#what is this world I'm living in?

[andy-dandy]

love seeing the beginnings of perseus "pay your fucking child support" jackson's crusade against the gods' parental negligence problem in ep 1 & 2 of the pjo show. the absolute KING of "my daddy gave me issues so HE'S about to HAVE issues"

[sunderwight]

Bingqiu AU where Luo Binghe's the chosen village sacrifice to the evil deity who lives up the mountain.

Normally the village sends maidens, but they've more or less run out of expendable girls of the right age and, ahem, "virtues". So of course Luo Binghe's early life bad luck kicks in. In the wake of his mother's death there's no one to really care about what happens to him, he's fairly pretty, and the village leaders decide that if they dress him up like a girl the teenaged homeless kid should pass well enough. And hey, y'know, he's probably got a hard life ahead for him anyway -- dying in a brothel of some venereal disease or on the streets of exposure or starvation. At least as a sacrifice, everyone else gets to benefit from his loss! And the kid will get added to a shrine and be remembered as a hero! If anything, he should be happy about this!

Binghe is not happy about this.

But he's also a skinny underfed nobody who is easily overpowered, dressed up like a bride, and tied to a post. So. Not much he can do but wait for the evil deity to come and do whatever horrible thing he's gonna do to him.

Meanwhile, Shen Yuan is pretty sure he's been isekai'd into the over-powered hero of some kind of supernatural adventure story? He's not totally sure because he doesn't recognize the setting, but the signs are there. He's got a shrine-like base of operations (though it seems to have become corrupted/ruined, probably he has to restore it somehow), he has a very resilient and handsome new body with spiritual energy of some kind flowing through him, and a very clearly magical sword. Plus lots of neat starter powers! Though it feels like he has other abilities that have been blocked somehow? Probably he has to level up in order to access them.

When he treks out of his "base" and finds what seems to be a distressed maiden, he takes it for his beginner hero mission. The girl claims that she's been doomed to be sacrificed to an evil god. That sounds a little above Shen Yuan's pay grade for dealing with, so he unties her and decides that they had better just get out of the whole region altogether. He already packed up anything useful from his base, anticipating he might get caught up in an adventure once he left, so they follow the river away from the settlement until they reach another one.

While they travel, Luo Binghe tells Shen Yuan about the cursed deity, Shen Qingqiu, who was cast out of the heavens for slaughtering one of his brethren and has apparently being do-who-knows what to maidens from the local village in exchange for his "protection" ever since. Sounds like a real asshole! And also mid-level boss type bad guy at least. Shen Yuan hopes he doesn't have to fight him, but he probably will.

Thank goodness he found Binghe, though! Clearly the helpful little sister type! He's definitely going to require her assistance if he's going to figure out how to navigate this world and level up his skills enough to take on a god.

[confessedlyfannish]

Writing Prompt #12

Bruce is reading the paper when the pour of Tim's coffee goes abruptly quiet. It would be hard to pinpoint why this is disturbing if it wasn't for the way the soft, tinny sound the vent system in the manor makes cuts out for the first time since being updated in the 90s. The pour, Bruce realizes, has not slowed to a trickle before stopping. It has simply stopped. And there is no overeager clack of a the mug against the marble counter or the uncouth first slurp (nor muttered apology at Alfred's scolding look) immediately following the end of the pour.

Bruce fights the instinct to use all of his senses to investigate, and instead keeps his eyes on the byline of the article detailing the latest set of microearthquakes to hit the midwest in the last week. Microearthquakes aren't an unusual occurrence and aren't noticeable by human standards, which is why this article is regulated to page seven, but from several hundred a day worldwide to several hundred a day solely in the East North Central States, seismologists are baffled.

Bruce had been considering sending Superman to investigate under the guise of a Daily Planet article requested by Bruce Wayne (Wayne Industries does have an offshoot factory in the area) when everything had stopped twenty seconds ago. That is what he assumes has happened (having not moved a muscle to confirm) in the amount of time he assumes has passed. His million dollar Rolex does not quite audibly tick but in the absolute silence it should be heard, which confirms the silence to be exactly that—absolute.

While Bruce can hold his breath with the best of the Olympian swimmers, he has never accounted for a need to remain without blinking without being able to move one's eyes. Rotating the eyeballs will maintain lubrication such that one could go without blinking for up to ten minutes. But staring at the byline fixedly, he estimates another twenty seconds before tears start to form.

These are the thoughts Bruce distracts himself with, because he doesn't dare consider how Tim and Alfred haven't made a (living) sound in the past forty-five seconds. About Damian, packing his bag upstairs for school after a morning walk with Titus that was "just pushing it, Master Damian".

There is a knife to his right, if memory serves (it does). In the next five seconds—

"Your wards and guardian are fine, Mr. Wayne," the deepest voice Bruce has ever heard intones. For a dizzying moment, it is hard to pinpoint the location of the voice, for it comes from everywhere—like the chiming of a clocktower whilst inside the tower, so overpowering he is cocooned in its volume.

But it is not spoken loudly, just calmly, and when he puts the paper down, folds it, and looks to his right, a blue man sits in Dick's chair.

He wears a three piece suit made entirely of hues of violet, tie included. He has a black brooch in the shape of a cogwheel pinned to his chest pocket, a simple chain clipped to his lapel. Black leather gloves delicately thumb Bruce's watch (no longer on his wrist, somewhere between second 45 and 46 it has stopped being on his wrist), admiring it.

"You'll forgive me," the man says with surety. "Clocks are rather my thing, and this is an impressive piece." He turns it over and reveals the 'M. Brando' roughly scratched into the silver back. He frowns.

"What a shame," he says, placing it face side up on the table.

"Most would consider that the watch's most valuable characteristic." Bruce says, voice steady, hands neatly folded before him. Two inches from the knife. To his left, there is an open doorway to the kitchen. If he turns his head, he might be able to get a glance of Tim or Alfred.

He doesn't look away from the man.

"It is the arrogance of man," the man says, raising red eyes (sclera and all) to Bruce, "to think they can make their mark on time."

"...Is that supposed to be considered so literally?" Bruce asks, with a light smile he does not mean.

The man smiles lightly back, eyes crinkling at the corners. He looks to be in his mid thirties, clean-shaven. His skin is a dull blue, his hair a shock of white, and a jagged scar runs through one eye and curving down the side of his cheek, an even darker, rawer shade of blue-purple.

The man turns the watch back over and taps at the engraving. "Let me ask you this," he says. "When we deface a work of art, does it become part of the art? Does it add to its intrinsic meaning?"

Bruce forces his shoulders to shrug. "It's arbitrary," he says. "A teenager inscribes his name on the wall of an Ancient Egyptian temple and his parents are forced to publicly apologize. But runic inscriptions are found on the Hagia Sophia that equate to an errant Viking guard having inscribed 'Halfdan was here' and we consider it an artifact of a time in which the Byzantine Empire had established an alliance with the Norse and converted vikings to Christianity."

"The vikings were as errant as the teenager," the man says, "in my experience." He leans back in his chair. "I suppose you could say the difference is time. When time passes, we start to think of things as artistic, or historical. We find the beauty in even the rubble, or at least we find necessity in the destruction..."

He offers Bruce the watch. After a moment, Bruce takes it.

"The problem, Mr. Wayne, is that time does not pass for me. I see it all as it was, as it is, as it ever will be, at all times. There is no refuge from the horror or comfort in that one day..." he closes his hand, the leather squeaking. And then his face smooths out, the brief severity gone. He regards Bruce calmly.

"You can look left, Mr. Wayne."

Bruce looks left. Framed by the doorway, Tim looks like a photograph caught in time. A stream of coffee escapes the spout of the stainless steel pot he prefers over the Breville in the name of expediency, frozen as it makes its way to the thermos proclaiming BITCH I MIGHTWING. Tim regards his task with a face of mindless concentration, mouth slack, lashes in dark relief against his pale skin as he looks down at the mug. Behind him, Bruce can see Alfred's hand outstretched towards the refrigerator handle, equally and terrifyingly still.

"My name is Clockwork," the man says. "I have other names, ones you undoubtedly know, but this one will be bestowed upon me from the mouth of a child I cherish, and so I favor it above all else. I am the Keeper of Time."

"What do you want from me?" Bruce asks, shedding Wayne for Batman in the time it takes to meet Clockwork's eyes. The man acknowledges the change with a greeting nod.

"In a few days time, you will send Superman to the Midwest to investigate the unusual seismic activity. By then, it will be too late, the activity will be gone. They will have already muzzled him."

"Him."

"There is a boy with the power to rule the realm I come from. Your government has been watching him. The day he turned 18, they took him from his family and hid him away. I want you to retrieve him. I want you to do it today."

"Why me?"

"His parents do not have the resources you do, both as Batman and Bruce Wayne. You will dismantle the organization that is keen on keeping him imprisoned, and you will offer him a scholarship to the local University. You and yours will keep him safe within Gotham until he is able to take his place as my King."

This is a lot of information to take in, even for Bruce. The idea that there could be a boy powerful enough to rule over this (god, his mind whispers) entity and that somehow, he has slipped under all of their radars is as frustrating as it is overwhelming. But although Clockwork has seemed willing to converse, he doesn't know how many more questions he will get.

"You have the power to stop time," he decides on, "why don't you rescue him? Would he not be better suited with you and your people?"

"Within every monarchy, there is a court," Clockwork. "Mine will be unhappy with the choice I have made," he looks at Bruce's watch, head cocked. "In different worlds, they call you the Dark Knight. This will be your chance to serve before a True King."

Bruce bristles. "I bow to no one."

"You'll all serve him, one day," Clockwork says, patiently. "He is the ruler of realms where all souls go, new and old. When you finally take refuge, he will be your sanctuary." He frowns. "But your government rejects the idea of gods. All they know is he is other. Not human. Not meta. A weapon."

"A weapon you want me to bring to my city."

"I believe you call one of your weapons 'Clark', do you not?" Clockwork asks idly. "But you misunderstand me. They seek to weaponize him. He is not restrained for your safety, but for their gain."

"And if I don't take him?" Bruce asks, because a) Clockwork has implied he will be at the very least impeded, at worst destroyed over this, and b) he never did quite learn not to poke the bear. "You won't be around if I decide he's better off with the government."

"You will," Clockwork says, with the same certainty he's wielded this entire conversation. "Not because he is a child, though he is, nor because you are good, though you are, nor even because it is better power be close at hand than afar.

"I have told you my court will be unhappy with me. In truth, there are others who also defend the King. Together we will destroy the access to our world not long after this conversation. The court will be unable to touch him, but neither will we as we face the repercussions for our actions. I am telling you this, because in a timeline where I do not, you think I will be there to protect him. And so when he is in danger, even subconsciously, you choose to save him last, or not at all. And that is the wrong choice.

"So cement it in your head, Bruce Wayne," the man says, "You will go to him because I tell you to. And you will keep him safe until he is ready to return to us. He will find no safety net in me. So you will make the right choice, no matter the cost."

"Or, when our worlds connect again, and they will," his voice now echoes in triplicate with the voices of the many, the young, the old, Tim, Bruce's mother, Barry Allen, Bruce's own voice, "I will not be the only one who comes for you."

"Now," he says, producing a Wayne Industries branded BIC pen. "I will tell you the location the boy is being kept, and then I would like my medallion back, please. In that order."

Bruce glances down and sees a golden talisman, attached to a black ribbon that is draped haphazardly around the neck of his bathrobe, so light (too light, he still should have—) he has not felt its weight until this moment.

Bruce flips the paper over, takes the pen, and jots down the coordinates the being rattles off over the face of a senator. By his calculation, they do correspond with a location in the midwest.

"You will find him on B6. Take a left down the hallway and he will be in the third room down, the one with a reinforced steel door. Take Mr. Kent and Mr. Grayson with you, and when you leave take the staircase at the end of the hallway, not the elevator."

The man gets up, dusts off his impeccably clean pants, and offers him a hand to shake.

"We will not meet again for some time, Mr. Wayne."

Bruce looks at the creature, stands, and shakes his hand. It feels like nothing. The Keeper of Time sighs, although nothing has been said.

"Ask your question, Mr. Wayne."

"I have more than one."

"You do," Clockwork says. "But I have heard them all, and so they are one. Please ask, or I will not be inclined to answer it."

"What does this boy mean for the future, that you are willing to sacrifice yourself for him?"

There is a pause.

"So that is the one," Clockwork says, after a time. "Yes. I see. I should resolve this, I suppose."

"Resolve what?"

"It is not his future I mean to protect," the man says. "It is his present."

"You want to keep him safe now..." Bruce says, but he's not sure what the being is trying to say.

"I am not inclined," Clockwork repeats, stops. His expression turns solemn, red eyes widening. In their reflection, Bruce can see something. A rush of movement too quick to make heads or tails of, like playing fast forward on a videotape. "Superman reports no signs of unusual seismic activity. With nothing further to look into, you let it go in favor of other investigative pursuits. You do not find him, as you are not meant to. He stays there. His family, his friends, they cannot find him. His captors tell him they have moved on. He does not believe them, until he does. He stays there. He stays there until he is strong enough to save himself."

Clockwork speaks stiffly, rattling off the chain of events as if reading a Justice League debrief. "He is King. He will always be King. He is strong, and good, and compassionate, and he is great for my people because yours have betrayed his trust beyond repair. He throws himself into being the best to ever Be, because there is nothing Left for him otherwise. We love him. We love him. We love him. My King. Forevermore."

The red film in his eyes stall out, and Bruce is forced to look away from how bright the image is, barely making out a silhouette before they dull back to their regular red.

"I am not inclined," Clockwork says slowly, "To this future."

"Because of what it means in the present," Bruce finishes for him. "They're not just imprisoning him, are they."

"They will have already muzzled him."

Clockworks is right in front of him faster than he can process, fist gripping the medallion at his neck so tight he now feels the ribbon digging into his skin.

"Unlike you, Mr. Wayne," and for the first time, the god is angry, and the image of it will haunt Bruce for the rest of his life, "I do not believe in building a better future on the back of a broken child."

"Find him," the deity orders, and yanks the necklace so hard the ribbon rips—

Clack!

"sluuuuurp!"

"Master Timothy, honestly!"

"Sorry Alfred!"

[featheredadora]

[uncanny-tranny]

It is my sincerest and unironic belief that we must invest in preserving "old technology." The more we move to a hegemonic, easily-surveilled way of living, the worse we will find this world to be.

Letters, public phones and transport, cash, and so much more are key to ensuring both freedom of movement and information, but also to combat the surveillance state. We need to preserve the ability to both access the world but also to be untraceable. I truly hope more people start to recognize this. It isn't about nostalgia for the past. It is about ensuring that we are actually afforded freedom, from the richest person to the person who lives on the sidewalk.

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts 3 - San Fransokyo

[eightspringdays]

May I dare to say...

[gentlebeard]

If I could hold you for a minute, Darling, I’d go through it again

For @edsbacktattoo & @stedesearring 💕 Show: Our Flag Means Death - Season 1 & 2 Music: Francesca by Hozier YouTube

[rustedhills]

Disney, releasing Wish: "so it's all about legacy--the new generation surpassing the old, overcoming the evils perpetuated by them, relinquishing singular power... and there's an old man in a tower, uh... animal sidekick, i guess..., ah... magic...?

Miyazaki, just out of frame, sledgehammer raised:

[flawlessflesh]

cecil is the thistle expy i made for a roleplay group i joined! he's started taking on a life of his own though...

in this rp, the mundane world and the supernatural secretly co-exist. cecil lives with his family in an underground bunker deep within washington state's hoh rainforest. the family is locked away and cecil believes he's protecting them from harm. he spends his days digging a frighteningly complex system of tunnels throughout the forest, convinced that if he can reach the black river deep inside the earth that's haunting his dreams, he'll be able to find his brother del's missing soul.

^ cecil being hounded by a good samaritan (samson's dorothy <3)

i'll share the public bio i wrote for cecil under the cut hehe

Cecil of the Talayi family began appearing in New Portsmouth grocery stores and libraries a few months ago. He isn't occupied by any work or schooling and he disappears for long stretches of time into the Hoh Rainforest.

A receipt Cecil discarded shows the following purchases: a wheelbarrow, five 50-pound bags of concrete mix, gloves, a large pack of 2x4 lumber, steel pipes, an industrial saw, and a bag of sour gummy worms (berry blast flavor).

When he was a young child, Cecil was given a home by the Talayi family. There is no official adoption on record and it is unknown exactly when Cecil was brought in. The family's head at the time, Farhang (فرهنگ), was an Iranian immigrant who made his fortune in Silicon Valley - Cecil believes he owes everything to him. Cecil was homeschooled alongside his younger brother, Del (عادل), who he helped raise. These days he is his brother's primary caretaker.

Farhang Talayi was assassinated by poisoning in 1991 by suspected corporate rivals. The murder trial was long, arduous, and inconclusive. Contemporary newspaper articles and tv footage of the investigation are archived online.

Ten years after the trial, the Talayi family moved from the bustle of Silicon Valley to New Portsmouth. Del bought property deep in the forest and built a private compound ringed by high walls. The Talayis made a few half-hearted excursions into the town's social scene, but they kept to themselves for the most part, homeschooled their children, and now have not been seen in public for many months.

Those initiated in the Secret World will look at Cecil and know he is a Protoplast - a name given to an insular race of humans whose proximity to Flesh diverged them from Homo sapiens thousands of years ago. Not much is known about Protoplasts beyond their natural skill with the Flesh font and their unusual physical characteristics: androgyny, elongated goat-like ears, hair and eyes lacking melanin, and rumors of extended lifespans. They are viewed with awe and wariness - anyone so close to Flesh should be handled carefully, of course. Most Protoplasts seen outside their clans are in the employ of the rich and powerful, a living status symbol. Cecil is no different.

[aquanutart]

[turtleduckmocha]

Vash "lived 150 years before meeting the one human he'd pray to be with for the rest of his days, for whom he betrayed his most deeply held principle so his death wouldn't be in vain, despite only knowing each other for a brief couple years" The Stampede & Marcille "met the person who'd become dearest to her 5% into her thousand year lifespan, then lost her over and over again, each time fighting tooth and nail to bring her back despite knowing she'll die permanently in a few decades" Donato

[transmasc-rose]

I'm thinking about the horror of the Doctor from the perspective of non-companions again, especially as it relates to people those companions know.

Rose? "Ran away" (not wrong) for "a year" (a week) with a "man" (alien) "twice her age" (approximately 50 times her age but yeah, he is Time Lord middle aged), and then gives absolutely no explanation for how or why that happened, except that she was "travelling".

Then when her mum does get an explanation (which, frankly, is only comforting because of the unfamiliarity of the alternative given. The devil you know.), Rose barely checks back in.

She almost dies for him. When she thinks he's dead, she's changed in a way her family doesn't know how to handle. Then she's gone for who knows how long and comes back with the Doctor wearing a new face.

When her original tenure as a companion ends, and Rose lives in Pete's World, she works for Torchwood/UNIT (they become the same organization). She volunteers for the Dimension Cannon. She explains to the alternate earth how to rig up a time machine.

She's changed in ways that no one else can really understand.

Amy? There's everything with River Song of course (though I'm still not there in my viewing), him running away with Amy the night before her and Rory's wedding, and also the connection between the Doctor and the Time Crack being the reason all of Amy's family's dead. Obvious stuff.

However he's also the strange man who broke into this child's house and made a mess of her life that she never got over, that promised to take her away from here, that she wrote about and drew and carved and made her friends dress up as.

And they sent her to psychiatrist after psychiatrist without any help. In their perspective, to work through what she imagined. In her perspective, to tell her that her reality wasn't real.

And then he comes back.

And to some extent, later, when he shows himself to everyone, isn't that more frightening? That the story your child told you, of the strange man she met as a child, of time travel, of nearly being stolen away, hadn't been a lie, or a misinterpretation, or an imagining?

And so he shows up at her wedding. And steals her away again.

Donna I feel like has the least horror until her final episode. I think exploring the in between section of her meeting the Doctor and finding him again would be interesting, but not exactly horror. More an exploration of how obsessive the companions can get about him, how it eats their whole lives with even one encounter, even as it makes them better people.

And then, obviously, the horror of having your mind altered and erased against your will by someone you trusted. For your own good, of course. Because he knows best. How could you know better than him? He's ancient. He's practically all knowing.

Shouldn't you be grateful?

(And he's forgiven.)

[fictionadventurer]

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes reviews I've seen fixate on the story's discussion of whether humans are inherently good or inherently evil as if one side or the other is the correct answer. Meanwhile the story itself is showing that individual choice in every action--choosing to act out of either love or self-interest--is what truly matters in shaping society. A free and stable society requires that people be taught to make selfless choices rather than act out of fear. Instead of oppressing people into fearful order, citizens need to have the freedom to choose the good, and be educated with the values that teach them what good is.

[rainofthetwilight]

strength

[dying-suffering-french-stalkers]

one has to laugh