#in which the billionaire with no skin in the game

[panakina]

A lot of discussion lately about whether or not jason fans hallucinated a character who cares about his community (the ‘protects women and kids’ thing), but i think that’s doing us a disservice and frankly letting DC off the hook.

Its not unreasonable to dislike that DC consistently makes the kid with the poorest background the most violent and selfish. (And the second poorest, Steph, the most incompetent).

Its not wild to extrapolate that someone who was first characterised as being Too Upset About Rape Victims and later characterised as prepared to take action where others won’t, could be getting involved in that kind of work.

It’s not crazy fans being blind to canon when we don’t want the sole voice of reason on the subject of community support to be the benevolent billionaire.

It’s not delusional behaviour to make fanworks where the guy heavily implied to be a child victim of sexual assault takes on responsibility for other victims.

Is that what DC gave us? No, they didn’t bother to address it.

[farity]

Devil in the Details

"Oh. My. Motherfucking. God."

You turned at your friend Floris's whispered exclamation.

It took you but a second to figure out what she was so excited about.

Aemond Targaryen, the black sheep of the Targaryen dynasty, the reclusive billionaire who looked down at everyone vying for his attention, the man you'd been in lust with since you'd met him five years ago, had actually made an appearance at the glittering charity gala hosted by his mother.

"I need to get his skin care routine," Floris said, biting on her lower lip as she scrutinized Aemond from head to toe. "I'd love to climb that tree tonight."

Good luck with that, you thought to yourself.

You'd been in the same Uni class as his sister Helaena and met Aemond when you'd gone over to work on a joint project. He'd been quiet and almost shy, and you had been instantly smitten.

And had not been able to date anyone in the five years since because all you thought about was Aemond Targaryen.

Not that he gave you a second thought, as far as you knew.

"What the fuck is he wearing?" Floris continued, and, tired of pining after the man, you looked at her and snapped, "why don't you go find out?" before walking away to get your drink refilled.

* * * * *

"We are so very thankful for your family's contribution - the children will benefit greatly," Alicent smiled at you, leaning in to air-kiss you as you said your goodbyes.

You got your coat from the girl at the front, and were about to call for your car when you felt a hand grab your arm.

"Leaving already?"

Your heart began pounding as you recognized Aemond's voice, and taking a breath to steady yourself, you turned to face him.

By the Seven, he looked amazing. He'd shaved off his hair a few months ago when Aegon had done the same after having one too many drinks. Alicent had screamed at her oldest son and out of brotherly solidarity, Aemond had grabbed the electric shaver and started running it along his scalp right in front of his mother.

His eyes bore into yours, the prosthetic eye he had so perfect that you couldn't tell which eye was the real one. Every time you thought about it, you wanted to wallop his cousin, the little shit who had taken Aemond's eye during a childhood fight.

"I've seen enough people to last me a few months," you said, looking at what was, indeed, damn perfect skin, as Floris had mentioned. And was that eyeliner? Because his eyes had never been bluer than they were at that moment.

"Tell me about it," he said, still holding on to your arm, "I was going to grab a drink at the quiet bar next door, if you're game."

There was something vulnerable in his expression and you found yourself nodding and taking the arm he offered. "What in the world are these?" you asked.

He looked down at the latex gloves. "Mother's been berating me for not making an appearance at these things," he shrugged, "so here I am. Maybe she should have specified a dress code."

* * * * *

"You know, there's a name for what you're doing," you said, taking a sip of your drink.

He raised an eyebrow.

"Malicious compliance."

He smiled and nodded. "Yeah, that would be me." He looked back up at you, eyes sparkling, "if she'd wanted me to wear a tux, she should have said so."

"Would you have, though?" you prodded, "I have a feeling you would have figured some way to twist that dress code around. You were always the clever one."

"Not so clever if I never got you to go out with me."

You stared at him for a few seconds. "Aemond, you never asked."

"I'm asking now."

He placed a few bills on the table and placed his hand palm up on the table.

You narrowed your eyes at him, making him laugh, and then placed your hands on his, and let him lead you out the door.

* * * * *

"How is Helaena liking Naath?"

"She loves it there. She has to get her shot every six months but she doesn't care, as long as she can keep studying the butterflies."

"And Aegon?"

"He stopped drinking after he shaved off his head, said it didn't suit his perfectly shaped skull."

You laughed, remembering Aegon's rather oversized ego, and then stole a glance at Aemond. "What about you? How have you been?"

He shrugged, "the company is doing well, family's good," he looked at you, "and I'm on a wonderful date."

You raised your eyebrows, "oh it's a date, is it?"

You could have sworn he blushed, but he lifted your hand to his lips and kissed the back. "It very much is, but I do have a problem." He looked at you very seriously. "I need to lose these damn gloves."

* * * * *

It took about twenty minutes of careful tugging and maneuvering but finally, Aemond was free of the gloves and while you got two coffees to keep you going, he headed to the bathroom to wash his arms.

Back on the street, he grabbed your hand in his as he sipped at his coffee. "This is much better."

"So where on earth does one get this sort of getup to shock Alicent Hightower?"

He smiled. "My friend is a stylist and he hooked me up. His girlfriend is a makeup artist and she put all this stuff on my face and hair."

"You look amazing," you said sincerely, "your eyes look super blue."

"I could feel mom's blood pressure spiking as she noticed the eyeliner and highlighter," he laughed. "It was worth it."

"I bet she'll say extra prayers for you tonight."

Nodding, he took another sip of his coffee. "Not enough prayers in the world," he mused. You stopped to drink some of your own coffee and he pulled you closer. "And I really want to kiss you."

You looked up at him, your heart beating faster, and then he placed his coffee cup down, and took your face in his hands. He brushed his nose against yours, not rushing you, and then his lips touched yours. He kept the kiss light and gentle, his fingertips threading through your hair as you sighed against him.

He murmured your name as he wrapped an arm around you. You didn't want this to end, this magical night, and then he spoke again.

"Come home with me."

* * * * *

"You feel so damn good," Aemond whispered in the lift, his hands on your hips as you wrapped your arms around his neck.

The car stopped and the doors opened, and you stepped into his loft, his hands roaming over your ass as you kicked off your shoes and let him pull you up against him.

"I want you so fucking much," you said against his mouth. He led you to his bedroom and you sat down on the edge of the bed as he pulled his shirt off over his head. "Come here, Aemond," you smiled.

He walked up to you, slowly, and you reached up to undo the fastenings on his leather trousers, keeping your eyes on him. Your hand lightly went over where he was already hard as a rock, and he hissed.

You drew down the zipper ever so slowly, biting down on your lower lip.

"I am going to make you pay for this," he gritted out.

"For what?" you asked innocently, starting to tug down the waistband. When you finally freed him, your eyes darting between his cock and his eyes, you licked your lips and took him in your mouth.

"Fuck."

"Hmmmm," you moaned around him, relaxing your throat so you could take him deeper. You could hear Aemond's breathing stuttering as you slowly pulled your lips all the way to the very tip of him and then took him back down your throat, hollowing out your cheeks.

"Fuck," he repeated, "I, uh, I can't-"

You felt him suddenly pull you off him and push you back on the bed.

"This is going to end too quickly if you keep doing that, angel."

"Angel?"

"Look at you," he said, indicating your white shimmery gown. "An angel about to be debauched."

You let one strap of the dress fall off your shoulder. "What does that make you, then?"

He lunged for you, hands on the bed on either side of you, and the smile on his face made you shiver.

"Me? I'm already destined for hell, love."

He took your lips, not slowly or gently this time, but desperately, his mouth all consuming on yours as he demanded entrance with his tongue and you willingly gave it. He was tugging down your dress as he kissed you, long fingers deftly maneuvering the yards of fabric until he had bared your breasts and then he pulled back, looking down at you.

You pushed the rest of the dress down until it fell on the floor, then laid back down and extended your arms to him. "Come here, Aemond," you said for the second time that night.

He shoved down the trousers, kicked them aside and spread your legs open before he kissed you again. He was so warm, his skin ablaze against yours, and you pulled him down to you, unable to get enough of him.

He began to kiss your neck, long fingers teasing your nipple, and then his mouth was on your breast and you moaned, the sharp sting of pleasure making you arch against him. He reached down lower, between your thighs, and you gasped.

"Tell me what you like," he murmured against your lips.

"Oh," you breathed as he settled on a steady rhythm, drawing tiny circles on the knot of nerves, "you're doing fine," you managed.

"Fine is not what I'm aiming for," he said, and slipped two fingers inside you and you cried out, your hips beginning to rock against him. "I want you to come for me," he added, curling his fingertips inside you.

"Aemond," you whispered, one hand on his shoulder, the other grabbing at his hair. "I- I'm-" you pressed your face to his neck a moment before the orgasm barreled through you, your cry muffled against his skin.

You felt him kneeing your legs apart and then he was pushing inside you. As ready as you were for him, he was big, and you bit down on your lower lip, still recovering and still wanting more.

"You can take me," he murmured soothingly as he kissed your temple. "Next time you come, I want to feel it around my cock," he said, and you whimpered as he rocked his hips to fill you completely.

He pulled back slowly, eyes on you, making sure you were okay, and then snapped his hips. You let your head fall back, and felt his teeth on your jaw, raking gently. "So good," he whispered, "I've wanted you for so long," he said as he settled on long, slow strokes. "So fucking long."

"Aemond," you closed your eyes, the feeling of him moving inside you beginning to send you back into that delicious spiral.

He reached between you, fingertips finding you and you moaned. "I can feel you," he said, "you-"

You cried out as you came, and felt him grab your hips to steady himself as he reached his own orgasm.

* * * * *

As reserved and aloof as you had always thought him to be, he hadn't stopped kissing and caressing you in the aftermath of your lovemaking. The man was full of surprises.

"Stay with me," he murmured against your cheek. "Tonight."

"How can I go when you've got me completely caged in," you teased, looking down at the arms he had wrapped around you and the way his legs were tangled with yours.

"Damn, I was trying to be stealthy," he smirked back. "We'll get breakfast, maybe I'll let you lure me back to bed again."

You rolled your eyes at him. "Rewriting history, are we? I remember trying to leave and someone grabbing my arm."

His eyes became serious on yours. "If I could rewrite history, I would have grabbed you a lot sooner." He leaned in to place a gentle kiss on your lips. "But I mean to make up for it."

You smiled against him, and let him pull you closer, thinking you were only too happy to let him make it up to you for a long, long time.

[ericityyy]

Good afternoon, I just recently came across your blog and I really liked the way you write.

Can I request a story about how Sheldon found a new friend fem reader.

The two of them have a lot of common interests:she also loves comics, video games, science fiction, and so on, just like him.

Thank you in advance for the answer and also apologize in advance for mistakes English is not my native language.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐢𝐫𝐥 𝐕𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧

𝙎𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙮: 𝘚𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘥𝘰𝘯 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘢 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯.

𝙏𝙧𝙤𝙥𝙚: 𝘍𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴 (𝘗𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘗𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘤)

𝙏𝙮𝙥𝙚: 𝘍𝘭𝘶𝘧𝘧

𝙒𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝘾𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩: 692

𝙈𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩

“I’m telling you, Shelly, there will come a time when all versions of Spiderman will meet.” Y/N argued with the boy, “And if that happens, you’ll owe me 10—scratch that, 50 bucks.” The girl crossed her arms smugly.

Sheldon, who always loves being right, stretched out his hand with a nod of his head and said, “Alright, I’ll bet on that. But only if it was made into a movie. If not, then you’ll owe me 50 bucks and be my servant for the whole week.” Y/N shook his hand with one movement as they both looked arrogant and smug. People would believe that they’re the actual twins because of how similar their personalities and expressions were.

“Dinner’s ready!" Mary called out from the dining room of Cooper's residence. Both Sheldon and Y/N stood up and walked toward the living room, each carrying a pair of mittens for the both of them. “Oh, Y/N, will you be staying for dinner?”

Y/N nodded her head politely, her hands on her back. “Only if I am not intruding, Mrs. Cooper. Your cooking always tastes divine.”

“Of course, hun. You could always eat here.” Mary laughed as she watched the two kids sit down on their respective seats, Y/N being in between Georgie and Sheldon’s seats.

After a while, all the Coopers are now present at the table. “Let’s say grace.” Mary put her hands on the table as did everyone else, except Sheldon and Y/N, who were in the process of putting on mittens and being watched by the family.

“I hope you do not mind me wearing my mittens; I just have a hard time making skin-to-skin contact, not knowing whether you washed your hands or not," Y/N said as she placed her hands on top of Sheldon and Georgie’s. George Sr. smiled stiffly at the girl as he gripped in his hands his wife’s hand and Sheldon’s.

“We don’t mind, dear, not at all.” George Sr. then made eye contact with Mary as the woman just mouthed to him, ‘Let them be.’

“Thank you, God, for the food we are about to receive and for the nourishment of our bodies, and bless the hands that prepared it. Amen.” All of them then released hands and then dived into eating the food prepared by the matron of the house.

“Y/N.”

“Yes, Sheldon?”

“To continue our conversation earlier, who do you think would win between Captain America and Iron Man?” Sheldon took a spoonful of his food as the rest watched their conversation.

Y/N seemed to be thinking of an answer: "Well, Cap has strategy and can be cool-headed at times, making him able to think of what to do next; his leadership skills are also there. Iron Man, on the other hand, is a genius, no doubt; he made all his suits himself, and he could totally make any weapon with any material given to him, so I vote for Iron Man.

“What?!” Sheldon dropped his utensils hard on his plate, which made the whole table quiet. “You’re letting your biased thoughts infiltrate what is the truth.”

“It may be so, but you asked who I think will win, and I gave you my answer," Y/N calmly stated while eating a spoonful.

“No! You’re wrong; if you take out Iron Man’s suit, what is he?”

"He is a genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, and he is Tony Stark. Like I said, he can make any weapon, whatever material you give him. I’m not saying that Cap is weak or something, but everything special about him came out of a bottle; without that, he would be this twig honorable soldier with good morals.”

“But…”

“You told me if I took out Iron Man’s suit, now that I have listed out the possibility of Cap not having his serum, what then?”

And for once in his life, Sheldon kept quiet. He was flabbergasted that it left his family speechless, until Missy spoke, “Oh man, now there’s two of them.” She leaned her hand on her face before smiling at Y/N, “But you’re tolerable.”

“Hey!”

𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑’𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄

thank you so much for requesting this! i am so sorry for posting this late but i hope you like this!!

𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓

@bellaisswagger // @somesimpformen

[jpmarvel90]

We all have scars

Masterlist Nat Masterlist

Relationship: Natasha x Reader

Summary: Y/n is reluctant to join the avengers when they have a day off by the pool.

Word Count: 2048

Y/N’s POV:  

It was a rare day that all of the Avengers had a day off. No missions, no training, no paperwork. The team were sat having breakfast when Tony suggested having a team day by the pool. One of the benefits of having a billionaire funding the Avengers was the pool that was built at the compound. It was a beautiful day making it the perfect choice for the team to chill and enjoy the day relaxing.  

Now normally I would be so excited to spend the day relaxing, but I was nervous. The thought of being in a bikini around the rest of the team worried me. See I had scars from my time as a Hydra prisoner. Each scar a reminder of the torture they put me through. After the team saved me from my ultimate fate, I never really spoke of the things that had happened to me. Not even to my best friends Nat and Wanda.  

While the rest of the team rushed off to get ready for our pool day, I stayed behind to clear up the breakfast mess, prolonging the time before I would have to face the inevitable. Whilst lost in my thought Wanda joined me at the sink. “Want me to dry?” She asked picking up the tea towel to start on the dishes. I nodded and we stood in silence whilst we worked. I could feel Wanda glance over to me every now and then as if she wanted to ask something. “You going to ask the question you seem desperate to ask or are you just flirting with me?” I joked splashing a bit of water in her direction. She giggled whilst putting the final glass away.  

“Ew yuck,” She giggled before her face turned more serious. “Are you ok? You seem lost in thought this morning. Is it Nat?” I turned abruptly away from the sink looking around to make sure no one else was around. “Wanda! You can’t just bring that up in a public space. What if someone heard or Nat was here?” She smirked at my panic. “Well, is it? Are you planning on telling her your feelings anytime soon?” She asked. “Wanda, it’s not Nat. I’m fine. And no, I’ve told you before, she doesn’t feel the same way. Now we better go get ready, you look like you need the sun, you’re a little pasty there Wands” I tease walking out to my room laughing before she has time to react but I’m still able to here “I’m not pasty you little bitch”.  

Once I’m ready I grab my bag and throw in a towel, my headphones and a book ready to the day. I put on my kaftan and tie it around my waste covering up my body and more importantly my scars. Once I reach the pool everyone is already there, Tony and Steve were in a deep conversation whilst dangling their feet in the water. Wanda and Peter were sat playing a card game, which I’m assuming Wanda is winning by the look on Peter’s face, and Bruce was sat with Nat both on their sun loungers. 

Nat looked breath taking. In a black bikini which complimented her body perfectly, her skin glimmered in the sun. Luckily, I was able to hide my gaze behind my sun glasses, but I was very aware of the look Wanda was giving me. I knew she wasn’t going to make today easy for me. “Y/N/N, here I saved you a bed.” Nat shouted whilst pointing at the empty lounger next to her. I made my way over greeting the others as I passed, laughing as Peter sulked losing another game to Wanda.  

I get comfortable and grab my book out to enjoy the sun, enjoying my spot next to the woman I was slowly falling for. “Here, want a beer?” Nat had leant over after grabbing a bud from the cool box she had next to her bed. “Thanks, someone was prepared” I said taking the beer and taking a sip. Ah, the cool liquid running down my through hit the spot perfectly. I smiled and returned to my book.  

A few hours later and a very intense game of water volleyball was taking place. Tony, Peter and Bruce against Steve, Wanda and Nat. It was very entertaining to watch. Tony and Peter were not good losers and every point they lost resulted in some insult be shared between the two. “Hey Y/N, come take my place. I need a drink and we need to beat these losers.” Wanda said turning to me in the pool. “I’m good watching thanks” I say nervous about having to take my kaftan off. “Oh come on Y/N/N, join us. It’s fun!” Nat pouted as she called out to me.  

“She’s obviously scared to lose, can you even swim Y/N?” Tony chuckled trying to goad me to joining. I can’t lie, it’s working. “ok give me a minute to finish this chapter.” I say hoping they might let me off. “Sounds good. We’ll take a 10 minute break and then we’ll finish beating your ass!” Nat said authoritatively splashing water at Tony as she left.  

Wanda walks over with a slight frown on her face as I awkwardly fiddle on the tie of my kaftan. “What’s up Y/N? Is Tony right? You can swim right?” I laugh at the insinuation. “Of course I can swim.” She looks around and sits on the end of my lounger. “You know you can talk to me right?” I slowly nod and look up meeting her emerald eyes. “I-I’m scared to take my kaftan off.” I pause seeing a confused look on her face. “I uh, have some scars that I’ve not really talked about before.” I look down and return to fiddling with the tie. I feel her hand squeeze mine encouraging me to look up. “We all have scars Y/N. No one here is going to judge you. I won’t lie, I wish you would talk to me about something that hurt you, but none of us are going to push you.” I smile and before I can respond Tony is shout at me to join them, the others already in the pool.  

I take a deep breath and stand up, I hesitantly undo my kaftan and quickly make my way into the pool. As I walk over I can feel their eyes boring into me. Nat is fixated on me and I can’t help but start to try and cover up. I make eye contact with Tony and he gives me a sympathetic smile before throwing the ball at Nat’s head. “Creeper, your serve” he shouts turning to get in position.  

Nat’s POV: 

Y/N had seemed a little off today. It’s been a busy few weeks with missions and training but today it felt different. She didn’t seem to want to join in with us and had sat reading her book for most of the early afternoon. I noticed that Wanda had gone over to speak with her after we convinced her to join us. When Wanda reached over and squeezed her hand, I felt a pang of jealousy. I knew nothing was going on between the two of them, but I wanted Y/N to be touching me, confiding in me.  

Y/N was my best friend and recently I’ve started developing feelings for her. She is funny and intelligent, whilst being one of the most caring people I’ve met. On top of that, she’s a bad ass in the field. Being a trained assassin has its perks and I’m pretty sure I’ve been able to hide my feelings for her from everyone. But recently it’s become harder to resist pulling her in to a kiss and telling her how I feel.  

Tony shouts out to Y/N to get the game going again and I notice that she seems nervous. As she takes off her kaftan I can’t help but stare. Her body is perfect, her tanned skin, complimented by her yellow bikini. Her hips swaying as she walks over. I’m very aware now that I’m staring but I just can’t seem to stop. It’s not until she gets closer that I notice some scars on her torso. I didn’t know she had them, but I had never seen her like this before. Wait, was that why she was nervous? I realise that she has started to try and hide her body with her arms. I wish she wouldn’t do that, she’s beautiful! Suddenly I felt a ball hit me on the head. “Creeper, your serve”. I shoot my head around and give Tony a death stare which I soften when he gives me a stern look. Shit, did he think I was staring at her scars. If he thinks that, does Y/N? I turn and give Y/N a big grin, “Ready to finish these losers off?” I asked causing her to laugh. “Bring it” she said and we carried on.  

About an hour later we had finished and we had convincingly beat Tony, Peter and Bruce. Safe to say Tony was not happy. “I get Y/N on my team next time!” he moaned. Whilst the others got out the pool I grabbed Y/N’s arm to stop her. “Hey, Y/N can we talk quicky.” I noticed her cheeks blush slightly which made me smile. “Sure Nat, what’s up?” I gently pull her to the other side of the pool away from the others.   

She smiles and meets my eyes and I can feel my heart flutter slightly. “Uh, I just wanted to let you know that I, um, I wasn’t staring earlier. Well I was but not at uh, you know….” God I’m messing this up. “Nat you’re rambling, it’s fine I get it.” As her eyes drop I can’t help but feel guilty. Come on Nat, get your shit together! 

I put my fingers under her chin and lift her head to meet my gaze. “Y/N, let me try again. Yes I was staring but I was starting at you and uh more specifically your body. Not your scars.  I know that sounds creepy, but I like you Y/N. Really like you, I’m just no good at being open with my feelings.” Y/N cheeks flushed with a dark red and she gave an awkward chuckle. “It’s totally fine if you don’t feel the same, I just didn’t want you to think that I was judging your scars.” I feel her take my hands under the water. “You don’t know how happy I am to hear that. I really like you too.” I can’t stop the wide smile appear on my face.  

“Can I kiss you?” I ask pushing a wet strand of hair off her face. “You better.” I pull her closer and put my hands around her neck as she wraps her arms around my waist. I lean in and lock our lips together pulling her closer into a deep and passionate kiss. “Took you both long enough!” Wanda yelled whilst the others started laughing. Pulling away I look at her beautiful face. Taking in every detail.  

“You never need to hide yourself from me. You’re beautiful and your scars are part of you and your story. I know you probably don’t want to talk about it, but when you’re ready, I want to hear the story behind all of them. I want to know everything about you.” In response she pulls me back into a passionate kiss wrapping her hands in my hair. I swipe my tongue across her bottom lip asking for access which she quickly grants letting off a quite moan in my mouth. Losing awareness of where we are, we’re quickly pulled back to reality by Tony. “Get a room lovebirds! No sex in my pool!” I laugh pulling Y/N closer. Whispering in her ear. “He makes a good point. Want to join me?” She lets out a giggle but husks in response “couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do right now. Though I definitely want to break that rule someday.” Wow that was hot. I grab her hand, intertwining our fingers whilst directing her back to my room where I planned to show her how much I loved her body. 

[mrpsychokiller]

animated movies being made exclusively in super detailed 3D semi realism where you have a cartoon character but you can see their skin pores, old animated movies being remade into "live actions" where its the same movie but the fact its real people/realistic cgi somehow makes it more interesting, every AAA game ever being praised by how much the graphics look SO REALISTIC and a game that came out in 2013 gets a remake which is the same game but WITH NEW, MORE REALISTIC GRAPHICS, animated and videogame scenes being structured like theyre a live action movie with still shots in the most generic and unfun way possible, 3D animation completely ripping 2D animation off the earth because 3D LOOKS more realistic than 2D, one hundred million high budget movies that are 99% percent photorealistic cgi on green screens, the death of practical effects, puppets, fake blood, makeup, costumes, having a completely unique art method in your hands thats capable of limitless possibilities and using it to try and replicate something else instead, theres no space for creativity, stylization, experimentation. nothing is special, unique, interesting, fun. theres no art because billionaire corporations dont care for art as much as they care for money

[theapprenticeofthanatos]

TAoT: Chapter 34: Kindred Spirits Part 3

WE LIVE!!! ACK.

We are truly sorry for the lack of updates on this fic, life has been rough (still is) and we lost motivation there for a bit. Sorry about that!!! Hopefully IRL things will calm down a bit, but it’s unlikely. BUT we are still going to do our best to update at least once a month (even though we didn’t manage to last month… or the month before 😬).

To everyone who made it this far, thank you for sticking with us, y’all are the best! 😭

~~~~~~~~~~

Danny POV:

As Danny returned to consciousness, he groaned miserably. His head felt like a little elf was taking a sledgehammer to his skull. What had happened? The last thing he remembered was…

Ellie.

She… she had literally shot him in the back! Why that little… Danny blinked, hissing as pain shot through his eyes. When he got his hands on her—

But then he froze. Where… was he?

Immediately, he could see that he was trapped in the same black and green containment cube that Vlad had imprisoned him in the first time they met, in what he assumed was one of Vlad’s many secret labs (how many secret labs could one billionaire have?). To Danny’s right sat a large computer terminal, and on its screen were pictures and videos of him; fighting, flying, morphing… it looked somewhat like a video game character info screen. There were even simulated strands of his DNA.

Eww.

The next thing that Danny noticed was the fact that there were lit candles scattered all over the room. They smelled like stinky cheese and rotten eggs, and they made Danny’s eyes water. What was that all about? Had Vlad decided to do a bit of redecorating? Spice up his lab a little bit? Because it wasn’t working.

There was movement in the corner of his vision, and Danny craned his neck to see as Vlad emerged from the shadows, with a pleased grin on his face; he looked every bit like the cat that caught the canary.

“You’ve been spying on me?” Danny said immediately, disgusted. “Y’know, am I even really surprised? Of course a fruitloop like you would keep files on me.”

Vlad’s smile fell instantly, replaced by a look of indignant rage. “I am not! A! FRUIT! LOOP!” He snapped.

“Could’ve fooled me,” Danny retorted with a smirk. “What with this whole villainous lair setup you’ve got going on.”

Vlad growled, but then his anger seemed to fade as he pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed tiredly. “I am not a villain, either. All I am, Daniel, is a man… that wants to be loved.”

Vlad pressed a button on the wall beside him, and there was the sound of machinery moving behind him. He stepped to the side, revealing a tube-shaped containment pod, inside of which was…

Me?

No. A clone. A seemingly perfect, identical copy of none other than Danny Phantom was standing in the pod. Its eyes were closed as if it were asleep, and would wake at any moment.

A chill ran down Danny’s spine, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. This was beyond creepy.

“It has taken months,” Vlad rambled on. “But now, at last, the good clone is nearly ready to accept your DNA.”

The good clone? That meant… “Wait, Ellie’s a clone? Of me?”

“If by Ellie, you mean Danielle,” Vlad drawled disdainfully. “Then yes.”

“And the others…” Danny was connecting the dots now. “Frankenstein, and the bedsheet ghost! They were clones, too?”

“Yes,” Vlad confirmed. “Bad clones. Mistakes.” He snapped his fingers, and the miniscule specter Danny had been chasing around town suddenly darted into the room. It whizzed around Danny’s head like an annoying fly, before coming to a stop at Vlad’s side.

Suddenly, the tiny ghost grew in size, until it was Danny’s height. And now that Danny could see it in close, gruesome detail, he felt like he was going to be sick.

The ghost looked… well, the best way to describe its appearance was that it looked like it had spent a few minutes inside of a microwave. Its skin looked like melted cheese on a hot, greasy pizza, and bits of it fell away, slopping onto the floor where they bubbled away into nothing. The ghost bared its fangs at Danny and hissed, and its left eye suddenly fell out of its socket, landing on the floor with a wet splat before it disintegrated into goop.

Vlad continued monologuing as if nothing had happened. “And I would watch a hundred more failures dissolve into ectoplasm to get the perfect half-ghost son.”

“Oh, yeah,” Danny chuckled dryly, scowling at the other halfa. “Nothing loopy about that. Y’know, once I get outta here, maybe I can help you find a nice cat to care for, instead of growing humans in your secret lab!”

Vlad merely smirked at Danny’s taunting. “Are you under the impression that you’re getting out of this? I need a DNA sample of you mid-morph to complete my work. And then…” Vlad sneered as he snapped his fingers, and the goopy clone shrunk back down before darting towards Danny. “You will be obsolete.”

The miniature ghost struck Danny in the center of his forehead, and burrowed into his flesh like a tick. Pain immediately flooded Danny’s body, igniting every inch of his nerves like lights on a Christmas tree. It felt like every one of his muscles was seizing, and he struggled to fight against the ghost as it attempted to overshadow him.

“Get… out… of me!” Danny growled, his teeth grinding together as his eyes rolled back in his head. But then a spark of cold flickered to life in his chest, and Danny felt stronger. It was like his core was trying to burn away the invading spirit, and Danny worked with it, gathering every bit of strength to push the clone out. Out, out! Get out!

But then Vlad pushed a button on his computer console, and Danny screamed as electricity shot through his body. It arced along his spine and made him feel like he had been dipped in battery acid. The shock stopped after only a few seconds, and Danny’s head slumped forward as his vision went black, and he fell unconscious.

.

Sam POV:

Sam and Tucker stood on the sidewalk, staring up at the brick facade of FentonWorks. They needed to get inside, but 1) they didn’t have Danny with them as an excuse, and 2) school was still in session. A peek through the window revealed Jack and Maddie Fenton sitting in the living room, and the two teens knew that they would be questioned immediately on sight for their truancy.

“How are we going to get inside now?” Tucker lamented.

“Back door.” Sam answered simply. “Come on.”

She led Tucker around the street corner and to the backyard, where she proceeded to boost him over the fence before climbing over herself. Together, the two teens scurried across the backyard and came to a stop at the back door. Tucker peered through the kitchen window, before giving Sam a thumbs-up: the coast was clear.

Carefully, Sam slowly turned the doorknob. The latch released without a sound, but the hinges did squeak as she pushed the door open. Luckily, the sound was drowned out by Jack’s voice in the living room.

“Why, when I get ahold of those kids, they’re gonna get the scolding of a lifetime! They’ll be cleaning out beakers and Erlenmeyer flasks for weeks!”

Maddie sighed. “Let’s just hope that a summer at Camp Delphi will teach Danny to be a little more responsible with his learning.”

Sam tuned out the rest of the adults’ conversation as she closed the door behind Tucker. Moving as silently as they could, the two of them made their way across the kitchen and down into the basement. Once they had made it down the stairs, they abandoned any pretense of stealth in favor of quickly grabbing what they needed to rescue Danny.

Tucker hopped into the Specter Speeder and started its warm-up sequence, while Sam grabbed the Boo-merang from its spot on one of the counters. Spying the Specter Deflector, she decided to snag it as well; maybe it would come in handy later on. Sam really wanted to stay and grab just a couple more gadgets—they were going up against Vlad, after all—but they were already running on borrowed time. So with both devices shoved into her backpack, she ran back to the Specter Speeder and hopped in.

“Ready to go?” Tucker asked her.

“Sure,” Sam muttered testily. “Let’s go with that.”

Tucker wisely kept his mouth shut and returned his attention to the controls in front of him. Sam moved to close the door of the Specter Speeder, but she froze when the familiar, booming voice of Jack Fenton came from the top of the stairs.

“Sam! Tucker! Get out of there!”

Frick.

“Uhh, whaaat?” Sam called back, her heart pounding like a timpani as a nervous sweat trickled down her back. They were gonna be so dead when they got back. “I can’t hear you over the, uhh, roar of the rockets!”

Sam slammed the door shut and whirled around to face Tucker. “Could you activate the roar of the rockets, please?” She hissed.

“On it!” Tucker squeaked, his hands flitting over the controls.

Sam could feel the vehicle coming to life under her feet, and she took her spot in the passenger’s seat just as the gateway to the lab’s underground tunnel slid open, and the Specter Speeder shot forward like a bat out of Hell. They flew down the tunnel and surfaced outside, quickly taking to the skies and leaving the Fenton household far behind them.

.

The two teens and their stolen hovercraft came to a stop once they had cleared the tallest of the buildings in Amity Park, and Sam powered on the Boo-merang as Tucker opened the windshield of the Speeder.

“Okay.” Sam stood and looked down at the tracking device in her hands. “Find Danny.”

And with that command, Sam drew back her arm, and threw the Boo-merang as hard as she could out into the open air. The device took to the air like a bird, and it immediately zipped off towards the horizon, in search of Sam and Tucker’s ghostly best friend.

Sam sat down as the windshield slid shut. “Tucker, follow that stupidly named tracking device!”

.

Danny POV:

Danny awoke with another pounding headache. Whether it was the same one from before or something new, he didn’t know or particularly care. And as he blinked his eyes open, he saw that he was now inside one of the containment pods he had seen earlier. His wrists were cuffed to the sides of the pod, and a light tug revealed that the metal restraints weren’t going to break easily.

Scowling, Danny gritted his teeth, preparing to rip the handcuffs from the walls. But then he heard the clicking of a dial, and suddenly his world lit up in blinding, electrifying pain. Danny screamed as his muscles spasmed, and he could feel his body trying to transform against his will.

The cold in Danny’s core tried to protest, but it was quickly smothered by another presence. A presence that felt like an invader, that was trying to take over his body and make him bend to its will.

The clone. It was still inside of him.

White rings of light formed around Danny’s waist, but he bit down on his tongue hard enough to draw blood as he fought against the transformation. With a great deal of effort, the rings shrank, but they didn’t dissipate like he had hoped. It was clear that the clone was fighting against him, intent on obeying Vlad’s orders so the crazed fruitloop could get Danny’s mid-morph DNA sample, and then… what?

Make a new, more obedient Danny? And put the old one out of commission?

Yeah, fat chance, pal.

As Danny fought against the clone within his body, he could just barely hear voices outside his containment pod. It sounded like Vlad, and… his mom?

The shock of hearing his mother’s voice caught Danny off guard, and it gave the clone a chance to take over. The transformation rings crept over his skin again, before Danny managed to push them back down with a pained scream.

The sound of two more clicks reached Danny’s ears, and then the pain was suddenly amplified. He could hear the electricity buzzing in his skull, and feel it as it shot up his arms and down his spine, rooting him to the ground where he stood. It was like thousands of fire ants crawling under his skin, their touch like battery acid to his flesh.

But Danny wasn’t going to give in. He wasn’t going to let Vlad win. He couldn’t, because if he did, then Vlad would kill him. He didn’t want to die!

The cold in Danny’s core grew stronger, and the clone doubled its efforts. He could feel it inside of him, its essence trying to smother the cold in his core and force his ghostly transformation to take over. But he couldn’t let that happen. He needed to get out. He needed to get away.

Suddenly, a surge of cold erupted from Danny’s core, freezing the metal restraints holding him captive, and covering the window of the pod in frost. Through the pain coursing inside of him, Danny could just barely make out the voice of his mom again.

“Containment chamber beginning to overload.”

The clone in Danny’s body seemed to be frantically trying to change him, but Danny wasn’t going to let that happen. The white rings crept up and down his torso, and out of options, Danny dug into his core, searching for every last ounce of strength that he had. If he could just break these chains, and escape the pod, then he would be free. He just needed to push… a little harder…

All of a sudden, the electricity zapping through Danny’s body grew stronger—so strong that the pain it was causing was almost unbearable—and then a split second later, there was a deafening BOOM, followed by the shattering of glass, and the electricity was gone. A billowing, acrid smoke filled the air, and with his restraints now broken, Danny had to fight to keep from collapsing right then and there.

He couldn’t feel the clone in his body anymore. Whether that meant it had been pushed from him in the explosion, or it had disintegrated like the others he had fought before, he wasn’t sure. But far more importantly, he was free. Now, he just had to…

Mustering what strength he had left, Danny finally allowed his ghostly transformation to wash over him. Feeling strangely detached from his body, Danny floated up from the wreckage of the containment pod, and drifted forward into the smokey room. Vlad emerged from the smoke in front of him, looking completely shocked at the devastation Danny had caused to his lab, but Danny didn’t care. He just turned intangible and passed right through the elder halfa, ignoring the angry shouts that echoed after him as he glided up to the ceiling, and left the confines of the underground laboratory.

.

It took Danny a bit to find his way through the maze that was one of Vlad’s many mansions. He was so exhausted that he had to stop, falling to his knees as he reached what looked like a den of some sort. It was complete with a roaring fireplace, a lush armchair, and stuffed animal head trophies hanging from the walls.

So, they were in Vlad’s Colorado mansion, then. Danny remembered it from back when Vlad had stranded Danny and his mom out in the mountain wilderness, only to “rescue” them and make a move on his mom.

Danny weakly shook his head. Not important right now… need… to get away…

But how? He didn’t have the strength to fly away now. He couldn’t even stand. He was thousands of miles away from home, how could he possibly get back…?

Shadow-travel. That… that was an option. But he definitely didn’t have the energy for that. He didn’t want to risk trying to shadow-travel home, only to be ripped apart if he wasn’t strong enough to hold himself together…

Thanatos. He could shadow-travel to where Danny was, and take him back home. Yes, that… that would work…

Exhaustion weighed on Danny’s shoulders like a heavy stone as, with a trembling hand, he pulled off his right glove. His apprentice mark glowed brightly against his skin as he brought his fingers to the silvery letters…

But just as Danny’s fingertips brushed against his forearm, a blast of green ectoplasm shot up through the floor, striking him in the gut and sending him flying. Danny hit the wall on the far side of the room and fell to the ground, cracking his head against the stone floor.

“You’re not going anywhere.”

Danny’s head spun, his eyes watering as he looked up and saw Ellie standing in front of him. The girl glared at Danny, but as she raised her hands he noticed that there were tears in her eyes. Before Danny could question her, she shot another ecto-blast his way, and Danny barely managed to throw up a weak ecto-shield that cracked immediately on impact.

A green cloud of smoke filled the air between the two halfas, and Ellie’s ecto-blast flickered out as Danny’s shield shattered and fell away. As the smoke cleared, Danny watched as Ellie growled and immediately began charging another blast between her palms.

“Stop fighting!” She shouted, and a smirk formed on her lips, but it was clearly forced; a weak attempt at looking confident. “I know you’re too weak to beat me,” Ellie goaded, but the words fell flat in the air between them.

Something… something was wrong. If Danny didn’t know better, he’d say that Ellie seemed scared.

Danny’s gaze fell to the floor, and his eyes widened in alarm as he saw that Ellie’s feet were beginning to melt into goop—just like the other clones had. “Ellie, stop!” He cried.

Ellie sneered; the expression looked rather out of place on her childish face. “Why? Are you scared?”

“No! But every time I’ve fought a clone, they’ve turned to goop.” Danny pointed a shaky hand at Ellie’s feet. “Like you are now.”

The cockiness fell away from Ellie’s face instantly, replaced by shock, and then fear as she looked down and saw the green ectoplasmic goop leaking from her legs and onto the stone floor. She shrieked as she stumbled back, the ectoplasmic charge flickering away in her hands as it was completely forgotten. After a few tense seconds, Ellie’s boots resolidified, and it was like nothing had even happened; she looked completely normal.

Ellie looked at Danny then, and the look on her face was that of a terrified child. Danny’s heart ached for her as he got to his feet with a grunt of pain. “Ellie, please,” Danny wheezed; he was pretty sure that his ribs had been bruised at minimum. “I don’t want to fight you.”

“Then let my father have your morph DNA!” Ellie pleaded, tears welling up in her eyes. “So he can save me! I-I don’t…” Ellie sniffled, and Danny was sure that his heart was going to break in two as she tearfully whispered: “I don’t want to die.”

“Neither do I, Ellie,” Danny told her. “But if Vlad succeeds in getting what he needs from me, then I will die.”

Ellie frowned, seemingly confused by Danny’s words, and she shook her head. “No, he… my dad wouldn’t let that happen. He’s not that kind of guy.”

Clearly, Ellie didn’t know Vlad as well as Danny did. “Oh, yes, he is.” Danny argued. “And once he gets what he wants—the perfect half-ghost son—then he’ll forget all about you.”

That wasn’t the right thing to say. Ellie’s expression immediately soured, and her face flushed with anger. “You’re a liar!” She snapped.

“Oh, yeah? Then why is there another clone?” Danny countered. “The one in the containment pod. You’ve seen it, haven’t you?”

Ellie’s lack of an answer was confirmation enough.

“If you were what he really wanted, then why aren’t you the one in the pod?” Danny asked her, hoping she would realize that he was telling the truth. “Why aren’t you the one all prepped and ready to receive my DNA sample? Why are you the one doing Vlad’s dirty work?”

But despite Danny’s earnestness, Ellie wasn’t having it. She shook her head furiously as she covered her ears with her hands, and when Danny took a step forward Ellie screamed. Before Danny could react, Ellie threw up her hands and shot him in the chest with a two-handed ecto-blast that sent him crashing into the wall behind him.

The impact caused white spots to fill Danny’s vision, and his limbs to stop listening to him. Danny fell, unable to catch himself as he collapsed on the floor. He could feel himself fading from consciousness, and as his vision faded, he just barely caught a glimpse of Ellie kneeling down beside him.

“You’re a liar,” Ellie whispered, but Danny could still make out the tremor of fear in her voice. “And I’m going to prove it.”

.

Thanatos POV:

Clockwork didn’t even look up as Thanatos appeared in the center of his clock tower. “Doors exist for a reason, you know,” he said wryly to the death god. “You’re supposed to knock on them.”

“Can you find Danny?” Thanatos asked, completely ignoring the Primordial’s comment.

Clockwork raised an eyebrow at the question, his expression slightly insulted. “I can find anybody in any timeline. Why do you ask?”

“According to Danny’s friends, he has been kidnapped.” Thanatos ran his fingers over his mark again, his brow furrowing with concern as he felt nothing in response. “I would prefer to just find him myself, but… for a reason unbeknownst to me, I cannot sense him.”

“I see.” Clockwork glided over to one of the seeing glasses and placed his hand on its surface. “Then I will just…”

However, Clockwork trailed off. Thanatos looked up at him, concern growing in his chest. “What is the matter?”

Clockwork was quiet for a long moment, and when he spoke again he sounded rather confused. “I cannot sense him either.”

Thanatos felt his stomach drop. He walked over to Clockwork and glanced at the screen in front of them, which was swirling with green mist. “What do you mean? You are a—”

“Yes, I am a Primordial,” Clockwork cut him off, sounding more intrigued than frustrated by the problem. “But Clockwork is only a small part of my true form. An astral projection, if you will. I can only do so much in this state. And right now, someone is interfering with my search.”

“What? Who?” Thanatos asked.

Clockwork was quiet for a long moment, his expression screwed up into one of concentration. “A god…” He muttered, his frown deepening. “But as for whom, I am not sure.” He slid his hand across the glass, and images of Danny—at various points in time—began to scroll by quickly. “I can still see Daniel’s past. I will look at the last point in his timeline that I am able to see before my sight is blocked. Perhaps that will shed some light on this situation.”

Not a second later, the screen froze on an image of Danny in his ghost form, standing beside a girl with white hair and a jumpsuit just like Danny’s.

“Ah,” Clockwork hummed thoughtfully. “It’s time already, is it?”

Thanatos was becoming annoyed at the lack of answers. “What are you going on about now?”

Clockwork sighed and backed away from the seeing glass, his hand falling to his side as he gave Thanatos a sympathetic look. “Apologies, my grandson. But I cannot help you in this search.”

Feeling his heart rate suddenly spike, Thanatos closed his eyes and took a deep, calming breath. He then looked at Clockwork and managed to politely ask, through gritted teeth, “Why?”

“My hands are tied,” Clockwork said simply, but Thanatos could swear that there was a pleased tone to the god’s voice. “I am not to interfere.”

“Couldn’t your apprentice help?” Thanatos suggested, feeling desperate.

“No,” Clockwork replied firmly. “She—They cannot be involved. This moment… it is crucial to their timeline.” He gave Thanatos a small, frustrating smile. “But don’t worry. Everything will turn out as it is supposed to.”

Thanatos bit back a growl of frustration and turned away from the ghost. Why had he even bothered going to Clockwork in the first place? He had thought that maybe Clockwork would be kind enough to assist him in finding his apprentice, but no—all the ghost had done was try his best to get under Thanatos’ skin.

Thanatos would just have to find Danny on his own. And when he did, he was going to have a talk with Vladimir Masters.

Suddenly, to Thanatos’ surprise, a flicker of faint magic sparked to life along his right forearm. His apprenticeship mark.

Danny.

The sensation disappeared just as quickly, but it had been enough. Thanatos had been able to get an idea of where his apprentice was being held: Colorado, USA.

And that was a start. It didn’t matter who was trying to keep Danny away from him, be they god or mortal.

No one could hide from Death.

.

Danny POV:

Danny was getting sick of waking up with pounding headaches. Why couldn’t he wake up gently after being so violently knocked out? Twice, might he add! Here was a better question: why couldn’t people just not knock him out? He was sure he had some form of brain damage by this point. Being knocked out so often couldn’t possibly be healthy.

Through the pain, Danny managed to crack open an eye, and he was dismayed to see that he had been placed inside a brand-new containment pod. The one he had destroyed was off to the side, still billowing bluish-gray smoke. And in the pod directly across the room from him was the so-called “perfect clone.”

Great. Fantastic, even. Well, at least he knew where he was this time.

“Ah, you’re finally awake.”

Danny opened his other eye, and saw none other than Plasmius floating in front of his pod-shaped prison. The older halfa looked… perturbed. Annoyed, perhaps?

Good. Let him be annoyed. Danny thought. All he cared about was escaping, but first…

“Where… where’s Ellie?” Danny croaked. Would it be rude of him to ask for a glass of water?

“Whatever Danielle is doing is not important right now, Daniel.” Vlad answered dismissively. “What is important is you telling me where that tattoo came from.”

“Tattoo?” Danny repeated, confused. He didn’t have a… wait a minute.

Danny looked down, and saw that his elastic bandage was gone, leaving his right forearm bare and exposed. Vlad must have removed the bandage while he was unconscious.

Vlad scowled and rolled his eyes. “I’m not an idiot, Daniel. I know a tattoo when I see one.” He turned to one of his various computers and pressed a button, and on its screen appeared a picture of Danny’s forearm, with the black lettering of his mark on display in high definition for anyone to see.

Danny’s blood ran cold. Thanatos had warned him of the dangers if others were to ever learn that he was Death’s apprentice; they would want his powers for themselves, and they would do whatever they could to get it. And Vlad… definitely seemed like someone that would fit into that category.

Thankfully, it seemed that Vlad hadn’t figured it out just yet. And Danny hoped he would be able to throw him off the scent.

“It’s not a tattoo, fruitloop,” Danny scoffed with a dramatic roll of his eyes. “Or, uhh, not a permanent one, anyway. It’s just, y’know, one of those temporary tats you find in cereal boxes and stuff.”

It was clear that Vlad did not believe him. “Oh, really? And in what cereal box did you find that?” He asked incredulously with a wild gesture towards the computer display.

“What, you don’t know?” Danny retorted snarkily. “Being a fruitloop yourself, I thought you knew all about different types of cereal.”

It took a second for Danny’s comment to register in Vlad’s mind, and when it did the elder halfa’s face flushed green with indignation as he realized that Danny was intentionally messing with him. Danny smirked, and if he weren’t trapped in such a dangerous situation then he might’ve even laughed.

Vlad clenched his fists, and then he sighed tiredly. “Sometimes, I truly wonder how you have survived for so long with that smart mouth of yours, Daniel.” He muttered bitterly.

“I’m pretty sure it’s all thanks to my charming personality,” Danny responded cheekily.

Vlad growled as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I am not having this ridiculous conversation right now, Daniel.”

“Seems to me like you are, actually,” Danny pointed out.

But Vlad didn’t rise to the bait that time. Shame. Danny still had more sass to dish out. Though really, he knew he should be more focused on escaping than antagonizing; he didn’t want to be here any longer than he needed to be.

But he hadn’t been able to contact Thanatos. He hadn’t been able to speak the summoning phrase—he had barely managed to brush his fingers against his mark before he was captured again.

Hopefully, somehow, Thanatos had still noticed Danny’s meager call for help. But in the meantime, Danny would have to try his best to escape on his own.

“Y’know, you really should let me go,” Danny said coolly as he glanced down at his restraints, looking disinterestedly at them as if they were irritating slap bracelets at best. “I’m sure that my friends are looking for me, and when they find out that you kidnapped me—”

Vlad cackled, sounding every bit like the two-bit villain he appeared to be. “Oh, please. I’m not afraid of a couple of teenagers.”

“W-well, I’ve got another friend!” Danny shot back. Thanatos was his friend, right? Acquaintance, at least? … boss, perhaps? Whatever, it wasn’t important right now. “And he’s, uhh… he’s pretty scary. And he’ll definitely be looking for me, so you better let me go before he gets here.”

Danny had known that it was a long shot that Vlad would cave to his vague threats, but he hadn’t expected the other halfa’s demeanor to immediately turn cold and serious.

“Oh, another friend, you say?” Danny could hear the venom and hatred in Vlad’s voice, and it made him wonder just what exactly had happened between Vlad and Thanatos at the airport just… what, eleven days ago? Seriously? It hadn’t even been two weeks from his return, and Vlad was already causing him problems? Come on!

Danny looked up at the sound of squeaking metal, and he watched as Vlad dug through a filing cabinet. The halfa pulled out a piece of paper covered in strange scribbles, along with a couple of those awful-smelling candles.

“Luckily for you,” Vlad called over his shoulder as he taped the paper to the nearby wall and sat the candles on top of one of his work desks, setting them alight with a snap of his fingers. “I’ve prepared for your new friend.”

Seemingly satisfied with whatever he had done, Vlad turned to face Danny with a triumphant smirk. “I know how to hide from the Ancients, Daniel. You learn a trick or two when delving into things that you shouldn’t be.”

“… what?” Danny said bewilderedly. “Ancients?”

Vlad gave Danny a rather unimpressed look, as if to ask: how stupid are you? “Well, duh. Obviously that’s what your new buddy is. I’ll admit he’s a little… different from most old ghosts I’ve met.” If Danny didn’t know better, then he would’ve sworn that he saw a shiver run down Vlad’s back. “But I have measures in place for protecting myself. After all, you don’t learn as much as I have by being nice and asking permission. Of course I’ve upset a few mighty spirits along the way,” Vlad emphasized with finger quotes. “But there’s nothing ghostly that a few stinky candles and ancient runes can’t keep at bay.”

Well, Danny was pretty sure that a few stinky candles were going to do absolutely nothing to stop an immortal god of death, but he certainly wasn’t about to tell Vlad that.

But before Danny could think of anything else to say, he noticed a flicker of movement behind Vlad, and he watched as Ellie phased through the back wall of the lab. Their eyes met, and Ellie quickly placed a finger to her lips in a silent command: don’t say anything.

Oh, Danny was going to say something. And certainly not something that Ellie wanted to hear.

Ellie was a good person; Danny could tell. She was just misguided, and she refused to believe that her “father” could possibly be as evil as Danny claimed him to be. Danny couldn’t blame her—he had seen time and time again that Vlad was an expert at manipulating others into trusting him. But Danny knew that Vlad didn’t care for Ellie in any way; it was obvious in the disdain that crossed Vlad’s face whenever Ellie was so much as mentioned. It was more than clear that Ellie was expendable, considering Vlad had sent her to do the dirty work of capturing Danny, instead of doing it himself.

Ellie was an unstable clone—she could have died obeying Vlad’s orders. But it was as clear as day that Vlad just didn’t care. And the clone in the pod across from Danny was the most damning evidence of all. If Vlad really cared for Ellie, then why wasn’t she the one waiting to receive Danny’s DNA sample? And why couldn’t she see it for herself? Why couldn’t she see that she was being used?

If Ellie couldn’t believe the truth from Danny’s mouth, then he was going to make sure that she heard it from Vlad’s.

“So, what’s the deal with Ellie?” Danny saw Ellie’s eyes widen in alarm at his question, but he pressed on anyway. “She’s different from the other clones I’ve fought.”

“What about her?” Vlad drawled with a roll of his eyes, clearly irritated by Danny’s inquiry. “All of my previous attempts at cloning you have yielded one mistake after another. She just happened to have fewer mistakes than the rest.”

“What mistakes?” Danny pushed back. “She seems just fine to me. Why did you even bother making another clone after her?” Ellie drifted closer, but Danny was careful not to look at her as he glared into Vlad’s red eyes. “Why isn’t she good enough for you?”

“Because she’s a brat!” Vlad finally snapped, his eyes flashing bright with anger, and his shouting echoed through the room around them as he went off on a tirade. “Biologically she’s like you in almost every way, but mentally and emotionally it’s like—like dealing with a toddler! Throwing tantrums, having meltdowns, just—being a dolt! A simpleton! With this next clone, I made sure to put a lot more effort into their brain power.”

Ouch.

Danny had a front row seat as he witnessed what he was pretty sure was Ellie’s heart breaking, and it hurt to watch. Tears welled in her eyes, and the tiniest hiccup broke from her mouth.

And it was deafening.

The anger fell from Vlad’s face instantly, replaced by shock, and he turned to see Ellie standing right behind him.

“Is that… what I am to you?” Ellie asked quietly, her voice just barely above a whisper as tears began to trickle down her cheeks. “An imperfection? A mistake?”

For what was likely the first time in Vlad’s life, the elder halfa seemed to be at a loss for words.

And Ellie wasn’t taking that silence for an answer. The tears continued to fall, and the hurt was still written as clear as day across her face, but the sadness in her eyes changed, morphing into anger. She grit her teeth as she wiped the tears away with the back of her hand, and her cheeks flushed green with fury as she glared hatefully at Vlad.

“D-Danielle,” the sorry excuse for a so-called father finally managed to stammer out. “How… how long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough.” Ellie growled. Her hands started to glow a dangerous green, and Danny frantically began to struggle against his restraints. No! Was she crazy? She couldn’t fight Vlad on her own!

Vlad seemed to have finally gotten over his shock, and he cleared his throat. “Alright, that’s enough.” He said coldly. “Danielle, listen to me—”

“No!” Ellie shouted. “I’ve listened to you enough!”

And with that, Ellie darted forward, running at Vlad with both fists glowing bright green with ecto-energy. Vlad seemed to be startled—if only for a split second—but then he widened his stance and raised a single hand, and Danny watched in horror as the older halfa’s fingers flared to life with blindingly pink ecto-fire. Was he going to kill her?

No! Danny couldn’t let that happen, but he couldn’t break free of these stupid chains—

Ellie screamed in rage as she leapt forward, and Danny felt like he was watching a devastating car accident in slow motion. Vlad aimed his ecto-blast right at Ellie’s chest, and fired. The beam of hot pink ecto-energy shot forward, and Danny cried out as he watched it make a beeline for Ellie’s core.

But the shot never landed. At the last second, Ellie ducked down and slid across the tile floor between Vlad’s feet, completely missing the attack that would have undoubtedly killed her. She slid to a stop at the foot of Danny’s containment pod, and got to her feet just as Vlad turned around to face her, his face one of complete surprise.

“How’s this for a mistake?!” Ellie shouted, and she slammed her fist into the release button on Danny’s pod.

“NOOO!” Vlad roared.

But he was too late. Danny’s restraints clicked open and fell from his wrists, and Danny punched through the glass door with an ecto-charged strike. It shattered on impact and fell away instantly, leaving nothing standing between Danny and his captor.

Danny leapt from the containment pod, only stumbling a bit when his feet hit the floor. He felt lightheaded as he turned to look at Ellie. She sniffled as she wiped the tears from her eyes, and Danny’s heart sank at the sight. “Are you… okay?”

He regretted the question as soon as the words left his mouth. Of course she wasn’t okay. But thankfully, Ellie didn’t smack him upside the head for asking something so stupid. Instead, she turned to him with a tired, yet confident smile and said: “Do you wanna ask questions? Or do you wanna kick some butt?”

Danny only had to think about it for a second before giving his clone a nod. After the day he’d had, kicking butt sounded pretty good right now. So Danny took a deep breath and allowed his ghostly form to wash over him as he and Ellie turned to face Vlad.

The oldest of the three halfas still seemed to be reeling from his shock, and Danny wasn’t going to give him the chance to recover. He looked at his clone, and they both gave each other a nod. Together, they raised their hands, and before Vlad had a chance to block or dodge the two Phantoms shot him in the chest.

The combined power of their ecto-rays sent Vlad flying backwards, and he slammed into the containment pod that held the other clone. Vlad slumped forward and faceplanted onto the concrete floor, and Danny wondered if that was it; had Vlad been knocked unconscious that easily?

But he didn’t get a chance to check. The loud creaking of metal echoed across the room, and the containment pod holding the perfect clone tipped forward. It seemed to fall in slow motion, until it landed on Vlad with a resounding CLANG, accompanied by the shattering of glass and the fizzling of electrical circuits shorting out.

Ouch. Vlad would sure be feeling that in the morning. Danny almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

Danny turned to congratulate Ellie, but faltered when he saw her face. Her mouth was set in a firm line, and her eyes looked… tired. Hurt. Distraught. When Danny rested his hand on her shoulder, he could feel the slight tremor that shook her frame, and he could only imagine what she was feeling in that moment. Betrayal, loss, fear for the future…

What would happen to Ellie now? Because there was no way Vlad would let her stay after this betrayal. Not that Ellie would possibly want to stay with him after what he had said.

Speaking of the devil, it seemed that Vlad wasn’t down for the count just yet.

The sound of creaking metal began again, and Danny watched in disbelief and Vlad pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. The destroyed pod fell to the side with a thunderous crash that shook the floor, and rolled onto its side, revealing what was left of the clone it had once held.

And it wasn’t a pretty sight. The air in the room seemed to be poisonous to the clone’s skin, judging by the way that its flesh was quickly bubbling away into slimy green goop. The clone reached for Vlad with a feeble hand, but there was nothing that could be done; its entire body disintegrated away into nothingness within mere seconds.

And that seemed to break something inside of Vlad. His solid, blood-red eyes were almost manic as a deep, guttural scream tore itself from his mouth. “NO! NO! NOOOOO!!!”

Danny didn’t know why Vlad was so upset. Sure, he had probably just seen months of his time and effort fall apart before his very eyes, but he wasn’t the one that had just watched an identical clone of himself melt like a popsicle in a microwave. Danny was sure that that scene was going to haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life.

Vlad turned on the two teens then, and he looked every bit like a bloodthirsty tiger that had cornered its prey. He snarled as he got to his feet and stalked towards them, his cape billowing behind him and making his presence just that much more intimidating.

Ellie clenched her fists and brought them up in front of her, but the way that they shook didn’t go unnoticed by Danny. “I can do this,” she whispered, and Danny wasn’t sure if he was saying it to reassure him, or herself.

Danny stepped forward and put his arm out in front of Ellie protectively. “You don’t have to,” he told her. “Get behind me, and cover your ears.”

Danny opened his mouth and took a deep breath, and he could feel the bitter cold forming inside of his ribcage, swirling into an angry blizzard that was ready to be freed. Ready to bury the man that had caused so much pain. Not only to him, but to Ellie, and to the other clones as well. He could feel his core thrumming with anger—with power.

So Danny gathered all that power into the center of his chest, closed his eyes, and released his Ghostly Wail.

The sound was deafening in the enclosed, underground room. It reverberated off of the walls and came back, seemingly growing louder and louder as it threatened to destroy all that stood in its way.

And it was pushing Vlad away. Despite the man’s best efforts, he was knocked off his feet by the sheer strength of Danny’s ecto-charged voice, and sent careening into the brick wall behind him. Cords and various instruments were ripped from the walls, and Vlad’s multi-million dollar cloning lab was destroyed in mere seconds.

Good.

Danny could feel cool liquid trickling from his ears, and his throat burned as if he was breathing fire. All too quickly, the last of his energy faded away, and Danny fell to his knees as his ghostly form fell away and left him weak and human. His arms shook with effort, and he couldn’t hear anything through the deafening ringing in his ears. He felt ready to collapse.

But it was worth it. All the pain and suffering was worth it to take this place down, and make it so that Vlad couldn’t hurt him anymore, or Ellie, or any more clones that he had planned to make.

It was worth it.

Danny’s head spun as he looked up and saw Vlad lying in a crumpled mess against the far wall. The elder halfa had reverted to his human form, as well. And it didn’t look like he would be getting up anytime soon, which was a relief. Danny didn’t have the strength left for another fight.

Ellie wrapped an arm around Danny and helped him to his feet. He could see that her mouth was moving as if she was speaking, but he couldn’t hear anything. And as he finally managed to get his own feet under him, he noticed a thin trail of green ectoplasm leaking from her ear.

Was… was that because of him?

But before Danny could say anything, a rumble shook the entire room, and the ceiling suddenly caved in. Danny knew he wouldn’t be able to get out of the way of the falling debris (and the Specter Speeder? What?) and he was sure he was about to be crushed.

But… that didn’t happen. Instead, he felt someone’s arm wrap around his waist, and pull him out of the way of the Specter Speeder with surprising strength and speed. Danny watched in shock as the Specter Speeder crashed into the wall, right where he and Ellie had been.

There… there was no way Ellie had moved him. She didn’t have the power to do that. Certainly not after their fight. So who…?

Danny saw movement from the corner of his eye: Ellie. She looked like she was yelling at someone behind him, but Danny was more distracted by the sight of Tucker and Sam climbing out of the Specter Speeder. They… they had come to rescue him? What? And how?

Honestly, Danny didn’t care. He just knew with a surety that he had the best friends in the world—scratch that. The universe. And if he could stand in that moment, then he would’ve run over and tackled them in a bone-crushing hug.

The arm that had grabbed Danny sat him gently down on the floor, and it was then that Danny remembered there was a stranger standing behind him, who had dragged him out of the way of certain death. So Danny slowly turned his head, looking away from his friends (who had run over to check on Vlad, apparently), and back at Ellie. She was still shouting, but Danny couldn’t make out the words over the ringing in his ears. And the person she was yelling at… despite the blurriness of his vision, Danny could still tell who it was.

“Thanatos…?”

The god turned at the sound of Danny’s voice, and the glowing gold of his eyes left afterimages in Danny’s vision that made him feel like he was going to be sick. Yeah, okay, so he might have a concussion… but that was better than being crushed by a two-ton flying machine.

Ellie’s eyes bugged out as she gestured wildly towards the death god standing next to her, and Danny could finally make out what she was saying. “Woah, woah, wait a minute! You know this weirdo? Who the heck is he?!”

Danny flinched as her shouting sent a shot of pain through his head. “Yeah… but could you tone it down a bit? You’re too loud…”

Ellie looked at Danny incredulously. “Could I tone it down? You’re the one making people’s eardrums rupture! Now who is this guy?! And why is he here?!”

“Oh, uhh…” Danny glanced at Thanatos, who looked equally confused, but about Ellie. He was staring at the ghost girl with a perplexed expression—as if there was something about her that he couldn’t quite place. “Thanatos? Are you—”

But Danny was cut off by Sam and Tucker, who tackled him to the ground in a group hug. He didn’t even care that them doing so reignited the pain of his many injuries; he was just so glad that they were okay; that they had come to rescue him.

“Danny!” Sam exclaimed, grinning from ear to ear as she pulled away from the hug. “You’re okay!”

“Well, somewhat okay,” Tucker commented dryly. “You don’t look too great, if I’m being honest.”

Tucker barely dodged a smack from Sam, and Danny chuckled. “What? Nah, I’m fine,” he said weakly. “Couldn’t be better. How did you guys find me, anyway?”

Tucker held up the Boo-merang with a proud smirk. “We followed this little guy across the country, and he led us right to you. It actually landed over there, with Mr. Moneybags.” Tucker jerked his thumb over his shoulder in a lazy gesture towards Vlad. “By the way, don’t worry about him causing us any trouble. I left him with the Specter Deflector as a parting gift.”

But Tucker’s triumph was disappointingly short-lived, as a pained groan echoed from the other side of the room. They all turned to look, and saw Vlad slowly pushing himself up from the rubble. Honestly, Danny was kind of impressed—the man was like a human cockroach.

Okay, that was a little rude. But Danny was allowed to be rude after the day he’d had.

Thanatos took a step forward, but Ellie was quicker. She stormed over to Vlad, her fists clenched by her sides, and delivered a swift, football-launching kick to his face before anyone else could react. There was a sickening crack when her boot met his nose, and he fell to the floor once more, definitely unconscious, and Danny was pretty sure he wouldn’t be getting up quite so quickly this time.

“Stay away from me, and my cousin,” Ellie growled.

… wow. Honestly, Ellie was kinda scary when she wanted to be.

A hand gently grabbed Danny’s shoulder, and he turned to see Thanatos kneeling next to him. The god was holding what looked like a slice of lemon bar, and he offered it to Danny. “Here. It is for your ears.”

Huh? What was wrong with his ears? Confused, Danny gingerly brought his hand to the side of his head, and when he pulled it away he saw that his fingertips were slick with a shiny red and green liquid.

Oh. That… that wasn’t good. Maybe using his Ghostly Wail in an enclosed underground area hadn’t been the best idea.

Danny took the proffered food from Thanatos and turned it over in his hand, wondering how exactly a sugary pastry would help his ruptured eardrums.

“It’s ambrosia,” Thanatos explained. “From Persephone. She told me to give it to you, since… well, you seem to get injured rather often.”

Well, Persephone certainly wasn’t wrong…

Hesitantly, Danny nibbled at the corner of the ambrosia bar. And to his surprise, he felt better almost instantly. The buzzing in his head cleared immediately, and his hearing returned to normal as all of his aches and pains quickly faded away.

Surprisingly, the ambrosia did not taste like lemons, like Danny had been expecting. Instead, it tasted like… oranges. Sweet oranges, and honey, with a hint of… cinnamon?

Strange, but the taste filled Danny with a warm, fuzzy, happy feeling. One that made him feel like a little kid again, before all the stress of school and fighting took over his life.

It reminded him of his mom.

Danny moved to take another bite, but Thanatos reached over and smoothly snatched the ambrosia away from him.

“That’s enough, Danny,” Thanatos said as he dropped the little bar into a small white satchel, which held a couple more slices of the godly food. “I don’t need you spontaneously combusting yet again.”

Thanatos handed the bag over to Danny, and gave the halfa a stern look. “This is for emergencies only,” he warned. “Use it sparingly, and do not give it to anyone else.”

Danny took the little cloth bag and stared at it, feeling rather confused (it seemed that ambrosia didn’t cure plain old stupid). “Uhh, okay… Thanks…?”

Thanatos nodded as he stood, and turned to leave. But he froze when he saw Ellie standing in his way. She was back to her human form, and scowling as she placed her hands on her hips and stared down the god of death.

“Okay, great. Danny’s fine,” she said. “And my psycho of a dad’s got a broken nose. Awesome. Now who are you?”

Thanatos seemed to be at a loss for words, but Ellie didn’t give him a chance to speak either way. “Why are you so spooky?” She continued, pointing a finger at Thanatos threateningly as she proceeded to straight up interrogate him. “Why are you wearing a dress? Why are your eyes weird? And why do you have giant pigeon wings?!”

“Hey!” Danny leapt to his feet and stepped in front of Thanatos, holding his hands out towards Ellie in a placating gesture. He knew that most ghosts seemed to become pretty spooked around Thanatos for some reason, but that didn’t mean she had to jump straight into insults. “Ellie, be nice. This is Thanatos, my mentor. Thanatos,” Danny began, turning to face said god. “This is Ellie, my…”

He trailed off. Thanatos was staring at Ellie with a haunted look in his eyes, as though he had seen a ghost (Danny facepalmed internally at the comparison; this was not the time for jokes). “Uhh, Thanatos?” Danny said, concerned. “Are… you okay?”

Thanatos flinched as if he had been struck, and glanced at his apprentice for only a split second before returning his attention to Ellie. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out at first; it was like he didn’t know what to say.

But at last, he spoke, his voice no more than a whisper, and said:

“… Dianthe?”

~~~~~~~~~~

Danny passed out, like, three times this chapter. Poor guy. People need to stop knocking him out, he doesn’t have that many brain cells left to spare!

And just so you know: DANNY IS NOT THE REINCARNATION OF DIANTHE. Promise. We know it may look like that, but that is not the case. However, please allow us to reference a line from Chapter 22 that may help you put the pieces together, if you haven’t done so already:

“Once, Danny and his mother had looked almost the same[…]”

Danny and his mother looked very similar??? Hmm… And Thanatos has seemingly mistaken Ellie for his first apprentice??? Hmm… interesting. 🤔😈

First: Prologue

Previous: Chapter 33

Next: Coming Soon!

[seatsaverheartbreaker]

The BatFam as Reputation Tracks

In anticipation of the re-recording of Taylor’s best (controversial opinion I know) album, here’s my take on which Reputation track would the bird/bat/cat anthems.

…Ready For It? - Stephanie Brown

A dramatic start to the album.

“Are you ready for it?” In Taylor’s smug tone is so Stephanie Brown coded.

“No one has to know, in the middle of the night, in my dreams, you should see the things we do” you can’t convince me that Steph doesn’t love kicking ass and being a badass hero, to the point of dreaming about her alter ego.

“Are you ready for it? Oh are you ready for it? Let the games begin, let the games begin.” Is such a cocky way for Steph to hype herself up to go out on patrol and cause some chaotic messes within Gotham.

I Did Something Bad - Damian Wayne

Okay seems obvious, being an ex assassin and all but hear me out.

“I don’t regret it one bit because he had it coming” feels like something Damian would absolutely use against Bruce to validate making a hard decision within the field, but also as an excuse for threatening to stab Tim for touching his sword.

“You gotta leave before you get left. I can feeling the flames on my skin, he says ‘don’t throw away a good thing’” feels like an instance where Damian’s abandonment issues and insecurities and self-doubt would kick in and he’d try to run away from the Manor. Dick would catch him trying to sneak out, leant back against the living room’s door with a raised brow and a brotherly expression. Of course Dick would tell him not to throw away his chance at a real family, one that loves him, and would help him seek the redemption Damian wanted.

“They say I did something bad, then why’s it feel so good?” Could refer to later when Damian starts to settle within the family, rethinking the ways he had been taught by Talia to see attachments as weakness. How could they be something bad if they brought him joy and love.

Don’t Blame Me - Bruce Wayne

The OG drama queen to the family has to get a dramatic song. This whole song represents the alter ego of Batman as a whole and you can’t convince me otherwise

“Don’t blame me, love made me crazy” his love for his parents, and his loss of them, made him just crazy enough to start dressing up as a bat and beating up bad guys.

“Just play things for me to use” could refer to his playboy behaviours but it could also refer to his cat and mouse game he plays with his villains too.

“My name is whatever you decide, and I’m just gonna call you mine” applies both to his relationship with Selina Kyle, but also his relationship to Gotham as a whole. He’s fine to be called whatever they want to, but that was his city and he will continue to protect it.

“Echoes of your name inside my mind. Halo, hiding my obsession” Bruce hides behind the Batman mantle, using the inherit goodness of it to further his obsession with the Joker and his need for revenge.

Delicate - Selina Kyle

Something about this song literally gives slinky catsuit vibes, I can’t describe why. A secret relationship due to reputations and alter ego? Sounds familiar.

“My reputation’s never been worse, so you must like me for me” Bruce saw more than just the cat burglar Selina started out as, seeing past her actions.

“We can’t make any promises, now can we babe. But you can make me a drink” is so Bruce and Selina coded it’s almost insane. They couldn’t exactly take their relationship very far due to their polar opposite alter egos’ morals. But Bruce could make her a drink.

“Echoes of your footsteps on the stairs. Stay here, honey, I don’t want to share. ‘Cause I like you” Bruce was a playboy, Selina knew that. But she really did like the billionaire underneath it all. And she wasn’t the type to share her play toys anyways.

Look What You Made Me Do - Jason Todd

I know it was obvious but I could really see Jason listening to this song as his pre-hype for patrol, loving the drama of it deep down. Every verse in this applies to his life in one way or another, with “look what you made me do” being aimed at The Joker and the criminal and Bruce.

“I don’t like your little games, don’t like your tilted stage, the role you made me play of the fool…” would be spat with pure venom at the thought of the Joker and what he did to turn Jason into the Red Hood.

“I got a list of names and yours is in red, underlined. I check it once then I check it twice.” You can’t tell me that Jason doesn’t have his own list that he ticks off as he tackles the criminal underground. It would totally be the same shade of red as his helmet too, the drama queen.

“The world moves on, another day, another drama but not for me. Not for me. All I think about is karma and the world moves on, but one thing’s for sure; baby, I got mine but you’ll all get yours” is such a Red Hood verse. While everyone got over Jason’s death, moved onwards after the second Robin, Jason was still back there buried, resurrected, left feeling an immense amount of anger and resentment. Towards Bruce for replacing him. To The Joker for murdering him. To everyone who had wronged him at one point or another. But it was okay, because he was going to help them get the karma they deserved what they did. They would all get what was coming for them.

Dancing with Our Hands Tied - Cassandra Cain

Okay this one was so hard. Besides the obvious of Cass being a dancer [I literally can’t remember if this is cannon honestly], I think this song represents her background and her need to prove herself.

“Dancing with our hands tied” could refer to her pulling punches due to her background of being raised an assassin, trying not to go too far when she first became Batgirl.

“I’m a mess but I’m a mess that you wanted” Bruce saw her potential and aided her to do the good she wanted to do. He took her into his family voluntarily even though she had made mistakes within her past, and was raised to do bad.

“People started talking, putting us through our paces, I knew there was no one in the world who could take it, I had a bad feeling” could refer to people viewing her purely as a weapon versus Bruce’s idea that she could be more. It surely raised some self doubt within Cass that maybe she couldn’t be more than what she was born to be, maybe she would always be someone who hurt people.

There’s a quiet powerfulness to this song that I think represents Cass.

Dress - Dick Grayson

Arguably one of Taylor’s horniest songs, which seems suiting for Playboy 2.0. There’s an underlining romance to it which I feel represents Golden Boy, and is totally related to his relationship with Babs.

“Our secret moments in a crowded room, they’ve got no ideas about me and you” Bruce and Dick would attend galas and charity events and Wayne Enterprise events and nobody would know that the pair were vigilantes.

“My hands are shaking from holding back from you.” Is such a Dick Grayson move. You can’t tell me this man wouldn’t have the shakiest hands when it gets down to it.

“Everyone thinks that they know us, but they know nothing about…” His alter ego was secret, his relationship was secret. Everyone thought they knew Golden Boy Dick Grayson but they didn’t know past the flash suits and the charismatic smile. The scars, the trauma, the things hidden behind steady hands in public and shaky hands in private.

“Flashback to my mistakes, my rebounds, my earthquakes, even in my worst lies, you saw the truth in me” applies not only to Barbara, and Bruce, and his whole family really, but also to the city that loved Nightwing so much.

This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things - Tim Drake

I love this little gremlin, but you can’t tell me he doesn’t blast this after someone diverts from his plans while on missions. His plan or the pettiness that may ensue. Riddled with resentment (unconscious I’m sure) and pettiness, and it kinda feels like it was written while on a coffee high???

“So why’d you have to rain on my parade? I’m shaking my head and locking the gates” he would absolutely sulk in his room afterwards, finding Jason crashing into the mission a headache and a half since the Red Hood didn’t follow instructions.

“This is why we can’t have nice things” is such a mumbled response to anything to do with his family. Dick broke the chandelier trying to show off some acrobatic trick? Jason put bullet holes in all of Bruce’s suits? Damian and Titus let Batcow out to run awry within the Manor? Stephanie hacked his twitter? This is why we can’t have nice things.

“Here’s to my baby, he ain’t reading what they call me lately” is a huge shoutout to Bernard who ignored the articles on Red Robin being caught napping on the high rise of Wayne Enterprise.

Call It What You Want - Barbara Gordon

This song is all about coming back from the lowest point.

“My castle crumble overnight, I brought a knife to a gun fight” offft this song could be so representative of Babs after what occurred with the Joker. She went from Batgirl to being a victim again, a hard thing to settle into.

“All my flowers grew back as thorns, windows boarded up after the storm, he built a fire just to keep me warm” Dick was by her side through it all, waiting in the hospital at her bedside for her to wake up. And he stayed by her side, helping light hope within her again.

“I recall late November, holding my breath, slowly I said you don’t need to save me” The fire itself turning into her becoming Oracle, taking back her power and continuing to fight for what she knew was right.

New Year’s Day - Alfred Pennyworth

This song feels very sentimental to me. It reminds me of the love Alfred showed and held for the whole Batfam, even when they weren’t at their best and made mistakes. It reminds Alfred of his memories of all of them growing up, the moments that were sparkling and filled with joy.

“But I stay when you’re lost, and I’m scared that you’re turning away” Dick would still relay on Alfred for advice, showing up with his chipper grin and a store bought cake as if he had to repay Alfred for raising him. As if he needed to repay such a thing. And Alfred would give him full attention, weighing in as a father would to his second ward.

“I want your midnights” And Alfred never minded patching up Bruce after midnight, never questioned Cass taking up the kitchen table to eat cereal early into the morning.

“You squeezed my hand three times in the back of the taxi” Cass would still reach for Alfred’s hand when he dropped her at her dance recitals, squeezing tightly with her smile before leaving him to join the audience.

“Hold onto the memories and I will hold onto you.” Jason would miraculously show up in the Wayne Manor library one night, caught by Alfred who would sit with him into the early hours of the morning. Even in the silence, Alfred didn’t want Jason left wondering if he had a place within that house. He always did, no matter his mistakes.

“Please don’t ever become a stranger who laugh I could recognise anywhere.” Was something Alfred never wanted to happen to his family. While they might not all live within the Manor, he still encouraged them to return home. He loved that family more than he could put into words.

Special Mention

Getaway Car - Harley Quinn

This song is Harley’s emancipation anthem and you can’t convince me otherwise.

“I wanted to leave him, I needed a reason” The Batman gave her that reason, seeing how their cat and mouse game represented love to the Joker more than Harley’s affections ever did.

“Think about the place where you first met me.” Has a whole new meaning now.

“It was the great escape, the prison break. The light of freedom on my face, but you weren't thinkin' and I was just drinkin'. While he was runnin' after us, I was screamin', "Go, go, go!" But the three of us, honey, it’s a sideshow and the circus ain’t a love story” side eye. What was that about the Bats obsession with the Joker? Harley always saw it, she just didn’t know how deep it really went. Until he abandoned her to drown within their getaway car, being rescued by The Bat himself.

“Ridin' in a getaway car. I was cryin' in a getaway car. I was dyin' in a getaway car. Said goodbye in a getaway car.” Her love and affections for The Joker was her Getaway Car and she had finally said goodbye to it. She betrayed him to the Bat and switched sides, not quite a hero but no longer a villain.

[jennycalendar]

coming back with some more thoughts on ted lasso --

i did not like how they handled sam. i think it's a mark of progress and how far things have come but at the same time a spotlight on the new problems created by underlying racism/racial anxiety, even within the most loving narrative.

sam's storyline was all over the place! there is definitely a through-line, but none of the things he faces are about him Growing and Learning, really, because he is Already Perfect And Good. his narrative purpose is to serve as an example of how a good dad can positively impact you going forward, which is great, but they will just throw random shit at him like the stuff w/ edwin akufo and then just never fully resolve it! i think it's so so clear that they were making an effort to research and represent nigerian culture, which is wonderful in and of itself, but there is this really sticky issue with race within ted lasso that keeps showing up and i do not like it.

edwin akufo is a one-note character who shows up, torments sam, and then disappears from the narrative after he is bested by rebecca, without ANY explanation as to how this besting impacts his stuff with sam. are we to assume that, because his plans for a football league fell through, he's backed off re: sam? his frankly obscene amount of wealth which the narrative CONSTANTLY alludes to is very clearly more than enough for him to torment sam until the end of time, and he very clearly expresses a desire to do this -- yet the finale shows sam ostensibly a part of the nigerian team, with no bumps or hiccups! edwin akufo is never brought up again!

and also like, shandy? why was she necessary? we have only had two women of color in semi-regular roles and one of them is presented as an impulsive, unkind, selfish nightmare. it really fucking sucked to see that, and it feels weird that ted lasso's line of defense against negative portrayals of women of color is having one Really Really Good One and one Really Incredibly Bad One. there was no need for shandy to be a woman of color if her entire point was to Be Terrible and Then Leave. she was a wholly unnecessary character to begin with & to make her a woc is just icing on top of the cake.

BUT I DIGRESS. i'm bugged the most by sam because, outside of nate, he is the nonwhite character who gets the most screen time! (and the fandom racism towards nate TURNS MY STOMACH, but that is not actually an issue that exists within the text of the show itself, so i'll leave that alone!) i think there was definitely an understanding within the writers' room that portraying a dark-skinned black man as sensitive, soft, and emotionally intelligent was a deeply important move for representation, but they just did not go that extra mile and actually create a consistent storyline for sam. he could have absolutely been that gentle, perfect guy without throwing in That Cartoon Villain Ghanaian Billionaire who shows up to yell at him and be terrible and ruin his life (and then, after one angsty episode in s3, disappear without explanation, clearing the way for sam to do whatever he wants).

it kinda reminds me of colin -- that finale bugged me re: him too a little! certainly it was utterly wonderful to see him kiss his fella at the end of the game, but the way we left things with him was very clearly "the team knows, and that's enough for me." this guy has been closeted for the entire time he's been a football player. telling the team was already so much more than he ever planned to do. kissing his boyfriend in public in the middle of the pitch, where any number of cameras would likely have picked up on them both??? PEOPLE ARE GOING TO SEE THAT. i found that one really hard to swallow as well.

it just bugs me because there is absolutely this understanding of systemic oppression that hovers around the edges of ted lasso, but then they will do things like everything that they did with sam! an awareness that There Is A Problem, but no time spent on the solution. and i totally understand that, tonally speaking, systemic oppression is not ted lasso's focus -- but this season they went out of their way to Make It Their Focus! & yet we get this absolutely bizarre storyline for sam where they just don't tell us what happened or why akufo backed down or ANYTHING. despite multiple hour-long episodes this season. don't like it.

[mousecolor]

Anime I’ve Been Watching Recently (April 2023)

Giant Gorg

I’m a few episodes into this kids adventure show from the 80s and I’m obsessed with it. It’s got the typical genre crew: boy protag, girl, nerd, heavy, giant robot and dog mascot. The villain is an evil nepo baby trying to earn his billionaire inheritance by taking over a fictional island in the South Pacific for his family’s mega corporation. He is basically what the characters of Succession think they are. 

This show also contains some pretty heinous racial caricature of Black people, to the extent I would be remiss not to bring it up. It’s mostly background characters, so far main characters with dark skin are depicted sensitively. 

Here’s what I like about the show: the protagonists are constantly killing people. After the last few years of working in kids media and building a laundry list of pretty benign stuff I’m not allowed to depict in kids comics, (can’t show a kid prick their finger on a cactus, can’t show a kid use scissors that are too big, can’t show a mom greet a kid with a neutral expression, she has to be ecstatic) I have to admit I’m pretty jealous of a show where the protagonists get a tank and fire it at evil capitalists. I know this is kind of like being nostalgic for when gasoline had lead in it. 

Gorg has also had a couple scenes that were genuinely creepy and scary. Those scenes usually are completely silent, something really rare in kids cartoons. I’m excited to see where Giant Gorg goes.

Kanon

I came across this while browsing and, based solely on the image above, I correctly deduced that it was based on an erotic visual novel from the 90s. I felt like a genius when I looked it up and saw I was right, then I felt ashamed I had amassed enough experience rubbing elbows with such media that i could identify it immediately. Is there a term for this? The skills we acquire by accident in pursuit of our hobbies?

Anyway this show is complete schlock based on an eroge and it still made me laugh out loud and cry actual tears. 

I also got the feeling I got when I first read “Night on the Galactic Railroad” and other stories by Kenji Miyazawa in that I was realizing how many manga and anime had been influenced by his work. I had been encountering work inspired by, responding to, and reaching for his work for years, but I had never read the original text. Suddenly he was everywhere. Similarly, I realize now I’ve been encountering works responding to Kanon for ages now. 

I was curious about how adapting a romance visual novel for a TV show would work out. Each girl gets her own pollen, slightly interwoven with all the others, and the show spends a few episodes introducing them all at once, then goes through each girl’s story line one by one. In a VN the storyline would culminate in a love confession and the couple getting together, but for a show that still has a few more girls for the protagonist to get close to, each storyline culminates in something akin to a love confession, then the girl gets conveniently removed from the story. Mostly they get put in the hospital. 

I really like how the supernatural elements are introduced in the show, which is bit by bit, and then all at once. The girl with the most implausible, magical storyline is explored first, so the rest seem completely believable in comparison. 

The show did become a little one-note in that all of the plot lines culminate with the girl (or someone close to her) being sick or injured. There are a million scenes of girls languishing in hospital beds or tending to someone doing the same. I don’t know what any of the sex scenes in the VN were like, but this almost felt more perverse. By the end of the show, almost the entire cast is in the hospital. 

Anyway, I loved it!

Record of Lodoss War (OVA)

I first saw this years and years ago as a little kid. I got the DVDs from my local game rental place, which had a tiny rack of anime tapes and DVDs for rent. It was really fun to compare what the show actually is against my memories.

Anyway, this show looks great. At no point did the story or characters surprise me in any way. I loved looking at it but I was also enduring it.

[thesandsofelsweyr]

HOLLOWED OUT

《 CH4 // FILLED BACK UP WITH HATE // PART 2 》

When Jason saw that photo of Batman and his new Robin, the thin cord of hope holding him together had snapped and he had broken into a million pieces. No one was coming for him. Not one single person on the planet cared whether he lived or died, or how much he suffered, or how loud he screamed. No one except the Clown. He was Joker’s now, and he would say or do anything to get a reprieve from the torment and the pain, even if it meant letting himself be reduced to something less than human.

《RATING》 🔞 Mature 《WORDS》 866 《CHAPTERS》 4/6

《CHARACTERS》 Jason Todd/Robin, Joker, Bruce Wayne (mentioned), Dick Grayson (mentioned)

《TROPES》 Hurt No Comfort, Angst, Whump, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat

《WARNINGS》 Dehumanization, Bathing/Washing, Master/Pet, Collars, Ownership, Brainwashing, Humiliation, Non-Consensual Touching, Torture, Mindfuck, Scars, Suicidal Thoughts, Self-Loathing, Past Child Abuse, Daddy Issues, Forced Nudity, Swearing

《SERIES》 Part 4 of My Arkhamverse, Part 4 of Ruined

《NOTES》

What’s this? TWO UPDATES in less than a week??? 😎

This fic is my pride & joy! It was the first thing I published after a 5+ year hiatus, and the longest story I've ever written by far!

This fic is also dark so be aware of the tags (especially the DD:DNE tag)

My Arkhamverse canon is a mix of game canon and Arkham Knight: Genesis canon. I pick and choose what I like best 😉

If you enjoy the read please consider kudosing, commenting, and reblogging ❤️

《 ALSO ON AO3 》 (comments & kudos there are very much appreciated)

After the Clown finished butchering Jason’s hair to his satisfaction, he exchanged the scissors for the bar of soap and the wet rag, which he worked into a sudsy lather. Then, as gently as a lover, he took Jason’s chin in hand and tilted his face up. Jason tried to keep his tearful eyes downcast, but the insistent pinch of his jaw between thumb and bony forefinger was all the warning he needed to obey. When their eyes met, Jason’s insides twisted into knots while Joker’s painted lips skinned back from his yellow teeth and he crowed: “There’s those beautiful baby blues!”

Joker’s shark-like grin never left his lips as he scrubbed away months of grime, blood, and old tears from Jason’s upturned face, paying special attention to the raw ‘J’ that still burned on his cheek. The branding iron might’ve scorched away those nerve endings, but the memory of that agony still blazed as hot as the moment that unforgiving metal sank into his flesh, leaving behind the permanent mark of ownership. The tears that always welled up at the thought of his disfigured face edged his pale blue eyes, clinging to his lower lashes. He tried to blink them away, to swallow down the lump in his throat, but the Clown still noticed, and his own green eyes glittered with sadistic glee.

“Oh, don’t be so glum, chum,” Joker soothed. “You’re gonna be the talk of the town when I’m through with you. Gotham’s newest sweetheart! You may even knock your billionaire ex-daddy off his princely pedestal.”

Again with the star talk. What the hell is he gonna do to me? Joker probably wanted to film himself putting a drill through Jason’s skull so he could upload it to YouTube for clown clout. He wouldn’t die of course. Oh no. The Clown would make him a vegetable. Or better yet, he’d survive like the dude who had the railroad spike—or was it a crowbar? Heh, fitting—driven through his brain. Maybe he’d end up with a new personality like that dude, but he’d definitely still be around for more torture.

He vaguely remembered telling Joker about Bruce and his wardship. That was the nail gun, I think. He flexed his gnarled fingers as the memory pieced itself back together like a jigsaw puzzle. He’d started singing his entire life’s history once the fingers and palm of his left hand were nailed to the desk and the Clown was starting on his right. At least I haven’t told him Bruce’s secret. Joker hadn’t asked though, and at this point he wasn’t sure if he could still keep that secret once the Clown started “encouraging” him to talk.

At first, when this hell was just beginning, he’d been proud. Proud that he hadn’t broken when the Clown used the drill and the blowtorch on him. Proud that, instead of crying or begging, he’d taunted and cursed the Clown between screams while his fingernails were ripped out one by one. Proud that he hadn’t failed Batman, that he hadn’t disgraced the mantle of Robin.

He’d been trained for this, of course; for a situation where he was held captive and tortured. There had even been torture simulations: electric shocks, waterboarding, force-feeding, solitary confinement, stress positions, sleep and sensory deprivation—all the shit they did at Guantanamo Bay—closely monitored by Bruce and Alfred. He remembered gloating to Dick about destroying his record, after holding out much longer than the first Robin had. Wonder how long the new kid lasted. He’d been taught to keep his captors talking, to play for time while he waited for Batman. The simulations had lasted for a month, not six-plus months. And Batman was always supposed to come rescue him at the end…

An insidious thought wormed its way into his brain and pierced his broken heart. If Dick Grayson was the one rotting in this pit, Bruce would’ve torn Gotham apart to find him. A tear slipped from his lashes and trickled down his soapy cheek. Grayson: the golden boy, the perfect Robin, the blueprint for all of Batman’s future partners. Grayson didn’t break bad guys’ collarbones. Grayson didn’t steal Bruce’s Lambo and get arrested for drunk driving. Grayson didn’t beat a rapist to a bloody pulp, then stand aside while the piece of shit staggered and fell off his own penthouse balcony. Grayson didn’t watch the scumbag splatter on the pavement below with a satisfied smile on his face. Bruce would’ve believed Dick when he said the man fell. But not Jason. Not the juvie he pulled off the street, the unwanted spawn of two degenerate tweakers. Not the stopgap solution until Bruce could find a Robin that measured up to the first. Not the loser who ran off to kill the Clown and got his dumbass captured instead. I’m sorry I wasn’t a better partner, a better son. I tried… I always tried…

Joker finished with his face, dabbing the remaining suds away with the hot pink loofah before tossing it aside, retrieving the rag, and lifting Jason’s left arm.

Then he started singing his stupid fucking song again.

“♫ Gray skies are gonna clear up, put on a happy face… ♫”

[dominiquewildauthor]

Tag Game: Find the Words

I got tagged by @queerfictionwriter to find "Hiss," "Fire," and "Breathe." Thank you! This was fun. It's my original fiction, not fanfic, and mostly not WIPs, but hope that doesn't matter.

For Hiss, here's something from Sinful Liaisons, a MFM shibari polyamorous novel:

“I’ve missed you,” Peter murmured. “You mean you missed this?” Sarah joked, grabbing his hard cock through his jeans. He hissed. “Yeah, definitely that.” But he reached down and cupped her face in his hands. His green eyes were surprisingly serious. “I miss you. We haven’t talked much the last couple of weeks, and I miss it. It’s weird knowing I can kiss you now, but not being able to because I worry that everything I do with you looks suspicious.”

For Fire I have a bit from The Sinful Billionaire, a MF novel with D/s and impact play, which is on pre-order right now:

“No, I didn’t believe you. I thought you were boasting.” He made an amused noise, and she felt bold enough to continue. “Most men are, when they say something like that.” The whip whistled and stung her shoulder. It was a firm hit that left streaks of fire in its wake. “Was I boasting?” Before she could answer he blew gently across her shoulder. It set the streaks of fire into sharp relief, like she could still feel the textured impact of braided leather on her skin, still feel the gnarled knots at the end of each tail bite into and drag across her flesh. It sent a rush of pleasure to her brain so sharp that her vision went dark for a moment.

For Breathe I have something from Bittersweet Release, a MF short erotica with D/s and very heavy pain play:

My anticipation is sharp, cutting through the noise in my mind to amplify the need that’s about to burst out of me. Breathe. In, out. Get centered, get ready. He squats down and lifts my chin to look at him and I’m nearly undone. He looks the same as last I saw him: neatly trimmed beard, tanned skin, blond hair a little flattened from wearing a hard hat all day. Green eyes furrowed with concern.

I'm tagging: @three-red-horns , @thebibliosphere, @thisdiscontentedwinter, @bunnywest, @shiraglassman, @rebekahweatherspoon. Y'all are all the romance authors I know on Tumblr, and some of you I've never "met." Hello! I'd love to see your words!

Words: Deep, Jump, Surround.

[benbamboozled]

Civilian au Robinpile

Just, useless rich boy Damian finally moved out of the house because "he's an adult" and "he does not need to be coddled". Except he doesn't know how to cook so he always orders ubereats because his usual delivery guy Timothy is very prompt and professional and really cute. And then Damian accidentally breaks something and YouTube has failed him and he calls a repair guy and are they supposed to be that attractive? It feels illegal to be as attractive as Mr.Grayson (Mother would skin him alive if he called such a man Dick). And speaking of Damian's mother, how dare she hire a tutor of all things. (Talia doesn't want her son to be a college drop out like his father) and Damian will tell this Todd fellow that his services are not needed an- wow Damian's never seen eyes that color before. And the man is almost as tall as Damian and he's very hot and Damian is so fucking gay he seems to be an adequate enough tutor. After a pointed comment on the status of Damian's apartment's cleanliness Damian hires someone to clean and he didn't ask for a blonde bombshell who is a maid to pay for college but he's not going to complain about Miss Brown.

Actually, this sounds like a dating sim, fuck it it's a dating sim now with all of the robins as routes with extra routes such as TA Duke and "Why is Damian's grandfather so fucking weird why did he hire a swordmaster" Cassandra.

True route is finding out how they all know each other and Damian getting gangbanged by all of them in a polycule of doom.

Okay 1–yes I love all of this yes please YASSS.

2–OKAY I GENUINELY WANT A BATFAM OTOME/VN!!

IT’S SUCH AN EASY SETUP???

Like, a myyysterious mansion, so many hot people, a sexy billionaire with a SECRET prone to taking in young people with problems (you/the MC, OBVIOUSLY).

(Maybe you’re a recently orphaned Distant Wayne Cousin who has Nowhere Else To Go.)

Okay but see my perfect version would be like Hatoful Boyfriend, wherein it seems at first like it’s a quirky otome game…but after you’ve completed a few storylines, things kick in to TWELFTH GEEEEAR and get INTENSE.

I mean, it’s a Batman game, right? There SHOULD be some kind of BIG MYSTERY secretly driving the whole plot.

(OOH OOH maybe partway through “you” realize that this entire thing has been a simulation, and that you’re actually helping to keep them prisoner by entertaining their minds? And you can go yandere and keep them or choose to free them, which means effectively ending yourself?)

ANYWAY, point is, I love the original concept for Damian, AND there shoulda been a Batfam VN yesterday.

[literaticat]

The "these publishers are kids at a school" question but ALL THE OTHER PUBLISHERS, please and thank you #hilarious

OK well not all of them, come on. But a lot of them!

Here's PART ONE if you missed it -- the question is, if various publishers were kids in a school, how would you describe them. Bear in mind that THIS IS ALL FUN AND JOKES AND VIBES, don't come at me, I'm not insulting anyone, I love the publishers! xoxo

PART TWO:

FSG Macmillan – A serious-minded girl but never a stick-in-the-mud, FSG is the daughter of two professors (English Literature and Sociology). She goes to a Waldorf school, so she doesn’t watch TV or anything, mostly she does art with potatoes and leaves and things, though unlike many Waldorf kids, she learned to read quite early on her own. Her parents give her the run of their library, and she has a flair for the dramatic and can recite just about anything so it will give you chills. She’s also passionate about social justice issues; she’s allowed to take the subway to rallies and protests with friends, where she brandishes her home-made signs with gusto!

Roaring Brook Macmillan – FSG’s younger sister. She’s more of a sporty type, plays soccer, and is outside all the time – if you don’t know where she is, you are likely to find her up a tree with skinned knees and a bunch of weird rocks in her pocket. (She also gathers the raw materials for FSG’s art). She’s too young to take the subway without an adult but she IS allowed to have a knife, with which she whittles funny little woodland creatures that look like they could come alive. It’s really a gift!

Holt Macmillan – Roaring Brook’s twin brother. A rough-and-tumble lad with a sweet but slightly naughty disposition. The prank situation is LIT at their house. Like his sisters, he’s a Waldorf kid – but unlike them, this dude is desperate for screen time! He is not allowed to take the subway, but he IS allowed to go to his neighbor Scholastic’s house, at which he watches all the TV shows and plays all the video games he can possibly cram into his eyeballs – his parents pretend not to know. He is NOT allowed to touch his sister’s knife!

Scholastic – He’s in public school, where he’s the class clown. He still has an imaginary friend, an invisible big red dog which he says he rides to school and who stays on the playground while he is in class. When he’s not looking out the window, he’s cutting up and getting into scrapes. His parents are the school principal and a librarian, and they are a little worried that he’s having TOO much fun, but also don’t have the heart to discipline him. He’ll grow out of it! Holt is his buddy.

Balzer & Bray HarperCollins – Twins! These girls are little private-school influencers already – they travel all over, they are sophisticated beyond their years but still like to have fun – they just have quite a polished way about them. They were raised by their mother, a Disney-channel celebrity turned ‘mommy-blogger’ who featured the twins heavily in her social media and gave them this shiny, commercial persona, but now they have spun off into their own thing. Their grandfather is a meglomaniacal billionaire who, we assume, is friends with Tr**p. Let’s not mention it, they certainly won’t! They don’t take the subway, they get Uber Blacks.

Greenwillow HarperCollins – More introverted than her sisters or best friend FSG, and might seem like a head-in-the-clouds dreamer if you don’t know her – but really, she’s low-key funny and brilliant, just somewhat introverted, and not a show-off – she just keeps her head down and does consistent, great work -- but very much on her own timeline, not really paying attention to other people's expectations. (She also plays tennis solidly -- not heading to Wimbledon or anything, but she's really good. And, she can throw darts expertly -- who would have thought?) She’s probably going to be the one who suddenly goes to college at age 14 or wins the Amazing Race or something and everyone’s like “huh! Didn’t see that coming!” She doesn’t take the subway, she walks.

Clarion – Recently adopted into the HarperCollins clan as an older kid, she does feel a little like she needs to work to keep up with their fast talking and inside jokes, but she does well most of the time and is learning to fit in. She’s just a little more serious – but luckily for her therapist, she doesn’t have the baggage of having been raised with the billionaire. She is also into social justice and slam poetry, and I don't want to embarrass her, but she may have a little crush on both Abrams *and* FSG. In the family, she gets along best with her sister Greenwillow, and walks to school with her.

Knopf – this girl is CLASSY. Like you know how sometimes people are described as “American Royalty” or something? That’s Knopf, babe. Glamorous, a bit mysterious, superb taste, plays piano and flute expertly, aces the tests, everyone wants to be friends with her or pretends to be friends with her. Even adults perk up when they see her coming – the power! She and Little Brown are often vying for the same awards, lacrosse titles, class prez votes, etc. Her parents are a reclusive movie star and the scion of an old-money New York family, but nobody has ever seen them, not even the nosy PTA moms – the rumor is that they live in their villa in Lake Como full time and Knopf lives alone in NYC in a houseful of servants. (There is some truth to the rumor, but it's not the whole truth). She doesn’t take the subway, she has a driver.

Random House BFYR, PRH – (goes by Randi because her real name is a mouthful let’s be honest). A bubbly, vivacious kid who brings a smile to people’s faces – she’ll probably be a cheerleader when she gets to high school. She’s a good friend, popular and outgoing, but unlike her cousin Knopf, there’s little mystery to her – she’s really an open book. Her parents are a doctor and a SAHM, she loves puppies and baking cupcakes and wants to be on a kids baking reality show OR an animal rescue show. She does Girl Scouts, and she's on the soccer team with Roaring Brook. She doesn’t take the subway, her mom drives her in their Volvo and picks up her friends, as well. 

[terrence-silver]

How would Terry in any era feel about beloved being overwhelmed, not because the don’t love him, but because they are nervous about their new life with him and finding it hard to adjust? beloved didn’t come from money and feels out of place.

Thing is, Terry's life as a Billionaire functions a bit like Westworld.

Think about it like that.

He has settings.

He can afford to have settings.

The Malibu beach-house setting pertaining to a certain lifestyle and persona? The gothic, castle-like Beverly Hills Glendower mansion of the 80's pertaining to a certain lifestyle and persona? Him behaving like the struggling, humble Karate teacher living in a run down studio while striving to trick Daniel --- which yes, was also a persona. You name it! What I mean to say is; if beloved with a class distinction vastly different from his own finds it hard to adjust right away, which is understandable and something Terry would predict and ponder, he can give them any setting they'd feel more comfortable in while learning how to navigate, research, enjoy and even understand the in's and out's of his elite background and all the money it inherently comes with. It is a sort of game to him. Finding pleasure in beloved’s little pocket world he designed for them. Skins exist so they can be shed accordingly. Chameleons exist to blend in. Terry gives beloved a space they can blend with, seamlessly so.

Personalities are masks sometimes.

Revenues are dollhouses to him.

They want a cozy, furnished sea-side patio that is tactically and very deliberately equipped to look, what is in his opinion 'ordinary' while actually costing ten million dollars due to the beautiful, exclusively exuberant location alone? The type of stuff the famous wait years to get? Yes, sure. They want a commonplace rental apartment he covers the expenses for and which he owns...alongside the rest of the building and probably half of the surrounding block? Okay. Done deal! They want to live in an actual cabin he has especially commissioned to encompass a certain rustic charm beloved prefers and finds solace and a sense of homeliness in? If beloved wants it, beloved will get it. Illusions can sometimes be more real than reality to the one enjoying them --- Terry should know. Basically, he is wealthy enough to afford beloved the illusion of their own life, their own habits and give it to them on a silver platter all while at the same time still holding them in the gilded cage of insurmountable riches.

Beloved can take their sweet time getting used Terry being a Billionaire.

Why? Because he'll makes sure the rules are adapted in their favour.

Doesn't just stop with a habitat or a personal dwelling place from an aesthetic point of view. Bleeds into everything beloved does. Craves. Needs. Wants. Likes and dislikes. Terry can ensure they never even notice or outright feel the weight of his own wealth in the classical sense if it truly causes beloved distress. It is always there and the safety net it provides, but never in beloved's face. Terry surrounds beloved with things they themselves enjoy in abundance (and things Terry enjoys through them), essentially lavishing them, while for the time being, avoiding to do so under the guise of sheer materialism pertaining to the mega-rich (imagine the difference between Terry gifting beloved a red Lamborghini versus a car they actually like and feel comfortable driving), meaning that beloved will always be happy, feel his devotion, never lack a thing, but also --- never feel like they don’t belong because his world is made theirs.

[everydayesterday]

happy international women's day.  when asked about women who inspire them, men usually just say their mothers (at least that's what professional athletes do), which is a cop-out because their eyes are willfully closed.  so, for an actual answer, her are five women that inspire me:   marie-philip poulin - she's a hockey legend now.  she's got 3 olympic gold medals, 3 world championships, and she's always the one leading the way in scoring, and with clutch timing on game-defining plays (seriously, she's scored the game winning goal in all 3 of the olympics she's won with canada; she's known as "Captain Clutch").  it's unreal how much she dominates.   debbie - she runs the wildlife conservation center that I'll be volunteering with.  it's such a personal thing for her that the center is actually located in her backyard.  she also coordinates transportation of injured animals to other specialized rehabilitation clinics from all over tennessee, and leads education programs for kids and adults alike at the nature center.   rihanna - forget her music (but I do like a few of her songs), I am in awe of what she did with fenty.  she saw a market that was underserved and built an empire.  while the traditional makeup brands seemed focused on lighter skins (one of those systemic racial issues; the lack of minority leadership in large corporations), she brought darker skintones, a rainbow of browns, to be a priority of hers/fenty.  and now she's a billionaire.��  elizabeth warren - she's a politician, and sometimes it feels like it; sometimes she pushes/supports neo-liberal policy that I don't agree with, or doesn't take a strong enough stand (like voting "present" about the Green New Deal).  but, she's very willing to step forward and run for important positions, and she hasn't been afraid to push for bold progress, calling for single-payer healthcare, employee representation in corporate leadership, greater taxation of the wealthy and of corporations, and reforming campaign finance laws.  she is the reason the consumer financial protection bureau exists.  another politician I could name her would be alexandra ocasio-cortez, who is unafraid in the face of threats and cruel, demeaning propaganda.   edith wharton - I think she's my favourite author; she's certainly the author of my favourite book: twilight sleep.  in 1921 she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.  her writing is so, so vibrant.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Introductions

So apparently I have new people following this mishegoss. Hi, new people. Welcome to Thess vs the World. There’s beanbag chairs and hot drinks. Now. Quick overview of what you’re in for in the form of a sort of “This Is Me” post.

Femme nonbinary panromantic asexual. I’m fine with ‘she’ for the paperwork but my gender is functionally ‘eh, whatever’. I am aggressively sex-positive for other people in that I want everyone who wants it to have it safely, consensually, and with as much enjoyment as possible, but for me personally it’s a big ol’ nope.

Following on from that, I truly believe that homophobes, biphobes, transphobes etc are the world’s biggest hypocrites in that they seem to keep saying that the LGBTQIA+ community is degenerate and sick and deviant but they’re the ones who have a truly unhealthy interest in the contents of people’s pants and what people choose to consensually do with the contents of said pants. So who’s the weirdo now, bigots?

On the subject of bigotry: race is complicated. I do not feel that people should be judged solely by the colour of their skin. However, the “I don’t see colour” bullshit is just as damaging, because it erases so much, not only in terms of accountability for centuries of oppression but also centuries of unique and beautiful culture, which deserves respect instead of the appropriation it so often gets. Basically I believe in a combination of equality and equity, where we try to aim for a world where everyone’s cultural and racial backgrounds are accepted and respected but not judged. On a related note, fuck the monoculture.

Billionaires should not exist. Full stop. End of statement. If you’ve made more than ... I’ll be generous and say five million ... you get a plaque that says “I Won Capitalism” and everything else you make from that point on gets funnelled into initiatives like universal basic income, universal healthcare, free public transport and civic and national infrastructure. Honestly, the global economy is currently this bit of magical-thinking bullshit with no grounding in anything like reality, balancing the books by treating human beings like things - and not even the most important things to keep the business going, which they blatantly are.

Disabled people’s lives are hard enough without them being told that they don’t look or act ‘disabled enough’ to be worth even sympathy, never mind aid. Disbled people are not your inspiration porn. As a reminder: “survival of the fittest” is about survival on a species level, not an individual member of said species’ level, and human beings wouldn’t have survived long enough to use our thumbs and forebrains to climb to the top of the food chain if we hadn’t helped each other do so. If we can find fossils of prehistoric people who lived decades after a debilitating injury because they were cared for by their communities, why can’t we do the same now?

The arts need to be valued for more than just their material worth. Everyone who produces something that entertains people should have enough to live on. Degrees in art, literature, theatre, game design etc are not “wastes of time” or “hobby degrees”, and deserve the same respect as any other degree. After all, how empty would our lives be without the people who provide our entertainment? How drab would our lives be without the people who provide our art? PAY YOUR ARTISTS, AND LET THEM LEARN THEIR TRADE WITHOUT MOCKING THEIR ‘HOBBY DEGREE’.

That’s my basic belief system - sums up to “try to be kind to people because you don’t know what they’re going through ... until they’re treating someone else like shit, at which point UNLEASH HELL”. It’s people’s actions that should lose or gain them respect, not their religious beliefs, sexuality, gender presentation, skin colour, physical / mental ability level, or anything else about who they are. It’s what you do that matters.

Now for the more basic bits and pieces: I work part-time doing medical typing for a histology lab. I’ve worked as a medical secretary for about 25 years now, mostly temping (it sucked, by the way; temp roles are hell). I live in the UK and desperately wish I could move because this whole country is getting worse than the US was under Trump, but I can’t afford to move. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia about a year and a half ago, and spend most of my time in significant pain. Still, I try not to let that stop me from doing things I love, and seeking out things I love, because life’s too short, honestly.

I write. I am a Forever DM, and happy to be that way. I garden. I cook pretty damn well, if I say so myself. I truly love making things - resin casting, candles, soap, scent oils blends, bath bombs, and recently branched out into candy. I love most genres of music and most genres of book. I love video games (but can’t play first-person ones because it triggers migraines - woe). I love Lego. I love my friends. Basically, for a person who self-identifies as a grumpy-ass cynic about most things, I love a lot of things and I love them hard. Especially my friends. I’ll cope if you try to hurt me; you hurt my friends and you will regret it. They are what I value most in my life, you see.

So that’s me. I don’t figure anybody who’s newly following me is overly surprised by any of this, but if somehow it does - if you’re a racist, if you’re a TERF, if you’re a bigot in any way - you might want to unfollow. I am unapologetically socialist in my political and economic outlook, and ... well, basically I run the gamut between Social Justice Bard and Social Justice Barbarian.

So welcome to the madhouse. If you think you’ll be happy here, settle in. I’m making more maple sugar candy this week. I can only virtually share it, but it’s the thought that counts?