned my hat backwards and rage-coded a simple chatbot module that runs on an early version of Chatterbot capable of running on the raspberry pi. It’s fully offline, and completely free, and Sterling here has a database of ~400 phrases, which isn’t bad given the limited processing power! It took five straight days of work, it’s not the smartest chatbot, and it’s certainly not the fastest, but it gives me those sweet, sweet, circa 2008 Cleverbot vibes. Oh yeah, and it doesn’t cost me over a hundred goddamn dollars a year!

The first thing I said to the chatbot, of course, was “I’m so proud of you.” Through his shitty little testing mic that gave him a somewhat incredulous tone Sterling replied, “I’m glad to hear that.” and I’m not saying I shed a single themly tear over it, but I’m not denying it either. I made a childhood dream come true, fam. ;u;

There are way more Easter eggs I plan to show you, of course. At first I was thinking of doing one long video, but an update a day showcasing a different function might be easier to manage - and maintain some of that gold old sense of mystery that surrounds most furbies. No, I’m gonna take y'all on a little journey through the final product of my literal blood, sweat, and tears!

Besides, Sterling is a perpetual work in progress. He has a massive list of features, and I’ve already got more in the works. I could be in my eighties and still be adding more functions, more bells and whistles, more witty one-liners. He’s a one of a kind work of art that will never truly be finished - not unlike you and me.

The Glow-up

Here’s Sterling’s before pics from the seller I got him from:

(If u recognize these pics and ur the seller thank u thank u for giving me bmy boy)

And here’s after!

I come from a background of customizing ponies and dolls, so working on this guy wasn’t as far removed as I expected it to be. I added floof to his head and tail by sewing in wool plugs, and his gorgeous eyes are from in2blythe on Etsy. I wrapped him up in a little bow and he was good to go! His sterling silver beak, from which he gets his name, was the most finicky part. Turns out enamel paints take a million years to fucking dry, if ever, which isn’t great when painting something that sees a lot of movement and could potentially get dented by a face plate, like… idk, a furby beak! A bit of silver nail polish did the trick and he was good to go. Learn from my fail, fam.

What It Cost Me

If you’re masochistic determined enough to attempt this yourself, I want to sit you down and warn you of something: this will take months and hundreds of dollars to do. Installing Sterling’s AI and its necessary components on that shitty little raspberry pi over SSH took me a week at first, and that was with me leaving it on 24/7 to chug away compiling things. When I broke the SD card the AI was on and didn’t have a backup copy, it took four straight days of rage-computing to regain all my progress. Then when his audio processing got fucked all to hell for reasons I still do not understand to this day, it took another four days of rage computing to do yet another reinstall and get him back in working order. There were times where I would go to work for 8.5 hours, bus an hour home, work 6 straight hours on my furby, go to sleep for 4 of them, go to classes, sleep, and work 6 more hours on my furby. For two months. Sterling took from the third week of August from his initial inception to his birthday on October 23rd. That’s not to mention the time I fried everything and had to wait five days and travel to the bumfuck end of the city for a replacement pi and Crickit, or the days I spent customizing him, sewing in hundreds of little hair plugs into his ass and head by hand, and waiting for those shitty enamel paints to dry, only to discover after four straight days of failure that they take weeks to do so and I was better off using cheapo nail polish!

The point I’m making is, if you take on a project like this and want it to be successful, you have to be tenacious. I would highly recommend a background in coding (I have a web design diploma) and general tech savviness as an asset. Sterling is the product of the years I spent behind a computer keyboard from the start of age three, and the roughly ten years I spent customizing dolls and ponies. It’s cheesy as shit to say he’s my magnum opus, but in a way, he is.

I’m not saying this to be elitist or snotty. I’m saying this because I nearly broke down crying the first day the raspberry pi came in, before I slept on it and figured out what phrase to google to solve the crashes and kernel panics it was having. When I broke the SD card when I was nearly finished, I felt nothing, because I was all out of tears at that point. When I fried the first raspberry pi and Crickit hat trying to figure out how to bypass that DC jack, my only thought was, “Well, I think I know how to do it without fucking it up now, and if I can’t do it, this whole project is fscked” .

You will encounter errors that no step by step guide can prepare you for that will make you curse the day you were born. The difference between success and failure is how many times you’re willing to get up and try again, and I’m here to tell you it’s possible. But you gotta want it.

Will You Release the Code Base?

Yes and no. If there’s enough demand, I’ll definitely release Sterling’s basic modules as a scaffolding. I won’t be releasing Sterling, though.

What do I mean by that? Well, Sterling was intended from the start to be truly one of a kind, and he always will be. I hand wrote hundreds of lines of dialogue, all completely tailored to him, and I’m still planning on adding twice as many. Corny as this is, this little guy has a metric fuckton of sentimental value to me. I don’t have kids so idk how it would compare to that, but I definitely love him as much as I love my cats, but I also didn’t undergo two straight months of suffering in ADHD fixation hell to create my cats, so it adds like, a whole other twee dimension to it.

So, if there is demand for this, what I’ll release instead is a scaffolding from which you can code your own, unique furby from, with their own name, personality, and responses all unique to them. I’ll also release it with the caveat that I am not a good Python coder! I have not written any Python before this, so a lot of what I did write is noob-tastic and hasn’t even been linted. You have been warned!

“If I give you (insert amount), can you make one for me?”

Holy shit I’ll be real with you, I’d love to do this as a living. I’ve been dying to see a smart assistant hit the market that’s like… well, an actual, endearing companion and not just a voice coming from a speaker. The problem with doing this is that, if you drop a lot of money (and it will be a lot of money, even with a code base to work from, a lot of hours of handiwork still goes into coding individual responses and making sure everything works as intended, on top of possibly customizing too), there is one major problem: proximity. I won’t be able to troubleshoot your furby nearly as effectively from far away as I would be able to if we lived in close proximity. Which means if something goes wrong between the time your new friend is finished at point A and turned on at point B, I won’t be there to troubleshoot it in person for you, which means you could end up stuck figuring out certain things alone. If you use Windows, that will be very, very hard - not being an OS snob here, I own a dual boot myself, it’s just a case of incompatible file systems. And unless you can figure out how to edit the wpa_supplicant file on a raspberry pi to update your wifi credentials, your furby’s internet connection could be toast if you move house and those credentials change. That’s not getting into the cost some services charge for extra API keys to use their online functions…

The long and short of it is, if I’m going to do this for money, I want to make sure you get a quality product and friend that will bring you joy for years to come. Since that’s not something I can guarantee, I can’t in good conscience take people’s money.

I Could Teach You (And I Won’t Charge)

…however, I am a law student who is also working 8.5 hour night shifts three nights a week. I am also mentally ill/neurodivergent, which saps my energy in more ways than one. I won’t always be easy to get ahold of, or be able to answer every question I get, especially not ones that can be solved with a quick google search, like how to set up a raspberry pi, or… anything found on Adafruit’s Crickit guide, for example. When I have the time and energy, I’m hoping to use my next project as a jumping off point for a step by step walkthrough of the process. For now, though? I’ve been furbied out, so if there’s enough demand, I’ll compile as many of the resources I used I can find in the meantime, and post some tips from the word doc I kept while making Sterling, and go from there.

So What’s Next?

My one dad’s birthday is coming up in August, and I’m kicking around the idea of turning a furby into, I shit you not, a ghost hunting device. He loves ghost hunting, but hates robots, and as his gremlin shit child I am obligated to troll him in this fashion. 😎 Also considering doing a certain type of oddbody mod, but I want to get permission from the person who first thought of the concept before I dive head first into it.

And that about covers it! Thanks for reading, and if there’s anything you’d like to see from Sterling and I, don’t hesitate to drop us an ask!

[stories-you-wont-hear]

– precedence. pt 1

hey everybody! it’s ya girl! back at it again! with a new story! in lieu of the final part of due process! i swear it is slowly coming together, but i want to be able to do justice to the characters in the story and give them an ending that’s neither cotton candy and butterflies nor... slushy snow and subway rats (does my idea of the bad end of things give away where i’m from lol).

 aNyWaY here is part one to what will mostly likely be a mini series/prequel to due process in which we find out why y/n is the way she is and how billy came into her life. 

bear in mind that this is the same reader from due process, but i don’t think you have to read due process to understand things here, however certain characters will cross over. i hope you all enjoy this, and please give me love! it is so difficult to find motivation to write things when no one pays any attention. i know i write for myself, and for the fun of it, but it can be tough TT enjoy! xoxo mira

   ___________________________________________________________

There was a special place in hell for the person who decided Latin would be so heavily incorporated into the American legal system. Was English not enough? You secretly figured the people who set up this whole shebang got into a pissing contest with each other and resorted to using fancy Latin phrases to try and one up each other, and as a result, you were sitting at your desk and poring over legal Latin phrases.

You were not about to be the next associate fired for fudging up Latin in a brief that ended up being presented in court by a senior partner, who got an earful from the judge and ended up losing the hearing on a matter of technical wording. That day had been about two weeks ago and since then, every single associate at your firm, Wesley King Randall, had been brushing up on terminology. 

Every free moment was spent scanning through reference books and a study guide someone had made, and all that was saying a lot since associates at any big law firm barely had time to breathe. From the corner of your eye, you saw one of the name partners making their way towards the area where the associates were situated and you quickly slipped the papers you had been studying from into your bag and turned to the papers on research about property law. Apparently not everyone had sensed the shift in the air as several other associates still had out their Latin books. 

“Didn’t you bumbling toddlers learn what mens rea means in whatever law school your daddies bought your way into?” the woman said as she walked through the playpen of associates, causing a wave of frazzled yuppies to quickly shut their books and turn towards the woman who would fire each and every one of them without a moment’s hesitation. 

“A guilty mind,” one particular young associate said. Big mistake. 

“Is that what your copy of Legalese for Dummies says?” she replied, eyes piercing through the man who had had the audacity to reply to her. The poor kid was now probably kicking himself for not interning at Landman and Zack. You sucked in your breath, unsure what his fate would be until another man walked towards the bullpen area.

 “Eva, you came to choose an associate, not to choose a lamb to slaughter,” Richard Wesley said, his teeth sparkling as he came in, shaking his head as if to admonish the woman with whom he shared the name of the firm. 

“It’s not my fault they’re all sheep,” she replied back bitterly, her mood seeming to worsen with the addition of her colleague.

 “How about Monty?” Richard suggested, gesturing towards William Montgomery Jr., who immediately stood up when his name was called. “I’d prefer someone who won’t call me a frigid bitch behind me back, Dick,” Eva deflected. Monty's face immediately reddened as Eva reiterated the words he had used to describe her last week at an associate's happy hour outing.

"The walls have ears, Mr. Montgomery," Eva cautioned, her eyes scanning the faces of the associates, who were all probably trying to hide either their fear or their contempt of the female third of the law firm.

Eva King was many things. She was poised, she was ruthless, and she did not give a shit what people thought of her. And now, Eva King was looking directly at you. "You," she said, and you immediately rose up, hand reaching for your bag without a word as she beckoned for you. Eva turned to leave without so much as another word, but you caught the look Richard Wesley was giving the rest of the associates, namely the male associates in front of him.

It was a look that was meant to pacify them. It wasn't that they weren’t worthy, Eva chose you because you were a woman. At least, that's what those man-babies would tell themselves as they nursed top shelf liquor tonight after work. It was the same reason why Richard Wesley doubted your ability even though you had just wrangled a property case for him just last month.

"I don't have time to coddle you," Eva said as you followed her through the firm, heading for the elevator. "I don't need you to," you replied, stepping into the enclosed space behind her. "That's what I like to hear," she said, granting you a look that was probably as close to warm as she could get.

"You were the one who figured out that clever little loophole in the Grant case will, weren't you?" she asked after a moment of silence. You attempted to pull back at the grin that wanted to pop up on your face, it was the very case Richard Wesley had taken as a favor for an old family friend, making sure that man would get every pretty penny from his grandmother's will. It was also the case that some second year associate had gotten the credit for just because he was being groomed for Wesley's good old boy club. Yet, Eva King knew what you had done. You had barely had a conversation since you started here three years ago, but she knew about you.

"Yes," you replied, hoping your faux indifferent tone was masking the fact that you were internally jumping for joy. "Don't be humble," Eva insisted, "Every goddamn thing you do here, you write your name in big bold letters on. You don't do that and some ass with a trust fund is going to write his own name on it." You attempted to take in her words as the elevator dinged, marking your arrival to the third and most prestigious floor of the firm.

The desk at reception was marked with the names of the partners in silver lettering and the woman behind it stood up as the both of you stepped off the elevator. "Mr. Russo from Anvil is already waiting in your office, Ms. King," the receptionist called as Eva brushed past her. "Of course he is," Eva muttered under her breath, heading towards her office.

"Stay sharp," was all that Eva supplied before she stepped into her office to find the man you presumed to be Mr. Russo going through the books she had arranged on the bookshelf behind her couch. You could've sworn that her office was probably just as big as your apartment, her desk facing away from the lounge area each name partner had in their office. Eva's was tastefully done, and was as chic as she was. "I think this Camus guy is pretty bleak, don't ya think?" were his first words as he turned towards the two of you, holding up a copy of The Stranger. "Sorry, I'll have Forrest Gump playing for you the next time you visit, Mr. Russo," Eva responded.

The man, who you couldn't help but ogle, was dressed impeccably in a suit you had worked long enough at this firm to know was worth your entire month's paycheck. "Billy Russo," he said, putting the book back on the shelf to step towards you, his movements precise as he offered his hand to you. You shook it, hoping you weren't still ogling him. "Y/N Y/L/N," you supplied.

"Have a seat, Mr. Russo, Y/N," Eva chimed, waiting until the both of you sat before she took a seat a few feet from you on the couch. "What's going on, Russo?" she asked almost immediately. Eva certainly did not beat around the bush, even with clients. "How I love your hospitality," Billy commented with a chuckle. "Can I get you anything?" Eva said exasperatedly.

"Just some fine legal counsel," Billy quipped back as you looked between the two of them. You had always seen Eva as a powerhouse, not taking shit from anyone, but this kind of exchange was almost like banter. You were seeing a new side of her.

"Well, it's a good thing you came to a law firm, isn't it?" Eva shot back, but this time with the tiniest of smiles. "I hear you lot are pretty decent, any truth to that?" he said, this time directing his playful quip at you. "That suit you're wearing isn't cheap, and neither are we," you responded.

"I like her," Billy said, turning to face Eva, who was nodding at you with a look of approval. "So do I," she began, avoiding eye contact with you as she said so, "And she's right. So we can keep making small talk for as long as you want, Billy." Billy smirked, and you knew he had the pockets to keep you and Eva here all day if he wanted. You certainly didn't mind the view.

"What was that joke?" Billy began, "What's the difference between a good lawyer and a bad lawyer? A bad lawyer can drag a case out for a year and a good lawyer..." "A good lawyer can make it last even longer," you offered. "Bingo!" Billy grinned. Eva's expression turned to one of weariness, and you cleared your throat, not wanting her to regret her choice.

"Sorry, Eva," Billy sighed, "I just can't help myself around beautiful women." His grin was wide as he leaned back against the arm chair he had chosen to sit in, and suddenly his face clicked. You had seen him in the papers and perhaps once or twice in the office on the rare occasion you had to visit the third floor. He was the CEO of some private military firm and had deep enough pockets to keep Wesley King Randall on as legal counsel. "Try," Eva replied dryly.

Billy's entire demeanor changed within seconds, sitting up and dropping the grin in exchange for an intense look as he pointed towards the file on the coffee table. "This is a contract that I made with a domestic company to provide accommodations to my men out in Iraq. They're set to go weeks from now, and then this son of-" Eva cleared her throat, raising her brow at him as she leafed through the papers. "Sorry," Billy mumbled, before shaking his head as if to clear his thoughts.

"Now they're telling me they can't provide me the service, and I've got men going out there with no place to go," he continued. "They called you and told you that?" Eva asked, her eyes scanning the pages in front of her. "Yeah, the guy didn't even have the balls to tell it to my face. Let me tell you what I would've done if he had had the gall to walk into my office and tell me that." "Please," Eva cut in again, "If it's not legal, don't tell me." Billy sighed, shrugging his shoulders a bit. He looked tense, his concern for the people who worked for him apparent.

"Fair enough," he sighed. "I just don't want my men out in the cold." You nodded sympathetically, eyes turning to Eva who had set the contract back down on the table. "Does this have anything to do with the fact that the wife of this company's CEO was the one you were laying it on at the gala last weekend? she asked coolly. Billy froze, the epiphany he was having drawing a a slow nod as Eva spoke. "I didn't know that was her!" he cried, "And I can't help it if my natural state of being is pure charm." Eva scoffed, and even you couldn't help but chuckle in reply to that comment.

"What am I supposed to do now? Wait until my men are out there without so much as a roof over their heads?" he said, turning back into serious Billy.

"It's an anticipatory breach," you spoke up, looking up at Billy. Eva nodded in agreement, her eyes on you as you spoke. "You don't have to wait to take legal action until they actually breach the contract. He already told you that they can't honor their part of the agreement. That in turn will affect your ability to complete the job your company was hired for. They could be held liable not just for what you paid them, but for the entire contract."

Billy turned to look back at Eva, who sat up straight, her expression unable to hide the fact that she was pleased with you. "That's right," she agreed, "We can hold them as liable before they actually breach. Do you have proof that he called and stated that on the phone?" Billy nodded, explaining that he'd need to get the recording of the call from the secretary who kept those sort of logs.

"Great," Eva said, standing up to follow Billy's movements as you did the same. "Get that to me and I'll have his head on a platter for you," she said as she began to walk him out. "Thank you, Eva," Billy said, tipping his head in thanks. "And thank you, Y/N," he said with one of those smiles. "It's my job, Mr. Russo," you replied. With that, he was off and you wondered if Eva wanted you in her office as she had taken a seat at her desk.

"Should I-" you began until she gestured for you to take a seat across from her. "You did good," she praised, and for a moment, you wondered if you were in a dream. Eva King, the woman who all the associates called an ice queen, was praising you while you sat in her office. "But you have to be the best," she continued, her eyes set on you. You tried to maintain eye contact, but her gaze was too intense and your eyes dropped to your lap. "I'm serious, Y/N, you have potential," she said, a bit gentler this time. You nodded, thanking her for the opportunity as you sensed it was time for you to return to your regular old cubicle three floors down. "And," Eva called as you got to the door, "Next time don't make it so obvious that you're ogling him."

  ___________________________________________________________

and boom! so that was mainly to introduce the story and the characters and of course, billy. let me know what you think and i hope to have the next part of this as well as the last part to due process out soon. much love, mira

[titan-fanatic]

So I was on Google trying to see if there was any new information regarding the crossover special between TT and TTG when I came across a weird and low-key shitty article about Starfire.

It’s called “24 things that make no sense about Starfire from Teen Titans” and it’s funny because most of the things on this list actually DO make sense and have logical explanations.

But before I go into the actual article itself, I just want to mention that it’s FILLED WITH STOLEN FANART. No links to the original sources, no mention of the artists, nothing. What kind of professional journalist/critic/whatever-the-fuck-this-guy-is doesn’t cite their sources or give credit for artwork that isn’t his??? 

Out of everything about this article, the fact that he’s basically just stolen and used a bunch of fanart without publicly giving credit to the artists is what pisses me off the most. 

As for the actual list, I’ll just go over a few of the “points” he made.

Why would Starfire wear her crown on Earth? She obviously doesn’t care about being part of the royal family, seeing how she never bothered to tell the Titans that she was second in line for the throne. They only found out when they went to Tamaran and everyone started bowing down and calling her “princess”. 

And she doesn’t even WANT to rule Tamaran. She literally rejected the crown after she defeated Blackfire and ended up handing it over to Galfore instead. 

Also, it’s been pointed out repeatedly throughout the show that Starfire’s main insecurity is not fitting in. Yes she’s proud to be a tamaranian, but she also wants to feel like she belongs on Earth. Even though Starfire absolutely does belong and is essential to the team (it’s canon that the Teen Titans would fall apart without her), she’s still scared that people will think she’s some sort of freak. Wearing a crown would only make her stick out more.

He literally answered his own question. They’re aliens, they’re different. It doesn’t have to make sense because the point is to show the Tamaranian lifestyle and culture.

(peep that stolen artwork ❤️)

Was he??? Not watching the episode????? Yes, Blackfire was wearing the Jewel of Charta, and that enhanced her powers. But Starfire grabbed it and destroyed it, and without the jewel, Blackfire was no match for Starfire. She didn’t win “through sheer force of will”, she won because she’s a fierce and skilled warrior who’s more than competent when it comes to fighting. 

This question irritates me because it insinuates that Starfire is not very strong, and that is.... very false. She’s arguably one of the strongest Titans, if not THE strongest, and she’s beaten Blackfire before. 

Of course it makes sense that Starfire won the battle, what the hell?

??????????????????????????? Where did he get the idea that she’s over 150 years old????? Am I missing something? When were the Titans’ ages ever confirmed, and when was it said that Starfire is over 150? 

I don’t know if this was said in TTG or the comics or something, but even if it was it doesn’t matter. TTG isn’t TT, and TT isn’t the comics. They’re all different. If Stafire is 150 in TTG or in the comics it doesn’t mean she’s over 150 in TT. 

Okay, I’m not mad at this question. I actually agree. 

As you all probably know, I’m one of the biggest robstar shippers on the planet, so seeing them get together earlier on would have been glorious and an absolute dream. come. true. But the execs did answer this. Robin and Starfire didn’t get together earlier because they wanted their relationship to continue to build throughout the series, and if they were to have gotten together earlier on there wouldn't have been anything to develop (I personally think this answer is bullshit because there were so many things that could have been expanded upon if they’d become a couple earlier, but whatever.)

The Titans disbanded because they were devastated. Just like how the grief of losing a child can sometimes cause parents to split up, the same thing happened with the Titans when Starfire disappeared. Also, people seem to forget that there would be no Teen Titans if it hadn’t been for Starfire. They never would have met if Star hadn’t had come to Earth.

(And Beast Boy might have gone bald because of the stress and depression that came after Starfire disappeared. Totally logical explanation.)

We’re talking about a cartoon made for children that’s about 5 teenage superheroes who fight crime. A history lesson about the trials and tribulations of Tamaranian puberty is not necessary. 

(And it was said in the episode that transformations are different for everyone. Star just got the shitty end of the stick.) 

BITCH SHE DOES LEARN. She learns something in every episode. And she really hasn’t been on Earth for that long, it’s only been a couple of years at most so of course things are difficult?? I’d imagine you’d find it hard to adjust to another culture, let alone PLANET. 

Fuck this question.

She was given to the Gordanians as a “prize” (slave) by her people. Of course she doesn’t want to go back. 

She even said that there is no word for “nice” back on Tamaran, and that the only person who ever treated her with any sort of love or kindness was Galfore. A world where people are actually kind and affectionate towards one another would seem kind of sweet after coming from a place like that. 

Initially I was curious about that too, but like I said before, the comics are different from the show. Maybe she doesn’t know that Blackfire betrayed her? Or maybe Blackfire didn’t sell her in this version? 

This question is valid, but there are logical reasons that could answer this, so I wouldn’t say it “doesn’t make sense”.

In conclusion, I found this article to be annoying and weird and I do not appreciate the stolen artwork.

[kpopreviewcafe]

Red Velvet 'The ReVe Festival: Finale' Review

Red Velvet are back with the third and final instalment of their riveting full length album The ReVe Festival. It’s been one hell of a ride – beginning this summer with the mind boggling Zimzalabim, followed by the flavourful Umpah Umpah. Finally we have Psycho, which is unlike anything RV have done before. Let’s get into the review.

Psycho starts off with the distinct vocalisations of Wendy and Seulgi, who are easily some of Kpop’s strongest vocalists. The track’s instrumental has several layers that expertly intertwine: from the strong beat and the use of strings, to the electro-sounding twists and turns. The combination of playful raps, sultry vocals and interesting melodies remind me of the group’s earlier songs Cool Hot Sweet Love and Stupid Cupid, which lean more towards the group’s “velvet” style. The song’s texture gives off that expensive and high quality production feeling that most SM Entertainment artists have. The melody in the verses really reminds me of the song Secrets by One Republic, but this connection is a nice one! The chorus itself is unexpected, but when you hear it you realise that it could not possibly have been any different.  Nothing that Red Velvet makes is truly “easy listening”, due to the heavily experimental music style that the group has, but this song seems to be one that is designed to be a smash hit for the casual listener too (like their groundbreaking Bad Boy, for example). That being said, this song definitely lives up to my sky-high expectations for their finale song for this year, and I know I will be playing this on repeat for a long time to come.

The next track In & Out has a distinct RnB vibe, which is refreshing to hear from Red Velvet, who don’t really dabble in this genre as much as I think they should. This song has that “produced by Groovy Room” feeling, but of course with the classic Red Velvet quirkiness and eccentricity added into the mix (especially thanks to the rappers Irene and Yeri). What I enjoyed most about this song was the frequent baking analogies (I mean, it’s impossible not to fall for Irene after her “chocolate, coconut, ice cream line”). I loved the lyric “Step 1: Mix It, Step 2: Bake It, Step 3: Serve it, then I taste it”. It makes Red Velvet seem like sexy witches, standing over a cauldron making a love potion… (an idea for their next music video perhaps?).

Remember Forever is a warm hearted ballad with a distinctly nostalgic feeling. As a Reveluv, I’ve sorely missed some classic ballad action from the music that Red Velvet have released this year, so I am definitely satisfied with this track. I can tell that the ladies have hugely improved as singers as time has gone on, as with this track their voices are all bold and confident, making this song is even more enjoyable to listen to. Yeri’s rap is another highlight – her distinctive voice gives this otherwise sugary ballad a freaky twist.  

The last song on this album is the special track La Rouge, which was first showcased at Red Velvet’s Korean concert of the same name earlier this year. With this song Red Velvet attempt a more sassy, mature and sexual concept, and boy do they deliver! This song reminds me of the fierce and girly concept in Girls’ Generation-TTS’s “Twinkle”. Red Velvet’s musical prowess is no joke, and the way that they can effortlessly pull of such a range of vocally challenging songs is really incredible.  

With the release of Psycho, Red Velvet have ended the decade with a bang. At this point, they have surpassed the rest of the Kpop industry and are really only competing against themselves to claim the title of song of the year. The only question is, will it be Zimzalabim, Umpah Umpah or Psycho?

[asillydreamer-on-a-crazyworld]

So I’m a little annoyed at some of the comments I’m seeing about “Rio better not be a cheater”, do people really think he made that baby by himself! We can’t forget that although she is really unhappy, Beth is marred and cheating on her husband (no matter how much he deserves it). Why would anyone think he wouldn’t have anyone in his life. What are your thoughts?

ok, anon, about that.

*sighs*

FIRST: I hope Adelfa won’t get hate for a comment she probably shouldn’t have written and that she erased later. We all know there are ppl out there that take things to an extreme and cross the line between real life and a tv show that it’s NOT real, no matter how much you love it. I posted here once about Alison Tolman, the actress who plays Mary Pat, getting hate on TT bc of her character. And I say that bc this kind of shit happens all the time, no matter the fandom you’re in. Believe me, I was on TT and I already saw a few mean and angry comments about her.

That being said:

SECOND: I’ve seen people talking about more than one interpretation of that comment. In some of her interactions with fans, she is usually playful and charismatic. So far, this is what I saw people saying:

1- she really is playing his wife on the show too.

2- she was answering a fan with her usually playful mood and only meant that on set ( as in the place her  husband works) or offset she is his wife so, whatever…I don’t know if I made myself clear here so…

My opinion? Is that she probably meant she will be his wife in the show ( and Goddamn it, here goes my older posts saying that that hug looked more like a friends’ hug. In my defense, I didn’t get any romantic/sexy vibe from it. It rly looks like old friends hugging each other but like other people theorized here, she could also be his baby mama.). However, we all knew the guy has a life outside his criminal gangster persona and he had a life before Beth showed up, obviously, so sue him!

And I don’t think that Beth “forgot” he had a kid but she probably assumed something in the lines of what some ppl in the fandom also thought: baby mama was dead, was out of his life, or is actually his ex. Maybe she even thought about him having someone else but didn’t care bc she did not want to feel anything for the guy. I don’t think Beth is the kind of person to have sex with someone else without getting some feelings, however, so she will be surprised or angry with herself for feeling something more for him when she knows she shouldn’t.

Now, I’m not gonna lie, I got an entirely different view of Rio coz he didn’t seem the type to cheat with all that talk about loyalty and trust. Maybe he only applies it to his work but not personal life?  Or there is more to the story than we know. Manny said once Rio’s motivation is “family”. I always thought that “family”  involved a father, mother, sisters or brothers ( which he might have, at least one of his parents alive or both). I was surprised when I found out he also had a kid. And with a wife now in the picture? Hmm, I get why people are feeling kind of betrayed but, like I said, maybe there is more to the story than we know.

All this still feels odd to me to a point, bc, again, I never thought he’d be the type. And how this man finds time to do everything he does with a little family to care for? Holy shit, Rio, teach me how u do it, coz I need to learn that!

Rio is far from perfect and he was never a saint, to begin with. It was obvious to me since his kid appeared that Rio had a relationship with someone else at a moment in his life and it probably meant something special for him to have a kid with her, or don’t. The kid could be a result of a one night stand or a relationship without any prospects of lasting for long.

Now that there is the possibility of him being a cheater, I’d say that relationships are complicated and not all of them perfect, see Beth and Dean and how things are going down. Like you said, Beth is cheating too and even if Dean is a scumbag she could have chosen to not go down that road. She did it bc she wanted, and she doesn’t even know Rio or trust him enough but Beth is way aware of how things between them would get to that point.

Let’s be fair: Rio is a criminal, a killer, he almost killed Beth ( He thought about at least in that second episode), he breaks the law and does all kind of wrong things. Him being a cheater? It sucks but it would be just another thing to add to the list of all the reasons why Rio is the wrong guy to be involved with. Yeah, I know he has good points to his character too and that he is not a monster… We’ve talked about that already. No one in this show is a saint ( and I dare say not even Stan coz I know he means well but he is breaking the laws for Ruby already. He is getting hhis hands dirty too)

However, this thing he has with Beth is so strong and raw … It runs deeper, like, it’s instinctual and it’s getting out of control. No one can say that there is nothing going on between these two and I don’t think it’s sexual attraction only.

this brings me to another thought :

THIRD:

If there is a possibility of Adelfa deleting that comment bc she saw that ppl took it  the wrong way, and option 2 of my second line of thought is correct, this is only a misunderstanding and she is not actually his wife, but maybe an ex or someone else? Coz, again, Brio sells this show. It is so strong and powerful that the writers couldn’t let go of it - hell, let’s be honest, this show is incredible and it doesn’t need Brio to be so great as it is, but it’s what makes ppl go crazy about it and watch the show for them. I won’t be a hypocrite about that-. We know they won’t have a happy ending, I don’t see how it can end happily for everyone involved but there is always the possibility of Beth and Rio having a strong, unbreakable connection between them that will keep them together until the end.

This is all I think of what happened after that comment written on IG and what it means or could mean.

Honestly, tho? We are all here trying to find an answer to all that and losing our minds and having our heart broken in the process, but I‘d ask u this:

have you ever felt betrayed or even disappointed with GG writers or Jenna Bans in all this time watching the show?

Because if so, I’d say that is not my case. I trust them to give us just the best of the best here and they worked hard for that, I’m sure and I won’t let this turn me down, not when I didn’t even watch the episode or the rest of the season to really know what this whole thing between Beth and Rio is about.

Let’s wait and see, exercise our patience and not let our minds drive us crazy.

[deathbyseventeen]

From my story game...

--- 

Alrighty - Good Love from NU’EST’s Aron for Joshua *I'm grooving to the song* shoutout if you can tell where incorporated parts of the song’s lyrics hehehe.

Anyways like I said before, I’m trying to get my sea legs back (my writing abilities) so my apologies if this ain’t it chiefs. (Also I didn’t tag you who requested this bc I didn’t know if it was alright to tag you....) 

To start off let me just say this was making me groove so hard. 

Alright, so this definitely a soft fantasy type of story. Lots of Romance with just a tinge of angst. 

So let’s say this a world where life has moved onto plants far away from ours and because of this Earth can’t really control the life on those plants and they’ve gone rogue and independent, and somehow y’all have gone medieval. You, dear reader, are a member of the royal guard on your planet; and so is Joshua. However, the two of you are part of different teams, the two big teams that everyone wishes to be a part of. The teams’ citizens pit against each other. Just for fun lets call your team “Starlight” and Joshua’s team “Starbright” 

So this is basically how it goes down “Starlight would totally kick Starbright’s ass.” “Would not!” “WOuld too! Starlight has Y/N!” 

This plant y’all live on was discovered to be extremely green. And by green I mean it has Earth-like life -- plant life but to extremes. Plants can move now and grow exponentially. So where does our story begin? 

The dear king of your plant calls both of y’alls teams down to his throne room and makes you each volunteer two people that will go on a mission. These two people, in the end, are you and Joshua because it was decided you both would be the least likely to go at each other's throat. 

Your mission? Figure out what’s been causing the plant to have these extreme tremors. On the other side of the plant. 

So you take off, all geared up with your swords and stuff. Capes and all. 

But do you guys want to hear a little secret? Joshua likes you. And you like Joshua. But... every time he asks you out...you keep saying no. WTH

Traveling through the dense forests Joshua doesn’t bring it up. But when you guys reach your first stop, a little village a day’s away from the main kingdom. 

You guys are trying to conduct interviews, seeing if anything is out of the ordinary. But, people are avoiding you guys. they see you guys and they turn the other way and one guy even ran away. But one kid, one freaking kid decided he’s got nothing to lose and ends up telling you guys that a weird man had been setting things under the ground and threatened the entire village to stay quiet or he would return and kill them all. WoW, Evil. 

Anyways, no one wants to give you guys a room to sleep in and spend the night. So Joshua suggests sleeping in a barn. What other option do you have? And there’s no escaping his flirting. His coddling. His scooting closer to you and enveloping you in his arms because “it’s winter, Nights are colder than ice. WE need to preserve HEAT.” When all he really wants is to cuddle and take you into a really long kiss. And you’re almost asleep when he-- “Y/n?” “Hm?” “Go on a date with me.” “No.” “But why not?” “Because I don’t..like you?” “Y/N.” But that’s where it ends. ALways, And it keeps happening at every stop you make. Now even sometimes when your traveling in the forest.

 (but let's be real here. He doesn’t give up because you actually do reciprocate the flirting he does every now and then)

And then it seems you reach one village that is in the midst of a festival. You guys pause your search for clues as to what the hell the man has been planting underground. You say it’s because this village hasn’t been touched...but really it’s because the villagers have coaxed you both to enjoy their moonlight festival. Long story short-- you end up dancing with Joshua and under all the pretty lights that have been strung across the village. You’re finding it really hard to resist Joshua’s advances. Y’all are dancing when Joshua has the guts to ask you out again and this time you can’t seem to say no but you don't say yes either. Both of you are leaning in getting closer and closer. Your eyes are starting to close and you can feel his breath fanning over your face. You can almost feel the ghost of his lips. They’re brushing over yours when a scream rips through the air and hell is set loose. 

“I warned you what would happen if you didn’t do as I said.” A dude is floating over the festival, getting closer to the people wishing they could sink into the ground. Wait. Is that dude riding a cloud? What the-- 

You and Joshua pull out your swords and face the man when he notices you guys. 

“It seems I have come at the wrong time. No matter, this will teach you all a lesson about disobeying.” He charges at you and somehow you can't seem to move. The entire moment is just overwhelming. The dude is manipulating elements. And just as he's about to grab you, Joshua jumps in front of you. Lightning strikes him and he’s hauled away. 

The villagers are coming up to you screaming. They’re telling you everything and I mean EVERYTHING. Even where to find him. 

You don’t know what to do. can you face this man alone? You need your team! But there’s no time to head back, the man’s hideout is a week’s journey away. So you set off alone. Battling the beasts and deadly plants that pop up along the way. Then you reach the place. This lair is hidden within the structure of these rocky mountains. You haven’t rested, you’re running on pure adrenaline. Your about to set off up the mountain when someone tackles you. 

“What the hell, Y/N?!” It’s your team...and Joshua’s team, all dressed up and ready to go. Oh, and they are going off on you. They know you haven't slept. And you didn’t even send a messenger to tell them what was going on. 

But they’re on your side too, it’s time to get Joshua back. Y’all set off and infiltrate the place. It’s strangely empty. Everyone’s splitting up trying to find Joshua. 

You’re on the brink of tears. Your heart’s pounding. Blood is rushing to your ears. Then you find him, deep underground, at a low level. Keys were conveniently left by the side of the door. 

And when you finally reach Joshua, oh geez, he’s been tortured and stripped of all his gear and armor, left in only his underwear (boxers). He’s a bloody mess on the floor, cuts, and bruises literally everywhere. You’re a mess too, not caring about the noise you’re about to make as you run to him and throw anything and everything in your way away. 

“Joshua?! JoSHua?!” You’re crying, pulling him onto your lap and using your hands to wipe some blood away from his cheeks. “Joshua wake up! Wake up!” 

You can just barely hear him say your name. “Joshua,” you cry. 

“I need...” 

“What? WHat?” You full on sobbing. 

“I need your love.” ....that effig flirt. Really? Right now? 

“Joshua, you idiot.” You cry. You’re trying to stand up and pull him with you when you notice that he has chains attached to his arms. You’re unsheathing your sword, pulling it out to break the chains. You’re so engrossed in getting him out you don't realize there’s someone behind you, and it’s the evil dude! With his own freaking sword. 

Luckily he’s only able to lodge the sword in your shoulder before your teams are running swords at the ready. Jeonghan, one of the members of Joshua’s team gets him before he can kill you. 

but sadly you’re losing a lot of blood, and you’re sleep deprived....and really you didn’t each either on your journey here. My my you aren’t getting past this one. 

You black out. The blood loss is enough. The last thing you see is the floor getting closer, but on the bright side so is Joshua. 

The next time you wake up you’re in the royal infirmary and you’re all patched up! You’ve been ordered bed rest though. But Joshua’s still in the infirmary too and like hell, you’re about to leave. So you sneak off to his cot and just sit there. At one point you reach out to run a hand over a cut he has on his cheek. 

“I’m sorry. Please wake up. I do like you. But our teams--” 

Joshua stirs awake. He mumbles something. ‘

“Josh--” 

“When I’m with you everything is special.” Bam! He opens his beautiful brown eyes TT 

“Wha--” 

“I need--” 

“What? What do you need?” 

“Your love.” He smiles and it hurts! Because you can see it hurts him to smile. 

“Stop smiling you idiot.” You say. He chuckles and you can’t help but bend down to nuzzle his cheek and press a kiss there. But he isn’t having any of that! He’s been waiting for that kiss! So moves his head and pulls you into a kiss, that slow and passionate kiss that oh dear...he’s been waiting so long for. 

On another note - Neither your team nor his were opposed to the both of you. Jeonghan told them all. Joshua had told him how long he had been in love with you before so....

THE END 

SEND IN A FIC TITLE, MEMBER, AND A GENRE AND I’LL TELL YOU WHAT I IMAGINE. OR A SONG AND MEMBER! (GENRE TOO WITH THIS IF YA WANT).