#hoping he can still get revenge for dick before dick gets any ideas about crime fighting

[oifaaa]

Can’t wait for Baby Bruce to get a rabid little brother from the circus

I was actually thinking again about the time travel fix it au and why Jason would just let Dicks parents die and well

I think he just forgot

[anothertimdrakestan]

Batboys Getting Betrayed By Their S/O HC

Requested? Yes! From a lovely anon!

“Hello! I'd like to make a Batboys reaction request if I may! If writing for all of them is too much please pick whoever you'd like! Have fun with it! Batboys finally catch the villain they've been after for a disgusting amount of time, they grab their mask/helmet, rip it off and BAM!! It's their S/O. How do they react? Thank you for your time!!”

THIS HC TURNED INTO AN EPIC COLLAB BETWEEN @birdy-bat-riya AND WE POPPED OFF!!! Riya really said “lets break the boys heart then give them the best fluff in the world” and I agreed then BAM this beauty. I hope you enjoy and I’m super excited to collab w my tumblr soulmate more!!!

ALSO GO CHECKOUT STAY WITH ME A TIM DRAKE FIC THAT IS KINDA LIKE THIS IF YOU WANT STORYLINE IT’S ONE OF MY FAVES!!!

Damian Wayne

- Damian would not see it coming

- after a painful bout of hand to hand combat, Robin had you stuck to a wall with Batarangs, and he stalked forward

- hoping he would get pulled away by Batman so wouldn’t notice your similarity to the love of his life, you sucked in a deep breath as you realized there was no escape

- “The great villainous sidekick defeated by Robin. Sounds good doesn’t it? But I want to know just who I bested” he quipped, reaching for your mask

- as he pulled it off he froze, your mask dropped to the ground as you began begging for forgiveness

- “Baby it’s not what it looks like! I’m sorry you know I couldn’t tell you! I love you Damian please understand!” you cried, pulling against the batarangs you felt your suit rip as you jumped to the ground reaching for Damian

- Damian looked beyond stunned, trying to process the idea that the one person he trusted above all had betrayed him. He’d spent months hunting, fighting, deeply wound you, then calling you beloved just a couple days later

- pulling yourself forward you flung your arms around him, trying to love him into submission

- instinctively his arms began to wrap around you and you could feel the material of his gloves grace over the exposed parts of your side from where your suit ripped, but he drew them back, pushing you off of him

- “belov- Y/N” his tone was harsh, and broken, “is this really you? You knew I was Robin, and yet you lied to me every day? Learned my weaknesses and my truths all just to use it against me?” you could see him shaking, his domino mask hid his glassy eyes but not his heart broken expression

- you realized he thought you’d only befriended him to use him and you jumped to explain “No! Babe never! I keep this life and our life completely separate! I never used anything and would never tell your secrets to anyone! This, this life [ you gestured to your suit ] is out of necessity, for my survival I have to be strong. But with you, Damian, with you life is worth living, you make my battles worth fighting, everything I do is for us!” you realized how good it felt to let everything go, tears streaming down your face

- Damian looked conflicted, broken because of your betrayal, but you could tell he still loved you

- “Y/N you know I can keep you safe, why? Why live this life when you know of the one we could’ve had together?” Damian 

- “I didn’t think of it that way” you whispered, thoughts flying through your head

- “Then let me help you” was all Damian said, and he reached out a hand

- Batman and your boss appeared behind you and Robin, both confused with what was happening

- Bruce looked shocked to see who the villain’s sidekick was, but he was trying to keep his Batman level confidence

- “C’mon kid lets go” you felt a tug on your shoulder, trying to lead you back to your base, but the look Damian was giving you stopped you, unable to turn your shoulder on him

- this was Damian asking you to pick a new life with him. And you knew he was the only thing that truly made him happy, but this would be the end of your reputation, and your safety

- you began to reach for Damian but stopped, needing his reassurance

- “you promise you’ll protect me?”

- “always.” you took his hand, falling into his arms, and decided a future with Damian was better than anything else

Dick Grayson

- Dick didn’t know you were Slade’s protege after Dick told him no all those years ago

- you knew he thought of your villain persona as his greatest opponent and you couldn’t break his heart

- you’d both been in the good guy vs bad guy business since you were kids so you couldn’t expect him to understand, so you hid it.

- he told you he was Nightwing a couple months before and your heart dropped realizing you’d been fighting the love of your life for years, and were trained by one of his greatest tormentors

- in a terrible turn of events you, Nightwing, and Slade all ended up fighting each other, Nightwing and you after Slade for seperate reasons just before his escape he noticed how you couldn’t hurt Dick like you used to

- in an act of revenge for you leaving his side all those years ago, he shouted “catch you later sweet Y/N!” before jumping out a window out of your sight

- Dick’s head whipped to you, a look of confusion at Slade knowing your identity

- hoping he’d missed it you tried to run out of the building and take off

- angy Dick is basically super powered so he caught you (yes i said angy)

- when he rips off your mask and the face he’d adored for years looks up at him he physically can’t stand

- watching the love of your life crumple to the ground is the hardest thing you’ve endured

- frantically trying to explain you keep trying to cup his face in your hand but he pulls away, refusing to look you in the eyes, eventually finding the strength to get up and grapple away

- the entire batfam goes after you. Damian especially, because he trusted you, glad Dick had someone that loved him the way he secretly did. There is no way you’re gonna get away from an angry Batfam especially when their mutual favorite brother has been broken

- I honestly don’t think Dick would let it go back to normal. His family would never approve and knowing you lied for months was too much, he knows what is good and bad for him and is surrounded by family.

- One day the two of you would team up and apologize, continuing forward as mutuals that come when the other needs you, but Dick wouldn’t be able to look at you the same, and Damian would never leave his side, refusing to let Dick get hurt again

Jason Todd

- Jason was used to coming home to you bruised and cut. He never liked to see you battered and bleeding, but he understood it was part of your job as a Criminal Investigator.

- at least that’s what he thought

- you were used to seeing him beat up too. The only difference was that you knew the real reason he came home beaten and injured. 

- it was because he would spend his nights fighting you.

- you truly loved Jason, but you couldn't bear to break his heart by telling him the truth. That the woman he loved was his sworn enemy and was lying about it.

- little did you know, he was beginning to get suspicious of your injuries. They seemed a little extreme for an investigative agent, and dare he say, they seemed to match the injuries his enemy walked away with last night.

- then one night, it happened. You were being chased by Red Hood. You thought you were in the clear. And knowing jason would be home any minute, you headed back home, hopping from rooftop-to-rooftop.

- you stopped in the parking lot of your building, about to take off your mask when you heard a voice. Red Hood was leaning on your car, looking more tense than usual. “Go on. Take off the mask.”

- you were mortified. You tried to run but he caught you and you were cornered. He took off the mask and you looked down, afraid to meet his eyes.

- he wasn’t startled or shocked. You heard the seams of his gloves rip as he clenched his fist. You looked up and saw him scowling, but behind the anger, there was so much disappointment. You could see his heart breaking.

-  he stepped back and began to walk away. You tried so hard to explain and apologize but he only turned you down, unwilling to see your face.

- realizing everything was ruined, you gave one final apology. “Jason, I know you can’t forgive me. But I truly am sorry. I'm sorry for lying, I’m sorry for hurting you, I’m sorry for everything. But I promise, I really do love you. And I know you might not believe me, but I mean every word.” Tears were streaming down your face, and he wouldn’t let you see it, but they were brimming in his.

- you left and didn’t come back. You kept your distance from Jason but made sure you knew was still alright. He was frequenting bars, skipping patrols. You began to worry when he was nowhere to be found, so you donned the mask once more, only without your usual uniform.

- that night, to your disbelief, you found the Red Hood fighting some petty cat burglars outside of a museum. You noticed how his punches held more force than they used to and felt a little pained, seeing his hurt in his movements. 

- while he was taking care of the robbers, you saw one of them run off to a car with a jade vase and instinctively charged in. You hopped in the car roof and swung into the passenger seat, knocked out the driver, and safely drove the car back.

- you put the vase back where it belonged and left the scene of the crime without anyone’s attention.

- Red Hood turned the burglars over to the cops. There was something about a tripped alarm and missing vase but the item was kept exactly where it was meant to be when they checked.

- he was about to trudge away when he heard something. “This masked broad, she jumped into the car! From the bloody window!” His mind wandered. It couldn’t be…

- that night, you returned to one of your old safehouses and headed to your closet to put away your mask, but the first thing you saw was your suit. You looked at the domino mask in your hand and all you could remember was Jason’s face when he found out. Right then and there, you threw it all away.

- months passed. You hadn’t heard from or seen Jason Todd. You revamped your suit and donned a new mask. You went by your old name still. You couldn’t change who you were, and you didn't want to either. 

- the only difference now was that you didn’t kill. something tilted the needle on your moral compass, and as much you wanted to deny it, Jason rubbed off on you.

- you took your burglary jobs, and got into your own type of trouble, but you could almost always handle it. Emphasis on the ‘almost’

- once or twice you bit off more than you could chew, for example the time when you needed to collect some money from a Bludhaven gang. you were outnumbered and unarmed. just when you thought it was all over for you, you heard two gunshots and violent cursing. 

- you found yourself standing before two gangsters with bloody hands and one Red Hood. “You’re welcome.”, he said with his usual snarky tone, muffled by his helmet. 

- this was the first of many times he would save you. You would drop in on his gigs sometimes as well, just to lend a helping gun.

- bad blood aside, you were always there for eachother. He meant it as a silent acceptance of your apology and that’s exactly how you took it.

- soon enough the tension faded, you both went down your own roads but found comfort in knowing that you were never alone. It was an unspoken pact that when one of you needed the other, you’d never be far. 

Tim Drake

- Tim would notice something, maybe you stuffing your suit in your trunk, you using a phrase his enemy always used, something that gave him the wrong feeling

- he’d push it away, always wanting to believe the best of you

- but eventually it wouldn’t add up

- Tim came over one night and made a beeline to the back of your closet, a drawer he never saw you open during all the years of knowing you

- you heard a small gasp when he pulled out the suit of his rival, the strangled sound of disbelief was the last noise he made before he threw your suit on the floor and stormed out, and it was the last you saw of him for months

- watching the news seeing “RED ROBIN GONE BAD?” or “IS THIS IS THE SAME HERO?” as you watched Tim become more and more reckless and cruel. Tim rarely got so physical the medics came instead of the police but watching him through your screen you saw a new person

- seeing Tim (and Red Robin) break down on television gave you the realization of the necessity behind Tim’s heroics

- almost as an homage to his heart break he began using the moves you’re villainous alter ego used on him on his new targets, showing you the hurt and the damage you’d done to your victims

- after weeks of watching the torture you knew villainy wasn’t worth it if it meant Tim was broken like this

- knowing he’d be on patrol like always you waited on the top of the building he’d brought you to the night you started dating, hoping he’d miss the memory as much as you did

- rushing up to him, begging for him to listen, even after the heart break Tim couldn’t say no to you, and he needed to know why, this was a mystery he really couldn’t piece together

- frantically explaining everything from your childhood forward, you couldn’t stop, the honestly was refreshing, and Tim listened the whole time

- after admitting everything you brought your suit out, and in front of Tim you began to rip it to shreds, hoping he’d see the meaning behind your words

- this was a lot for Tim, and he asked for a week to settle his feelings

- Red Robin was inactive for a week, 168 hours you spent praying to anything that he’d take you back

- and exactly one week later, you were holding your head in your hands sobbing, wishing you could’ve changed earlier and hoping Tim would go back to his heroism - when you heard your apartment window carefully opening

- Tim came back, suited up, holding a new suit for you that he’d had created

- Tim explained that he wanted you back, and he intended on helping you fix all your past mistakes, one life saved at a time

- you often looked back on the news from that week, the headlines showed a new chapter of your life

“RED ROBIN AND NIGHTINGALE Y CRIME FIGHTING DUO!” “RED ROBIN IS BACK AND BETTER THAN EVER WITH A NEW HERO AT HIS SIDE!”

I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS IS A REMINDER TO GO FOLLOW @birdy-bat-riyaBECAUSE SHE IS THE REASON THIS IS SO AMAZING ILY GIRLY

[copperpieceharlot]

Bud I’m sorry to swing into your inbox uninvited like this but my soul is having an OOTS renaissance thanks to your content in the tag and did you say Leverage AU

haha holy SHIT this got Long. but yes. i’ve been. Thinking. (also literally Never feel like you have to apologize for sending me messages. i was Hoping someone would ask me about this. now i have an Excuse to share EVERYTHING ive written abt it :3)

Obviously, Roy is the leader/brains of the outfit. He grew up having some Strong Opinions abt what’s Legal versus what’s Right due to tragic backstory involving the death of his little brother which was definitely SOMEONE’S fault for negligence but since there technically wasn’t any illegal behavior, there were no consequences for it. Also he’s still angry at his dad bc he thinks his dad is also partly culpable (and also also just a dick). He’s the Moral Backbone of the team (alongside Durkon, more on that later) in basically the same way Nate was in og Leverage. He’s actually not the best at figuring out what people want (that’s Haley and, shockingly, occasionally Elan), but once he has that info, he is the absolute best at figuring out the ideal plan of attack to use in any given case.

Haley is still a thief. I mean she maps to Parker almost PERFECTLY. Her dad was a thief & a conman, her mom wasn’t but knew about it and mostly accepted it, but she died tragically in a mugging gone wrong or smth, which made Ian crank the paranoia WAY up and taught Haley to do the same in the name of “safety”. Let’s keep the “Ian is in Trouble and Haley needs money, Fast” which is why she signs on to the first job in the first place. She’s less acrobatic than Parker, tending towards finding (or making) weak spots in security, but she can still make a tumble check when she needs to.

Elan is the grifter who is somehow an Idiot but also not???? It baffles everyone. When he’s playing a part for a con, he’s FLAWLESS, but then the rest of the time he’s just. No Thoughts Head Empty. He probably gets lured in initially because he’s decided to try his hand at being part of a full team, rather than the two-man cons he’s been running that invariably end w his partner conning him as well and stealing half of his take. Also he likes the idea of being Crime Friends. He’s that tweet where it’s like, Roy: “after the heist is over, we split up and never communicate again” / Elan: [about to unveil his Crime Buddies Forever Friendship Quilt Puppets]: “never?”

Vaarsuvius is the hacker/gadget person. They have a Vaguely Snobby Yet Unidentifiable accent, dyed(?) purple hair (nobody has ever seen their roots) and nobody knows who they “really” are or where they came from, but they’re good at what they do so everyone just accepts the mystery. They probably got suckered into the team by their initial employer (who I’ll get to Eventually, lol) framing it as a challenge to their intellect, like, “oh, I see, you’re not smart enough to make this team work for you...” to which they were like Fucking Watch Me and also melted his computer. Anyways. They are joined (digitally) by their Intrepid Friend And Co-Conspirator (his words, not theirs), a fellow hacker known only as Blackwing, or, on certain forums, Blackwing_Bird. (In the first season, V only occasionally references him when saying they’re “calling in extra help” or smth for a particularly complex hack job. He starts showing up a little more in s2 and eventually by the start of s4 is a regular & established presence, but only appears as actions in a computer interface or output.) Elan is convinced he’s an AI, Belkar doesn’t think he actually exists, Haley pretends she doesn’t think he exists, and Durkon and Roy try not to think about it too hard, as long as B and V still get the job done.

Belkar is the hitter. He is on the team bc their initial employer got him out of jail for it. He doesn’t have a tragic backstory, he just likes doing violent crimes. As the series progresses, he grows some empathy & stuff, but really only for people who actually deserve it. Assholes still get decked. It’s all very touching. (Also he has dwarfism caused by achondroplasia. It doesn’t actually bother him and is useful in fights bc his opponents frequently have no fucking clue how to approach him, but he likes Pretending to take offense at stupid things just to see how far he can go with it.)

Aaaand last but not least, Durkon is the least involved member of the team. He’s actually a career criminal and Roy’s mentor, and wasn’t a member of the initial team that [redacted, I’ll tell you later, PROMISE] put together for a couple of reasons, the main one being that he’s Officially retired in order to spend more time with his family, which consists of his mom, his friend (not girlfriend) Hilgya, baby Kudzu, and a truly stunning number of aunts, uncles, and cousins. Roy frequently calls or visits him for advice and he Occasionally shows up to help out on local jobs, but generally he avoids doing crime if he can (as part of a deal with Hilgya, who is also a career criminal; basically, they’ve both cut back on the crime in order to provide a more stable home environment for Kudzu. But sometimes, you gotta do a little crime, and in those cases, Sigdi enjoys spending time w her grandson.)

NOW. THE BIG REVEAL YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR. Who got the team together in the first place?!

The answer: Lord Shojo (or whatever Normal Person Name you want to assign him). Now this is where it gets tricky: he had them do a thing that they thought was good, THEN they thought it was BAD, but then when they confronted him he revealed that it Appearing to be bad was actually a test of character and would they consider working as basically internal investigators for him? But then he had a heart attack, so, rip. But THEN it turned out that he’d left them a bunch of money anyway and they were all feeling kind of Inspired so they formed the Order of the Stick, LLC (which, no, i am not coming up with a new name, actually, because I just don’t care. someone else can come up w a justification for that name, tho, i’m sure it’s possible). Also Miko was there and was unhappy abt their actions, and also their general existence.

Moving on. Villains!

Redcloak is the Sterling replacement, because that DEEPLY amuses me.

Xykon is a season-long main villain, probably one that Redcloak finds himself working for but then “teams up with” (read: blackmails) the Order to bring him down bc even Redcloak finds Xykon distasteful. That’s season 3, let’s say.

Tarquin is another season villain, say season 2. Nale probably shows up pretty early in s1, actually, as another recurring antagonist like Sterling but uh. Less good at it. Anyways the s2 final 3 eps deal with them (accidentally) discovering that Tarquin runs some Evil Empire Company, then trying to outplay him and take him down. Idk if Nale still dies in this version tbh.

Tsukiko is a one-off s1 villain who returns briefly in s4 alongside Miko, who has gone well and truly off the rails.

Season 1 finale has to do w Roy finally getting Vengeance for his little brother.

The vampire squad is the s4 finale villain who do smth terrible to Durkon and then get the Mother Of All Revenge served up to them by the Order.

I envision the show as being 5 seasons (like og Leverage) but I’m not going to sketch out s5 because I think it should be based off whatever happens in the current story arc, possibly involving some legacy of the OotSquiggle.

Other stuff!

The Order of the Squiggle is a legendary criminal team from the 60s who stole a BUNCH of famous shit & then proceeded to legendarily implode. This has no bearing on the plot I’ve sketched out, I just think it’s fun.

The Sapphire Guard members should probably be reworked as FBI. I don’t care about most of them but I do think that Lien and O-Chul could be like, FBI agents who Choose to look the other way while the Order does their very-much-not-legal-but-still-fair Justice Crime, and maybe even help them out on occasion.

So, the Final season-by-season outline, based on everything I’ve written so far:

s1 e1: getting the team together, doing a con for Shojo, then at the end he dies and the gang is like “dang what now?" and intend to split up except then they Don’t.

mid-s1: Nale shows up and tries to trick the Order, but then gets beat like a drum.

late s1: Tsukiko is an underling of the Villain Of The Week, winds up in police custody. But She’ll Be Back.

s1 finale: Roy’s Vengeance: The Vengeaning. also we meet Redcloak as an antagonist.

s2 e1: the truth abt Haley’s father comes out

early s2: The Two Live Crews Job but it’s the Order vs the Linear Guild and the Linear Guild ARE all bad guys.

mid-s2: Redcloak returns. ugh.

late s2: the sapphire guard FBI makes its first appearance, hello O-Chul and Lien.

s2 pre-finale: once again they’re in conflict w Nale over smth, he spends the whole episodes making Cryptic Remarks, they basically beat him (like a drum!) but then the stinger at the end is that Tarquin reveals himself and Elan is like “Dad?!”, roll credits.

s2 finale, part 1: Elan is hanging out w Tarquin bc he’s DEEP in Denial, the Rest of the team tries to take Tarquin down, but it doesn’t work.

s2 finale, part 2: Elan finally gets a clue and they manage to beat Tarquin. still haven’t decided if Nale dies or not, but I’m leaning towards yes. also they rescue Haley’s dad.

s3 e1: fuck dude idk.

early s3: Redcloak shows up, AGAIN, everyone groans. he has blackmail on them, he wants them to take Xykon down.

mid s3: The Rashomon Job but it’s about stealing the Talisman of Dorukan and it turns out that Nale was there too (“oh!” Elan says. “I was wondering why I looked so weird in all those mirrors! But it wasn’t my reflection, it was Nale’s!” “Sweetie, that wasn’t Nale’s reflection,” says Haley. “Huh,” says Elan, “so the mirrors were broken?”, cue eye rolling from everyone else.), and the Successful thief was Hilgya, who’d nabbed it from the owner before it even went on display.

s3 finale: they beat Xykon, actually factually, because he deserves to get his ass Thoroughly kicked, even if only in AU form. Lien and O-Chul are there, so are some other less helpful FBI people. There’s a bit where O-Chul Exact Wordses his way out of telling his superiors about the Order’s less legal activities without technically lying. King shit.

s4 e1: doesn’t really matter. maybe smth to do w some legacy of Tarquin’s company to set up the drama w Malack & Durkon later.

early s4: Durkon gets SENT TO PRISON. Malack approaches the Order abt this because sure they have Different Ethics but they’re still Friends. (Roy is surprised and a little hurt that he’s never heard of Malack, but he ignores that in favor of Let’s Get Whatever Fuckers Did This To Our Friend.)

immediately after that: Miko and Tsukiko return as a Team, preventing the Order from working on the Durkon situation

mid s4: Redcloak makes another unexpected & unwelcome appearance but he’s maybe a little less of a dick? the Order collaborates with Malack & his Crime Buddies (hello, Vector Legion) to pull one over on him tho, because “less of a dick” does not mean “a pleasant or decent person”, and also he was mean abt Durkon being in jail, so he totally deserved it. he still gets whatever he wanted tho, just takes a blow to his pride. also prevents the Order from helping Durkon. they’re having a LOT of setbacks wonder why that could be, not to make sure the season fills its whole length or anything, no sirree

s4 finale: something something taking down the organization, headed by Hel (yes that’s her real name), which framed Durkon for their Big Crime. Durkon goes free and Extra Firmly retires, For Good, He Swears, but says he “met someone new” who might be an asset.

s5 e1: minrah joins the team! and the episode is set in like, somewhere really snowy. that’s all i got.

the rest of s5: don’t know, don’t care, it’s open-ended until the comic finishes up.

[fancyfade]

so ive been debating editing chapter 3 on my fanfic to make 1 scene line up more from canon. (chapter 3 is this one, where the characters deal with the aftermath of battle for the cowl, Tim finds out Damian’s Robin, and Dick and Damian move to the penthouse)

I’m debating making the Tim finding out Damian’s Robin scene a little more canon compliant along what happened in Red Robin (link) for a few reasons, the main of which is in the scenes that I’m writing next (like... chapter 47 lol), Tim and Dick do have to talk about what transpired when Dick made Damian Robin. Potential reasons for change

In my fic Tim kind of just left on his own without a push, but I’m not sure if Tim would have left on such bad terms if there wasn’t the complication of Damian antagonizing him and him feeling as if Dick was picking Damian over him (even though in the comic we saw Dick trying to de-escalate and get Tim’s back, it still felt that way to Tim)

I dislike the way some of this was handled in the comic and I can’t really comment on it in my fic if I just retcon it out

it seems fair-er I guess if Tim is allowed to have flaws just like Cass and Damian and Dick all have flaws in this fic. i know many tim stans think otherwise, but punching a ten-year-old victim of child abuse in the face out of anger is wrong.

the con side is obviously this involves Damian getting hit and that kid has been through so much already. I’m really trying to figure out how it works with character dynamics vs like. give the poor kid a break-ness.

anyway if I did decide to replace the current chapter 3, this is what it would be replaced with (only the first scene, the second would be the same). If you are a reader of the fic feel free to leave your comments. I would do an “oh and I edited chapter 3″ note before the relevant stuff was mentioned if I go through with this, I wouldn’t like expect everyone to know what happened. Some of the dialogue is not like exactly like in canon (cuz thats boring and also to match with what I wrote the first time) but the feeling/ beats should be similar

Gotham’s finally had a bit of lull in the violence, and Dick is just wondering how he’s going to do this.

He’s accepted that Damian’s his responsibility – seeing the kid shot in the chest made that perfectly clear, as much as he would’ve liked it to be otherwise. He felt like he was way too young to be watching out for a kid in any capacity other than cool older brother, especially a kid who’s as difficult to get along with as Damian. He was a great fighter, of course, and he knew it – Dick’s not sure he’s ever heard the kid be humble about anything. To make things worse, Dick feels like he’s constantly stuck in the middle between Damian and the kid he actually views as his younger brother – Tim, who Damian tried to kill. Evidence in point:

“Robin?!” Tim asks once he’s gotten back on his feet and Dick's explained his plan – away from Damian, who's still recovering from surgery.

“You made Damian Robin?!” Tim asks again.

Dick sighs. He’s in the cave, in a Batman costume he feels doesn’t fit right at all with the cowl off, and Tim’s still in his regular clothes. He has no idea how to explain this to Tim – no idea how to make him feel like he’s not being replaced. Dick never wanted to be the one doing the replacing – he remembers how much it hurt to find out that Jason was Robin from the papers, and that was after he officially stopped being Robin. Tim never quit – and Dick’s not about to make him – but he has to come home to the guy who tried to kill him getting his name.

“Tim, I know this looks bad, but Damian needs this.”

“Remember when we thought Bruce was going to retire after Crisis?” Tim asks. “Batman and Robin was supposed to be us. You and me. Not you and the psychopath that tried to kill me.”

“Tim, you’re not my sidekick, you’re my partner – ” Dick takes a step towards Tim with his hand out, prepared to offer sympathy, but Tim shakes him off angrily.

“Obviously not!”

“And Damian needs me way more than you do. If we don’t keep an eye on him, he’s going to kill again.”

Tim scowls intensely. “That should really not be an endorsement for being Robin, Dick! He’s a killer! He belongs in jail!” Tim swallows a little and then lowers his voice out of shouting range. “Dick, he didn’t try to kill me because he for some reason thought it was the only way to stop me from doing something bad, as far as I can tell he just wanted to replace me. We’re talking about someone with absolutely no sense of right or wrong.”

“Of course he doesn’t have a sense of right or wrong. He’s a ten-year-old child who was raised as an assassin from birth!”

“Lots of our villains have really sad or sympathetic reasons for doing crime, that doesn’t mean we team up with them.”

“Are you serious?” Dick asks. “This isn’t the same, Tim.”

“How not?”

“Well for one,” calls Damian's voice from the stairs, and Dick can't help but cringe and think not now – “I'm a lot better than them.”

Dick's cringe only intensifies when he turns around to see what Damian is wearing. His new Robin costume.

Tim's hands clench into fists the instant he sees Damian. Dick knows he has to de-escalate things quick before Tim and Damian have another fight.

“Damian,” Dick says, trying to keep himself carefully neutral-sounding. “Shouldn't you be resting?”

Damian lifts his head up slightly so his nose is in the air, and walks down the stairs almost normally. There's only a little hesitation in the twist of his torso, a little stiffness of his right arm.

Either he's zoned out of his mind on painkillers or depressingly good at masking his pain for a ten-year-old.

“Please,” Damian says. “I was trained in the League of Shadows. Do you really think an over-the-hill ex-Robin could put me down?”

Tim's fist clenches further, and so Dick says, letting a bit more urgency slip into his voice, “Damian, shut up. Now.”

Damian puts his left hand on his hips and looks intentionally at Tim. He adds, “I'm not Drake – ”

He's barely got the word out before Tim leaps forward and punches him in the face. Dick's out of his seat, grabbing Tim to hold him back, who is still distressingly struggling against him, like he wants to keep up the assault despite the fact that Damian fell to the floor.

“My name is Tim Wayne!” Tim shouts as Dick is still holding him back.

Damian gingerly sits up. Dick prepares to release Tim, prepares to stop Damian if he has to, if he decides to get revenge. But he doesn't. He just briefly braces his right side with his left hand before wiping the blood off his face.

“I let you get that shot in, Drake,” Damian says, again dropping intentional emphasis on Tim's original last name.

As he does, Tim struggles forward.

“Tim, back off!” Dick says, because Tim still isn't cooling down –

“I want you to feel good about yourself,” Damian continues.

Tim seems to relax his stance slightly, so Dick, possibly in an error of judgment, lets Tim go. But Tim doesn't try to attack Damian again, he just shakes Dick off and starts stomping away. “You want me to back off? Fine.”

He's going for the exit.

If he leaves –

Dick can't chase him. He's not sure that he can leave Damian alone –

“Tim, wait!” Dick says, taking a step forward. “Bruce is gone. But I still need you.”

“For what?” asks Damian and damn it is there anything this kid isn't going to try to ruin?

“Shut up, Damian,” Dick says again, even though as far as he knows he's just going to wind up pushing Damian away too –

And Tim leaves.

Dick turns to look at Damian. The kid's already back to his feet, like nothing happened, and Dick takes a step forward to inspect the injury – though he's really more worried about the gunshot wound than Tim's punch. Both Tim and Damian had wound up injured pretty badly during the chaos that gripped Gotham in the rumors of Batman’s death. As his new and not-improved version of Batman, Jason had tried to kill them both, which Dick is way less than pleased about. He’d been kind of hoping that they could talk Jason down, but this seems like a line he doesn’t know if Jason can ever un-cross. He shot a ten year old in the chest.

Damian grabs Dick's wrist as he reaches out.

“Are you all right?” Dick asks.

Damian scoffs. “You're worried about Drake? I've been hit harder sparring my mother.”

“I was thinking about the gunshot.” Alfred had said the primary damage was blood loss and a punctured lung (well, traumatic pneumothorax, but Dick knew what he meant) and given the kid a minimum of four weeks downtime to heal.

It's hard to tell due to the domino mask, but Damian adopts the position of a kid who's rolling their eyes, head slightly tilted to the side with a loll. “It's not enough to impersonate Batman, now you want to impersonate my mother?”

Dick doesn't know how to approach the mother thing, so he doesn't even try. He just explains the logic for being Batman – (and there is logic behind it. It's not like he wanted this). “Someone has to step up and convince Gotham things can get back to normal,” Dick says. “And serial killer Batman wasn't going to cut it.”

“Did you at least take care of him?” Damian asks.

Dick knows that Damian isn't actually worried about Jason's wellbeing, so he says, “Do you mean 'did I kill him'?”

“Tt. Obviously.”

“Obviously not.”

Damian presses his lips together in a thin line.

Dick might as well get this out of the way now. He's going to have to sometime. “Alfred wants you out of the field for four weeks.”

“That's preposterous!” Damian shouts, and as he shouts, he coughs. He rubs his chest quickly and then glowers at Dick when he sees him staring.

“Damian, you could have died.”

“I didn’t.”

Jeez, doesn’t this kid have any sense of his own mortality? Though, Dick supposes, growing up around Lazarus Pits and a centuries old grandfather might make that impossible.

“I’m not a fool, Grayson, I know I’m not capable of healing instantaneously. I’ll take a break for one week,” he offers, like it’s a huge concession on his part.

“Four weeks,” Dick says.

“What about you?” Damian asks. “Didn’t you get injured?”

“Not as badly.”

“Are you taking a break?”

“Someone needs to convince Gotham that Batman’s not dead,” Dick says. Also, he doesn’t want to take a break. He doesn’t want to be alone with his thoughts. Losing Bruce. Failing Tim.

“Tt. Then I don’t need one either. I’m younger. I heal faster.”

Dick actually has no clue whether that’s true, because he’s not a doctor, but he knows that people usually say kids heal faster.

Dick swings his arms a little, trying to feel them out. They’re still stiff, and as they move, a jolt of pain shoots through him. Even when he’s not moving, his shoulder is still sore. He knows that he might get injured going into the field like this and that it’s not a smart decision – last time he went into the field while still healing, he wound up blowing his secret identity to Blockbuster.

He decides that at least if he’s going into the field, he won’t tell Barbara and Alfred about it. Okay, so that’s probably not the smartest of his plans. Most plans that you have to hide from people who care about you aren't smart.

“I’ll take a week long break with you,” Dick concedes. “And we can see how fast you’re healing.” The second part is a lie, of course. He's not going to supersede Alfred's orders on medical matters.

Dick sighs a little. He figures that while they’re both on bed-rest duty, though, he can try to figure out how to set things up so they can operate effectively once they get a clean bill of health.

“How do you feel about not living in the manor?” Dick asks.

“Kicking me out already?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I wouldn’t be living here either,” Dick says. It’s true. He’d rather not feel like he’s living in all of Bruce’s old places, wearing Bruce’s old costume, … replacing him, essentially. He needs a place he can clear his head.

“Where would you live then?” Damian asks skeptically.

Dick shrugs. “The penthouse, maybe. Bruce already made a bunker nearby, so we could operate out of there pretty easily.”

Damian narrows his eyes. “Why do you keep saying ‘we’?”

Because you are ten and not ready to live on your own. But Dick just says, “Well, you’re Robin now, right? That means you’re pretty much obligated to team up with Batman.”

“Batman isn’t here, Grayson. He never will be again, no matter how much you play dress-up.”

Charming kid. Like Dick didn’t already know that.

“You know I operate effectively alone, right?” Damian continues. “I don’t need to be hand-held and babysat like all of Father’s previous partners.”

Dick figures that it’d be a jerk move to remind Damian he just almost died and therefore really shouldn’t be on his own. Instead, he says, “Well, Alfred’s staying with me, so unless you want to get all your food and clean the house by yourself, you have to put up with me.”

“Tt . I don’t need a servant. I’ll just eat at restaurants.”

“On who’s money?”

“In the event of his death, my father’s assets should have transferred to me. His blood son.”

Oh boy. Dick rubs his face. “Does this have to be a thing, Damian? No one’s doubting your capacity to take care of yourself but I think it’d really be easier if we were operating out of the same building. “

A long silence on Damian’s part. “Fine,” he says eventually. “I’ll allow you to stay at my penthouse.”

My penthouse. Of course. But Dick takes it. “All right,” he says. “Let’s move in.”

[peppersonironi]

How I Picture a Batfam Age Reversal

I’m going to write this as a fic (And I want to go on into a young justice world where dick forms the team and his siblings are protective) but here is the outline in bullet points in case anyone is interested. Please note this is VERY first draft.

Ages (At end) & Order:

Damian- 24

Duke- 21

Stephanie- 20

Tim- 21

Cassandra- 19

Jason- 19

Barbara- 15

Dick- 13

Damian is Ten when he is sent to live w/ his father. Bruce is 30.

They don’t really work well together at first. But Selina, Alfred, and Clark somehow get it through Bruce’s thick skull that he has to care for this child.

Damian keeps sneaking out on patrol, against B’s wishes. Eventually, he let’s Damian join and tells him to choose a name (Not what we meant, Bruce!)

Damian wants to go for something like Shadow, or Demon, but Bruce puts his foot down. He says that Damian shouldn’t try to be darkness.

Damian is pouting in the gardens when he finds a wounded robin. It’s wing is broken. He demands that the animal should be taken to a shelter, and carries it in his hand the whole way there.

The bird makes it, and Damian demands to be called Robin. He designs his suit, going slightly more colorful. “I might be called Robin, but I am NOT wearing brown, Pennyworth.”

Bruce introduces him to Superboy (Jon, note: less age dif) and the pair are close friends.

He is Robin for a little over seven years before he begins to fight with Bruce about being allowed to patrol alone, and being his own hero. (basically what happened w/ Dick).

Damian leaves Gotham, opting to claim Bludhaven. Jon joins him. He suggests they call each other Nightwing and Flamebird. Damian thinks it’s a bit childish, but he can’t say no to Jon. They’re costumes are here. (done by @hyperactive-lectiophile! Fantastic job!)

They eventually realize they’re in love w/ each other, all while trying to figure their lives  out. Damian briefly tries to join the police. He hates it. Eventually, he enrolls in BH college for a major in Art and a minor in business.

Later in Gotham, the We Are Robin/Robin War stuff happens. Long story short, Duke is adopted. 

Damian is angry to find out he has a new brother, goes to Gotham to yell at Bruce, but then meets Duke. They bond, and are close siblings. Damian makes his father promise to not adopt any more strays.

Stephanie Brown wants to stop her Father, so she sews up a costume and goes out as Batgirl. Bruce is apprehensive at first, but his family basically yells at him to train the poor girl before she gets hurt.

He does, and after Steph meets Damian, who she absolutely adores (He loves her too. The way she pisses his father off is legendary), Stephanie decides she wants to be Robin. Batgirl was good for dealing with her father, but she wants to belong to this new family, and, w/ Damian’s blessing, she makes a new costume.

Unfortunately, after a while, Stephanie is killed by Black Mask (her death is faked, like in the comics, but the Fam doesn’t know)

Enter Tim Drake. Batman has been going crazy over grief, and not even Nightwing, Catwoman (this is SOOOO batcat, btw) or The Signal can calm him down. Tim steps right up, and demands to be robin.

Damian and Bruce fight over this. Surprisingly, Damian is the one who thinks Tim should be given a chance. He sees how his father has been acting. Damian knows that Tim must be brilliant to figure out their identities, and thinks that should count for something. Duke takes his side, knowing that it takes guts to talk to batman, and be willing to join him. Bruce, meanwhile, is a constant chant of “no more dead robins”. After a while, and lots of arguing, Tim takes his place as Robin. They redesign the suit, and he takes his place as robin.

It’s little while after this that Stephanie comes back. Tim offers Robin back, but Stephanie declines. They talk and grow closer. At one point they talk about Stephanie’s new moniker. She says she doesn’t want to be Batgirl either. She wants something new. Tim suggests Spoiler (Bad pun turned brilliant idea?).

Cassandra Cain arrives on the scene next. She saves the commissioner’s life (like No Man’s Land, minus No Man’s Land), and Stephanie immediately imprints on this tiny assassin child (So do the rest of the family, but Steph claims the fourteen-year old first. She and Bruce fight over custody.). She offers Cass Batgirl. Gotham gained a new vigilante, and Bruce Wayne adopted a new child. (Faster than the comics, I KNOW. But Cass deserves happiness)

Everyone loves their new sister, and everyone spoils her. Duke is the one to take her to a ballet the first time. She immediately begs to be put into lessons.

Somewhere in here Tim’s mom dies and his dad is in a coma. Bruce takes him in.

Eventually, Bruce decides to offer Tim Red Robin, hoping to avoid the strife he had with Damian. (Like in the comics, Bruce was going to give Jason Red Robin)

Tim is unsure of this, and puts off deciding. Then little Jason Peter Todd decides to jack the tires of the batmobile and is immediately taken in.

Everyone is captivated by the tiniest addition to their family, but it's also at this time that Jack Drake finds out about Robin and forces Tim to quit. Tim gives Jason his blessing to become Robin.

Everyone pitches in on helping train the newest Robin. Damian teaches the kid things he learned from the league (non-lethal things, since Damian loves this kid), Duke teaches him escrima fighting, Stephanie (Much to Bruce’s dismay) has a full seminar of the delicacies of glitter bomb making. Tim teaches the kid hacking, when he can get away from his dad. 

Unfortunately, when Jason has been Robin for almost a year, he is killed by the Joker.

The family is torn apart by greif. But this time around, Bruce has a much larger support system. All of them lean on each other.

The only time that Damian ever broke his no-kill rule while living with his father was to kill the Joker. He hunted and murdered the clown, sparing Harley. He had been friends with Quinzel since he was Robin, and knew how the Joker treated her. Harley became the batfam’s honorary aunt after this.

Bruce was too emotionally tired to fight with Damian over his actions, so no one said anything. Eventually, Bruce and Damian did argue. Damian refused to apologize,, though he did promise his father to never kill again. Their relationship was strained for a while, but they worked through it.

Less than a year later, Jack Drake dies, and Tim comes back onto the vigilante scene. He refuses to become Robin, however, choosing to take Bruce up on his offer and become Red Robin. He designs his own suit, and the world seems to slowly become normal. Or some semblance of it.

One night, the circus is in town and the whole family (except Alfred) is home. Duke, Tim, and Steph drag Bruce, Cass, and Damian to go see it.

It is on this night that Dick Grayson’s parents fall to their death. Dick is sent to live in juvi, meanwhile Bruce tries to adopt Dick. He succeeds, and the manor once again has a bright young child running through it’s halls.

Dick figures out the secret identities of his family and instantly demands to be allowed out. He wants to take down Zucko, and won’t settle for every single member hunting for him. Dick wants to take down his parent’s murdered himself. He tries to sneak out multiple times, but is always stopped.

Damian talks to Dick (They are extremely close) and explains the origins of Robin. He says that the mantle was born out of a want to distance himself from the revenge and violence of the league. Dick cries when he learns this and says that his own parents used to call him Robin. He suggests that the mantle is more than a personal need. Robin is Family.

Damian almost immediately demands that Dick be trained and help catch Zucko. Bruce is confused, as before, Damian was strongly against letting a nine-year-old fight crime. Damian explains (after much cajoling. He might be more emotionally open and healthy than when he first arrived in the manor, but the kid is still constipated) what Dick had said, and that Damian understands the kid’s need for direction. “When I first came here, I needed Robin. I might not have known it, but I did. Richard needs Robin now, as well.”

The family took sides on the issue, but eventually Dick (with the aid of his puppy-dog-eyes™) won everyone over. He got his own Robin costume, and they caught Zucko.

Dick refused to stop being Robin, and so Gotham gained a new bird.

Dick was Robin for almost two years when The Red Hood made his appearance in Gotham. No one knew what he wanted, as he didn’t seem to do much beyond killing criminals. They thought he was a vigilante at first, but then he began to take over the criminal underbelly of Gotham, regulating crime. On top of that, Red Hood targeted Robin. Attacking the boy wonder when no one else was around. After the red helmeted rogue let loose a few hints about the league of shadows, Damian interrogated his mother, who explained the identity of The Red Hood, and how she had set him on Gotham.

As soon as the family figured out the newcomer’s identity, and the reason he was alive Damian tracked him down. He knew how to deal with pit rage from his childhood, and brought the lost bird back to the nest.

The family was whole for the first time in years. Jason was still angry and resentful, but he had his family back. Jason was grateful for Damian taking revenge for him, and they were once again close. 

Slowly, Jason let everyone back in, including Bruce. Dick is wary at first of this new older brother, but the little chicken nugget quickly warms up to Jason, and even convinces him to teach him how to shoot a gun (In secret, of course, Dami and Bruce would blow a gasket). Jason couldn’t resist the kid. It was physically impossible.

A year later, Cass decides to pursue dance as her career. She gets a job with the Hong Kong Ballet company. She moves there, and decides to take a new moniker: Black Bat. Her family is so proud of her, but they miss her dearly. Duke visits often, bringing new back to the family.

The absence of Batgirl is filled after a while by Barbara Gordan. She makes her own costume and starts going out. Once again, Stephanie Brown adopts a smol bean (Well, not legally. The commissioner is still alive) and outfits her with a more Gotham-friendly suit and weaponry (I.e. heavy kevlar and leather)

Babs is taken whole-heartedly into the fold, and is made an honorary sister.

[sparkleofpizza]

The archer - Tim Drake x reader 1/?

Hey guys, how are you doing? I have been working on this story for a while now and decided to finally post it, I am currently still writing the next parts because I decided to change a few ideas I had previously, but this is mainly just me giving Tim Drake some love and incorporating a bit of my love for Arrow too. Hope you guys like it and feel free to request me anything if you'd like, I write for the batboys, Wally and Conner. 

Requested: no

Warnings: some swearing

Summary: Y/n Queen will be living in the Wayne Manor for a while, and Dick Grayson decided to be the Cupid between her and his little brother Tim Drake.

Word count: 2.228

Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7

The Wayne manor was silent that day, Bruce had everyone prepared for the arrival of a guest. The four boys were pissed off as why they had to make sure their rooms were organized, it was not like the guest would sleep in there. Dick and Jason didn't even live there anymore, but they gave up on arguing after one pointed look from Alfred.

When the doorbell finally rung, the boys were all too busy playing around in the cave - somewhere they found out they would have privacy, after all there was no way the guest would get there. So they weren’t there to greet you as you found your way around the house, after being greeted by Bruce and Alfred, letting them take your bags to the room you’d be staying at and showing you around.

You ended up standing in front of the clock, you knew pretty well what that clock meant, your brother had told you about that. You had a vague idea that the boys would be there - you really wanted to meet all of them - but didn’t want to intrude, this wasn’t your house after all and Bruce was already being nice enough to let you stay over while your brother was away in some business. So you went back to your room, deciding to meet them when was the right time.

And it actually didn’t take long for you to run into one of them. You collided with a huge body, making you land in your butt as you looked up to see none other than Jason Todd. He started down at you.

“Who are you?” He asked, frowning "Are you the guest Bruce told us about?"

“Hello to you too, Jason.” You rolled your eyes at the boys antics, pushing yourself up “It’s nice to see you again.”

He started at you for a few seconds before realization drowned on him. You are Y/N Queen, Oliver’s young sister and Roy’s ‘sister’ as well. He hasn’t seen you such a long time he almost didn’t recognize you.

“Y/N?!” He questioned, too surprised, patting your shoulder “Oh, it’s good to see you again. You look so different from the last time I saw you.”

“That’s because the last time you saw me I was sixteen.” You smirked up at him “Which means you’re getting a bit old.”

He narrowed his eyes at you “You’re like eighteen now or something?”

“Nineteen, actually.”

He nodded, leading you downstairs to the kitchen “Well, you’re still underage so you still have to respect me and do what I say.”

“When have I ever done something people tell me to do? I literally went after a serial killer on my own when I was fifteen just because Ollie told me to stay out of it.”

Jason nodded his head, remembering Roy complaining about something like that. He didn’t pay much attention at the story at the time because he thought it was boring and he had better things to think of, such as his revenge on Bruce, but now it seemed amusing a small girl like you trying something like that. He made a mental note to ask you more details about it later.

“I hope none of you are doing anything imprudent, we have a visitor and that would be really bad looking for you all.” Jason exclaimed, entering the kitchen with you by his side 

His three brothers were sitting on the counter, fighting over the last cookie Alfred had made earlier. Their heads shot up in curiosity trying to find out who was there with their brother. Hoping it wouldn't be the mysterious guest.

You stood still, pushing some hair from your face and offering them a friendly smile. Oliver has told you about them, even Roy filled you in on who they were, you’ve seen pictures of them, after all they were Bruce’s Wayne kids, but damn, you didn’t expect them to be this good looking in person. 

“Todd, who’s this?” A small boy questioned, holding up a knife to point at you

You chuckled at that “I’m y/n, it’s really nice to meet you. Maybe you should let go of that knife, kids shouldn’t hold things that can hurt them.”

“I’m not a kid!” He yelled 

His brothers laughed at his face, Tim already taking a liking into you. If you got to bother Damian in less than five minutes into conversation than you were cool. Dick though you were funny and Jason smiled proudly just because he knew you before everyone else.

“This are my brothers, Dick, Tim and Damian.” Jason introduced them to you 

You smiled once again, taking a sit across from where they were. 

“So...” Dick started “Y/n, when did you and Jason get together?”

“What? You think we’re dating?” You almost gagged, taking a look at the boy beside you. From all the stories you heard about him from Roy, you were 110% sure that you’d never be able to feel something more for him “We’re not together.” You chuckled at the end

Jason narrowed his eyes “Y/n is the guest Bruce told us about, but hold on a second... Why did you sound so disgusted?”

“Because anyone would be disgusted if someone thought they were dating you, Todd.” Damian rolled his eyes, earning a few laughs from his brother and you, and a death glare from Jason

“Roy just tells me so much shit about you, and you guys are glued. It would be like dating Roy, totally weird.”

“Oh, you’re friends with Roy?” Tim asked, leaning in a bit, curious about how much you knew about them all

You smiled directly at him, flipping some hair from your face. He stared at you for a while, mouth slightly open before quickly shutting it close. You were so pretty and what a perfect smile you have. 

“Yeah, I’ve known him almost my whole life.” You replied, frowning a bit, thinking back into old memories of when things went down hill, but quickly smiled again at boy in front of you “So I know plenty about all of you.” 

That gave him the answer he needed. You knew about their nightly activities, which was better than having to lie all the time. Not like he was expecting to have you around all the time, you were just staying for a while. But he wouldn’t mind staring at your gorgeous e/c eyes, and pretty conquer smile. 

Dick’s eyes went wide, looking at his brother and than at you. An idea already popping on his mind, if you weren’t dating Jason, maybe that meant you weren’t dating anyone, since you stated you also weren’t dating Roy. Big chances of you being single. Watching you and Tim interact made him want to play match maker, oh he was desperate to play match maker.

“How old are you, y/n?” He blurted out loudly 

“I’m nineteen, why?”

“Oh! Nothing! Just curiosity. Did you know Tim is twenty-one? Only two years older than you! Funny, right?”

You nodded, biting your lower lip to prevent yourself from laughing. Dick didn’t know how to be discreet.

It had been a couple of days since you’ve been at the manor and you noticed a couple of things:

1. Damian was a very hard person to socialize with, he was very judging and didn’t seem to enjoy your presence at all.

2. Jason was everything Roy told you about him, and that was kind of creepy.

3. Dick was definitely trying to play cupid, asking you random questions out of the blue and then stating facts about Tim.

4. Tim had a very weird sleeping pattern, was coffee addicted and the nicest to talk out of the four of them. 

You tried to live your days as normally as possible, but nothing normal is really normal in this family. You thought it was ok their vigilant routine, your brother was one as well, but weren’t they extreme sometimes?! No wonder Oliver said Bruce was uptight. They show zero emotions. 

You tried not to get in their way, not really bothering them when they were busy with patrol and cases. You figured your time of the day should be during the night, when the would be out of the manor and on the streets fighting crime. 

Going down to the kitchen to get some coffee, maybe something to eat and then you could silently laugh while watching Brooklyn 99. What you didn’t expect was to run into Tim during that.

He was pouring down coffee on his mug when you appeared on the doorway. He glanced up, smiling once he saw you.

“Did I wake you up?” He questioned, leaning down on the counter 

“No.” You shook your head, smiling back at him “I came to get some coffee. Shouldn't you be on patrol?" 

"It is my day off." Tim replied, watching you as he took a sip of his coffee

"So then... Can't sleep?"

“I normally don’t sleep. What about you?”

You arched your brows at that, pouring some hot coffee in a mug for you. Who normally doesn’t sleep?

“Just wanted to watch some Netflix in the quite of the night.” You shrugged “What do you normally do since you don’t sleep?”

"I just work on some cases."

That seemed unlikely. How could someone stay up all night just working on some cases? He certainly did other things, maybe he had a secret girlfriend and he would sneak her into his room at night and that's just what he told everyone he was doing? Working on some cases.

"But you do that all night? I doubt it's healthy. Don't you like have a secret girlfriend you're sneaking in and you just don't want anyone to find out about?"

Tim laughed at your statement, shaking his head. 

"I don't have any secret girlfriend or a real girlfriend for the matter. I like working at night. You could help me sometime, if you'd like?" A dust pink took over his cheeks, maybe he crossed the line by asking you join him in his room in the middle of the night, but you smiled at him 

"I'd love to help you on some cases. Shall we start now?"

He nodded, grabbing your hand and pulling you in towards his room. You smiled at the touch of your palms, his hand was way bigger than yours, but you liked how it felt against your skin. His fingers were cold. You could get used to holding hands with him, it felt nice.

You entered his room, looking at the place around you and seeing how it had so much of him in it. It smelled like coffee and his cologne, a nice combination. He closed the door behind you, leading you to his desk.

"So, what do you want me to help you with?" You questioned, leaning on the desk and staring at him 

He took a moment to admire you. Your face free of makeup, some natural redness on the skin that made you look cute, your hair down on your shoulders, and your comfy pijamas. 

"Have you ever worked on a case before?" You nodded, making him look at you with surprise. You smirked before he kept on talking "I'm trying to track down some of these weapon buyers, there's supposed to be a sale soon, but I can't point out the location yet."

"What are our leads?"

Tim smiled, showing you all the evidence he got before splitting up the job and the both of you starting to work. You sat on his bed with a laptop and he sat beside you with his own. Both clicking at the keyboard, trying to find new clues to find out the place of the weapon sale before it's too late. 

At some point of the night, you had decided to take a small break. Laying on your side, looking at Tim while he worked and holding a small conversation with him. But then you were too quiet and when he looked at you again, you had fallen asleep, holding on his shirt sleeve. 

He closed his laptop, carefully placing it on his night stand, trying not to disrupt you, and lied down himself. He tried to put some distance between your bodies, but you shifted only getting closer to him once you missed his body warmth, and he found himself trapped when you plopped a leg over his thighs. His cheeks turned red and he was really glad you were asleep so you wouldn't be able to see how flustered he was right now. 

Eventually, during the night, Tim wrapped his arms around you as your head was placed on top of his chest. And that's how Alfred found the both of you in the morning, having checked your room to wake you up for breakfast and being frighted to find an empty bed. 

"What you're staring at, Alfred?" Dick asked, waking past him on the hallway only to squeaky like a little kid once he saw you two asleep holding each other "I knew it! I knew they'd end up together!"

He grabbed his phone, snapping a couple of pictures before being rushed out of there by Alfred. Tim deserved some sleep, and the both of you looked too adorable together to be disturbed like that. 

[octalove]

VI: The Dotted Line

(Batgirl/Red Hood)

Description: Jason extends an offer. Part one, two, three, four, and five.

Note: someone said Batgirl and Jason mission, and i am but a humble servant of the people. also, i almost named this chapter “Carolyn Crawford”. Hope you like❤️

TW: Decription of sex work (barely), very light gore

Being back at Batman’s side was a peculiar thing these days. Soothing and suffocating all at once; like returning home after a long, liberating trip. It felt easy, and safe. I was reminded of the first time he brought me up to a towering building top. I clung to Nightwing like a life preserver.

Once I found my footing, the building tops were the only place I felt safe. The taller the skyscraper, the higher and farther from the grim city that raised me. I wondered what would happen when I outgrew the skyscrapers, too.

November was settling like an icy blanket over Gotham. My breath wreathed around me as my chest heaved from scaling the office building I was settled on, hoping to catch a glimpse of the gray dawn as 2am turned to 3am. I could see Robin’s breath too, as he crouched like a gargoyle on the balls of his feet. Even when I pushed his arm lightly, he glared, but didn’t move. The kid had incredible balance.

“I was beginning to enjoy your absence.” He muttered.

I smiled at him. “Are you kidding? Patrol is boring without me.”

“Patrol is boring without brainless plebeians to subdue. I can make due without you.”

“So you’re saying you don’t consider me a brainless plebeian?” I replied.

His lip twitched. He liked this game. It was the birthplace of many of his preferred insults.

“Closer to a bumbling fawn.”

“I like that one.”

Damian’s disinterest in all things regarding my thoughts and feelings was a good distraction. I’d been using him for the past week since my latest brush with Red Hood. Well, Jason. It was still hard to wrap my mind around.

I knew him. He knew me. I shouldn’t have been worried; he knew nothing about me. Nothing other than who I was, anyway. I wanted to ignore whatever residual feeling was left from fighting him on the docks, and I really wanted to say I hadn’t thought about the last thing he said to me. But in truth, I’d thought of little else. The large gaps of time between our meetings left time for that.

We were looking for him tonight. More specifically, Batman and Nightwing were. Robin and I were sent to the quiet apartment rows of Crest Hill, watching over nothing in particular. Sent to keep us away from the fray. Even Robin knew it. When Batman said we’d be patrolling here, he looked like he could rip the head off a puppy.

“Movement in Coventry.”

“On it. Thanks, Oracle.”

One of the better quirks of Damian Wayne was that in the case he was spurned by his favored allies (Bruce, Dick), he quickly formed new alliances (me, Tim). Bumbling fawn comment aside, I could tell I was in his good graces tonight by utter happenstance and Batman’s shortcomings. I was nothing if not opportunistic.

“We can get to Coventry before they can.” I said quickly, keeping the nervous excitement in my voice to a minimum. He eyed me cautiously.

“Batman may be trying not to take risks, but we can handle a couple of goons. Besides,” I added. “Red Hood will probably be gone by then. He always is.” I was overselling it; Robin was already standing, eyes roving over the city scape in search of the best route to Coventry. I stood with him, then let the free-fall adrenaline send exciting jolts through my stomach as we grappled toward our destination.

I could see him, in my mind. His face on the docks, bathed with the flame of his lighter. Hear his voice, full of purpose and noble fury as he promised revenge. I understood his cause, but didn’t understand him, and that was the mystery that poisoned my mind and stole my ability to sleep. Not Red Hood. Jason Todd.

*

Robin and I perched over a factory compound on the water’s edge, Sprang River’s lower fork rushing by at the end of the factory court. A handful of men moved like ants in the flooding white lights that lit the exterior. The wind distorted the sounds of their voices. Robin must have had the same thought because he moved soundlessly to a lower roof panel, advancing on the building. I followed. One man began shouting.

“I’m going to the Northern pylon.” Robin whispered. Divide and conquer. I wasn’t going to argue. I kept my eyes on his silhouetted form to ensure he didn’t encounter any resistance on his way, then worked by way around the court, hoping I could get a good idea of the place before he reached his vantage point. The sky was lightening, and we were losing time.

Just as I was about to check the lot on the opposite side of the factory, a metal door swung open, scraping against the metal parapet. Red Hood walked out, accompanied by a man in a factory jumpsuit. I couldn’t make out their conversation.

I crept along the high factory railing as they meandered across the court, deep in conversation. I kept it up for around six minutes before his companion departed, heading for the lot.

“Robin,” I whispered into my comms. “There’s a man heading toward the parking lot. Trail him.”

“I see him.”

With Robin in the Southern parking lot a safe distance away, I watched Red Hood slowly pull away from the lights and people, heading toward the darker exhaust plants East of the court. It became a struggle to keep and eye on him and my footing at the same time, but I did it. He stopped at a motorcycle parked behind an electric turbine about a klick from the factory. The sky was a pale gray now, ever-lightening with the dawn, and the shadows were burning away with it. I lowered by self behind an electrical box attached to one of the turbines.

“We’re en route- wait, Robin-“ The comms rang in my ear.

“I gave you a direct order.” Batman growled.

“It was a stupid order.” Robin clipped.

“Where’s Batgirl?”

Red was about to replace his red helm with a motorcycle helmet, but paused. He seemed to stall for a moment, before calling out.

“Come here, little bird.”

I was more annoyed than anything. I was ready to be a step ahead of him for once. But then, I couldn’t resent him for giving me what I wanted. I stood, and took in his empty hands before approaching. He’d leaned against the metal turbine, arms crossed as he regarded me with an unreadable expression.

“They’re here, you know.” I warned.

“Call ‘em, then. I won’t move. I know I’m good, but I’d be outnumbered. Bad odds.”

I scowled. “I’m not gonna do that.” I said it because he already knew it. We both did. He leaned against the wall, crossing his arms.

“You thought about what I said.”

“Of course I did.”

He glanced around, then pulled himself up straight and moved toward me. I took a few steps back, prompting him to flash me his empty hands, raised in surrender.

“Relax, darlin’.” He said. “You don’t need to be afraid of me. I don’t want you to be. I want you to understand.”

“How? How do I understand?” I’d been trying for a month. He pulled a small piece of paper from his jacket pocket, holding it out and letting me take it, keeping a safe, considerate distance. Inside, was a number.

“Come with me. One job. Nice and easy.” He said.

“I’m not killing anyone.” I said sternly, voice dropping.

“I’m not askin’ you to.”

“And I’m not standing by and letting you kill anyone.”

“You drive a hard bargain. Fine. We’ll do it clean.” I didn’t even know if I believed him. But I was tired of trying to understand him from a safe, considerate distance.

“We’re almost at location. Four minutes.” Nightwing’s voice almost made me jump. I lifted my eyes.

“You need to go.”

He was already turning on his heel.

*

It was two days before I texted him. I got a glorious three hours of sleep over the course of them, and I kept running down either respective fork in my road before turning around and running back. In the end, I subsided to the fact that I was raised by two business-women, and Jason’s offer was at worst an opportunity. If it all went to shit, and he tried to kill me, I’d at least have some information to present to Bruce, notwithstanding the lifetime of punishment that would get me.

Our rendezvous point was in Lower Gotham Proper. By the time I got there, it was midnight, and a rolling mist had blown in from the harbor, mixing with the smog that hugged the streets and making it nearly unsafe to drive. I silently hoped Batman and Robin were okay.

As I worked my way down a narrow street, the moisture in the air was choking; causing the fabric of my pants and jacket to cling to my skin. I’d almost prefer rain to the way the mist stood still, forcing me to muddle through it. It was dark. The lights and signs on surrounding buildings didn’t seem to be able to preserve through the fog.

I saw a figure pressed against a building that looked tall enough to be Jason. As I approached, we regarded each other’s forms apprehensively. When he tilted his head, I knew it was him. I drew close.

“Jesus.” I mumbled. “Could you have picked a spookier place?”

“Don’t tell me you scare easy.” He said through a cigarette. His helmet was in his hand, but it could’ve easily been mistaken for a motorcycle helmet. The whole get-up was kind of biker-esque. I didn’t answer. Just glanced around.

“Come on.” He said. “It’s not far.”

As we began walking, it struck me how much more relieved I felt to hear his footsteps alongside my own. I was capable; willing and able to fight just about anyone Gotham could conjure up. But still, walking with him was comforting. Like I had someone to watch my back.

We even eased into a bit of conversation. Small things- things we agreed upon. Rich society, and Gotham’s war on the poor. Politicians we wouldn’t mind going missing. If you had showed me his picture next his crime scenes, I wouldn’t have pinned him.

Jason wasn’t unpleasant; it was just that his disposition was highly aloof and somewhat irritable. He had rich bronze skin, and full lips that I was sure made for a charming smile when he decided to do so (not a grin, a smile). The composition of his face was very sharp and neatly symmetrical, but still held some gaunt exhaustion, revealed by the constant tense of his jaw. His attentive dark eyes were almost always narrowed in some fashion of distaste. He never once looked at peace.

It seemed to me that he was disinterested in most anything having to do with my life, other than that he wanted me with him. His entire being was an oxymoron; a juxtaposition of unexpectedly soft and startlingly sharp and there wasn’t a way to tell which it would be.

Finally, we approached a small, industrial building with a neon sign of red, blue, and green.

The Lion’s Den

Burlesque and Drag

I raised my eyebrows. A bit on the nose if you asked me. If the name didn’t give it away, the posters and marquees adorning the brick exterior did.

“We need to talk to someone here before we go.” Jason said, pulling on his helmet, and unzipping his brown leather jacket to showcase the bat.

“Lead on.” I said, pulling up my own mask.

The music was so loud, I could barely hear myself think. The led lights lining the ceiling were cycling warm colors; red, pink, orange, yellow, the glow burning through the smokescreen that was nearly as thick as the mist outside.

Women were dancing, in lace or topless, spinning on poles and otherwise moving gracefully to the heartbeat of the place. But that wasn’t the main event- a stage lit with marquee lights, the centerpiece of which was a table, where three women sat. Their outfits were something out of Marie Antoinette’s personal wardrobe. And that’s where Red Hood was headed.

We walked up onto the stage, and while it all sort of mingled with the dim neon in the rest of the building, I still felt oddly seen. I placed myself behind Red Hood, inserted between him and one of the women. They appeared to be playing cards.

“Well, well.” Said one of the queens, with blonde hair curled and blown out like something out of the 70’s. Her exaggerated, colorful makeup was a work of art- Picasso, perhaps. “Gonna stick around for the show this time, sugar?”

Red sat down, leaning so that his arm rested along the back of the chair, lights glinting off his helm. His relaxed composure made me nervous- but perhaps it was the lack of information.

“Not this time, Trixy.” He answered.

“Pity,” Said the broad redhead beside me, her voice a low, soothing timber. “You neva’ do.”

“Don’t be rude, Sasha.” The third woman scolded, throwing down an Ace of Spades, to the visible dismay of the others. “He’s a busy man.”

“Who’s your friend?” Trixy asked.

I glanced at Red Hood before answering. “Just a little bird.”

“How delightful. Let’s get down to the nitty gritty, shall we?” Trixy said. “Did Dominique get the message to ya?”

“Refresh my memory.” Red Hood said- for my sake, I’m sure.

“Bout a week ago, a bunch of girls from the Row went missin’. Ain’t unusual,” Trixy said darkly, “Most don’t got no family or nothin’. Just us lookin’ out for ‘em. When we run outta beds here, that’s when they go missin’. But it’s different this time. Buncha girls all at once- including one ‘a the queens.”

“Tiffany Spice.” Sasha said, a solemn look on her face. “She was just comin’ into herself. Lord, I’d be devastated if somethin’ happened.”

“Some a’ the row girls been talkin’ about this real shifty fella- Baron Haus. New guy. Used to pimp out girls from the Narrows.”

“And the girls disappeared when he showed up.” I said quietly.

“Bingo.”

“How many?” Red asked.

“About eight, Tiffany included.”

“And you know where he was working from?” I inquired.

“Sha’ do. China Town. Club there called the Moonlight.”

Red Hood nodded. “Anything else me and my little bird should know?”

Trixy thought for a moment. “Baron’s got some friends in GCPD. Had some uncles in the force, or somethin’ of that nature. He’ll be missed. More dead.” She spit the term bitterly.

“They always are.” He responded, getting up from his chair.

“And Hoodie, sugar!” She called after us. “You’re a doll for this.” He didn’t reply. As we worked our way back toward the front, he spoke quietly.

“I thought it’d be better if you met ‘em yourself. Always makes it more personal.”

Batman never did that.

“Do you always make it personal?” I asked.

“It’s not fun if it isn’t.”

The freezing moisture in the air bit fiercely as we pushed open the metal screen door.

“Right.” I said. “So, the Moonlight. How are we getting there?”

“How do you think?” He said, stopping short of a rusted yellow fire escape on the side of the building. He surveyed it, then looked at me.

“Race ya.”

With surprising speed and grace, he scaled the fire escape, no sound in his wake.

“Oh, it’s on.” I fired, rushing to the bars and climbing like they were monkey bars. He disappeared over the edge of the roof, and as I made my way up, I saw him several years away, already conquering another building. I raced toward him, leaping over exhaust pipes until we were high above the fog. The city below looked like an illuminated ocean, twinkling lights just below a pillowy white surface.

I felt like a child again, overwhelmed, nearly brought to giddiness with excitement. Was this how Bruce felt, scaling rooftops with Catwoman? The small, but sure thrill of consorting with the bad guy- knowing that they were consorting with you in return?

I wasn’t a sidekick. There was no line to fall into. No predecessors, no successors, no beginning and no end. I moved like Batgirl across the shingles and concrete and metal scaffolding, but I was weightless without the Bat legacy on my chest. There was something deeply, shamefully freeing about that.

*

We were greeted differently in the Moonlight; a stark contrast to the warm welcome by the queens in the Lion’s Den. It was set up more like a smoky, refined gentlemen’s club. We drew attention from every walk of life inhabiting the bar- men in suits, women in silk, and slimy looking characters that grated offensively against the debonair theme.

Most leered for a moment, then cast their eyes away, like they’d seen something they shouldn’t have. Maybe you could consider Red Hood one of those such things.

“Mr. Hood!” There came a voice, cutting above the orchestral music- Nessun Dorma, if my musical sensibilities were still honed from my piano lesson days. “Welcome, welcome. I can only hope,” The man gave gritting smile, wound tight with visible anxiety. “That you’re here on peaceful business tonight.” He cast his nervous, monolid eyes to me. He was handsome, no older than thirty and wore a tight black vest. I didn’t let my body language give anything away; frankly, I was as in the dark as he was.

“Oh, you know me, Baron Jun,” Red Hood drawled, slowing to a halt at the bar, and leaning on it. “I don’t decide whether things stay peaceful or not. That depends on you.” I stayed standing, near his back, studying the security. Two lumbering men at the entrance, one behind Baron Jun. I wouldn’t put it past curvaceous bartender in red to have a gun, too.

“Lookin’ for Baron Haus. I heard a little rumor he works outta this quaint establishment now.”

When I’d considered the Red Hood’s contacts before, I pictured something like Batman’s relationship with Commissioner Gordon- figuring he had to have some corrupt cops or lowlife sleuths packing him with all his vast information. I never would have guessed it would be three drag queens playing cards.

A conflict passed over Baron Jun’s face, seconds long. “You… heard correctly. Word does seem to travel fast.”

“I need to pay him a visit. Remind him about some of my rules.” He admonished. It was a dripping warning, like the salivating jaws of an animal, teeth bared and pointed.

Baron Jun swallowed. “I see. Well, he um- he’s not actually here, at the moment. Maybe I can tell him you dropped b-“

“You know, Jun,” Red continued, ignoring him. “I got this really funny feeling you know what rules I’m talkin’ about.”

The look on his face was something to behold. I’d seen fear, briefly, on the faces of criminals before I subdued them and went on my way. But this was different. Fear induced by nothing but a conversation. Call it hive-mind, a power trip perhaps, but I felt this pesky sense of camaraderie that prompted me to take a few steps forward, shoulder to shoulder with Red Hood. Who was this vile little shitstain who made his living off men getting laid to play games with us? I thought about eight women, scared and abused. It was Baron Jun’s fault. Baron Haus’ fault. Everyone in this stupid bar, decorated to the taste of the men who abused them.

Baron Jun’s eyes dashed back and forth. Deny or ask forgiveness? I could see him running down those cross roads.

“He… he’s been running some shit I didn’t know about until last night. I swear I didn’t fuckin’ know.” He broke at last.

“Where are they?” I piped up.

“Who the fuck are-“ He was cut off with a bang and a scream as Red shot his knee. I was startled by the noise, but no one seemed to notice. It rang in my ear.

Give a girl a warning next time.

“Be. Fucking. Polite.” Red snapped, now advancing on the Baron. Only one of the three security guards decided it was worth the risk and stepped forward. Electric with the building energy of the whole night, I bolted forward and swung my fist into his throat. He made a choked noise and stumbled to the ground.

“Answer the question, Jun.” Red continued, this time in a taunting, sing-song tone.

“Oh, fuck,” Jun whimpered, cradling his knee. “Jesus- you- you shot me.”

“Always were a sharp one. I got a couple more bullets, and you’ve got another knee. So why don’t you sing before I get really impatient.”

“Christ.. they- they’re in the back. R-room fourteen.” His breath was labored with pain. I didn’t feel bad. Trusting that Red would handle the front and keep his promise of not killing anyone, I went to the back hallway, counting the doorways before reaching room 14. I made short work of the lock.

Some scuffling noises could be heard from the front room- but no further gunfire. I opened the door to reveal a velvet lounge, with red settees and satin curtains, along with fearful eyes looking back at me. I counted eight heads, including Tiffany Spice, who’d since abandoned his wig and gaudy attire. His make-up was streaked with long-dried tears.

“Tiffany Spice?” I asked, subservient to standard protocol despite my evening of rebellion.

“What’s going on out there?”

“Trixy sent us. You’re safe now.”

“Are the Barons gone?”

“They’re being dealt with.” I answered.

After finding them, the rest fell into place quickly. Red had indulged in some property destruction, and Baron Jun now reckoned with what appeared to be a shattered hand and some extra facial bruising.

I nodded briskly to Red and he, in turn, nodded to the bartender, who ushered the girls around.

Before departure, he knelt down in front of the Baron.

“You’re alive,” He said lowly. “Cause I’m doin’ someone a favor. If someone breaks the rules again,” He reached over and patted Jun’s pained face. “You be a good boy and come right to me. Okay?” Jun didn’t respond, nor take his bloodshot eyes off of his mangled hand, but Red straightened anyway and ushered me to the door.

Outside, we withdrew safely and quietly to a rooftop.

“Why did we leave them?” I asked.

“Trixy’s not my only contact. The bartender’s mine. She’ll get ‘em where they need to be.”

A beat.

“You knew Baron Haus wasn’t gonna be there.” I said quietly.

“Yeah.”

“That’s the only reason you promised me you wouldn’t kill anyone.”

Hesitation. “Yeah, it is.”

“Are you gonna track him down?” I asked. He didn’t answer. “Seriously.” I tried again. He sighed, then looked at me. I was seeing his eyes clearly for maybe the first time all night. It was sobering, and he held my gaze.

“Yes. Yes, I’m going to kill him.” He said firmly. I looked away.

“He’s got a track record.” He explained. “Does shit like this, gets caught, and then uses his friends in blue to get a lighter sentence. Three months, maybe. Then, he’s back. I’m not the first one to catch him. But I promise you, I’ll be the fuckin’ last.” His vitriol was oil on concrete, and I decided it was better not to light any matches. The rest of the walk was quiet, neither of us making the catalytic initiative to part ways, coming down from the adrenaline the way we’d built it; in each other’s uncertain company.

*

We settled on top of St. Luke’s Hospital, towering defiantly amidst the smaller, crowded inner city neighborhoods below. It was 4am, but I wasn’t tired. Quite the opposite; I was awash with energy, by grace of the night’s feat and the biting cold. Jason had pulled his helmet off, and was leaning against the steel exhaust pipe, myself nestled at his side.

“I have another place I need to go. Three days- Mafia business in Little Italy.” He said.

“And you want me to come?” I asked. He tipped his head.

“What can I say, doll? You’re good at this.”

I looked over the city, brow furrowing.

“Unless,” He added in a low voice, wry and challenging. “You think it’s wrong. I am the bad guy, aren’t I?”

I didn’t look at him, because I knew he was wearing a darkly arrogant expression, and I didn’t want to see it. No, there was nothing wrong about what we did tonight. Even if there was; I’d do it all again for the relief on Tiffany’s tear-streaked face.

“I’ll go.” I said. “But you have to tell me something. Honestly.” I said firmly, bringing my eyes to meet his. He cocked an eyebrow.

“Ask away.”

“Why me? Why don’t you hate me like you hate them?” Them. My family. Our family. Hate seemed a harsh word, but only after I supplied it, was I reminded of its truth. Jason studied me for a few agonizing moments, allowing only the sound of wind and distant, crying sirens.

“Carolyn Crawford.” He finally said.

“What?”

Carolyn Crawford.

I’d forgotten all about her. My life was sort of divided by this giant, barbed wire fence between before adoption and after adoption. Evidently, my brain decided that anything before adoption would be better of folded up, sealed with wax, and filed away. Traumatic memory suppression, the shrink Bruce sent me to called it- even though the only traumatic thing was the night my parents died, not everything that came before.

Nonetheless, Carolyn Crawford was somebody I hadn’t given any particular thought to in a long time. She was a woman of forty (at the time I was thirteen), and she had that snooty, Diamond District disposition that you only find in women who marry into wealth, but aren’t born with it. She was beautiful; pale skin, thin, with an air of 1950’s suave, accentuated by the auburn bob of artificial curls she always wore. Her husband was an investor in Wayne Enterprises, and she was sleeping with Bruce.

I had no reason to know, or care about this. But Jason did. When he found out, he was uncharacteristically devastated. I could imagine, in retrospect, that when you’re a boy of fifteen and you find out the man who adopted you- a man who was a holyfigure in your eyes, the good guy- was sleeping with a married woman ten years his senior, you may experience a bit of devastation. He had something, some virtuous perception of Bruce, ripped away from him, and he was given a concept that his father, too, had vices. His one vice; women.

Jason was angry. He wanted the world’s perception of Bruce to crumble alongside his own, and so he took all the valor in his teenage body and enacted his own justice.

An anonymous email was sent to just about every company partner or investor, including Carolyn’s husband, and my parents, disclosing a picture of Bruce in some secluded room at a gala, with his arm around Carolyn’s waist, leaning intimately into her ear. She had a wry smile on her face. Above the photo was a single tag line.

“Carolyn Crawford is fucking Bruce Wayne.”

My parents gossiped about the email, of course, when they thought I wasn’t leaning against the office door. But that was all I ever knew about it. Apparently Carolyn’s husband didn’t divorce her, but he did cut her off financially, which may as well have been the same loss.

That was all I heard of it, up until a charity event on a particularly cold January night. The January before Jason’s death. I was waltzing around as per usual, a cup of punch in my hand. Waiting for the clock to tick its way to eleven o’clock- when I knew my mothers would want to depart so they could get up for work the next morning. The music was lovely; fluttering strings.

“You!” It was a harsh sound, like a shrieking banshee, or the whining note of a violin when all the bow hairs are frayed.

Carolyn Crawford was marching right toward Jason, fury on her beautiful face. I didn’t catch the beginning of the conversation as I tried to make my way through the bodies, of which a few were also alarmed by the sound.

“...you’re the only one who could’ve done it, you little- don’t lie to me!”

Jason was defiant there, with his arms crossed and his lip slightly raised, but I could tell by the nervous look in his eye that she was pointing her bony finger at the right suspect. I’m certain it was Bruce who figured it out.

“What the hell are you talking about, lady?” He said.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. I know you sent that email. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“You’re outta your mind.”

“You’re going to regret this, I promise. I’m going to make sure that this follows you-“

“He didn’t send the email!” I said, pushing past a man who was eagerly watching, like it was the best thing he’d seen all night. I’m not even sure what possessed me to offer up the statement- maybe the way she was throwing her venom in his face and jabbing her finger at his chest.

“I did it.” I said. I didn’t look at Jason, but from the corner of my eye, I could see his mouth fall open. Carolyn Crawford turned on me.

“What?”

“I sent the email.” I said. We’d drawn more observers now, a small, hushed crowd of people too polite to intervene, but too curious to look away.

“Who the hell are you? And why would you do that?” Up close, I could see that she looked like she hadn’t slept. Other little things too; a pearl out place, stray hairs. She’d probably been through hell since Jason sent that email.

I leveled my gaze on her. “You really need to ask? What kind of wife-“

Slap.

Her open palm swung across my cheek so hard that I nearly stumbled into a donation table. There was a pressure in my ear, and then a stinging sensation. I put my hand to my cheek, and when I looked back up at her, she was eyeing the shocked crowd. Then, she turned, and walked briskly toward the exit, heels clicking on the marble.

Everyone stood there, looking at me. I flushed, shrinking under the weight of their eyes, feeling like an animal in a zoo. My mothers were nowhere to be found, and neither was Bruce.

In a swift movement, Jason grabbed my hand, shooting angry glares like daggers toward anyone who was looking, and ushered me into a secluded corner.

“Why did you do that? What the hell is wrong with you?” He whispered frantically, obviously battling whether he should touch my face or not. He decided not.

I gave him an insulted look. “I was helping you, jackass!”

“Well, you didn’t help!” He said, before adding, more exasperatedly. “You just got hurt.”

I shrugged, taking my hand off my cheek, probably to show him some modicum of strength, or defiance. “It’s not that bad.”

It was that bad. It was the first time I had ever been hit, by anybody. I actually wanted to cry. But I was dedicated to my tough girl role, so I didn’t.

“I’m sorry.” He said, surprising me with the fearful apologeticism in his voice. “I’m really sorry- you shouldn’t have done that. I should’ve said something. I just fuckin’ stood there like-“

“Hey! It’s okay. I did it because I wanted to. Besides, it really doesn’t matter who did what. She’s just mad she ruined her own marriage.”

He shook his head and slunk down beside me on the cold marble. The AC was offensively imposing for the middle of January, and I hugged my knees to my chest as we watched the guests disperse, dragging back the events of the night to gossip about later, like foxes carry prized rabbits.

*

“Carolyn Crawford?” I repeated. “That’s what this is about?”

Jason gave me a wiry look, a lopsided smile, then threw his head back and laughed, contagiously so. I let out a disbelieving chuckle.

“I mean,” He added, “Not all of it. A little.” There was residual laughter in his tone, and it made me want to lean into him.

“A ‘little’. Okay. Should I be getting in touch with Carolyn Crawford and thanking her for rekindling this little partnership?”

“Yeah.” He said. “Send her an email.”

I laughed again. “Seriously, Jason, what the fuck are you talking about?”

His grin lingered, and his eyes fell over the city. I could see the gears turning as he considered his response. Then he just shrugged.

“You covered for me.”

“Yeah.”

“And...” He leaned back, not taking his eyes from the sprawling lights. “Somethin’ tells me you still are.”

I looked at him for a while, trying to wait him out and make him elaborate. But he didn’t. I resigned with a sigh.

“Yeah, well.” I mumbled. “Carolyn Crawford was a giant bitch.” His lips fought a losing battle against another smile.

“Personally, I’m still a little impressed she had the gall to slap you.”

“Haha. Hey- did you actually take that picture?”

He shook his head, hesitating before adding. “Dick did.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m serious.” He chuckled.

“So I took the fall for both of you.”

“Yeah, you did, Princess.”

He had this familiar, juvenile grin stuck to his face. And for the first time in a long, long time, he was Jason Todd.

[spirit-shroud]

what are some roles that have been largely changed for cityrune? since you said queen was an influencer now :]

hi ty for asking me im vibrating. havent gotten to talk about this au now for three years and now that chapter 2 is like real and this time i can like........draw occasionally and i have more understanding of nuance...... [grips table] [screams]

this isnt quite what you asked but heres what's everyone from chapter 1 has been Up To with a little bit of context (and under a read more bc it got LENGTHY):

kris - professional stay at home teen (they live w/ asgore n help run the flower shop sometimes. this decision was entirely bc i dont like toriel). was wrongly diagnosed w Sudden Soul Rejection when they were incredibly young and given an experimental transplanted soul as a replacement. it works for them fine, give or take having to see gaster once a month for checkups. but sometimes the soul makes them skittish n decides they're going to sit in front of the pc and play 30 consecutive hours of a certain simulation game and not even let them drown people in the pool. if it were entirely up to them, they'd be like. passing out on the sofa to documentaries about bigfoot. or practicing cool knife tricks to impress their friends at their next tabletop meetup

- EDITED IN: the soul is kind of their friend. they are wearing a hypothetical get along shirt. most of the time, they agree on actions and things to do. tends to refer to themself + their soul as we/us which originally was just something they did in their head but they kept slipping in speech/text n just became a Thing of how they talk. switches to 'I/Me' whenever smth is wrong.

- also edited in: they believe the soul they have is their original soul bc nobody has told them otherwise. whenever theyre like 'oh yeah we think about our soul n view it as a separate entity to us like. all the time. it likes to hurt if we make too many choices it doesn't seem to like and kind of forces us to be a toned down version of what we want to be but thats just how souls are haha' and everyone is like.... 'Hey Kris That's Really Not How It Is.' theyre like. 'huh. gonna ignore that for now' - this was going to be a plot point

toriel - head of H0MEWOR1D (H01)'s department of education; kind of lost her roots as a simple math teacher as she was pushed into a lot of power she didn't even really seek out. divorced asgore over some miscommunications in their relationship; also loosely as a result of grief from asriel's death

asgore - the same. runs a lil flower/gift shop. people come in more to talk with him than to buy flowers most of the time, though

asriel Flowey - he's back in flower form, thanks to the government an accident. causes a lot of technology glitches wherever he goes, and wants revenge. isn't sure how to go about it. asriel "died" around 8 years before the story takes place and kris still misses him and refuses to even THINK about even the IDEA of calling someone their sibling after what happened, just in case it somehow happens a second time

susie - more of the same really. she spends most of her time either at grillby's (she's sort of become his assistant n helps with opening/closing. it just happened) or getting into low-stakes trouble w/ kris

noelle - she's in the city's equivalent of college and shes so tired. shes So Abysmally Tired n got kinda pushed 2 follow in her mom's footsteps. she's rarely around anymore except through text or on monsters & mages (dnd) night. (however.........she will come back w/ a long break n hang out w everyone again)

berdly - tbh i didnt even consider berdly when i made the au initially. idk what he's doing. probably in a similar situation to noelle??? canonically got kicked out of the M&M group due to clashes w/ other players but lurks in their group chat to posts memes sometimes

didnt rly think of any other of kris' classmates (+ their families) after ch1 and probably will continue to not, until chs 3-5 come out and i gotta whip up roles and histories for like. a lotta guys all of a sudden. i also forgot about noelle's parents

sans - runs a convenience store that everyone kind of thinks is a front, but also it has really cheap snacks and the local teens make a point of stopping there after school. so essentially, more of the same papyrus - similar to ut. is a very polite and sweet boy but you'll know when he's coming

grillby - he's back. he runs a bar like back in ut but the cozy vibes and weird-for-a-bar hours keep attracting kids who need parents, so half of his menu is comprised of overly sweet mocktails. usually only frequented by monsters

QC - same as usual. has a "rivalry" with grillbz but, theyre besties and have a book club

mettaton - he's real and he's back. he's similar to how he is back in ut w/ his EX body. likes to hang out at grillby's and talk to unsuspecting fans. has a show for everything

napstablook - similar to how they are in ut. helps mtt with making music sometimes. doesn't leave the house too often, but spends a lot of time posting on undernet

undyne - unfortunately. more of the same. she is a cop in the monster district. i am also upset by this but couldn't think of anything better for her

alphys - a doctor studying under dr. gaster in the hopes she'll one day take over his research. she spends most of her time as a nurse with a bigger title, though, and blocks out the weirdness of her job with anime.

gaster - weird guy. H01's top soul researcher and resident House wannabe. trying to manufacture the ultimate soul that can be controlled with simple internal switches, but so far he's only had 1 (very limited) success with a certain human. monsters just melt, and darkners just sorta......get weird... he's onto Something, though.

ralsei - lonely boy with some very strange hobbies. popular on UnderNet for poetry, baking videos, and general cryptid vibe. is the DM for the monsters & mages group (also seems to think everything is actually very fine in H01 when it is very much not)

lancer - about the same. professional Round Boy. lives w/ rouxls full time. follows susie around like a lost puppy and calls himself her "underling."

rouxls - runs a hotel/casino kind of deal where the objective Bad Guys hang out, and usually ends up doing any of the spade king's paperwork.

spade king - mafia godfather. kind of a dick. don't play cards with him

seam - works with the spade king as his right hand cat more or less because they have for a lot of years and are in that 'sunk cost fallacy' zone. thinks of retiring to a quiet life in the monster section of town like, daily

jevil - used to work with the spade king, but got imprisoned for Crimes. got weird after The Accident (separate from asriel's accident)

temmies (all) - dont really get mentioned except offhandedly but they run the monster space station. so far, are the only monsters who have ever been to space.

as far as chapter 2 goes:

yeah i dont have much so far for characters. in the original version of the au i accidentally made darkners as a whole just kinda..... not great? like all sorts of weird organized crime ties n sort of going out of their way to be A Problem to the city (not even in like. a revolution way. in a working against them but with the same goals kinda way). with the whole context it worked At The Time, bc i just had the spade king to look to as a villain, and also in this au the darkners are just trying to survive a world that ultimately was not built for them (that humans think they own, and monsters sort of... seeing this and wondering what it'll mean for them whichever one wins), but w/ new info abt how the dark world works n more guys to work with i want to kind of. edit the vibe a bit. like yea darkners will ultimately do whatever it takes to take over H01, but maybe in a better way than like. idk. all this. it doesnt have to be peaceful or anything it just has to be more adaptable as we meet more kinds of darkners

however yeah i thought up 'queen as some sort of childless mommy blogger/influencer' and that completely revived all memory i had of this au. she should be on mtt's talkshow. also she sells collectible wine glasses w/ her likeness

spamton is another one of gaster's failed soul experiments, but he hasn't melted yet, and seems............fine? sort of. so he hasn't gotten decommissioned yet. he does want to give you malware tho. hot monster singles in your area n all that

im blanking on the rest of the guys but i hope any of this was comprehensible

[popculturebuffet]

Darkwing Duck Quadruple Feature! (Beauty and the Beet, Whiffle While You Work, Jurassic Jumble, Something Fishy)

Welcome back! It’s been a bit since I visited St. Canard and my march to watching Just Us Justice Ducks by watching one episode, with the exception of Megavolt the first chronological appearances of, each member of the Justice Ducks and Fearsome Five. The Megavolt exception was so I could, by comission, cover the one and only appearance of the OTHER Negaduck if you were curious.So far besides Negsy and Volty, i’ve covered both of Morgana’s first chronological episodes, Liquidator’s and (SIgh) Gizmoducks. But with only 6 left to go.. I put the seires on hiatus to work on ride of the three cabs and my minty fresh retrospective of life and times. At the TIME it didn’t seem like a bad idea, I could get to this any time and what not.. but in hindsight.. yeah putting an almost finished project on hold till two much larger projects, that at the time of this review have 10 and 13 installments left, WHILE also starting two more projects... was not my best move, especially since I have a comission, and an episode needed to properly review that comission AND a valentine’s day episode to review.. all of which come AFTER Just Us Justice Ducks chronlogically and 2 of which involve Negaduck. So yeah I whiffed it bad on this one and this mini-marathon is my way of fixing that, finsihing up the last few episodes before the big event. The episode i’ve waited almost a decade to watch and one of the most loved in the series history: Just Us Justice DUcks, which is coming up next week. Then LIfe and Times will be right back where it was and I promise to get that out weekly. But yeah with logisitcs out of the way and 4 episodes to go, I don’t know how to go slow so let’s get dangerous shall we?

Beauty and the Beat:The Misplaced Batman the Animated Series Villian

We open with one of the first Darkwings I watched via my old Darkwing Duck DVDS, rewatched a while back and easily one of my faviorite episodes and the first apperance of my faviorite Darkwing Duck Villian, though Liquidator and now Quackerjack are giving him a run for his money. But yeah I love Reggie and part of it is he’s something far diffrent than what Darkwing normally fights. 

While he still fits in with the Rouges gallery: someone with either powers or a good gimmick whose intresting, engaging and most importantly to this show, Reggie is still diffrent in that he’s an inherently tragic figure. While the rest of the rouges have sympathetic qualities theier still not really good people: Quackerjack chose to lash out at what drove him out of buisness instead of starting over again, Megavolt is your standard wants money bad guy, and Liquidator was a massive asshole. And if you add in the other villians i’ve covered, Taurus Bulba was basically Marvel’s Kingpin as a bul and Splatter Phoenix while having a noble goal of funding her arts does so via framing an innocent child and stealing. They aren’t unsympathetic, some of them anyway, but they are still ruthless because they choose to be.  Reggie.. didn’t get that choice. We see from the start of this episode his life has just been being everyone elses punching bag: His boss dosen’t respect him, his cowowkers not only don’t respect him but actively bully him and only the newsest researcher has ever paid him the time of day much less told the two assholes, Gary and Larson, a nice shout out, to stop. And given I reviewed Wonder Woman 84 yesterday i’ts NICE to remember a version of a “geek becomes a supervillian’ story that’s.. actually good. This is basically the same sorry, a disrpsected scientest trnasforms and gets revenge.. just you know done right. 

And SOMEHOW Reggie’s life only gets worse as asshole one and asshole two sabotage his work, he gets fired and is forced to experiment on himself. While that’s a classic mad scientst and supervillian trope what’s notable is Reggie didn’t go immiedtly to world domination. He just wanted to cure world hunger and get some respect. He just wanted to be treated like a human being for once. Instead he got turned into a plant and despite this being a miracle.. he gets MOCKED by gary and larson and runs away, feeling like a freak. And since after that the transformation has clearly made his brain unstable.. he goes from a sweet, put upon guy who just wanted help to people.. to an obsessive plant monster.. who still just needs HELP. He needs therapy and a warm blanket and to turn his life around. And his motivation.. is just not being alone. While his kdinapping of the one scientest who liked him, and he assumes has feelings for him, is bad, and selfish.. it’s clear by that point Reggie is just not himself anymore. He’s Bushroot now. He’s lost himself and were this a diffrent show maybe he could’ve gotten the help he needed and some empathy.  But what adds to the tragedy is Darkwing himself. This episode really showcases one of Darkwing’s biggest weaknses: his inablity to see crime other than in black and white terms. To him it’s just a game of heroes and villians. Nothing more nothing less. Villians can become heroes, as he hopes for Morgana, but to him there’s just good guys ,him and bad guys, everyone breaking the law. For someone whose often seen as an outlaw himself.. he still can’t see things in any other terms. However instead of just being lazy writing... it’s a clever character quirk, at the center of this episode and our final one, as well as one that pops up a little in Stegmutt’s first apperance. It nicely parodies/deocnscruts the whole good guy badguy dynamic by making it clear that sometimes while the person may be doing bad things.. they have a reason for it and sometimes the law just dosen’t work. It’s something I do wish they’d dug into more but given this was more of a comedy, I get why they didn’t, but what they did with it is great and it adds to this episode tremendously: Darkwing just sees Reggie as another villian to stop and not as a very unstable man who needs his help, but also needs tobe stopped for his own good. It’s why this is such a good episode, besides some great comic set pieces: it has a really tragic and moving story that , with some tweaking woudln’t of been out of place in batman the animateds eires. It’s still a bit goofy in places, as it should be giving the show it’s in btu at i’ts heart it’s just a relaly godo really tragic supervillian origin story. 

Whiffle While You Work: The Saving Grace of an Okay Episode This one’s more of a mixed bag. For the good... Quackerjack is fucking awesome. While I already loved him from the comics, I hadn’t met his more lightehearted tv counterpart yet.. but boy was he a delight. From his it’s play time catch phrase which despite being repeated a LOT never got bored to his really invenitve use of toys. While a vilian with a toy gimmick is not new, Toyman has been around for.. 80 years? Damn. I should do some Superman TAS episodes this year to commemerate that. Point is between him and the joker the gimmick isn’t “New” but Quackerjack still feels unique from using actual jacks, to a motorized hula hoop, to a GIANT CRYING BABY DOLL TO FLOOD A CITY. Jackie is just a delight every minute he’s on screen, and his motivation is solid: wanting to get revenge at the Whiffle Boy video game and i’ts insuing phenmonin and merchandise deals for squeezing him out of buisness. It makes him mildly symathetic enough to be intresting but not enough to override his terrible actions. He’s just fun to watch, and Micheal Bell is phenominal in the roll. easily one of my faviorite vilians thus far and it’s easy to see why he showed up quite a bit. 

Sadly the rest of the episode.. is not very intresting. It starts with your standard “Adult gets child away from the video game only to play it” plot which is belivieble, my dad was a gamer back during my childhood and probably still plays games ocasionally to this day. He fucking loved Starcraft, Ultima ONline, Super Metroid, Warcraft II and III.. and swearing. He really loved swearing at the games. And the idea of the episode isn’t bad, Drake is jealous that Gosalyn is in the limelight for once.. the issue  being a grown man competing with his own daughter just makes Drake really unlikeable. He at one point tries to use his parental authority to take her out of the contest, lies about being in the competition, and dosen’t apologize or learn enough to make up for his being a dick about this. THe episode really suffers from Launchpad not being around to be a buffer between the two and as ssuch it’s just uncomfortable. Hell Gos threatens to reveal Drake’s identity to .. someone.. but she still comes off sympathetic as when Drake presses her on it.. it’s very clear she made the threat on the spur of the moment out of hurt. 

Also the whole Whiffle Boy game craize extending to a city is delightfully batshit, and plausable given i’m pretty sure if nintendo could afford their own city we’d have it over in japan and for a video game episode in the 90′s, this one isn’t all that bad. It actually seems to get games on SOME level, and seems based more on an arcade game, which drake plays whiffle boy on at one point and the 80′s arcade competition craze, and since arcade comeptitions were still a huge thing in the 90′s, it’s very clear this si written by people who actually know what a video game is and don’t just fear it as some strange doodad their kids are into. Trust me I’ve been around animation so long this plot has become tiresome. So not a BAD episode, just held back by drake being written even more dickishly than usual.  P.S. there’s apparently an ultima level to the game.. so either Lord British is finally putting Chuckles down or someone needs to know what’s a paladin. 

Jurassic Jumble: Two Great One Shot Characters that Taste Great Together Well okay Segmutt does get one more episode but this is still his only episode on his own just like Neptuina next, so I count it well enough. Point is this episode is pretty good. It does have some weaknsses: It starts with Drake not beliviing Honker’s theory about a recent theft of acountants, one he’s only on the scene for because he happens to really need help with his taxes because, contrary to what Wesley Snipes thought, Superheroes still need to pay taxes. He dosen’t belive it’s dinosaurs.. he dosen’t belivie it’s dinosaurs despite the foot prints, honker being smart and HAVING FOUGHT A DOG MADE ENTIRELY OF WATER. 

I just get annoyed when superheros in a superhero universe don’t hav ea logical reason for dismissing something.. or random citizens.. it was fine if reptitous in the stan lee days because it’d been 20 years, at the time, since superheros were active and people can be stupid but it gets grating when someone says somethin’gs not possible in a superhero universe. Given we’re currrently dealing with an outgoing president who refuses to accept an election is real and his followers who think masks are a polical issue i’ts not exactly unrelasitic, dosen’t mean it’s enjoyable to read or watch. 

Still it works here because it splits the plot nicely and Gosalyn’s disbleif is less grating as she just wants it to be martians and dosen’t bully her friend or anything over it, just makes a few snyde remarks. The episode also wasn’t helped at first by the fact there’s a really reptitive bit where Darkwing bungies down to investigate the crook he thinks is responsible, but is actually just chilling at his minium security prison. It’s just not funny and takes up too much of the episode. But the episode picks up towards the second half when we meet our dinosaur: Stegmutt, a dumb but kind and friendly child like former janitor turned stegasaurs, whose unwittingly kidnapping people for his “friend” Dr. Fossil, the professor who turned him, and genuinely is not a bad soul and likes gosalyn and honker. He’s just clumsy and destructive and working for someone he dosen’t know is evil.  Speaking of which.. Dr. Fossil is really damn awesome and i’ts a shame he never came back in the comics or cartoon and hopefully Frank does him better in the reboot. Seriously he’s enjoyable, a bit nebbish but delightfully insane, deciding to wipe out all non dino life because he’s tired of getting panicked screams in the street and of all the dino merchandise like those puzzles with the pieces missing. He’ sjust delightfully nutty, with his love of saying bin bang boom and his having to put up with Stegmutt’s antics, as well as the whole joke that he TURNED HIMSELF INTO A DINOSAUR, yet gripes about being a dinosaur and acts like it’s humanity’s fault , balking when Gosalyn suggests he just.. turn himself back. Plus Ptetrodacytl’s are awesome so tha’ts a bonus. Seriously his showing up turns the episode from okay to fucking amazing. Seriously bring him back for the reboot.. and get Rich Fulcher to voice him. Seirously Bob Fossil as Dr. Fossil... it’s too perfect NOT to do casting gag wise, and he frankly perfectly fits the charcter down to the nasily voice. Plus Rich does voice acting quite a bit, so he’s already likely in Frank’s Rolodex. 

Stegmutt himself is also not too shabby, your standard child like moron, but he’s got a sweetness and niceness to him and we get some good gags like his habit of breaking off handles, his opening sodas with his tail and Fossil getting rid of him by telilng him to check if he left the bathroom light on...

And the climax with Darkwing.. turning.. into this

I don’t get it either but i’ts still a fun climax. Also forgot to mention Dr. Fossil can do that blow you away by flapping his wings thing Storm Eagle can do. Neat. All in all while not the series BEST outing, it has some flaws holding it back, it’s a damn fun one and one I highly recommend. Okay one more. 

Something Fishy: The Better Submariner This is a simple but good one: St. Canard beach has gotten trashy.. literally there’s trash everywhere. And while Drake is ambilent to it, Gosalyn is taking up the crusade to take out the trash and the garbage people... and gets her dad beaten up over it by dumping trash on some guys head but frankly, he deserved it.  Things go up a notch though when some sea creatures invade and .. clean up the beach and beat up darkwing. And while they destroy some property.. they aren’t exactly wrong? This is where that flaw I mentioned comes in though. Drake just.. can’t see things in shades of grey and insits he must be the good guy and whoevers doing this must be stopped.  However it becomes clear when we meet the antagonist that while her methods are wayy to extreme.. she’s in the right. Neputina is an awesome character, easily one of the series best and esaily horribly underulitized. She was a simple fish who thought a toxic waste barrel was a new friend.. and learned the hard way by becoming a sexy fish woman. Yeah I said it. But her motive is understandable thanks to her origin and just how BAD it’s gottne, with piles of trash all underwater and the laws Drake cites agianst this sort of thing not doing squat. It’s a nice take on the old enviornmental message , something I dreaded going in as it makes a valid point; sometimes diong things the “right” way isn’t enough.. but it still dosen’t justify harming innocent people in the process, as Nep’s ultimate plan to flood the city would.  Launchpad ends up being the voice of Reason as drake is too caught in his games of good guy bad guy to get Neptuina ISN’T a bad person, just one fed up with people hurting those she cares about. Neptuina is a unique villan in that unlike Morgana, who while having a sympathetic motive was out for herself, Stegmutt, who didn’t reailze he was on the wrong side, and Gizmoduck.. wellll

Neptuina.. is just misguided. She has the right idea but the wrong methods and Darkwing’s too stubborn to admit it.. but he’s also seen as in the wrong with Launchpad realizing DW just.. isn’t the good guy this time, but in the best scene of the episode talking Neptuina down by pointing out innocent people will get hurt. It’s a good, nuanced episode about envrionmetnalism with a throughly charasmatic and intrersting, acted wonderfully by Sussan Silo, antagonist. Neptuina is a better version of Marvel’s namor the submariner: she goes against humanity.. but I don’t want to punch her and dosen’t have one of her constnat character traits as “I want to bank your wife richards BANG YOUR WIFEEEEE”

So overall.. a good batch of episodes. Only Wiffle While You Work was all that weak, and even it had it’s charms and Quackerjack. It shows the series overall quality: even the just okay episodes here are still really fun to watch. It’s just a solid show overall and whie not without flaws is a classic to this day for a reason. Next week we’ll wrap this up with JUST US JUSTICE DUCKS! Until then stay safe and goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. 

[thanksjro]

Last Stand of the Wreckers, Issue #5: I Sure Hope You Didn’t Go and Get Attached to Any of These Characters…

We ended on a cliffhanger last issue, so let’s see what the lads are up to now.

Hm. That’s not great.

Overlord’s just ripped Guzzle in half for the fun of it. If you’re wondering why everyone’s outside now, it’s because he exploded the torture chamber so hard when he came in, it no longer exists. Kup doesn’t appreciate having one half of the Big Gulp duo torn in two, so he goes in for the attack. This doesn’t work out very well for him, as he has his head crushed between Guzzle’s upper and lower halves. This whole situation is a non-issue for Overlord, and barely distracts him from his goal of having Megatron show up to kick his ass. Impactor tries to have a big hero moment by shooting Overlord in the eye with his harpoon hand-attachment. Again, very little effect on Overlord; it doesn’t even seem to register on the same level as getting a little soap in your eye.

Back over with Ironfist and the Big Conundrum, Verity’s arguing that killing Impactor will kill the Wreckers- as a team, not in the literal sense. However, time’s running out, and Perceptor really doesn’t seem to be bothered by the idea of not having Impactor around.

She gets smaller every issue, I swear.

Verity makes her case to Ironfist, trying to play off of his fanboy status; the Wreckers are a symbol of hope, one that Ironfist himself created with his datalogs as Fisitron. Killing Impactor to make things easier for themselves destroys the illusion of a cohesive unit who can always be counted on when the chips are down. Too bad ol’ Ironfist knows Things™, and it’s actually Perceptor who’s swayed by her argument, which is interesting, given that he was about to vote Impactor into an early grave a minute ago.

Perceptor wasn’t always the cool, efficient sniper we see him to be in Last Stand of the Wreckers. He used to be a regular old science nerd, and a relatively talkative one at that. He wasn’t really built for a four million year war.

Then all that talking got him shot and he was left for dead.

He made some changes after that, both in body and personality.

Could his own experience with being forsaken by his peers for his flaws perhaps be influencing him here? Or am I, a reader and giant dork, just trying to justify a very quick backtracking on the narrative’s part, most likely due to page number limitations?

So they decide to fight. Then Pyro suggests they run. The “they” in this case doesn’t include himself. You remember how Optimus Prime’s big character quirk in every continuity is self-sacrifice? Yeah, we’re hitting on THAT portion of Pyro’s hero worship. It’s not exactly what he was hoping for in death, but it’s what’s got to be done at this point.

The others run off, and Pyro shoots the control to the door, bracing for one hell of a fight.

Holy shit, I forgot they had Fort Max with them! That scared the crap outta me.

There’s one last look at our hero before we go, and it…

Well, it sure is something.

Yikes. That’s a series wrap on Pyro!

Now it’s time for us to learn about what really happened on Pova. Turns out the files Ironfist had access to weren’t exactly virginal.

First things first, it was raining, and Impactor is kind of a dick. I mean, we already kind of knew that from what we’ve seen of the guy in the present day story, but this little scene really takes the cake. Springer had to basically beg him to stay with him; none of that “I’m not leaving you behind” nonsense. And the whole “shoot Springer through the midsection” idea? That was all Impactor. Springer doesn’t have a way to dampen the pain the way Impactor suggests, and doesn’t even get a moment to brace himself as he’s blasted more or less in half.

When Springer regains consciousness, he’s treated to the sight of Impactor and Prowl having a little chat. It turns out there’s a problem, and that problem’s name is bureaucracy. Pova is a protected planet, declared off-limits by the Neutrality Agreement, so any Cybertronian war business is pretty much null and void there. The fact that the Wreckers are there at all could have disastrous repercussions if the Decepticons catch wind of this and tell the Povians. They’ll have to let Squadron X go.

But it looks like Prowl forgot that Impactor’s a bad boy who doesn’t play by your daddy’s rules.

He walks into where they’re holding Squadron X, chained together into a circle on their knees, with their arms pinned behind their backs, locks the door behind himself, and executes every last one of them as Springer bangs on the door trying to get him to stop. This, obviously, puts a bit of a damper on everyone’s mood.

Even Whirl’s bummed out, and you just know that guy loves a good ‘Con-killing spree.

I guess the moral of the story here is Impactor kinda sucks.

Speaking of Impactor, Overlord’s currently stomping him to death as he holds Springer by the face. It’s honestly almost tender, the delicate placement of his fingers. It also reminds you that Overlord is literally twice the size of Springer, who, as a triple-changer, should already be on the tall side. Overlord is a big dude.

Springer’s still doing okay, because he knows that even if he doesn’t make it, the rest of his team will, and they’ll save the day and get all those Autobot prisoners off Garrus-9.

Ha. Haha. Oh, Springer, you naïve fool. You forgot that this was hell, didn’t you? Overlord already took care of the Autobot prisoners.

Someone really took their gun to that hanging guy on the left and said “fuck this dude in particular.”

Then the calvary arrives! With guns! And art tangents!

Surely things are looking up now!

Ironfist throws Springer a gun that’s about as big as he is- where did he get that?- and Springer proceeds to light Overlord the fuck up.

You don’t get the B-word pass at IDW unless you’ve already had your series truncated and the entire universe is about to get ended for a reboot. That’s just how it goes.

Of course, even the big boy gun isn’t enough to do much to Overlord outside of annoy him, and Springer gets his face ripped off for his troubles.

Now it’s just Ironfist and Verity left, and Overlord is very much looking forward to doing very bad things to both of them. Ironfist has a gambit though! That gun Springer had was actually firing deterrence chips into Overlord’s body, and now he’s just chock-full of the things. And since Ironfist has all of Aequitas in his head now- including the detonation codes- he can do this:

He blew Overlord’s lips clean off! The evil truly is defeated.

However, using this newfound power has costs- Ironfist is knocked clean out by a sudden pain in his head, eyes flaring and fizzing as he hits the ground, leaving Verity alone with Overlord’s flaming, animated endoskeleton.

Yeah no, he’s still not dead, and he’s still not fucking over Megatron, lamenting on how he just isn’t sure how he’ll fight him, now that he’s little more than robot bones. Verity has to be the one to break it to the guy that Megatron’s dead, and Overlord takes it about as well as he can.

I’m sorry Overlord, but at what friggin’ point were you promised ANYTHING from Megatron “Peace Through Tyranny” of Tarn? You were threatened, but that’s a little different than a vow to get revenge. Hell, that’s not even on the same level as as pinky-promise. What a baby.

Impactor ends the pity party by shooting Overlord with his alt-mode’s weaponry and then does a little something for Springer… by not ending Overlord. Nope, looks like the death of Springer finally let him see the error of his ways, and they’re going to bring Overlord in to stand trial, because while the guy deserves to die, Impactor doesn’t deserve to kill him. Maybe if more Transformers took this little idea to heart, they wouldn’t still be at war four million years and counting.

Impactor goes to radio for a ride, and Ironfist wakes up. It looks like everything’s going to be okay now.

Or not.

Yep, those weird brain-seeking bullets Ironfist had loaded into all the guns he brought on the trip were perfected after a disastrous prototype testing accident. THE accident, if you will. Prowl knew about this, and used it to his advantage, throwing Ironfist on the mission, with the intent that he’d be used to unlock Aequitas. Topspin, of course, caused the plan to change a bit, but it all worked out in the end.

Also, Springer isn’t dead. He’s pretty messed up, but he’s not dead. They’ve got Ratchet on it, it’ll be fine.

And thus we arrive at the debriefing, between Prowl and Ultra Magnus. Magnus is questioning just why Prowl had this mission sanctioned in the first place, if he was so very against the Aequitas trials while they were happening. The answer is simple: propaganda. If the Decepticons were to find out that the trials involved nothing but Autobot war crimes, and lots of ‘em, it would be the ultimate blow to the Autobot forces.

Ultra Magnus thinks that they should go public with the information, but Prowl disagrees. The only copy of Aequitas is left with Prowl, and while Ultra Magnus would like to trust that he wouldn’t destroy this info, the end result is left a mystery.

But you’ll have to read the sequel series to see just how that all turns out.

If Ironfist is dead, just who is writing up this narrative framing device for the issue? Why, it’s none other than Verity Carlo, using the power of the internet. I guess she has access to the Cybertronian internet now. Wonder who hooked her up with that. Probably not Ultra Magnus. Maybe Percy did her a solid as a thanks for surgically removing Overlord’s will to live.

Whether you want it to or not, I suppose.

This miniseries is a little dark, ain’t it?

Verity went to all the trouble to leave Earth and hide in the escape pods so she wouldn’t be abandoned, only to end up right where she started, with a heaping spoonful of PTSD to pair off with all the disappointment and lack of friends in her life. She watched a lot of people die on Garrus-9, and she’s in no way battle-hardened like one could argue the other surviving Wreckers are. All she has at this point is a blog she inherited from a nerd who accidentally committed a slow-burn suicide. I hope Perceptor will keep in touch with her, at least, seeing as he’s the only one who was also there and isn’t dead.

That’s the end of the miniseries proper, but not the entirety of the story. Up next, we’ll be looking at all the fun little extras Last Stand of the Wreckers came with.

[oknstark]

Stubborn - Thor x Fem!Reader

Request by anon:  Can I get a breeding/impreg (whichever you prefer), with some jealous/possessive Thor, please? 😇 👀

Warnings: smut, possessive!Thor, breeding kink, dirty shit.

Word count: 2,242

A/N: Yeeez, this was longer than I expected but here we are! Another filthy smut for Thor bc yes. Also Idk if this counts as being possessive or else but I tried, just couldn’t get the idea out of my head. Hope you enjoy dear anon! :) As always, I do not speak english so if you find any mistakes please let me know!

MASTERLIST

***

You fell on the ground with a hard strike, a scream left your throat at the sudden pain. You blinked, trying to recover some strenght. Clenching your eyes, you almost sensed the blaze from the horde of fire demons sorrounding you. By mere instinct, you lifted your hands, even though you knew deep inside that it wasn’t going to help at all.

The sound of thunder near you made you crawl back on the ground, and seeing your savior you let a sigh of relieve. Thor looked down at you and quickly made you stand up with his strength, his arm tightly wrapped in your waist.

“You’re so stubborn,” he said to you. His tone seemed angry and deeper than his normal one.

“Let me remind you why we match so much,” you answered, looking back at him with a serious look.

“Hey!” Loki’s voice came from behind. You turned around to meet him, as he throwed your double long spear at you. “We still in the middle of this, you can talk about your marital problems later.”

The blackhaired rapidly joined the battle again with the warrios that had left. Thor gave you one last look before striking the fire demons away. “Don’t do anything that you may regret later.”

“Well, I’m still married at you. I don’t think there is something worst than that!” you said before running to the fight one more time.

***

You were in front of the creature without any weapon, your breathing going quickly; you almost felt your heart wanting to get out of your chest. There were no more fire demons at this point, at least not where you ended up in this part of Muspelheim, but that woman was still there. That horrible, wicked woman. She had you between her and a cliff, threating to burn you alive - or even kill you herself - if you tried to do something.

A twisted smile appeared on her lips. “Look at you. Thinking you can get rid off me so easily.”

“You don’t know what you’re messing up with, Amora.”

“Oh, but you and the royal family do,” she lifted her brows, making more steps to get closer.

You walked back, almost to the edge of the cliff. “Why don’t you give it back? This does not have to end so bad.”

The sorcerer made another step and her hands grabbed your throat, lifting you from the floor so easy. “You just make me sick!” she yelled.

Her grip going hard on you, as she walked to the border. You could feel the heat of the lava on the cave. You closed your eyes roughly, trying to escape with no success. All you could hear was the blaze down, and you knew that Amora would waste no time in doing her task fast. She always wanted you dead.

The cave started to tremble of all sudden and you just nearly gave up. The air was leaving your lungs and you could feel something running through your body, you could swear she was poisoning you with one of her spells. But suddenly a lightning hit her, forcing her to drop you to the floor. You could hear Thor and Loki coming to you, but the poison was already drowning in your blood, leaving you unconscious.

***

You opened your eyes and stared at the ceiling. You felt dizzy at the moment and your head hurted like something was bumping on the back of your head. Whimpering in pain, you rubbed your eyes with your hands, trying to accustom to the little light in the room.

“I see you are up” a soft voice talked. You turned to the owner and saw a healer with a little smile on her face, some steps away from the bed. She started to walking to the small table next to the bed and served you a glass of water for you to drink it after you sat on the mattress. “I will talk to the prince and notify that you already woke up” the woman bowed and left the room.

You stayed there, feeling confused and sick. Meanwhile you waited for the healer to come back again, you tried to built again your memories. The last thing you remembered was being in Muspelheim, trying to stop Amora to destroy the realm, and for consquent make instability to the Nine Realms. Plus it didn’t help at all the fact that she had a infinity stone with her. How she could find it? Nobody knows.

The door opening got you out of your thoughts and you saw Thor entering the room. His steps stopped at the side of the bed and looked at you, but you couldn’t read his gaze. You never did, truly. Otherwise, this time it was... different. His face was covered in scars and you knew that some days had passed since you were in Muspelheim.

“How long have I been out?” you murmured.

“Three days,” his voice came out cold.

You furrowed your brows. “What did happen to me?”

“Amora poisoned you. Loki and the healers were able to look for an antidote.”

“And the stone? You have it?”

Thor nodded. “It’s safe in the Weapon’s Vault.”

You nodded in answer and kept silence. It was something bad with him in the very moment, but you couldn’t be able to say why or what was wrong. He seemed tired and you knew he would be angry at you. Sighing, you took the blanket off your body stood up with some difficulty, but you managed to do so.

You started to walk, wanting to reach your chambers, but his hand grabbed your arm and stopped you. “You are still weak” he said. “Stay here as long as you can, so the healers can come and watch over you.”

Your eyes narrowed at him. “I’m perfectly fine.”

“No, you risked your duty. You’re not fine,” he settled. His eyes meeting yours.

“We have the stone and I assume Amora is about to pay for her crimes. Of course it’s fine, you will not worry about something else threatening us for a long time” you answered.

“It’s not just about her, I’m talking about you” Thor remarked, still not letting you go. “You almost got killed.”

“But I’m fine!” you yelled, getting upset. “Now, let me-”

“You are not!” he shouted, his grip tightening around you. 

“We survived!” Thor clenched his jaw. “We survived, okay?” you repeated, your eyes throwing anger at him. “And everything is fine!”

***

You sighed, watching your reflection in the mirror. The night gown you used had no sleeves and it made you to trace these new marks on your shoulders and neck. Amora made them with her spell, Thor told you. She poisoned you with a strange substance, and as Loki had informed you, you had to die.

Though, he managed to take it out from you - at least most of it. Your body still had some effects from the spell, but Loki assured you that you were going to recover as time would pass. You traced the marks with your fingertips, almost shaking at the thought of what would've happen to you if this thing got completely in your organism.

A little surprised, you saw Thor coming from behind to you in a slow pace. His eyes always told you nothing, and since you woke up the day before, you both weren't able to talk propperly about the matter. He was serious and you weren't that much of a speaker. You both were forced to make a bond getting married, but lately you didn't feel like he was doing a good job on making things work.

"I'm sorry... I guess," you whispered, avoiding his gaze.

He didn't give an answer, but got closer. His body touching your back as his hand touched your shoulder in a gently way, caressing your scars. He leaned slowly and kissed your neck, making you shiver. Closing your eyes, you let yourself enjoy the moment. It wasn't very often you both were this intimate, mainly for your lack of actual love for each other. Though, inside you grew this feeling for him on the past weeks. His lips moved on your skin, sucking and biting gently, like he was tasting you.

"You're so stubborn" he whispered through your ear, sending chills on your body. "You never learn" his other hand grabbed your waist to have your back against him. You held a moan when you felt him getting hard behind you.

The hand on your hip made its way between your legs and Thor lifted up your gown, just to set aside your panties as much as he could. His fingers moved to your already wet entrance and rubbed your clit slowly. You let out a sob at the sensation and opened your eyes, you saw his own, dark and full of lust gaze through the mirror. His other hand touched your neck with some pressure, as he enjoyed how you were squirming under his touch.

A small whimper fell out from your lips when his finger entered you, moving in and out on you slowly. It was killing you. You needed him so bad, and Thor knew it.

"Oh, norns," you moaned, moving your hips to encourage the god to keep going.

"Eager are we?" Thor mocked, his hand around your neck whitout hurting you. His blue eyes locked with yours trough the mirror.

"Just a little," you said. He then added another finger, trusting a little faster.

If it was something in which you and Thor were compatible it was sex. Of course, you had your fights very often, but sex was great. He knew how to punish you when you did something wrong, or something he doesn't likes; and you knew how to tease him in the worst manner, until he was begging for you to let him cum. It seems that this time, it was his turn to take revenge from your last encounter.

Thor then pulled out his fingers from you, gaining a dissatisfied moan. He just took you in his arms and let you down on the bed. You helped him to get off his clothes and cape, until you both were naked. On top of you, he kissed your neck roughly, feeling his beard scratching your skin, while your hands wandered over his chest to his lenght.

You caressed his hard dick, and he groaned biting your sweet spot. You rubbed his lenght, going up and down slowly, torturing him. Thor's fingers went to your folds one more time, and you kissed him hard on the lips, taking your time to pleassure each other.

"I was so worried about you on that field," he whispered, breaking the kiss, and positioning himself at your entrance. Your foreheads touching. "You are mine, and no one else can take me from you."

He slammed into you in a swift thrust, not letting you to adjust. It burnt, but it felt so good. You moaned and you held on his strong arms, your nails leaving marks on his skin.

"Do you understand?" Thor asked darkly. His eyes fixated on yours. He thrusted one more time when you didn't respond. "Understand?"

"Oh, yes! I understand!" you moaned. “Just move, please!"

Thor then just thrusted at a face pace without answer. He literally pounded you into the matress, and you were a mess. Moans and groans mixed, with the sound of your skin on the room. His big hands spreading your legs wider to keep his movements.

Your hands held tight his neck and his arm, your eyes closed and your lips open while you moaned was the most beautiful sight for the prince. Thor always loved to see you like this, mercyless under his body, knowing he was the only one to make you feel this way. Rapidly you forget how to be the brave and cold warrior from the field, just to submit to him and your desire.

"Oh, my," you moaned when his lenght touch your sweet spot. Your eyes opened, and were about to close once again.

"No, you will look at me," Thor commanded. "You will look at me when I come inside you."

Your eyes stayed open, and you bit your lip. Thor loved to come on your cunt.

"I'm so close," you whispered on his lips. His pace never ceased.

Thor was close too, and when he felt it coming, his fingers rubbed your clit. He came undone over you, still fucking you on the bed. Your walls clenched around him, and you let out the loudest moan ever as you reached your orgasm a couple of moments later. He groaned, emptying him seed inside you, making sure you got everything from him.

One, two thrusts more and he stopped. Your foreheads touched, feeling each others breath and a layer of sweat ran on your bodies. Thor then pulled out from you, watching his cum leaking on your thighs.

You sat down on the matress, and took the rest of his seed with your fingers, licking them while you locked your eyes on Thor's gaze. Thor gave you a steamy kiss, holding on to you.

"You were a fool on the field, do not do that again," he said.

"Well, if you are going to punish me for it, I think I can do it more often," you smirked.

[b-listbadboy]

Castlevania Season 3 was disappointing

(Spoilers for Castlevania Season 3, if you haven’t seen it yet it’s out now on Netflix. I suggest watching that first before reading this review)

I won’t say it was an awful season by any stretch of the imagination but man was it a drag to get through.

Almost nothing of significance happens for the majority of the season and the things that did happen felt extremely off and weird. 10 episodes, 25 to 30 minutes each, and every single one except for the fucking TWO LAST EPISODES were spent dicking around with a mystery that had little to do with anything from season 2 beyond a really out there twist that I’m sort of iffy on. Top that off with a lackluster arguably stupid ending to leave us off on a needless cliffhanger, and that’s the magic remedy that will leave me feeling pretty damn frustrated.

The best parts, in my opinion, were with Isaac’s massive undead crusade he was waging throughout his journey for revenge, and Trevor and Syph’s interactions with each other as well as with the little villagers. Isaac’s arc going from a servant of Dracula to slowing evolving into the master of the damned felt genuine, intriguing, and badass! I really wish he was the next main villain instead as it makes sense thematically. He carries out Dracula’s nihilistic views of humanity in a similar but now more direct way and that can lead into something really intriguing. However, for some reason, this season left him and his whole journey on a back burner, and virtually everything else that is implemented into main villain role fell flat on its face execution wise.

For example; The new vampires of this season are Camilla’s three other empress sisters, and while they do have a plethora of personality at the very least, that kind of comes at a cost of the main threat being extremely diluted. We go from this hurting sympathetic undead overlord with the power of an anchent GOD, to a couple of wicked sassy sisters who just wanna eat people forever? It’s a bit lame of a progression from what we once had, we know Vampires like to eat people that’s nothing new or exciting. There’s no real twist to it besides it being “led by women in the dark ages” and granted that makes sense here since it IS the dark ages, but come on we literally just had arguably the BEST adaptation of friggin’ Dracula! This shouldn’t be all they got moving forward from that.

Now, I have ZERO issue with the main antagonists being female or even two of the four sisters (not by blood don’t worry) being a lesbian couple. I hate that I have to emphasize this, hell I often defend Cinder Fall in RWBY more than anyone in the fandom at all despite her issues as a complex and sometimes flat out badly written character. However, The four of them in this season have the most basic of plans that it seems arbitrary status quote fluff at best. It felt like just because it’s Castlevania, we HAVE to have the vampires as the villains. Even though in the games the Belmont’s were literally fighting werewolves, dragons, skeletons, and the GRIMM REAPER??

Therefore, the sense of urgency and tense calculating plans of ‘survival vs extinction’ is completely gone. And yknow in a way, I can kinda initially SEE that working in a sort of “Empire Strikes Back” esque plot. Yknow, with Alucard and the gang go around cleaning up Dracula’s leftover horde only for Isaac or even Camilla to have this huge vengeful comeback of dominance? But there’s no one exactly “striking back” or even taking any kind of immediate initiative after Dracula’s death. It’s been MONTHS after the whole event and no one seems like they really care about that world changing event from the last two season’s. Everything is fine and dandy, no one has a single worry in the world! How enthralling...I miss Godbrand 😑

Besides the plan the four empresses have as well as Issac’s revenge, which I hope will both be more explored in season 4, no one really has any goal to warrant THAT kind of length of a season. This is more of a Netflix problem that I have with most of their shows and it’s one of the reasons why I don’t like watching them. Almost every singe show Netflix produces now, feels the need to overstuff itself with needless filler that gets us really nowhere until the very end where it SUDDENLY all comes together. But because of the nature of binge watching and considering how Netflix wants to desperately keep their subscriptions in fear of intimidating competition, they make these shows 12 episodes long with HALF HOUR OR MORE amount of filler content that’s supposed to satisfy us cause it’s “cute”?! No, stop this shit! Granted, Castlevania wasn’t nearly AS bad as the live action shows, but honestly, what exactly was shown to us that couldn’t have been reduced to like 5 solidly paced episodes focused on one or two plot lines ONLY like before? It worked perfectly back then, why change what ain’t broke?

As much as I don’t like the immediate rush of Trevor and Syph’s out of nowhere sexual relationship, I didn’t overall mind it too much since they still somewhat felt consistent. Their characteristics play off very nicely with one another and it’s pretty easy to see the chemistry between the two....HOWEVER I’M STILL GONNA COMPLAIN ABOUT IT SO HERE WE GO!

I get that they were setting them up as an endgame ship of the series, there’s no denying that, but they start fucking for what feels like (to the audience) two days after and I think that’s a bit ridiculous! Even if Alucard states that it’s been at the very least a month worth of time since the events of Season 2, there’s no real physical signs showing that statement to be true. Hell, Trevor’s beard and hair remains the same despite a HUGE passage of time where it would naturally grow out to indicate said time passing by. But both him, Syph, Alucard, and damn near everyone else looks the exact same as last season. So for all I know it could have been like a week since Season 2 and that to me doesn’t feel exactly earned. The Season 2 finale didn’t explicitly leave off Trevor and Syph officially a couple, they felt more like partners in crime more than anything else. Not to say that there wasn’t any chemistry there to develope INTO a relationship GRADUALLY, but going from a little spark of interest to the immediate jump of them sleeping together naked all comfortably as if they’re a goddamn married couple is a STRETCH! Even Trevor himself thinks so too so don’t jump down my throat about not being immediately swooned by the shipping fanservice given to us. I don’t dislike them as a couple at all, in fact I think their dynamic is cute! However, I would have also liked to have this couple feel natural and earned. They most certainly do not feel earned this way, at least to me.

Oh god, then there’s this out of nowhere sexual tension between Alucard and his new two recruits from another region hinted at in the previous season? Mind you, Alucard was doing literally NOTHING throughout the entirety of Season 3. Yep, literally the ONE DUDE WHO BASICALLY KILLED DRACULA gets about fuck all story progression afterwards out of the three. But what they DO give him are these two new vampire hunting student’s who look identical to one another (no racial they just literally look like fraternal twins) so I assumed they were either siblings or a couple, which makes it REALLY WEIRD WHEN THEY BOTH FUCK ALUCARD OUT OF NOWHERE?! I’m NOT making this shit up I promise! What makes even less sense is that it was really just a ploy for them to steal the Belmont knowledge of killing vampires to show to their people who have been enslaved. Which of course ends with them being killed so it really makes this entire conflict in his character damn near pointless besides “sad vibes check”, but here’s the thing...why didn’t they just keep doing training with Alucard?? There were virtually no downsides to having him teach you how to kill Vampires to save your village from being enslaved, he was teaching you both very well and gave you like the eternal knowledge of how to kill literally EVERY MONSTER and even let you live in the castle FOR FREE, food and wine included! What was the turning point for them to want to kill him all of the sudden? Cause he’s a vampire?? THEY FUCKING KNEW THAT ALREADY!!! Why was is suddenly not a problem at first but then coincidentally a problem now? If they wanted to use this to somehow depict this notion of “Oh my dad/Dracula was right humans are the worst” mindset, trust me, it was better conveyed with Isaac. These twins side plot not only made no sense, but also felt unjustified for Alucard to be an emo boi. I get that it’s supposed to be symbolic of him going through the same issues that both of his parents went through, but none of that really showed how bad human’s are. Just that those two twins didn’t think things through apparently. So the point of Alucard having this odd character convenience shift feels by the numbers cliché, and most importantly CHEAP.

It really makes no sense to me why they’re adding so much of this filler for such a long time, especially with some of this filler being oddly sexual. I don’t mind honest depiction of sex between consenting adults of course, but it just felt so misplaced and awkward at parts where it showed itself. I felt like I was reading a mediocre fanfic of Castlevania instead of the actual show itself! Granted, Season 2 had somewhat of a similar dilemma but the lull in between was still showing the character specifically doing things to further the story along. Towards the end, it gave us a way more satisfactory closure of that saga with Dracula that felt natural and well earned. This season however, felt like they were scrambling with different ideas here and there and didn’t know which to go with. Alucard training new recruits in his castle, Trevor and Syph figuring out an estranged (and BORING/GENERIC) cult of Dracula’s plan, Camilla setting up an army with her fellow sisterhood of evil vampires to gain ultimate power, Hector surviving captivity by using his wit and charm, Isaac raising up the dead for revenge on his deceased master, a new character introducing an all new world to the lore of Castlevania as we know it, all of these interesting concepts and ideas that could easily make up for a good season alone! And instead of focusing on one or two ideas to develope into something natural, they ended up saying “FUCK IT! Fucking I dunno what to- WE’RE DOING ALL OF IT I DUNNO!” and mixed the whole thing in a blender of different flavors that don’t necessarily blend together well enough for a tasty satisfactory meal. It just ends up being a mesh of okay at best, and gross at worst.

IN CONCLUSION, Castlevania Season 3 had a rocky start, an okay middle, and a kind of cool end. There was definitely some cool and exciting ideas implemented in here, but not enough to warrant that lengthy amount of time that Netflix seems to love to give to most of their TV shows. Sometimes less is more, and all that shiny cool glitter isn’t necessarily going to turn out to be gold. I’ll give this season a 5/10. It’s not the worst I’ve ever seen but it certainly could’ve been a lot better.

P.S. “Who Do Ya Voodoo” from Dead Island is Isaac’s new theme song, you can’t convince me otherwise.

[antialiasis]

El Camino

Well, we finally got our actual Jesse closure!

My feelings are... hmmm. There were some extremely good bits. Some favorites:

THE BUG

JESSE FEEDING TODD’S TARANTULA OF COURSE YOU DID YOU ADORABLE THING

Jesse’s PTSD, the shower flashback, the panicked awakening

Jesse’s face and body language giving himself up to the ‘cops’, ohhhhh man

That one moment where he starts putting the money in a bag and Neil points the gun at him and Jesse tells him to do it and actually closes his eyes for a moment and thinks he really might, before he doesn’t and he launches into the manically confident speech about why they won’t

The whole sequence where Todd sends him to get more cigarettes and he finds a gun instead and takes it and Jesse knows if he shoots Todd they’re going to know what happened and kill Brock, and he sort of limply wants to be capable of that but he just isn’t, and the way he flinches away from Todd during that whole bit

Todd is such a horrible oblivious moral void oh my god I feel better about Jesse ending up killing him after everything he witnessed and went through here

just in general any moment of Jesse breathing, sobbing, etc.

Jesseeeeeeeeeeee

Skinny Pete calling him his hero, awww

That season two flashback with Walt was absolutely delightfully early Breaking Bad, Walt still trying to be kind of encouraging and genuinely concerned about getting the money to his family, Jesse naive and ridiculous and their whole interaction there - “Yo, I totally graduated high school, you dick!”

Jesse actually gets to go to Alaska and send a letter to Brock and have a peaceful life doing art or making boxes, and really that’s what we all wanted out of this

I think what I was wanting or expecting here beforehand was something more focused on Jesse’s recovery, while what the movie is mostly about is ultimately Jesse’s efforts to collect enough money to pay the vacuum cleaner guy to disappear him to Alaska. In a way that was sort of disappointing, but also understandable - it definitely gives the movie more of a plot and some real suspense and tension, and there’s a really authentic Breaking Bad sensibility to that.

It does mean it climaxes with a shootout and an explosion, which is extremely Breaking Bad and also really not what I wanted as the climax of a Jesse movie. But I do appreciate, especially after rewatching bits, that the movie really shows Jesse wanted to get through this without hurting anyone. He broke into his parents’ house because he knew there was a safe and he thought there’d be money in it; he only looked up the address of the Kandy company after finding guns there instead. And he really did mean it about not coming there to rob them. At first I was surprised that the flashback showing how Jesse had met Neil before didn’t actually show Neil really taking part in his abuse - the earlier flashback had made it seem so ominous. But Jesse didn’t want revenge; he genuinely hoped maybe, maybe this guy who’d seen a bit of what Jesse had suffered would be just sympathetic enough to just give him this extra $1800, a drop in the ocean. Neil had been semi-sympathetic enough to let him have that third and go.

Of course, Jesse’s not stupid, and he had a backup plan, and Neil was coked up enough to suggest a fucking duel, after closing the door and standing in front of it - it’s not like Jesse could’ve just walked out at that point. And, well. Jesse killed more people. But at least it was bad and traumatizing and there was a shot of him breathing and worked up afterwards.

(I loved how then he threatened those other three guys, telling them if they told the cops he would be coming for them, and like he gives a shit if they have kids - while we know of course Jesse won’t be coming for anyone, and he gives all the shits whether they have kids, but if he just scares them enough now he can walk away and never have to kill anyone ever again.)

I wished the movie had engaged more with the possibility of Jesse actually giving himself up. Making it to Alaska and starting over is good - we know he’s been punished more than enough for every misdeed he’s committed - and of course there are very understandable reasons for him to be desperate to just start over and get to have some kind of actual life, instead of being tried for multiple murders and other crimes and spend the rest of his life reliving the past two nightmarish years in jail. But we didn’t really get to see him actually considering it at all, which is a shame, especially when the idea is brought up at multiple points but we just never quite end up really engaging with it.

Man, though, I really want to rewatch all of Breaking Bad now. The ending’s definitely massively more satisfying now that there is more Jesse and more followup on everything that happened to him in the last couple of episodes, and a real sense that he probably is going to be all right. Ultimately that’s what this movie really needed to do, and it did that well.

[emberdragon240]

BFDI Done In Hermitcraft: Chapter 1: The Plank P1

(This is also on Wattpad if that’s your thing)

"I know, she was so scared over nothing! The bee wasn't even that big, and False was freaking out!"

"Really, Iskall?"

"Really, and yet she calls herself a badass."

"She is in a way, do you remember when she asked Bdubs if she was beautiful?"

Flashback to a week ago

"Bdubs, am I beautiful?"

"Umm, sorry, but no-"

*proceeds to get yeeted to the sun*

End of flashback

"Right, I remember that, and I still hate her!" Bdubs jumped into Grian and Iskall's conversation about how False was a complete asshole. She was so rotten, even Joe hated her, and that was very unusual for him to think of people.

"I swear, I'm gonna get revenge on her! I am honsetly so glad you guys are my friends, really!" Even though they didn't really know eachother, (almost) everyone was friends on the Hermitcraft island.

"You're my friend too, right, Mumbo?" Bdubs said as he grabbed Mumbo and started squeezing him with no mercy.

"Bdubs, stop!" Grian and Iskall yelled before there was a sickening crunch and their communicators buzzed with a death message.

*MumboJumbo was suffocated*

"Sorry about that," Bdubs said, clearly embarrassed at what happened. Mumbo eventually respawned in one of those respawn generators, only to get almost killed by Jevin pointing a sword at his chest.

"Hey! I just respawned!" Mumbo said, exasperated.

"Hey, don't blame me! Blame the stupid Tango here, it's his fault!" Jevin said as he kicked Tango in the face, making him let go as he flew into the ocean.

"Fine! I'll grab Cleo instead," Tango said before grabbing Cleo out of nowhere and yeeting her to Mumbo, which was a very close dodge.

"Yikes!" Mumbo said. She was also conveniently holding a sword, so it was a pretty close call. "What was that for!?" Mumbo asked.

"What? I'm just in the mood to hurt someone," Tango replied. He then found Keralis, which he kicked with absolutely no mercy. Keralis screamed his ass off as he flew, conveniently passing by Wels. He then landed on the ground face first in shallow water where Stress was doing something.

"Keralis! What are you doing there? There's a life to enjoy, so enjoy it!" Stress said in her cheering state. Keralis had a liking for TFC for some reason, so went to him and starting acting all lovingly. A little bit too lovingly, because TFC kicked him into the air as well.

"TFC, calm down," Joe said with papa bear mode set to low. "Kicking him that hard can have permanent side effects. He IS light-weight," Joe lectured as Keralis continued flying in the air once again and as he flew past Wels, not much happened, why am I mentioning this? Anyways, he eventually fell because of the laws of physics, and he fell right onto Zedaph, and as he got up, he noticed... blood. I think you can guess what happened from there. The scream was so loud it could be heard all over the island.

"Keralis is such a scaredy-cat," Cub complained. "He's so annoying. Scar, though, you're cool," Cub said to his friend and partner-in-crime-I mean, partner-in-business.

"So are you, Cub!" Scar complimented back. Meanwhile, Wels was still flying before crashing into a mountain at low speeds, so he didn't take too much damage from the crash. The weird thing though, was that Zedaph was just sitting there as if he took a nap with his eyes open. Wels shouldn't have been surprised, though, since he always acted as if he was on LSD.

"Zedaph! Wake up!" Wels shook Zedaph awake.

"What? Hi, Wels!" Zedaph said as he was jolted awake. Wels sighed before yeeting Zedaph behind him (seriously, why are the hermits constantly yeeting each other around?). Zedaph flew along, all in a excitement that you only feel when you're high until he fell onto Joe, barely surviving.

"Oh, hi Joe, my good old friend!" Zedaph greeted Joe tiredly and before passing out from his injuries. Meanwhile, Doc and Ren were sitting near Impulse with an angry glare. They still couldn't get over the whole Area 77 thing, so here we are.

"Ren! You're an absolute idiot!" Doc yelled at Ren. He did not get the reaction he was expecting though, because Ren's response was to slap him.

"Hey!" Doc yelled, surprised.

"Oh my god, your face feels so good to slap!" Ren said. He was not acting like himself today. He then went on a slapping spree. He was about to continue when Xisuma caught him in the act.

"Doc! Ren! Stop fighting!" Xisuma yelled at the two. "And Impulse, take a bath, you stink," X commented at Impulse who was just watching.

"Sorry," Impulse said.

"Isn't X bossy?" Tango asked Cub, who were both watching the scene.

"I know! He's like a bossy bot!" Cub tried to make a joke, but all he got were stares from Scar, Tango and Wels.

"Uh, you know, a bossy robot?" Cub tried to explain the joke which only got more awkward stares.

"Um, here's the thing; a robot that was built to be at it's bossiest," Cub tried to explain further which didn't help one bit, but everyone got tired of staring at him and decided to stare at the now setting sun. "I'd do anything to get away from him," Cub said. "Or False, or Keralis, or Impulse," then conveniently and suspiciously in time, out of some mysterious smoke, some kind of... creature? Came out of the smoke

"Well then, you're in luck!" The thing said, and it was obvious it was female. It seemed to be some kind of dragon hybrid, Ender Dragon maybe? And had a crop top with decked out armor on the bottom. She also had some kid of belt with fabric that would cover her private if she didn't already have pants on.

"Uh, how?" Cub asked. The girl who seemed to be in her 20

"They're creating the server of paradise, everyone," She continued. "It's called Dream Island. It's one square mile (2.5 kilometers for all you people outside of the US) of luxury. It has a 5 star hotel, a casino, six restaurants, robot servants, and the server's whitelisted, so the winner gets to chose who's allowed in, and who's not!" She described trying to sound all excited too hard.

"Ok, what does it cost?" Cub asked. If he couldn't pay it entirely, he might borrow some of his best friend's diamonds because that's what friends do! /s

"Not even a penny," The woman responded.

"Sounds like a deal! Me and my friend'll take it!" Cub answered excitedly.

"But what about about the rest of the people here? Don't they want it too?" The mysterious being asked.

"Well, I wouldn't give up that server for anything," Cub answered.

"Everyone here's thinking the same thing," she responded. "So you know what that means. We must settle this with a reality TV show- I mean, a contest."

Cue the intro

"So yeah," the mysterious woman who still hasn't given her name yet said, "whoever stays on this plank the longest wins."

"Go."

"Let's help each other," Stress said. She wouldn't let this contest affect her! Or at least she hoped so.

"Yeah!" Jevin agreed.

"Tango, wake up! What are you doing?" Ren asked Tango, who was clearly asleep for some reason.

"Uh oh!" Impulse said as he slipped off the bar, to which no one noticed.

"Get out of my way!" False said as she was pushing people into the pool of water underneath the plank with her sword. "I need my space!"

"Help me, Jevin!" Stress said as she was falling and close to becoming another one of False's victims. Being made of slime was pretty convenient in this situation though, as he was able to stretch and easily save her from the cold, murky waters of failure.

"Thanks!" Stress said.

"Let's form an alliance!" Mumbo said to the Architect team who all agreed with him, but it unfortunately fell over unwanted ears, as Bdubs heard over from the other side of the plank and was interested now.

"Did I hear an alliance is being formed? I've gotta join!" Bdubs said as rushed over, pushing Scar off the plank on the way.

"Can I be part-" was all Bdubs was able to say before they were all falling into the ocean.

"No." was the only thing Iskall said before they all fell into the water and had Dream Island out of their reach. While all of this was happening, Ren was still trying to wake up Tango.

"Tango, wake up!" Ren said while shaking him before he accidentally put him down too close to the plank and he started to fall. "Oops," but just then, Tango woke up and walked back up on the plank, pushing Ren off in the process.

"Ren! Don't ever-" Tango said before he realized what he just did. "Whoops,"

Final 6!

"Look, there's the evil False," Stress said to Jevin as she pointed at False. "She's still in,"

"Let's run her over!" Jevin suggested to False.

"Yeah!" She said, excitedly. This was only a harmless joke, she was gonna apologize later!

"Uh oh," Tango thought out loud as they started trampling over. The plan didn't work, however, and the two got kicked into the air by False.

"Hey, we're flying!" Jevin realized.

"You're right! Woohoo!" Stress confirmed, completely forgetting that what comes up, must come down.

"Uh-oh," Jevin remembered as they almost fell off the plank with TFC, but Stress managed to get a grip.

"Pull up," Jevin commanded Stress.

"I... can't!" Stress realized, getting ready for their fate. "Oh no! Tango? Zedaph? Help!" Stress cried for help. Eventually, Tango stepped on her hand, preventing it from falling any further.

"What is it?!" Tango asked, annoyed.

"You're stepping on my hand." Stress mentioned as Tango got off her foot.

"There, better now?" Tango asked.

"Yes, now pull us up." Stress said, but as Tango tried to pull the three up, he fell over and only had his feet on the plank now, the only part that still had a chance of getting the invite to Dream Island.

"Hold onto my other arm, TFC," Stress told him, who complied. Then the hugest dick on the planet towered over them as she started laughing in that cartoon villain sort of way.

"Ha, ha! I'm wearing non-slip shoes, so boo-hoo you weirdos!" False mocked them in her usual annoying way when Tango came up with an idea and kicked her over with one of his feet, but False grabbed onto Jevin to his extreme dislike before he came up with the idea to... lick her?

"Aaah, AAAHHH!" False screamed as she instinctively pulled away, but she instantly realized was a big mistake when she starting falling, falling, and eventually into failure.

"Nice work, Jevin! A job well done!" Stress complimented Jevin's great idea.

"TFC, let's swing!" Jevin said as they swinged back onto the plank, completely forgetting about Tango and Stress.

"Jevin, alliance, remember?" Stress reminded Jevin, who pulled Stress back up onto the plank.

"Stress! You're stepping on me!" Tango said.

"What?" Stress said before Tango fell. "Oops,"

Final 4!

TFC was the first to think and the quickest, as he pushed the unsuspecting Zedaph into the water, who seemed to be having another acid trip. He pushed a little too far, though, as he also fell into the dark, cold water. Now it was just Jevin and Stress left in the battle.

"Rock, paper, scissors!" They said in coordination. Stress chose paper, while Jevin chose scissors.

"Scissors beats paper, so I get to push you off!" Jevin announced, which surprised Stress.

"Wait, what!? I never agreed to that!" Stress said.

"Ok, here's the thing: when I win, I'll invite you to Dream Island." Jevin said, trying to make a deal with Stress.

"This still isn't fair, Jevin," Stress confronted him.

"Only one of us can will, after all," Jevin said while holding up

his middle finger instead of his pointer.

"Jevin, wrong finger." Stress reminded him.

"Whoops," Jevin said with an awkward chuckle. "But my point still stands."

"And that's where you're wrong," the mysterious woman popped out from a cloud of smoke once again. "You two both win!"

"We both get the invite?" Jevin asked.

"Not quite, you two actually get to choose teams for a more longer, larger competition for the invite to Dream Island."

[rennyji]

July 20th tweets...

July 20th tweets...

---

“Aaryan” is another one of those Mohanlal movies from the place of my background. I saw this late in life, and during the phenomena, several times, I would mention to my mother, and especially father, about the parallels. In the movie, Mohanlal’s character is a devout Hindu Brahmin from a respected family. He’s happy with his life and has a girlfriend, in a woman he’s known since childhood. Men not respecting societal roles and in greed for money and power, wrongfully set up the family in a crime of their planning. Mohanlals character loses his family to death and humiliation, as well as his home, and his girl friend also, in the actress, Shobhana. He flees to Mumbai, where he follows a very earthly path centered on money and attaining that money through jobs, where his philosophy is “Ill do anything for money.” He sinks himself in alcohol and the company of gangsters and joins them. Once obtaining enough money, he avenges the wrong doers against his family and seeks to restore his family’s lifestyle and “way of living.”

I guess I remember that movie because he was minding his own business, when people rooted in jealousy and greed, wanted to steal that from him. And me, after more than a decade of “lightly and carefully portrayed to the public” abuse, I can’t help but think, wasn’t I minding my own business?

For my sectionalistic brethrens who identify through the body parts, rather than the overall body that is the country, as you forgot about order, structure, unity, brought about through ancient Hinduism, for a visual example: think the movie, “Koyla.” Shah Rukh Khans character get turned into a mute and a servant by the people who killed his parents, from greed, for stumbling on their fortune of diamonds in this life. To save Madhuri Dhixits character, and to restore his dignity, he takes revenge on those who took decades of his life. I guess what I’m getting at is, from Koyla, you can see just how evil some men truly are. Even in real life, some people will take decades from your life. Before killing you, they’ll turn you into the court jester for their people and they may even shock your brains 20 times to make you more numb and compatible for mind control/mind reading.

---

In Mark 4:33-34

33 “With many such parables he spoke ithe word to them, as they were able to hear it. 34 He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.So Christ talked to everyone in parables, and said, let those with ears hear. However he discussed the parables with his disciples, in private, elaborating on their meaning.Here I am, in the present day, a nobody, trying to elaborate on meanings and about living a life with meaning. But my own mother, instead of listening intently, will talk about toilets or do something involving uncleanliness, when I talk to her about things of God. My father prays and prays (though mechanically, without heart, without understanding meaning), and yet he fails to see and respect my seriousness in willful words and actions, based on faith. He’s so busy talking about defending what he as a father does, he fails to see that I’m enduring this, simply because of the hand of God carrying me, when the infidel tries to figuratively break my legs.I can see why Christ elaborated on heavenly things with just his disciples. Other people wouldn’t give it the respect it deserves (through talking about random things like toilets or whatever) or would let it fly over their heads as something nice sounding and tantalizing.

---

Orchestrator government group 1 tries to piss me off to say things or write things about them, so that the child like voices rooted in perhaps the party school I attended (for completion of my undergraduate) makes it about them or me randomly addressing people who aren’t direct with me.

---

I dunno I think I’m being led to think that I’m not seeing “this situation” in the way it’s projected to others…ok guys, lemme walk with you on this, let’s take a deep breath and digest the fact that this has been going on for more than a decade- I mean that alone, if nothing else, is horrendous…so am I disillusioned?

---

So I keep telling you guys to refrain from taking part in this, and to only help me by talking directly to me- especially about the situation. I tell you take a load off and just be natural in your interactions without hiding that this happened/is happening.

Yet, for one thing, some of you may try to assist me on the road under one or more things that you have been led to see me through- that goes back to my talk about mental filters…

If something tells you guys that I’m about to change a lane unnaturally, it results in the following:

The guy in front of me will abruptly slow down, while I’m checking my mirrors to the other lane, leaving me to still drive forward, while the guy in front of me is instructed to slow down. Kinda malicious of the orchestrators, don’t you think? Two cars risk colliding…

But then sometimes, I notice cars in the other lanes, accelerate, as I’m about to change lanes, while others leave significant space.

Please just follow the rules of the road and stop relying on external knowledge when making your decisions on the road.

Some of you may be instructed to smile a particular way (smiling is great if it’s not rooted in an instruction), frown a particular way, nod to me from the corner of my eye…see, think about it from my perspective. I have mind cr*p- to be very very very general- to deal with all day. When you have too many programs open on your computer, doesn’t it freeze or become unresponsive? Whether by design or carelessness, despite my effort to get you to be direct with me, these indirect things to make me think one thing or the other, are meant to overload my brain-the orchestrators just give me stuff to pick up on, where I have no idea what’s it’s about. I may have written something before that frown or whatever. Is that supposed to make me think ur unhappy with me for you allegedly eavesdropping into my life and making things about you, the stranger,  when you don’t even follow me on Twitter or Facebook?

---

I heard the following: DMX- Party Up- from the lyrics,

So whatever it is you puffin' on that got you think that you Superman (doing this for a decade)

I got the Kryptonite, should I smack him with my dick and the mic?

Y'all niggas is characters, not even good actors (ur a bunch of cocky arrogant losers)

What's gon' be the outcome? Hmm, let's add up all the factors

I keep saying there’s two sides to every coin. But you like to tip that scale. Always remember how much of an a*shole he is, more than any crazy, for starters, to put such statements/sentences out in public- that too when the world is monitoring every aspect of me…I mean I could be giving the police or some legal case against me, a ball for their courts through my recorded words and written statements- so in response, I’m in a rap mood:

Eminem says

Go call you a lawyer, file you a lawsuit

I'll smile in the courtroom and buy you a wardrobe

I'm tired of all you, I don't mean to be mean

But that's all I can be, it's just me

I realize these guys(artists)all deal with stupid people like the orchestrators while the larger audience of the world “say oh that’s mean” without context (what was preceding, what was said and done, and what occurred after)

At the end of this, either the orchestrators or me, will be progressing forward in in peace and happiness. Im making that clear, I’m throwing in all my cards, because no matter how numb you make me, my hate accumulating over a decade will find its nourishment. So Have fun, f*ers…

and to the larger audience, lemme guess “oh no he’s mad…what happened…awww” yeah ummm thanks for never talking to me, but thanks for the sentiment too.

Contrary to how I’ve been living for more than a decade, word of advice to the world: “Show the other cheek, talk out your problems, write 300 pages with variations of the idea of returning to normalcy in one chapter in life in an official police complaint, endure a decade, and hope for a solution- this can only be done for so long, and a decade? F* that sh*t. Orchestrators? F* ur wives, husbands , and Kids..

hey guys, when someone is giving YOU a hard time, please be like me and Let them shock your brain 20 times too, for talking about the hard time, so that you can show that you have no decency and are willing to bend over for them, for the sake of “compliancy.”  Next time the F* fake protectors of the law, who don’t protect the rights of an American citizen(wtf does ur Stars and Stripes flag stand for? The red and white ropes they bind you down with in life? Are the 50?!stars on ur flag about ninja stars you throw at ur country’s victims? Maybe the 50 is about, how they’ll screw you 50 times over for minding ur own business i.e always remember: nice guys finish last…maybe the red is about how the country likes to make you bleed/watch you bleed/and entertain others on how you bleed while you try to stand strong)…but where was I? Next time the F* fake protectors of the law, who don’t protect the rights of an American citizen want come in 4 SUVs and make you walk barefoot, for talking about “the situation” ur not supposed to know about daily, be mindful, you will be on the list, when I gain back my authority. Bear in mind the respect enforced, actually needs to be earned through effort and not by a rough voice or tough exterior.

Peepz , when law enforcement engages in a circus, makes remorseful random faces fo you while, get this: simultaneously, engaging in madness, when the FBI engages in silence to make you America’s prostitute of a servant of a hero/icon,

please,

never follow my example.

If any of you get out into a fraction of my problem, don’t waste your health, ur dignity. At times, fists and kicks are the only answer. I went about my life reporting things to authorities, dreaming about best friending a girl in college and marrying her…the works…-if respect can’t be earned or given because some infidel playing or being a false god commands it, “seize respect. “

You can’t waste time on some superficial high ideal high minded losers.

So I keep talking about mental exhaustion…you still actually do the same things, over and over…- so I’m supposed to fall. What’s the matter orchestrators? Could t f*me in the a*s while standing strong? You need me to collapse or be on a stretcher? Would a tempur pedic be ok when you stop most likely molesting ur kids? F*ers…

—-

So I was listening to “Sam’s Gone” from “I Am Legend,”

And I remembered the powerful end scene from I Am Legend…listen and watch 37 seconds into this clip till the end:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7LsxKkh0zg

Starting from 37 seconds, Will Smiths character says “They’re not gonna stop…they’re not gonna stop…” those coincidentally white horrific mutations of humans, in their mindlessness, their aggression, their lack of heart and compassion, remind me of the police officers who made me walk barefoot, it reminds of some party school professors, it reminds of the orchestrators rooted in the mind cr*p - after a decade, I’ve come to acceptance that “they’re not gonna stop.”

For 10+ years of slavery, further indignified by turning me into a joke,

That moment where Will Smiths character and the mutated man (symbolizing an American orchestrator) race to battle towards each other - man…after a decade plus of provoking me, literally 24/7…when we’re finally face to face, I want to see what he/she has the balls to do. De palabra de espanol: “Ver”, ”, mi gentes, “Ustedes Ven la  cara de el Diablo blanco.”

Regarding that moment, when the orchestrators and me race toward each other, win/lose, it’ll be like this from 300:

ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOLpIkoS0QY

You, orchestrators may have the big guns, may have humanity following ur instructions, but like many before me, it’ll be like these two segments from the below 300 movie clip: 1:02- 1:50, 2:12-2:57

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qubItQjdSHA

In a deep state of mind to what transpired years ago, I said that I will get justice. Am I’m saying it again. You, the American orchestrators, turn mankind into one team in conviction and practice against me, you’ll torment me for a decade plus…maybe even destroy me after humiliating me-as is American military style.

Just know this: I, an Indian man, fated to suffer this “situation” in your country, will come back lifetime after lifetime, to finish what you started with me in this epoch of time, where you seek to conquer the Kingdom of God, that resides in every conscious mind wanting peace.

Orchestrators,ur quite welcome to see me as that cockroach who just won’t die or stay dead.

---

[azuresquirrel]

Have another episode of Snow Day Flash marathon! I’m breaking for now, maybe I’ll come back to it later today, but three episodes in one day is pretty darn good. 

Episode Five - FRIENDSHIP IS TRAGIC

Why yes I do watch Barry’s “I’M AN ORDINARY 25-YEAR-OLD SUPERHERO” intro every single time despite Netflix trying its darnedest to make me skip it.

Barry’s monologuing about FRIENDSHIP while hanging in a bar with Team Science AND Iris (YAY!!!!! LET THEM BE FRIENDS!!!) so I hope this episode is ACTUALLY about friendship this time as opposed to last episode which was only sort of about htat.

Also White Bread is here and I AGREE BARRY, I ALSO DO NOT CARE FOR HIM.

CISCO ALSO DISAPPROVES. Caitlin thinks he’s hot because bland white guys with no personality is her type. We also learn that Barry has Steve Rogers’s problem with alcohol as in it doesn’t do shit for them anymore. Team Science is THRILLED to do another experiment in the bar because of course they are, also they’re great.

Break in at some skyscraper? With our first possible BadGIRL of the Week? Badgirl with a BOMB it seems.

Sorry team, you won’t be able to get your drink on for much longer because there are some window cleaners who need saving, AS ALWAYS. Pfffft, Barry is sadly lacking in the super strength department and Caitlin shoots down his great idea to pile up a shitload of mattresses. SO BARRY LEARNS HOW TO RUN UP THE SIDE OF A BUILDING WITHOUT GOING “SPLAT” ON THE WAY DOWN.

OH HI IRIS IS HERE. Barry pulls his face-vibration and speeds off and Iris is TOTALLY HOT RIGHT NOW (and also probably thinking of OTHER uses for face-vibration).

Next day, Joe and team is investigating what files bomb lady was trying to make off with. And frankly I’m pretty jealous of super-speed file-searching.

Oh great, now the military’s here. Countdown to secret military experiments starting now.

Now Papa Joe’s reaming Iris out for being at the crime scene the night before and like can we DROP this overprotective dad act already IT’S FUCKING OLD. Iris is all like “yeah fuck my boyfriend I’M HERE FOR THE GOTTA GO FAST MAN, I’VE GOT A SCOOP.”

Over at STAR labs Harrison drops his stalker act on the general who totally contracted STAR labs for “gene therapy research” a.k.a. SUPERSOLDER EXPERIMENTS GONE WRONG. And our Badgirl of the Week is of course an ex-army bomb specialist because of course she is. Her name’s Beth and she’s got some kind of Rogue-dealio going? And also looks like the poor man’s Felicia Day.

BARRY ENDS UP ALMOST NAKED LIKE ANY PROPER COMIC BOOK FETISH FUEL.

R.I.P. BARRY’S SUIT. She touched it and it went KA-BOOM.

THIS IS A BETRAYAL CISCO WILL NOT ENDURE. “WHERE’S MY SUIT?????” Yes the grief will take time my son, but think of it as an opportunity to try out NEW fetish garments for Barry to wear! Look on the bright side!

So yeah, our pal Beth is a metahuman who literally makes the things she touches go BOOM. Everyone else is talking about this new development and this is what Cisco has to say: “But she blew up my suit!” “You have more!” “Okay, I have two more and I loved that one.”

CISCO IS OUT FOR REVENGE.

And Joe joins in on Team Science’s metahuman funtime, but also to YELL AT BARRY SOME MORE. For daring to LET IRIS KNOW A THING. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD. Yes, talk your daughter out of pursuing her work and her passions. JESUS.

THIS IS GETTING INTO SOME STRAIGHT-UP GASLIGHTING TERRITORY AND IT’S NOT CUTE. IRIS DESERVES BETTER THAN THIS. I AM NOT A HAPPY PERSON RIGHT NOW.

Barry’s now on the trail for the army surgeon who worked on Ms. Kaboom. But of course Ms. Kaboom is there first all “YOU DID THIS TO ME!!!”  Also the army is here trying to capture her because of course they are. Barry instead speeds her out of there offering to help her out via STAR labs.

So Team Science fills her in on the PA explosion and how apparently it combined with the schrapnel embedded in her so that’s why she makes things go kaboom (everyone gets these ~appropriate~ powers but I still don’t get how that translated in Barry getting GOTTA GO FAST).

Cisco has dropped his thirst for revenge upon seeing off-brand Felicia Day so apparently redheads are his type. Barry is also a redhead. Guys. (ehhhh reddish-brown. CLOSE ENOUGH.)

Caitlin tends to Ms. Kaboom setting her up for experiment but instead finds the TRACKER that the army put in her so of course General Clancy Brown shows up to be an ass. He also hilariously calls Harrison an “idealist.” YEP, THIS GUY. IDEALIST.

The rest of Team Science sprints Ms. Kaboom out to the middle of nowhere so she can blow up Frisbees, then she gets her Rogue Angst on and questions how much they’re helping Barry or her. It’s interrupted by Joe calling up and CONTINUING TO BE A SHITTY DAD WHO WANTS TO OPRESS HIS DAUGHTER’S LIFE. THIS IS BEYOND OLD.

Blah Blah Blah, Iris has put her name to her blog ~she might be targeting by metahumans~ blah blah blah.

So of course THE FLASH appears to Iris and yeah this is TOTALLY going to convince her to stop writing given how HOT she is right now.

“Help me save my friend” Iris says not knowing that SHE’S SAYING IT TO THAT VERY FRIEND! DRAMA!!!!

Back to STAR labs for depressing lifetime as a human bomb diagnosis because CELLULAR LEVEL because comic science does whatever we want it to do. Barry wants to make THE SUPERFRIENDS and for Ms. Kaboom to be friend #1. Everyone else is skeptical due to 1. Army and 2. explosions. BARRY JUST WANTS SOME MORE FRIENDS YOU GUYS!!!!

Pffffffffft Barry has a good laugh over how he can VIBRATE HIS VOCAL CHORDS TO CHANGE HIS VOICE. What a good nerd. Barry makes the WACKY suggestion to Joe that he just tell Iris everything. This of course turns into the “YOU’RE TOTALLY IN LOVE WITH IRIS” conversation.

Oh no, Ms. Kaboom is left ALONE in the lab with Harrison THAT’S NOT GREAT (apparently Cisco went home so he DOES have a home). And yeah, he pulls his I WANT TO GET BACK EVERYTHING I LOST (that he didn’t actually lose, god), and is pulling his Emperor Palpatine moves on Ms. Kaboom. “GIVE IN TO THE DAAAAAAARK SIIIIIIIIIIIDE” a.k.a. kill General Clancy Brown. NO ONE SHOULD BE LEFT ALONE WITH HARRISON.

So we’re at riverside showdown of American military propaganda and stupid ass General Clancy Brown shoots Beth and of course she dies IMMEDIATELY BEFORE SHE CAN TELL BARRY THAT HARRISON TOLD HER TO DO THIS. Also she’s going to totally explode.

AND SO BARRY LEARNS HOW TO BE JESUS AND RUN ON WATER.

I feel it’s pertinent to note that Barry’s doing all of this Flash business literally just to help people and yet he ends up with a large number of DEAD PEOPLE. Can’t this poor boy catch a break?

“Powerful men have a way of avoiding consequences” says Harrison who somehow is not immediately struck by lightning after saying that.

Iris just wants Barry to tell her WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON WITH HIM. He of course will not do so and I am not happy.

“I’m totally over my family,” HE SAYS LIKE A LYING LIAR WHO LIES.

And Iris can’t stop won’t stop, ATTA GIRL.

So Barry pulls the “maybe we shouldn’t see each other for a while.” THAT’S A DICK MOVE, BARRENCE. Yes you’re depressed about Beth getting all murdered by the army and NOT HAVING THE BEST HELPING TRACK RECORD but don’t take it out on Iris!

Caitlin cheers him up with SUPER-ALCOHOL THAT CAN GET HIM DRUNK. For like fifteen seconds anyway. Caitlin’s a true friend.

WE’RE CLOSING THE EPISODE WITH A SLOW ARTSY TRAILER COVER OF “I RAN” BY FLOCK OF SEAGULLS. I’M LAUGHING.

And YES we are back to our weekly Crazy Ex Boyfriend Harrison check-in as we should. Evil General Clancy Brown is here to visit because he knows that Harrison is full of it and offers to work together on metahumans, and Harrison is all too happy to threaten to literally end him. Evil General Clancy Brown says he’s figured out Harrison’s secret and it won’t take long for the public to catch on too. We then flash back to how their original partnership ended. Which of course had to do with GRODD. BECAUSE WHY WOULDN’T IT.

So the theme of this episode is BARRY ISN’T ALLOWED TO HAVE MORE THAN THREE FRIENDS and also that IRIS IS DEFINITELY TOO GOOD FOR ALL OF THIS CONDESCENDING MANIPULATIVE BULLSHIT.