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#but also it would be funny because while the first chapters are ready (not edited tho) then there’s a chunk of like 5 chapters missing

the-likesofus · 1 year

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Buddie Fic Recs

AKA Talented Mutuals Tuesday

Except I spent so long making this list that the timezones changed over BUT I wanted to show my mutuals some love and now that we are going into the hiatus I thought you might all like a list of quality fics to keep you occupied while there is no new Weewoo show.

I don't know if anyone will actually want to join in on this but if you do the rules are simple:

SHOW YOUR MUTUALS SOME LOVE! Share your favourite fics, (or gifs, edits, literally anything that your very talented mutuals have made), as many or as few as you like but let's share the love around <3

Apologises in advance for the long post btw

@speaknowdiaz I would literally read anything that April writes and would probably sell a limb for the incredible WIPs I know she's still cooking up but here are a couple of my faves:

pining and anticipation (I don't want you like a best friend)

Buck challenges Eddie to try to hit on him after teasing Eddie for not having any ‘game’. This fic is very funny and very soft.

believe in one thing (i won't go away)

This fic hit me straight in the feels. Buck and Eddie go to couples therapy even though they aren't a couple and they work through some stuff.

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@thosetwofirefighters Incredible amazing Nat ily xx

Say It All Out Loud

Eddie comes out to Aunt Pepa after his ‘date’ with Vanessa. I am a little bit biased towards this one because she did write it for me but it's honestly just so good!

How to Cure Boredom: Buckley Edition

The 118 are stuck at the firehouse during a slow shift and Buck entertains them all by mattress-surfing the loft stairs. It’s soft and silly and in the same universe as her other fic Safe in His Arms.

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@loveyourownsmiilee The wonderful amazing Juju not only writes incredible meta and keeps us all fed with Oliver content but Juju also writes wonderful buddie fic.

When Were You Under Me?

Who doesn’t love a Friends AU. This is Buck and Eddie as Ross and Rachel and it is hilarious and so sweet.

You should also check out her Buddie Language Meta if you have not read it before <3

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@elvensorceress Jenwyn’s work always astounds me so be sure to check these out:

Color Him Father, Color Him Love

I will scream from the rafters how much I adore this fic and yes it did make me cry (happy tears). It’s a look into Buck’s head after his sperm donor kid is born and he realizes what Christopher (and Eddie) truly mean to him. I know I have recced this before but it deserves all the love.

Unless You Ask Me To

Eddie dates a man for the first time, and Buck is completely 'Fine'. This is a preemptive rec because it is one chapter away from completion and I have been saving it to binge in one sitting but knowing Jenwyn and her incredible talent I guarantee this will be worth the read.

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@spotsandsocks If anyone’s work is guaranteed to make me sob like a baby (happy, sad, or tears of laughter) it’s Spotty.

Everything But (temptation)

This is Spotty’s newest fic and it's just brilliant. Buck is practicing extreme self-control whilst Eddie is being an irresistible menace.

Could Have, Should Have, Would Have

Buck finally tells Eddie he loves him right before Eddie’s new boyfriend is supposed to meet Christopher. Honestly, all I can say about this fic is that it’s a masterpiece and I screamed many times while reading it.

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@shortsighted-owl Wonderful amazing Owly (Abbi). I appreciate you so and you make my dash so happy xx

Of foam-moustached kisses, and button combinations

For all your sweet domestic buddie needs this is the fic. Eddie is practicing a video game to get better than Chris and Buck makes fun of his ex-technophobe boyfriend.

Also THIS EDIT SET to the lyrics of You’re All That I Have by Snow Patrol make me assdffgghjjklkll

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@lilbuddie Okay, this one is just a brag because Minja doesn’t actually have any fics published yet (side eye) but I wanna make sure she is on everyone’s radar for when she does because yall are not ready for the incredible amazing talent that is this girl’s writing!! So go check out the snippets on her Tumblr and badger her until she finishes something plssssss

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@wheelsupin-five Hi! <3

Almost Almost Almost

This adorable of Buck who is always cold and Eddie warms him up I– asfffghhjkklllll

Under Kitchen Light

SO SOFT! Buck wakes up and Eddie isn't there, Buck finds him in the kitchen.

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@rogerzsteven Simi owns my heart and by that I mean my heart is locked in a cage in Simi’s basement where it is occasionally beaten to a pulp by the most incredibly angsty fics you've ever read.

Cleanse

Buck is extremely nauseous and Eddie takes care of him while I sob over them in a corner.

build me a home underground (free from light and sound)

This fic is so brutal in all the best ways, my heart was in my throat the entire read! Buck gets trapped in a sensory deprivation room while the 118 and Athena race to find him.

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@ashavahishta another incredibly talented mutual of mine

out of ashes

Is it really a Meegs rec list if I don’t rec this fic honestly it's engraved on my soul. This is a criminal minds/greys inspired fic where Buck is kidnapped and tortured until the 118 can find him. This fic is so so well written and means a million things to me I could never explain but pleaseeeee read it!!

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@jobairdxx hello lovely xx

Oh, We Pray to Make it Through the Night

Highly recommend this fic, I do love a near-death experience fic! Buck gets injured on a call and Eddie falls asleep holding vigil at his bedside.

Jules also writes beautiful poetry on Tumblr so go read some of that too <3

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@monsterrae1 MISS RAE! YOU INCREDIBLE THING! <3

love is on its way

I know we’re all a little bit in mourning over the couch theory but it lives on in our hearts and in this fic which has six moments between Buck and Eddie on the Diaz couch (and she’s a wee bit spicy too).

Buck's café (take my heart, just not my order)

Coffee Shop AU. Buck runs the shop where the 118 order all their drinks on shift. I absolutely adore this fic!

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@alyxmastershipper RYAN!! INCREDIBLY TALENTED MUTUAL THAT YOU ARE!!

there's always been a rainbow hangin' over your head

If “aasdsdfghhjkl” was a person it was me reading this fic. Eddie comes out to Buck, receives a quirky mug, and gets together with the love of his life. In that order.

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@bekkachaos Wonderful, amazing Bekka xxx

lose yourself in the feeling

I am a sucker for ‘accidental kisses’ and this was just wonderful. Buck is so excited about Maddie and Chim getting engaged that he kisses Eddie when he tells him.

start me up, open my eyes

Okay, the mild sexual content tag is a lie, nothing has ever been closer to smut without actually being smut than this fic, I have never been so wound up reading a fic. Bekka builds the tension so so well.

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@sibylsleaves honestly I'm still a little in shock that we're mutuals now so please excuse me while I fangirl over your incredible writing!

with a bird at your door

Eddie starts spending all his time with Buck. Which would be fine if it weren't for the fact that Buck is in love with him. This fic is the perfect mixture of pining, angst, and a happy ending. And yes I think about this fic frequently I love it okay.

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@mysteriouslyyounggalaxy last but certainly not least (for now). hello lovely xx

(tell the gravedigger) better dig two

Missing scenes from while eddie is trapped in the well followed by the most perfect extended reunion scene. We all know I am a sucker for fics based on the well incident, it’s literally how i started writing for buddie but omg this fic!!!!

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Remember to share the love around and happy hiatus to you all.

Love, Meegs xxxx

#buddie #buddie fic #buddie fic recs #buddie rec list #911 fox #eddie diaz #evan ‘buck’ buckley #christopher diaz #911 buddie #eddie x buck #buck x eddie #911 fic #911 fic recs #meegs says stuff #buddie ao3 #911 ao3 #buddie recs list 4 #talented mutuals tuesday #911 abc

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britcision · 1 year

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Gonna try and sneakily post after dnd let’s see how fast I can yeet this up 👀 new chapter!!

(I was kinda considering pushing out the porn parody to push me over one million words on AO3, but I have to be in the mood to write good smut, whereas I’m damn near always in the mood for crack, so here we are

The porn parody has been started though, and the first chapter is edging its way to completion. I will be starting an entirely new taglist for the porn parody though, so do say in the comments here if you would like to be tagged in the first chapter of that!)

I got to use a little of my actual real life work knowledge for once in my life, instead of my unending stash of random knowledge 👀 it’s a bold new world and I bet you ANYTHING Bruce never documents his code

Eleven million backup plans for if marshmallows take over the world, but someone else sits to debug the batcomputer? Zip. Nothing. Fuck them if they can’t read Bruce they aren’t authorised to touch it

As may be rather obvious… We’re right up in the bats again this chapter, and Bruce is going to make some Inadvisable Decisions 😈

I’m sure this will have absolutely no consequences whatsoever! This chapter also came in a little short, since there’s not quiiiiite enough space left to squeeze in our next scene, Danny Attempts To Make Jason Kill Him In A Motorcycle Accident

This means we should not brick ANYONES’ tumblr! (Like that’ll happen, my poor mobile using fellows)

Note: there is a reason why I’m choosing when to use our various vigi’s human names while they’re masked, I didn’t miss one on the “edit” that is formatting this mess for Tumblr 😁

First Chapter and AO3 link:

Previous Chapter:

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One Fine Day In The Middle Of The Night

About twenty minutes after dropping Danny off at his dorm, Jason was suited up and ready to go.

Well, he’d stayed outside until he’d seen Danny shut the door behind him first. Jason had some fucking manners, though if pressed he couldn’t name who’d taught him them.

It was a habit older than the streets, watching to be sure his friends got to safety.

Danny’s dorm was about fifteen minutes from one of Jason’s better safe houses, as it happened. Jason had never been to a dorm, but from Danny’s stories?

A step below Teen Titans’ bunks, and those had sucked. Less privacy, smaller rooms, and more people? Who weren’t even part of the same team?

Maybe next semester Jason could offer to let Danny move in. He didn’t need need the safe house.

Red Hood could always buy the building. There were other apartments and while they weren’t luxurious, they beat half his other spots. The neighbourhood wasn’t bad either.

It’d be nice to pay Danny back a bit. Not have him closer. Just. Repay some of the debt by giving him a place to stay, rent free.

And maybe, just a little bit, the part of Jason that enjoyed the romanticism of his period novels kinda liked the idea. An estate for the king on your lands was a big deal back then.

A slightly more modern part of him thought being a landlord for his ruler would also be pretty funny. He figured Danny would enjoy that side too.

And it wasn’t like the guy could complain, since he’d literally given Jason back himself. Yeah, Jason was gonna pull that one out if Danny tried any familiar “oh I can’t accept this” on him.

Fixing his core was pretty damn god level on the favours spectrum. Jason could do whatever the hell he liked and Danny would just have to deal with it.

It cheered him up a little more, kept him in a good mood on the ride back to his safe house. It was more time where he couldn’t help Cass, but seriously?

Danny could change in a matter of seconds and be at her side not much slower. Walls, cars, goons, Jason had this feeling that none of it would slow Danny down.

And yeah, knowing that helped, but there was still a piece of him that only unknotted as he slid his helmet on and headed to the window.

“Hey, Black Bat. Busy?” He asked as the comms switched from earpiece to helmet display.

Of course he wore both. People kept trying to steal his damn helmet. That was also what the internal explosives were for.

The others all piped up when they heard him, Harper and Steph calling cheerful greetings around an ongoing conversation.

“Shit, Hood’s in, this mean I can go back to bed?” Bluebird teased. Spoiler cut her off immediately.

“Hell no, it can’t be a school night, Robin’s here! Great timing though Hood, we’re planning Red Robin’s eulogy and you have some experience there,” Spoiler chirped brightly, and Jason hesitated.

Sucked in a breath. He wasn’t gonna judge anyone else’s coping mechanisms until they got past “heads in a bag” levels.

Best to ignore it, since she wasn’t actually trying to set him off.

What the hell had Tim done since they’d left the manor?

Shaking his head, Jason settled into Red Hood and hopped onto the fire escape, scaling easily to the roof.

“Black Bat?” He repeated instead of answering, and half smiled when Spoiler groaned dramatically.

Black Bat answered in the considerate group pause.

“Not busy. Why?” She sounded amused, not even particularly tired, and Jason relaxed enough to slip all the way in.

“Thinking of going a little out of my way tonight. Wondered if you’d mind a tagalong?” Red Hood asked, hoping he sounded casual.

It wasn’t like he’d been planning to patrol the Alley anyway; his guys had already been told to handle it. He’d have to run around tomorrow night to keep the creepers scared, but he could have a couple off.

The tiny pause before her answer didn’t quite feel like judgement, but Jason muted before blowing out the sigh as she did. It wasn’t like the others needed to know he’d been stressing.

“Sure. Meet at library?” She’d had his tracker up. Hood nodded, turning and running for the edge of the roof.

“Sounds good.” And they’d probably wound Spoiler up enough, she’d start plotting vengeance for being ignored soon. “So what the hell did Little Red do?”

“Brought Too Fine to the Bat Cave,” Spoiler told him with relish, not noticeably put out by the delay.

Not necessarily a good sign, since she was also this enthusiastic while actively plotting against him.

Wait.

Too Fine was Tucker’s hacker name.

“But he doesn’t know about us,” Red Hood said with a frown, catching an outcropping and swinging on.

“Oh, now you tell me,” Tim groused while the others snickered, “what a shame you didn’t think to when it’d have actually been helpful!”

News to Hood that he was on, probably still in the cave.

“He knows now,” Nightwing chimed in brightly, probably also travelling from the slight strain in his voice.

Hood paused for a moment, letting that sink in before attempting the next jump.

“Is he on comm?” He asked warily, because if Tim brought Tucker to the bat cave, it was entirely possible that they were all outed.

And that Tucker might tell Danny he was Red Hood.

Shit, he still had to text Harley. Resolving to do it once he hit the library, he set back to running, throwing himself across another street.

Black Bat would probably take a little longer to get there.

“He’ll be back, he’s in the bathroom,” Tim explained with a heavy sigh, shaking his head. “It’s not all bad, he’s given me the full story on what happened in Amity Park. Witness account and all.”

“From a witness you let down to the bat cave~” Spoiler sang sweetly across the air.

Red Hood could hear Oracle rolling her eyes as she cut in.

“Tone it down, Batgirl. Bluebird, if you’re still thinking of heading in, could you swing past one last site on your way?” She said firmly, then lightening her tone for their current guest.

“Batgirl who? I’m Spoiler,” Spoiler grumbled, but didn’t push beyond that. None of them did when Oracle invoked the name she’d had before any of them masked up.

Bluebird snickered at her before answering the question, a hint of exertion suggesting she was on the move too.

“I’m not actually in a rush to go home, O, I got all dressed up so I might as well enjoy one last hurrah.”

Right, because she’d be going back to school probably when Danny did.

Harper had always been a damn good hero in Jason’s books, but she valued her retirement and none of them really wanted to ruin it. Unless, apparently, seven bats just had to stalk Jason’s new friends.

Hood would have apologized, but frankly if she’d said no, some of the others couldn’t have come to the gala to be a pain in his ass.

And then he couldn’t have had so much fun fucking with them.

Fine. One cool fruit basket for the Row household, and some rainbow cupcakes for Cullen. He needed practice on frosting roses anyway.

Although that also reminded him.

“Hey Bluebird, have the others filled you in on Phantom?” He asked, cutting off some more background chatter from Spoiler and Tim.

Nightwing and the girls had had hours by now.

“What, your new boyfriend?” Bluebird asked sweetly, and Hood rolled his eyes.

Probably hit the important shit then.

“Sent you a picture?” He asked instead, decidedly not entertaining that question.

Nightwing and Spoiler snickered. Hood flipped off their general directions, settling himself comfortably on the roof of the library to wait for Black Bat.

There was a short pause, the others now wondering what he was getting at. Good.

“In and out of suit,” Bluebird agreed, curiosity tinging with mild suspicion. Being out of retirement clearly wasn’t good for her.

Hood nodded, pulling out his phone and shooting Harley a quick text. It might be moot now, asking her not to mention Red Hood shit in front of Danny, but he might as well.

He still had to ask if Waylon knew. Might as well ask. And see if Tucker knew when he got back.

“I know you’re outta the game, but keep the light show to a minimum if you see him around, okay?” He asked, scanning quickly over the list Danny’d cleared for public discussion.

He didn’t know if Tucker would have mentioned it, but he might as well. Cause of death was good, but Jason personally would veto “and the effects it may have now”.

Because fuck Bruce and his need for everyone to show him their weaknesses.

Bluebird definitely sounded curious now, and possibly like she was punching someone.

“Oh? He not big on the electricity?” She wondered aloud, and Hood grimaced.

Because if they were both at Gotham U in engineering… there was actually a chance Harper and Danny would run into each other.

Danny was older, but Harper skipped a couple years and he had no idea what year Danny was in. Fuck, they might be in the same classes. He couldn’t believe he’d never thought of that.

“Not exactly. You mighta seen him around actually, he’s an engineer too. But he’s not a fan of the electricity flying around,” he explained, Nightwing making background noises that told Hood he hadn’t put the pieces together either.

Good. At least he wasn’t alone.

Bluebird made an interested hum, and probably a finishing blow considering the satisfaction when she spoke next.

“I thought he looked familiar. But then, he’s total Wayne-bait. Yeah, I can keep the good stuff under wraps if I see him around. Gonna guess he’s had some bad shocks in the line of work?”

Hood hesitated and in exactly the same instant Black Bat landed on the roof. Sam had given them all the warning about talking about a ghost’s death, so he could leave it at that.

But…

The way Danny had looked when he explained about Vlad. Yeah, he’d rather they took this seriously. He didn’t want any of his family to hurt Danny, even by accident.

“It’s how he died. He won’t spontaneously combust or anything, but it’s a bad memory.”

Silence reigned while the others absorbed that particular detail, Black Bat crossing to crouch on the roof beside him. Hood leaned over enough to bump their shoulders together.

He could almost feel concern radiating off her, which was an extra weird experience after literally feeling all of Danny’s emotions half the day.

Guess that was where Cass’s liminality was going. It made sense, kind of; despite her occasional trouble speaking, she was pretty much the clearest communicator in the family.

Having another back up way to make herself heard would only fit.

On a whim, he tried projecting comfort back to her. Black Bat didn’t seem to notice, though whether that meant more on her part or his was the question.

She leaned in and bumped him back, her expression unreadable between the full face mask and the shadows.

“Heard and understood, Hood,” Bluebird agreed after a minute, her tone unusually solemn. Hopefully Dickie would take it to heart too.

The odds of Danny running into Nightwing weren’t great if he stuck to Blüdhaven, but Dick was a nosy bastard and there was always one “emergency” or another.

Better than the odds of running into Bluebird, although Harper would almost definitely look him up at school.

Maybe Jason should warn him.

“Maybe you could build him a faraday suit,” Spoiler mused, and Red Hood snickered.

“Handy, but then we couldn’t contact him,” he reminded her and she groaned loudly.

“Hey, if we’re both techies he’ll probably have his own idea. I’ll look him up out of costume, it’s my turn to say hi,” Bluebird decided, and Hood shot Danny a quick text.

Just a heads up.

A picture of Harper, captioned “beware of sibling. May be looking you up in class”. Black Bat giggled beside him, head cocked to watch the screen.

Harper wasn’t technically one of the Waynes, but if Waylon counted she definitely had to, and it wasn’t like Bruce picked his family. Asshole.

A few minutes later he got a message back from Danny.

‘DannyP: !!!!! I know her! 😳😳🤯 She does the cool nanobots! Half our year is betting if she’s a rogue or a vigi 👀 inside info??’

Which was fair, since just knowing Jason wouldn’t be much of a hint either way.

“He knows you,” Black Bat reported to the others, Bluebird immediately bitching that she’d been ratted out.

Red Hood mostly ignored her, texting Danny back.

‘JTodd: Neither anymore. She was a vigi, but she’s retired and getting her degree. No idea if she’ll come back after.’

“Odds you’ll change sides and go rogue, Bluebird?” He asked into a pause, and very much enjoyed the momentary stumped silence. “Apparently there’s a hefty bet.”

Momentary, because everyone had an opinion on that and had to share it. Everyone except Bluebird herself, who seemed to be thinking it over.

“What’re the odds for rogue?” She asked thoughtfully, immediately defending herself as the group booed. “What! I have student loans!”

“You are my villain arc, Red Hood,” Spoiler declared as solemnly as she could through laughter.

“I’m my own villain arc thank you so much, go find your own,” he refuted with a half grin.

“Ask Phantom,” Black Bat advised Bluebird in the meantime, which was probably fair. They weren’t good at staying on topic.

She then gave Hood another gentle nudge, probably for the same reason. Flicked off her comm for a moment.

“Wanted to talk?” She asked, and yeah, they probably should get back to it.

He gave a shrug, hauling himself up and holding a hand back down to her. Definitely not feeling guilty.

They’d tell her before anything became relevant. It just.

Well.

They were a family of fucking detectives, who could never leave well enough alone, and Jason really didn’t want them questioning his humanity.

Just once, he’d like to know something about himself before anyone else did. To have time to understand and come to terms with what he was before Twenty Questions.

Cass was very good at not asking questions though. And Black Bat turned off her comm first. Tim was distracted, probably with Tucker coming back because he’d been quiet.

No better opportunity was likely to come up.

And really, she deserved the same courtesy. Knowing about herself before the others did.

Maybe she’d have some ideas on how to tell them.

Making up his mind, Hood tapped his comms and hauled Black Bat up with his other hand.

“Hey O, gonna be offline for a minute. Text if you need me or BB, we gotta be radio silent.” There were enough possible reasons for that, he didn’t bother giving one.

Just so long as they knew.

Usually he’d just turn the comm off and swear at her if she turned him back on if he wanted peace and quiet, but… well, it was nice to hear the background chatter.

Nicer when the big Bat himself wasn’t in the field to tell them to focus.

“I always need you, baby!” Nightwing called just before he clicked off, and Red Hood rolled his eyes under the helmet.

Dramatic bitch.

He looked back to Black Bat, wondering where would be the best place for this talk. She was watching him patiently, not moving.

It had been her patrol.

“Is there anywhere on your route we can talk privately?” He asked softly, a little surprised at himself. He’d been the one who wanted to wait.

But that just made it his call who he decided to tell what, and when. And Cass… he trusted Cass.

Besides, it wasn’t like he was liminal. It’d give them something to think until he was ready.

Black Bat regarded him for a moment longer, then nodded and made her way to the edge of the roof.

“Follow.”

The night was wearing on, but Bruce was darkly satisfied that they were finally making progress.

Constantine’s pacing (replacing his smoking; Bruce may not have bothered arguing in the cave, but even Constantine knew better than to light a cigarette in space) had finally slowed.

Something terrible had happened in Amity Park, but even the magician was grudgingly admitting it was probably over. Left permanent scars, but getting no worse.

Unless it was on a cosmic level and would be a slow seeping problem for millennia, but Alfred had Opinions about Bruce concerning himself with issues on that time scale.

There was only so much they could do in the moment.

Another survey of the city was required, and in person since even the League’s best couldn’t take clear pictures of Amity Park.

A fact which didn’t seem to have stopped the Amity Parkers from photographing and sharing pictures of each other, according to his children. Constantine hadn’t actually argued when Bruce compared it to background radiation, so it must be close enough.

He also hadn’t done more than grimace when Bruce asked if he wanted to undertake the survey personally. That was as good as an enthusiastic agreement.

First, though? First they needed to call a meeting of the Justice League, primarily the heroes located in North America.

They had been horribly uninformed of what was going on right under their noses, and if Constantine was right… Amity Park’s problems had begun to spread.

To Gotham.

To his children.

Constantine’s grumbling that it was the miasma of death that hung over the city drawing them in had not inspired confidence, and Bruce resolved to have Zatanna over at her soonest convenience to explain.

Helping Constantine put together a report on Amity Park itself had more than convinced Bruce not to ask Constantine, even if he could have done it today. The man was…

Well. Bruce wasn’t looking forward to having to run him through the JL’s classification system again. Maybe one of his children would want to go and handle the technical side.

All he had to do was finish preparing the presentation, call the League, and he could rest. It would likely take a day or two to put a full meeting together, but he could at least fill Clark and Diana in tonight.

He could sleep in between. Just for a little while.

Right after he showed Constantine how to configure the alerts from Amity Park to direct to the Justice League Dark, not the spam folder. They hadn’t sent one in years, but he was determined not to miss any changes.

That should have been the easiest part of this whole mess. It was just a simple form, with a basic test button to ensure it worked.

Nothing too complicated even for a man who’d decided “no reply needed” meant the same thing as “too dangerous for anyone but JL Dark”.

Fine. It was fine.

Bruce loved making training videos to highlight the most basic functions of a system and ensure that people actually understood what the various controls meant. Wonderful.

It meant that they could work in parallel for a while, Bruce on the presentation for the League, Constantine to fix his mistake. In a blissful silence, even.

It couldn’t last.

“It’s not working, Bats,” the magician declared, pushing back and away from his computer. Probably to pace again.

Bruce closed his eyes, breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, and made his way across to frown at the monitor.

“Did you save your changes?” He growled, doing his best not to let the irritation show. It was getting harder every time.

Constantine rolled his eyes, definitely not helping, and pointed at the screen.

“See for yerself. Look, JLD Top Priority, like ya said. And then ya hit the top button to save, and the red button to test it, and nothing happens.”

He waited impatiently while Bruce clicked through the buttons, seeing it for himself.

Constantine wasn’t wrong. That was unexpected.

Brows furrowing under his cowl, Bruce checked the deleted requests. Three test messages from “Amity Park”.

“Hn.”

“Someone’s fucked ya system,” Constantine commented dryly, sounding unduly pleased that it wasn’t his fault.

Something other than his haphazard filing had apparently been causing some of their problems. Bruce… just didn’t have the time tonight.

He nodded over to his screen instead, pulling up his wrist computer to send a private message to Tim in the cave. How long could a tour take?

Tim could find what was going wrong long before he’d have the time.

“I’ve compiled most of the presentation on creatures of the Realms. Is there anything important I should add?” He asked gruffly and Constantine sighed dramatically and flounced over.

Bruce firmly ignored Steph’s voice in his ear.

Not because he didn’t agree, whatever a “woobie” was.

He just needed Constantine’s once over to confirm he had all the pertinent information, and then he could call Clark and Diana.

Head home.

Get to bed.

“Looks fine. I should check yer damn revenant some time soon too though.”

Bruce froze, finger just above the send button on that tech request to Tim.

His fucking what.

Black Bat led them easily across the city, along what was probably her normal patrol route. Taking her cue from Red Hood, she didn’t rush, but soon indicated that they turn off into a small alley between two warehouses.

Hell, not even a proper alley. A gap where the buildings hadn’t quite smushed together.

Red Hood recognized the area from Nightwing’s bitching; there’d been a bust here last week, and something had cloaked the whole block from surveillance.

These days, he was almost tempted to check what Danny knew about it. Ghosts fucked with technology in ways none of the bats would find.

Black Bat stopped them half way down the gap, feet braced against one wall and her back to the other, leaving her “sitting” about twenty feet off the ground.

Hood matched her a little further down, grumbling a little at the crush. Almost a foot taller, it wasn’t exactly a comfortable position for him, but he’d held worse.

They were stable, and damn near impossible to observe. This was as good as they’d get.

“So,” he began, and immediately realized he had no fucking clue what to say.

Black Bat’s flat, expressionless mask was not helpful.

Hood wished he could pull his helmet off, just to run his hands through his hair. But they were on patrol.

Black Bat just waited, silent and patient while he wrestled with himself. Finally he decided to just spit it out.

“Danny died, and came back,” he said in a rush, glancing over to her.

Black Bat nodded.

“Like you.”

“Like us,” Hood corrected, groaned, and switched off the voice modulator. Actually, fuck it, he had his domino on.

He pulled the helmet off, balancing it in his lap. He could shove it back on if it came time to go.

Black Bat was beside him now, almost close enough to touch. Close enough to lean in and bump their shoulders together.

“One main difference,” she noted thoughtfully, then tapped her chest, “no skin change.”

Which, yeah, Jason had been hoping to emphasize before any of the family got too far down the right track.

“Right,” he agreed, leaning back to stare blankly into the smog of Gotham above them.

Fuck. How do you even say it? How do you tell someone they’re not fully human anymore?

Someone like Cass, who’d been raised to believe she’d never been human, by force. Just a weapon.

Her hand was in his now, and he couldn’t be sure if he’d reached out or she had. He stared down at their laced fingers instead.

“You know how people get when they spend too long around the pit water,” he began slowly, trying a different path.

Cass had been raised around the League of Assassins. She knew.

And took the change of topic fully in stride, nodding and giving his hand a gentle squeeze.

“Erratic,” she mused softly, her face tilted to the wall across, “unpredictable, especially if they went in.”

No one was going to say Ra’s Al Ghul was an unstable mess of a man, but no one had to. Still, how controlled he was was impressive, especially after you saw what mere exposure to the fumes did to other people.

Red Hood nodded, sighing softly.

“Danny’s parents kept it in the fridge. He was… exposed long before he died,” he explained quietly.

If he was talking about himself, he’d say “contaminated”. Hell, it was the word Danny used when explaining it to the bats.

Jason just couldn’t use it about Danny. It just wasn’t right.

Black Bat stilled, almost enough to be mistaken for a statue instead of a living being. Was that her liminality too? Or just her training?

Red Hood couldn’t stand it either way, giving her hand a gentle tug.

“He told me… being around it too long can change a person, even if they never get dunked,” he said slowly, trailing off again.

“We got dunked,” Black Bat said quietly, her hand curling more tightly around his. There was no hint of emotion in her voice, and Jason hated it.

Pulled her closer, doing all he could to project comfort-sorry-concerned-love you. Wishing he’d asked Danny to teach him to do that first.

Neither of them had really considered he’d need it, since Danny was so good at reading him. But he needed her to know she wasn’t alone.

Her shoulders hunched suddenly, body tensed to spring until her head snapped round to focus on him.

He could… he could feel surprise from her. Maybe it was working.

He gave a graceless half shrug, grinding his shoulders against filthy bricks.

Tried to project yeah it’s weird for me too, but wasn’t sure how well it came across. Anything beyond pure feelings was a little tricky for him to push, though he could usually work out what Danny was saying.

“We got dunked,” he agreed quietly, resolving instead to wrap her in love-protect-safe-safe-safe, “and sometimes… that changes you even without a flashy transformation.”

It was an awful explanation and he knew it, could practically feel her eyes darting all over his face, his posture, reading things he probably wasn’t aware he was showing.

Then she relaxed all at once, settling in and leaning part of her weight on him as well as the wall. He braced automatically to take it. He wouldn’t let her fall.

“He called it being “liminal”,” he explained softly, working an arm around her shoulders above the wall to coax more of her weight onto him. “I don’t know what it means for you yet, BB. But nothing bad. He was sure it wouldn’t be bad.”

Black Bat made a soft humming sound, obediently shuffling so he could wrap his arm around her. Looking down at their still twined hands.

“Can feel you,” she said softly, hand rising to tap gently against the red bat on his chest. “Big brother.”

It startled a bark of laughter out of him, because… well, yeah. A good way to sum up everything he’d wanted to tell her without words.

Felt a quick rush of satisfaction from Black Bat, and tried to answer it with relief-agree-protect.

“Yeah, that’s the fuckin’ weirdest part,” he agreed dryly, almost felt the rush of her giggle more than he heard it. “Apparently some liminals get this… aura around them. Sharing what they feel. I didn’t know if you would…”

What? If she’d notice? If she’d be able to feel the same things?

Black Bat nodded, head tipping up to meet his gaze once again.

“Robin? Batman?” She asked, and Jason hesitated.

He couldn’t talk to either of them about it. Not yet. Bruce would fucking push, he always did, and wouldn’t stop until he tore the secrets out of him. Damian would just run to Bruce.

But it was a valid question. And they did sort of deserve to know just as much.

For now he took refuge in what he knew, shrugging it off.

“Danny thinks they’re liminal, but… not as far along as we are.”

Not as close to death. Not as close to not being human, although technically they were both legally non-sentient, so that was fun.

“D’you really think either of them have the emotional bandwidth to share?” He tried to joke, covering the moment.

Black Bat just stared at him until he fell silent. Then nodded.

“Should tell them. No rush,” she added almost before Jason could tense, leaning back in and resting her head on his shoulder, “have been for a while, yes?”

Jason paused a moment longer, shook his head, and snickered.

“Cannot believe I ever doubted you’d be able to do the whole “emotional telepathy” thing,” he grumbled good naturedly, and Black Bat glowed with gentle amused.

“Better than you,” she told him archly, sounding for a moment like Steph when she was teasing Tim. Jason gave her a squeeze.

“Don’t I know it. But yeah, it’s not a new thing, and won’t mean anything to anyone unless one of us dies again.” Which he wasn’t going to think about.

Shit, someone said Robin was out tonight.

Nope. Not thinking about it. Robin had been patrolling for years, and as much as he whined about his solo patrol route, he never deviated.

Not after Oracle had highlighted his route on his wrist computer for him and proved she could see every footstep. She wouldn’t necessarily tell Bruce, but she’d always know.

Black Bat nodded, resting against him for a moment longer before sitting up again.

“You want to wait.” It wasn’t a question, but he felt compelled to answer.

Picked up his helmet, turning it over slowly in his hands. But of course she’d understand. She always did.

“I want to know what this means to me before I have B poking and prying into every part of my life,” he said quietly, staring into the eye slits of the helmet.

Black Bat ruffled his hair.

“Can wait,” she agreed gently, switching her position to have a hand and foot on either wall. Ready to move on. “No rush.”

Red Hood pulled his helmet back on and matched her, the pair climbing quickly out of the crack between the warehouses. It almost wasn’t worth saying, but…

“You can tell the others if they ask. I just…”

“Don’t want questions,” Black Bat agreed lightly, flipping up onto the roof. “Can ask Danny when the time comes.”

“Yeah,” Red Hood agreed, crouching beside her. “Mind if I stick with you on patrol tonight?”

He sort of hoped she’d think it was unrelated, but another moment of stillness passed across her as she regarded him.

“Until we die again,” she repeated his own words, and Hood was pretty happy she couldn’t see his face anymore as he grimaced.

Not that it mattered, another shot of amused shooting between them, followed by a much softer appreciated.

At least she wasn’t judging him for being a mother hen.

“Understand.”

Tim and Tucker had made quick work of the interview, and Tim was pretty much running out of questions when the batcomputer pinged with an incoming message.

Tucker gave it a longing look and Tim chuckled softly, wheeling himself over.

“Hang on. Might be one of the others out on patrol,” he explained, right clicking to pull up the monitor that tracked the bats’ various dominos out and about.

Tucker stared up at it politely, diverting his attention from what Tim was doing on the other screen, no matter how curious he was. Showing trust and all that.

It was actually really cool too; he’d not really seen a map of Gotham, and having one superimposed with little glowing lights of the various heroes on patrol was really cool.

It wasn’t really zoomed in enough to tell if Bluebird was actually in a fight, but the little blue dot seemed to be the only one standing still, so Tucker assumed she was.

How cool would that be? Watching just normal human vigilantes fight and take down bad guys?

Although off the top of his head, he could already think of a couple of things to add to the monitoring program. They might already be there, he hadn’t clicked around, but like.

Vitals were all well and good, down in the corner next to each hero’s name and the colour of their dot, but just the heartbeats? That wouldn’t tell you enough.

Tucker preferred brainwaves, because then you could tell if they’d been hit with something or overshadowed.

Although maybe it was because he’d spent his time keeping track of a guy who pretty regularly did not have a heartbeat. And it also gave him more data points for some of his cooler side projects.

Understanding the different brainwave patterns an individual made in different situations was a key part of neural mapping, and adding it to the bat’s routine would get him a ton of data.

And then they could really play Mariokart.

He’d have to ask Tim if they tracked any of that later. Not all the bats wore helmets or cowls that would support the electrodes, apparently. Although if Danny could get his hands on a domino…

Tucker was snapped back to the here and now as Tim pushed back from the batcomputer, a wry grin on his lips.

“Actually, I think this might be something you could help with, Tucker. If you don’t mind a little work on your night off?” He teased, back to Tucker’s complaints about a night of fun and tech.

Like getting to play on the batcomputer did not absolutely count as fun and tech.

Tucker beamed, excitement welling up in him and cracking his knuckles. It’d be pretty cool to assist a human vigilante too. And on a tech problem!

Gotham was fucking great. If Tim really meant it about getting him an internship, Tucker might have to see about switching schools.

MIT was great, but it wasn’t Wayne Enterprises, personal meetings, or personal tech demonstrations with Tim Drake Wayne!

“Sure! What’s going on?” He asked, shuffling over to look at the other screens now that he had permission. Making sure it was obvious he hadn’t been looking.

Resisting temptation had been hard. He deserved credit.

Tim nodded to the screen, and that? That was a message from Batman. Bruce Wayne. Batman.

Tucker scanned the message, eyes widening even as Tim spoke.

“Wanna help debug the Watchtower?” Tim asked, and Tucker clutched at the back of his chair as his heart leapt, swooning just a little.

The Watchtower. The actual Watchtower. In space. Oh he was shoving that in Danny’s face for not telling him he was friends with the Bats!

There was only one real question left.

“Will Oracle be here?” He asked eagerly, looking around the rest of the screen.

A soft chuckle played from a speaker in the bottom corner, and Tucker jumped half a mile as a masked voice spoke.

“You boys have fun with this one, I’ll keep an eye on the city. If you finish early you could walk me through that server of yours?”

Oracle.

The Oracle.

They were real, they talked to him, they wanted to talk about his locked down servers! Tim lunged to catch him as Tucker collapsed, knees giving out under the swell of emotion.

All of his dreams were coming true, all at once.

He’d never been happier.

Danny was having a pretty quiet night in. That didn’t used to be unusual while he was in Gotham; having time to himself was still pretty much a novelty, and he wasn’t exactly a party boy.

Of course, it was a night in with some of his parents’ inventions and recently one or two of his own, so the actual “quiet” part was negotiable.

Quiet enough not to piss off his dorm mates, but luckily most of them were engineers too. They may not always know what he was doing, but they were usually interested.

Tonight, he was alone, most of the floor still being home for the holiday. That had been one of the things he’d looked forward to most about staying behind, but…

Well, after his noisy and action packed few days… he was lonely.

He wished he’d asked Jason to stay. Just because he’d said he was going to bed didn’t mean he had to do anything of the sort.

It was just that Jason had been… tense. He’d not even gotten off the bike when they arrived, just pulling over and chatting for a minute before heading out.

Like he wasn’t fully comfortable going into Danny’s place, which was kinda fair. Unlike Jason’s apartments, Danny’s dorm was a communal space.

Even if most of his dorm mates weren’t home, there was still a chance one of them might turn up. And then Danny would have someone else bugging him about his “boyfriend”.

Nope.

Besides, he’d see Jason again at 11am (he had this horrible feeling Jason might be a morning person), so it wasn’t even all that long. He should probably just go to bed.

He should check his class schedule, actually. Work out what days he’d have free, work out when he and Jason could skip to the Zone for fight club.

Wait.

Would Jason be free.

What the hell did Jason do for a living? He’d have to ask at some point, Danny mused, logging in and taking a screenshot of his class schedule for the new year.

For now, it was probably best just to send Jason the picture so he’d know when Danny was free, and then Jason could work out a good time for them to go and it wouldn’t be Danny’s problem.

Excellent. Sheer genius.

Humming happily to himself, Danny pulled up Jason’s number and sent the picture of his schedule, with the caption:

‘Let me know when ur free for field trips 👊🏻💥👻’

Eyes closing for a moment, Danny let his awareness drift out across the city. It wasn’t something he’d done a lot; Gotham wasn’t his haunt and he didn’t want to step on any toes.

Usually he’d just expand his conscious aura if he was looking for someone, but knowing how much Jason didn’t like it… well, his passive aura covered most of the state, so reaching through the same city couldn’t be all that hard.

Right?

Frostbite could find anyone, anywhere in the Far Frozen with little more than a thought. And was convinced Danny would be able to do that with the entire Zone, some day.

Danny was a little less convinced. Past the background awareness that he was no longer in Amity Park that had taken months to fade, he’d never really paid attention to his passive aura.

It’d be too tempting to feel out the rogues, or at least react to the sudden surges of aggression and danger. But he hadn’t had anyone to protect before, and he knew Jason would feel better knowing Danny could.

That was kinda why Danny hadn’t mentioned how theoretical this particular ability was, although he had no doubt he’d recognize Cass’s energy if she came close to death.

Which meant he should totally recognize it while she was alive, well, and had more energy, right?

He had no idea where she was, which parts of Gotham fell on her patrol route, but that kinda helped. It meant he couldn’t trick himself by focusing on a particular area.

Surprising precisely no one though, he found Jason first. The other halfa almost glowed when Danny was focusing on his energy, a bubbling little ball of yellow and red.

He… was maybe with Cass? Danny’s brows furrowed, nose scrunching as he tried to focus without changing his aura.

He was definitely with one of the liminals. And that quiet little light, almost blue, felt sort of like Cass. When he forced himself not to be distracted by Jason’s brighter glow.

Eyes snapping open, Danny’s concentration broke and he frowned up at the ceiling.

Well, that explained why Jason was in a hurry to get going. He was no expert in Gotham herself yet and had no idea where the two of them were, but if he tried again he could probably work it out.

Did Jason still have a suit? Or did he call Cass in, find something he could do as a civilian to have her help?

Shrugging to himself, Danny dismissed the question and hauled himself up. Might as well get to bed; they’d be back together in the morning and he could always ask.

Tim was scrolling through the code for the alert messaging system itself while Tucker went through the sections that pertained to Amity Park specifically on his PDA when the other boy made a sudden, startled squeak.

Tim considered pretending he hadn’t heard, but there was a chance he’d found the answer. So he glanced over.

“Any luck?” He asked, noting Tucker’s sudden strained expression. Maybe the guy needed the bathroom actually. They’d been down here a while.

Tucker laughed sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“So… uh… what exactly does the bug we’re looking for do?” He asked in a small voice, looking more embarrassed than Tim had ever seen.

Which… was not a proportionate response for that noise. And a question that they both probably should have thought of sooner.

He’d meant to mention it, since they’d have to explain it to the Amity Parkers at some point.

“So… remember how the Justice League never responded to an alert from Amity Park?” Tim asked not a little sheepishly himself.

Tucker nodded, not actually looking any less embarrassed himself either. That was definitely a great sign.

Tim sucked in a deep breath and forged ahead.

“So, it turns out there’s a bug in the Watchtower’s systems, where anything coming in from Amity Park gets marked as spam and funnelled straight into trash. We fixed the marking as spam thing, which I guess was user error, but it’s still-”

“All going to trash,” Tucker finished with a sigh, grimacing and shaking his head, “aaaaand I think I know why. But the timeline doesn’t make sense?”

That… that wasn’t even on the same continent as what Tim’d expected he’d say.

“The timeline?” He asked, brows furrowing, sliding over to peek at Tucker’s screen.

Tucker shook his head again, angling it so that Tim could see… a section of code that shuddered faintly in and out, almost disappearing entirely every few seconds.

That.

That was not a thing that should be happening.

Tim would have loved for it to be a simple screen glitch, but it was only that one small section of code. The lines above and below were fine, and Tucker could move the flickering chunk up and down.

“Yeah, this is your problem,” the Black man sighed, wiggling the section demonstratively, clearly aware of Tim’s shattered hopes.

Heartless man. Genius man.

“You’ve had ghosts in your back end. Probably wouldn’t even show up on an uncontaminated device. Which, by the way…” he trailed off, and Tim shook his head immediately.

“Not tonight. No changes to the batcomputer without Bruce’s say so,” Tim said firmly, since he’d already fucked up once. Might as well limit the damage.

Tucker shrugged and nodded back to the section of code.

“Okay. But this… this was definitely Technus. And that makes no sense? He’s a spirit of technology, we’ve fought him a bunch of times, but if he got into the Watchtower’s code he wouldn’t just… hide,” he tried to explain, adjusting his beret fussily.

It totally wasn’t adorable.

Tim did his best to keep up though, nodding along and thinking back over everything they’d been told about ghosts so far.

“You think we’d have noticed?” He asked, and Tucker snorted.

“He likes making giant robot bodies out of toasters, you’d definitely have noticed him on your space station,” he agreed dryly, then sighed.

Frowned down at the tablet again.

“I mean, Danny could make him do it and behave himself now, but if these changes were active during the whole Pariah Dark thing… I dunno, Technus should have been a way bigger problem. He’s not subtle.”

Tim frowned, thinking about what Tucker had said and then pausing.

“Danny could make him behave now?” He asked and Tucker pulled another face. Like he hadn’t meant to say that.

“Well, yeah, Danny’s miles out of Technus’ league now,” he tried to brush it off with a laugh, “the guy knows he’ll lose any fight so he’s really not a problem anymore. We have hackathons,” he added and Tim really wanted to know more about that.

There was just. Something off about Tucker’s answer. Not the content itself, just the way Tucker clearly wasn’t saying something.

That was a problem for future Tim though. Present Tim had a job to do.

“So can you fix what he did?” He asked the important question, and Tucker made another face.

“Dude… whoever or whatever made Technus do this, will probably notice if we fuck with it,” he said warily, and Tim shrugged.

“Whoever or whatever made Technus do it couldn’t do it themselves. How would they know?” He shot back, and Tucker chewed his lip.

Shook his head.

“Lemme text Danny. He’s the ghost expert, he’ll know how much we should worry about this,” he explained quickly, pulling out his phone and shooting off a short message.

Tim gave him his very best deadpan expression.

“How much we should worry about technology ghosts getting into space and fucking with Justice League HQ. I have the feeling the answer is “a lot”?” He offered sweetly, and Tucker snickered.

“Yeah, well, we’ll see. Might actually be alright, if this is all he touched. And, since you won’t let me juice the big computer, we’d have to scan the whole thing through my PDA. Every line of code,” he added, like Tim wasn’t already dreading it.

Tim sucked in a slow breath, weighing his options.

Touching the batcomputer? Ultimate no-no. But Tim’s personal laptop… it had access to the Watchtower’s systems, and was under Tim’s personal control.

And would let Tim go through the sensitive data himself, which the core code of the Watchtower was full of. The question was, did he trust Tucker not to install anything dangerous?

That question had been answered the second he asked Tucker to help him debug though. Clearly the guy could already put what he wanted, where he wanted, and with their current tech?

None of the bats would ever know. At least if Tim’s computer got the update, he’d have a chance at spotting ecto-infused code.

There were other computers they could use of course, old or unnetworked computers that Bruce would probably insist they start with.

Which wouldn’t be able to access the Watchtower’s servers, and couldn’t hold the whole thing to be able to run a useful check.

The answer really was kinda obvious.

Tim looked to Tucker, who’d been texting away while he thought things through.

“We can’t do the batcomputer, but is there anything you could do for my laptop tonight, or do we have to wait on Danny still?” He asked, deeply regretting that they’d gone to video games instead of the tech upgrade.

At the time he’d been planning on having a burner laptop done though, so it probably wouldn’t have been as useful.

Tucker shrugged cheerfully and slid his phone into his pocket, cracking his knuckles.

“Well, I can’t give you the full infusion to let you open Amity’s encrypted data, but I can write you a little something that should expose Technus’s code even without it,” he offered, and Tim brightened up.

“How long?” He asked eagerly, wondering if Tucker would let him watch. It’d be fair if he didn’t, Tuck had been cool about not looking when Tim played on the batcomputer, but…

Tucker smirked, flicking open a new screen on his PDA.

“How long will it take you to get the laptop down here?” He asked smugly.

Tim booked shit to the elevator.

Private Chat: DannyP & TooFine

2:15am

‘TooFine: Danny when tf did u have Technus hack the JL’

‘DannyP: ……. 👀 u cannot prove i did that 🚫🚫’

‘TooFine: I’m helping Tim debug the Watchtower’

‘TooFine: double fuck u for not telling me about Batman btw’

‘TooFine: someone sent all the Amity alerts to trash’

‘TooFine: if we keep talking about this I might accidentally send something to the group chat 🤨’

‘DannyP: FUCK FINE DONT TELL SAM 🏳️🏳️🏳️’

‘DannyP: after the pd thing’

‘DannyP: cw called’

‘DannyP: they hadnt been reading the messages anyway i just’

‘DannyP: shitty people track the jl y’know? and i didnt want em knowing about us’

‘DannyP: let em all think its a joke and then no one else comes an tries to use our portal to harness the realms and blow up superman or whatever’

‘TooFine: dude u fucking told me to tell them what actually happened??’

‘TooFine: pretty sure anyone tracking the jl will work that out now’

‘DannyP is typing’

‘DannyP: ok so maybe i didnt think that through 😔😔😔’

‘TooFine: no shit. I’m fixing the code in case any new alerts come through but it’s not like they’ll bother to call’

‘DannyP: not like they need to, frighty’s got em covered 🗡️🗡️🎃’

‘TooFine: yeah yeah. I’ll set it to ping u too’

‘DannyP: ur the best tuck 🙇🏻‍♂️🙇🏻‍♂️🙇🏻‍♂️’

‘TooFine: better than u deserve’

Across the city, Red Hood and Black Bat had stopped for smoothies. Patrol was quiet, and word on the street was that Bluebird was mostly to blame.

Nobody wanted to know why she was back and taking no prisoners, so even the docks were almost deserted.

Then again, with Riddler and Waylon snapped back off the streets, Penguin lying low in fear of Harley, and Batwoman making Two Face’s life a personal hell?

Yeah, no wonder the smaller players were lying low.

Hood had pulled his phone out to check in on the Alley in case they’d be more useful there when he noticed a message from Tucker’s private chat app.

It was from Danny.

Danny had sent him his class schedule. Told Jason to let Danny know when he was free. Like class was the only thing that’d stop Danny from wanting to see him.

Jason was so lost in staring at his phone, utterly swamped in the implications, that he didn’t even notice Black Bat finish her smoothie and swap out her empty cup for his.

Danny wanted to see him again.

He’d have to work out a proper schedule of his own.

Bruce was having a Bad Day. An extended bad day, one that was fast approaching 48 hours long.

As if everything with Amity Park wasn’t already bad enough, both in the past and the present, now Constantine believed there was something wrong with Jason.

That his son wasn’t fully human anymore.

Now, Bruce’s best friends weren’t even a quarter human between them, and no matter what everyone seemed to think he was perfectly happy with meta humans.

So long as they kept themselves safe.

Preferably where they wouldn’t be mind controlled, kidnapped, or held hostage every few days. Frankly being a meta was probably stressful enough even in a normal city.

But he’d keep Gotham’s metas as safe as he could, just like Duke.

But Jason… Jason had been born human. Had lived as a human, died as a human, and Constantine seemed so sure he’d come back as something else.

“Revenant” the man had called him. An animated corpse that haunted the living, powered by rage.

Bruce might even have believed it two years ago, when Jason first returned. Jason had been so angry, intent on destroying Tim when the other was just a child.

When Jason was little more than a child.

But… that wasn’t all he was. He was himself, truly Jason Todd in ways Bruce hadn’t wanted to believe. He’d fought his rage and won every day.

Most days.

And being around Amity Park, being around Daniel James Fenton, might be enough to push him back over. To drag Jason closer back to death.

Halfas could act as psychopomps, bringing lost souls safely to the other side.

Jason had only just become himself again. They had only just begun healing the rift between them.

Bruce couldn’t lose him again.

They had to keep him away from Amity Park. It was as simple as that really; something in Jason’s resurrection had gone wrong and they all knew it.

Even Jason himself wouldn’t argue with that. Something about his death clung to him, poisoned him with that violent green rage.

His children’s reports told him that Danny was claiming to help with the pit rage because he had also been exposed. But what if he was just helping the pit?

Even if he didn’t mean to, exposing Jason to that much power that closely tied to death couldn’t be good. Constantine hadn’t exactly said as much, but Bruce could read between the lines.

Death magic was contagious between those who’d been infected. Who’d died and come back.

That wasn’t fun to know. Not with how many of his children, his friends had all died before.

Even he himself had. He’d have to investigate Amity Park personally. Take the risk himself, to keep it from the others.

Tim and Duke could help, but they were both so busy with their own lives. He would have to wait and see.

His meeting with Clark and Diana hadn’t gone well either. They’d both been gratifyingly concerned with what he’d learned and had recognized the threat.

Clark had promised to keep an ear out for Jason, to listen in on his heartbeat and make sure he was okay. Bruce would have been grateful, if Clark hadn’t also told him that Jason’s heart was noticeably slow.

Easy to pick out, even if they hadn’t spent much time together.

Just how close was his boy to dying again?

Diana had advised caution. Wanted to speak to Danny herself, see the hero who had shouldered the burden of this small town. See if he had turned under the pressure.

Pressure that should never have been his. Pressure they should all have shared, protecting the child and the town together.

It would be his fault if Danny had broken. Had given in to whatever in the Infinite Realms had stolen a whole town away.

Bruce knew that with a leaden certainty, felt the weight of it settle in his chest. The same way he knew he was responsible for most of his rogues.

He could see the wisdom in letting Diana talk to the man first. She was wiser than most of the League, and a good judge of character. Even without her lasso, it was hard to lie to her.

But if what Constantine said was true, he didn’t want to tip their hand. Zatanna and Shazam had both agreed to attend tomorrow and give their own opinions.

They could afford to wait one night. Perhaps two, if Danny couldn’t be found tomorrow.

Just about the only thing Bruce wasn’t worried about was Danny running. If he had ill intentions, he wasn’t the sort to give in and disappear so easily.

He’d threatened Bruce to stay out of things between him and Jason. And certainly wasn’t afraid of a fight.

Bruce was also quite sure that he and Diana could take the boy if it came to it, even with the abilities Constantine ascribed to the realms. He would find a way.

But not tonight, he reminded himself firmly as he strode into the zeta tube. Tonight he would go home, update his children, and get some sleep.

Maybe waiting a day or two to speak to Danny directly would help. This concussion had passed frustrating and was beginning to affect his decision making.

Shaking his head to clear it, Bruce hit the button to send him home. Soon he could rest. At least for a little while.

A gentle buzzer went off in the cave and Tim yelped like he’d been stung, clutching at Tucker’s arm in an entirely unmanly way.

“SHIT he’s back hide the candy canes!”

Tucker stared at him wide eyed, but to his credit the other man didn’t hesitate to sweep the pile of different flavoured canes off the desk and into the front of his shirt.

“Where?!” He asked, and Tim hesitated for half an instant.

The zeta tube was down by the cars. Bruce would be up in less than a minute. Spinning Tucker by the shoulders, he shoved him towards the infirmary.

“Get in there! Don’t come out til I say!” He hissed, already hearing the zeta tube’s door whoosh open.

Tucker obediently scurried away, and thank fuck he was quick on the uptake enough to drop his voice below a whisper.

“What?! Tim, what?! Am I not supposed to fucking be here?!” He hissed, and Tim pulled the infirmary door almost shut before darting back to the table.

He’d cleared it with Bruce, had texted about giving their guests a tour, but since it turned out that Tucker hadn’t already been in the know… well, he wanted to prime Bruce with the good news first.

The tube only pinged once though, so Constantine hadn’t come back with him. That was probably good. Bruce would be less cranky.

Tim wasn’t exactly back in his seat by the time Bruce reached the batcomputer, but he was close enough to watch him note the second chair.

Tim didn’t let him ask.

“I have a first hand witness account of what happened in Amity Park.” That was the important thing, right? That they had answers.

Bruce stared at him for a long moment, eyes narrowed and the whiteouts narrowing with them. Tim stared him down, refusing to look away.

He’d fucked up just like, a tiny bit. But he’d gotten results. Better results than anyone else. So was it really a fuck up?

He watched Bruce’s eyes widen as he realized, and was a little surprised when the man’s shoulders slumped. He dropped gracelessly into the swivel chair, elbows propped on the table and his head cradled in his hands.

Tim was growing a little alarmed now, hurrying forward to Bruce’s side. Was he injured? Had something happened?

His hand was just reaching out to touch when Bruce sighed and sat back up.

“Tim. Who did you bring to tour the cave?” He asked in a tired, heavy voice, and Tim’s brows furrowed.

What? He’d said, hadn’t he?

“Tucker Foley?” He said cautiously, wondering if he should call Alfred. Maybe switch out Bruce and Tucker and get the big guy into the infirmary.

Bruce was very still. Tim forged ahead, hoping to get to the good news.

“He was a vigilante back in Amity Park, part of the support team. I have his statement going back to the beginning of the ghost attacks, and he’s already answered most of our questions.”

Leaning past Bruce, he hit a couple of keys and brought up the sound file of Tucker’s interview.

Bruce was still a little slow as he turned to look, but it seemed to hearten him. Which was when Tim realized.

“Wait. Who did you think I was bringing?” He asked, brows furrowing in confusion.

Bruce shot him a sidelong frown, pulling off his cowl.

“Not a stranger,” he growled, though his heart clearly wasn’t in it. He just sounded tired.

Tim carefully patted him on the shoulder, still thoroughly confused.

“What? But I said…” he paused, pulling out his phone and staring at the texts.

Nope. No he didn’t.

Oops.

Groaning, Tim let his head drop.

“Ah fuck, and I thought we were doing so well!” He sighed heavily and Bruce made a grunt that might have been a laugh. “Alfred’s going to be unbearable.”

That shut Bruce right up, as it should, and then Bruce sighed again. They were moving past it then. Probably for the best, since Alfred would lecture them both on the importance of communication later.

At least it wasn’t only Tim’s fault. The only person who wasn’t a stranger or a bat had been Harley, and he wasn’t actually sure if Harley had cave privileges.

Well. She did now. Since that was what Bruce must have thought he was asking.

Then Bruce straightened, eyes determined and steely.

“I have new information from Constantine. The risks of the Infinite Realms.” It definitely heartened him to talk about, skipping straight to the debrief part of the day.

Maybe they could just skip right over the Tim-fucked-up-and-brought-a-stranger-to-the-cave.

“I need you all to keep away from the Amity Parkers until I know more.”

Ah.

No then. Nope, not skipping over it, because Tucker was actively still fucking in the cave. It was for the best that they’d hidden him then.

Tim shook his head firmly, hoping that if he seemed certain that would help.

“That’s not gonna work, Bruce. I couldn’t have fixed our Watchtower problem without Tucker, and we can’t look at any of the Amity Park data without an Amity Park device.” It was the theory they’d been running with, but they’d had it confirmed now.

Never mind that Tucker had already downloaded most of what was publicly available for them. Bruce would always want a primary source anyway.

Tim pretended it didn’t affect him when Bruce’s head jerked, eyes narrowed as he scowled at Tim.

“You let him into the code for the Watchtower?!” He exclaimed in a hiss. Which was interesting, since Tim had kinda figured the bat cave thing would be more personal.

Then again, the Watchtower could compromise more than that.

“Bruce, read the report on Tucker. We literally couldn’t stop him if he wanted to hack in, because his tech runs on levels that slide right past ours. Tech he’s already sharing,” he added sharply, reaching behind him without looking to hook his laptop forwards.

Bruce, mouth already open to argue, quieted at once. Yeah, new toys always helped. Tim nodded to the batcomputer.

“The update’s ready to go live, but I waited because you need to see this. Open the third window,” he nodded over, pulling up the corresponding section of code on the laptop.

Bruce’s expression pinched but he did as requested, clearly not willing to put another step between himself and the answer. A quick glance up to confirm, and Tim nodded to himself.

Fuck, he needed a laser pointer.

“So it all looks good up there, right?” He pushed and Bruce frowned, but nodded, eyes scanning quickly across the screen.

“Is this your update?” He asked but Tim was already shaking his head, pushing his own laptop towards the man.

Bruce’s eyes widened at the glitching sections of code. Tim nodded, satisfied he’d gotten Tim’s point.

“Tucker Foley wrote me a program so that I could access this ghost code. In half an hour. From scratch,” he added for emphasis, and yeah, he could already hear the lecture about “compromised tech”.

He tried to shut that one off too, pointing up at the screens.

“That? That’s apparently the work of a ghost. One called Technus, who likes to possess technology, and now Tucker and I are going through every line of the Watchtower’s code looking for changes.”

Bruce’s lips thinned to a tense line and he gave a short, harsh nod. He very obviously didn’t like it, but the presence of a bigger threat did wonders for calming him down.

Tim patted his laptop.

“We’re waiting on you to upgrade the batcomputer, but we’re gonna need to check every program on that too. Everything, Bruce. These ghosts could have been rewriting everything. And we’d never know if I hadn’t asked Tuck to help me with the Watchtower.”

Honestly, Tim was just hoping none of their rogues had made any ghostly connections. The implications made his head spin, but he stubbornly kept himself on track.

They needed Tucker’s help. Never mind that the ghosts themselves were reportedly allergic to subtlety and would always go big over going home; that was a tendency, not a guarantee.

Hell, if Tim had a say, he’d get Tucker’s upgrades for the ghost code, improved firewalls, and Danny’s ectoplasm into all his own gear by tomorrow.

He wasn’t going to, Bruce’s paranoia being what it was, but he was already uploading Tucker’s program to his suit’s wrist computer. It wasn’t like there’d be any hidden malware.

Tim had watched over his shoulder as Tucker wrote it, direct on the PDA. And watching him work had been… it was just…

He so rarely got to talk to anyone that was actually on his level. Rarer still that they weren’t a direct member of the family.

And Tucker, for all he currently had a tech advantage? He’d invented that advantage himself. All on his own, he was incredible. Maybe even better with some aspects of software than Tim himself.

The things they could do together… even the internship was pretty much a formality at this point. Just get Tuck through college and see if he’d accept a job at WE.

Hell, if he wanted to found his own company Tim would invest. That kind of brilliance deserved everything it needed to grow.

He had to wrench himself back to the present moment, the “introduce new genius to Batman” step still looming large, but honestly? Tim wasn’t worried. Bruce would see the potential.

Here and now Bruce’s gaze had gone distant, and Tim could easily have kept going, but he stayed quiet. Let the man absorb new information, stop and think.

And if he still wanted to make dumbass decisions, well, Tim could argue with him literally all night. They’d all picked up Bruce’s stubbornness too.

It was hard to focus on the screen through the throbbing of his head, the lights too bright even at their lowest setting. He’d checked.

Luckily, it was an issue he’d been dealing with for years, and Bruce pushed it aside with the resigned acceptance of long practice.

He’d pay for it later. That night of sleep was probably going to be a day of sleep at this rate, but he’d get at least six hours. More if Alfred caught him.

For now… Tim felt very strongly about this. Had good reason to, if he was even half right about the scope of the problem, or Tucker’s uses as a solution.

After hearing from one member of the Justice League Dark, Bruce was desperately hoping Tim was right. They sorely needed an ally, one they could trust to guide them through these dangerous waters.

Of course, Fenton and Foley were close. That may skew his judgement, but it could be accounted for. Wasn’t worth more than an ally whose skillset Bruce understood, and could trust.

Tucker Foley was a tech expert, which put him above any occult master in Bruce’s book. Magic had no rules, not that could be relied on, and Bruce wouldn’t touch it if he didn’t have to.

And Tucker’s tech would work with his own.

There’d be a review period of course. He’d have to meet Tucker himself, speak to him a little, get a sense of the man. See how far his opinions would be based in fact, not feeling.

Tim’s vouch was a good first step. As little as Bruce liked that Tim had brought an outsider down to the lab. And then let him use Tim’s computer.

And honestly, it certainly wasn’t Tim’s fault that Bruce hadn’t asked. He’d been lax, not checked properly, and it was that damned concussion slowing him down.

He needed sleep. His thinking was dangerously clouded. But one thing was always true: he trusted Tim’s judgement. Probably more than he trusted his own at the moment.

They could review the situation in the morning, come up with some suitable punishment and protocol to introduce new vigilantes to the cave (which they’d never needed, because other heroes usually came through the League and were already vetted).

A thought struck and Bruce almost smiled. It would be a fitting solution on three separate sides. Maybe the punishment would be easy after all.

“Alright. I’ll need to speak to Foley first. And you will be writing out fresh protocols to address when a new hero but not a league member can be introduced to the cave,” he added, and Tim groaned loudly.

Bruce ignored him. That was just the start of his troubles.

“You will also be responsible for running John Constantine through the full reporting system, and updating the training materials so this doesn’t happen again.” It was a weight off his shoulders, really.

And a fitting punishment, because Tim would definitely think twice before pulling this stunt again. The man himself threw both his hands into the air.

“What?! Bruce! You said you fixed it!” He whined, and Bruce resisted the urge to smile.

“And I fixed Amity Park. But I highly doubt this was his only error, so the two of you will have to review every case he’s reported on before you go back on patrol.”

It was probably several hundred since they’d had the new system alone. Tim groaned like Bruce was sucking the soul from his body.

Bruce levelled him with a stern look.

“I take the secrecy of the cave seriously, Red Robin. This will not happen again.”

“Because I’m gonna die of old age sitting at a desk with Constantine,” Tim grumbled, folding his arms and scowling.

It wasn’t even something he could write a program to fudge for him; every case would need Constantine’s personal input to be sure it was filed correctly.

Bruce was quite pleased with this solution. But he made sure to hide the smile from Tim, who wouldn’t appreciate it right now.

“Tucker Foley may end up working out for us all, but that’s no guarantee a future mistake won’t be fatal. And Tim…” even if it was a formality at this point, he had to ask. “Do you trust him?”

The answer was obvious, this was Tim’s personal laptop, this was the Bat Cave, and as expected Tim nodded immediately, the sulk from his punishment vanishing.

“He’s a good guy. He’s even made a clean set of Amity Park data you can look through until Danny fixes the batcomputer.”

Ah. And there was the problem. With a solution wrapped around it though, so Bruce focused on the cleaned set of data.

If Tucker was anything like Tim, it’d be extensive enough to keep him busy until the Justice League came to a decision.

Until he could speak to Danny. Speak to Jason.

He was so tired.

Bruce nodded, leaning back in his seat.

“Alright. Tucker Foley is exempted, but I need you and the others to stay away from the rest, and particularly Danny Fenton until the League has made a decision.”

It was just a little heart breaking watching Tim’s face fall from hope and happiness straight back into worry.

“But Bruce… he’s helping Jason with the pit, he might need to see him,” he argued, arms folding again.

Bruce shook his head. That was exactly what he was afraid of.

“I know… and I know how Jason feels about following orders. I’ll tell him myself, tonight.” Luckily he was still in the batsuit, if not the cowl.

Raising his wrist to his face, Bruce activated his secondary comm on the group channel. He’d turned both off when his children headed out, fully aware Oracle would override it if they needed him.

He didn’t need to be distracted by the noises of a normal night.

“Everyone, return to the cave before heading in please. There have been developments I need to update you on.” Nothing to worry them, but hopefully interesting enough that Jason would still drop in.

No talk of protocols or anything. No, that was Tim’s future.

Tim, who was looking at him oddly.

“Who told you Jason went out tonight?” He asked, and Bruce frowned. Looked up at the batcomputer, and realized that the tracker screen wasn’t open.

That could be a problem.

“Didn’t he?” He asked, really not looking forward to asking Dick to ask Jason to drop by tonight. If Jason was actually home, actually sleeping…

But Tim shook his head, that odd expression still on his face.

“He never said he would, but he called in after taking Danny home. He’s out with Black Bat,” Tim added, and Bruce frowned.

Why even bring it up if Jason was out? What did it matter?

Tim, clearly seeing and understanding his confusion, groaned and tugged at his hair.

“Bruce. Please, just… listen to me. Danny isn’t the threat here. He’s been nothing but helpful. He’s the one who picked up the ball when the League dropped it, who dealt with all the ghosts we can’t. He saved that town-”

“We don’t know that, Tim,” Bruce cut him off, shaking his head sharply. “We can’t take that risk.”

He could see Tim getting frustrated, temper flaring, and in an odd way, it made him feel better. Calm. In control.

“Bruce, you stubborn… so what? We just tell Jason to keep away from the only person who makes him feel better?” Tim asked sarcastically, and Bruce could see exactly how he’d missed the point.

This was what he’d have to watch for with Tucker Foley. But the technical advantages would be worth it.

“We don’t know that he’s making the pits better,” Bruce said darkly, and fuck it felt good to even voice the thought aloud.

Made it feel real, less like paranoia.

Tim gaped at him, but didn’t argue.

Bruce raised a hand, counting the points off on his fingers.

One.

“None of us heard anything about him a week ago. Not even a few days. Fenton has been here over a year and only just ran into Jason?” It wasn’t possible.

It didn’t make sense. Gotham was a large city, sure, but for two people apparently so closely linked? No.

A second finger rose.

“Danny himself claims that he is helping with the pits.”

“Jason agrees,” Tim cut in, clearly looking to break his train of thought. Bruce silenced him with a stern glare.

“Danny claims he is helping with the pits. Jason claims to have noticed the same thing, but we already know the pits affect his mind. He may not understand what’s being done to him.”

That? That made perfect sense. The pits had driven Jason into those uncontrollable rages, made him do things he’d never have wanted to.

Who was to say they couldn’t have a more subtle influence? More dangerous? More like Ra’s himself.

Even Tim couldn’t argue with that, and Bruce nodded his satisfaction at the boy’s silence, raising a third finger. This… he wasn’t looking forward to this one.

But its weight had been sitting in his chest since the possibility came up, and he didn’t want to hide anything from his boys. They deserved to know the risks.

No matter how much he’d rather protect them from it.

“The little f… Constantine believes there is a chance that even being close to Danny may have dangerous side effects for Jason, purely accidentally.”

Tim’s eyebrow rose at the aborted description, and Bruce was glad he’d clamped down on it. Couldn’t quite meet the boy’s eye as he continued to explain.

“Danny’s connection to… his death,” the words were hard to even speak, another child lost, “is what gives him his power. It’s strong, and may have radiating effects Danny doesn’t even know about.”

Because that was kind of the worst part. There was a chance that Danny truly meant everything he’d said in earnest. That he was Jason’s friend, wanted to protect him.

Wanted to help Jason come back to himself and be free of the pit rage. That they did truly care for each other, and wanted to make each other better.

And none of those good intentions would matter if Danny’s mere presence risked Jason’s soul.

He could see Tim realizing it too, eyes widening and the aggression slumping from his shoulders. But he’d decided to be honest.

Clear, open communication. They could try.

“The way Jason came back… we still don’t know how it happened, or why. But anything half living and half dead can have side effects on the world around them, especially for those who have already died.”

Danny might be here to take Jason away. Back to the dead.

He’d meant to say the words, to lay it bare, but in the end he choked on them. Couldn’t even face the thought.

Tomorrow. After he slept. If they still needed convincing, he’d try again tomorrow. Which did neatly bring them to point number four.

Steeling himself, Bruce shifted his gaze back to Tim, raising his pinky finger.

“And if you are right, if Danny really is helping… it’ll only be for a few days. I meet with the League tomorrow. Zatanna and Shazam will both be there to give their opinions.”

Suddenly Bruce just felt tired. Tired of arguing, trying to make people see things his way. All he wanted was a couple of days. Just to be sure. Just to be safe.

Tim raised an eyebrow again, shifting slowly to lean against the other chair.

“Then why will it be a few days? Why not tomorrow?” He asked cautiously and Bruce chuckled.

Of course Tim knew him well enough to know there would be something else.

“I’d like to talk to him myself first. Perhaps have them meet him directly. Just to be sure what his intentions are in the city.”

“And with Jason,” Tim put in flatly. Bruce just nodded. The boy was right.

“With the city and with Jason,” he agreed, looking back up at the large screens of the batcomputer.

Pulled up the location tracker for his bats and birds, watching their little trails of light run across the city. He wouldn’t let any of those lights wink out.

Tim sighed and shook his head, coming to lean against the back of Bruce’s chair instead. Not quite tall enough to rest his chin on the top of Bruce’s head, and not likely to grow much more at nineteen.

“I still think it’s a bad idea,” he said bluntly, eyes tracking the Red Hood dot in particular. “You’ll only push Jason further away by trying to control who he sees.”

Bruce shook his head, leaning back just a little more into the presence of his son.

“I don’t care if Jason hates me for the rest of his life, so long as it’s a long and healthy one,” he said softly, and Tim snorted.

Pushed away from the chair, and for a moment the distance ached.

“Yeah, well. When it blows up in your face, I told you so. Did you wanna see Tucker tonight or tomorrow?” He asked, and Bruce’s head snapped suddenly around, scanning the cave.

“He’s still here?”

Shaking his head, Tim made his way across the cave to the infirmary, pulling out his phone where Bruce couldn’t see it. He shot off a quick text, not looking down.

‘J. Don’t come back to cave. B has mega bitch face just let him cool down’

Across the city, the message flashed in the corner of Red Hood’s helmet visor. Groaning to himself, Hood kicked a goon’s gun into Gotham bay and waved to Black Bat.

“You good? I gotta send a text.” He called, deeply offending the eight goons still standing, armed with knives and fucking pipes, and tussling with Black Bat.

Which only got worse when she shot him a quick thumbs up, sat on a particularly tall goon’s shoulders before throwing herself back so far the guy toppled, twisting them in the air so she still somehow wound up on top.

Hood nodded, pulling out his phone one handed.

“Hey! You can’t just text! We’re not done!” A goon protested, rushing in at Red Hood.

Who pulled his gun and shot him in both kneecaps, sending him sprawling to the slick planks of the dock.

This was why he always took out their shooters first. Batman could preach hand to hand all he liked, it was way safer when the bad guys had holes in their hands and no guns.

“Anyone else?” Hood asked rhetorically, pointing the last gun on the dock at the remaining goons in turn. In unison, all six focused their attention solely on Black Bat.

Not because they thought they’d win, but well. She didn’t have a fucking gun.

“Yeah, thought so,” Hood grumbled, sending a quick message back to Tim.

Paused to take a picture when Black Bat actually got three heads at once into a leg lock, because that had to be a record.

‘Is it to do with your big fuck up?’ Cuz honestly, what else could B be pissed about?

The answer came back though, fast and weird.

‘As hard as I also find it to believe this, no. Magician’s got him all twisted around about Phantom. Wants to forbid us all from seeing him.’

The phone creaked in Jason’s grip as he read the last words, a low rumbling growl spilling from low in his chest.

The remaining standing goons whipped around and exchanged startled looks.

That. That definitely wasn’t fucking good. No way.

Black Bat took another to floor as they paused, and the last three fled. Didn’t quite make it to the door.

Jason didn’t notice until her hand landed gently on his shoulder, concern radiating off her. His head whipped round, and he was suddenly glad the full helmet covered his face.

Couldn’t see the way he fucking snarled at her.

Black Bat didn’t move, her head cocked to one side as she regarded him.

“Eyes. Glowing,” she told him carefully, reaching up to touch the side of his helmet.

Jason jerked back in shock, but he could already feel the green rushing away. Receding until his vision purely his own again.

He hadn’t even noticed the green haze.

Black Bat inspected him again, then nodded, going on tiptoes to pat him on top of the head.

“What’s wrong?”

Red Hood sucked in a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment to recenter. He’d never felt the rage come on that fast, from nothing to all consuming before he even felt it.

Even thinking of the messages made angry green tides again.

We will not be kept from the King!

And it was talking to him again. Lovely. Why couldn’t that part have been his imagination?

Shaking his head, he focused on Black Bat’s question instead.

“Just B bein’ an asshole again. I’m gonna pass on the cave tonight, tell him I went to bed.” It was about as much as he thought he could talk about it without screaming.

Almost forgot that Black Bat could read him too, her aura still soothing and open to him as she nodded. Rested a hand gently on his shoulder.

“Go now. Rest,” she told him firmly, turning back to the downed and groaning goons.

Red Hood hesitated, looking around the dock. It was getting early, nearly time to turn in anyway, and they were done here. Just a routine drug shipment.

The last lot too dense to be cowed by the mood on the streets, or counting on the hour to mean the bats went to bed. Cuz that went so well for them.

He nodded and moved to help her, flipping the biggest goon over and zip tying his wrists to his elbows, and then his ankles.

“After I help you wrap your presents,” he agreed, heard Black Bat let out a soft huff of laughter.

One of the still conscious goons shot him a glare.

“Y’could at least pretend to take us seriously,” she grumbled, then yelped as one of her fellow goons kicked her in the shins.

Clear message: do not push the crazy bat.

Red Hood snorted.

“I’ll take you seriously when you’ve fuckin’ earned it,” he told her, going for the next biggest body.

Black Bat could take every one of them out of the fight, but bagging and tagging a dead weight was much less fun for her. He could handle that part before turning in.

He had a big day tomorrow.

Private Chat: DannyP & TooFine

4:30am

‘TooFine: dude Tim just shoved me in a closet I don’t think Batman knows I’m here?????’

‘TooFine: dude’

‘TooFine: dude wake tf up I might need emergency evac 🚨🚨’

4:35am

‘TooFine: that fucking Constantine guy’s put a bug in Batman’s ass’

‘TooFine: told u we shoulda hunted him down 😤’

‘TooFine: and after all I did to help!! Ungrateful bat!!’

4:46am

‘TooFine: okay Batman fucking hates u specifically ur screwed 😳’

‘TooFine: I’m good tho 😇’

‘TooFine: I think he likes me now 😏’

‘TooFine: he wants all my sweet tech upgrades’

‘TooFine: they’re gonna let me play on the batcomputer!!! 😳😳😳’

5am

‘TooFine: u are missing vital updates bitch’

‘TooFine: he’s gonna fucking ground Jason from hanging out with u’

‘TooFine: AH SHIT HE KNOWS IM HERE ABORT ABORT ABORT’

8am

‘TooFine: u may have been right going to bed early man this shit sucks’

‘TooFine: didn’t even get to see what happened’

‘TooFine: they sent me to bed like a naughty child! 😤’

‘TooFine: I’m changing all his ring tones to Funky Town’

10:59am

‘DannyP: okay miette’

11:02am

‘HalfBitch: OKAY IM SORRY TUCKER AT LEAST TAKE THE MAGIC MIKE THEME OFF’

——————————

Next Chapter:

Tag List: @welcometosasakiworld @kyrianclawraith @someonebored0100 @stealingyourbones @starkcravingmad @frostedthroughghost @akikkobara @rainbowbunny0159 @littlefeather345 @violet-catsarelife @serasvictoria02 @wolfjackle @blacksea21090 @secretdestinywerewolf @anime-hipster-the-amazing @undead-essence @skitscratched @blackroserelina @snoodly-boop @trickerdi @mayoota-blog @xysidhe @idkmrpianoman @little-apricot-the-writer @chaoticmistake @the-legal-shipper @bun-fish @aroranorth-west @demon-cat-goes-woof @perfectwastelandcreation @onyxlightdragon @larks-and-katydids @peachesandcreamfemboy @jesus-camp-the-sequel @may-rbi @mothman-the-mothman87 @viyatrix @stargirl1331 @idfk-man10 @thedepressedrobin @skulld3mort-1fan @rootsmudge @ravenshadow17 @cankoking @phantom-dc @mentalcarebear @magic-pincushion @redamancyardor @lyra689 @itsparadoxlacuna @alcorbearson @asphyxia778

#dp x dc #danny fenton dead and loving it #dead on main ship #jason x danny #danny x jason #one fine day in the middle of the night #still no smooches here tho #just bat angst and softness #chapter 13 #unlucky 13 cuz i forget the number exists

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soaps-mohawk · 26 days

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hiii!! Hope ur doing well and feeling better after everything that has been going on w/ u! 🫶 pls take as much time as u need before the next chapter ur health comes first, and we’ll wait!!! We’ll still be here when ur ready

until then take my musings about pack 141

I feel like the reason why the pack works well together (glancefd at ghost) is because reader is actually pretty used to being around men.

like, until presentation, she lived with multiple brothers (who ended up being alphas no less) so I feel like she’s just accustomed and used to Guy Habits. She knows how to get the upper hand when they play-fight and she’s good at video games and she is just not phased by some of the off putting or weird habits boys tend to have. She’s just used to it lol

Hello anon!! I am feeling a bit better today, but it is early still for me so we'll see how long that lasts. I actually think the chapter will be coming out as usual tomorrow because I did manage to get it done and edited this morning.

Oh, that absolutely does play a role in it. Funny enough, I do touch on the reader's kind of relationship with her family a bit in Chapter 19 and her dynamic with her older brothers briefly. That's absolutely true though. She grew up with big brothers, and while she does have younger siblings, of course you want to be around your cool older siblings more. Of course, they bring their friends over and her dad probably brought over his military friends too and she was just kind of surrounded by dudes most of her childhood lol. She's very used to men and while she probably still finds some of their habits disgusting, it's not really that big of a culture shock to her lol. Does she wish there was another woman in the pack to kind of help balance things out? Probably sometimes. But she's just kind of used to being in male dominated spaces, and honestly the institute was probably more of a shock to her than anything else, since they separate by gender when it comes to private spaces and also some classes/events.

But yeah, that definitely was an advantage for her to settle in with them so easily. Nothing they could do would really shock her at this point lol. John picks his nose and eats it? Her dad did that and her brothers picked it up from him too. (Why is that such a guy thing though because all the men in my family did it and probably still do 🤢) Johnny dutch-ovens her in bed? That's just a normal Saturday morning. Ghost does the man hacking early in the morning when he gets up? It's like white noise to her. Kyle is the least gross obviously, but he definitely watches videos with the sound all the way up. Reader doesn't even bat an eye at it. 😂

#man habits #good times lol #answered #crcb lore

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manuscripts-dontburn · 28 days

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The Faceless Woman

Author: Emma Hamm

First published: 2018

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Two perpetually horny people with the attitude of whiny teenagers endlessly banter annoyingly while hiking the Otherworld (or was it Otherlands?). They are totally into each other just because. Everything they need is immediately gotten. Every question they ask is immediately answered. There is a cat.

Lady Audley's Secret

Author: Mary Elizabeth Braddon

First published: 1862

Rating: ★★★★☆

A good example of a book that seems to be good, but not THAT good, but then it really turns out there is more to it than it first seemed. I enjoyed myself! Also, I would recommend it to anyone who would like to get into classics but is not ready for the likes of Dostoyevsky (Is anyone truly ready for Dostoyevsky?)

My Sister, the Serial Killer

Author: Oyinkan Braithwaite

First published: 2018

Rating: ★★★★☆

A dark, intriguing exploration of how far family loyalties can lie, peppered with uncomfortable truths and secrets. Not really a thriller, if that is what you are looking for. Thanks to very short chapters it read extremely quickly.

Death on the Lusitania

Author: R.L. Graham

First published: 2024

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Like... I wasn´t mad at this, you can certainly tell a huge amount of historical research went into constructing this story, but all in all it read very dry. Furthermore, I chose to read this book because the tragedy of Lusitania is something I have been fascinated with for a long time now yet in the book its tragic demise comes about with little urgency and takes a surprisingly small space in the overall length of the book. The famous ship is a background setting rather than the main event and you never get to explore her.

Peach Blossom Spring

Author: Melissa Fu

First published: 2022

Rating: ★★★★★

Somebody messed up and so in my edition of Peach Blossom Spring every single instance of the word QUIET was replaced by QUIETEN, which jarred the eye and flow of the afflicted sentences. But not even that could take away the sensitive, melancholy beauty of this book. A historical fiction with just the right amount of background information without over-explanation, it follows a family trauma and how characters with that trauma make their decisions and change over time. By the end, I felt very deeply for all the characters and, even though my own culture and heritage are completely unrelated, trace the certain human traits we all seem to share, portrayed with great care.

Weird Medieval Guys: How to Live, Laugh, Love (and Die) in Dark Times

Author: Olivia Swarthout

First published: 2023

Rating: ★★★★☆

Perhaps not laugh-out-loud funny, but amusing and clearly written with much love for history. I only wish the physical book was larger, so the pictures could be viewed in more detail and my weak-ass-eyes not struggle to read the small text.

The Imaginary Lives of James Poneke

Author: Tina Makereti

First published: 2018

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Though quite short, there is a lot going on in this book. The story is that of a native boy from New Zealand who, after losing his family and people, gets an English education and makes his way to London is set in the 19th century and focuses on issues of predatory colonialism, insensitive treatment of people who look different and eventually also sexuality. There is a profound sadness etched into all of it. I was not sure whether the sexual angle was necessary and the one explicit scene felt jarring, as if I suddenly was reading a different book altogether.

Crypt: Life, Death and Disease in the Middle Ages and Beyond

Author: Alice Roberts

First published: 2024

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Unfortunately, this wanted to be a lot and ended up being a not uninteresting but rather confused, unanchored and disjointed collection of papers. Not recommended if you are primarily interested in history and not biology.

I, Coriander

Author: Sally Gardner

First published: 2005

Rating: ★★★★☆

I would have eaten this up as a kid! As an adult, I still enjoyed it a lot, but I must say the historical parts of this story worked much better than the fantasy-infused ones. Could Sally Gardner possibly rewrite this story as an adult horror? Because that would be blood-chilling.

The Beekeeper of Aleppo

Author: Christy Lefteri

First published: 2020

Rating: ★★★★★

This book started as a weary, melancholy journey and ended up being an explosion of pain. The story is told from the point of view of Nuri, a Syrian refugee trying to make his way to the UK while trying to stay strong for his blind wife and hopes for some normalcy in the future. Because you only get his interpretation of events Nuri is sometimes an unreliable narrator, which, I personally think, explains some of the points other readers have criticised. Nuri does not give a comprehensive and complex portrayal of his journey, he is simply engulfed in his own thoughts and existence, noticing select things and reacting to select situations. It is an exploration of trauma anyone can relate to, while at the same time, it absolutely does call one's attention to the very real plight of refugees, happening right now. It is beautifully written too.

Kaikeyi

Author: Vaishnavi Patel

First published: 2022

Rating: ★★★★☆

It is always dangerous to choose an actual religious story rather than a mere myth to retell and spin in a way that would be innovative, respectful and not feel redundant. Vaishnavi Patel has managed to win this uneasy battle by choosing the possibly most interesting character of the mix and creating a complex woman who is fantastically human in her errors and yet you cannot really feel for her, especially in the last part of the book, because she reasons, she fights, she repents, she questions herself. I especially liked the focus on the conflict between the male sense of pride and honour and what was presented as a much more feminine trait of letting things go to avoid war and pain. The middle part of the book did feel rather sluggish and the equality of the sexes, at times, bit too on the modern nose, but the heart of the story prevailed. No doubt there will be Hindus taking offence at liberties and changes made, but since the author herself is a Hindu, I believe it is not my place to argue for or against this case.

A Manual for How to Love Us

Author: Erin Slaughter

First published: 2023

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Let´s just say this was not for me. The stories were certainly weird but with not much impact (bar one). I bought this book because it has a gorgeous cover and somebody said the stories are connected (which is one of my favourite things in books), but if the connection is there, I could not find it. Just because it is all weird, sad and weirdly sad women does not "connected" mean.

A Romanov Fantasy: Life at the Court of Anna Anderson

Author: Frances Welch

First published: 2007

Rating: ★★★☆☆

In comparison to The Resurrection of the Romanovs: Anastasia, Anna Anderson, and the World's Greatest Royal Mystery this book is definitely not offering as much information on the whole question of why so many people believed in Anna Anderson and where the discrepancies were in many of her claims. I was also irritated at mislabeled pictures of the Romanov sisters as Anastasia on more than one count (I suspect the editor´s mistake here). But this is still a readable and fascinating portrait of a very abnormal life and some very unhinged people. Even more than Anna I was taken by Gleb Botkin and his delusions and reasoning. Interesting, though it does not have the latest information due to the year of the publication.

#booklr #wrap up #April 2024

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manonamora-if · 3 months

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March Check-In

Lol. We definitely were not back on track here. We tried and SUPER FAILED at going back to the schedule.

Will March be better? Let's find out together...

Onto the usual index:

Recap of last month’s progress

IF Events in the Next Month

Plan for the next month

Still long post under the break. If you want a mini version, head over to itch.io!

February Progress

Welp... there wasn't much of a list in the January Check-in, since it was the retrospective, which included the yearly plan. Still, I did make a mini one on itch. Put together we'd get:

Play more IF and maybe review. ✅

Finish the coding of Harcourt Ch5 ❌ and editing of Ch6 ❌

Fix one of the semi-completed games: ❌

Complete the Vamp/Smoochie jam entry✅

Heyyyy 50/50. Passable grade!

I've passed the very funny number of 420 reviews on the IFDB recently, mainly working my way through the French games (since there are very few reviews and French IF peeps are neat people). There are 300+ games left on that side, it will take me a while to get there but I'm making progress (almost done with 2023!). If my pace continues... I might be able to reach 2nd place in the ranking before my 1 year anniversary of reviewing games (mid-may). Also somewhat related, I've been trying to rate more games on itch too :)

I said I would finish the coding of Harcourt... and then didn't. But MelS was more productive than me, and he finished the first draft of Chapter 6 earlier than planned... which I haven't finished commenting on either... So :/

I also didn't fix any semi-completed games. So there.

But I managed to make it for the Queer Vampire Jam and the Smoochie Jam with Teatime with a Vampire ! A 20k-long trippy game with a hot vampire and a weird show...

AND AND I finally fixed my website and my itch.io profile. It has a cool feature on the front page. And we did a little AMA a few weeks ago!

Honestly, I thought I would have been done with Teatime two weeks before it actually was completed. So that threw a wrench in the rest. And probably having to moderate a few events at once...

And the extra day clearly didn't help.

EDIT: I TOTES FORGOT, but I updated DOL-OS for an extra QOL screen at the start.

What’s happening in March?

There's always something happening in the IF world. I don't think I ever find all that happens anyway... but. Here's the ones I know!

Today is the last day to submit a Spring Thing intent! (ranked)

he Queer Vampire Game Jam ends in about three weeks. Got a vampire/human story with a LGBT+ cast? Then this is the event for you! (unranked) Also they are doing a fundraising/matching donation with submissions!

The SeedComp! (Sprouting) extended the deadline for a few more days! See @seedcomp-if for more info ;) (ranked)

Concours de Fiction Interactive Francophone 2024 se termine Lundi! Viendez faire des histoires en français!! <3 (ranked, duh)

The next @neointeractives mini-jam will all be about bringing back old jams... Check out the Revival Jam !

The Text Adventure Literacy Jam 2024 just started! It will be looking for "parser for beginners" entries until May!

Note: @neointeractives will have jams all year long. One a month/or so. And the next Planting Round of @seedcomp-if will start as soon as the results are dropped.

The PLANtm for March

Busy plan once again. Here are the thing I'm hoping to do or finish this month:

Complete my French Comp entry. The deadline is in 3 days. Will I make it? Probably. Will it be good? Probably be not because I've been writing it only in the past two weeks. You can expect some "love" letters though...

Complete my SpringThing entry. It will be all about fixing typos and potential bug. The code will be ready next week anyway. Maybe slap some cool-er animations.

Play more games! Consider this done. There's the Smoochie Jam, the SeedComp! and the FrenchComp right there...

Finish the Code Ch5 of Harcourt and edit Ch6. At least one round of edits would be good. So I can put MelS to work again.

Finish fixing The Roads Not Taken. I'm so sorry babe. I'm not avoiding you I swear. I actually haven't bee on the computer with your files this month...

LET'S DO THIS! WE CAN DO IT!

The 2024 To-Do List:

I have done nothing here. So here's the list again for nothing.

The hopefully maybe easy to handle To-Do:

fix the bugs in EDOC + overall the French version to match

fix the bugs of TRNT + find a way to add the missing pieces (giving up on the translation)

fixing the interface of LPM and the popups + check animal interactions

figure out the One-Button JavaScrip/jQuery issue...

edit the loading screens of the completed tiny games to include the program/format logo at least.

The 'Need a Bunch of Content to update but it's planned!' To-Do:

Update my website (bunch new title - also I don't think the logo clicky thing work...) + redo my itch page

Finish TTATEH (MelS dependent - this year should be it - for real)

Finish Exquisite Cadaver (half-way mark by this summer - manif)

Finish P-Rix - Space Trucker (main path at least)

Update CRWL (it's been almost two years... I'm getting ashamed)

The Unlikely But it Would be Dope To-Do

Finish The Dinner as it was planned (and translate)

Finish In the Blink of an Eye as it was planned (and retranslate)

Finish The Rye in the Dark City

Fixing TTTT (at least fixing, maybe try adding some storylets)

And finally The 'It's impossible, but one can wish' TO-DO:

Remaster SPS IH (if I managed to start this after completing the rest... I'm going to eat a whole sheet cake).

Start the IFComp project (2025? Might end up being a ST?)

#dev log #progress #interactive fiction #check-in

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the-fallen-aesthetics · 8 months

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Arknights CN Spoilers //

Edit 1: I read the rough translations of Chapter 13 and I get most gist of it. I edited my mistakes!

I'm absolutely losing my shit of what I've learned from Chapter 13 of Arknights...

It's funny because I just got back from hiatus a month ago (during the Monster Hunter collab) then I got back to some juicy lore? Damn, I've been being fed lmao

Shining is one of my favorite characters right from the get-go (she's my first six-star Operator) and she's always been in my team since the beginning... I also got her nine times through both recruitment and pulling from banners. Don't ask me, I'm just a F2P lmao

I've always been wondering what's her name. I jokingly asked for it last week while waiting for the chapter to drop.

For those who don't mind being spoiled: her name's Quesasina. Of course, it would be unique. But she deemed her former name sinful and left it behind. (I think it's still beautiful though)

Of course, her current name was still complimented by Liz, the very person that Shining gave a name and that she would give up her life through a blood fucking sacrifice/ritual. That woman was ready to slice the shit out of herself until Liz stops her and tells her that she already forgave her for all the things she'd done to her while giving up herself to that bastard.

Look, I'm probably overreacting but as a Shining and Followers fan, again, I'm losing my shit because of how long I waited for their lore but I'm NOT expecting losing Liz to the Confessarius in the process-

#arknights #arknights spoilers #tell me that I'm in love with Shining without telling I'm in love with Shining #this fucking post is the proof of that dfksjhskdfjh #i'm very much delulu at this point lmao #fallen's tag

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rainbowchewynuggets · 1 year

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re: the fate of TMA: Encore

Up to this point, I’ve been able to get most of TMA: Encore posted. But there are some issues that I’ve been struggling with for a while that are really starting to eat away at my ability to continue.

Even though Encore is practically fully written at this point and I’m just getting the planned drawing sections done, the writing itself is still largely what’s giving me the most trouble.

When I started this project in earnest, I was going off of a very rough outline and mostly writing on the fly. That method works fine for a lot of writers, but it turned out to be really difficult for me. I spent very long periods just trying to figure out how to get from plotpoint A to B to C. I eventually cleared some time to sit down and hammer out a proper coherent script. For logistical reasons, I gave myself about a month to get it done. And I did–which was a huge achievement for me. At the same time, as you can imagine, what I came out with was a little raggedy. I’ve been trying to make small edits as I go to smooth things out and pick up on missed opportunities, but I’m honestly starting to think that it’s just breaking other links in the chain.

The other big reason is due to my decaying relationship with horror. I used to love horror movies and video games, and I reveled in body and abstract emotional horror especially. The Thing. 1408. Silent Hill. TMA’s literary horror vibe was a transformative experience for someone who almost never read for fun growing up. It’s one of my favorite stories, period. Unfortunately, traumatic world events and difficult personal experiences have made horror a lot more… horrible to me in recent years. The tension and terror that used to give me catharsis now only causes me genuine stress. Writing horror still works for me though, which I think has also made it harder to keep myself from going overboard. That fucking concrete forest section with Jon gave me shooting pains to reread.

My point is, I just can’t get myself to relisten to TMA anymore or even take it in by summary. This has left me to rely on my own memory to keep the characters and world consistent with canon. Which is a lot like trying to draw a still-life portrait of wax fruit in 100-degree heat.

The worst part comes in realizing just how smart TMA is. Its explorations of the nature of fear and trauma are what inspired me to want to make Encore in the first place. But the structure and depth of it is even more substantial than I realized when I listened to it. For instance, I recently saw a post talking about how tragic Tim’s character is. He’s such a nice funny guy who does his best to roll with everything in S1, and is slowly ground down to a miserable angry stump of who he used to be by the time of his death. It takes years. And it’s not a natural part of his character. I didn’t write Tim that way in Encore. I figured it would be a lot easier to draw that negativity out of him, in the same way that it doesn’t take a lot of prodding to get Jon to misbehave. That interpretation serves the conflict I wanted to write, but it misses the point of his character, I think. There’s a lot of stuff like that in Encore at such a foundational level that it’s hard to level the dissonance when you compare it to the podcast.

Which sucks, because I originally conceived Encore as a retrospective on what the series was like to listen to (until it took so long to make that I pivoted to make it a separate study on the relationship between fear, pain, and agency, and the existential horror of time travel/immortality). I don’t really feel prepared to do any of that if I’m still discovering so much of what makes TMA work. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think unhinged, canonically-inconsistent fanfiction is bad or shouldn’t exist. But that just isn’t what Encore is supposed to be for me.

All this makes me feel really really… bad. A little bit incompetent, but mostly tired. There are only a few chapters left, and the script is mostly ready to go. Man, I don’t know if I want to go through with it though. My creative spirit has had it rough lately, and I’m about to make some big life changes that are going to make it way harder for me to get art stuff done. And, y’know, I’m supposed to be cutting back on the stuff that makes me more worn-out than happy.

I think I mentioned in a post a while ago that I’ve considered stopping before. I’ve had misgivings about the quality of the writing (and the sheer burden of making full pages of art) for a long time. I convinced myself to keep going because I’ve bailed on a lot of projects over the years and was determined to believe in myself and finish this thing. However, following an audit of the work I’ve put into it, I’m realizing that not finishing wouldn’t make the endeavor a complete loss.

The biggest reason that I make anything is because it makes me a better writer and artist. Even if I’m unsatisfied with the result, I feel accomplished that I sat down and wrote a whole script on a really tight deadline. My usual problem with any writing project is that it keeps sitting on the burner, boiling away, ballooning in scope until it’s impossible to finish. I feel like I’ve been able to make a greater level of peace with compromise and cutting down the stuff in my head to get shit out the door.

Also, tone is hard. Voice is hard. They can be even harder when you’re piggybacking off of another creator. Again, I don’t think that a fanwork or guest work necessarily has to have the same voice as the original. You’re different people, after all. A person can certainly train their tone toward a certain idea with effort, but it helps to know what comes naturally to them. I’m still figuring my own voice out, and it turns out that it isn’t this. The void left behind by my horror safe-space appears to have been occupied by a gif of Gir whacking Shinji Ikari over the head with a frying pan at high speed. Even in Encore’s most manic state, I strain to keep myself from pingponging out of bounds with violent emotional hyperactive energy. Maybe I can try sticking closer to writing action and comedy with only a moderate sprinkling of morose horror.

As mentioned last year, I made important realizations about the way I draw comics. I was taught to draw through studio art where putting your all into every piece is usually the goal. But that’s super unsustainable when you have 7-10 “pieces” to make on every single page. Falling apart halfway through a giant project pushed me to find ways to mitigate the workload without radically changing design consistency. That means formatting, rendering, and composition.

Even before that, the whole fear-color mechanic was a joy to build up. And I finally figured out how to do borderless color art! :3

I can bring all these improvements to the new things I do in the future. All the derivation-related issues in this project are making me think it’s time to move on to original stuff, anyway. Let me tell you, there is a ton of stuff I’d like to make.

TLDR; I’m considering not finishing TMA Encore because I think the quality of the writing has fallen apart, and I need to move away from writing horror and fanworks for a while.

So. The other reason I kept going after that long gap last year was because people appeared to be really into the story. I’d like to give you guys the chance to weigh in on how I handle this. Because for all I know, this is all happening in my head and everything is fine. Your options are:

A) Please finish the last few chapters with art, whenever you get around to it.

B) Please post the last of the script without pictures over the next few weeks.

C) Please don’t worry about finishing it.

Your answer won’t be a definitive vote on what I do, but I do want to value your opinion in what I decide. Through it all, I feel really happy that people have been able to enjoy and express opinions on the longest thing I’ve ever kept going. I look forward to whatever comes next.

Thanks!

Rainbow

------------

EDIT:

After careful consideration, I’ve decided to finish posting the whole thing. Chapters will be longer with way less art.

Thank you everyone, for your kind and sincere encouragement and opinions.

:’)

Here’s the next chapter btw

#tma encore #update #important

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bloustorm · 7 months

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tagged by @aobawilliams

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

just 4

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

9,731 words3,338

3. What fandoms do you write for?

AO3 I got My Hero Academia, Trash of the Count's Family and Kiss the Abyss, but I also got various wips for Naruto, DC, and some other fandoms or crossovers like DCxWC

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Woes of a Drunkard (341)

How about No (76)

Burned-in Fingerprints (24)

When did I lose you for real? (18)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yeah! I always try to respond to the immediately, I myself like when the author responds to something I wrote in a comment (though I also try to write longer comments) and I think it's nice if it just gets acknowledged that I saw that they took their time for it. Also comments give me live and kudos just do nothing for me.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

That would probably be "When did I lose you for real" if I ever manage to finish that fic whoops

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Uh hard to say actually, like Burned-In Fingerprints ends pretty positive if I remember right but like How about No doesn't even get angsty at all? but I would say it's a neutral ending so yeah. Fingerprints.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No, but like my fics aren't that well known obviously or haven't really been written out enough to have anything offensive in it lol. I really need to finish my wips one day

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes, that's a secret /j Idk what's meant here with what kind, anyway only a selected few are allowed to read that anyways

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Hmm haven't written anything just thought about it.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I don't think so (unless it was done without my knowledge)

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, there's kind of an idea of doing it with @grolahvol and possible @fanfiction-artist-prototype but that's up in the air for if it ever happens

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

...yeah no idea right now, come ask me another time. (It tends to change on the day)

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

*crying* all of them.

Would really love to actually finish the posted stories I have on ao3 but I am currently so OUT of the fandom that it will take a while before I can look at the again I guess, like I literally have the third chapter almost ready only needs simple edits but nope

16. What are your writing strengths?

I honestly got no idea? I probably got some I'm just not sure what it could be.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

word hard. Also no idea how grammar works beyond "whatever feels right to me".

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Eeh, I probably wouldn't do it because it's bothersome having to look up a translation while you're reading a fic, unless it's something that fits with the context or just a few words here and there. Also switching languages in the middle of thinking is so hard to do, why would you do this to me. + like it just feels awkward to write it in another language, at least to me. Or to read it, there are a few language that can make it work but like german is not one of them (at least to me)

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Uhhh technically like the Ga'hoole movie or something mabye?? that was even before I knew about fandom.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

UGH, I like the Drunkard one but How about No is also really funny

tagging @fanfiction-artist-prototype @aro-aizawa @slagathorius-maximus and uhhh whoever else sees this and writes

#1) + 3 on another acc. 2)+3338 #yeah I just copy pasted aobas text so I didn't have to type all the questions that's why I also just used her text for some answers #blou talks #tag game

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tc-doherty · 10 months

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WIP Round-up

We are in the 2nd half of 2023 so I figured I would do something like this because I haven’t actually compiled information for a while.

Status updates, priorities, and which projects I’m dropping.

Backwards Tales:

I’ve written Beauty and the Beast and I’m satisfied with that, I’ve written two pages of Cinderella and I’m relatively satisfied so far. I’m just going to see where time takes me with this one. I don’t currently have any specific fairy tales picked out for other ones but that won’t be an issue.

Celestials:

The Ghost is finished, but it will be getting some tweaks and a couple brand-new illustrations before it’s republished under Fabler :3

The Fairy, I’m about halfway through this draft, I think, but it has a whole new ending so it will still need another draft or two at least.

The Scholar, I’m more or less settled onto the idea of this but I haven’t written it yet.

The Knight, still in baby planning stages.

Coyote Song:

This is so stupid but I do love it and I still intend to rewrite it. I have to at least see if it has any value.

The Deadlands:

I do like the story but I’m slightly worried that it might get me sued unless I make some major changes so…status, unknown. I don’t know if I like it enough to put major structural repairs at a high priority at the moment.

The Desert of Claw and Fang:

I’m dropping this one.

Dragon’s Daughter:

Dragon’s Daughter is done except for the illustrations.

Dragon’s Choice, the first half is basically done, the whole second half is new so it’s sparse and needs plumping up.

The Gryphon of Sirray:

I’m still intending to write this one.

The Hildspel of Athelhyrst:

The publishability of this is 0% but I do intend to continue writing it whenever I have a free moment, which is not right now.

Hoofbeats:

This one has promise and I do intend to write a new draft of it once I get some other projects out of the way. I would say this is medium priority.

The Huntress of Anihwen:

I may be dropping this one.

Into the Witch’s Wood:

I’m almost certainly dropping this. I don’t know what it is about the story but I can never keep my interest up about it no matter how I change it, even though I like some of the cast members. Maybe I will just steal them and do something else with them.

Laero:

While this story may or may not actually ever work out, I fully intend to at least try to write a new draft since I’m much older and wiser now.

Magic Black as Knight:

I think I’ve written about a quarter of the plot. I do intend to finish it and see if it works out but it’s lower priority right now.

Miracles:

I just need to write the last couple of chapters, maybe 10 chapters or so. And then it will need a little bit more editing and filling out but it’s also basically ready for alpha-reading as soon as I write those last couple chapters.

Northbound:

I love these characters but I need to spend some serious time working out the politics before I go back to it so that I can make sure everything is intriguing enough but still makes sense. I would consider it medium priority at the moment.

The Race of the Midday Moon:

I 100% intend to write this one.

The Rose and the Egret:

I think I’ve written the first two fairy tales from this? I am going to finish it.

Second Chances:

This is in a weird place because it’s basically done except for minor tweaks and a little bit more fluffing (ready for beta-reading at least) but the idea of publishing it is strange to me due to Reasons(TM) so I don’t know what to do with it.

The Swan Husband:

This idea is still funny to me and I want to try it.

Temitope:

This is essentially still a novella and I’m having a little bit of time making it long enough but it’s still pretty far along in the process and I’m going to keep working on it.

The Thief Queen:

I will probably be dropping this one.

Untitled 1:

This may end up being one of the things that I just write for myself because it’s already extremely self-indulgent, we’ll see. I may also take the characters and do something completely different with them.

Untitled 2:

I pretty much have the whole plot line worked out in my head from what I’ve done so far, I just need to expand on some things and learn more about scriptwriting so I can do it properly. I love the story and this will be happening.

Untitled 3:

Absolutely, 100%, I’m writing this. Even if it turns out bad, I’m going to write it. I would like to write it soon actually, it’s relatively high priority for me.

Untitled 4:

I still intend to try this but because it’s a totally different genre and I don’t know if I’m suited for it it’s still fairly low priority at the moment.

Untitled 5:

This is still only a short story at the moment, I do have ideas for what I want to do with it but I would like to finish Temitope first given that they are set in the same universe. Not that they’re connected in any way, it just seems like I should finish the first one first and the second one second.

Untitled 7:

I’m dropping this.

#writeblr #writing #TC's writing

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to-be-a-rose · 4 months

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If anyone wanted a real writing update (I haven't in a while)

So last update I had given my manuscript to my sister, and while I was waiting for updates I was getting the rest of my query package ready. This was march 2023. I was thinking she would take a couple months to read it, she would give me feedback and critique and I would make edits, then start submitting it to agents.

Long story short, it didn't go like that at all. Last I spoke with her she was about a quarter of the way through it, and were coming up on almost a year. I won't lie and say I'm not sad about it, but I can't really be mad because during this time she: finished her masters degree, worked part time, did an internship AND planned her wedding (it's in april) not to mention some other serious life stuff I won't mention here. Basically I was the asshole for giving her this book rn lol.

Ultimately though, I am glad I gave it to her even though she hasn't finished it, because it forced me to put the manuscript down and let it breathe. I stopped working on it for a month or so and when I came back to it I had a refreshed perspective. I was so close to it I had nooo fucking idea what it was or how to improve it, but when I came back I did.

After this I gave the first five chapters to my boyfriend, he read it and gave me feedback right away, and that set me off on a whole new tangent of editing. I cannot stress enough how important it is to get more eyes on your work. He pointed out so many simple things to increase clarity, things I was blind to bc I understand what is going on.

I also read some craft books, read for fun, and made sure to take plenty of time off and not rush myself. I took a full month break during the Christmas season and into January a bit, and I just got back to it and read the whole thing through. And you know where I'm at now??

It's the best any of my writing has ever been. I've never read it through without this overwhelming feeling of cringe, despair, frustration etc, but I didn't have any of that at all. I actually felt like it was good, and funny and weird and fun to read and I felt proud of myself. I am holding on to this feeling by a thread bc I am really scared for the next steps. I am scared that I have deluded myself into thinking this is anything anyone would want to read, and that its going to read so amateur that ppl will laugh at it. I have worked on this so hard for so long. I could go on about all the things I'm afraid of but none of it matters because I am doing it anyway. Next I'm going to give the entire draft to my boyfriend (and I'm more scared for him to read it than I am for everyone else) and I will take his feedback and make any necessary changes, and then I will start querying for real and then I will probably turn inside out via the sheer power of my anxiety. If you pray, pray for me or if not please beam loving/lucky energy into the computer screen for me. Thx

#personal #writing #writeblr #writing update #writing progress

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acacia-may · 9 months

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Can I ask questions 4, 18, 21, and 46?

Hi there, Anon-friend! Thank you so much for the ask and for playing the fic writer's ask game!

I've answered your questions below the cut. 😊 Cheers!! 💕

4. Where do you find inspiration for new ideas?

Gosh I wish I knew lol. Sometimes they are just completely random, but I would say most of the time they stem from conversations I have whether online or irl and wanting to bring some of those great discussion points to life. Most of my Black Clover fanfictions for instance, were heavily inspired by the deep discussions a friend of mine irl and I would have as we were binging the series together. The wip I have currently been working on was heavily inspired by some silly headcanons about OMORI characters watching Friends (which was a huge cultural phenomenon in the 90s and early 2000s when the game takes place). 😅

Another big inspiration for me is music. I write stories inspired by songs all the time.

18. Do you title your fics before, during, or after the writing process? How do you come up with titles?

It really depends on the story and the type of title. For my most recent fanfiction "A Ceiling Made of Stars" I picked the title long before I even started writing the story and ended up incorporating the phrase into the prose. Other titles I choose based on a line from the story that sticks out to me while I'm drafting it (i.e. "Beside Every Closed Door Is An Open Window," "For What It's Worth," & "We Make Our Own Destiny").

Some titles are from song titles or lines from songs that inspired the story, and these are either chosen before writing (i.e. "Maybe My Soulmate Died") or afterwards (i.e. "Am I Ready For Love? Or Maybe Just A Best Friend"). Then there are some that are titled from a line in the work that was also inspired by music (i.e. "I Can Hear Music," "A World Without You," & "Tackle The Monsters") and those tend to be chosen as soon as that particular line is written.

I'll admit I was kind of curious of the breakout so I went to my AO3 and here's my top 3 types of fic titles ranked first, second, and third based on frequency:

1st: Related to the story and/or a line in the story (Serious)

2nd: From the title of a song or the line of a song

3rd: Related to the story and/or a line in the story (Cheeky/Joking Titles)

21. Would you ever collaborate with another writer for a story?

Absolutely! I have had the pleasure to collaborate with other writers before, and I always try to give credit for inspiration where it is due. Most of these collaborations were/are just swapping ideas, headcanons, or proofreading works, but I have tried co-authoring before which has also been fun. Most of these co-authoring projects were written with my irl friends (years ago when I wasn't putting my writing online), and the few co-authoring projects I've written with my online friends/other online fic writers which could conceivably have been posted have never really come to fruition enough to be posted, unfortunately. That said, the lovely @randomsprinkles and I have collaborated on a couple projects that have actually made it to AO3, but we don't co-author in the traditional sense: she does the art (and/or helps with worldbuilding and editing, occasionally dialogue) and I do the writing! 😊

It's actually kind of funny you asked this question, Anon-friend, because I was just laughing with someone irl about my first ever co-authored fic. Back when I was in high school, one of my best friends and I thought it would be fun to make up an OC and write a fic for a certain comicbook fandom I haven't thought about in years. The problem was that my friend wanted her to end up with one canon character and I wanted her to end up with a different canon character (and our individual chapters absolutely reflected that lol). Needless to say it was an absolute hot mess and never finished (and thankfully never published anywhere. I don't even think I have a copy of it anymore). So my big piece of writing advice for all collaborations is pick your ships early and make sure you agree on them! 😉

46. How would you describe your style? (Character/emotion/action-driven, etc)

Character driven 100%--though sometimes emotion driven in so far as the emotions relate to the characters. I am and always have been a character-driven reader/watcher/media consumer, so that's something I always really try to focus on in my own writing. I struggle a lot when I'm responsible to moving a whole plot along (probably one of the main reasons I don't usually like writing multi-chapter fics).

#the much younger acacia was a very different person i think #i'd honestly be kind of scared to read anything from my super early writing days ngl 😅#thanks for the ask and for playing!!#fic writer ask game #acacia's ramblings #acacia lore

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pebblysand · 2 years

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[castles writing/editing sprint round up]

okay, lads, it's 7pm, sunday 3rd of july, and i'm putting an end to this week’s castles writing and editing sprint. i would currently love to keep writing but if i do, i’m gonna be here until three o’clock in the morning and i have work tomorrow, so. here’s an update on where things are at the moment:

chapter 11: i had a major round of editing to do + one scene i wanted to fix, and that’s done now, i’m super happy. this bitch is looking gooooood. i do have a couple more editing rounds to do (basically, a “coherence” edit where i read this chapter + the two before and make sure nothing clashes and one for any last remaining typos) but otherwise, it’s good to go. worse comes to worse, i’ll at least be able to release that one in early august. it’s currently around 13k, and i don’t think it’ll change much at this stage. it needs a title though and i’m fucking running out of one-syllable construction materials, what a DUMB idea that was, jo-from-the-past.

chapter 12 and 13: i’m grouping these because they’re currently written as one big block, which i’ll split in the middle when i finish the first draft. i’m anticipating 30k, and i’m at 22k at the moment. i was really hoping to have the first draft at the end of this weekend but it’s 7pm on a sunday, so that’s not gonna happen, let’s be real. i know i won’t be able to write much this week (work + the podcast recording and editing) but i’m hoping to try and chip away a bit every day, just to keep the muse going until next weekend, and maybe finish then? then intensive editing until august? i have three days off i booked at the end of july to edit and get everything ready, which hopefully will help. i just really, really wanna finish those but the tight timeline is starting to stress me out.

generally: fuck, i’d forgotten how much i love this story. it’s funny, i was telling lani before we recorded last episode, castles is a weird one. every time i leave it aside for a while, i tend to “forget” about it, or think i don’t love it as much anymore. then i get back into it, and oh. boy. these three chapters are also so satisfying to write because there is so much character development and growth in them, as well as plot things (ginny, amycus, the trials, mia, etc.) that are coming to a head. there is honestly nothing i want to do more right now than quit work and just let myself get buried in this story for three months and finish it off, but alas, capitalism.

anyway, i hope yous all had a good weekend. i certainly did. i love my little world of fiction more than anything else, sometimes. you can probably tell why i’m single, lolz.

lots of love,

jo.

#castles #fic #writing

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keefwho · 1 month

Text

April 20 - 2024 Saturday

12:10am

7/10

This morning I took my shower and reheated some tuna casserole leftovers for breakfast. The first thing I did today was get book club ready. Then I watched some Moral Orel and played the horse Roblox game. DS called while she was driving twice. Also had a lot of confusion regarding plans on three sides but it was okay. I made a funny edit of her cat and put together a simple excel sheet for our puzzle nights. I spent a little time in BR's server while I played horse game. I ate lunch real late because I wasn't hungry, I had spaghettios. Book club went pretty bad, the people who didn't read the chapter had a hard time following along and some rowdy individuals joined that I had to wrangle. Afterward I joined DS and we went to probability labs. Then we went to some chill places and friends from Telegram joined. It was a fun little night, we ended after Would You Rather. In bed we watched Alpha and Omega but she fell asleep 3/4 of the way through. I'm also very tired, I got a little more crossfaded than usual and I felt very wiggly.

#journal #diary

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otakween · 8 months

Text

0-Sen Hayato - Volume 4 (Final volume!)

Ch. 33

-This chapter was pretty dull and hard to follow. They kept repeating the same phrases over and over again. Old manga is so wordy.

-The only thing I really got out of this chapter was that they used aluminum foil to confuse/blind enemies in WWII. I had to fact check, but I guess this was a real tactic. Neat.

Ch. 34

-Really struggling to keep my eyes open reading this. This chapter was particularly tricky because a lot of it was American POWs speaking in katakana which takes me twice as long to read as normal Japanese.

-I believe what happened in this chapter is that the Americans tricked the Japanese into sending their best squadron away so that they could attack the weakest squadron that was left behind. Although I found the chapter itself boring, it did have a good cliffhanger where one of the guys from the weaker squadron is like "this is my first dogfight!"

Ch. 35

-The Shiuntai continue to fail at life while the Bakufutai go "nyah nyah, we're so much better than you!" They were awfully chill about 16 men dying in this chapter, but what else is new?

-Hayato and Ishiki fight over who gets to comfort an injured love interest-chan (forgot her name lol). Before she passes out she let's them know that the King Satan airplane was responsible for shooting up their base. Feels like things are ramping up for a final battle. Only 7 chapters to go!

Ch. 36

-Ishiki makes a failed attempt at fighting the final boss of this manga "King Satan." I don't really get it, this manga usually sticks to semi-realism (except for that one wacky chapter about sharks) but then they throw someone named "King Satan" at you. I think this is the first time we actually see his face? They made him handsome lol

-There's a character named "King Satan" in another 1960s manga called Tiger Mask, so I'm wondering if there's a connection there. Is this a shoutout? (Hayato came out first, so maybe not)

Ch. 37

-This was like the "tough guys cry about their feelings" chapter. First Ishiki gets all hysterical explaining his defeat to Hayato and then King Satan breaks down when he reveals that he was BFFs with Hayato's dad before the war. The drama! It was kinda funny how Hayato listened to his whole speech and was just like "I'mma still kill you tho..."

-I forget what country King Satan's supposed to be from. I was kind of assuming America, but I have no clue. (Edit: Considering his plane says USAF, safe to say he's from America)

-This chapter was very shounen-y. King Satan tells Hayato that he's not ready to fight him yet and to come back after he's trained more lol. At least King Satan's men reacted realistically (they were like "why didn't he shoot him down??")

Ch. 38

-Some interesting developments in this chapter. Ishiki and Hayato finally decide to stop bickering and team up after Hayato loses to King Satan. Also, Captain Miyamoto yells at Hayato and tells him that war is no place for personal feelings and revenge (he literally says "kill your feelings which felt very Naruto/ninja-esque)

-Ishiki and Hayato practice dogfighting "for real" but find they're evenly matched so Miyamoto agrees to spar with them. Seems kinda insane to me that you would actually shoot at one another's planes just to practice, but IDK enough about warplanes to call the manga's bluff lol.

Ch. 39

-Captain Miyamoto gives Ishiki and Hayato a big speech comparing samurai tactics to dogfights. I just barely followed it, but the boys boiled things down to "we need to find out King Satan's plane's weakpoint." So they decide to take a P.51 captive so that they can examine it closely and determine its weaknesses. Makes sense. Never really occurred to me that airplanes would have weakpoints...

-IDK why the boys were so shocked that they couldn't beat their captain in a dogfight. Pretty arrogant of them lol

Ch. 40

-After a big struggle, the boys manage to take an P.51 captive to start their experiment. One of the big bosses also shows up and declares a new, dangerous mission for the squad.

-I thought it was weird that Hayato and friends kept yelling threats to the American pilot. Number 1: how do they even hear each other? Number 2: I'm assuming their threatening the guy in Japanese because they would have indicated if otherwise. Surely this random American soldier doesn't understand them? Ah well...

Ch. 41

-The squad seek revenge when they find out another unit was wiped out. The chapter ends on a cliffhanger with Hayato and Ishiki's airplanes falling apart as they're surrounded by enemy planes.

-This is the second to last chapter for the whole series...I really thought they'd be fighting King Satan by now, but I guess that comes next!

Ch. 42

-Well, that was an abrupt and anti-climactic ending...I guess they wanted a triumphant ending and they couldn't go much further since Japan lost the war

-So it's revealed that Captain Miyamoto was shot down and killed by King Satan and the gang grieves for about 0.2 seconds. Hayato leads the charge to go after King Satan's base for revenge and in the fight (which happens in the rain) King Satan shoots down and kills Ishiki too! Bold of the mangaka to kill off major characters like that, but war is war. Hayato finally manages to shoot down King Satan who goes down laughing...the end.

Thank goodness I've finally reached the end of this series. It took me FOREVER to read due to the tricky Japanese and a lack of interest on my part. That being said, I'm glad I experienced a part of manga history. Storytelling in general was just super different in the 1960s in the east and the west. Tricky for us with modern sensibilities to sit through. Of course the art was very different too. I think the art was the best part of this series. Lots of care and attention to detail went into the panel layouts and action scenes. I hope someone translates this someday for WWII and old manga enthusiasts (it definitely won't be me lol).

#zero sen hayato #0 sen hayato #manga #0戦はやと

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mangoisms · 1 year

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so!!!! let me talk about the tim fic. which. guys. im So sorry i know i've flipflopped with my acronyms but rof -> hrt. but this one is it LOL since im literally going to post it tonight

in any case i finished it... monday night? i think it was monday night. yes yes yes. and i edited it today and yesterday so its ready for posting.

its actually... a really decent length?

roughly 49k which is a win in my book. for this one i REALLY tried telling myself that anything above 3.5k was good and it worked out for the most part.

i do think its a bit funny since wwt is 12 chapters but 70k LOL and you can tell why from the breakdown of those chapters here. they're much longer but in all fairness, there was more going on

on that end, i also think it's funny that hrt will be rated T on ao3 and wwt is rated M -- for the violence -- mostly because you would expect hrt, a dc comics fic, to score much more high there, while wwt, a fic for daiya which is, you know, Normal and not completely insane like dc comics, wouldn't be anything above T

but like i said, way more goes on in wwt and it has that spider-woman twist to it which is, of course, a central part of the story. for hrt, i focused mostly on feelings, plus, i think in-universe it is just much more normalized to talk about the Bad Stuff going on in gotham and not bat an eye. so

with that said, it was... a lot of fun and also really nice to actually stretch my legs writing tim. it probably needs some work but like, for it being my first attempt after doing so much reading for him, i think it turned out nicely???

(reading i am.. still.. doing... in fact just picked up the second vol of no man's land last night.. have two more to go.. yay.. and then yj.. and more robin stuff... Anyway...)

#im pleased!#i have my other project for him ck which i will start today #after i finish getting things prepped #im hoping that one will be a bit shorter #so i can start eof which im getting very. excited about #moss writes hrt

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strawberrymilkgeorge · 3 years

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Part Three. Ex-boyfriends and Mr. MoneyBags

warnings: ex-boyfriend is a dick, mentions of emotional and mental abuse, swearing word count: 933 (not including pictures)

behind the screen (irl dream x reader) series masterlist ultimate masterlist

edit: omg the dates on the dms between dream and yn are SO wrong just don't look at them lol

edit 2: added another photo for Karl/yn conversation two days after posting bc I forgot it

**********

A wave of discomfort washed over Y/n as it alway did when talking about her ex-boyfriend. It gave her an ominously unsettling feeling in her stomach that she was not fond of. She shook her head and pretended like she couldn't hear his voice in the back of her head as she fixed her hair in the mirror. Healing, she reminded herself. Not perfect, but healing.

"Y/n?" Naomi called through the house.

"In my room!"

Naomi appeared moments later at Y/n's door. "Hey, I'm getting food, do you want anything?"

"I'm okay, thanks."

"Oh, hey, I watched Karl's stream from a few days ago earlier. You were so good."

"Thanks," Y/n thanked as she sat back down, forgetting all the disgust she felt moments ago from thinking about her past. Naomi sat on the corner of the bed. "Could you tell I was nervous?"

"Not at all. You were so funny. And George is so sweet. If only I had a friend who could set me up on a date with him..."

"Naomi!" Y/n laughed. "I've never even met him in person, how would you go on a date? Fly to England?"

"Yeah. He and I could work all those details out if you gave me his number."

"He'd fly here just to kill me if I gave anyone his number."

"Fine," she sighed jokingly. "Are you still going to Karl's later?"

"Tomorrow."

"Oh. Well.... I'm hungry soooo I'm going to go get something to eat."

"Drive safe," Y/n ordered as she turned back to her computer and Naomi left the room.

"I will. Love you!"

As Y/n looked back at her computer to figure out something to cure her boredom, her phone lit up with a DM from Twitter.

She giggled to herself as she set her phone down and opened up Minecraft. She had nothing to do all day so she decided to start a stream, titling it "chill minecraft?? if any mobs ruin the chill ill actually cry??"

Y/n laughed to herself even though she knew it wasn't that funny. She didn't even bother to start with her usual "starting soon" screen, jumping right into playing.

"Hello, hello everyone," Y/n greeted vaguely as she opened the survival world she usually streamed. She had made decent progress on it, but it hadn't been long since she started it. "Hello. I'm super bored so I figured I'd stream and we can all just hang out and chill out. Is the music too loud? Can you hear it? Everyone type yes if it's good..." she paused as she waited for responses and adjusted the volume of the music accordingly.

She tried to not think about how much larger her viewer count was than usual, figuring it was probably mostly because she had been on Karl's stream not long before.

"Welcome, if you're new! Sorry if you don't find house building exciting, usually I do a lot more chaotic things but I'm determined to get my base done today. I can't keep coming home to a dirt shack."

Her chat started spamming one thing, making her roll her eyes slightly, a smile on her lips.

user3: DREAM HELLO

user6: Dream's here!!!!!

user7: DREAM

Y/n couldn't help but see the few negative comments that passed, calling her a clout chaser.

"Judging by everyone saying Dream's here, I assume Dream's here?" she said with a laugh as she continued collecting dark oak wood and making sure to replant the saplings. "Hello, sir."

user10: are they finally actually friends??? not just Twitter friends????

user16: Dream just lingering we see you sir

"Chat, should I make my real home first or the treehouse? I'm thinking the treehouse but I don't really have an idea for how to do it yet."

user1: TREEHOUSE

user2: treehouse treehouse treehouse

user4: do a cottage!!

user6: treehouse but make it on multiple trees and connect them with bridges

user11: it's so funny seeing bugsy just peacefully building bc usually I only catch her chaos streams

"Okay okay overwhelming amount of treehouse answers," she breathed out with a laugh as she looked around the forest for a good tree. "Thanks sarahnotfound for the ten gifted subs!"

A donation lit up in the corner of her screen and she read it out loud. "Face reveal when? Thank you, Jasmine, um..." she paused, thinking. "I don't know. I do want to eventually but I have no plans to or anything. I'm not ready to right now so it'll still be a while before I do a face reveal."

Donations and gifted subs continued, Y/n expressing her gratitude for each one of them. She had the base down for her treehouse as a large one came through.

"Dream!" she yelled angrily, a laugh bubbling behind it before sighing. "Thank you Dream." She looked away from the amount and read his message, which read, save some of that building for the smp. "DREAM! Why would you give me– ohmygosh. Is this your way of announcing to everyone that I'm joining the SMP? By giving me $100? I can't stand you." Her words were no threat since you could clearly hear the smile in her tone.

She glanced at chat before talking again and continuing her house. "Yeah, yeah, everyone, I'm joining the Dream SMP. But considering I'm fantastic at PVP, I'm not going to be doing much building. Sorry," she said now directed at Dream. "Maybe you can hire me to build something but I don't work for free."

A few minutes passed before a second donation from Dream came through.

yes I did announce it by giving you money and I'll do it again, under another $100 donation

"DREAM, I SWEAR—"

**********

PREVIOUS | NEXT

behind the screen (irl dream x f!reader) series masterlist ultimate masterlist

**********

A/N: part 3 pog! lowkey don’t really like the chapter because it’s mostly a filler but i hope you guys do!! i needed to get a lil bit of background about y/n’s ex but we’ll get deeper into it later on!

let me know how y’all like this chapter!! do you prefer parts like this with mostly social media or do you like the previous ones better when there’s a lot more written??

also thank you thank you thank for all your continuous love for this series!! it seriously means so much to me and i love y’all so much lol

taglist: OPEN (at the time) @hydrate-tion @loraleiix @tinaswagbd @charsdummb @smileyyuta @1ghoste1 @cerberus-hellhound @gaysludge @queestionmark @carnations-red @letsloveimagines @the-fictionwriters-hairdo @boiled-onionrings @a-cryptic @fee-btheweeb @letsloveimagines @erwinss @just-a-stan @axths @kayleigh2703 @furiouspockettoad @sometimeseverythingsucks @powerpuffyn @itshaileyn @millavalntyne

#rpf #real person ficiton #dream x reader #dreamwastaken x reader #dream x y/n #dreamwastaken x y/n #mcyt x reader #mcyt x y/n #dream smau #dreamwastaken smau #social media au #social media ficiton

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