#which made for some odd bits

[pristine-starlight]

Struggling so much to remember what the fuck i did read during elementary school, especially in lower grades

I remember what my sister read?? And also a bunch of individual books i read around that time Probably

But aside from that idk. 80s scifi? Pulpy paperbacks about legionaires?? That second one sounds especially bad but i Specifically remember being in 5th grade and trying to cope with being made to watch fuckin Fatelessness by reading Rejtő under the desk

[kris-mage-fics]

1,3, 4, 24 and 25 for Kyrahlise and Blade for the OCxLI OTP asks!

When I saw your ask I had to do a double-take, because I figured that you’d ask about Kyrah and Chase! But Kyrahlise and Blade are fun too! And so frustrating before they get together, lol! Now, without further adieu, here are the answers to the Romance Asks *dramatically gestures towards the answers*

1. What drew your character to their LI and vice versa?

Blade was drawn to Kyrahlise because she’s kind, hardworking, always trying to do what’s right, and keeps improving her combat abilities and magic. She also acts like she feels at ease around him and teases him. (Which gets to my headcanon that he likes it when people aren’t afraid of him and act normal around him.) 

Kyrahlise was drawn to Blade because despite all he’s done and seen, he’s still very kind and considerate. Also he’s incredibly fun to tease! He respects her abilities and knowledge, and she feels safe speaking her mind to him because he gives what she has to say due thought. What seals the deal is in Chapter 4 when he’s so angry about what happened to her. It’s been a long time since anyone has given a shit if she were safe, or wanted to protect her.

3. When they are having a fight, what is it about and how do they deal with it? 

The number one thing these two would fight about is Kyrahlise feeling like Blade is overprotective of her, and Blade feeling like she is too independent and reckless. Once Kyrah understands just how scared he is of losing her, and that he needs to know she’s safe, she’s going to take a long hard look at how she acts. She’ll agree to work on making her safety a higher priority, and communicating better before she runs off. When Blade realizes that she feels a little stifled and like he doesn’t fully trust her, I’m sure he’ll agree to reign in his protectiveness to some degree. Of course it’s something they both have to work on to find a balance, but they will eventually.

The silly thing about this argument is that she likes that he’s protective, and he likes that she’s independent and wants to tackle problems! They just both think the other takes it too far.

4. Their favorite physical feature on each other?

According to Lena, romanced!Blade loves MC’s eyes, hair, and lips (or just face in general), and we know he’s into a nice butt! I change my mind regularly as to which is his favorite, but right now I'm going to say her eyes!

Kyrahlise loves Blade’s smile! It fills her with joy to see him happy and relaxed enough to genuinely smile. She has an internal ‘got the stoic, ex-assassin to smile’ counter! Overall she thinks he’s a very beautiful and handsome man, but his smile is her favorite.

24. Is there any moment that happens between them that you know happens and just makes you melt? 

One time Kyrahlise sat on Blade’s lap briefly as he’s working to tell him something and give him a little kiss before getting up to read. (He’s a head taller than her, so she uses whatever she can to make it easier to kiss him!) But Blade doesn’t want her to go, so she’s like “fine, I’ll just read here” thinking that he’ll eventually get tired of her sitting on his lap. (She severely underestimates how much he likes having her close, lol) But he’s warm, and she feels very safe and cozy, so she falls asleep. Since he doesn’t want to wake her up, he stops working. And he’s probably having a hard time not staring at her because he thinks she’s very cute!

25. Share any headcanons about their relationship.

As soon as Blade lets her, Kyrahlise starts cutting his hair. She secretly thinks his haircut is atrocious. Though once she gives him a better haircut she realizes she played herself because now he looks even more handsome! (Kyrah’s been cutting her own hair since her mother died. Most people can’t be trusted to cut curly hair right, and she’s a touch vain about her hair.)

They trade books of poetry with each other and then talk about which ones they like and why. It’s like a little book club with just the two of them!

Blade’s office stops looking quite so bare, because Kyrahlise makes him some art to put up. If anyone dares to criticize it or make any disparaging remarks about it in his presence they get his death glare!

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[unknownarmageddon]

ALSO how old are they :0?

how did they meet, they are boyfriends give me their boyfriend lore please /silly

i haven’t thought up specific ages cause i. never really have specific ages for my characters unless it’s relevant for something but they’re in their 20s!!

AND and they met via the fact that both their respective apartment’s balconies were facing each other on opposite sides of the street so they kinda just end up being aware of each other’s existence over time.

i haven’t thought up many specifics yet but that’s the whole like. premise i’m going off of. like i’m thinking nick moved in after elijah had been there a good while already and started to take notice of this guy with the balcony across the street who played loud music and elijah would notice the guy who showed up and covered the balcony in plants and would stand out there and paint and they probably just inevitably ended up talking and interacting a bit. which lead to them running into each other when they were out and about and interacting more gradually

[fairyroses]

did you watch the Shattered/Asylum Talkville episodes? 👀

Yes I did! I'm really sorry, I've been meaning to send you all my notes/highlights from the Shattered pod ep like I promised I would, but my last semester of grad school started like 2.5 weeks ago and I've just been massively overwhelmed since then. 😭

Tbh, you could probably watch the full Shattered pod if you wanted, it was a pretty good ep for Talkville standards. The biggest highlight was probably Michael saying that the moment where Lex sees Clark use his powers for the first time is his favorite Lex moment in the series (especially in terms of his own performance)—he's clearly really proud of this episode and I think that made the pod better in general. Also Lionel gets called an evil bastard a couple of times, Tom points out how we all feel bad for Lex by the end of the episode, and Al Gough calls the Clex relationship "the focal point of the series." Other stuff happens too ofc, but I'd say those were my top moments.

The Asylum pod was... less good, IMO—like, it wasn't bad I guess, but some stuff def left me feeling kinda frustrated, so I wouldn't really recommend that you watch that one askldfsk (I could probably skim through it again and collect some highlights from it if you want, though)

[fridayyy-13th]

i'm pretty worn out from today. i might go to bed early.

[britneyshakespeare]

you know at the end of the day today i was chatting w some other paras. i was a special ed para for a seventh grader today that's what i did. and the last block for them is just learning center and it's chill and it's friday and some of the kids were making pizza and no one was really doing anything or stressed or bothered so the kids and the adults just have various little shooting-the-breeze sessions although im usually not that active in these bc Im Shy, And A Substitute so i feel very out of place a lot of the time. but anyway i had never really talked much w either of the paras i was with today and we struck up a conversation about some stuff and one of them says to me "you know just so you know i LOVE your hair" and she turns to the other para and she's like "isnt it gorgeous? dont you love her hair?"

and i kinda blushed and said thank you a couple of times and looked down bc that's what i do when i receive a sincere-sounding compliment unexpectedly. and then i chatted a little more before i kinda drifted out of the conversation and opened my book and after a page or two one of them asked me about what i was reading (it's Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human by Siddhartha Mukherjee if you were wondering and i started it a few days ago). so i told them a bit about it and started chatting again on the topic of reading and i guess i was just naturally smiling and the same one who complimented my hair said "look at those dimples. i just can't w you"

[bidokja]

uncanny charm finished last week and im just laying here like....please....side chapters...i miss them sjdhgf

[loregoddess]

so I've been watching the KH Union Cross stuff (in order, thank goodness, this would be so confusing to piece together otherwise), and like, I knew enough about UX that the appearance of the foretellers at the end of KH3 wasn't confusing bc I knew who they all were, but getting the expanded, explained lore and I'm like okay, actually these weirdos in animal masks are pretty cool, glad to know they'll show up (presumably) in future games

also I'm glad that memorizing the Latin names for the seven deadly sins is finally paying off

[caroloftheshells]

i think the thing about arcade fire is i find almost all of their music that i've heard to be ridiculously corny with a few tracks being, like, ok enough to transcend the inherent corn for me (sprawl ii). but they seemed to be the most iconic early/mid 2010s musicians to like successfully exist at the nexus of mumfordish stompclap, singer-songwriter-"literary"-bon-iver/fleetfoxism that was still commercially distributed (pitchfork/nprcore), and the thing people typically mean by "indie classical" which was individual orchestrators/arrangers/composers getting employed in the brooklyn-centric ymusic cinematic universe (or sort of the next wave of That Stuff after bang on a can - "cool" and "daring" classical musicians with portfolio careers getting booked in traditional concert venues).

generalizing here, but i think the majority of artistic projects* in the latter two categories would not touch stompclap with a ten foot pole for pretty clear reasons (metric & formal inflexibility, communal participation vibes, incompatibility with venue, lower emphasis on virtuosity, boomy wall-of-sound mixing, anthemic/prescriptive affect vs. idiosyncratic/expressive affect, etc). and even if the musical "type of thing" was similar in some fashion like body percussion or chorused vocals etc they would go about it in a way that was broadly uncharacteristic of stompclap. if you're tune-yards for example (someone i would situate in the npr-core part of this fake continuum) then you're not going to actually use a choir effect that mimics a big singalong with indistinct/anonymized voices; instead you're going to multitrack yourselves and hire roomful of teeth to do the backing vocals. actually multitracking and live looping are/were Huge... also i feel like collegiate a cappella had its moment around this same time (?) on the poppier side of things... hence stuff like the ben folds record that was all collegiate a cappella versions of his music. hm. anyway

[void-kissed]

and ONLY if you want to, don't feel pressured if it's too daunting- 1 for camellia?

Ahh, and here it is. Thank you for this, friend. You flustered me into oblivion.

(question source: "F/O Kiss Meme" by self-shipper-snowdrop)

First kiss

The context here is that Telanthera was once caught off-guard by a prospective assassin sent by some other noble that didn't like the way she had risen to nobility without being born into it. Luckily, Camellia was there and was able to put her training into practice to easily dispose of the attacker, even if Tel was knocked to the floor in the process - but in the process, revealed to Telanthera exactly what she is capable of. This is something she had very much been trying to avoid out of fear of rejection, but Telanthera does not think ill of her for it at all, and proves this through the following scene.

"Come here. I promise, that dagger of yours needs not taste blood again tonight."

"If you truly think yourself to be unworthy in my eyes, dear Camellia.."

"..then please, allow me to demonstrate exactly what worth you hold to me."

(I hope that this is alright! Thank you very much again for sending me this ask and helping me talk through how the scene might play out!!)

[afamiliarsword]

Ah... How I wish to see an MMORPG/Oblivion-like with good art direction *Gazes longingly*

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[lumsel]

chinese room 2

So there’s this guy, right? He sits in a room by himself, with a computer and a keyboard full of Chinese characters. He doesn’t know Chinese, though, in fact he doesn’t even realise that Chinese is a language. He just thinks it’s a bunch of odd symbols. Anyway, the computer prints out a paragraph of Chinese, and he thinks, whoa, cool shapes. And then a message is displayed on the computer monitor: which character comes next?

This guy has no idea how the hell he’s meant to know that, so he just presses a random character on the keyboard. And then the computer goes BZZZT, wrong! The correct character was THIS one, and it flashes a character on the screen. And the guy thinks, augh, dammit! I hope I get it right next time. And sure enough, computer prints out another paragraph of Chinese, and then it asks the guy, what comes next?

He guesses again, and he gets it wrong again, and he goes augh again, and this carries on for a while. But eventually, he presses the button and it goes DING! You got it right this time! And he is so happy, you have no idea. This is the best day of his life. He is going to do everything in his power to make that machine go DING again. So he starts paying attention. He looks at the paragraph of Chinese printed out by the machine, and cross-compares it against all the other paragraphs he’s gotten. And, recall, this guy doesn’t even know that this is a language, it’s just a sequence of weird symbols to him. But it’s a sequence that forms patterns. He notices that if a particular symbol is displayed, then the next symbol is more likely to be this one. He notices some symbols are more common in general. Bit by bit, he starts to draw statistical inferences about the symbols, he analyses the printouts every way he can, he writes extensive notes to himself on how to recognise the patterns.

Over time, his guesses begin to get more and more accurate. He hears those lovely DING sounds that indicate his prediction was correct more and more often, and he manages to use that to condition his instincts better and better, picking up on cues consciously and subconsciously to get better and better at pressing the right button on the keyboard. Eventually, his accuracy is like 70% or something -- pretty damn good for a guy who doesn’t even know Chinese is a language.

* * *

One day, something odd happens.

He gets a printout, the machine asks what character comes next, and he presses a button on the keyboard and-- silence. No sound at all. Instead, the machine prints out the exact same sequence again, but with one small change. The character he input on the keyboard has been added to the end of the sequence.

Which character comes next?

This weirds the guy out, but he thinks, well. This is clearly a test of my prediction abilities. So I’m not going to treat this printout any differently to any other printout made by the machine -- shit, I’ll pretend that last printout I got? Never even happened. I’m just going to keep acting like this is a normal day on the job, and I’m going to predict the next symbol in this sequence as if it was one of the thousands of printouts I’ve seen before. And that’s what he does! He presses what symbol comes next, and then another printout comes out with that symbol added to the end, and then he presses what he thinks will be the next symbol in that sequence. And then, eventually, he thinks, “hm. I don’t think there’s any symbol after this one. I think this is the end of the sequence.” And so he presses the “END” button on his keyboard, and sits back, satisfied.

Unbeknownst to him, the sequence of characters he input wasn’t just some meaningless string of symbols. See, the printouts he was getting, they were all always grammatically correct Chinese. And that first printout he’d gotten that day in particular? It was a question: “How do I open a door.” The string of characters he had just input, what he had determined to be the most likely string of symbols to come next, formed a comprehensible response that read, “You turn the handle and push”.

* * *

One day you decide to visit this guy’s office. You’ve heard he’s learning Chinese, and for whatever reason you decide to test his progress. So you ask him, “Hey, which character means dog?”

He looks at you like you’ve got two heads. You may as well have asked him which of his shoes means “dog”, or which of the hairs on the back of his arm. There’s no connection in his mind at all between language and his little symbol prediction game, indeed, he thinks of it as an advanced form of mathematics rather than anything to do with linguistics. He hadn’t even conceived of the idea that what he was doing could be considered a kind of communication any more than algebra is. He says to you, “Buddy, they’re just funny symbols. No need to get all philosophical about it.”

Suddenly, another printout comes out of the machine. He stares at it, puzzles over it, but you can tell he doesn’t know what it says. You do, though. You’re fluent in the language. You can see that it says the words, “Do you actually speak Chinese, or are you just a guy in a room doing statistics and shit?”

The guy leans over to you, and says confidently, “I know it looks like a jumble of completely random characters. But it’s actually a very sophisticated mathematical sequence,” and then he presses a button on the keyboard. And another, and another, and another, and slowly but surely he composes a sequence of characters that, unbeknownst to him, reads “Yes, I know Chinese fluently! If I didn’t I would not be able to speak with you.”

That is how ChatGPT works.

[elizzsush]

Fae Courting Rituals | TWST

Diasomnia Dorm X Reader

Lilia X Reader, Sebek X Reader, Malleus X Reader, Silver X Reader

---- Fae are typically taught from a young age certain courting rituals. (Non-Human courting rituals part 3/3)

Note: Was going To add silver to this list. (I know he isn't a fae, but he was raised by one) but was too tired to write for him)

Savanaclaw Ver. | Octavinelle Ver

Sebek:

He starts following you around for some reason.

Seriously, one day he just woke up and decided to not leave you alone. It helped that you guys shared a bundle of classes together.

You had no clue how you befriended the green hair boy. You weren't complaining though, in this school, where everyone is so set in their ways, you liked having the extra layer of protection that was the loud half fae: Sebek.

He was loud and denies it however, whenever you point out he follows you. He claims to not having even realized he was doing such a thing. "I would never follow around a mere human!" He shouted out his claims with a red face.

It could be true. He did get somewhat spacy sometimes if you'd believe it.

He had a packed schedule, or so he claimed, yet he always found time to be around you. It made a warm feeling blossom in your chest, well, of course before he used this time to rant about Malleus. "Wakasama is the most kind and fit ruler of-" He'd ramble, you'd sigh; put your face in your hand and lean a bit closer to him. You enjoyed hearing him so passionate, even if it was... constant.

He didn't have an off switch, that didn't have to be a bad thing.

Plush, you didn't hate his voice. Not that you'd be as loud about your likes as he was for his.

Though you were pretty positive your friends... and most of the students at NRC were in fact sick of his voice. People have also noticed he is more vocal around you.

Which is… a good thing?

The oddest thing happened once. At one point when the two of you were relaxing in ramshackle. A bag of popcorn and a shitty TV you got on sale at Sam's shop. He wasn't being loud for once in his life, instead his attention was focused on the screen.

You two were sitting pretty close together when, he had grabbed your hand and laid his head on yours. Was he... cuddling you?

You couldn't help but smile and continue to watch the movie. You didn't want to comment on it, you knew if you did, he'd probably get up, make a huge deal out of it (with a red face), and leave.

He started rubbing his forehead against yours before he finally pulled away like it never happened. It was oddly affectionate.

You didn't even think he knew that he was doing it.

He began to do these affectionate things while he was focused on something else. Either it be a show at the movie nights you organized with him, or if he was studying a bit to hard with you.

Your friends wondered how you even managed a movie night with the loud boy but you just shrugged.

Eventually, you had to face it: You really like Sebek.

You really liked this brash boy with a thick skull.

You knew however, even if he did like you back. He'd never admit it, let alone go out with you.

It left you with this odd feeling. A dull pain that ranged from a small ache to feeling like Throns were wrapping around your heart, piercing the organ in your chest.

You tried not to let that get you too down. Instead, you watched him across the lunchroom as subconsciously he blew bubbles into his drink, his green eyes finding yours...

So yes, you'd listen to his rants. You'd go out of your way to hang out with him, you'd enjoy his company while you could.

Because you knew, sooner or later, he'd realize it too. The same reality you had to face. And...

well...

He wouldn't face it.

He'd probably turn you away and never speak to you again. And you'd be fine with that. Even if you didn't want to be because you...

Well, let's save that for another day.. "Hey Sebek, lets hang out!"

"I suppose I can make time for you, Human!"

Lilia:

He was out to get you.

You noticed it. Almost everybody noticed it. You just didn't know what you did to him! He'd pop up everywhere and scare you! Right before disappearing away.

This counted as bullying, right?

You were starting to get... slightly paranoid.

You enjoyed Lilia's company, you really did. But you were tired of constantly looking over your shoulder. So, you started to avoid him, just a bit.

Your own personal revenge for the paranoia.

Now, Lilia has lived a long life. He knows what he's doing and is just having fun. He liked you, he did, but he probably isn't going to be that serious about this. He's in it for the vibes.

So when he see's you avoiding him... he well... He serenades you from outside ramshackle.

He makes his intentions very clear with a love song!

A boombox in Sebek's hand, and a tired Silver who followed along because... well Lilia was making Sebek hold a bomb box and traveling in your direction.

Lilia song his heart out for you. "Everybody loves somebody sometime!~ And although my dream was-"

"It is 2am!! The perfect will go out with you tomorrow!" Grim shouted out the window with a grogy done with it tone. After you threw a pillow at them.

NOTE: Sorry this one is short but I have a hard time writing for Lilia

Malleus:

What do you mean? You started courting him first. Very brave of you indeed child of man. He had even commented on it while you handed a piece of treasure!

That was... well, it was a cheap polished rock. It was well... shiny...?

It started very small. He accepted your gift and was expecting a bit more to be honest. Not even he was exactly sure how this courting would work out; he was prepared to be the one to pursue you!

Initially, he sat back and relaxed. Enjoyed the small sense of harmony you two already had and assumed you guys were dating.

Why would he not? He accepted your courting gift, he assumed their were more to come, the next step up to this would be marriage and he wasn’t sure you were ready for that.

However, you noticed this. You were so confused. He’d began to call you “beloved.” Which was a 180.

When did you two…? Huh??

He’s also been more clingy. Not on the sense he’d follow you around but in the sense of a mountain of handwritten letters and the actual sense that he’s in your personal space when you two do hang out.

So… the two of you are just dating now? “Beloved, you haven’t been responding to my letters. Did I do something?”

“Oh, sorry I just haven’t… quite finished all of them.” You glanced at a room that was empty at one time. Now it held a pile of letters.

This was an exaggeration, they’re were a lot but not a whole room full… yet.

Extra??? Silver:

It started like most seedlings of love, with a dream. A simple one, you were sat beside him, the two of you quiet and happy in each others company. The birds sang as you hummed beside him. The boy was content, more so then he had been in his life.

Then, like it was second nature to both of you. You two shared a kiss, and then he woke up.

Usually, he tried not to lose himself to sleep. But tonight all he wanted was to go back to the dream world and hold you. As soon as the realization crossed his mind however, he woke up even more. Had he ever been this awake? “Am I in love…?”

He, not knowing what to do. Went to Lilia, whom was enthusiastic with this news.

You know when parents find out their four year old has a crush? That’s Lilia, except Silver isn’t four. Every time they see you Lilia shoos Silver off too hang out with you. Sadly, with no prior love life to speak of, silver goes along with it.

Though he is embarrassed about it, he hides it well enough.

“Does Lilia think you like me?” You asked all to happily once, hiding your own happiness behind a giggle at the absurd situation he found himself in.

“Uh, yeah…” he’d just smile at you, his head laying on the lunch table as he was about to go to sleep. he loved to see you laugh even if it was somewhat at his expense. However, Sleep tends to escape him when he was near you. Not that he didn’t feel tired, but he didn’t feel as tired. He couldn’t feel angry about it, in fact he was happy about this. It was like you were some temporary cures for his illness.

Lilia would also insist that Silver gift you things. To show he can provide for you, the Silver hair male couldn’t disagree. So, he’d find things that might fancy you.

His bird and squirrel friends also helped him in his venture to gain your affection. Often leaving flowers at your doorstep and small shiny things.

One day you saw the birds and Squirrels run up to your doorstep, one flower at a time, make a gorgeous bouquet.

You made sure to thank him and his animal friends after that.

In return you'd try and make things for him, find things around he or the animals would like. Nuts for squirrels, seeds for the birds, and a deep red rose you plucked from Heartslabyul during the end of an unbirthday party.

He stayed awake for longer than he ever had that night, staring up at the rose in the dark while his dormmate slept. A smile on his lips as he examined every detail of it.

Ace would call it cheesy. The relationship between the two of you was something out of a romance movie he'd say in a more teasing way. Something like, "Is it Tuesday or Wednesday he's going to chase after you to an airport?" and then roll his eyes. You tell Ace to shut up while looking away with a face as red as riddle's hair.

It was after a test, you pulled your test paper out of your bag ready to check your score after preparing for disappointment when a blue bird swopped down and took it!

You cursed and chased after the bird, rushing past students and looking crazy, eventually you ended up in the forest next to the school.

You were sure you looked ever crazier than you had been running in the school halls, because now you had leaves in your hair, and your shoes were all muddy now...

Eventually, the birds placed the test paper, face down on a certain boy's chest. "Silver... Are you asleep?" You smiled and knelt beside him, a small smile on your face. Rolling your eyes at the perpetually sleeping boy. You sat beside him for a moment taking a deep breath before you grabbed your test.

You almost preferred it this way, to have him here, even if he wasn't fully here. It helped your nerves somewhat. An even bigger smile graced your face as you turned the paper, and a large B was printed at the top.

Standing up, you gifted your friend a small kiss on his forehead and wandered off back to school.

Well, you were stopped by a small, sleepy voice. "Y/N...?"

___________________________

Note: It was this or clean my depression room... Anyway, I want to expand on Sebek's small scenario because I know if it was its own imagine I could make it really good.

Would ya'll enjoy that...?

ANYWAY, these small series is competed! (Unless...?) Thank you for reading them and thanks for reading the note. Not a lot of people do that. Myself included.

I have a hard time writing for Diasomnia...

[sistertotheknowitall]

“But to the BatFam? That is just Some Guy. A random dude - if you will.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m missing my spleen.”

“Oh cool, yeah, missing organs suck. I’m missing a kidney and part of my liver. Oh! And my gallbladder but that was more of a necessary evil, it was like, poisoning me or something.” Danny was so focused on applying pressure to his wound (and maybe being a bit too light headed) that he didn’t notice how silent his friend had gotten. Like-wise the comms had gone equally quiet as Gotham’s vigilante family realized that they knew very little about this kid.

It was concerning how quickly they all started to see him as a friend considering it was them as vigilantes he interacted with the most. Tim was the only one who saw him frequently when out of the suit because he was a regular at Danny’s day job. (He worked as a barista in the coffee shop Tim favored.) The others saw him occasionally but more often than not it was just in passing. Steph, Duke, and Dick had to stop themselves from approaching him on the street.

It was odd, one day he had just moved to Gotham, seeming to appear out of nowhere, and then the next he was a constant presence in their lives. Usually armed and ready with a concerning or odd quip, it had started with him being another victim of the city’s petty criminals and had snowballed from there.

Now it wasn’t like the bats saw Danny everyday, but it was expected that he would cross paths with at least three of them before the end of the week. They ran into him more often than any other Gothamite, including the criminals and rouges they fought.

At first the constant meetings by “coincidence” was suspicious. If he wasn’t the one being saved from a mugging, kidnapping, or city wide villain assault, then he was near by and trying to help.

(“Trying to help” usually meant drawing attention to himself so the original victim could escape. Once it had meant Danny armed with a baseball bat against four grown men. Bruce and Dick have tried to talk to him about putting himself in harms way but the kid is surprisingly elusive when he wants to be. Yet, even when avoiding Batman and his eldest, Danny could be found on the patrol route of another family member.)

But honestly? The guy seemed just as exhausted as they were of seeing each other. By the twelfth time in a month, Danny had accused them of stalking him.

The background check Bruce and Tim had run came back clean and he never seemed to be involved in the various criminal activities. He was just there, a weirdly unlucky bystander. So as far as Dick and the others could see, Danny was a completely normal dude. He just said strange things and wasn’t intimidated by them, he actually made it a point to be unhelpful sometimes. When trying to learn his name he gave them the run around for two months. (“I know about stranger danger. I don’t care how often you say you’re the ‘good guys.’ I’m not falling for it.”)

On one memorable occasion Danny had disappeared for a week and a half. When they started to assume the worse, he popped back up behind the counter at work. Tim had relaxed significantly when he entered the shop to Danny organizing pastries in the display case. Once he’d placed his order, the young CEO asked Danny if he’d been on vacation. To which Danny had just sighed and told Tim “I wish, but no I was called to court to handle some affairs I couldn’t get out of.” (After a check to see if Danny had gotten charged with something and coming back empty, Tim had concluded that it was an odd way to say he had had jury duty.)

Thinking about it now, outside a stray comment or two, Danny didn’t talk about himself or his life. They knew he didn’t have a good relationship with his parents, “they were much more goal oriented than that joke of a kidnapper, but I think drugs do that to a person.” (It was still unclear if he meant his parents were kidnappers themselves or on drugs.) They knew he had an older sister who would “kill me again if she finds out I was in another bank robbery.” They also knew he was, possibly, depressed after last week’s comment of “is it considered murder if you’re already dead but, like, still alive?” (Damian had saved him from a drug ring but after another “baby ninja” comment the young Robin had threatened to give Danny back to his would-be murderers.)

Dick knew Danny was a weird guy who never wanted to elaborate on the things he said. (Jason was still confused on what he meant by “rotted milk soul.”) That didn’t mean the comments themselves didn’t say a lot about him. And tonight’s comment, accompanied by the prominent and jagged autopsy scars, said more than Danny was probably willing to share.