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dcxdpdabbles · 2 days

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Hurray 🎉 more asks!!

First off love-love your writing!

I'm not sure if you were the writer or if you've read the snippet. But there was one that I read where Captain Marvel gets de-aged into a child, a speaks an unrecognizable language child (like he was an actual adult not a kid pretending to be an adult). Everything is mostly fine until he asks for his parents and nobody knows who they are. Kid Marvel screams and a giant hole tears open and I assume the JL meets the Everlasting Trio.

I would love to see how you would continue something like this or write something of this nature.

Ironically, the champion of Magic was turned into a child with magic. It was one of those things that he was sure would be funny in a few years but not in the moment. Initially, Bruce had been horrified to see his teammate fall like that from the sky, his form shifting and changing into what could pass as a five-year-old right before his eyes.

The spell caster had unfortunately gotten away with a convenient portal, and they were left scrambling to catch Captain Marvel. There was also the issue of all the civilians that were displaced due to his rampage through the city of Fawcett City.

Bruce quickly worked to have Wayne Enterprise start funding the relief program for them, but it would take time, which was not something they had. He left it to Superman, Flash, and Wonder Woman to get everyone sorted—the three were the best at working with scared civilians.

In the meantime, he Zeta-beamed himself, and the small child Marvel had become up to the watch tower. The boy had been unconscious the entire time, which worried Bruce. After a few tests and scans with the medical staff, as well as his own studies, it was decided that besides being de-aged, there was nothing physically wrong with Marvel.

They would just have to wait till the Champian woke himself.

Bruce wondered how he would take his new form. In all the research he had done on Marvel and the legends of the Wizard, the champion had never been depicted as a child. He had assumed this was due to the champion repeating in various forms- sometimes female, sometimes male- but never as a child.

If anything, Bruce had discovered that they were always at peak physical age, usually from twenty-two to thirty-five. He had assumed this meant the reincarnation or the selection for the champion was just made that way.

How foolish to think they were never children that grew to that age before proclaiming themselves as Captain Marvel.

"Where am I?" a child's voice called, surprising Bruce from his files on Captain Marvel. Twisting around, he finds himself staring into the doe-blue eyes of Captain Marvel.

For a moment, he is reminded of his various children with similar coloring, and it pulls on Bruce's heartstrings to see the distress on that little face. He raises his hands, making sure his voice is softer than his usual growl. Bruce became the vengeance, so every child should feel safe with him after all.

"You're safe here." He reassures, watching the boy's face twist. He steps closer, portraying comfort but not reaching out to touch. "Do you recognize me?"

"Are you a ghost?" The boy's voice is low, slightly fearful. There is no hint of recognition in his posture, expression, or voice. Bruce bites back a swear.

So much for that hope. Still, his teammate needs him. "No, my name is Batman. A few hours ago, we were, in fact, together against a magic user. You were hit and turned into a child. Does any of this sound familiar?"

The boy grips his blanket, bringing it up to his chin, and stares at Bruce with growing distress. He shakes his head just as tears start to swell in his eyes. It's not good at all. "Where are my parents? I want to go home."

He filed that away, wondering if there were any parents to contact for Captain Marvel. He's been around for hundreds of years. If he had been selected as a human, the myths implied, then his parents would have likely been long gone.

Bruce wonders if there is any way he can conceive Captain Marvel coming to live in the Wayne manor until he is turned back. He could leave him to live in the Watch Tower, but he hates the idea of it just as he thinks it.

His face crumbles as Bruce tells him honestly, "I'm not sure where your parents are, chum."

Captain Marvel's tears fall to the bed as he curls up. Bruce reaches out to give him a hug, trying to comfort the distressed child. He is just about to assure him he is safe again, and Batman will help him when the child lets out an ear-piercing scream.

It's high pitch enough that Bruce can't tell if the ringing he hears is from the sound or if it's only in his ears. He opens his mouth to ask when a portal—unlike the one the magic user had cast—rips open in the room.

Out steps a man with snow-white hair. On instinct, Bruce gathers Marvel in his arms, flinging them to the corner and throwing a Batarang at the intruder. He shields the boy behind him, pushing him toward the wall and growling at the man.

His batarang is shot out of the air with some kind of green ray, as the man's eyes narrow.

A sound escapes the man. The structure and expression of the man indicate that it's obviously a language, but Bruce doesn't recognize it. He can tell that the man is angry, though, and that's not something he wants anywhere near Captain Marvel in his current state.

"Who are you!?" He demanded, raising more weapons. "How did you get in!?"

Oddly, Captain Marvel speaks, his words similar to the language the others use, and the white-haired man's face softens.

"You have my son," The man says in perfect English. Bruce raises a brow.

"Do you know him?" He whispers to the wiggling child.

"Yeah, that's one of my dads." The boy whispers back, sounding a lot calmer now that his apparent father is around. Bruce cautiously steps away, watching Marvel run straight into the arms of the stranger.

The man meets him halfway with a loud, excited chirp and purr, bringing the boy into his arms and squeezing him into a tight hug. Bruce watches every hint of body language, concluding he is not lying about being the boy's father.

"I'm sorry about the scare. It's been a long time since Billy used his distress call. I got a little worried." After a few minutes of chirps and purrs exchanged between parents and child, the man says. He raises his head to stare at Bruce with a regal air.

An aristocrat. Bruce's mind whispers, wondering where this noble hails form. Nowhere on earth with his glow or bright eyes. Was Captain Marvel half-human? "It's alright."

"I'm Danny Phantom," Danny tells him, flouting over with an outstretched hand that is not holding his son up. "It's an honor to meet you."

Bruce returns the handshake, keeping his voice and tone even. "Batman."

But inwardly, he swears up a storm. He knows that name and recognizes the legends and myths. Danny Phantom, the Ghost King, ruler of the connecting dimension of the muli-verse. It was one of the first beings he had encountered in his in-depth religious and culture studies, having seen the Ghost King be depicted throughout history even when he was lost in it.

One of the strongest beings to ever exist. Alongside, his wife and husband, who each ruled their own powerful area on the mortal plane- The Green that Posoisin Ivy and Swamp Thing gain their powers were said to be Samatha, the wife of the ghost King.

The meta gene—identified by the scientific community in recent years but proved to exist long before the first ancient Egyptians—was said to be a blessing from Tucker, the Husband of the ghost King. He was the one who appointed the first pharaohs, destroying the meta gene through their bloodline.

And Captain Marvel was their child.

No wonder the man was the champion of Magic. Who else was more qualified than the Heir to the Ghost King?

"It seems like a simple curse. It should reverse on its own," King Phantom comments while continuously turning his child this way and that, making the boy giggle. "It will wear off in only ten years."

Bruce wondered if he knew that was a very long time for humans. But what was a decade to a god?

"Batman was it?"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Call me Danny. I was thinking, since Billy will be stuck like this for ten years, maybe my family should go on vacation while he recovers." Bruce does not like the sound of this, but he can't deny the king's action as a bright light overcomes the glowing figure, and a regular-looking human is left in its wake.

"I'll call my husband and wife. Do you know if any properties are for sale in your neighborhood? I want Billy to be close to his work friends."

Bruce was right. He did not like this one bit. Should he risk war with the Infinite Realms to keep them out of Gotham? The answer was no, unfortunately, and he could try to push the family to move to Metropolis so they can be Clark's problem, but he knows that lying to higher beings is never a smart thing.

He sighs, tapping his wrist computer. "I know a realtor."

#dcxdpdabbles #dcxdp crossover #Billy's Parents #Part 1 #Everlasting trio move to Gotham #Tucker is the god of the metas since he bestows powers onto people #Form all the times he was possessed and gain powers himself #Billy was made from all three dna but he looks the most like Danny #The trio have forgotten what being human is like #Bruce is tired man

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tiredwishes · 1 day

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from the start

my landoscar wip that's currently at 9k words and no where near done, so i'm hoping that by posting this snippet i'll find the motivation to actually finish it.........

Just pretend you’re an accountant, they said. No one’s going to ask anymore questions, they said.

��Charles!” Max’s voice cuts above the noise. “I’ve got him!”

Shit.

Lando groans, takes a deep breath and braces himself to meet the most bland guy he’ll probably ever meet in his life. Fuck, the guy’s probably old. Why would anyone his age in their right mind ever go into accounting?

Oscar, thirty-six, bald, married with kids and two dogs and a white picket fence.

“Lando, this is Oscar. Oscar, Lando.” Max waves a hand about, the other occupied with dragging the poor accountant over. “You guys can bond over work stuff!”

Max’s genuine excitement would make Lando feel a little bad about making up the whole thing, if not for the fact that his attention’s been completely redirected.

At Oscar.

Oscar, who’s very decidedly neither thirty-six nor bald.

Oscar, who’s hot.

#from the start #landoscar

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astridblavk · 12 hours

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little snippet from my @marauderswithpalestineproject fic!!

I hope you like it @houndsinheaven !! (if you tell me you AO3 username I can gift this work to you)

you can find the whole thing here!!

Less than ten minutes later, there was a tentative knock on the door.

Regulus nodded, still with a look of confusion on his face.

"Come in!" the doctor called, hidden in the back room.

The door opened, letting James in. He smiled upon seeing Regulus, but Regulus's eyes widened in shock.

"Hello, I'm here for Regulus!"

"Hello, give me two seconds, please!"

There was a moment of silence, after which James wanted to speak to Regulus, but Regulus spoke first.

"Doctor!" he called out with a hint of fear in his voice. "I think I might have died!"

Dr. McKinley returned to the room, drying his hands with a paper towel.

"Why do you think that?" he asked, suppressing a laugh at the sight of the two confused men.

"Because I see an angel," Regulus explained, pointing at James standing in the middle of the room. "He just walked through those doors, probably to take me to heaven... Angels don't usually walk the earth visible to everyone. I must have died..." he slurred, still frightened.

James suddenly smiled slightly, having an idea. He exchanged a meaningful look with the dentist and nodded towards Regulus. The doctor nodded back, allowing him to proceed with whatever he had in mind.

James walked slowly to Regulus, who was now sitting up straight in the chair, and pulled up a stool to sit beside him. He carefully reached out towards Regulus, and when Regulus didn't protest, he placed his hand on Regulus's cheek. Regulus, as if hypnotized, stared into James's chocolate-colored eyes.

"Do you think I'm an angel, sweetheart?" he asked in a low voice.

"You have such beautiful eyes..." Regulus's dreamy tone indicated to James that he wasn't really listening.

#MWPProject 2024 #fanfic #marauders #ao3 #regulus black #james potter #james x regulus #marauders with palestine project

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hexedwinchester · 1 day

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Things I Wish Supernatural Gave Us But Didn't...

Stanford Era Sam flashbacks that involved little snippets of Jessica and him. Jessica was hardly in four episodes but I always felt Sam and her were the best couple. Even Eileen didn't come close to that.

Sam Winchester riding a motorcycle. Have you seen Jared on a motorcycle? If not I urge you to watch Friday the 13th and Christmas Cottage (yes, that Hallmark movie). I just needed one scene where Sam hops on a motorcycle and saves the day. Dean's hella proud of his badass Sammy but ofcourse he'd never say it to his face.

Sam's Jelly Bracelet origin story. I have already made a post wondering why it never had a backstory. So damn sad.

Demon Dean feeding Sam his demon blood. Wouldn't that be the bitch of all ironies?

More of Sam and Mary moments. I'm so pissed that even after Mary was resurrected, it still remained about Dean and her. The only good thing we got was "For me, having you here fills in the biggest blank." We needed more of that!

Sam + side character bonds. Sammy never got to have deeper bonds outside of Dean. Jody, Claire, Cas, Pamela, Jo, Ellen, Charlie, they all were made to bond with Dean. Why? Dean, stop hoarding people, you already have Sam!

Sam's psychic powers/visions disappeared after S5. Imagine working with Rowena would have unlocked those powers! Sam with powers was hot.

More of Dean apologizing to Sam because Dean has treated Sam like shit and that ain't acceptable.

Sam + pet/animal interaction. Have you seen Jared with animals? It's straight from cutieland. Remember Bones, the dog Sam adopted when ran off on his own? Riot, the dog he hit? Or that familiar dog who turned into a woman? Or the old dog who wouldn't talk to Dog Dean if Sam didn't scratch her belly? Ok, on hindsight they did give us this but it wouldn't hurt to have more of this. Right? Also, why didn't Sam and Scooby have more interaction in Scoobynatural? Sam loves dogs!

Sam taking a shower. How TF did we not have that? Just Sam standing under a shower stream, head hung low, shoulders heavy with the weight of whatever trauma he was suffering with at that time. The steam rising from his wet skin. Strands of hair curtaining his face. How did we not have this glorious moment?

#sam winchester #jared padalecki #supernatural #spn #sam girl #Things that should have happened but didn't #sam and jess #dean winchester

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alexanderwales · 2 days

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Book Review: Metropolitan Man

[content warning: sexual violence]

It's been 10 years since I wrote Metropolitan Man, and last night I read it for the first time in almost that long. Since writing it, I've written over 4 million words, and hopefully, grown as a writer. I've also forgotten parts of the story, so was looking at it with as fresh of eyes as possible. These are my overall thoughts.

I should say, before I start, that I've read tons of comments and discussion on this story over the years. I don't know how many of these thoughts are my own, or how much I've internalized things that people have said.

Writing Style

There were lots of changes I thought about making while reading, but people hate change, and this story is about ten years past when I wanted to be making editing passes on it. In many places I kept thinking of little extras I would add, things that would make the dialogue pop a little more, or provide characterization. I had this idea for a line where I describe Lois typing out two letters like she was letting loose with both barrels of a shotgun. There's dialogue to clean just a bit more, a few places where words are repeated or something is just a bit awkward, and where it could have been tighter or more clear.

The biggest thing that stood out to me was how little time got spent on scene setting and how short some of the snippets were, just five paragraphs to get a scene across before we're onto the next thing. I might have webserial brainrot, but those are definitely places where today I would give a little more breathing room and maybe use the same amount of words to describe something in a more oblique and stronger way. One that stood out as a clear example was a private investigator going home with Jimmy Olsen even though she was done pumping him for information, which could have been twice as long and benefitted from it. Another was a brief little thing about a Superman spotter on the roof, where I'd now describe everything he was doing, and only get to the conclusion of "he was a Superman spotter" at the end of the section to let the reader have this mini mystery of what they're being shown and why.

I would describe things more if I was writing this today, trying to get those nicely tight and evocative descriptions and ditch the stuff like "she wore a white blouse", but I often feel that way about stuff that I'm revising from last week, so it's not surprising.

The plot is very tight, which is good. I tend to prefer my plots tight, but it takes work, and webserials aren't conducive to it because it's difficult to know when you're writing a scene whether it's really pulling its weight as far as moving things forward. The initial idea for MM was to move as cleanly as possible through a series of events: Superman -> Superman is invincible -> Superman is Clark Kent -> Clark Kent grew up in Smallville -> the ship is in Smallville -> the ship has a Kryptonite power source -> Kryptonite can kill Superman -> Superman is dead. The only thing that would make it any faster would be if we dropped the Lois Lane subplot, but that's like half the novel.

Superman is OOC

I've gotten tons and tons of comments on this story over the years. If I hated myself, I would go back through my email and count them up, but there are some death threats and "kill yourself"s in there, and I prefer not to reread them. The major thing that people hate is the ending, which I don't care to talk about, but the other major thing is that Superman isn't Superman.

In this, I largely agree, but then, I'm pretty sure I've always agreed. That said, Superman has had a ton of interpretations over the years, and there's a wide range of acceptable behavior from "a Superman", even if we're not counting the really out there variations like Red Son or some of the alternate timelines.

... but I still would probably make him more like a canon Superman if I had to do it all over.

There are a few things that raise red flags at the beginning, which is where I think they're inexpertly placed. Superman takes Lois off the roof and flies her around, making her very afraid, and this is fine, I think, a misunderstanding that might be stronger if we got his insight into what was happening before we got hers to help bridge some of the disconnect there and characterize them both better. But there's a little note after that, where Clark makes a joke about "Superman's girlfriend Lois Lane" that I think is a HUGE red flag, and which probably comes too early in the story. It would be better as a joke someone else made that Clark laughs along with, which raises the red flag to half mast.

The other major moment I would change is when the bombs start going off. Superman pulls back, unsure whether he's actually immune to mustard gas, and I think this is one of the moments that most goes against the character of Superman. Canon Superman would just say "welp, guess I gotta find out whether I'm immune to mustard gas in a hurry". Superman making the argument that he doesn't know the bounds of his powers and so should exercise caution reads as either cowardice or as him being way too bitten by the rationality bug.

This would then obviously have to change the plot of that section a bit, because in the novel as it stands right now, Superman is convinced by Lois Lane that he can't just sit on the sidelines for game theory reasons. Better to either scrap that section or have Lois convince Superman that for game theory reasons he should offer to have testing carried out against him in a way that doesn't harm civilians, which canon Superman might submit to if it saved lives. Then the rest of the plot can proceed as normal, because Superman is immune to everything and that's the whole plot beat anyway.

I'd definitely clean up some of Superman/Clark's dialogue to nail the character voice better, but I don't think it's that bad, and it's mostly a few places where the wording is off. I think in particular the points where he's feeling anger go too far, and are not how someone internally conflicted about the anger might talk.

And then, oh yeah, Superman punches a guy's head clean off, which I think is the biggest sticking point for most people.

I've thought about that scene a lot. I personally like it. But if I were ever trying to sell this story to DC, it's one of the things I would almost certainly change. Superman doesn't kill, except in that one movie that came out just before this story was published where Superman snapped a guy's neck.

The change I am most happy/comfortable with is that Whitman, the governor whose children were [REDACTED], is the one to kill Calhoun. This happens just outside the courthouse with Superman watching and not intervening in the slightest, or maybe catching the bullets as they go through Calhoun so no bypassers get hit.

I don't know, as I type it out, it doesn't have the same weight to it. It's not cool. It's not a watershed moment. Maybe there's a plot thread to pull there, where Superman has tacitly endorsed other vigilantes, and it would be a great time to pull in other mundane street-level heroes ... but that's an entirely different story at that point.

Another option is for Superman to simply fly off with Calhoun and put him away, but that lacks punch too, and gets talky, and ... it's about the rage, right? The feeling of injustice, not just at Calhoun, but at the entire world, and it's not just an unhappy side effect that there's blood everywhere, all over the clamoring press, that's part of the point.

Social Justice

I really enjoy how wide-ranging the novel is, and how many things it touches on. Good job me. There was a line I had completely forgotten about where Lois asks "Why doesn't Superman stop abortions?" that I had completely forgotten I had ever written, and which brought a big smile to my face (but no wonder some Superman fans hate this story).

There are a few other things that I raise my eyebrow at a little bit, at least sitting here in 2024. There's a particular line that Superman gives when talking about this whitewashed mural of the past they're walking by, and he says "It's easy to forget that slavery ever happened, you know?" Now, I will grant you that this is a part of a conversation where he's saying that maybe he should have been a better student of history, and is saying this as a white guy in 1934, but I wanted him or someone else to tear that statement apart. It never really happens.

"It's easy to forget that slavery ever happened [if you and your people have not been affected by slavery]". The novel takes place ~70 years after the end of the Civil War, which means that when Clark was growing up there would have been freed slaves who were in their fifties, probably many of them in Kansas, though Smallville is (notably) small. I don't know, it wouldn't have been historically accurate for them to have a discussion of privilege, but there's way more meat on that bone, and it's all left as subtext.

Also probably the case that if I were writing it now, I would pay more attention to race in general, but that I'm less sure on, because it would mean some major structural changes to be done well. There's a single black guy in the whole thing, who is barely a character and has no speaking lines: the farmhand Ma Kent has before he gets lured away with the promise of being an actor. I have never felt that any novel needs racial balance to it, but if you're going to be talking about slavery and whether Superman would have done anything about it, you start to make black people look like props, which is not a good look.

I mean look, I think it's fine for a given story to not actually take a stance on political issues or have a diverse cast, but this story goes from abortion to the Equal Rights Amendment to Prohibition to Nazis to the death penalty, and then despite being set in 1934 sort of talks around the subject of how shitty race relations were. As a white guy, I never feel comfortable talking about race, but I think it would have been appropriate to have here in more than the cursory way it was handled. But the cast is just not that large, and the way that modern Superman stories handle that is usually making Jimmy Olsen black and then not actually talking about the fact that he's black so it's just a palette swap, which I don't think would work here, especially since Jimmy is such a bit character, and also it's 1934.

Sexual Violence

Alright, I will say it: there's too much sexual violence.

Chapter 7 is when the two Whitman kids get kidnapped. Their driver gets his throat slit, the boy gets dismembered, and the girl gets raped. I knew it was coming and I was still horrified by it.

I would not remove this part. I would foreshadow it better with a few scenes with Calhoun, the brutes, etc., and I might change some of the details to be a bit less awful and gruesome, but I don't think I would remove it. There are a few core ideas here that I think all work:

The better class of criminal has left the city now, and all that are left are the worst of the worst, the people who will not respond to incentives or symbols or rational thought.

If you cannot strike at Superman's physical self, you strike at his mind instead, and one of the ways to do that is psychic damage. In Calhoun's case, this is irrational, a pure desire to hurt Superman in any way possible while his empire collapses.

The amount of evil in the world is enormous. The pain and suffering cannot be comprehended. I love what Superman says, that this isn't really unique, that these things happen to children all the time. He's upset about not being able to save them, but they're a drop in the bucket.

I think you have to be careful with sexual violence, whether it's depicted or hinted at or just briefly mentioned. There are tons of people who are not on board with that in their media, and even of those who are on board, it has to be handled carefully and can feel very cheap, as though you're just going to the worst and most transgressive thing you can think of for the shock value. People will see it as lazy and trivializing and making entertainment out of this horrible thing.

I think the world is shit. I think terrible things happen. I have always felt both oppressed by the weight of evil in the world and powerless to stop it. I think that's the thing that I'm gesturing at here, and it feels weird to me that sexual violence would get put on a pedestal as the one thing too horrible to mention, even though we're mentioning all the most horrible things.

How do Superman comics and shows and movies deal with this? My impression is that they don't. Surely Superman must be stopping rapes from happening, but I cannot think of a single time I've seen it happen. I'm actually having trouble thinking of a time it was implied to happen. I think this is probably a good idea on the part of the people who make these bits of media, but it's absolutely not realistic if you're thinking about how Superman would operate in the "real world". Sexual violence happens, child abuse happens, and I guess we just sort of assume that these things are dealt with by Superman off-screen.

Though ... I mean it impacts the characters, right? Does Superman not have a trauma response? Does he have a superpower where he can bottle it all up? He's definitely too late to stop certain crimes, and he definitely can't make things better for some of the victims, and I guess in the comics when he shows up to a burning building he generally has a 100% success rate and people come out with only minor injuries, but ... alright, this is definitely the sort of thing that led me to write this fic in the first place.

It's a question that the fic doesn't have an answer for: how do you go on living when you know that there's so much evil in the world?

I think dialing that particular scene back is, maybe, fine. But it's the sort of thing that would feel like I was being less authentic in a way, as though I wanted to grapple with the big questions but not that one, wanted to consider ethics and morality but silo myself away from things that actually are on my mind. I see the point of blunting that scene, and I rebel against it because I don't want to be blunted, I want to be sharp.

I would, however, remove a lot of the earlier references, or blunt those, because they didn't need to be sharp. There are, before the Whitman stuff, about five references to sexual violence, and maybe even just using "sexual violence" would be enough, rather than "rape". One of these references is to what crimes Superman is statistically most likely to stop, another is to a plot to besmirch his name, both can be massaged or they can go.

I don't know if I think about these things differently because time has passed or I've had a bunch of discussions about these issues, or whether it's just having the outside view. It's weird to think about what a conversation with myself would look like, if we were working on the story together.

Retrospective

I understand why Superman fans sometimes hate this story. There's the Superman OOC stuff, sure, but there are also a lot of questions about Superman that apply to canon equally well, and people hate that. Superman is a fantasy, maybe the ultimate comic book fantasy. He stops crimes and bullets bounce off him! You're not supposed to think about his stance on abortion rights. You're not supposed to look at the Clark Kent mask and say 'huh, that's strange'. I mean it's media, you can do whatever the hell you want, but if Superman is a fantasy, then there are a lot of questions that are fantasy-ruining.

I stand by the story as written about 80%, which is higher than I thought it would be, though there are certain things that I stand by more than others. There are certain structural changes and many line-by-line changes, and I'm glad that I didn't have the story open in edit mode, because it would have taken me three times as long to read and when I hit "save changes" people would grumble about archives or bad changes or whatever, because you can't please people.

About five years ago, I started writing A Common Sense Guide to Doing the Most Good, which was meant as a companion piece to MM. It ended up being all mechanics, no plot, and the plot that I wanted it to have was divorced from the center questions it wanted to answer. It didn't feel as grand, I guess, and the cats were out of their bags a little too quickly.

One of the Answers that MM gives is that the thing you should do in the face of overwhelming evil is to grind relentlessly, grind until your bones are scraping the grindstone and there's nothing left of yourself. The story does not believe this answer, but it's one of the places I ended up ten years ago, and am still sort of at now. The other answer is to live as best you can, be aware of the evil and do what you can against it without letting the idea of it (or the battle against it) consume your soul.

When I was finished reading, I kind of wanted to write an uncritical Superman comic. Something where Superman can be as his most loyal fans see him, someone who is Good and doesn't often have to grapple with what Good means, where the thorny edges of moral quandaries never come to light and the hero is always there in the nick of time. Where Clark Kent is a bold and noble expression of humanity rather than a deception and a mask. Maybe I will go do that.

#fanfic #metropolitan man #book review

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dullahanblorboposting · 1 year

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so....... the pizzahead x reader thing I wanted to write is. Something. Take this out of context bit

Pizzahead ignores your question, only slouching farther onto the counter in a fake, overly dramatic pout. You figured it wouldn't be so easy.

"Really though, it can't be good for you to bottle up whatever's going on in there, you know," you gesture vaguely at his head. "Half the time you come in here you're so tense I swear I could snap you in half like a stale baguette."

A small twitch of his eyebrow at your observation is all the confirmation you need to prod a bit further. "I know you like to act like everything is a big joke, right, but it's not exactly hard to see when there's something bothering you through that goofy façade you wear all the time. There! That! That exact look you're giving me right now tells me I'm right and you don't wanna talk about it. That is THE most strained smile I have ever seen. That's exactly what I'm talking about."

No comical or whitty retort follows. Nothing at all, actually- Pizzahead just maintains the same smile-grimace, head tilted off to the side and away from your scrutinizing gaze. The silence is painfully unusual and for a moment you think you might have pressed a little too hard. Maybe a different approach is called for.

You soften, exhaling deeply. A gentle hand reaches out to rest on his forearm, and the moment you make contact his eyes shoot open wide with shock. Pupils tiny pin pricks and that signature grin dropped in the blink of an eye, clearly caught off guard.

"Totino... Can you please tell me what's bothering you? It's ok to take yourself seriously sometimes. Really."

His gaze darts comically back and forth between your face and where your hand firmly grips his forearm, still looking stunned as a deer caught in headlights. You maintain steadfast eye contact and squeeze harder, damned if you let his cute, cartoonish theatrics distract you from getting through to him this time.

"Or, can you take me seriously if not?"

#pizzahead #pizza tower #pizzahead x reader #little snippet of the thing I'm working on #the full fic will be posted to writing blog (maybe my ao3 too) but ill rb it here #totino i hate you why are you so hard to write i hate you i love you i hate you shut UP #pizzahead big silly but internally full of rage and other such emotions. you are determined to get him to open up about that.#pizzahead has LAYERS he is COMPLEX i KNOW IT. unhinged and silly genuinely yes but there's MORE ALSO #reader insert #gender neutral reader #aaddghjkllhdsaa

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eidolons-stuff · 9 months

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Hey~

I just wanted to thank everyone for all the support! I really appreciate that everyone has liked the Wenclair posts/story I created here

I just also wanted to let you know that the full version is on ao3 (https://archiveofourown.org/users/eidolons_stuff)

And that I am also in the process of writing another story (OCs & gay) so if you want snippets of that posted here let me know!! :D

Thank you. I love you all <3

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proteesiukkonen · 6 months

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Very like me to come up with a scenario for my characters, rotate it in my mind until it could make a neat little comic mayhaps, and then continue rotating it until I realize the page count would have to be in two digits and it would, if I wanna do things properly, require some prep design work.

And then I'll be like cool, sounds like a lot of work but not insurmountable so let's go. But then it turns out the prep work is hard to get into amidst a fulltime job. So then, as I procrastinate, my mind slips and sure enough I have another little scenario that could make a neat little comic mayhaps in my hands.

#random musings #I'm trying to keep the Thugs and Birds setting as a low-pressure playground for myself #and just do little comic snippets if/as I see fit #so maybe I can one day graduate to continuing that one older long-form story I cooked up years ago #but I can't escape my mind that'll spin a story snippet like a rotisserie chicken until it's so fancy I have to actually Work for it #not sure I quite know yet how to keep things low-pressure for myself lmao

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good--merits-accumulated · 8 months

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god. this anderperry renaissance au is knocking me around some kind of way

#fair folk au is still very much going on i'm just working on some more worldbuilding for that one #in contrast the renaissance au is never going to be finished and i'm gleefully disregarding historical accuracy #- hence little snippets have been falling out of my pockets constantly #it's got EVERYTHING. political intrigue. religious imagery. todd faking his own death #the slow burn tragedy of a character moving from a good-humoured and idealistic boy #to a man who hesitates only for a moment about ordering the murder of two seven-year-olds #also Cameron gets religious guilt like there's no tomorrow #ALSO this thing somehow has a better political intrigue setup than the fair folk au??? augh. gotta work on that #although admittedly the worlds of 1450s Milan and 12th-century-fairy Ireland abide by very different laws #htoo writes #dead poets society #anderperry

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dozenssporks · 11 months

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meryl: i just don’t understand, vash, how you get on planes with no passport and carrying a gun

wolfwood: it’s his dopey face. no one would think he could do anything heinous except by accident

vash: also security is blinded by the light bouncing off my white, white skin

meryl: you can’t just chalk this up to racism

wolfwood: are you kidding? he prances on through without a care in the world and I step up after him and they instantly tag me as being a member of some sort of terrorist organization and pull me over for a ‘random check’. annoying as all get out.

meryl: you . . . wolfwood you are a member of a terrorist organization!

wolfwood: but they don’t know that!

#trigun #a dozen sporks speaks #trigun on the run au #I'm sorry my mind wanders at work and these things show up #wolfwood has to check in the punisher #it has a little id tag on it that milly gave him #she gave one to vash to and it actually says 'Vash the Stampede' on it but no one has noticed #though vash usually only has carry on because 1) waiting for luggage slows him down #2) ever since that time he tripped onto the conveyor belt and got stuck on it for like fifteen loops he's not allowed near it #nothing makes sense. meryl is dying #trigun snippets

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pyrriax · 4 months

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pyrr pyrriax is significantly less productive when it spends several hours just bouncing between vcs in pursuit of human interaction

#haunted ecosystem #i spent the last several hours just chilling muted in a vc with a few people i dont really Know but we're friendly so it works #bonus was playing on an mc server at the same time and immediately making it my goal to harass jack #i got caught in a self-instated death loop trying to get him to free my corpse from his claim PDVNDJK #however: i now have an area where i get to set up a farm and become a beast (spend several hours lost in farmer's delight)#its okay its better than the average of like 11 hour calls #i write significantly less when i'm being social and not just in my little hole in the wall scribbling random concepts #also i need to read more fic to get my brain going again since currently i am lacking in things kicking around in my skull #aside from a concerning amount of oc stuff that will likely never see the light of day beyond ocassional snippet posts #im planning to work on a few projects i just also need to. not have things i need to work on #im working on a gift fic thats a little late but i just need to Come Up With Something

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aroaessidhe · 4 months

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2024 reads / storygraph

Tauhou

novella of various interconnected vignettes, following various characters in an intertwined family, from a near future to pre-colonial times and between

set in a reimagined world where Aotearoa and Vancouver Island are side by side, exploring connection between the author’s two cultures

intergenerational trauma, womanhood, queerness, climate

#tauhou #Kōtuku Titihuia Nuttall #This is really good! it's not entirely my thing (literary vibes) and I don't entirely get it all. But I enjoyed it.#I love the concept of bringing the two cultures together without having to explain it too hard and all the different speculative elements.#The way the little snippets paint a picture of the whole world being built even if I don't understand #the connections between them all or like. If I'm supposed to #Also I want to know more about the taniwha who works at the museum. Thanks #sapphic books #also fun fact! the author is a childhood friend of mine. (but like only childhood they moved away I don't really know her now)#I also did not know the other meanings of tauhou other than the bird!

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thosetwofirefighters · 1 year

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find the word challenge

rules: share snippets of your work containing each of the words the previous poster selected for you (optional addition: if you can't find the word in your WIPs, or you simply don't have any WIPs, you can just write a sentence around the word)

thanks @the-likesofus for the tag!! very excited to see how many of these words I've used...

my words are: quiet, hold, cover, first, together, and small. unsurprisingly, my fake dating au (currently sitting at almost 30k words like it has been for the past few months...) has all of these words multiple times lol <3

quiet

Buck’s phone rings, and he pulls it out of his pocket, his hands shaking when he reads Bobby’s contact name. He answers before he can even register it. “Pops?” His voice is quiet and terrified.

hold

Hearing footsteps from his spot on the couch, Buck tenses as Nathan comes up the stairs. It’s been so long, but Buck can still recognize the man’s footfalls. He lets out a breath he’d been subconsciously holding when Nathan finally appears and moves towards one of the armchairs across from him instead of the couch.

cover

“Jurassic Park!” Chris yells, and Buck has to cover his ears against the sound, the kid’s excitement causing him to be louder than usual. “Please, Dad, I know it’s kind of scary, but they just put it back on Netflix, and I’ve seen it before! Plus, I’m ten now, I won’t have nightmares!”

first

“I don’t want you to get hurt again,” Eddie says, meeting Buck’s gaze. His eyes are soft and despite his words, they shine with support, and Buck thinks—not for the first time—how lucky he is to have a best friend like Eddie.

together

Nathan’s study abroad had been nearly over when Buck brought up the idea of him going to Los Angeles to fight fires and help people. Nate had just nodded before taking Buck’s hand and kissing him, saying he’d buy the plane tickets in the morning. Buck had assumed they’d be going back together to be together.

small

Eddie glares at Chim when he insists on playing with the station’s small Hildy gadget that they keep in the kitchen. They mostly use it to play music, but Chimney takes the opportunity to ask her a bunch of questions throughout the day and only stops when Eddie threatens to run her over with a fire truck after Chimney starts asking her questions about the 118 themselves.

words for people I tag: home, care, love, make, and dream

no pressure tagging @mooshkat @jacksadventuresinwriting @ty-in-bedlam @lilbuddie <3

#so many of these were JUICYYYY #but i said lets be mysterious for once #and then i actually succeeded in not giving yall the juiciest tidbits? for once?#the snippet for 'hold' is so rough but like. we'll get there #i've decided to re-read all of my fake dating fic because OOOH BOY did I forget the vibes of the last chapter i've written #it is SPICY yall (not in the smut way)#asdgdsh tbh i feel evil giving you pieces of buck/nathan (an omc) and barely any buddie >:)#also jurassic park my beloved!!#it is my go-to when it comes to a movie to put in a fic tbh....like #it's my favorite and i am convinced chris would love it once buck convinced eddie to let them watch it together <3 #omg new headcanon just dropped buck and chris read jurassic park 'together' when chris is a teenager #not together together but like at the same time #when chris finally puts his foot down and says no more bedtime stories buck gets sad and so they come up with a new thing #aka buckley-diaz book club and i am SO writing that fic #holy shit i'm so excited it's gonna be so cuuuute #anywayyy i was looking through all my uses of 'cover' and didn't have to read past the jurassic park mention soooo love that lol #seriously though i cannot wait to edit this fic after i finish re-writing the earlier chapter i've been working on #i forgot how much i love editing my own work since i have most recently been working on a lot of lil projects that require little revision #but it's so fun! i truly am an editor at heart hehe <3 #i am going to 1) try to read it like I would someone else's work (which is impossible but like. we can try)#2) stop thinking about the big picture and focus on line edits and perfecting what i've already edited and had betaed #3) read it and edit like a motherfucking poet #this fic is gonna be so gorgeous i stg #she's got good bones now she just needs a decorator #and yk the last 60-ish percent of it lol #mine #wip #find the word challenge #tag game

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