#then like 'look how weird this person is' etc

[quadrantadvisor]

DPxDC Danny/Jason Soulmates AU WIP

-

Jason's timer read 044389:21:08, when the display suddenly went dark. 44,389 hours. Five years, 24 days, 13 hours, 21 minutes, and 8 seconds until he was fated to meet his soulmate.

Or not. Because the time stopped.

It wasn’t supposed to happen. He did his research, and with the resources at his disposal (namely, a batcomputer,) he knew for a fact that there should be no way to defy the fate of a timer. People had tried. Avoidance, isolation, putting a hit out on your own suspected soulmate. Nothing worked. Trying to delay the inevitable put you on the path to meet it. Sure, there were people who lamented the unfairness of their own situation, who were devastated they never got time with their soulmate, famous deaths on opposite sides of a battle, etc. But soulmates always, always met eachother, face to face.

Not him, though. His soulmate was dead. Five years early.

Bruce didn’t get it. Dick wouldn’t talk about it. Alfred only looked at him with pity in his eyes.

Jason wasn’t sad that he was the only person on the planet who’d never meet his soulmate. He was fucking angry, because it wasn’t fucking fair. It was another person in his life who was supposed to care about him that he’d never get to have.

So when he found out he had a mom, somewhere out there, who he’d never had the chance to meet… he had to go. How could he not?

-

It was Sam who noticed, when it happened. Danny had just finished a stupid fight with Boxy, and he, Sam, and Tucker were finally ready to call it a night. Danny de-transformed and grinned, shaking the thermos proudly. “Gonna get these guys back into the Ghost Zone,” he said, when suddenly-

“Danny!” Sam yelped, and snatched at his arm.

Danny stumbled, nearly dropping his precious cargo. “Whoa, Sam, what-?’ he stopped, looking as she turned over his arm, baring his wrist.

His timer was dark, like people who’s soulmates were dead. The numbers still showed, faintly, but they were stationary. The countdown had stopped.

Ice spread through Danny’s veins, like the cold that rushed through him when he went ghost, but worse, so much worse.

Danny’s ghost form didn’t have a timer, which honestly freaked him out, but as a human it had always behaved completely normally. When he turned back, it would be there, the time having elapsed just the way it was supposed to. It had been so reassuring. He was alive. He’d make it at least five more years, and be able to meet his soulmate, who would hopefully be able to accept him the way he was. He wanted that so badly. He wanted someone beyond his friends to talk to, to know him as a person and a ghost. He wanted to not be afraid anymore.

He’d just passed the five year mark, not that long ago. He’d been so excited to be that much closer to someone so important.

And now something was horribly wrong.

“Dude, that’s jacked up,” Tucker said, noticing the problem with wide eyes.

“Did anything happen today?” Sam asked, her expression hardened with determination. “Did you notice anything weird while you were transformed?”

Danny shook his head. “No, no it- it was running while we were at school, and we’ve been fighting ghosts since then. I don’t know when it would’ve…” Danny could barely make himself speak. “Is it my fault?” he said, almost to himself. “Did I spend too much time as a ghost and it just-”

Sam gripped at his hand. “No, Danny, it isn’t your fault. Whatever the problem is, we’re going to figure it out, okay?”

“Yeah man,” Tucker added, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, maybe your parents can actually help this time? Weird magic science is kinda their thing, right?”

Sam looked less sure, but nodded all the same. “You’re going to meet your soulmate. Okay?”

“Okay,” Danny said, quiet, looking down at the stopped numbers on his wrist.

-

Edit: Added a readmore

[souldagger]

hey, mar! what would *you* like to see more of in the next 10 years in sff literature?

GOOD QUESTION... i shared the amal el-mohtar quote precisely bc she hit the nail on the 'big' things i'd most like to see more of (SFF getting WEIRD with it, 'queer as a verb', diversity beyond 'box-checking', both genre-fuckery/blurring of lines btwn genres and maximalist quintessential fully-and-unapologetically-in-love-with-the-genre books). BUT if i may also be self-indulgent a little bit, some more specific things i personally would love to see more of:

sff centering a sense of wonder and/or existential dread!!! some of my favourite works of SFF are ones that tap into those specific feelings, i'd love to see more of either, or both - especially since the line between the two is rather thin

kind of relatedly - not to sound like a snob but i LOVE when scifi gets philosophical with it. like make me question the fundamental subjectivity of our experience and the transience of our existence! more of that! sickos hahaha yes!!!

if i can get into the weeds of specific tropes: i'd love more xenoarchaeology and Big Dumb Objects in particular <3 (both of which tie into the wonder/existential dread thing for me)

hard scifi - i'm always down for more hard scifi - but specifically hard scifi with a focus on sciences other than just physics

also, more books playing with the form - by which i mean not just nonlinear/nonsequential fiction, but also messing with the physical format itself - the layout, the typography, etc. (yes this is the graphic designer in me speaking)

illustrations also… like i think they could really add SO much to the experience of speculative fiction in particular, it's such a pity how rare illustrations are in SFF, esp adult SFF. case in point: look at Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld (YA, but still) or Walking Practice by Dolki Min and tell me the illustrations do not elevate the text to a new level!

[icewindandboringhorror]

I made a few new wax seal stamps out of clay (like the ones I did for my worldbuilding stuff forever ago), this time just of random symbols that I thought might look good done in the style of painting over the raised part of the wax or etc. :0c Some of them aren't carved deep enough to really show up that well, but overall they worked okay for being clay lol

[gobstoppr]

Tetris Fanart.

I've been playing tetris while listening to horror podcasts. and yeah

[sideblogdotjpeg]

ive been thinking about the red string superstition recently and also sol bufo always and it makes me sick how uncannily caldwell tanner has made sol to perfectly target me personally

(+ cropped versions !)

[small-small-slime]

Did a few little drawings of @coulsart's OC Pierrot/Jacques!!!

[where-the-water-flows]

hey no wait. hang on, wait. wenjing is like, explicitly the secret sword, right, the one basically no one knew about, it's part of the reason the court is like 'mmk seems legit' when fang doubing is like ~I am totally for real his disciple~ because he knows about the sword at all

but li xiangyi/lianhua is clearly like. practiced at using the sword, which does not move like basically...any other weapon. that man has spent a fuck lot of time training to and straight up developing how to use a sword that is basically the most unswordlike sword to ever sword. that sword is like a slap bracelet with bladed edges that can also cut through....anything? nearly anything?? it does not move or react like your standard mostly rigid bar of folded metal sword, is the gist here.

which brings me to two, semi-related, points:

when saintess rocks up to steal di feisheng from the zombie cave and also is like 'I'm going to kill you uh actually lol nope fuck that I'm outtie peace bitches', is that literally the first time she's even got a hint that li xiangyi/lianhua has a sword that is basically nigh impossible to block because it can straight up bend around obstacles? (obstacles such as, say, anyone else's sword) if yes, no fucking wonder she's like mmmm I see no thank you I need to go wash my di feisheng's hair, so busy, catch you later because like. how the fuck do you even deal with that. a guy who should have been horribly and messily dead literally a decade ago rocks up and is like 'I lived bitch! also surprise, I have a sword made of glowing Go-Fuck-Yourself metal', like, I too would fucking split! you would only be able to find me by the cartoon dust cloud left in my wake. RIP to everyone else in the jianghu but saintess is making the objectively correct choice here, which is wild because, like. saintess.

how many people's last fucking moment was seeing throat cutter, probably glowing and covered in their blood? because like. Li xiangyi clearly used it! enough to be good at using it. enough to know that it glows blue when there's blood on it, even if he apparently was just like sometimes swords just glow for reasons I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. so. if no one outside of sigu sect high command knows that wenjing exists*, that means everyone else who ever saw that sword -- which there has to have been people, given that li xiangyi was out there uhhh using it -- those people who saw it presumably also uh. died. in a pretty confirmed kinda way. likely via....that sword. throat cutter** indeed

*and not even all of the inner sigu sect command folks knew about li xiangyi having it! they're pretty explicit that five people total know about the sword, which is the four court heads, and then presumably either qiao wanmian or xiao zijin, but not both of them (which, lmao, what the hell were sigu sect internal politics for real), and even that's if we assume shan gudao is not being included in the count because he's "dead"

**yes I know it's a reference to a friendship/relationship you'd cut your throat for per @murderedbyhomework's recent great meta, but also, like. it's still a cut throat, y'know? words can have multiple meanings, and also this is mostly a pun on the name. the rest of the post stands as is tho.

[i-really-like-phrogs]

Re-design of my un-named Beetlejuice OC from back when I was thirteen

Original Reference under the cut:

[nabaath-areng]

mutual orbit

[crocodilenjoyer]

what if you 🫵 wanted to take a nap 💤 but god said ☝️ asl dunmeshi au 💥

[aq2003]

i saw a post saying boom was good bc it feels like it could be done with any doctor/companion duo and honestly that was one of the things i felt was wrong with it

[skitskatdacat63]

This is a special genre of f1 picture(to ME.)

[sskk-manifesto]

♡

[icewindandboringhorror]

Misc. photos from the past year or so ~

[bobzora]

finally beat the first kingdom in p5t the other day and it was truly flabbergasting the way marie fuckin. dissolved. and morgana was like well that shouldn't have caused a mental shutdown... but i don't know for sure! and then moved on. LIKE HUH. WHY ARE NONE OF THE THIEVES. ACKNOWLEDGING THIS. LMAO?

[munch-mumbles]

i havent spent enough time thinking about laws thoughts on when acton went missing. thinks about it.

.