#mostly just their dead clones but still they're relevant

[spacedace]

Here be the first little bit of the new DP x DC AU I warned about earlier where Tim, due to his constant repeated attempts at cloning Bart & Kon, accidentally summons slightly eldritch Elle who is very interested in what he’s up to.

As always feel free to run with this as a prompt if yall find anything here interesting :D

*

Tim didn’t mean to summon her.

He’d been in the lab, staring at the data on the latest failed attempts at cloning Kon and Bart and feeling like he was cracking in two. Eyes burning, chest tight, world spinning out into shifting impossible shadows around him as his mind and body struggled to push him forward into another day without sleep. The hush of water in the tanks, his unsteady steps on the cement floor, the chill seeping into his bones.

He stumbled and swayed through the maze of the lab, numbers dripping like blood down the screen as he tried to stare at the figures. He needed to try again, needed to bring them back, in whatever capacity he could. This time would work. This time he’d get it right.

When he saw her, feet clumsy as he rounded a corner, he thought she was just another hallucination.

How could she be anything else?

Skin like a polished mirror, hair like the white-hot flash of lightning, eyes as green as the depths of the Lazarus Pits. She floated before a tank, spectral and strange with a long wisping tail that drifted off into nothingness in place of legs, body shifting and changing before his eyes in ways that bodies should not be able to. Outside of the eyes the face was…not there. An impression of the shapes that you’d expect to see in a human face, like the Question’s. Sometimes though the features defined, sharpened. Mirror bright skin crackling as faces took shape in the glass.

In the low light of the lab, he almost imaged one of those faces was Kon’s. Dimples and freckles and high cheek bones and the slant of a silhouette that haunted Tim’s dreams at night. A flicker of her lightining hair and it was gone. Smoothed back into soft blankness once more.

He watched from the of the aisle as she lifted too-long mirror shard fingers and rest them gently on the glass as she seemed to peer in at the lifeless body inside.

Attempt 76.

One of his tries with Bart. The organs hadn’t grown right during the age-up process. Tim had cried for that one as he had for all the others. As he had for Bart and Kon when they had died. As he still did as the fact that it was more maddened grief than hope that kept him pushing forward anyway.

He closed his eyes to the hallucination at the end of the aisle. Breathed deep and steady. It might be gone when he opened his eyes again. It might not be. It might be something - someone - else when he dares look next. He’d been through this time and time again over the days and weeks he’d been throwing himself at this agonizing wall. The only difference this time was the intricate strangeness, the total lack of recognition he had for the figure, baring the moment he almost saw Kon in its face.

Coffee. Maybe some harder stimulants, if he had any left. New data to review, new attempts to be made. He didn’t have time for the effects of sleep deprivation.

Tim opened his eyes.

He jerked back as he came face to face with himself, warped and strange and green in the reflective face of the being where it now hovered so close that if it breathed he would feel it upon his face.

She tilted her head at him, curious. Hands rose to cup his face, rest on his shoulders, wrap around his arms, cradle his hands. More hands than he’d seen before. More hands than he was able to truly comprehend, stomach souring as his eyes stung and strained in the attempt to look at the impossible warping of her body. Despite the glint of shattered glass that made up her fractured palms and splintered silver fingers, her hands were soft and warm where they curled around him. Almost human in the way they held him in place, the hold pleasantly firm.

He’d never had a doting elder aunt to pinch his cheeks and demand to get a look at him, but he imagined this might be what that felt like. The way the being shifted her head from side to side, his reflection warping in the curved reflection of the planes of her featureless face, added to the strange idea. His hallucinations didn’t normally touch him, though. And never so…kindly.

Tim felt his blood go cold as he realized it might not be a figment of his fracturing mind floating before him.

Swallowing nervously, he tried to shift backwards, to slip out of the many grasping hands before the softness turned sharp and began to cut into him. He felt something cool against the back of his legs, hair standing on end as static electricity built up on his skin where he brushed the trailing tail he hadn’t noticed her curl around him. The entity leaned in close, the depthless green of her glowing eyes consuming Tim’s entire field of vision, and he was flooded by the sudden, horrible awareness of being Known.

The world fell away from him, his stomach lurching with the sick-sweet feel of free fall that used to exhilarate him when he’d first become Robin and had flown from rooftops dangling by his grapple and his belief in the magic being Robin instilled in him. The lab, the equipment, the piles of data and desperate scribbles, the failed clones, Tim himself. All swept away in the flood of green and the roar of lightning and the cool press of glass.

He came to would could have been minutes or centuries later. Gasping and sick on the cold cement floor, shivering as he dry heaved. His mouth full of salt and copper and the burning crackle of ozone at the back of his throat.

For a moment, disoriented and dizzy, he thought it had all been a hallucination after all. Or some fractious dream visited upon him by his torn and tattered mind after he’d finally collapsed from exhaustion on the lab floor. That the entity truly had been just in his mind, a consequence of his refusal to rest until his work was done.

Then he felt the glass-cool fingers running through his hair, the warm hand rubbing at his back, heard the low murmurs of reassurance in a voice that was almost, almost human.

He spasmed as he tried to jerk away, hissing with the sharp sting of pins and needles dancing over every nerve. His limbs were heavy and clumsy, and he was crashing back to the cold floor under his own weight before he could even try and drag himself away. His breathing came in short, aching gasps as he tried to twist away, only managing to roll to his back to see the entity where it sat calmly looking down at him.

She had a face now. A solid, steady one that fit her in a way that made him think it must be her real one, though what that meant exactly he didn’t know. The glowing eyes had dimmed and shifted, more human looking with black pupils and white sclera. Button nose marked with silver-tarnish freckles that spread over her cheeks too. A mouth, with lips curled into an apologetic smile. Her hair, still shifting as if caught in a wind that wasn’t there, was still the bright white it’d been before, but the lighting of the locks had settled into faint crackles between the curls. Whatever she was, whatever she’d done to him, he could look at her without feeling like his mind might just crack in two.

“Wha-“ His voice cracked, painful and hoarse like he’d been screaming. Maybe he had been. Swallowing around the burn in his throat, he choked out a hissed, “What are you?”

Her head tilted in that curious slant again, more human features giving her a bright, youthful look as she peered down at him questioningly. “You summoned me, Little Gaffer, shouldn’t you know?”

*

Gaffer is a term used for a glass crafter, as well as light technicians for stage/movie productions. I’m using it as the term for the person who creates a Clone, with the clone themselves being a Mirrorborn, and the person they are cloned from being called the clone’s Reflected. Gaffer is probably a bit of a stretch for this, technically I think someone who makes mirrors would be called a Glazier (Glaziers are glassmakers) but I wasn’t vibing that as much. Besides I like the vibe of glass + light = mirror in a way.

Anyway, opening volley of a new AU where Tim ends up becoming like a warlock to Elle to get his loved ones back, while Elle is just having the time of her sorta eldritch little life watching this absolute mess of a human wreck shit and cause so much chaos even without the powers she starts giving him.

(Elle in this is both the God Queen of Clones/Mirrorborn as well as the Ancient of the Speedforce (which I’ve decided is called the Ever Onward in the Infinite Realms, because I literally can’t be stopped from trying to make normal DC things sound mystical because spooky Infinite Realms aesthetics haha)

Have a tiny bit more written for this, but don’t know how much I’ll end up writing for it with all the other projects I have currently lol, so if anyone is interested feel free to run with it as you so desire haha

[squirrelno2]

My Star Wars OCs: a comedic primer

if you’ve wandered here from ao3 you’ve probably encountered at least one of these people, but if you’ve found me through the vagaries of tumblr that is less likely so! Here is a list of my major ocs for your convenience for the next time I start going off about nothing whatsoever, organised by the story/universe they were introduced in:

Sometimes a Family Is verse

Ven/Shiny: she/her, Nautolan, Dogma’s adopted daughter. half-forgotten childhood trauma papered over with borrowed trauma from her family who spends most of her time clinging to anything clone-related that she can

Nalyan: he/him, human, totally not Dogma’s adopted son (he is they just don’t ever admit it). A poorly rested limp noodle of a person who is too busy doing bootleg medical research in the back of a beat up ship to go outside.

Clone Rebellion verse

Sneak: he/him, clone, formerly served under Krell [Sneak darling I’m so sorry]. puts up a very good front of being a cool collected criminal mastermind when on a con but also will jump off a bridge if you dare him to. as one does.

Nali: she/her, Twi’lek, smuggler/con artist. her soft spot for slaves and clones is a parsec wide, but also she’s usually the one daring Sneak to jump off a bridge

Nine: he/him, clone, still serving under Krell. baby Nine is a bundle of joy and every version of him after the first chapter is deeply deeply fucked, but that won’t stop him from also daring Sneak to jump off a bridge. while doing a flip.

Drum: he/him, clone, pilot in 327th. he likes music and singing and making way too astute observations about people, and is probably the only person on this list who doesn’t think people should be dared to jump off bridges. in general he's under the impression he's the smartest person in the room, and on rare occasions he's almost right.

Dead Brothers Rescue Coalition verse

Nel: she/he/they, clone, lieutenant in the Coruscant Guard. by circumstance they are a pencil-pusher and by passion they are a detective, but mostly they're just really bad at friendship. they make up for it with stubbornness.

Jesse Lives verse

Jale: he/him, theelin, scavenger freelance salvage worker. brightly coloured dipshit who loves his mother and has never effectively used a weapon in his life. preferred survival tactics are Talking Too Much and Being Useful, but also the first one tends to get him into trouble more than anything.

Time Slip verse

Arson: he/him, clone, maintenance on Kamino. absolutely full of little shit energy and voted most likely to commit the crime he’s named for. likes droids more than people, which considering the people he knows is absolutely fair.

Murder: he/they, clone, washed-up medic in training turned Kaminoan maintenance. would never ever hurt a fly but also spends most of their time making excuses for their more violent loved ones because ??? cognitive dissonance I guess.

Jaywalking: she/her, clone, maintenance on Kamino. knows all your secrets and is just trying to decide if she wants to blackmail you or kill you over them. the thing keeping her from doing the latter is usually the fact that Murder and Arson would be sad about it.

Other

Nobody: he/him, clone, ARC trooper who works almost exclusively with 212th. he is exactly as fucked up as his name implies, and also more so because his best friend used to be Slick. make of that what you will.

Pip: he/him, clone, 501st. a beautiful ray of sunshine who will see the worst person in the room, ask "is anyone gonna befriend them?" and not wait for an answer.

Roadkill: he/him, clone, 501st. the worst person in the room. really tired of Pip's shit.

Zeel: she/her, Rodian, doctor with a very very lapsed license. abrasive at the best of times, but also winner of the "Most Cameos in My Fics" award because she can't stop helping people. mostly clones. she's very annoyed about that fact, too.

More OCs can be found @shagpaboloutpost (clones) and @relevant-url-incoming (SWTOR)