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greytoiletpaper · 2 years

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it isn’t the same, but it is enough

He doesn’t know how many hours he’s spent in this place, far away from anywhere he can call home. Here, it is only him and the void, adrift in a conflictingly harsh emptiness.

Under the soft glow of medical lamps, Della holds the three bundles close to her chest, keeping what’s left of her family together.

Or, Scrooge does the second most reasonable thing. He builds the rocket and tells Donald about it.

AO3

Chapter 1: Has the light gone out for you? ‘Cause the light’s gone out for me

Della slams her fists against the glass, desperately hoping that she can break through it and get her brother the fuck out of there. But the panes are too thick, and she's running out of time. Donald's desperately quacking at her, but she can't make out what he's saying over all the damn noise. The systems in the ship are all going nuts with angry red "system locked" signs all over the displays. Even if Donald somehow manages to pilot the rocket, something else might backfire. In any scenario, he'll still be gone.

She presses her forehead to the canopy, wet tears smudging the panes, and sees her twin mirror the action. Della, never one to quit, keeps trying to break the barrier. Still, she's also memorising every weary edge and angle of her brother's face. A flickering, insidious voice inside her says she can't do this, and her brother's death will be her fault.

The rocket's engines are done warming up now, and Della feels herself slipping. She's run out of time. She doesn't want to let go, but if she falls when it's taking off, she'll die, and then neither of them can see her boys when they hatch. Della's screams and pleas turn hoarse while she still bangs on the windows with all the force she can muster.

"Anything," She begs, shaky arms finally giving out. "Please, anything but my brother."

Donald doesn't take his eyes off his sister and curses like the Navy duck he once was. He curses his bad luck, his speech impediment and himself for being played like a damn fool. Should never have taken Bradford's offer to check the ship. He's a sailor, not a fucking spaceman. What was he even thinking? He tried to warn Della that the Buzzard isn't who he says he is. But his already gibberish voice is garbled by the thrusters and dulled by the thick glass.

He's not making it out of this one, and they both know it. Donald gestures to his twin to back down. To let back onto the platform and at least be safe. He knows Della gets it because she's shaking her head and can barely make out the terrified pleas she makes. Even when she finally gets off, she's wearing the same expression she dons when he beats her at her own game, but it's monumentally worse this time. Della Duck laughs in the face of fear, a sharp grin and snarky response always on the tip of her beak. It hits him that this might be the last time they ever see each other.

So, Donald does the only thing there's left to do. He meets his sister's hopeless face and gives his warmest smile. It's macabre and morbid, but it's the only way to convey that she isn't to blame. He wishes to turn this all around, but it's simply out of their hands now. That he can get those three words across.

Shaky and lopsided, Della does her best to match her brother's smile, hoping for all the world that her twin understands her as she can him.

The Spear of Selene takes off, never to be seen by another soul on Earth again.

There's light all around him, yet all Donald can see is the inky abyss, and it stares back at him. He doesn't know how many hours he's spent in this place, far away from anywhere he can call home. Here, only him and the void, adrift in a conflictingly harsh emptiness.

The only thing worth seeing out the window is his own face gazing back close enough to be his sister's. But he doesn't need to. Closing his eyes, he can still see her haunted, tear-soaked face. There's no use for anger here; he can't help but curse his luck on this one. Vainly hoping that it could turn around just this once.

Donald Duck is lost among the stars, even when the darkness shifts to a stark white pockmarked with craters and holes.

Della stares at the three bundles in her arms, contentment and joy thrumming under her skin for the first time in what feels like forever. Donald's voice says something to her left, and she turns, ready with a quip at the ready and-.

And there's no Donald. Only her, the monitors, and her boys. It all catches up to her that these could've been Donald's boys. He should be here, loving them with all he is, and they'll never know. Scrooge has already given up on his search, weighed down by his company and board. Now, it'll be just her in their two-duck team, and gods above he would be so much better at raising them she can already-.

A small chirp disrupts her, and she looks down to three pairs of dark ovals, fresh and new and then they're all chirping. Della's heart swells with pure adoration at the sight of her ducklings, her bill ready to give them their first preening as she holds them close.

Later, the nurses will ask their names, and Della will almost say the ones she was dead set on. But she holds that thought. It might be a little masochistic, but the names Donald suggested for them are some of the only things she can pass on of him. They were better than her choices anyway. She almost starts crying when she realises that she'll never see her twin's smug grin with an insufferable "I told you so".

Under the soft glow of medical lamps, Della holds the three bundles close to her chest, keeping what's left of her family together. No more Scrooge or Donald for her to fall back on when it gets rough.

Being a single mother in the twenty-first century is a daunting task. She's already moving out of the manor. Even with what lacklustre support payments she's eligible for, she still needs a job. But nothing has ever stopped Della Duck before, so she'll get this right. For now, Della sings her lullaby to her darling baby boys, piecing together how to face each new day.

One isn't raised by Scrooge McDuck without learning how to budget and be resourceful with all of one's finances. By the end of the week, she finds a decent apartment in downtown Duckburg, a good-sized crib and pram for her boys. If she manages to scrape by on the essentials, just enough left of her allowance to last 10 months. It's a cathartic thought, she might be bored, but she can at least get almost a full year of just her and the kids.

It passes by that way too. She washes and struggles and watches each of her boys grow. She spends most of her time taking naps, nursing her boys or taking them to the local park to experience the fresh air outside the apartment. These days are peaceful, the only monsters she slays are night terrors, and treasure comes in the form of an easy day where she can just watch her babies' chests rise and fall.

Without Donald, she can't walk without feeling like she's lost a limb, still catching herself talking to a ghost in the corner of her eye. Della wants to give her boys the adventures she promised in the lullaby she sings. But between bills and rent and three hungry mouths to feed, Della hasn't a lot of time to show them the corners of the world. Eventually, her allowance will run out, and a couple temp jobs to start saving would be a great idea to get behind right now.

What skills she picked up from her adventuring days aren't precisely transferrable skills for steady employment. Even still, Della lands a decent job as a waitress in the meantime. Scrounging for clues turns into hunting for the worst stains. Well-coordinated hands grown for daring plane tricks on a dime transfer to balancing dishes and bussing tables. Picking apart all the angles for a quick escape becomes tracking all the orders during rush hour. Eventually, Della, the 'ace pilot' adventurer, becomes Della, the 'serving your order with a smile' waitress. All she needs now is someone to watch over them during her shifts.

Fethry already offered to resign from his lab. But she's still too scared stubborn to accept help from the rest of the family. Not when she can't look them in the eye without being reminded of the other half she's lost. Even then, Fethry's still close enough to Scrooge, and she meant it when she said she didn't want anything to do with him again.

She's picking her brain for a solution while fussing over a hungry Louie when someone knocks on her door. Della can barely deal with anyone who isn't social services, but she doesn't have much else to do. She opens the door, fully expecting hawkers and salesmen to shoo off, and instead, Goofy stands in her doorway.

#ducktales #della duck #donald duck #louie duck #dewey duck #huey duck #scrooge mcduck #goofy #bradford buzzard #alternate au #single parenting #single parent #della duck is a good parent #i will die on this hill #donald duck disappears instead of della duck

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greytoiletpaper · 2 years

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greytoiletpaper · 3 years

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listen if no one else writes this im gonna have to do it and the problem with me having to do it is that im gonna have to do it.

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greytoiletpaper · 3 years

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This actually had me spitting

very slowly working on the inoshino besties au so here's a snippet i thought was kind of funny

“I asked him if he wanted to see one of the P. fuscatus my family obtained through great difficulty and tedious negotiations with a merchant clan of beekeepers in Kumo, and he told me to stay out of the way of his path of revenge,” Shino explains, cradling the small wasp to his chest.

Ino sighs. “He’s so dreamy.”

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greytoiletpaper · 3 years

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Jason and Steph being regarded as “bad” Robins will never make sense to me. Nor will their deaths being attributed to their “recklessness”.

I mean, first all, the victim-blaming is wild. Blaming them for their own deaths is beyond messed up, and definitely influenced by classism and sexism.

But, moving past that meta textual analysis, I sincerely wonder if people who make those claims have ever actually read A Death in the Family or War Games.

Because you can’t read those stories, and come away from it thinking Jason and Steph were anything other than Big Damn Heros, imo.

… Gotta… Get you… Outta here… I’ll… Save you… Mom…

… You’re … Free… Run… For it… Go….

… He threw… Himself… In front… Of me… In front of me… He took… The main brunt… Of the blast

Sheila sold him out, he’s been beaten to within an inch of his life, and yet his first priority is getting her out. Until his dying breath he is trying to protect her. How is that not the very definition of a hero?

He got captured and beaten because he trusted her; that’s not on him, that’s on her. And if he’d decided to abandon her and save himself, which would not have been unreasonable, he could quite possibly have picked the lock and escaped. But he didn’t. Because he’s a hero, he decided saving her was more important than saving himself.

Jason’s death was not inevitable. (Oh sure, the story was written with the specific end in mind that Jason would die, but taking Jason as a character, this idea that he was going end up dead sooner or later is false). His death was a tragedy because he was a good person gone too soon.

He didn’t die because he was careless. The whole point of his death is that it is a tragedy. He was only fifteen; he had his whole life ahead of him. And he was a good kid, just so genuinely good. It’s the tragedy of “the good die young”.

I could do it. I could! Maybe even I should. But that would mean ignoring everything Batman has taught me.

Steph has Black Mask at her mercy. She can kill him if she chooses, and it would not unreasonable if she does. (Keep in mind, he has been torturing her for days). And yet she does not. She has the gun pointed at his head and she doesn’t pull the trigger. Not because she doesn’t have it in her, but because she still holds to her principles.

(I do have a meta in the works on how Batman’s no kill policy might negatively impact his kids, in that even in impossible situations they worry about disappointing him. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that Steph has someone who wronged her at her mercy, and she chooses not to pull the trigger because of the standard she holds herself to.)

She has not had an easy life. Her father’s a vilain; she has no positive adult figures in her life. She has been consistently undermined as Spoiler and as Robin. But even with all of that, she does not become bitter, she keeps going.

Even after all that she has suffered in the past few days, she is still in control of herself. She could shoot him, she wants to shoot him, and she wouldn’t be unjustified in doing so. But she does not, because of her moral system. That is not weakness or an inability; that is strength.

It wasn’t recklessness that started the War Games. Anyone who worked with Bruce in his inner circle would have known that Matches was him, but he never told her even when she was Robin.

Her run as Robin was doomed, not because of her capabilities, but because Bruce was never going to give her a fair chance. He wanted Tim back and he took out his grievances on her, used her.

Despite all that, she always rose. She could not be kept down. The idea that this kid who kept getting up had died, had finally been permanently stopped, it was horrific. She didn’t get herself killed; that’s not what War Games showed. It showed how absolutely tenacious she is. It showed how much of a hero she is.

These kids are drawing literally from the classic hero archtype. I love morally grey characters and all, but there is a wide appeal for the straight up hero. Characters who can’t be broken, who have seen the worst the world has to offer and still choose to be kind.

Jason wanting to save his mother, Steph not pulling the trigger, these were not easy decisions. But the two made them, because that’s what heros do. They hold themselves to their principles even while no one else does, simply because it is right.

Not keeping this in mind removes the tragedy of Jason’s situation and Steph’s. It removes all nuances in their characters after they come back.

Honestly, the character being hurt over and over, being tortured, and then, having the opportunity to enact revenge and not taking it. Going no, I am not going to lower myself to your level. I am a hero, and I stand by that. You cannot break me. That’s the sort of thing people go wild for.

Because characters taking revenge is cathartic. I enjoy those stories. If Steph had pulled the trigger or Jason gets to kill Joker, I will be happy. They do not deserve to be condemned if they make that choice.

But a huge part of the appeal of superheros as a concept is that they stand for hope. They stay kind and loving, help and trust, despite how much cruelty they have suffered.

So the fact that the main takeaway from DitF and War Games is that Jason and Steph got themselves killed, rather than that they are the archtypical Hero, is beyond suspect.

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greytoiletpaper · 3 years

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Every year… Every damn year…

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greytoiletpaper · 3 years

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I’m unveiling the unexpected

Hatake Kakashi is Professor of Mysteries at Hogwarts School of Withcraft and Wizardy.

What he gonna do. (b -_\\)b

This is part of a oneshot collection (that I’m building)

AO3 | Is it raining - It’s already nighttime

Harry takes his seat at the Gryffindor table after checking in at the infirmary and concludes that the first day of his third year at Hogwarts has gone to absolute shit.

"Psst, Harry."

He was honestly having a good time, but his hands have yet to stop shaking minutely and the woman screaming his name still echoes in his head now and then.

"Harry. Hey, Harry."

In the past year alone, Harry slew a gigantic snake with a magic sword and exorcised the ghost of a book without breaking a sweat. Yet, the attack from the dementors shook him to his core. Maybe, he wonders, it is because of puberty.

"Harry! Hello?"

The-Boy-Who-Just-Wants-To-Fucking-Eat puts his head in his hands, exhales twice, and turns to the right with a hangry death glare.

"Ron, I'm sure you have something riveting to say but I really just want to eat my-."

"Eat later Harry, take a look at the head table." Ron interrupts smoothly, and if it was not for the earnest look in the ginger's eyes, Harry probably would have made him eat his fist.

With a mournful glance to his plate, Harry turns to look and – and there's an empty seat at the head table, which never happens lest a teacher wants to face the wrath of Professor McGonagall. The last time one of them did, Professor Sprout's Mandrakes wouldn't stop screeching for a week. Even after they buried them.

"Hang on. That can't be right," Hermione squints as she counts. "All our professors are there, even for the electives."

"How come you know every professor?" Ron says while Harry nods with his mouth crammed around a sandwich.

"If you must know-," Hermione sniffs at the same time Dumbledore rises from his seat, and the Great Hall quiets.

"And on another note, I am pleased to announce a new subject added onto our curriculum along with a new member of our staff," Dumbledore speaks without missing a beat. Unperturbed by the fact every eye in the Hall has shifted to the empty seat he is ignoring. "Please welcome, the Professor of Mysteries at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry-."

The grand doors of the Hall burst open, and a thunderous boom reverberates throughout the room as multiple streaks of white-hot lightning race across the ceiling (Someone chokes on their sandwich). When the flashes die down, a man with silver hair stands at the entrance, and Dumbledore smiles.

"Kakashi Hatake."

After Ron and Hermione dislodge the last bits of bread from his throat, Harry turns to get a good look at Professor Hatake. Admittedly, not a lot is visible in the first place. What with the pitch-black robes, some kind of head bandana and a mask? Namely, just some (gravity-defying!) silver hair and an exposed lone eye. Professor Hatake barely seems to notice all the attention directed to him, not even expressing an inkling of embarrassment at his dramatic entrance. Everything with his demeanour radiates... extreme boredom.

In one moment, the professor slouches without a care in the world. In the next, he is collapsed into the previously empty seat. Dumbledore continues his speech as if nothing strange even happened, and Harry is left wondering that maybe today was a little interesting after all.

Kakashi has spent two minutes around the rest of the Hogwarts body, and he already wishes he could go somewhere far, far away. When he arrived at the introductory dinner, he was definitely not expecting an audience of... not much, if he was being honest. Just not hundreds of loud, snotty teenagers - all of them staring at him as if they were fresh genin he had just expelled.

At this thought, Kakashi pouts. A condition of his teaching position is that he has no expulsion power. Meaning he has no sure-fire way to weed out the less appreciative students. Apparently, Hogwarts is meant to be a "respectable institution" with "esteemed academic integrity". Kakashi just laments the injustice of having to deal with bratty civilian children and extra paperwork.

"Evening. Hatake, was it?" Someone on his left says. Kakashi does not miss how every other professor unsubtly glances at him. The speaker, an older witch with a sharpness in her eyes that Kakashi has only seen in people like Tsunade, coolly stares at him. He even unconsciously sits a little straighter in his seat under that gaze. "Might I inquire the reason to your tardiness?"

"Oh, I was walking to the Hall after I had a nap you see, until a black cat crossed my path. So, I had to go the long way," Kakashi says, completely ignoring how every other staff member is blatantly eyeing him. "They're omens of bad luck you see, and I didn't want to risk being late on my first day."

Kakashi punctuates his statement with an eye-smile, and now everyone is staring incredulously at him. A severe-looking man with a hooked nose scoffs and glares at him.

"Late?" He drawls and – hang on. If Kakashi scrutinises him a little, the man sort of looks like a more constipated Sasuke, and that's a hard thing to achieve. "I would hardly call being half an hour late, early."

Wow, he even speaks like his old student.

"Hm?" Kakashi murmurs thoughtfully. "I only just got here a few hours ago."

"A few hours ago?" The man's eyebrow arched, and he looks more assessing than curious. "But you weren't on the Hogwarts Express when it arrived."

"Ahh," Kakashi intones and rubs the back of his head. "That's because I walked here."

"You what."

"Now, now Severus," The first witch cuts in as she stops scrutinising Kakashi to address the man. "Hatake is a new professor here."

"McGonagall, I think that is hardly an excuse when-"

"I believe it is, Snape, the castle is quite large and easy to get lost in. And it wouldn't hurt to be polite," McGonagall stares Snape down, and the others observe the standoff. Snape cracks first, huffing and glaring down at his plate (a tomato dish, Kakashi notes thoughtfully). "I apologise on behalf of our fellow professor, Hatake but-."

McGonagall goes bug-eyed when she turns to Kakashi, and the other professors that notice this, do as well. This is fair considering that in the second that everyone had been distracted, Kakashi had wolfed down his entire dinner without anyone noticing him taking off the mask. It does make him a little uncomfortable, and Kakashi wonders if he should hide behind his beloved Icha Icha.

"What in the blimmin' feck jus' happened," The half-giant man says everyone’s thoughts out loud.

Dumbledore takes his seat then, slotting neatly into the collective. He nods good-naturedly at Kakashi and acts as if his entire staff had not just lost their collective shit at the new addition.

Being the rebellious teenager he is, Harry thought that people his age definitely did not need adult supervision when left to their own devices. (It is not like the past two years are his fault or anything).

Contrarily, Seamus Finnigan decks Ron in the face, screaming at the top of his lungs how "the Chudley Cannons can't aim for shit, you daft bastard". Behind them, the rest of the Mysteries class is in total disarray.

Harry realises that he is definitely very, very wrong.

“It’s only been ten minutes,” Harry whispers to himself. “And it’s already a madhouse.”

"Of course, it would turn into one, Harry." Hermione, the only one not paying any mind to the clamour, says without losing focus as she turns the page of her textbook. "It's what I keep telling you."

Before Harry can retort, a black, diamond-shaped object hurtles past his head and almost shaves off half of his hair. The gasp he draws halts the absolute chaos of the class, and they all follow his gaze to the back of the room. A dagger by its looks, the object is embedded up to hilt precisely in the centre of Malfoy's drawing of Harry fainting, pinning it to the wall.

"Maa, good morning…." An accented voice intones from the front, and every head turns to gape at the previously missing Professor Hatake. Who is standing upside- upside down from the ceiling? How is his cloak not even falling down? The professor holds a bright orange book in his hand and seems totally unbothered, as if his classroom is not the scene of a warzone. His sole eye forms an upside-down U shape. "Sorry I'm late. I'm afraid I got lost on the path of life."

Professor Hatake flips (actually flips!) gracefully and into the seat of his desk at the front and just… stares at them. The professor taps his chin thoughtfully for a moment, his eye not betraying a single emotion.

“Based on my first impression, I’d have to say….” Professor Hatake begins, and the class leans forward in their places in anticipation. “…That I don’t like you at all.”

And then the classroom explodes.

Professor Hatake excuses only Hermione from the punishment of cleaning up the classroom without magic. Apparently, for being a “good little genin” (whatever that means). As Harry scrubs more of the soot, he watches the professor summon Goyle’s wand that he had been sneaking to use without even looking up from his book. This year, Harry surmises, will definitely be something. What kind of something, he is not sure he wants to know.

#kakashi hatake #harry potter #ron weasely #hermione granger #albus dumbledore #minerva mcgonagall #severus snape #canon divergence #harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban #harry potter except kakashi is a teacher #that's it #that's the fic #au #naruto #fanfiction

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greytoiletpaper · 3 years

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random 2am prose

I wrote this as practise so I could get back into the flow of writing. I wish I didn’t.

"So, picture this. You’re at some party – not a nightclub one mind you – playing uno with a group of strangers. Atmosphere’s chill, all things considered, and soon enough the game starts to become almost mindless to you. You’re picking up the played cards to reshuffle the deck at, get this, the same time someone puts their card down."

They gesticulate distractedly while you nod along.

"You don't really mind it, but for those brief seconds of skin-to-skin contact, there’s something electrifying happening. It’s like nothing you've ever felt before and that shocks you. Shocks the both of you apparently when you look up into their eyes and notice just how vibrant they are. You following all this?"

You hesitantly nod and they grin.

"Yeah, so anyway that's why we had hardcore anal sex with all the jam you made for the bake sale commencement party."

#prose #this idea lives in my head rent free

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greytoiletpaper · 3 years

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Once you get this you have to say five things you like about yourself, publicly, then send this to ten of your favourite followers (non-negotiable) SPREAD POSITIVITY

Fuck UmMMmMMMmMmM

1. The fact that if I’m really absorbed in doing something; may it be researching, writing or otherwise, I can do it wholeheartedly and with the best effort that I can do.

2. That I am the Tired™ friend.

3. While I didn’t do spectacular overall in my grades when I graduated from the IB, I got A’s with almost full marks in both EE and TOK, which makes me very ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* special *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

4. That I am an avid fan of the horror genre while also crying over silly child cartoon and watch the block men play gaem and make dick joke.

5. Being grey-asexual, it’s fucking awesome.

No cap this would be a lot easier if it was on things I don’t like about myself lmao

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greytoiletpaper · 3 years

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i won monopoly by having hotels on mayfair but also holding the cards my sisters needed to complete their deck and essentially stalled them out and they called me a wuss because apparently that isnt how you monopoly but thats??. literally how... capitalism works?!?!??!

#monopoly

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greytoiletpaper · 3 years

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THIS AU IS EVERYTHING. Also, if you've been wondering where the last chapter of Out on Allen Street has been, a lot of shit has been happening these past few months and I haven't been able, motivated or terrified to use writing as my vice. I can't guarantee that I'll wake up tomorrow or the day after or a week after with the drive to finish the damn thing, but my life is slowly crawling back and when it does, you'll know when that thing gets squiggly squoggly posted :)

And a big fat FUCK YOU Michael McCormack

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greytoiletpaper · 3 years

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fuck yeah

#gorillaz #spotify #spotifywrapped #top artist

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greytoiletpaper · 3 years

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This panel’s definitely already talked about but guess Bruce doesn’t see Jason as his son anymore 🥴🥴🥴

#batman #Damian Wayne #bruce wayne #dc comics

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greytoiletpaper · 3 years

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Bathe Me in the Purest Water (I Don’t Feel Clean)

Yeah, so I wrote this like a couple months ago and i only just caught up with the manga and just... wow. I loved it, and I guess I just want this solidified here :). And yes, this fic was originally inspired by this comic, I love it so.

AO3 link

It is a shrieking wail bouncing off the walls of the Todoroki household at ungodly hours of the morning that has Touya bolting upright drenched in a cold sweat. Briefly, he wonders how fucked up it is that he thought he was hallucinating the sound. It is nothing like the cries of his siblings he has long since memorized. Yet, something about the sounds is so raw and so young, that refuting them as little Shouto’s cries is impossible.

Touya finds himself sprinting from his room, searching all over for the source of Shouto’s wails. The awful noise rings from every room and in his eardrums that he even considers whether the youngest Todoroki somehow developed a second quirk. Enji would have a field day with that. His mind is compartmentalizing, but joking is the only way he can stay sane when Shouto’s wailing turns into screaming. When he stumbles into the kitchen, he wishes that the joke was reality rather than the sight that greets him.

There is a kettle in the shaking hand of his mother while she mutters her husband’s name under her breath. Her eyes dart around every part of the room except the screaming face of her youngest son. A raw burn is on Shouto’s face, marred and angrily red as if a scalding liquid has run over it. There is evidence abound to figure out what happened, but that is yet to be Touya’s concern. For the rest of his life, no sound will ever haunt him as much as his baby brother’s screams turning into a weak gurgle.

He misses the way that Rei flinches when he moves closer, how his mother shrieks her husband’s name even though Enji only returns home from his mission tomorrow. Instead, all his attention is on the brother who looked up at Touya like he hung the stars curl up in a ball and shake. It is five seconds later when his other siblings rush into the room that Touya snaps out of his fugue. He gathers Shouto in his arms, whispering frantic platitudes in his ears and praying for the health of his baby brother.

Todoroki Touya is twelve when he has to bandage half of his five-year-old brother’s face. Their mother is sent to a mental health ward the next day, and their already-burning family peels more at the edges.

---

It is beautiful, the way that its form crinkles and curves at the edges. In all of his time with Cremation, he has never seen the azure flames seem so… gentle. Endeavour’s fire is like his rage, pure concentrated firepower that is only broken by small, consistent licks of flames at the edges. Touya’s flames are akin wildfire, they lash and lance and branch out in a chaotic collage that only he seems to be able to tell discern the individual licks of flame. Yet, in his hand, the flames seem so docile in their current shape, made of small bits of fire that skirt and weave themselves in a trance-inducing pattern.

Their shape is simple, but the forget-me-nots that his flames have formed are the product of the past three weeks of hard work and practise. Since Enji has stopped training Touya in favour of Shouto, he has had so much more time to focus on fine-tuning his quirk. His father taught him how to make his flames hotter and so much more destructive but here before his eyes is the proof that his fire can be used to make something instead.

He tries not to be guilty at the fact he gets to have this while his baby brother is beaten black and blue the floor below him.

Across him, his mother’s face lights up in her scarce, genuine smile that reminds him that even with all her cracking pieces, Rei Todoroki is still a mother that loves just as much as she is hurt. (She is so very hurt and there is nothing he can do to take it all away). It is thanks to her that he even learned controlling his quirk is possible.

It seems ironic, that he learned how to destroy with his flames from his pro hero father but is learning fine control from his civilian mother.

“That’s a beautiful flower Tou-chan,” He blushes at the nickname, but his mother is rarely happy, so he does not protest. “I hope one day all of you can do this with your quirks, it’s such beautiful artwork we can make with what we have been given.”

With her ice, his mother forms a beautiful, twinkling rindou flower and cups it in her hand. It is breathtaking to look at, seemingly ethereal with the frost emanating and little flecks of snow dancing in the lamplight. It is rare for Rei to use her quirk and every time, Touya is lost in the way that the ice seems to flow and skirt as if a small part of a blizzard appeared and made her craft. If he looks closer, the movement of his mother’s ice is familiar, shifting and undulating in ways so, so similar to how his fire is in his hand right now.

The quirk doctors said Touya inherited his mother’s constitution, everyone assumed it meant he was weak. He can apparently control his fire as if it were an ice quirk. Using Cremation for too long makes him feel like he is physically melting. In hindsight, he should have realised just how literal the quirk doctors were being.

---

He read in a textbook once that sometimes twins can swap their intended quirks in the womb. Fuyumi grabs the kettle from its undoubtedly searing bottom without even a wince, even though she has an ice quirk that freezes her arm at just a second’s usage. For the time being, it was the furthest thing from his mind. Shouto only barely breathing and all Touya wants is to hold someone so young and already so scarred in his arms and take all his tears for himself.

---

A week later, Enji puts Shouto back into training. Everyone protests this, but there is hardly anything they can say that can sway their father when he pulls his Endeavour face and disregards them in his own way of lovingly shoving his other children to the ground. Does Touya feel some satisfaction that the old man hesitated for a second before he lays his hand on Fuyumi? A little, but it fades as quickly as it came when there is still nothing stopping the prick from forcing their baby brother from being put back into what is no doubt extra hours to make up for “valuable training time gone to waste”.

Enji’s words, not his.

Frustration, anger and pain – so much pain – is what spurs Touya into action. He leaps onto Endeavour’s back, furiously trying to pry Shouto from the sick bastard’s hands and earns a knee to the gut for his efforts. Enji leaves him in the hallway and even though his other siblings are moving him to his room all he can think is how his baby brother looks so afraid as if he knows this time there will not be a mother to comfort any of them afterwards.

---

He wakes to the sound of Shouto’s tears slightly muffled in the central courtyard. The sun is only on the cusp of rising but sleep had eluded him for hours regardless. In the morning rays, his baby brother’s face is a mess of tears and aborted hiccups. A pang sounds in his chest, Shouto is so young (they all are) and he already has to learn how to make himself silent in fear of the flaming shadow that is their father. There is a small patch of ash by Shouto’s feet and soot on his face. Touya has a hunch as to what happened, but it never hurts to see his brother’s perspective.

“What’s wrong, Shou?” His question is met with silence, so he pushes on. “Did you burn yourself?”

Only an idiot would ignore how Shouto flinches at the question, so Touya crouches gently to make himself seem as non-threatening as possible. His baby brother does not relax, but a soft mumble just barely escapes him.

“It’s scary.”

“What’s scary?”

“His half.”

Touya frowns, just because Enji is why Shouto has fire, does not make it solely their father’s fire. Even then, no child should live in fear of their quirk. Although, looking down at the skin grafts on his wrists, Touya is in no place to judge his baby brother’s fear.

“Why do you think it’s scary?”

Another silence stretches out, and Touya can see his baby brother’s struggle to process the words. He almost changes the topic when the rest of Shouto’s confession spills out.

“It looks too much like his. I don’t want to burn myself too much and I still can’t control it. But dad keeps pushing me and- and I don’t want to-.”

Shouto looks like he is going to explode with tears, the wicks of flame and ice coming off him signal how close he is to a meltdown that would no doubt bring their father in screaming. Without thinking, he pulls his brother close, enveloping his tiny shoulders with his arms and making soothing motions on his back. While Shouto quietly sobs into his shoulder, Touya ruminates on how to comfort the boy with how to control his fire, which is the exact train of thought that makes him huff a laugh.

“Hey Shou, I’m going to try teach you something Mom taught me. You wanna see?” Looking at the soft, tentative smile Shouto gives him when Touya pulls away, he cannot help but be drawn by how much it reminds him of their mother’s. He holds out his hand palm up before his brother. “She taught me how to control the pieces so that it hurts a little less.”

The courtyard is thrown in shadows highlighted by the blue of Touya’s flames, and he can see just how enamoured Shouto’s face is in the azure light. He has the curls of his fire shift and form the forget-me-not that he has been practising making for so long.

“See Shou? Fire is not always that scary.”

Shouto only makes a small noise of assent, his eyes still entranced by the small dancing movements of his eldest brother’s fire. He reaches out, hesitantly, and tries to cup his hands around the flames.

“Can I learn how to make one?” The change in attitude throws off Touya for only a moment, but the shy, almost hopeful look in his brother’s eye would never have him say no even at gunpoint. He smiles.

“’Course Shou,” It is still a gamble trying to see if Shouto can use his fire this way, but Touya cups his brother’s hands anyway. “Try making a little fire first.”

The flame in Shouto’s hands starts off as little embers before igniting into a small flame just about the size of the boy’s fist.

“If you start off small and make all the pieces of your fire slow down even just a little, you can make things with them.”

Shouto frowns at the words, mulling them over in his head as the fearful parts of his face fade away into the focus he is exhibiting now. Slowly, the licks of flame seem to move in a blend of wild, yet seemingly calculated movements as they form into a stem. Shouto giggles even as it holds the form for all of five seconds before they give out. Touya laughs at the adorable pout that crosses Shouto’s face and holds his hand out for a high five.

“That was a great job, Shou!” It is. Touya took way longer to have that kind of focus and he held the stem for only half the time. He says as much. “Don’t worry that you can’t make the full flower right now. Mom and I can teach you. One day, your flames make a shape that means a lot to you and you only.”

As he ruffles Shouto’s hair and the boy gives him that look like he hung the very stars, Touya sees the shadow of his father crossing the walkway above them. Moment over, Touya picks his brother up and faces him away from Enji while staring the man down.

“You want something to eat?” Shouto makes a mumble that roughly translates to ‘cold soba’ and Touya laughs in spite of himself. “Come on buddy, I’ll take you to mom and fix some up for you.”

---

The water scalds his skin and his thoughts are a jumble of painmakeitstopmompleaseimsorry on half of his face. It is not just the water that hurts, but the knowledge that that can be reminded to him is how half of him has fire just like his father’s. As the searing pain finally starts to die down, little but important pieces of him (memories of nights huddled with a mother to see his fire as his own, his brother making those shapes with his hands) seem to leak out with his tears.

---

Touya dies in a fire starting from his seventh attempt to pull Shouto from training with Enji. Touya dies when his wildfire swarms him and his skin blisters and melts. Touya dies as the skin grafts are stapled on to his body and even without nerves in those places, he can still feel the flames as they enveloped him. Touya dies… and Dabi rises from his ashes.

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