#there's so much to be explored here

[amusingghost]

just some feral (mer)kids

unapologetically inspired from @swordsmans's fic the sea makes bones of bodies because i read it (again) and my GOD man it makes me feel so many things

[demaparbat-hp]

Zuko's eyes watered against his will when the ghost of a woman he did not know smiled at him like he was her child.

Zuko decided right there and then that maybe, just maybe, this too was something he came to find.

Ghost-Mother takes a look into Zuko's soul in For the Spirits Chapter IX: A Rider Alone.

More than a stranded soul, Kya holds all the love of the Old Tribe and the means to calm a coming tempest. Zuko won't ever forget her.

(He won't be allowed to.)

[juniemunie]

[Abandoned by the Lightners, his heart became cracked with hatred.]

Hitting a lil' too close to home?

[ofswordsandpens]

thinking about a world in which RR actually committed to the path he set Percy on in hoo (wherein Percy has become jaded, angry, and resentful at the gods for breaking their sworn promises, is frequently sympathizing with Luke, is getting more and more powerful, and frequently losing himself to wrath) and instead of the subsequent Percy Jackson books being about getting recommendation letters, we could have gotten a trilogy exploring a fallen hero arc for Percy (that would ultimately have a positive resolution to it.)

[astearisms]

fionna and cake drawings before and after watching the episodes so far. it’s nostalgic and somehow cathartic and poignant and relatable and—it just started

[nerdinsandals]

He is not one of us🎵

He has never been one of us~🎶

Have Amethio without all the lighting and effects too! Just because I'm pretty happy with how the hair turned out and you can't really appreciate it in the final version haha

[nunkisketches]

A spectator

[goldensunset]

when people refer to canon story-relevant kingdom hearts games as ‘spinoffs’ it makes me sad not only for the obvious reasons i always say but also bc like man i WISH this series had spinoffs. imagine what they could do if they had permission from nomura to truly go off the rails and ignore the greater canon for a second and just do some fun whimsical plotless thing in an alternate universe. imagine a fishing/boating game on destiny islands. kh fighting game. it is an injustice that we have been deprived of kingdom karts. can anyone hear me

[chaoticke-rambles]

Does anyone else think about how Edwin’s soul traded hands between demons before he even arrived at the Doll House?  In episode 7, it’s said that Sa’al "traded his soul to a demon, who traded it to another demon, who traded it to something worse."  We know what the spider demon did with him, but we don’t know how long it was until he came into the spider demon’s possession, or how many of his decades in hell he was in its possession.  How many of those 73 years were spent in the Doll House?  How many were spent with Sa’al?  How many were spent with the other two demons?  What did Sa’al or those other demons do to him?  Episode 7 tricks us as the audience into thinking we know the shape of his experience in hell, but we really only know the end of it.  73 years is a long time, and we’re not given a timeline for when Sa’al traded him away or how many of those years were spent with the spider demon. There are still a lot of horrible things that could have happened that we don’t know about

[jq37]

Aelwyn is sixteen and preparing for midterms at Hudol. Uniform pressed and starched, head full of incantations and spell components. She doesn't mean to bump into Adaine and get orange juice all over her shirt but today isn't the day she's going to start showing weakness.

"You know, you really should watch we're you're going," she says archly, playing off the clumsy mistake as a purposeful jab.

Playing it off a bit too well because, the next thing she knows, Adaine is flipping her off and a bolt of queasy looking, green energy is coming towards her. Ray of Sickness. And she can't spare the spell slot for Counterspell because she needs it for her exams.

"You little bitch!" Aelwyn says once she's emptied the contents of her stomach down the front of her shirt.

"Good luck with your exams," Adaine says sweetly.

Aelwyn is eighteen and the oldest, mangiest cat she's ever seen in her life has just vomited on her shoes.

"My," she says, casting a shield spell around her ankles to stop the cat from clawing at them. "You weren't kidding. He is a little bastard, isn't he?"

The shelter volunteer looks mortified. "Oh, gods! I am so sorry. I tried to warn you--I mean, not that I'm blaming you but--"

"No, it's alright. I did ask you to show me stragglers."

The shelter worker gestures to another pen on the other side of the room. "I can show you the kittens we just got in or there are some very well behaved older cats as well if you'd--"

But Aelwyn cuts her off, scooping up the old cat--though she holds him at arm's length for now, just to be safe. "No need. I haven't changed my mind. I'll take this one." She looks at the tag on his collar. "Hector."

Aelwyn is three and, as of a month ago, no longer the youngest Abernant.

She's had baby dolls in the past but never a baby sister and this is exciting new territory. She's full of questions. When is she going to be able to walk? When is she going to be able to talk? When will she be old enough to have lembas bread instead of formula?

Her parents seem less fascinated by the new addition to the family than she is but her mother is amused when she slaps away the hand of a colleague of her father's who tried to touch Adaine before sanitizing his hands, standing between the much larger man and her sister.

"So defensive. Perhaps she'll be an abjurer."

When Aelwyn asks what that is, her mother says that it's a kind of magical protector and she likes that a lot. That sounds like a good thing to be.

At night, Adaine cries. Except, she doesn't hear it because the mobile above her crib is etched with runes that cast the Silence spell.

"But what if she gets hurt?" Aelwyn asks.

Her father brushes her off. That's what the Unseen Servants are for. But she thinks that's what an abjurer might be for too and even though she isn't one yet, that doesn't mean she can't start practicing.

So, every night, Aelwyn waits until her parents have put Adaine down for bed and then tiptoes into her room. She checks to see if Adaine is silently wailing and if she is (and even sometimes if she isn't) she presses her face between the bars of the crib and sticks her little hand over Adaine's face.

"Don't cry," she says, even though the Silence spell mutes her words as completely as the tears. "Mum said I'm an abjurer. Nothing will get you. Don't cry, baby."

Adaine grabs her hand with impressive grip strength for something so small and, within a few minutes, she's trancing peacefully.

Aelwyn is seventeen and her sister is off to save the world again. This time from a Night Yorb--whatever that is.

It feels cruel that Adaine should have to go risk her life again so soon after she just almost died--not almost died, she did die before being raised by her cleric.

She wants to come with, to help in some way. Surely she could be helpful--last quest they brought Gilear for Helio's sake!

But Adaine doesn't ask her and she can't bring herself to say the words she needs to have the conversation she wants. So, instead, she lightly whaps Adaine on the shoulder with her spellbook as she's packing for the quest.

"I know you haven't done much studying lately what with your grades being based on how many hobgoblins you kill or whatever ridiculous system Aguefort has cooked up," Adaine rolls her eyes at that, "But if you don't mind a little cram session before you leave tomorrow, I can show you how to cast Teleport like I said. Might help you stay a touch less dead on your quest."

Her tone is light but her eyes betray her: Please, please, please don't die again.

Adaine's expression softens but then she scoffs, playing her half of their game. "I don't know what a Hudol dropout who's been in jail for the past year is gonna teach me but do your best."

Aelwyn is seven and her father is cross with her.

"Really Aelwyn," he says and even though they're talking via crystal she can feel the frost of his glare. "You thought it was appropriate to call me at work for no good reason? How many times have I told you and your sister to not bother me while I'm working."

She hates the word bother. She doesn't want to be a bother. She tries very hard not to be. Maybe she just didn't explain herself well enough.

"I know, father. But Addy got really scared and panicky on the playground. She was breathing really hard and--"

Her father makes a noise of disgust. "I don't have time for this. She is in primary school now. Stop coddling her. And her name is Adaine, not Addy. Please speak properly. I'm raising you better than that."

He hangs up before she can say anything else.

Aelwyn is eighteen and most of the claw marks on her arms have healed, which is nice. On her lap asleep is Hector who has apparently decided he likes her enough to use her as a radiator but not enough to submit to medical treatment without using her arms as a scratching post.

"You little heat vampire," she says as she slides her thumb across the screen of her crystal, searching for a video that will help her out. Eventually she finds one that looks promising and she calls it up.

On the screen, a halfling is standing next to a cat who is actively shredding her sweater with its claws. "You're going to be tempted to use some kind of a shield spell when applying the ointment," says the halfling. "But cats can smell abjuration magic and they don't love it. You won't get close enough to do the job. Isn't that right my darling?"

In response, her cat hacks up a hairball.

"Darling indeed," she says under her breath.

But even laced with sarcasm, the word is sweeter against her tongue than she anticipated.

She sinks her hand into Hector's fur and scratches his back for a few moments before tentatively speaking aloud. "Sleeping well, my darling?"

Hector says nothing--he's asleep and a cat. But warmth blooms in Aelwyn's chest--more than enough to make up for what Hector is leeching from her.

Aelwyn is seventeen and her father has just given her the most horrible command she's ever received in her life--and she's counting being made to sink a ship full of people in that calculation.

She knows her father doesn't expect her to delicately extricate the knowledge he needs from Adaine's mind. He expects her to get it at all costs. To ransack and pillage the memories if necessary with no heed of the consequences on her psyche. He'd probably prefer it that way--the more broken Adaine is, the easier it will be to mold her into a version of herself that is more useful to him.

Aelwyn is usually a smooth talker and a convincing liar but now, she stumbles all over her words, babbling out a stream of deflections and pleas as her heart squeezes tighter and tighter in her chest until she can't hold back the truth that she's been suppressing for years anymore.

"Adaine's just…she's a baby."

Aelwyn is eighteen and her apartment is full of cats.

She's always thought that the phrase, "One thing led to another" was a bit of a cop out--clearly there were key steps between point A and point B being glossed over--but in this case, there is truly no better way for her to articulate how she went from zero cats to ten cats in such a short amount of time.

She's sure that if she was still living with Jawbone, he'd have something to say about it but that's exactly why she isn't currently living with Jawbone.

She portions out food for all of the cats, saving Hector for last because he likes to eat curled up next to her.

"My darling baby boy," she says, lifting him onto the couch with her because the jump up is a bit much for him and his old bones. She kisses him on the top of the head and then pulls out her crystal. She scrolls mindlessly for a bit before checking her messages despite the fact that there's conspicuously no notifications.

Not that she has many people to expect texts from but she hasn't heard from Adaine in a few weeks and it's unsettling. When they weren't getting along, they were still living under the same roof. She was able to keep tabs on her, more or less. Now, they're closer than they've been in ages but barely talking.

I'm the older sister, I suppose, Aelwyn thinks. I should take the initiative.

She pets Hector with one hand and drafts a message with another: Are you alive, bitch?

She's about to press send but then she frowns and deletes the draft. After a few moments of thought, she taps out a new message: Can't believe I'm gonna say this. Miss my little sister. Everything all right?

Aelwyn is seventeen--though she doesn't feel like it.

Her mind is telling her that she's sixteen and that she was just been broken out of a jail cell in Solace but Adaine is telling her that she's just been broken out of an entirely different prison after being tortured for months even though she doesn't remember any of that.

But her body feels frail and Adaine says she's been in her mind which means she must have used the hard reset.

She's suddenly feeling very vulnerable--not because of the disorientation or the of the levels of exhaustion she can feel weighing on her like leaden chains. No, it's because of the fact that Adaine using the reset means that she must have read the treacle-y note that she left there for her to find.

It was just an insurance policy, she tells herself. There was wisdom to buttering up your savior to make sure she'd do what you needed her to do.

She manages to mostly believe it. But the small, truthful part of herself that knows how deeply she meant the words is so uncomfortable that she antagonizes Adaine until she's annoyed enough to hit her with a spell, sending her into blissful unconsciousness.

Aelwyn is nineteen and she's going to kill her mother.

Well, not alone of course. Adaine deserves the kill at least as much as she does if not more. It'll be a group effort.

It's a strange mix--the cold fury at her mother mixed with the warmth she feels for her sister, sitting across the table from her. She summons a flame to her palm, a preview of what their mother has waiting for her. She watches Adaine's eyes harden with resolve and she sees the face of her baby sister, left to wail alone silently for hours, soothed by her presence. "Let's get her."

"Yes, my dear," she says, the endearment coming freely as if this has always been their dynamic. "We'll get her."

But there will be time for that later. Right now, it's time for ice cream and seeing Adaine so content in such a simple pleasure causes the warmth in her to surge so suddenly that it would be startling if it wasn't so pleasant. The urge to voice it is so powerful that she doesn't know that would have been able to stop it at any point in life, let alone now.

"I hope we get to eat ice cream and cast magic forever," she says, words that would have been impossible for her to say one short year ago and impossible not to say now.

And, to her delight, Adaine agrees.

[shrimpricebowl]

oh thank god

[rednightmare18]

Sometimes I do think the hyperfocus on religious guilt, especially the hyperfocus on religious guilt pertaining to sexual behavior (with one particular romance taking up 90% of the fandom's concern here), is eclipsing the absolutely fascinating canonical relationship Henry has with God.

Henry's guilt, a complicated tangle of survivor's guilt and moral guilt, is never on clearer display than when he dreams of his parents. This dream is the face of how Henry feels about himself and the sins, moral and divine and cultural, he has committed. It always troubles me when I see people yelling at Henry's parents as if they were really there... and not recognizing this is insight directly into how Henry feels about what happened in KCD2.

Notice that he is deeply caught up on theft and revenge/wrath (even when he argues with his father/i.e. himself in his own defense).

Notice, too, that he has no apology to make about Hans (if romanced). Of even greater interest from a character analysis standpoint, neither of his dream-parents (the voice of his internal guilt and misgivings) spare more than a moment's surprise on it. Henry's mother immediately scolds Henry's father when he expresses surprise; down to the marrow of his dreams, Henry does not seem to feel badly, guilty, or conflicted about romancing Hans at all.

Henry's aversion to touching the dead in kcd1 and kcd2 (particularly when someone he deeply cares about does it) is period-place-typical. It is fascinating how he rationalizes with himself in different contexts and how he justifies or does not justify this.

Henry usually gravitates toward social pariahs out of genuine curiosity first, compassion second; I find this point (blended with the above point) especially interesting in the context of his work with Executioner Hermann from KCD1!

Henry's anger is extraordinary, especially in KCD1, and whether or not Henry comes to understand his anger has immense echoes into the "voice" of his guilt.

Henry has a curiously spotty religious knowledge; this always delights me, as he's had a dash of monk's education and grew up in a town without a church. "Crimbo" is a hilarious line, but in other ways, it is also nicely representative of the half-formed grip he has on religious philosophy.

Henry's furious outbursts of "you call yourself a Christian?" are almost exclusively tied to his outbursts in defense of the defenseless, and this is used as a call to moral shame, especially against militant men. I always think first of his genuinely furious attempt to interject when Kuno deliberately uses civilian women as bait in KCD1.

Henry at times seems incredibly confident in his personal relationship with God. I adore the quest A Sinful Soul for how it showcases this. In a direct prayer the player has limited control over, Henry addresses God as informally as one might address a neighbor he has a minor grievance with. He essentially tells God, "Look, I know what you said about this issue, but I also know that YOU know I'm right this time, so I'm gonna do it my way, cause I know you didn't exactly mean it the way you said it there. Thanks in advance - knew you'd agree with me." Henry believes in a God who makes individual exceptions based on what is moral; he also differentiates what is moral from what is godly, and seems certain that God also draws this distinction for Himself.

Fucking thrilling from a character development standpoint! Fucking thrilling in the breath before the Hussite rebellions.

[independent-fics]

Countdown to LEVERAGE: REDEMPTION Season 3 ↳ Alec Hardison Appreciation -> A Favorite Quote

S01EP01 The Too Many Rembrandts Job

Bonus Moment:

[cloudbends]

[ID: a digital drawing in two parts, depicting characters from pokemon horizons, facing with their back to the viewer: the first drawing depicts the three original explorers heading away towards the light, as lucius hugs rystal and gibeon's shoulders. the second drawing depicts liko and amethio, their descendants, standing still and facing the light. end ID.]

"our adventure isn't over yet, isn't that right?"

[falafels]

I think a lot about the part of the EC with Lydia Shetfield and I’ll longpost about it at some point re kevin’s lingering sexual trauma and also about lydia because i have hella lore for her but for now. this is all i can think of at that part

[starry-bi-sky]

i've mentioned in a few past posts about an au where Danny is a variant of Jason Todd. I haven't made a post about it yet because I need a good rhythm flowing however i've been listening to Gladiator by Jann and I have been having thoughts.

but first, let me set the au:

Danny Fenton is Jason Todd, or at least, a variant of him. A him from a universe separate to the major Batman timeline - but still Jason Todd, down to the structure of his face and his name itself. The only thing that changes, is who picks him up - and, that he follows old Batman canon, and was an orphan. Jason Todd steals the tires off the batmobile and wallops Batman with his tirejack, and then runs off. Shortly after, he gets picked up by the Fentons.

(Customary line break,,,, word count check: 5k)

And his name changes from Jason Todd to Danny Fenton. He doesn't care much for the new name change, it stems from his mute refusal to share his name to the people that picked him up; an attempt to make him untraceable should he get away from them, and to keep something of his to himself. So they name him something new. He grows to like it enough as he acclimates to his new family.

(He hangs onto the name Jason Todd like a secret - he may be 'Danny Fenton' now, but he'll never forget his time on Gotham's streets. He'll always be Jason Todd.)

(Jazz is the only one who he tells his name to in the family - she affectionately calls him Jay whenever she wants.)

He becomes friends with Sam and Tucker and deals with Dash and his bullying. And when Danny steps in during a fight between Dash and another student, Dash gives him a bleeding nose and mockingly says, "Do you think you're Robin just because you're from Gotham, Fenton?"

Jason looks him in the eyes and he bares his teeth, "Why not?" he asks, spitting blood, "being Robin gives me magic."

The nickname sticks. It's supposed to be an insult; Daniel Fenton is not Robin, he'll never be Robin. Not now, not in a million years. Jason Todd has always wanted to be Robin, so he takes the insult and wears it proudly. He buys a school varsity jacket and painstakingly undos the stitching of all the school's motif on it. On the breast of it, he embroiders in a black circle with the Boy Wonder "R" on it instead. It's not good stitching, but the next day Danny wears it down to breakfast and into school.

In normal au canon, Daniel Jason Todd-Fenton (its a mouthful, just call him Danny) only meets the Waynes after he becomes Phantom - an event that leans more towards Daniel Fenton's accident than Jason Todd's death, but traumatizes him all the same. (Is it too much to want to be mourned? His best friends like to deny that he died - and Danny - Jason? - wishes they wouldn't, even if he did come back.)

(The accident embitters him, even more when his parents don't seem to pick up on it. He stops calling himself Danny Fenton - he's always been Jason Todd. It shows itself in his ghostly form. He doesn't want to wear the thing he died in, not in something that belongs to the Fentons, and his suit reflects that.)

In this timeline, Daniel Jason Todd-Fenton, aged 13, meets Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne after a mishap with magic on the other end of the reality sends the three of them careening through time and space, and spat back out on the other end, in a world not their own. And together.

Danny is paired with a very confused Bruce Wayne and Richard Grayson. Luckily, there's a few heroes there to help them. Danny can hardly comprehend the idea that he's in another universe - he doesn't know why Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne are seemingly handling it well.

On their way to a secondary base with the heroes, Danny turns to Bruce Wayne and asks, "So, is it part of rich-person training that you're just totally chill with being sent into another universe, or are you just weird?"

Bruce Wayne huffs at him, rather than get offended, and he smiles that dumb lopsided billionaire smile that Danny's seen on every vogue magazine he's been in. "I'm not so worried with these skilled heroes here to help us get home."

Danny silently concludes that he's just weird. At least Dick Grayson is biting back a smile behind him. "Riiiight..." He says, dragging the vowel out dryly.

When they get to that secondary location -- a safehouse that one of the heroes had set up -- the three of them are sat in a living room-like room while one hero, Zatanna, goes and calls someone from the Justice League. The other two heroes stay with the three of them.

Within a few hours, Danny is face to face with Batman - someone who he hasn't seen since he whacked him in the stomach with a tire iron - and Nightwing. For a moment, Danny swears that the both of them look almost spooked by him.

Batman stares at him for a moment when he enters, and then he goes to speak with Bruce Wayne. Danny doesn't care enough to hear what they're talking about, he pulls out his phone as Nightwing goes to speak with Dick Grayson.

"Are you a fan of Robin, little man?" Someone says, and when Danny looks up he locks eyes with Dick Grayson -- who is leaning around Nightwing to talk to him, the both of them are smiling. And considering who Nightwing was, Danny finds himself turning pink to the ears.

But he will not hide his jacket. He forces a grin through his embarrassment, "Hell yeah, man, Robin's cool." He says, and pushes his arms down to pull out the hem of his letterman, showing off the emblem. "I made it m'self out of a school varsity after the A-Listers started callin' me Robin."

"A-Listers?"

"Popular kids," Danny corrects, loosing his hold on the hem and brushing invisible wrinkles out of the embroidery. "They didn't like that I kept stepping in when they were bullying. Dash asked me if i thought I was Robin because I was from Gotham."

Dick Grayson looks intrigued -- and concerned, and he leans forward onto his knees and raises an eyebrow. "What did you say?"

And Danny grins a shark-like thing, straightening back his shoulders with a burning sort of smug pride and all the sharpness of broken glass left in Crime Alley. "I told him being Robin gave me magic, and then I punched him."

Dick Grayson's smile widens, splitting into showing teeth as he leans back into his seat. Danny isn't sure why he's so delighted - but Nightwing looks incredibly amused, and he suddenly remembers that the Robin himself was there in front of him.

Danny's face burns anew and his arms fold themselves in front of him once again.

"I don't think I ever caught your name, Robin." Dick Grayson goes, his voice thick with laughter, and Nightwing steps off to the side as Batman and Bruce Wayne walk over to join them both. They're just close enough that Danny can see Bruce Wayne raise an eyebrow at them both.

"It's Jason." Danny says before he can think about it, and barely stops himself from frowning at himself for the slip. He amends himself, glancing over at Batman and Bruce as they get closer. "But everyone calls me Danny."

Dick Grayson's head recoils slightly, and he looks a little surprised. "Why Danny?" He asks.

"Why Dick?" He shoots back, and Bruce and Dick both smile at him, with Dick Grayson shrugging with an expression that looks like 'you've got a point.'

In the end, the three of them - yes, three - get sent to this world's Wayne Manor, and Danny is bewildered by that decision to include himself -- he's not a Wayne. Why not just send him to the Fentons?

Batman tells him that the Fentons don't exist in this world, and Danny falls silent. "Oh." He says quietly, a pit growing in his stomach with an ill-kind of dread. He can't keep Batman's gaze, looking away with unease.

No Fentons in this world. No Fentons. Where was he then, in the grand scheme of things? Where was he in this world? What happened to Jason Todd? Was he even alive? He can't keep the worry off his face, and he jumps when a hand lands on his shoulder. When he looks up, Dick Grayson squeezes him gently.

Dick Grayson is steadily beginning to remind him of his sister.

-

They end up driving back in the Batmobile. It's such a shock to Danny that he momentarily forgets the lack of Fentons. He makes a laugh sound, actually, and immediately he covers his hand with his mouth and stares at the car -- tank? with his teeth sunk into his lower lip.

"Jason?" Dick says, and hearing his name being spoken feels like someone touched him with a livewire. It's weird, it's foreign - he hates, in some way, that it's foreign - and it's so nice. Yes, that's me.

He drops his hand immediately. "Sorry." He says, realizing he'd stopped in his tracks, "I -uh, was just surprised."

"It's not every day someone sees the Batmobile." Dick agrees. Nightwing has his back to them but Danny swears he sees his shoulders shaking a little.

"Yeah," Danny nods slowly, dragging his eyes over the batmobile as Batman opens the driver's side and gets in. He thinks for a moment, of what he should say next - whether to admit that he's seen it before, or to pretend that he's seeing it for the first time. Snd as Nightwing opens the door for him, Bruce, and Dick, he chooses the funnier option; "The last time I saw it, I was stealing its tires."

To his surprise and unsurprise, Danny only gets two pairs of eyes on him. Nightwing gets into the passenger seat as both Bruce and Dick turn their gaze onto him; Dick's eyes big like they were going to bulge out of his head.

"You what!?"

So Danny tells an amazed Dick Grayson that he hit Batman with a tire iron after he stole his tires - something he is very proud about and also incredibly embarrassed about when he retells what happened in the backseat of the batmobile, with Batman and Nightwing listening in from the front seat.

(Bruce Wayne doesn't ever tell Dick shit, he's going to lord this over Bruce's head the moment they are alone.)

"Please tell me this didn't happen in this world." Danny groans behind his palms as he sinks into his seat. Dick Grayson is killing himself laughing on his left, and he saw Bruce Wayne stifling a smile before he obscured his vision with his hands.

Much to his luck, its Batman himself who speaks next, (Danny was being mostly rhetorical). "It did." He says, and his voice sounds like the rumble of the earth before a stampede. It will never not throw Danny off every time he hears it. "It takes quite a lot of spunk to steal the tires off the batmobile."

He can't believe it. Batman is making fun of him. Fucking, Batman.

He wants to die with embarrassment. He groans even louder as Dick Grayson's laughter crescendoes. Danny risks a peak through his fingers, he doesn't know whether to regret it or not because he can just barely see Batman smirk very faintly from his position in the middle.

(His world axis tilts five degree leftways seeing it; like someone dunked a bucket of ice water on him.)

"He ended up being adopted by the Bruce Wayne of this world."

Danny's hands drop with his jaw into his lap. Dick Grayson on his left chokes on his laughter and careens into a coughing fit. Bruce Wayne on his right chokes on air, and quickly recovers himself with a cough behind a closed fist.

"What?" Danny croaks.

-

Apparently, Bruce Wayne's family is much larger in this world than it is in his. Danny can barely wrap his head around the idea that he ends up adopted by the man, but now he has to learn that Wayne had several children in this world?

He's still not wrapped his head around it when the three of them wind up at Wayne Manor, finally, or even when he's standing in front of him himself. For his effort, Bruce Wayne does a good job at looking unruffled by it.

God, he's weird. Danny's starting to quite like it, actually. How human of him.

He still can't wrap his head around it when he meets the rest of Bruce Wayne's children, all of whom are already aware of the three of them. Danny thinks that someone from the Justice League might've alerted them before they got here.

It makes sense, he supposes.

It helps that they are just as weirded out as he is. A boy named Tim Drake sees him for the first time and blurts out; "Oh wow, you're tiny." In a tone like he's just seen a two-headed snake burst out of the ground.

Danny is still offended. He's still growing. It's not his fault he spent twelve years of his life malnourished. "I'm gonna be taller than you," he tells him seriously, "and when I do I'm gonna kick your ass."

Tim snorts at him.

The other Bruce Wayne -- Mr. Wayne's -- youngest looks at him up and down with a face of carefully controlled judgement. His name is Damian, he's Bruce Wayne's only biological son. Danny can't believe that there's only one.

If anything, Bruce Wayne himself looks surprised too.

"Todd, yes?" Damian says, his green eyes narrowed at him.

Danny feels like the specimen under his parents' microscope, he feels like he's standing on a platform that's being slowly spun by scientists. He looks over at Bruce Wayne in confusion, and then back at Damian. "I- yes?"

Damian Wayne nods, and then leaves.

Danny does not once see himself. That is unsettling in and of itself - surely Jason Todd would have been told about another version of himself in this world, wouldn't he? How old is he here? An adult, probably. Danny doesn't know if he wants to see him. What does he look like when he's grown up? He pulls his Robin jacket around him a little tighter, like a cocoon, like a shield.

"It's weird to hear them call me Jason Todd." He says aloud to himself, and it leaves a weight behind in his chest that shouldn't hurt the way it does. It shouldn't be weird to be called your name. It shouldn't cobweb up your throat to hear your name being said. It was his name. It was his.

-

Danny acclimates to the manor slowly. The house is big, massive. He's never been in a house so large before, he feels like a stray cat being taken in for the first time, again. He and Bruce and Dick Grayson are all given their own separate rooms - one of many inside this mansion - and the sheer size of his bedroom is bigger than his living room and kitchen combined.

it's daunting. Danny sits outside on the balcony and stares at the stars he can see - Wayne Manor is far enough away from Gotham that its light pollution doesn't obscure the sky here like it did in the heart of it.

Danny finds the constellations he can find and wishes he had his books with him. He finds the library the next day and buries himself in the back, curling up into a comfy armchair next and inhaling each book he can get his hands on.

Tim Drake wanders past him at some point, Danny would have missed him if it weren't for the fact that Drake stared at him strangely when he saw him. He walks away when he realizes Danny was staring back.

It's a rinse and repeat for the next few days. Danny doesn't go to meals, he sneaks food from the kitchen afterwards, and then buries himself in hundreds of books in the library.

Dick Grayson, the one from his world, goes and finds him three days later. Danny's eyes hurt with strain by then, but he is furiously halfway through a Jane Austen novel when Dick sits down across from him.

"Have you been here all day?" Dick asks, he drapes himself across the side of his chair, contorting himself into a position that Danny doesn't think is comfortable when he looks up at him.

Not that he looks up at him long - he hums absently and goes back to reading. Frowning when he realizes he lost his place on the page.

Dick Grayson raises an eyebrow, "Have you at least eaten anything?"

Danny hums. No, he hasn't, and he hadn't thought about eating all day. Until now that is, his frown ever deepening as his stomach pangs with a deep hunger.

"That's not healthy."

"Mhm."

"Are you going to eat something?"

"Mhhh."

And this gets Dick to frown. He straightens himself up, propping onto his elbows to stare at Danny. "Jason." He says strongly. And it's that that gets Danny to finally look up from his page, jumping like he'd again been poked with a live wire as he stares at Dick with wide eyes.

"Yes?"

"Put the book down." Dick orders, gesturing towards the side table next to Danny with a nod. "And come eat something." There's very little room for argument in his voice, he sounds like Jazz when she's trying to parent him, but instead he actually sounds authoritative. Not bossy.

Danny still frowns at him. "You're not the boss of me." He says, sinking back into his chair with a thumb bookmarking his page.

Dick gives him a look and makes a decisive noise, swaggling his head side to side while he does. "I'm pretty sure that for as long as we're here, me and B actually are the boss of you."

He's never really liked authority figures, not ones that tried to boss him around, that is. Danny doubles down, his lips curling into a shadow of a scowl. "Just because you're my brother in another world doesn't mean you can act like it."

"That's not what I mean and you know it."

"I don't want to go eat."

"It's not good for you to skip meals."

"Quit talking like Jazz."

"Danny."

Danny sinks his teeth into his lip and scowls darkly at him, shrinking into the back of his armchair in hopes that it'll swallow him whole. The idea of going into that large fucking dining room fills him with a dread that makes him completely forget his appetite.

"Your fucking- dining room is- it's too big." He grits out, finally closing his book and hugging it tightly to his chest.

Dick blinks at him. "What?"

"You heard me! It's too big. This whole place is too big. It's- what do you even do with this much space? I don't know how this- other me ever lived here."

Dick Grayson surprises him, and his expression softens. "Oh," he says, "I get it."

"You do?" The tension bleeds slowly out of Danny's shoulders

"Yeah, I felt the same way when I first moved in with Bruce. I lived with the circus for most of my life, but I slept in a trailer." He says. And he talks more.

The end result of their conversation ends with Dick Grayson offering to let Danny sit across or next to him during mealtimes, and that he can talk to him if he starts getting uneasy. But he can't keep skipping meals - it was making them all worried.

Danny agrees, and Dick takes him down to the kitchens for food.

"They look at me weirdly too." He grumbles as they leave the library, Danny's book returned to the shelf where it belonged. When Dick looks at him curiously, he scrunches his nose up. "The - your other siblings. They look at me like I'm- I'm someone else. S'weird."

"Isn't that a good thing?" Dick asks, "You are someone else."

Dany shrugs, staring at the ground with a heavy frown. "I don't know."

-

Danny seeks out Dick more after that. And vice versa. Dick reminds Danny of Jazz, and he latches onto the familiarity like a leech. If Dick is bothered by it, he doesn't show it, whether he's talking to his other world's self, to the Bruce's, or to one of the other Wayne kids.

Damian Wayne seems particularly keen to seek him out, Danny finds. He thinks it means that they're close in this world, and that Damian wants to see more of what a young Dick is like. That's what he would do, at least.

He takes up on Dick's offer of seating near him during dinner, and finds an open spot across from him. Unless he has something to show him, then he sits next to him.

("You can call me Jason." He tells him one day when they're in the Wayne's massive, fuck-off gym and they're both climbing over the jungle gym. Dick's showing him how to be more flexible. It's the most Danny's worked out ever, he likes the burn it gives him.

Dick looks at him in surprise, "Really?" he's doing a handstand on the bars and Danny's more than a little jealous at his balance.

"Yeah, dipshit," he says, rolling his eyes, "I'll even let you call me Jay, it's my nickname."

Dick happily takes him up on that offer, and much to Danny's embarrassment, starts calling him Jaybird. All because of his stupid Robin jacket.)

Danny has yet to meet his other self still, it's scaring him a little. Where was he? And matter of fact, how long until he could go back to his home dimension? The three of them hadn't gotten any updates since they arrived.

Speaking of, he was starting to talk to Bruce more, it was just... strange. Even stranger than talking to Dick. Bruce Wayne in another life would have been his adoptive father, Danny can't wrap his head around it for the life of him.

Whatever did Bruce Wayne see in Jason Todd that made him worth adopting? He's too afraid of the answer to ask. They start talking more after they run into each other late at night. Danny had been hit with a bout of insomnia and was going to the library.

He ran into Bruce on the way. He was just.. staring, out the window, with a faraway look in his eye. He didn't even look startled to see Danny standing there.

Danny asks him if he wants to go to the library with him. It was out of panic. He isn't expecting Bruce Wayne to agree, and they walk there in suffocating silence. Danny keeps looking at him from the corner of his eye.

("You're staring?" Bruce doesn't sound upset, Danny jumps anyway.

"Yeah, sorry." his voice sounds stilted, "it's just..." his jaw wires itself shut for a spell, "...you looked like you were about to disappear."

"Ah.")

When they reach the library, Danny leads Bruce Wayne into the science section and takes out books upon books about stars. He leads him over to the armchair and fire and they both sit down on the ground.

"When I lived in Gotham I would stargaze." Danny says, it's the first thing he can think of. Bruce Wayne looks at him quizzically. "Well, I would try to. The sky's too polluted for that. Mostly I would just watch the skyline and try and spot Batman and Robin, was the same thing."

That cracks a smile out of Bruce. It's a small one, barely there. "I hardly think the two are comparable."

Danny is still serious. "Not to me."

He goes on, talking about how after he was adopted he got his hands on every star book he could find. He loves english and he loves to read, but something about the stars drew him in like a song. He rambles about every star fact he knows with Bruce Wayne.

Bruce Wayne surprises him by telling him facts he didn't know. Danny soaks it up like a sponge, listening intently to him speak. And when they run out of star books to talk about, Danny tells Bruce that it was his turn to find something for them to talk about.

Bruce Wayne smiles again at him, a sly little thing like Danny's challenged him, and gets up. He comes back with a stack of film books, and they spend the next few hours going through them. Bruce Wayne rattles off every single movie fun fact he knows, and there is so much that he knows.

Danny is in awe, and moves to press against Bruce's side to see the stuff he points at in his books.

"You're smarter than people give you credit for." He says at some point, when his eyes hurt from being open for too long and his head leans against Bruce's arm for support. It follows with a jaw-cracking yawn that he tries and fails to stifle.

"Thank you, Danny." Bruce says, his voice soft and soothing and not helping with Danny's weighing exhaustion. His eyes drift, and then jerk open. "Do you want to go back to your room? You look tired, chum."

He bites back a smile at the nickname, and fails to keep it bitten. "No, no, I'm awake." He mumbles, shaking his head slowly. "I wanna hear-" he yawns again, "-hear you talking."

Danny swears he can hear the smile in Bruce's voice as he speaks; "Alright. Now, where was I?"

In the end, Danny falls asleep on the floor of the library next to Bruce Wayne. He doesn't even realize it until he wakes up the next morning. But it's not to worry, Bruce Wayne fell asleep too, an arm thrown around Danny protectively like he was his own kid.

This becomes a thing for them soon enough. When neither of them can sleep, they go to the library and talk and talk about whatever comes to mind.

There comes the dreaded night after they've finished whatever book they were looking at when Bruce, the little shit, turns to Danny and goes; "You never mentioned what happened after you hit Batman with a tire iron."

Danny groans, big and dramatic, burying his head in his arms, and ignores the low chuckle. "I thought he was gonna chase me down for sure." He complains, his voice muffled by his arms.

"Why did you hit him with a tire iron?"

The look Bruce gets is one of pure disbelief. "If Mothman suddenly showed up behind you while you were taking the wheels off his ride, you'd hit him too!"

"Last time I checked, Mothman isn't real." Bruce told him amusedly, and Danny flops over onto his back to stare him down. His arms sprawl out like a starfish, intentionally hitting Bruce in the shoulder.

"You don't know that, Batman's a cryptid and he's real."

Bruce roars with laughter, and Danny preens like a bird.

That next morning when Bruce passes by him for breakfast, he reaches over and ruffles his hair. It's the same thing he does for Dick every morning. It's the first of many, and it gets many stares from the surrounding family.

Bruce has a newspaper tucked under his arm, and when he sits down Danny stands up and skedaddles over to him, leaning over the side of his chair to peer at the paper.

"Any cryptids spotted, Buzz?" He asks, getting a startled laugh out of Bruce, who looks up at him.

"Buzz?"

"Well, yeah," and Danny states it as matter-of-fact. He gestures his head at Dick Grayson. "Dick calls you 'B', and B is for bees, and I can't just call you Bees, that's dumb. So; Buzz."

He grins triumphantly when Bruce laughs quietly, his shoulders shaking imperceptibly. "I know," he tilts his head up proudly, "I'm a genius."

Now he's actually laughing, dropping his head into one of his hands and trying to quiet himself as much as possible. Danny is positively beaming, ignoring the stares of the other Waynes as he flounces back to his seat just as the other Mister Wayne enters the room.

-

When Jason Daniel Fenton Todd meets Jason Todd for the first time, they both just stare at each other.

Danny recognizes himself immediately in the library, and he freezes up. His tongue ties to the roof of his mouth, and he's unsure of what to say.

He doesn't need to say anything at all, because when Jason Todd looks up and they lock eyes, they both just stare. And stare. Jason Todd is a large, hulk of a man, built like a brick shithouse, with a tired, traumatized look in his eyes and a white streak in his black curls. The same black curls that Danny himself has.

He has no idea what to say. Or if he should turn back around and leave.

Jason Todd sighs at him, "I know they told me you and another world's Bruce and Dickie were here," he says, but it sounds like he's talking to himself. Even moreso when he mutters half-heartedly, "-but I was hoping I wouldn't run into you."

Danny feels small next to him. He doesn't know why. "Sorry." He says lamely, his one foot skips back, "I can leave if you want." It's unlike him to be meek, he thinks. Not after years of Gotham living and dealing with the likes of Dash and his Jerk Jocks.

But this also isn't the streets, and this isn't other kids being dicks. Jason Todd shakes his head, and gestures with one large arm for Danny to come over. "You don't need to do that, you were coming to read, right?"

He nods, and tentatively makes his way over. When Jason looks at him, he sees him cast his eyes over his Robin jacket - he wears it everyday. Danny sees him narrow his eyes, just slightly. But he says nothing.

It's... a strange conversation. Interaction. Jason Todd doesn't talk to him much, and if he does it's stilted and awkward, like he doesn't know how to treat him. Like he's holding him at arm's length.

Jason's getting tired of being treated like a ghost.

They talk about their books. They compare lives. Jason Todd was picked up a few days after he stole the wheels of the batmobile. He wasn't an orphan, he lived with his mom and his stepdad before he lived with Bruce. They both like to read, only Danny has an interest in the stars.

("What do your adoptive parents do?" Jason Todd asks him, one arm slung over the back of the armchair, he looks relaxed. He looks tense. Danny feels like he's back in Crime Alley again.

"They're 'ectologists'." He says, making air quotes over the word. He rolls his eyes, "Ghost hunters. They study the dead and all things afterlife."

Jason Todd makes a dry laugh huff, a sarcastic half-smile on his face. He doesn't explain why he does, Danny doesn't ask why. It doesn't seem like his business.)

Danny wants to ask him where he got that white streak in his hair. It doesn't feel right. It feels like his parents' lab, and that isn't right. Nothing ever feels like his parents' lab.

Jason Todd leaves first after giving him a few book recommendations. Danny isn't sure how to rate the experience. Being in Jason Todd's presence was like standing in a liminal space. An empty parking lot at night. When he leaves it feels like much the same thing.

He struggles to read his books afterwards, unable to shake the feeling of being haunted.