#maybe i should add that i write fantasy so the 'power fantasy' bit makes more sense
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I've realized that the proper way to write a teenage protagonist is 95% having them look and act like an actual teenager, and 5% of whatever power fantasy you had at that age
#trust me i'm a professional#writing#character creation#teenage characters#maybe i should add that i write fantasy so the 'power fantasy' bit makes more sense
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Petrichor [11]
Pairing: Jason Todd x Fem!Powered!Reader (little bit of fwb)
Words: 19,142
Chapter Warnings: Swearing, angst, canon drug use, canon violence, blood, bruises, manipulation, canon manipulation, canon character death, mentions of the wolf story from the cabin (it's not detailed like in the show), mentions of PTSD (canon), mentions of abuse
Summary: ❝Pylades: I’ll take care of you.
Orestes: It’s rotten work.
Pylades: Not to me. Not if it’s you.❞
Gotham is home, not just for Jason but for you, too. And now that you’re both finally back home, together, you’re ready to see where this next chapter brings the two of you. He’s your best friend and you’re his. And you both might want a little something more with being back home, the place you both feel most comfortable. Surely, nothing could possibly go wrong now.
A/N: Fun fact: Scarecrow is actually my second favorite Batman villain (second to the Riddler of course) so I had fun writing Crane a little bit lol I am so sorry this is so late. I ended up busy for once so lol but it is a long chapter to make up for it!! You can add yourself to the tag list below, ask me to be tagged, or you can follow my library blog @jasntoddslibrary and turn on notifications if you prefer that!! I love feedback, I swear it keeps me posting on a weekly basis 😭
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You come to half an hour later, your eyes peeking open slowly. Your head is in a haze like when a sudden nap happens and you wake up confused what day it is and how long you've been asleep. Your eyes scan around, spotting Jason sitting on the floor a few feet away from you cleaning one of his guns. He's still in the Red Hood suit with his helmet off to the side and there's a blotch of light red on his jaw, right where your fist connected with his face. And the guilt hits like a freight train. You clear your throat making Jason look up to you and you think you just saw his face relax.
“What the fuck just happened?” Your throat is raw and you can't tell if that's some weird after-effect of the drug or if it's from all the yelling.
Maybe it's both.
Jason looks up to you and his stomach starts to twist into knots. The guilt is dulled but it's that echo that's annoying, like a headache that just won't quit. He's been sitting here the entire time, looking to you to make sure you're okay and wondering what he's supposed to say when you come to. He wishes he knew but he doesn't.
He can't take back what he said and he can't back you fighting. Drug or not, it never should have happened. None of it. It never should have involved you. But, now it's messier than ever and Jason desperately wants to leave it all in the shadows and creaky floorboards of this room. He doesn't want it on his shoulders or lingering on his skin or his tongue anymore. But, maybe he doesn't want you to know that just yet.
He's high but he always cares about you. And maybe, letting himself be cold about everything will be better. Maybe you'll finally leave. It'd be better for you if you did anyway.
“Exhaustion is a side effect of the comedown. The only way around it is to sleep or take more and I wasn’t gonna give you mine.” Jason states casually, going back to cleaning.
You furrow your brows. You keep coming back to wondering how you missed him taking this. It all seems so obvious and you feel so guilty about it. Maybe you were so wrapped in the sort of fantasy of being happy, with him, that you willfully ignored every warning sign. That isn't entirely true. You knew something was going on, but maybe if you looked harder, went back to your pessimism, you wouldn't have missed it.
“So, you just…let me sleep? After that?” You scoff, trying desperately to figure out which side his logic is landing at the moment.
“Cleaned the cut on your head and made sure you were fine.” Jason shrugs, his eyes glancing to you for just a second.
As soon as Jason got Hank done and into a cab back to Wayne Manor, he cleaned the blood and cut off of you. He definitely followed it with another hit from an inhaler but he helped you anyway. At the end of the day, at the end of all of this, he just wants you to be safe. Crane might be trying to fill his head with lies and it might be working, but Jason knows in the very center of his chest, you don’t deserve anything bad to happen to you ever again. You might not be entirely on the same side, but Jason isn’t going to just throw you to the side. He won’t do it. It's why he pulled his punches and he never pulls his punches.
“What about Hank?” You ask softly, your eyes never leaving him.
You're pretty sure he's still high.
Jason pulls out his phone, checking the time. “He has a few hours.”
You roll your eyes. Now that you aren’t high on the drug, your thoughts are more logical, no longer fueled by anger. You watch Jason and you remember Hank saying he’d kill Jason if given the chance. It’s not that you agree with Jason killing him, but maybe it’s kill or be killed.
“Why Hank? Like what made you do that?” You question, earning a side eye from Jason. He doesn't want you involved in any of this which also means you don't get to know the reason. Not from his mouth. “Okay, you’re not gonna put a bomb in my chest. Gar is your friend. You don’t stand a chance against Kory or Conner. Dawn is Dawn. You like to fuck with Dick. That leaves Hank, right?”
Jason offers you a grin before he chuckles. “He’s also a fucking prick and you know it.” Jason gestures a lazy free hand at you and something about the grin and the gesture, almost seems normal.
You shake off the familiarity of it because at the end of the day, you don't think Hank deserves to die, not if he didn't come here with the intent to kill Jason. “Yeah….but what? Did you lure him here or?”
Jason can tell you're digging but he can't tell for what. His reasoning why Hank and how he got him here, isn't important. It's not even relevant to really anything. But, Jason knows you and he's starting to think maybe you're digging to see if you should be on his side. That's what you usually did for things that didn't really matter. Get his side of the story so you can side with him.
“Why do you wanna know so damn bad?”
“I wanna know how mad I need to be.” Your shoulders feel heavy with the shrug.
Jason scoffs and even if he doesn't want you involved, he wants you on his side. If you're on his side, you'll back off and let the plan fall into place. “I didn’t make him come. I asked to and he did, without backup.”
“How’d you get him to show up, Jason?” You almost groan because getting answers out of him sometimes is like pulling teeth.
“Said Dick would kill me and I just wanted to come home.” Jason can't help the chuckle that falls from his throat.
Something about it is amusing.
You nod your head and maybe you feel a little less bad. You know Jason had some sort of ploy to get him here. Hank was just dumb enough to fall for it. After everything, apparently, he didn’t learn not to go headfirst into something without backup. That was just stupid. But, that also makes you question Hank’s intentions.
You don’t believe for even one second Hank showed up alone with the intention to help Jason. He was pissed earlier and he’s an ass. If Hank told any of the Titans, they would have come with him and none of them wanted Jason dead. Maybe Jason told Hank he was watching him but you figure if anyone would know how to get around being watched in Gotham, it would have been you or Dick. Yet, Hank didn't go to either of you. On top of that, why would Jason call Hank if he wanted to come home and not you or Gar? Maybe Hank wanted to be the one to either kill Jason or bring him down himself. Maybe you feel a little less bad about it.
Kill or be killed.
“Asshole.” You huff.
You watch Jason carefully, an easy smirk dancing across his lips but it never reaches his eyes. You're sober now, remembering everything that happened and you can feel the guilt washing over your insides like charcoal. None of it is true. And you hate that any of it was even said. If you didn’t mean it, neither did Jason. It was the drug and you're positive of that. And you're thinking the drug is the entire reason Jason is trying to kill Hank.
A very large part of you is wondering if you would helped Jason had you not been so mad at him. You actually think you would have and that is something you would never do. Hank is a Titan and he didn’t do anything to warrant his death sentence. You wouldn’t normally kill him but you're almost positive you would have had you not been mad at Jason. And you think, maybe that’s the reason Crane helped Jason make the drug, to weaponize him and at this moment, you swear his days are numbered. But, before you seek your revenge, you want Jason back.
Getting him back is going to be a lot more difficult because even you're sitting here itching for another hit of an inhaler. You can’t imagine how Jason is feeling the second it starts to wear off. But you want him back and you're not going to rest until you get him back.
“He probably came to kill you.” You state.
Jason snaps his attention to you, his brows furrowing. “What?” Jason huffs.
“Yeah, Titans are pissed. Well, Hank. Everyone else is just confused how the hell you’re alive and with the shit you’re doing. But Hank said if he came to it, he’d kill you so.” You let out a breath and you swear his expression just deflated.
“And you fucking fought me over that shit?”
“I was high.” You huff. “Which you know damn well if it weren’t for that shit you’re also on, by the way, I never would have. But you get the cure to fear and you lie to me and you don’t even share.” You spit back while Jason dodges your eyes this time, going back to cleaning the gun you think has to be clean by now.
“I don’t want you involved.”
“Okay.” You let out a sigh. "Why not?" You ask, Jason glancing up to you, the white strands of hair falling onto his forehead. "Is it Crane or is it me? Is it the drug? Why don't you want me involved, Jay? Because you keep fucking saying that shit with no explanation."
Jason opens his mouth to fight back, to tell you to let it rest and he doesn't have to tell you anything. But, his eyes land on the cut on your forehead and the bruising near your cheek and he caves.
"Do you really want to work with Jonathan fucking Crane?" Jason spits, his eyes narrowing slightly.
"You never gave me the choice to." You state.
"I knew you wouldn't go for it." Jason shrugs, looking back to the gun because that seems a lot easier than looking at your face now.
"Okay." You let out a sigh of defeat.
There’s no point in talking about it. He’s clearly high. You can tell by the coldness that surrounds his voice. He’s going to believe whatever Crane has to say to him because that’s the drug, you're almost certain. And Crane gave him something to cure him. Jason's in debt to him. He sees him as a savior of sorts and you desperately wish you could get through to him. But at least you understand it now.
A part of you don’t think anything could have gotten through to you while you were high. It’s powerful and strong, all-consuming. You were only high for two hours and you hate that version of yourself but there is this twitch through your bones that almost wants to ask Jason for his. It’s like a sudden vibration starting in your bone marrow and radiating through your head and your chest. And you can even feel the lingering tinge of anger like the very end of a fire.
Whatever insane shit Crane had Jason cook up, is fucked. You hope it’s not too late to talk some sense into Jason but you have to catch him when he’s not high. You aren't now and it was only one dose anyway but you swear, you feel normal. It's just that small twitch in your bones that feels uncomfortable. But, that's it. You feel like you never took it in the first place and maybe it's not too late for him. It might be a waste of breath to try when he's high, but you have to try anyway. He would for you.
You scoot closer to Jason until you're right in front of him. Jason pauses his movements, looking over your face. He felt the guilt creeping in before he took the inhaler again. He knows he’ll never forgive himself.
You place your hands on his cheeks and Jason’s face softens and you know he’s there somewhere. But you don’t feel his hands move to you and you feel like you're losing him slowly.
Maybe that’s worse than him being ripped away.
Jason’s eyes dodge yours and he wants to peel his skin off his bones. It feels wrong for you to touch him. It feels all wrong. He can’t bring his hands to your hips or to your hands or anywhere. You don’t feel like you're his anymore and it’s all his fault. He told you you were a mistake. You always deserved better than him but not a single part of him can bring himself to push again. Because you look at him with soft eyes as if you didn’t just explode on each other and have a real fight. You look at him like he’s still the only person you could ever love wholly and solely.
“You're gonna regret it, Jay. Hank fucking sucks and I don’t fucking like him either. But you’re gonna regret it.”
“Why did you fight me over him? You said he was gonna kill me.” Jason asks, his voice is soft.
Jason knows if he weren't high, that part of everything would hurt, too. A lot more than it does right now. And he is so thankful he doesn't have to deal with that pain. He's so tired of pain.
“You wouldn’t let me kill Jerry. And I knew it’d piss you off if I stopped you.” You move your hands to his legs. "And Hank isn't Jerry." You shake your head softly. "If you kill him, that'll be it and I don't want that for you, Jay."
You watch Jason hang his head, highlights from the light in the room bouncing off the white streak of hair. You know you can’t really get through to him, not right now but you want to believe you can. It makes it easier.
Jason just finds it hard to look at you. And he wants to know how you can do that. The drug still wins and he is sturdy in the plan, unmoving and relentless. But, he listens anyway and you make his chest hurt. The guilt and shame are thundering and ramming the jail bars in the back of his head as hard as they can. He doesn’t know why you're still here. Maybe it’d be easier if he believed you were working another angle. And for a second, he starts to talk himself into it, the drug encouraging him.
Maybe you're just trying to get inside of his head so the other Titans can finish him off. Maybe you're just using him, like Crane said. Maybe you want to the drug all for yourself now. Maybe you're waiting for your own moment to finish him off, he falls into your criteria now, doesn’t he?
But his eyes back to yours and all the fight he has is shaken loose, scattering through his chest as an apology breaks through.
“Sorry for what I said and for fighting you.” Jason says quietly.
Your face softens and you think maybe it's working, just a little bit. “Yeah, me too.” You nod softly.
Jason puts the gun off to the side, making sure the barrel is facing away from both of you. He finally finds it himself to bring his hands to your waist. They’re shaking and hesitant, his grip not nearly as strong as it usually is.
“No, I mean it. I don’t mean any of that shit. I don’t want you involved.” Jason's voice becomes barely a whisper. "I don't want anything to happen to you."
“Jay, I am fucking terrified for you.” You place your hands over his. “I know you don’t see it, but this is going to get fucking bad and I am scared, I know you’re not. But I am. Deactivate that bomb and come home, Jay, please.” You clear your throat. “I’m not mad…I get it. I know you didn’t mean it. I didn't either.”
“I can’t.” Jason drops his hands, shaking his head. “This is me. Gotham needs someone who can control the crime and do the hard shit. We have a plan and it’ll work out, alright? You just have to trust me.” A piece of the real Jason finds a way to break through as his jaw clenches and his brows furrow with the sudden shake his of his head. “Please.”
“I trust you more than anyone but I don’t trust Crane. You can still do this Red Hood stuff. You don’t need Crane. You never fucking needed Bruce either. You don’t need Dick. You don’t need any of them, Jay. You can just do your own thing and protect Gotham the way you want to. All you and I’ll stand beside you if you want me to. You don’t need him.”
“Yeah, I do.” Jason keeps it short.
“Okay.” You nod your head and it actually burns as if acid is being poured down your throat.
It has to be the drug. That has to be how Crane has been able to manipulate him so well. But, it is nearly paralyzing because for some reason, Crane asking Jason to do all of this, is more important than you asking him to come home. With you. Somehow, staying loyal to Crane is more important to him right now. Jason on the anti-fear drug is not the Jason you know and love.
“Deactivate the bomb. I’m asking nicely and then just beat the shit out of Hank if that’s what you want to do. I’ll get some popcorn and watch. You can’t come back from that, okay? Like you said.”
“It’s done.”
“Alright, Jay.” You let out a sigh.
You tried your best and you want him back. You don’t want him to wake up when this is over and deal with the fact he killed Hank. It’s going to destroy him. The guilt will finish him off and you hate the very idea of that. He’s not too far gone but you're terrified he will be soon. So, you move your hands to his cheeks again and press your lips to his.
Jason freezes, bits of shock taking over his body because in no world did he expect you to kiss him. But you do and you kiss him with all of the strength you can muster as Jason squeezes your hips and kisses you back. You kiss him with everything in you as if that’s enough to suck out the drug from his bloodstream and bring him back home. You kiss him as if it’s enough to make everything better again like putting a bandaid on a bruise to trick your mind into thinking it doesn’t hurt. But you pull away and his eyes are still dilated and he lacks that cheesy but lazy grin he would normally have. And you hate this.
“I’m going back to the manor.” You pause, lingering for a few seconds as if to be hoping Jason would ask you to stay but the words never leave his lips. You don’t know it, but he almost says them. He doesn’t want you here but you still feel like home and he really misses the warmth of home. Jason doesn’t like feeling so cold all the time. “I hope you can live with this when you have a comedown. I hope you snap out of it. I don’t know what I’m gonna do if you go through with this. You’re really pushing the line, Jay.” Jason watches you carefully as you start to leave. “Be careful and just fucking think about it. Let yourself be sober for an hour, okay? Love you.” You let out a sigh before you head out of the room before Jason can even reply.
Jason keeps his stare on the doorway before he lets out a breath. He is begging you to understand and just trust him. You always said you trust him more than anyone and this is the one time he desperately needs you to trust him. It’ll get messier if you keep trying to get him to be a Titan again and in his impaired state, it pisses him off.
The Titans have always treated him as lesser and leftovers. He was the replacement for Dick. That’s all he ever was and he was expendable, Deathstroke proved that. And he’s better, how they handle Hank is going to more proof. The only people who didn’t treat Jason like that are you and Gar. That’s it. The Titans are the enemy and he just wants you to see through their bullshit the same way you're trying to get Jason to see through Crane’s bullshit. He just wants you to trust him.
You get back to the Manor, standing outside and looking at the entrance. The guilt is chewing at you, slowly eating you whole. You hate Hank, especially with the threat of killing Jason. But, you don’t think he deserves to die. Not unles he was really going to kill Jason when he went to meet him today. Then, at that point, he got what was coming. But you aren’t sure that’s really what the plan was and you feel horrible you couldn’t do anything to stop it.
You tried, you pulled your punches, but you tried and it wasn’t good enough. Hank might die today because you weren’t good enough. You hate him but you think about Dawn. Dawn doesn’t deserve to lose him. She loves him for reasons you will never understand but she doesn’t deserve to lose him. You know what it feels like. It’s not fair. And you feel guilty and it’s heavy and you hate you fought Jason, too. Every piece of today lays heavy on your chest and all you want to do is run out of Gotham. You don’t want to deal with any of it. But that’s not an option so you move forward, opening the door and entering the manor.
On top of the guilt over Jason, you also know you can't tell any of them what you found out. If you tell them, they'll know he's working with Crane. Jason didn't even want you to know and he even looked worried when you did figure it out. What if them knowing Crane is the partner puts Jason's life at risk? What if Crane has more than Jason on the outside? If you tell them, what if it gets him killed? And then it's your fault. Maybe it's wrong to keep it from the Titans, but you don't want to risk him getting killed again. Not if you don't have to and maybe, just maybe, Jason will change his mind last minute. You hope against hope, he will change his mind.
You head to the Batcave, not seeing any Titans around the manor. When you reach the cave, you see everyone around Hank looking worried. This is the moment for you where you know you’ll need to pick a side. If Jason goes through with this, you can’t sit in the middle and hope for the best. You’ll need to choose who you're working with. And at this point, you aren’t sure you want to work with any of them.
“You're okay!” Gar chimes as he spots you coming into view.
Your brows furrow. “Uh…yeah? Why wouldn’t I be?” You ask, looking around the room as the Titans put their eyes on you.
“Well…I mean…Hank.” Gar gestures and moves slightly, giving you a better view of Hank lying in a bed with the bomb on full display. “You also have a cut on your head and a bruise on your cheek.” Gar gestures a finger, mirroring where the bruise sits.
“Yeah, it’s fine.” You shake it off, finishing your walk to the Titans.
The Titans turn to look at you and suddenly, you feel like a spotlight has just found you in the middle of a hidden forest after committing mass murder. Dick looks disappointed which you think might actually be worse than him just being mad. Same with Kory. Conner looks confused. But Hank and Dawn look pissed and you don’t so much blame them. If you were Dawn and Hank were Jason, you’d be pissed, too. But it does make you stop in your tracks.
“Oh, now you’re gonna show your face around here!?” Hank yells.
“Uh…I-I…live…here?” You question but the manor hasn't really felt like home since Jason died anyway.
“And I have a fucking bomb in my chest!” Hank yells. “You were there!”
“We know you and Jason are close, but you have to see this isn’t right.” Dawn crosses her arms.
You blink at them and suddenly you're back at the tower. Suddenly, you're in Jason’s shoes. You never understood where their issue was with him then and you never ever got to understand. But, you tried. You tried to rationalize why Jason. Why did they pick him to target? Rachel was the good kid and Jason was the troublemaker. Jason was an asshole. Maybe. But you're looking at the two of them with a cut on your forehead and bruised knuckles, knowing you passed out and you're being blamed for something you didn’t even do. It was never Jason. It was always just someone to blame.
“W-what?” You ask as you feel the lump grow in your throat.
“Hank said he saw you there.” Kory explains.
“Why were you there?” Dick asks, his voice sterner than Kory but he wants to believe Sam didn't have anything to do with this.
It's actually breaking a part of you with everyone looking at you like that. They're pointing the finger at you and it hurts. You're supposed to trust them but they didn't even ask. You were passed out on the fucking floor and Hank assumes you took a nap, apparently, and they all just believe that. You might side with Jason but they can't really believe you would help him put a bomb in Hank's chest or even let him do it.
“I…I…I can’t….I can’t tell you.” You sputter as you shake your head. “But I didn’t know that’s what he was doing. You-you have to believe me.” You croak out as your eyes start to turn glassy.
“Just like we should believe you didn’t know he was alive?” Hank barks.
“You need to calm down.” Dawn whispers to him.
“Fuck that shit! She’s in on this! I bet he sent her here to make sure I die!”
“You guys can’t really believe she would do that, right?” Gar finally pipes up. He remembers what happened with Jason and he knows you're always on the edge of something terrible. He doesn’t want that edge to become literal.
“Why else would she have been there?” Dawn asks.
"Does it matter?" Gar asks but he keeps his voice soft and gentle because he still hates arguing. "She's hurt and that should mean something, right? You guys didn't ask, just jumped to conclusions." Gar's voice starts to go quiet. "Like with Jason."
You snap your attention to him as Gar's stare goes to the floor. Your heart breaks for him but you owe him for trying to defend you. You know how much he hates it. And you think maybe you'll tell him because he deserves it.
"It all seems real fucking convenient doesn't it?" Hank barks back, not falling for Gar siding with you. "It was all a set-up!"
“I went to fucking confront him.” You scoff but it comes out weak. “Are we really doing this? I didn’t fucking know about the fucking bomb or that Hank was even going to be there.”
“Bullshit! I said I’d kill him. I bet you tipped him off and that’s why this happened.” Hank gestures aggressively to his chest.
You grit your teeth as you look desperately to Dick before looking back to Hank. “Fuck you.” You sniffle. “You know what, fine. You wanna know what happened? I went to confront him high as fuck and I saw you. We fucking fought because while high, I knew I couldn’t let him kill you because he wouldn’t let me kill Jerry and I knew it’d piss him off.”
“Wow.” Kory huffs softly as she looks to the ground, placing a hand on her hip. But, she looks up quickly at you. "Wait, you were high?" Kory asks with confusion.
Your eyes glance to Gar and then Dick before landing on Kory. "I'm tired of feeling like this." Desperation coats your words. The comedown sucked and being angry also sucked, but maybe Jason's right. Maybe that is better than feeling like this and scared and paranoid. Maybe he's right. “Look, we fucking fought, I passed out and I came back here when I came to. So, fuck you." You look back to Hank.”
“Right, but you’re killing—“ Dawn tries to argue.
“Critiera. I have a criteria and Hank doesn’t fucking meet it. I can’t let my personal bias come in the fucking way." You turn your attention back to Hank. "You don’t meet it. You don’t deserve to fucking die even though you’re a piece of fucking shit who doesn’t learn from his mistakes.” You bark. “You figure out the bomb yet?” You look to Dick.
“No, just that it’s counting down his heartbeats.” Dick answers plainly.
“Wayne Enterprises.” You state. “I saw the blueprints before I passed out. Bet if you look into it, you can find a way to build a deactivator or whatever.” You look back to Hank. “I hope you live so Jason doesn’t have to deal with the guilt. And I did tell him you were gonna kill him…. after he had the bomb in your chest. Let me know if dies, I guess.” You scoff as you turn around and start to head out of the Batcave.
Gar looks at all of the Titans and he doesn't like seeing his friends targeted. He knows that Hank was just targeted by his best friend but you didn't do anything. It's not your fault what Jason does. You don't control him and Gar thinks it's wrong for them to attack you for it. So, he follows you up to the main living room.
You suck in a deep breath as your hands shake at your sides. Dick, Kory, and Conner didn't accuse you of anything but they weren't really on your side either. And it feels like you're being abandoned and you're reminded why you always left first. It was so much easier than feeling like this. It doesn't hurt when you're the one that leaves. It doesn't hurt like this. So, your fists ball at your sides as your nails dig into your palms and your jaw clenches. All you want is to go back to before and pause time. Why is that so much to ask for?
"Are you okay?" Gar asks quietly from behind you.
You hang your head and at least you have Gar. He might not always get it but he at least tries to. And you really hope, after all of this, you don't lose him either. You want to tell him but then you'd put him in the middle. You're standing in the middle of it all right now and it is absolute hell. You can't put that on Gar. But, you can vent and you say a little bit of what happened so you turn around to face him with the shake of your head.
"No! I had to fucking fight Jason because of fucking Hank!" You scrunch your nose in disgust. "That's fucking stupid! And I can't even fucking say how the hell that shit happened or what happened because I am terrified if I tell anyone knew what the fuck I know it could get him killed." You pause as you watch Gar's face soften. "But, he put a bomb in Hank's chest and he's an ass but he doesn't deserve to die." You suck in a ragged breath. "So, I fought him and we were both fucking high and we said some really horrible shit to each other and I have no idea how we're supposed to come back from that or how he's ever going to forgive me."
Gar nods with understanding and he really wishes he knew what was going on. "What did you guys say to each other?"
"I asked him where Rose was and, uh, maybe that's why she left him...to protect herself because takes low blows. He said I was using him, we were a mistake, I made him worse. Just... we both said a to."
Gar shakes his head, trying to process what he's being told. That doesn't sound like either of you. "Why would you guys even say that stuff to each other? I mean...Jason could be an asshole but he didn't say that kind to stuff to you."
"Yeah," You nod. "The, uh, the drug. It's the one he made and uh...it's not a normal drug like...it, uh, it makes people do things I think that they wouldn't normally. I think that's why Hank has a bomb in his chest. It's why we fought, too." You confess, figuring maybe that's enough of an explanation to clue Gar in a little bit but not too much that he immediately goes to Dick.
But Gar is just growing more confused. The two of you have talked about addiction before. You had stories like the one time with your dad and your dad being an addict. But, you talked about other kids on the streets. Gar kind of thought maybe everything that happened to you made you never want to take anything but now you're out here not only taking a drug but making it. Just like Jason. None of it makes sense.
"Why would you take it?"
"I can't tell you." You mutter as you hang your head. "I won't again, promise. It was for science." You suck in a breath as Gar scrunches his face in more confusion. "But...I know if we can get him off of it, we'll get him back."
"So, the Jason we know is still there?" Gar asks with hope in his eyes.
"Yeah, as if you really lost faith in him anyway." You manage a weak laugh earning you a soft smile from Gar.
"I have to believe he's in there somewhere. Even if no one else but you does." Gar nods his head softly.
"Yeah," You suck in a breath. "I know it's weird to think, now, I guess but...if we get him back...how do we come back from that?" You ask as you furrow your brows. "I mean, what we said, what he thinks of me." You watch Gar's brows furrow. "I think his partner is manipulating him and using Jason's trust in me against him. Just...based on what he said." You shake your head. "It's nothing but...ya know? Fought each other."
"Well, everyone tried to kill me once and we're all okay now." Gar tries to chuckle softly. "If the drug is what you say it is, maybe that's the end of it. We all know that's not really Jason. He would never hurt you, on accident or on purpose. And you wouldn't either. Maybe you guys just talk. You always got Jason to." Gar offers a soft smile.
"Yeah," You smile weakly. "I guess that's true."
"I'm sorry you guys fought though." Gar offers a sympathetic look just as Dick comes rushing through the clock, coming to a dead stop as he sees you both.
You readjust your stance as you look to the floor.
Dick lets out a sigh and he does not have time for this but he has to ask. "Did you know?"
You shake your head as your eyes meet his. "I fucking swear I didn't. I would have called you."
Dick nods and he believes you. He doesn't agree with your morals but killing Hank seems a little off even for you. Even when it comes to Jason. When you explained your criteria to him, it seemed to matter enough to you. You mentioned it downstairs. You're not lying.
"Okay. You guys go back to the Cave once Dawn and Kory have Hank in a room. Help Conner if you can and just stay away from Hank." Dick goes to walk away but then stops, looking back at you. "Did you find anything out?"
You nod hesitantly. "I, uh, I don't think it'd help with Hank though. If I thought so I'd tell you."
"Alright." Dick lets out a sigh before he heads off.
"Well," You clear your throat. "That fucking sucks." You state as you can hear Kory, Dawn, and Hank coming from the Batcave. "I'm gonna grab something from my room and I'll meet you downstairs." You offer a soft nod to Gar before you head down the hallway.
As the next three hours go by, Dawn takes off to steal the gold bars and give them to Jason. Dick goes after Dawn to try to stop her. Kory doesn't have any more answers about who brought Jason back from the dead which is a relief on your end. But, Connor still doesn't have the deactivor ready. It has to reach a 0% failure rate and he hasn't gotten that far yet.
You really hoped Jason would back out of it or he was just trying to get under the Titans' skin and none of it was real. But, as Hank's heartbeats dwindle down, you're starting to think he's really going to go through with this. He'll kill Hank and he can't just come back from that like he can with everything else. No one is going to care if Crane had him do it or not. It won't matter because Hank is a Titan. And you wonder what you're supposed to do.
If everything that happened today doesn't snap some sense into him, nothing you say or do will. It'll be up to Jason or the Titans to get him to stop taking the drug. Those will be the options. And you think maybe your only option will be to tell Dick everything you know. If anyone is going to know what to do, especially dealing with Jonathan Crane, it's going to be Dick. Maybe Crane will believe Dick figured it out on his own anyway. If Jason kills Hank, you don't think you can stand on his side anymore. It's the last thing you want to do but if he's willing to kill Hank, who knows what else he's willing to do and who else he's willing to kill. He will need to be stopped and you can't do it alone.
With only a few minutes left, Gar and you are seated watching Connor and the screen intently while you all have Dick on the comms. He found Dawn and she's with Jason. Jason tells Dawn all she has to do is shoot him and it'll save Hank. But, Dick is trying to convince her not to do it because Connor is almost there.
It comes down to just seconds when Connor finally gets the failure rate to 0%. He uses superspeed to rush through the manor while Gar and you get to your feet to watch on the monitor to Hank's room. But, just before Connor gets there, there's a thunder through the manor and the cameras go dead.
Gar and you keep your eyes on the screen as Kory runs up behind you both and pulls you both into a hug. Jason just killed Hank in cold blood. What are any of you even supposed to do now?
That night, no one has much to say. Dick informed everyone what actually happened. Jason set Dawn up so when she pulled the trigger, it detonated the bomb. It's uncomfortable listening to it. You listen but the only thing you really hear is that Jason just put Dawn through when you went through when Jason died. He knew what it did to you and then Jason still went and decided Dawn should deal with that pain and the guilt of it really being her fault. You're appalled and disgusted even though you know it's not really him. You just find yourself in a state of disbelief and fury. How could he do that to someone? After everything?
You were high and while you know, maybe you would have helped, you find it hard to believe you would. The drug is powerful and all-consuming but it was Jason's choice to take it. It was Jason's choice to go to Crane for help. It was all his choice. He had a choice here. And it lead him to kill Hank and put his blood on Dawn's hands. Crane might be manipulating him but between him and the drug, Jason is turning into a shell of someone you used to know and you're thinking you don't want to know this version of him. And you think about the pit and maybe that's why it's so easy for Jason to bypass every moral he's ever had. Maybe the pit did take a part of his soul that day and that's just making it easier for Crane to turn him into this. Maybe this is who he is now.
And because of that, you know you have no other choice but to go to Dick.
You love Jason more than anything on the planet but that wasn't enough for him and maybe it's not enough for you either. You love the Titans, too and he's killing Hank and putting it on Dawn, maybe he is going to pick you all off one by one. You aren't going to sit here and watch it happen. You're not going to let him do it.
"Hey." Gar says quietly as he walks into the Batcave where you're staring, looking at the Robin suit.
"Hey, how you holding up?" You look back to him with sympathy. Gar was friends with Hank.
"Uh...ya know." Gar shrugs, standing beside you. "Sucks." Gar lets out a breath, running a hand through his hair.
"Yeah." You answer shortly. "I'm sorry, Gar."
"It's not your fault." Gar lets out a sigh, looking to the ground and back to the suit. Bruce didn't get all of the blood out of it. There are still blotches of blood covering the R blade and the torso. He's tired of losing people, too. "What's wrong?" Gar asks, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets. "You only look at the suits when you're thinking." Gar glances to you but you keep your eyes on the bloodstains.
You shake your head. "He killed Hank by making Dawn pull the trigger. That's kind of fucked...so," You shrug your shoulders. "Guess I'm just...I'm gonna have to come clean to Dick and throw Jason under the bus which also sucks." The words stick to your tongue like shards of glass.
Gar shakes his head quickly, knitting his brows together as he snaps his attention to you. "What do you mean? You said you'd always be on his side."
One of the things that kept Gar hopeful was that you were at least still on Jason's side. As long as you believed in him, Gar knew Jason had to still be there. But, if you're willing to throw in the towel after everything, that means that's it. It can't be it.
"He killed Hank." You look at Gar as you shrug. "He can't just kill innocent people."
"Yeah but..." Gar pauses, trying to figure out how he's going to argue with that. He agrees but if you give up, who does Jason have? Maybe he still needs someone in his corner. "You said he's still there. We just have to get through to him."
"Yeah, and then he did this. I begged him not to and that wasn't enough to get through to him." You argue. "So, I give up."
Gar doesn't get it. You're the one person who's always on Jason's side. He knows this is fucked up. But he still believes his best friend is in there somewhere. Someone like Jason doesn't just go bad. They lived down the hall from each other and Gar knows him, too. Jason Todd is in there someone and he has to believe that. But you don't and it hurts. How can you give up?
"You love him. You can't...you can't really be giving up on him." Gar stutters as his heart breaks. "You always said you wouldn't and...I don't know. I get it but..." Gar shakes his head.
Gar's words strike a nerve. It's hard enough. It's not that you're giving up because you're not. You're going to Dick and that is to get him back. You can't do it on your own and you can't keep Jason's secrets for him anymore. It's not helping him, you, or the Titans. All it's doing is getting everyone else hurt or killed. You aren't giving up entirely but the idea that you shouldn't just because you love him pisses you off because it wasn't enough for Jason.
He gave up on you long before you ever had the chance to give up on him.
"Yeah—" You bite down, crunching your teeth together so hard you swear your teeth are going to shatter through your lips. "What if loving him isn't fucking enough, Gar!? Cause it sure as shit wasn't enough for him."
It wasn't enough to keep him here with you. It wasn't enough to keep him on solid ground. You know you will never be the same as Bruce or Dick. Their approval meant something different to him and that is fine. You accept that. But you don't know how your love for him wasn't enough to keep him at least trying to be safe. At least trying to just exist. You want to know why your love for him wasn't enough for him to consider your feelings. You want to know why love just wasn't enough. It should have been but it wasn't. It was always enough for you to not give up even when you wanted to. So, why the fuck wasn't it enough for him?
"I know you can't believe that. It's always been you and him." Gar shakes his head. "He's going through some shit. I don't think that's what it was. You said it was his partner and the drug. We just have to get him off it and away from them."
"Yeah, but..." Sam's bottom lip starts to quiver. "But why wasn't me loving him enough?" Her words break and tears leak from her eyes like a warm down faucet. Steady drops of broken. "Why wasn't my love for him enough?" You pause as you take a deep breath. "He did all of this!" You throw your hands out. "Without me. Without ever telling me shit and we were supposed to be a fucking team. Me loving him isn't fucking enough and it wasn't enough for him to fucking stay alive or say goodbye or come home when he had the chance."
Gar hangs his head and he wishes he had an answer but he doesn't. "I don't know but Jason has always been Jason." Gar's voice is quiet. "Maybe it was enough for him but he has more going on. I think you know why it wasn't enough but you don't want to admit it." Gar snips slightly. "You always knew whatever he was thinking and he did with you. That's why you know how to get him back!" Gar protests. "It's why Dick hasn't been fighting you and why Kory hasn't. We know that you can get him back and it sucks that you have to deal with it. But, it's Jason." Gart shakes his head. "We just have to get him away from his partner and the drug. We can get him back."
You look back to the suit because you know he's right. It's not fair to stand here and point a finger saying he doesn't love you enough. You know it's ridiculous but you're hurt and you want the blame off of your own shoulders. But, deep down you already think you know why it feels the way it does.
Things get good and it's a lot easier to run away from them and hurt them first before they ever have the chance to hurt you. Maybe that is what it boils down to. Jason got traumatized and doesn't know how to handle his problems. Bruce made him feel like Robin was the only thing he'd ever be good at and he was nothing without that mantle. So, it gets taken away and Jason's back to being that kid on the streets with nothing but a list of people who throw in the towel when things get a little too hard. Maybe he did it to protect you sure, but maybe it was also easier keeping you in the dark so you'd leave if you were going to anyway. He did what he always does. This time though, it's more than pushing one person away. It was desperation to be better, to heal his own mental illness by taking a shortcut and sacrificing pieces of himself. It's not about you, you were just collateral damage and you know that. And you aren't sure that makes it any better.
"I have been trying desperately to get through to him and it doesn't fucking work. He's stubborn as all fucking hell and he's really digging his feet in and I think he's doing on purpose. Jason Todd was always really good at self-destruction so maybe we fucking let him. Maybe we just let him blow himself up and see where that gets him. Maybe he needs to hit fucking rock bottom where his partner turns on him. Maybe he needs it. If me begging him and fighting him isn't enough, then he's on his own. I can't bail him out of this one."
"I don't want you to regret it though." Gar shakes his head. "And I don't want to lose him. Just yesterday you were the one that said you were scared to tell Dick in case it got him killed." Gar nearly pleads with you.
"I know but I am also worried that he's going to pick you guys off one by one. And..." You shake your head. "That's not fair to you guys. I am scared he's going to get himself killed but I can't just...watch him do this shit and not do anything. We're supposed to protect people." You urge. "We are supposed to protect people and right now, the Titans are the ones who need to be protected from him. Jason needs help, too but I don't know what else to do unless you have a better idea. You know Dick doesn't want him dead."
"It sucks, okay? All of this sucks!" Gar yells. "Losing Hank, Rachel is off trying to bring Donna back and I don't even know if she can do that, Donna is dead. Dawn is leaving forever. Jason is losing his mind and now you're giving up! This sucks! We're supposed to be a team and we're supposed to help each other. But, now Jason is killing Hank and everyone else wants to go after Jason. And now you want to help! I don't want to lose more of you guys. You guys are the only family I have." Gar's voice grows defeated and he didn't think being a Titan would look like this.
You pause for a few seconds and Gar never yells. "You know I wouldn't do anything involving Jason without thinking it through. Dick will know what to do and I'll make him promise not to kill him. We go after Jason to get to his partner. We get the partner and we get Jason. I have a plan."
"You do?" Gar asks cautiously, unsure if you're just saying it to make him feel better.
"Of course, I do." You huff. "I didn't sleep. I was thinking. Dick is not going to like my plan and neither are you. But I have a plan. You guys are my only family, plus Molly, I get it. Fuck Hank, ya know? But he was one of the Titans." You shake your head. "I give up on bailing him out of this shit but I'm not giving up on trying to help." You suck in a breath. "He wouldn't if it were me."
"Yeah, true." Gar nods softly. "So, you're just...going to tell Dick about the drug and his partner?" Gar asks.
"Yep." You nod. "That is going to be a fun conversation." You roll your eyes. "Wonder if he'll lecture me then or later about the drug." You offer a soft smile to Gar who just glares. "Yeah, yeah, yeah I know. It was dumb." You mock.
"Yeah, seriously, please don't go do that again." Gar states softly.
"Of course, not. We see where that leads us." You widen your eyes, looking back to the suit.
"Right." Gar nods slowly before taking in a deep breath. "I'm...I'm gonna make a pizza, do you wanna help?" Gar asks.
"Uh, I'm okay. I'm just gonna wait for Dick to get back. Rip the band-aid off type of deal."
Gar nods softly. "Let me know how it goes." Gar smiles softly before he heads out of the Batcave.
You sit on the front steps of the manor, waiting for Dick to get home from taking Dawn to the airport. You run through a whole speech to give to Dick. There is still that fear that if you tell Dick about Crane, maybe Crane will snap and think Jason turned on him and he'll have him killed. Crane is completely insane and that could happen. But, you know it's the right thing to do anyway. It might feel like a betrayal and it is. But, you have to do it. You just hope that when Jason finds out you went to Dick, one day he'll understand. Maybe when he's sober he'll understand. Jason can be really understanding and forgiving. You beg he'll understand one day.
The black car pulls right up to the manor and Dick spots you as you straighten your posture. He shuts the car off and sucks in a deep breath. You sitting on the front steps, seemingly waiting for him, seems like it's going to be bad news. Anytime you want to talk to him, it's usually something not good. Dick lets out a sigh, hanging his head for a second before pulling the keys from the ignition and exiting the vehicle. He walks up to the front steps, looking down at you as you offer him a nervous grin.
"Hey." You state cautiously.
"What's going on?" Dick asks.
You clear your throat as you get to your feet. "If I tell you who Jason is working with and what the drug does....can you promise me something?" You ask as Dick's eyes widen slightly.
Of all people, he didn't ever really expect you to come clean with anything.
"What is it?" Dick asks.
"Um...can you promise you won't kill him and that Kory and Conner won't either?" You ask as you tug your sleeves over your hands. "I know, okay? I know what he just did was fucking fucked, okay? I know. But...it's not...it's not really all him and I just...he's your brother and you took me in. And I...I don't..." You shake your head. "I can't lose him again, okay? So, you gotta promise you guys won't kill him and that we'll do everything in the world to make sure this shit doesn't get him killed again, okay? That's the only way I can tell you anything."
"I don't want to kill him." Dick's words are stern. "He just killed Hank." Dick pauses and he sees your eyes water and your weight shift between your feet. Jason was Dick's responsibility and some of this is still on Dick. "Okay." Dick nods. "I won't kill him and I'll talk to Kory."
That's all you needed to start talking. All you needed was the confirmation that they're going to make sure Jason doesn't die again. Jason still deserves a chance here. Everything is a mess and he's really messed up big time but that doesn't mean he shouldn't get a chance at something better. And at the end of it all, you still think Jason deserves his chance at being happy and safe and healthy. He just needs to get through this shit.
"Okay." You say hesitantly. "Um...so, you know Jason likes to play games." You states. "Well, the formula, the reason you didn't know what it was, it was coded. It was just a game. I think he expected you to find it." You explain. "But, then you gave it to me and I brought to a friend of mine who's a genius and he helped me crack it."
"He coded the damn formula and you figured it out?" Dick questions.
"Yes, he did and no, Tim did which by the way," You laugh softly. "Good luck with that one. He knows you're Nightwing, Robin 1.0. Jason was Robin 2.0. I'm Bluejay and Bruce is Batman. I denied it but he's got research on all of us and the Titans. He knows. So, good luck with that, dumbass."
Dick blinks at you for a second. He was so careful, how could someone figure out who he is? Bruce was even more careful than he was. No one has ever figured it out and now you suddenly know someone who knows? How did that even happen? Dick really does not have time for this.
"What? How does he know?" Dick almost demands.
"Yeah, uh, you can perform a trapeze trick that only you and your dad could perform. Nightwing also performs that same trick. Like I said, figure out you're Robin and the other pieces just come together." You shrug. "Which is how he figured the rest of us out. So, good job. I denied it of course but let me tell you, he's a genius and he definitely isn't going to let it rest. We used to guess who Robin and Batman were. He had theories and so did I. So, good luck dealing with that."
"Great." Dick scoffs. Dick can't help but think coming back to Gotham might have been a little bit of a bad idea. How he is stuck dealing with all of this at the same time? Can't he just catch a break? "Continue."
"Right, so he cracked it for me and it's fear. So, naturally, I go to his lab and make the drug and I take it."
Dick lets out a sigh as he looks to the ground. "I can't believe you went and made and then took Jason's drug. What if it were a setup?" Dick places a hand on his hip and you almost laugh.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't do drugs and that's bad science. Lecture me later. That's not the point of this." You scrunch your nose. "Well, I didn't feel scared or paranoid or worried. I didn't feel much of anything besides anger. That was still there. So, Jason made a drug that cures fear."
Dick watches you carefully and he only knows one person that could make a drug that could cure fear. "You've got to be kidding me." Dick holds the bridge of his nose. "Jonathan Crane." Dick scoffs. "He's working with Jonathan Crane?" Dick nearly starts yelling.
"Yep." You roll your eyes. "So I confronted him. That's when I found Hank and I yelled at him and questioned why he'd work with Crane. He said Crane helped him and made him better, that Crane actually cares about him unlike you, Bruce, and me. So, he's been working with Crane and making an anti-fear drug and Crane is manipulating him and doing a damn good job." You explain. "He was high the day he went after the Joker. It's what got him killed. I think Crane probably planned for it. Expected Jason to die that night and the only one not in the loop was Jason."
"So, Crane could use the excuse of him bringing Jason back." Dick finishes. "Why would Jason go to Crane in the first place?" Dick asks and for the life of him, he can't figure out what would lead Jason to Crane.
Jason has always been troubled and had his issues but this just seems crazy. Jason knows the risks of Jonathan Crane, Dick does. At least Jason going after the Joker finally makes sense. Dick knows Jason wasn't that reckless but working with Crane?
"He was freezing on patrol. Getting hurt all the time. Nightmares, shaking hands. His leg pain was still there. Bruce took Robin away. Dick, it was bad for him. Like...really fucking bad. I guess he was desperate enough. I had no idea he was doing this shit. I was ready to call you and come back, with him."
Dick pauses for a few seconds as he starts to think and he knows why Crane has been so helpful now. It's to put the entire target on Jason and keep Crane out of the limelight until the time is right. It's how Crane always functioned and Jason and Dick fell right into the trap.
"Okay, so, why did he target Hank and not you? You know. You took his drug. Crane is going want to seclude him from everyone that cares about him. That's not Hank, that's you." Dick points out and he's also trying to make sure you're really coming clean. At the end of the day, you've been the one on Jason's side and it's hard for Dick to believe you're just turning over a new leaf over Hank Hall.
"Oh, have no fear, Dickolas, thought of that, too." You state. "Hank was enough to set the Titans off. Piss everyone off and target Jason entirely, leaves Crane out of it. As for me, though, I think Jason still has a line and I'm the line. I threw the first punch yesterday, not him. We both know if Jason didn't pull his punches, I'd have more than a few bruises. But, I think Crane is trying to turn him against me, too. Like you said, seclude him."
"What did he say?" Dick asks.
"Um...that I liked him better before? That Crane was right about me. Whatever the fuck that means. He also said I was using him?" You roll your eyes. "I think Crane is trying but there's a part of Jason that knows it's bullshit."
"Right, okay." Dick nods. "So, how does the drug work? If he can refrain from hurting you, couldn't he refrain from killing Hank?"
"I don't think it works like that. He asked me if I wanted to help and I almost did because I was already mad at Hank. I would never do that otherwise. It's like the only thing you want to do is hurt someone else because it's thrilling. You don't feel much of anything but anger when something sets you off. And it can be something small that sends you into a rage, it did for me. I'm thinking it works the same for Jason. I didn't care that I was hurting him or that we were fighting. I didn't care. I didn't even care that he was gonna kill Hank. But, I still didn't want to hurt him. There was something that still kept me from actually physically hurting him. I could have but I didn't. I think he has some restraint but I think if Crane picks at those parts of him, he'll crack."
"It's the exact opposite of the fear gas while still letting Crane reap the benefits." Dick lets out a scoff, almost mad at himself he didn't figure it out sooner. "Jason said Crane was right about you." Dick states. "Did Jason tell him about all of us?"
"I don't know. We didn't really talk about it but I'm guessing he did. I'm not sure what else he would mean by Crane being right about us."
"That's why Crane is helping him. Jason gets the cure to fear and Crane gets information on all of us and Bruce." Dick shakes his head. "It's a mutual benefit." Dick scoffs and he's growing more mad at Jason for going to Crane in the first place. If Jason wanted to fuck up his life, that's on him but now he's dragged everyone else down with him. And for what?
"Yep." You nod your head. "Look, Crane is gonna lose it eventually, it's what he does. We gotta get to Jason before that happens. I don't know how to do that alone. It's one of the reasons I'm telling you."
"I'm guessing you have an idea though."
"Well, if we break into Arkham and kill Crane..."
"No." Dick states. "We're not going to kill him."
"But, literally all of our problems would be solved if you let me do it." You nod. "Like, ya know, in and out. Boom, dead. Jason comes back home. It's a win."
"We're not killing people." Dick states. "Besides, we'll need Jason first. If he's as far gone as it sounds, he'll think we're doing it to spite him and then what? We need to know what Crane has planned. The last time Crane was up to something, he had the entire system rigged with his fear gas. If you go and kill him before we know the plan, he could release the new drug and then what happens?"
You narrow your eyes but nod. "Yeah, that's true. I didn't think of that. So, what do we do then?"
"Well, I'll need to get to Crane." Dick states.
"We." You correct him as you cross your arms. "You're not gonna do this alone. It involves Jason so you involve me. If not, any new information I get, I keep to myself."
Dick doesn't want you involved. None of this should even be the Titans business. This should remain between him and Jason. Based on everything Crane has already told Dick, putting this on Jason, it does seem as though Dick is supposed to be Jason's target somewhere down the line. It's supposed to be between them. But, you've lodged yourself in the middle of it and he remembers San Francisco.
"Fine, but you do what I say." Dick warns.
"Deal." You mock him with wide eyes.
Just then Dick gets a phone call from Babs. Apparently, there was a targeted attack on Crane last night in Arkham by Red Hood. For his own safety, he's being transferred today to Blackgate. And Dick thinks you don't have to break him out. He'll already be accessible.
"Go get your suit. I have a plan." Dick states as he turns back towards the car.
"Uh...yeah, okay?" You question quickly before you spin around and dart into the manor before Dick can change his mind.
Dick and you head off to Arkham Asylum as you wait for Crane to be transferred. On the way, Dick clued you in on what was going on and what Babs told him. Dick's new plan is actually to kidnap Crane and hold him hostage. You and Dick are going to lure Jason out to the cabin where some of their Robin training took place. It's secluded, away from everyone else who could get hurt and Jason will know exactly where to go. Dick knows those woods like the back of his hand. It's an even playing field for the two of them. And you're thrilled.
You have yet to meet Crane face to face but you already hate him. You hate what he did to the city even if you admire the creativity of a fear gas. But, he's insane and you've got a real problem with anyone who turns other innocent people into monsters, especially by using their own pain against them. It's exactly what he's been doing to Jason. Holding Crane hostage, might be fun for you. And at the end of this, maybe it'll work and you'll get Jason back. But, you're trying not to bank on that. The plans don't always seem to go as planned.
The two of you watch as the guards bring out Crane and that's when Dick gives you the all-clear. The two of you head off towards the transport van, sneaking around pillars and other cars to remain undetected. Dick is the first to make the move and grab the guard near the driver's side of the van. You then go after the one coming from the back of them. Dick and you both knock the two men unconscious and leave them on the ground before heading to the back of the van.
Dick takes down the last guard before he opens the back of the van to reveal Jonathan Crane looking somewhere between confused and worried. Your fists ball at your sides as your teeth grit and he's definitely made his way to the top of your list.
"Let's go." Dick states turning around and walking away.
You glare at him for a few more seconds and you debate for just a split second on shooting acid at him or throwing a knife. One swift move and it'd be over for him. It would be over for Jason. But Dick is right. If he has something planned to poison the city, you need to know. So, you roll your eyes and turn around, following Dick to the car while Crane scurries out of the van to follow the two of you.
Dick opens the passenger door for Crane while you get in the back. Crane offers you a displeased smile as you grimace at him. Dick gets back in the car, sending you a quick but warning glance before he starts the car again.
The drive is quiet at first, Dick and you wanting to not say a word to Crane or each other with him in the car. Instead, Dick focuses on just getting you all to the cabin and how he'll handle the aftermath of everything. You, on the other hand, think about how mad Jason is going to be when he finds out you're here. It's going to be another problem to sort out but he'll understand later because he has to. And you focus all of your anger and worry on Crane. The hit was on purpose so Jason could break him out which means some part of their plan is coming together and you focus your anger on that. It's a lot easier to be angry with Crane than worry about Jason and how this plan could go south.
After awhile though, apparently, Crane gets tired of the quiet.
"I'm an Alfa man myself. Those Italians, those lines, that flair...the sprezzatura. It's a term. It means the art of making something complicated look easy. Like that trail of bodies you guys left back there. You didn't even break a sweat, did you? Like old pros. See, now that is sprezzatura." Crane states with ease but he pauses for a second, looking over to Dick and spotting a gun. "Look, I don't need to worry about that piece you nicked from the B.O.P. back there, do I? I mean you wouldn't shoot a bound and defenseless man now, would you?"
"Depends." Dick keeps his eyes on the road, offering Crane no emotion.
"I would." You state with enthusiasm from the backseat.
Crane looks back at you with a slight scowl. "That is not very nice."
"I'm not nice." You quip with a chortle.
"So, just bad cop and bad cop, huh?" Crane asks but all he gets is a shrug and an eyebrow raise from you. "Are you his little sidekick?"
"No." You scoff. "Shut the fuck up before I make you."
Dick glances in the mirror, giving you another warning look. You mock the look right back.
"She is a feisty one, isn't she?" Crane looks at Dick.
"Shut up." Dick groans.
Jason saw you with Dick as you left Arkham. That little voice is the back of head that Crane has triggered gets a little bit louder. Of all people, you're going to work with Dick. He's told you to stay out of it but you won't. You know Jason is going to go after Dick and yet here you are, kidnapping his new mentor who actually cares about him with Dick. With his older brother. The original Robin. That's when Jason is piecing together maybe you have ditched your loyalty to him and moved with the Titans. You swore you wouldn't and he is ready to explode.
Jason: teaming up with Dick now?
He doesn't know why he texts it. He doesn't know exactly why he's going to bother because you'll lie to him anyway. You always swore you wouldn't but he knows if you are working with him, you'll lie to him. But, there's something inside of him that has to ask you anyway. He wants to know why. You hated Hank, too. And in that moment of being high, you understood it. That can't be the only reason you'd suddenly be on Dick's side. You're never on his side.
You: no.
Jason nearly groans out loud with the simple response.
Jason: why are you with him then? kidnapping crane?
You: involves you, Dick is pissed about Hank just making sure you don't kill each other
Jason doesn't buy it. It is never as simple as making sure people get along with you. That was always Gar's job. If it were about making sure they don't kill each other, you'd have Gar. That's not it. Jason is starting to wonder if you're just going after Crane. Maybe Crane is your target and Jason is Dick's. Maybe you're in this together. You and Dick have to be.
You: maybe I want a shot Crane
Jason grins softly at his phone as he looks up the gloomy sky above Gotham. Jason isn't going to let you kill Crane and he's betting Dick won't either. Dick is smarter than that and he'll know there's a bigger plan and Crane won't give it up. But, he finds it amusing because maybe that is just your motive. It is a very you motive to have in order to tag along.
Jason: you won't kill him
You: lol that a bet?
Jason: I'm serious
You: So am I
Jason: be careful
You: you be careful
Jason: this is between us not you
Jason: if you're there for Crane leave dick to me
He says it on purpose. Fine, if you want your shot at Crane, you can take it. Jason knows you won't do it. You didn't get to kill the Joker and you think Crane is bad for Jason and he's turning Jason into something he's not. Jason firmly believes you'd offer Jason the shot instead of taking it yourself. So, he says it on purpose just to see if you'll actually go after Crane or if you'll go against Jason and protect Dick. He says it just to see which side you're really on. If you protect Dick, he has his answer and Crane is right.
You: involves you so it does involve me and yeah that wasn't convincing. Don't kill him that's tragic just like I said in San Fran two Robins fighting
Jason: stay out of it
You: don't fucking shoot me
Jason: how do you know I'll show up?
You: revenge on Dick, we have Crane, I'm here, you can't resist a good challenge
Jason: lol yeah
You put your phone back in your pocket and keep your conversation between you, just that. Crane doesn't need to know he texted you. That might be bad. But, you already have a feeling what Jason is doing. Ever since he came back, it's been about what side you're on. He's making you choose and while you're here with Dick, you're just trying to do what's in Jason's best interest. Despite your conversation with Gar, you aren't giving up. You aren't completely picking sides. If this blows up and Jason gets away, you can always keep to the story that you were just there to make sure they didn't kill each other. What Jason doesn't know, can't hurt him.
The speakers start ringing through the car as Dick glances to the screen. Dick's lets out a sigh before he tabs the answer button on the screen.
"Hello?" Dick states.
"Where are you, Dick?" Barbara asks.
"Change of plans." Dick states and you want to know how he's able to remain so emotionless.
"Bring Crane back." Barbara demands.
"I will." Dick states casually.
"I'd get that in writing if I were you." Crane states.
"Shut up!" You groan.
"You brought Y/n with you, seriously? And is that him listening?"
"I volunteered." You chime.
"Yo, Babs." Crane chimes back.
"Jesus, Dick. I need Crane back here right now."
Dick looks to Crane and he's definitely not bringing Crane back. "Gotta go." Dick states before he hangs up, earning a snort from you.
"She's gonna kill you." You chuckle.
"I overheard the police talking about what happened...to that Hawk fellow." Crane states.
Dick scrunches his face, taking a harsh turn around a corner, you grabbing the Oh Shit handle from the back.
"Red Hood is a monster. We've both got proof of that now. But I can still help you. You know, just let me know what I can do."
"You can shut up." Dick states. "Enjoy the sprezzatura."
You smile widely from the back seat. You like this version of Dick. It's more fun.
After a while longer in the car, you finally start to pull into the woods. You adjust yourself to look out of the window as Dick drives. He's driving through a clearing but it is surrounded by trees and overgrown grass. Sometimes, you forget the insanity Bruce put Jason and Dick through in order to let them be Robin but as you watch the trees grow thicker the further Dick drives, you remember. Jason didn't talk much about the cabin. The most he said was that it was brutal. Maybe a part of you doesn't want to know what he went through.
Dick finally stops the car outside of a chain that's chained to two posts, blocking off the rest of the path.
"Let me go." Crane states.
"Not gonna happen." Dick says.
Dick gets out of the car, leaving Crane and you. Dick unlocks the chain while Crane decides he's going to try and make a run for it. He glances back to you before quickly unlocking the door and bolting out of the car as quickly as he can with his hands still cuffed in front of him. You start laughing as you get out of the back of the car, resting your arm on the open door.
"Oh, so he's stupid, stupid?" You cackle as you look over to Dick.
"Guess so." Dick chuckles, jerking his head toward the woods. "Bruce has the place rigged. He has to know that." Dick says, amusement in his voice as you btoh start walking in the direction Crane ran.
"Yeah, that's what Jason said." You laugh softly. "Part of your training was to avoid them." You mock softly as you hear Crane yell from a few yards ahead of you. "So, Crane failed."
"Jason told you about this place?"
"Just that and that it was brutal. He told me about the other stuff, not really this." You suck in a breath, watching the leaves crunch beneath your shoes.
The two of you find Crane strung up in a net in the trees. Dick sticks his hands in his pockets looking only mildly amused while you're on the verge of bursting into a fit of laughter. If it were up to you, you'd just leave him there and let the birds of prey get to him. A slow and painful death sounds perfect for him.
"You're supposed to be smart but you didn't think there would be a trap?" You question as you look up to Crane who just glares down at you.
"Are you done now?" Dick asks, looking up to Crane.
Crane scowls at you btoh. Dick goes to cut him down and offers no warning before Crane falls right to the ground. You start laughing as you watch Crane groan from the ground.
"I find that funny." You beam down at him.
"You're not pleasant." Crane glares back at you.
"I know." Sam shrugs cheerfully. "Neither are you." You widen your eyes to mock him.
"Get up." Dick grabs Crane by the arm, dragging him to his feet. "Are you having fun?" Dick asks you.
"Yes, yes I am." You basically skip as the three of you start walking.
"Ah, is this where you carve up your victims?" Crane asks after a few minutes of walking, Dick pushing him from the back.
"Just keep walking." Dick states.
"Dick wouldn't make a good Leatherface. He's too nice." You grin wildly back at Crane before you gain a pep in your step. You don't see it but Dick almost grins.
The three of you get to the cabin and Dick plops Crane in a chair at the table before he chains him to the table. You take a seat at a chair to the left of Crane, mostly so he's in hitting distance in case he tries something again.
"It's not what you think it is." Crane warns. "Look, I had nothing to with what happened to your friend. What's his name, Hawk?"
"You don't get to talk about him." Dick threatens.
"It was Red Hood who did it. The kid's a monster."
You grit your teeth as Crane speaks. Jason isn't a fucking monster. He was never a monster. He was never a poison. He was never bad. He was always just a victim of everything around him and you're sick of people making him out to be this horrible, no good, and irredeemable person because that is not Jason Todd. And it shouldn't ever be.
"Bullshit! You were the one that made Jason into a monster." Dick yells back and a part of you almost lets out a breath of relief because finally, someone else sees it. "The attack at Arkham was a phony. It wasn't a hit. It was just an excuse to get your ass out of Blackgate. Red Hood's your protege. And I know he's coming here to save you."
"You may be overestimating him."
"He'll come. He knows this place." Dick states. "Bruce took him here, too. It's where he trained us." Dick says before he opens one of the cabinets, revealing monitors with feeds to cameras around the property. "We'll see him coming a mile away."
It's as if every time you find something more about Bruce, the more you think he's insane. You're pretty sure he didn't really need that many monitors or need to throw kids into the woods to train them.
"So, why would he walk into a trap?" Crane asks.
"Because he can't help himself. Because you made him feel invincible. Because I brought her." Dick glances to you and you almost scoff. You're only here because you have information and the ability to continue to get information.
"You think I changed him? Oh, buddy, no. I got news for you. That kid came to me broken, okay? All I did was rebuild him. And it was easy, too after what you did to him in SF. And that Titans business, what a twisted mind-fuck. I kind of wish I'd actually thought of that myself." Crane looks to you. "And you're using another kid. How did that work out last time?"
"He's not using me you fucking prick. He didn't want me to come." You grit your teeth at him. "Jason was never fucking broken."
That's the thing that even Jason never got. He was never broken. He wasn't damaged goods and he wasn't a poison. He was just Jason Todd and he had his problems but he wasn't broken. He was hurt and there is a very big difference between being broken and damaged and just being hurt. He never needed to be fixed.
"You didn't fucking fix him. He never needed to be fucking fixed. You just made him worse and then convinced him he was fixed." You bite back.
"Oh, is that right? Tell me, why didn't he come to you? He's better now, isn't he? He told me all about you." Crane taunts in a way that is almost effortless.
"No, he's not better and I'm willing to bet he didn't." You suck in a breath, trying desperately not to let Crane win. But, you really were never good about maintaining your temper when it comes to people you love.
"Acid generation, held captive, tortured. Dick found you. All that SF stuff, you were there. Right with him. You couldn't save him then."
Dick almost expects you to finally snap. Jason told Crane about you and that should have been his line to never cross. You have done everything in your power not to cross the line to loop Dick in and Dick actually wants to help. But then you just start grinning because if that's all Crane knows then he doesn't know everything. Which means, Jason was always just trying to keep you at a distance from him. A part of him didn't trust Crane enough and you're hoping you can peck at that like Crane's been doing to every other part of Jason.
"Yeah, all true." You nod your head. "But, you're wrong about him. And you're wrong about Dick, too." You deflect, trying not to give away Jason hiding something from him.
Dick takes his chance to get the conversation away from you. You shouldn't be bullied by Crane and you might snap if Crane continues. "It's not true. Whatever Jason told you."
"Isn't it? Isn't that what you do to all the young people that you fail? Abandon them. Or kill them. How is that little witch girl, by the way?" Crane questions. "Or the mute boy. Oh." Crane scoffs. "You must be so sorry about all of that now."
Dick isn't going to play into Crane's hand, it's what he wants. "Time to eat." Dick tosses him an unopened can of food "Watch him. I'm gonna get some wood." Dick states as he puts on his coat and heads out.
You watch as Crane looks at the label and rolls his eyes. As far as you're concerned, he should be thankful Dick tossed him any type of food to begin with. You wouldn't be feeding him. But you admire Dick's ability to stay calm and not feed into Crane's bullshit.
On the way to Arkham to grab him, Dick gave you an entire run down of dos and don'ts. Your research into him is just what Bruce had but it's nothing compared to actually meeting him as he tries to get inside of everyone's heads. Dick made it clear that Crane would try to say anything to convince you to side with him. He warned you about him being charismatic and a master manipulator, even though that part was in Bruce's file. And while you're listening to him, you do wonder why Dick is so good at it or at least pretending to be good at it.
"So, whose side are you really on?" Crane asks. "I find it hard to believe you're really working with Dick here."
"I guess you'll find out, won't you? Or does it matter? I'm guessing you told Jason I wasn't on his side anyway." You lean back in your chair as you cross your arms.
"Aren't you?" Crane asks. "You're here with him. Trying to use me to capture him. That does not sound like you're on his side." Crane raises his brows as if he's trying to seem innocent in his reasoning.
"I'm always on his side. You just like to manipulate people. Saving him from you is on his side. Me and Dick just have a mutual interest in the situation." You keep your voice level, trying to mimic Dick.
"Do you think he'll believe you? He hasn't taken your side yet. Like I said, he's a monster." Crane offers a delicate shrug of his shoulder and it almost sets you off. And Crane knows it because calling Jason broken already did.
"He's not a monster. You are. People who are manipulated and drugged into doing monstrous things are not monsters. But good try." You quip back.
"Drugged?" Crane questions, acting confused and you know you slipped.
How does Dick deal with him without giving anything away? But you're also good on your feet. You've always been good at thinking of lies and believable ones.
"Don't play dumb. That's how you got to him, right? Has to be. There's no other reason he'd be doing all of this. Jason gets tortured and ends up with PTSD. He dies, comes back, and works with you and now he's suddenly not having any PTSD symptoms. It's a drug, right? You said you fixed him." You shrug your shoulders as Crane gains a cornered grin.
"You are confident, aren't you? Tell me, what do you think he'll do when he sees you here? Do you think he will really just walk away from it all? I have news for you, you're not that important to him." Crane sneers back as you're starting to get under his skin.
"I know." You state, letting yourself hurt. If you don't sound hurt, he can go back and tell Jason you don't care. "But it's worth a shot anyway. And I want you to know, you are only alive right now because Dick is here. You're on my list."
"That's right. Bluejay, the hero turns killer. Sound familiar? You birds think you're above people like me but three of the four of you are killers now. Look how similar we are."
"Bruce killed a homicidal psychopathic sadist. I kill people who kill and hurt kids. You turned Jason into a killer. We are not the same."
"Are you making the rules for killing now? Oh, that's good. How's that working out for you? Do you think after this is over, Dick will let it slide? All the Titans? I think you'll be in a cell right next to mine."
"Nope. Nice try though. You can't manipulate me as much as you try." You offer him a sarcastic grin.
"How's this: your boyfriend came to me instead of you. He trusts me with his secrets more than you. He hasn't even looped you in or tried to get you on our side. He told me all about how you got together, too. He told me about your little friend Gar. The green fella. How you picked him over Jason. That's a cruel thing you did." Crane explains as you can feel your blood start to boil. "Honestly, he does deserve so much better than you just for that alone. You know, he hasn't mentioned you since. Looks like he means more to you than you do to him. Maybe he was the one using you." Crane shrugs his shoulders easily.
It shouldn't bother you because Crane is just doing what he does. He's trying to get under your skin to get you to snap or side with him. He's trying to get you to reveal your weaknesses so he can use them against you. You know. But, it's really difficult because even Crane saying it is confirmation to you. You know Jason deserves better. It was always a thought you had the entire time. But, it was the fact Jason chose you anyway and you chose him. Now, you're here though where it feels more like Crane might have a point. You aren't going to give that away though.
You lean forward towards Crane. "Look, I need you to understand this: I am coming for you. You can say whatever you want about Jason and why he came to you and whatever you wanna think. But one thing is certain, you are not going to make it out of this alive, Crane. I made a promise the day he died. I was going to come for every single person that made Jason Todd feel like he was not good enough, that he had something to prove, that made him believe he were a monster. I'm coming for you. You're alive now because of Dick, that is it. But once Dick gets what he wants, I'm going to kill you. Your days are numbered." You huff as you lean back in your seat.
"You won't do it." Crane taunts. "I matter to that boy of yours. You won't want him to leave you based on you not being able to control your killer instincts. I helped him with a cure. Do you think he'll forget that?"
"Then I'll live with the consequences. He'll understand one day and if I lose him, fine. But at least you can't fucking hurt him anymore."
"Like you have? It seems you've hurt him the most by not trusting him. I bet he's just devasted by you being here with Dick."
"Fuck you." You scoff.
"Yeah, that's right. You pretend to talk a big game but I know who you really are. You only look out for yourself. I get it. I really do. You had no choice out there on the streets and with your abusive foster father. It's your defense mechanism. Killing me isn't for Jason, it's for you. You can claim you saved him from me, a way to get to him and control him, use him the way you always have. Whenever something goes wrong, you go to him, don't you? You used him for the manor and the money. The weapons."
You suck in a breath and you think maybe Dick is just a better person than you are. He is, at the very least, more patient.
You get up and take a right hook to Crane's face as Crane yells out. You lean down, putting your hands on your knees. "You don't know who the fuck I am. Stop pretending like you do. Everything I do is not for me."
Crane spits blood onto the floor. "Really? Because this whole conversation you haven't said a word on how you feel about our boy. It's been about what you're going to do."
"Do you think I'm stupid enough to tell you how I feel about Jason? Or any details about us? You'll use it against me and him and I'm not desperate. I'm not falling for it. You don't get to know a damn thing about us from me."
"I already do." Crane grins wildly. "And I know how to get him to turn on you. I really hoped maybe you would come around to our side but...Jason will figure it out. I'll make sure of that."
You shouldn't do it and you know you shouldn't but you straighten your stance, pull your fist back, and punch him in the face again.
"You are so annoying." You groan as you take a step back just as the door opens.
Dick spots Crane hunched over in pain, spitting more blood onto the floor and you looking significantly more annoyed than when he left.
"Really?" Dick questions as he walks back in carrying firewood.
"If you didn't see that coming, that's on you, Dickolas." You sigh as you sit back down. "It was two punches, he's fine."
"I'm in pain!" Crane yells, gesturing with his cuffed hands.
"Oh, boo-hoo." You scrunch your face. "You're fine." You roll your eyes as you lean back in your chair, crossing your arms.
Dick ignores the bickering as he gets the fire going. The room starts to fall silent but with Jonathan Crane around, the room can't remain quiet for very long. Apparently, Crane wants to try and work Dick again.
"So, what's your plan here?" Crane asks.
"I told you. Wait for Red Hood and take him out."
"No, I mean, I mean in Gotham. You stepping into Daddy's shoes? Now don't get me wrong, I mean, you know, we all want to please our parents. That's why I became a doctor. You see how well that worked out, right?" Crane chuckles softly.
"You actually think we're the same?" Dick asks as he takes off his coat.
"No, no, no. What I'm saying is that we all get stuck on this hamster wheel," Crane sighs. "Trying to live up to the expectations of others. We always think that it's gonna turn out...different but the outcome is somehow always the same."
"And is that what you told Jason?" Dick asks.
"No, I'm talking about you. You come back here and you wanna bathe Gotham in blood as if that's somehow a better outcome than anything that Batman ever did. Bruce was a psychopath. He was using fear to control everyone, including his sons. I mean, he did it to Jason and he did it to you. And you and Jason, you both use that fear. You wield it like a weapon, but it hurts people, right? It hurts people that you care about. Like Hawk. It's still Bruce's game. Isn't it? It always has been." Crane pauses as the room goes silent. "Is there something on your mind?"
Dick chuckles softly. "Fear is your friend."
"What's that?"
"Bruce used to say it." Dick states. "He said, 'Fear reveals your weakness...and it gives you the chance to make it your strength."
"Hmm." Crane hums. "And him being the man that is, he...needed to make sure that you were afraid, didn't he?"
"I was out here all alone once. Bruce made me go out into the forest by myself for the first time. I had no idea what was out there." Dick starts as he tells the story about being chased by a wolf and being terrified he was going to be eaten alive, Bruce nowhere to help him.
"You were just a boy and those were the lessons that he taught you." Crane lets out a sigh as he shakes his head. "It's not your fault. But you need to make sure that this doesn't happen to someone else. That it stops with you. Now you let Gotham take care of Gotham. The water will find its level. Stop trying to prove something here."
Before Dick can respond, the alarm starts going off about a perimeter break. Your heart sinks with the alarm. Jason really just can't help himself. He has to come and prove something. Maybe, just maybe, Crane might have a point about that, actually. You hate to even think that but...Jason just showed up to prove something. He went to Crane to prove to Bruce he was good enough. Crane might be an asshole but he is making a little bit of a point, actually.
"But, the thing about that is, I've already proved myself." Dick states. "That night when I was a kid...without Bruce." Dick finishes the story, saying he was the one that killed the wolf with all the gory details. "I shouldn't have been afraid of the wolf. The wolf should have been afraid of me. Now, let's get you all fixed up. Company's coming." Dick starts undoing Crane's chains as you sit with wide eyes.
Maybe everyone is a monster. Or capable of being one. Maybe everyone has a monster inside of them but it's about what they use the monster for that actually makes them monstrous or not. Dick had no choice, do or die.
You know the wolf probably just wanted him out of its territory. Wolves have only attacked twice in North America since the early 1900s. Wolves aren't animals to typically fear. He didn't know any better but he was a monster that night to the wolf. And you know Dick isn't a monster. Not at his core. And you aren't either. And you know Jason isn't. But you've all done monstrous things out of self-preservation. Out of fear.
Maybe how people use that fear and those ideas is what makes them a monster. And if that's true, maybe most people can be saved. Maybe the monster just needs to know other ways to deal with the fear that fuels it.
You and Dick suit up once Crane is ready and you both head out to the woods. The plan is to subdue Jason, not kill him and then bring him back. That's it. You'll have him detox from the drug at the manor where it's safe. It'll be a two-on-one fight. And Dick is still a better fighter than Jason. You should be able to do this. So, you both head to the woods and you spot Jason down looking through the scope of a gun.
Dick and you tread lightly, you staying further off to the side and behind Dick. You don't particularly want to fight Jason again if you don't have to, especially since you're sober. You know you actually might be here more to make sure they don't kill each other and just in case. Which is fine with you. But, as the two of you start to close in on Jason, Crane cuts the lights and Dick steps on a twig making Jason spin around immediately, blocking Dick's first hit.
Dick tackles Jason, sending the two of them down a small hill. You follow the two of them just in time to see them both get back to their feet. Dick gets his enigma sticks in hand while Jason pulls out two pistols. The two of them start throwing hits using their weapons but the second Jason starts actually firing his gun, you step in.
You come in from the side, taking a kick to Jason's arm which gives Dick the opportunity to hit Jason in the knee. The hit sends Jason to the ground as he kneels, looking up to Dick as you walk beside him.
"Wow, classic moves. You even fight like Bats, huh?" Jason quips.
"Let it rest, Jay." You state and you can't see it, but he's surprised you're here fighting him. With Dick. And he's pissed. He really hoped you would take your shot at Crane even though he knew you wouldn't. You're just on Dick's side, lying to him.
"Not a chance, babe." Jason states. "Thought you wanted your shot at Crane, huh?"
"Yeah, I do but you're the one shooting the gun so." You shrug. "Not worth it." You shake your head softly as Jason grits his teeth under his helmet.
"We'll see." Jason says before quickly taking another shot at Dick, just as Dick moves out of the way.
You kick Jason just as Dick spins around and electrocutes Jason with his enigma stick. Jason falls back to the ground but only for a few seconds before he's back on his feet. He starts firing, trying to follow where Dick is going while you throw a knife, blade towards you at Jason's arm. It knocks his aim off just enough and Dick takes a shot with one of the enigma sticks. He uses it like a boomerang as it flies past Jason and hits his arm on the way back.
The three of you continue to fight, Jason mostly trying to target Dick and only defending himself against you. But, it's two to one and Jason is growing more annoyed at the entire situation. You know when he's going to fight back and Dick is flipping around. But, he's trying until Dick gets a good hit to his arm, knocking it useless for a few minutes.
Jason is hunched over, holding his arm against his torso while you and Dick stand in front of him. You never wanted him to get hurt here. None of you should be getting hurt, especially at the hands of each other.
"You told Crane everything?" Dick questions. "Everything!?" Dick yells. "This ends here."
"What did you think was gonna happen?" Jason straightens his stance. "After what you did to me. After what you let happen!"
"This isn't on me! You made your own choices."
You take a step back and this is definitely their fight. You were always on Jason's side with what happened. But, it's been hashed out. It was talked through months ago. Whatever mind game Crane played for all of this to resurface is insane. But, you suck in a breath because while the stuff that happened in San Francisco is Dicks' fault, the stuff that's happened here isn't. Not really. It's more Bruce's fault but Bruce is nowhere to be found so you figure Dick is just an easy target. Jason, clearly, doesn't see the irony in that one.
"Like you made yours? Come on, dude, you're just like the old man. A copy. Everything you do. Everything is because of him." Jason says as he throws something at Dick and shoots it sending off a flash bang.
Dick and you get blinded which gives Jason the oppurtunity to take several swings at Dick before he has him in a choke hold, Dick on his knees. Jason holds a gun to his head and for a second, he thinks he's finally won.
"But not for long."
After all of this torturous hell, he's won. This can be the endgame. He gets Dick and he gets to snuff out the person he thinks is responsible for all of his pain. That's what this was about. But, you come back into view with the flashbang wearing off and you stand directly in front of Jason just a few feet away from him.
"Put the gun down, Jason." You grit your teeth.
"You on his side now?" Jason asks.
"Fuck." You groan. "No, but I fucking told you, you're not killing him." You seethe as you pull out a knife. "Let him fucking go, Jason."
"You know what he did!" Jason yells.
"No, I know what he did then and you squashed that shit. The shit that happened here isn't on him. You wanna blame someone then blame me." You shrug as you hold the knife steady and ready to be thrown in a split second.
The words catch Jason off guard. Crane has been telling him this whole time that you're the reason he suffered here. You're one of the reasons. If it weren't for you, it would have just been him getting to be Robin. You were good at it. Maybe Bruce saw you as a way to replace Jason. He never had any problems overcoming anything but you get in the picture and he can't even sleep at night. It all came back to you and now you're standing in front of him taking the blame.
"So, you are with him then, right?" Jason asks and Dick can feel Jason's grip starting to loosen. "You're just like him. You got a suit and now you think you're another bat. Dick's right, this ends here."
"I am always with you." You urge. "But, if you wanna blame someone for the shit here, then it should be me and Bruce, not Dick. So, let him go. You know I won't miss."
"So, try it." Jason threatens, he knows you won't. You would never throw a knife directly at him in case you do miss or he moves or you hit Dick. You wouldn't take the risk with them involved.
"Gotham PD! Drop your weapons!" You all hear from a helicopter above you.
The three of you look up to a spotlight on them. Dick takes the opportunity to grab Jason's arm, the gun firing as Dick grabs him. The gun fires directly at you but luckily, it misses as you dodge it just in time thanks to throbbing in the front of your head. The boys don't notice as they continue their fight and at this point, you're fed up with the two of them.
"You almost shot me!" You yell and for a second, the two of them freeze, looking at you. "I've had it with you two idiots." You lunge forward and join the fight with the two of them.
The three of you end up fighting each other, you unsure of whose side you're on now. Dick pulled his arm so the gun would aim at you and Jason managed to pull the trigger in the struggle. It's ridiculous but as you all fight each other, a shot goes off from above you and it comes down right in the middle of the chaos, sending Dick off to the left and you and Jason off to the right.
Jason is the first to his feet and he sees you struggling to breathe after having the wind knocked out of you. Despite it all, that voice that tells him to side with you, is louder than usual. Something about seeing you possibly hurt sends his head into a static panic. So, grabs you and starts pulling you into the woods and away from Dick. You groan and you can see Dick still on the ground. If he's not on his feet now but Jason is, you're starting to think he was the one shot in this mess. This whole thing went to shit real fucking quick.
"Let go of me!" You yell, wiggling out of his grasp.
Jason takes a step back, putting his hands up and away from you. "Are you okay?" Jason asks as he takes his helmet off.
You spin around on your butt, eyes wide in disbelief. "Seriously!?" You get to your feet and rip off your mask. "No! I'm not okay! You two almost shot me. You killed Hank. This shit sucks! You're trying to kill Dick and you're thinking I'm turning on you, for fucks sake. What do I have to do to prove to you that I'm not everyone else!?"
It's wearing off, he can feel it off. The guilt is washing over him slowly and he hates this feeling. The withdrawal is starting to kick in and he wants to start ripping his hair out. Everything starts to hurt, slowly and steadily.
"Get out of here then." Jason turns around to walk away.
You run up behind him and grab him. He doesn't get to off so easily this time. "Get the fuck off of that drug for one fucking day and tell me Crane is on your damn side. I'm sick of this shit, Jason."
"So, stop following me." Jason turns to face you.
"Come home." You grit your teeth and you know it's a waste of breath but you try anyway. After talking with Crane and seeing how easy it is to manipulate people, you're more afraid for him than you were before.
"I can't!" Panic seeps into his voice and he hates the way it sounds.
"Bullshit! Yes, you can!" Your voice starts to tremble as your nose scrunches.
He can't. He doesn't belong there. It was never home. They don't want him there. They don't get it. No one believes in him and they don't care about him. Crane has shown that he does. Crane has to be right about them. Jason can't afford for Crane to be wrong. He can't just go home. It doesn't work like that.
"No! Get out of here before Crane finds us! Go!"
The wording catches you off guard. He is worried what Crane will think if you're together. Crane said Jason hasn't mentioned you once and you didn't think too much of it, assuming it was because Jason just had his sight set on whatever the hell Crane wanted him to do. But, maybe Jason just left your name out of it the same way you just did. To protect each other. You need to find a way to work with that. Jason knows, deep down, something is off and you have to get through to that part of him but you don't know how. For the first time since meeting him, you don't know what will work with him.
"Jay," You plead with him. "He's not on your side. He is using you! Just like Bruce did. Please, come with me." You reach for his hand but Jason pulls it away. "Please."
He shakes his head. It's not worn off nearly enough for that to work. It has worn enough though for him to feel for you. "I'm sorry." Jason puts his free hand on your shoulder, searching your face but all he sees is the water brimming in your eyes. "I'm sorry I almost shot you. But, go. Get out of here." His voice is stern but there's a slight quiver to his words.
You shake your head softly as your heart breaks and you wonder how much more your heart can take before it finally just gives up. "Watch your back, Jay." You state softly, lacking any and all venom that should come with those words. "With Crane. I got the Titans, okay? If you have ever trusted me at all, watch your back, please."
"What do you mean you have the Titans?" Jason asks, his brows furrowing as he drops his hand.
"I got them covered, don't worry about them. Worry about Crane." You nod your head softly as you place your hand on his cheek. "Seriously, Jay, be careful." You nod once before you slide your hand from his face and turn around, making your way through the trees and back to where Dick was.
Jason watches you leave and he can't help but wonder what the hell you mean by watching himself with Crane. Of course, he knows you don't trust him. You wouldn't trust anyone like Crane, it's one of the reasons Jason never looped you in before he died. But, this feels different and he doesn't know why. Crane wouldn't tell you anything but you seem genuinely worried and maybe Jason should be questioning Crane a little more. He hasn't told Jason the entire plan yet anyway.
You get back to the clearing but Dick is nowhere to be found. You let out a sigh of relief figuring Dick must be okay if he's not here. So, you start your walk back to the cabin. When you get back, you find Dick standing in the doorway, holding his shoulder.
"You okay?" You ask from behind him.
Dick turns around quickly and for a second, he was worried they took you. You're the one who says you have a habit of being kidnapped. It was that or maybe you did side with them in the end. But, here you are looking absolutely defeated.
"Yeah, you?"
"You're bleeding." You state as you point to the blood leaking around his hand holding his shoulder.
"It's nothing. Are you okay?" Dick questions again.
"Yeah, I'm fine. You two morons missed me." You quip back as you roll your eyes. "You got shot though so that's a problem."
"It's fine." Dick states and suddenly you know where Jason gets it from. They aren't even blood-related and it's always 'it's fine' and 'I'm fine'. "Crane is gone so we need to get back."
"Good luck explaining that to Babs." You suck in a breath, pushing past Dick to grab your things from the cabin. "Sorry." You offer a yikes look based on the scowl you're receiving from Dick.
"Come on, let's go." Dick nods his head towards the door before the two of you head back to the car to get back to the manor.
As you head back to the manor, you're stuck hoping against everything in you that tonight was enough for Jason. It has to be enough to convince him. It has to.
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A/n: There's more Jason in the next chapter and in the rest of the chapters lol I am going into season 4. I have a plan lol We also do circle back to the whole fight between him and the reader later!!
Tag list: @fairyofshampoo // @italiana-20 // @jasontoddsmentaldisorders // @purplerose291 // @lovelessamai // @makaelaseresin // @lenidaslenchen // @mayfieldss // @ghostkingblake // @im-done-with-this-im-out // @velvetskies // @lilylovelyxo // @cryinghotmess // @yesimwriting // @vivian-555 // @stainedstardom // @baebeepeach // @legend-o-zelda // @harleycao // @somehow-lovable-trash // @xx-all-purpose-nerd-xx // @deyja-the-duck // @jasontoddslover // @captainmarvels-blog // @totallynotkaibiased // @scarlovesyou // @whydoyoucare866 // @littlemeowmeow1000 // @ginger24880 // @septixtrash // @kplatzman // @urmomsgayforme5
#jason todd x reader#jason todd x you#red hood x reader#red hood x you#jason todd fanfic#jason todd fanfiction#titans fanfic#titans fanfiction#dc fanfic#dc fanfiction#petrichor
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I really enjoyed your Edward fantasies in the alternate POV series! Will you ever do something similar for Jonathan? 💕 I love how you write his character!
Thank you so much! I don't have many for Jonathan (idk why but Edward's were just really easy to come up with, he's just.... a perv I guess) BUT here, take these (some were mentioned briefly in his POV of ch. 2, and most of them are honestly just extensions of scenes from STBOTDI- I see him being the type to pull from his real life and create realistic scenarios that COULD happen whereas Edward is the type to create imaginary and unrealistic scenarios)
general content warnings for dubcon (due to drugs) and unhealthy relationships
While Jonathan enjoys the thrill of secretly drugging you, he is also incredibly intrigued by the potential of you finding out. While he knows, logically, that you should be horrified when you find out, he wonders if he would be able to convince you to not only agree to him continuing to drug you but also to learn to like it. This was only heightened after your second encounter with the Scarecrow where you had a true taste of the toxin... There was something intoxicating about seeing you truly terrified and vulnerable and the idea of you still wanting him and still allowing him to fuck you... Nice.
Of course, he has lingered on the thought of what could have happened at the Sponsorship Gala in that secluded hallway, what might have been if you hadn't been interrupted and if you hadn't run off. How he would have continued to tease your flesh, how he would have pulled your dress up just enough to reveal your underwear... He wouldn't have gone all the way, maybe fingered you a bit but his intent that night was not to fuck you. Just make you want him a bit more lol. you're harder to manipulate if you're horny or desperate
What if he had decided, that night you saw him in the alleyway, to reveal himself to you then? Would you have been afraid of him still? Better yet- would you have wanted him still, would you have let him take you against the alley wall... And yes, he would probably have the mask on.
Probably the least realistic of his ruminations, but sometimes he thinks about you being one of his patients. He's already crossed so many ethical boundaries with you, why not add another to the list? This has more to do with the power dynamic and you being vulnerable, but he also likes the idea of being the only person you can trust... the only person who you can depend on... even, the only person in your life at all (that might only be the case if he managed to get you into Arkham, which isn't likely but he could try if he was so desperate to have you locked away somewhere just for him). If you were solely dependent on him, you'd let him do anything to you, use you however he liked... hmm.
Side note: here's edward's fantasies if you didn't see that.
#the alleyway scene was going to actually be in the fic but it was cut VERY EARLY in planning lol#my writing#jonathan crane x reader#scarecrow x reader#stbotdi#stay to burn verse#ask#astarionposting#also I saw one of ur posts on pinterest the other day and I was like !!! I know them !!!!
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Techniks 16 bit
Pixel art for today based on videogame Advanced Daisenryaku for game console Super Nintendo. Power of 16 bit in in that point that it has a difference videogames. Also, a wargames. Strategies.
Something strategy about tanks and something about historical or pseudo historical theme. Wargame. Hex squares. And by them you need to move your resources. And then enemy do the same. As chess. Almost. Also, interesting genre. It adds some variations in a game library. So, I for myself, already want some cartridges for Super Nintendo!
And this is my drawing based on. I dream for a long time about something like wargame. So, it is a picture now, also a wargame it is. I noticed that in origin game it has a date 1939. It should to mean something. But I don’t want to go into a historical moment. And mainly as a base theme. So, age around 1939 or something like that. But a little in a fantastic format.
Pseudohistorical such type. Or maybe even be better no to set with certain historical age at all.
And you it can be easy to see all units – are just silhouettes. And I can draw a lots of them. Very different forms. From different ages. Wargame will be about tech. Vehicles. And it can be a forest, desert. Something not hard pixels landscapes. And it is can be like even arcade format of wargame. But now it is only a drawing.
Game, for example, can goes just one map after another. Map1, map 2. And so on. With different landscapes. Such a simple retro. It can be said it is dedicated to Super Nintendo, 16 bit, IBM PC MS DOS 386SX2, 486 DX2. And I remember for myself I played in videogame Fantasy general, and I like it a lot. But I do not play a lot. It is hard. For me it is hard. It is boring. And what if such a type, but not hard to play. And everyone can play it. So, when I played Fantasy general I had this idea. So, such a light format, entertainment. It is only a picture now.
Dima Link is making retro videogames, apps, a little of music, write stories, and some retro more.
WEBSITE: http://www.dimalink.tv-games.ru/home_eng.html
ITCHIO: https://dimalink.itch.io/
GAMEJOLT: https://gamejolt.com/@DimaLink/games
BLOGGER: https://dimalinkeng.blogspot.com/
#8 bit#16 bit#snes#super nintendo#sega#megadrive#ibm pc#pc ms dos#videogames 90s#tactics#wargame#strategy#rts#1939#tanks#vehicles#retro game#pixel art#2d art#drawing#pixel aesthetic#90s aesthetic#arcade#light wargame#art#turn based#pseudohistorical#world war 1#world war 2#desert
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friends of the library
she's a little thing, maybe a foot tall. she wears horn-rim glasses and a neat blue pinafore, and makes her home in a glass case on the counter at the library. there's a bit of masking tape on the front, bearing the sharpied words "friends of the library — donations accepted". you smile at her every time you check books out, and occasionally slip a fiver into the donation box under the case.
one day you're taking home two cookbooks, a history of famous local buildings, and the tenth in a line of spectacularly trashy urban fantasy novels that you can't seem to stop reading. when you put the books down on the counter, a librarian adds one more to your stack.
"staff recommendation," she says.
you shrug and accept "The Chronicles of the Friends of the Library, Vol. LXIV".
it begins with a mysterious robed figure in a library, and a quest to retrieve a book checked out by a king. the tenth chapter ends with a doomed scholar-swordswoman wiping gore off her tattooed arms and her magic-charged blade, knowing that the crawling things are coming back. she has already lost some of her height and strength to the curse, and it will keep sapping her until she can no longer lift the sword, but she vows in front of her comrades to keep going until relief arrives, however long it takes. the twentieth…
the urban fantasy and the cookbooks are still untouched by the time you return to the library. a librarian accepts them at the returns desk.
"oh", she says, "you're reading 'Chronicles'."
"it's incredible. the main character is a beast. i don't even care that i didn't start at the real beginning beginning, there's so much going on and i have to know what happens to her. is there a newer one?"
"well, um, not really. i can give you an outline, though i'm surprised you didn't guess. they never broke the curse. they never found someone who would swear to carry on her duty and inherit her power and eventually trade places with her. she diminished. she's still waiting," the librarian says, "for a friend."
she nods her head towards the case.
you look at the doll again, really look this time, and you see the tattoos peeking out under her sleeves. the shape of something comes together in your mind.
"friends of the library. donations accepted."
she nods.
you reach into your wallet.
"they really should write a sequel."
"they should. i've always wondered what comes next."
your student ID drops into the donation box. □
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New in 2E: Endgame
Today I’d like to talk about the endgame that I’m introducing with second edition.
One of the big problems I had with the first release of Toonpunk was a lack of ways to show you “made it”; when you play dungeons and dragons for example you can say my character is level 30, I’ve finished the game; there’s nothing left for me to do except retire this character, finish their story, and begin again”, but with Toonpunk there were no clearly delineated progress markers that players could tack their story onto. On one hand, this let stories kind of unfurl however people want it, but on the other hand that meant a characters story would often be meandering and aimless, and maybe wouldn’t even ever reach its end. Without a way for players to say “I’ve gotten this far with this character, they are at this point relative to the world they are in, this is what is left for them to achieve as people” there wasn’t a sense of direction that people really glommed onto.
So when I was making these revisions for second edition I thought to myself, “in the world of Toonpunk, what makes someone uniquely dangerous; what makes them a living legend?“ And that was itself a complicated question, because while there was a setting bible for Toonpunk, it wasn’t really integrated into the mechanics of the game. That was my intention at the time; but years of experience later, I’ve come to realize that by trying to make it setting-agnostic, I was hampering not only the game, but the players, with this philosophy. I didn’t realize at first how many people were attracted specifically to the fantasy on the cover of the book — which seems kind of like a silly thing to say now, but you don’t know what you don’t know.
So to answer the question of what makes someone uniquely dangerous IN THE Toonpunk fantasy, I had to look at the Toonpunk setting — and in that setting, there is a very clear open and shot answer: a person who is dangerous is a person with access to black ink and white paper. From that revelation, the new second edition endgame was born. It’s as simple as a simple gets: in second edition, the endgame is stealing pure black ink and using them to draw a new expression of your self onto reality. A character is at their “apex“ when they have taken for themselves the tools and equipment necessary scribble their image all over the world.
So what does that mean in practical terms? In brief: directions for GM’s to create new high stakes missions, and a few totally crazy rewards for finishing them.
Let’s start with some of the problems. Second edition includes a gallery of powerful enemies, collectively referred to as “the all county shit list“. Each of these characters is a fully developed antagonist ready for the GM to pull right out of the box and drop on top of their players. Each one has a powerful ability and unique fighting style guaranteed to make fighting them on one of a kind experience. Here’s some examples:
There’s no art for any of these and there might never be because art is expensive and I am a busboy.
As of writing, these characters will not be included in the core manual; rather, they will be included in the toonpunk‘s guide to Saskatoon — the companion volume to core addition, which contains a wide variety of settings and characters built specifically for toonpunk. This book will be released simultaneously had no additional charge with toonpunk second edition; but the inclusion of the rogues is subject to change, if all you out there in the gallery would prefer to have them included in the core volume. Let me know what you think in the comments.
Now let’s talk about some of the prizes. What do you get for stealing black ink out from under these creeps’ noses? Well, I’ll let the book speak for itself!
The text that you see here is actually a little bit bare-bones. Looking at it now, I’d like to try and revisit the “Being of mass destruction” option and provide further stipulations for what it can do. Maybe I should add more?
But I’ll tell you what IS fully developed to my tastes: the system for creating a living item is a series of charts and point-buys that allow you to create a piece of gear — armor and weapons primarily — with custom-chosen stats and traits to meet/exceed any other item in the book. They ALSO have a personality, which grants them a unique ability...and a small list of things they’d like you to do, if you want them to perform to their fullest. A living item becomes a bit of a commitment to a certain playstyle in exchange for maximal rewards. Once again, I’ll let the text speak for itself. Here’s a sample of the living weapons’ unique abilities, and some of the personalities they can have.
I’ll hold onto the others until I’m ready to release Second Edition...if only because this blog post is already getting too long! I didn’t even get to talk about the new kind of augment yet. I think we’ll get to that one next time. Stay tooned!
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After all these years of dealing with carcination-adulators, hypercosmic anomalies, advertisements, aliens operating under an even more dubious version of Roko's Basilisk, enlarged formicidae (?) and malevolently designed automata, I will admit, it is pleasant to deal with just another big dinosaur...
...Okay, yes, I am aware we also dealt with several big dinosaurs last year, but you understand my meaning.
-Kerry Crown
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Who is this gargantuan galoot? More on them past the break!
Bashyokyu, "Bash" for short, is a relatively simple kaiju, a large saurian kaiju that was displaced from Korangu's country in the events of last year, general powers include above-average bulk and strength for their species and a command of electromagnetic energy usually dedicated to brute force attacks, not particularly bright but very exuberant and social towards both other allied kaiju and the humans he cares to notice.
The more notable thing is that there have almost never been any reported sightings of them without another kaiju accompanying them, almost always when combatting with other kaiju. Indeed, they demonstrate an extremely high level of co-ordination with other kaiju as their "partners", even working well with the mostly-antisocial Viroko.
These 'tag-team" matches tend to have Bash "siding" with those kaiju generally publicly percieved as non-malevolent or "defending," humanity, but as of yet there's been no concrete answer why, given their tendency to disappear after the fight.
But, there is one hint at what may be their reasoning for this socially centered activity. The singular recorded appearance of them unaccompanied by another kaiju was of them in a blighted field in Korangu's country, in a place filled with bones. While the viewer was unable to get a closer look, even from that distance it was evident that these were bones of the same species as Bash.
They were curled down, sleeping, in the midst of them. The sounds they were making in the midst of them were matched to sounds of them in extreme pain from previous sightings. Perhaps we as commentators overly tend to anthropomorphize these creatures, but one can only speculate on the meaning of this...
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SO, BACK AT IT AGAIN FOR KAIJUNE!
The idea was to basically show the smaller scope of this Kaijune by making a very general-purpose no-nonsense big dumb dino kaiju, who I made the base for in DAZ and elaborated upon in GIMP.
I had trouble keeping him from being redundant to Viroko or Jiira with the "vibes" the design gave me, but I stumbled upon the tag-team one thinking about the meta-aspect thereof in the vein of late-Showa Godzilla allies...
But also because I'd been playing through Kaiju Big Batel Fighto Fantasy, it's a really good game, y'all should check it out.
And, of course, as I was writing it, I decided to add that element of tragedy, because god if that's not a classic part of the kaiju mythos, and it adds a bit of depth to that otherwise joke-y concept.
And, as per usual with Kaijune, this friend-shaped pugilist is free to use as you see fit under a CC-BY 4.0 license so long as I; Thomas F. Johnson, am credited as their creator!
And, if you wanna support me, maybe check out my Patreon (Tho it's more of a tip jar for now as I transfer to my new dwellings to focus on it), or even just send a Ko-Fi my way! Every penny is appreciated, and I am eternally grateful for those who donate!
Or, if you wanna commission me for a pic like this, my commission info is thisaway
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☆☆☆1/2
For some reason, I thought this series was just a trilogy? Then, partway through book three, The Shadow Wand, I saw that there was no way that this was all getting wrapped up in one book, even if it was over 600 pages, so I looked it up, and book five comes out next year. I'll be honest, I'm not sure if I'll continue. I'll read the synopsis of book 4, and if it piques my interest enough, maybe I'll pick it up.
Anyway.
I feel like I harp on tense a lot (at least to friends), but I don't think these books should have been written in 1st person, present tense, especially since in book three, there are multiple POVs, switching to 3rd person, present tense for the other characters. There are a few switches in POV in the first two books, but those are more snippets, before we are taken back to Elloren's narration.
Before I read the third book, I thought that something that would have helped would be if it had been written in past tense instead, where Elloren is recalling her time at school from some point in the future. We as the readers know that Elloren is the prophesized Black Witch, long before she's even aware she has magic. A big part of her arc in book one is her beginning to unlearn her prejudice towards the other fantasy races. A big part of this involves her borrowing history books from one of her professors. Elloren complains about history being confusing, as depending on who's writing about what happened, accounts don't quite line up or even directly contradict each other.
It would have been nice, having an element of Elloren being an unreliable narrator, recalling this time in her life during a time where we as readers can assume she can sit down and recount it all/write it down. Just an element where I as the reader couldn't help but wonder what side of history she's writing from and with what motive(s).
When The Shadow Wand switched POVs, I felt that maybe the books should have been in 3rd person from the beginning, with Elloren still getting the most page-time in book one, then splitting it a bit more in The Iron Flower. Part of why I think this is that in book three, one of Elloren's love interests (Lukas) has a change in personality that feels... sudden, I guess.
There are things we see about him in book one that doesn't make this change feel out of nowhere, but when we see Lukas in the first two books, he kills and hangs up the pet of Ariel, one of Elloren's roommates, seemingly without guilt. (Seemingly, since this is from Elloren's POV.) When Elloren feels guilty, Lukas tells her that if she wants to survive, she needs to show herself as powerful. Later, when Elloren is realizing everything she'd been led to believe about her people and history is wrong, she brings up the series' main antagonist to Lukas, who says he thinks Vogel is wrong. However, he says fighting against him would be choosing the losing side.
Keeping power and the security power brings is one of the only motivations we see from Lukas, and at first, this motivation is even what leads him to wanting to be with Elloren. He knows she's powerful before she does, and he wants her power to be allied with his own.
In book three, his motivations have changed to wanting Elloren safe. Since he wasn't in book two much, him going from wolf to puppy feels sudden, though if I decide to read book four, I think there had been enough hints where Forest could add scenes in Lukas's POV to show where his feelings towards Elloren had shifted.
Elloren's relationship with Yvan unfolds more naturally, since we get to see more of Yvan and how he changes around her as Elloren learns more about the world and begins changing for the better. I enjoyed him starting out as an antagonist, even if it was pretty obvious going by YA book conventions that he'd eventually be a love interest.
Yvan is a Kelt, which Gardnerians like Elloren and Lukas look down on and oppress. He is understandably not happy to have to be around Elloren when she receives orders to work in the kitchen to help pay for her scholarship, but the narrative treats his suspicion and anger as being fair considering the world's politics on top of what we learn of his backstory later into book two.
A major theme in the books is relations between the fantasy races, primarily how the Gardnerians consider themselves superior. Vogel, the main antagonist, is running to head the Gardnerian council and wants to crush the other nations under Gardnerian rule. In favor of him are Elloren's aunt and a growing number of Gardnerians.
Forest is about as subtle as a sledgehammer when it comes to this theme of politics and race relations. There is one point where Elloren is reading a newspaper with a classmate, who is disguised fae, a race being actively hunted and killed by the Gardnerians. Elloren mentions she'd never bothered to keep up with politics before, to which her classmate retorts that it's because it hadn't affected her before.
I don't see this as a point against the books, and the school setting was used really well in delivering exposition for the world-building. Elloren might be from this world, but she had been spoon-fed propaganda wrapped up as history since she was a baby, so as Elloren learns more about what's really happened and what's going on now, a lot of the information dumps honestly feel pretty organic.
I'm not sure if the sudden switches in POV in book 3 just threw me off, but it took much longer for me to get through it compared to books one and two, which only took me a few days to read each. With book two especially, I got excited to get back to it whenever I had to put it down, which made me excited for book three, since it's common for the second book in a series to be harder to get through compared to the first and third, especially in a trilogy (which again, I for some reason thought this series was a trilogy). I had also started reading book three at the start of a depressive episode, so my inability to get into it may have more to do with my mood than the actual book.
Like many magic systems, the one in this book gets more holes in it the longer you squint your eyes, but it works well enough that I can mostly just accept it as I kept reading. Runes are a bit of a sonic screwdriver kind of magic, able to do just about whatever is needed. I don't mind that too much, since there have already been some established rules for runes, so it still feels like there are stakes, especially after seeing some of the magic Vogel has acquired.
When it comes to Vogel, I'm on the fence about how I feel about him as a BBEG. He is definitely big, bad, and evil, almost cartoonishly so by the time we see more of his power in book three. However, irl, there have been some cartoonishly evil people, so....
I'm less on the fence with Fallon. I don't like her. She feels like a Regina George-type clone but with god-like powers, mainly with ice magic. Because Ice Queen, I guess. *badum tss*
She honestly doesn't provide much, which I feel is a shame, because considering everyone thinks Fallon is supposed to be the next Black Witch, she could have been the perfect foil to Elloren, and there were points that made it seem like that that was supposed to be her role.
If I decide to continue reading the series, I'll probably add on to my thoughts, like if I'm right and Forest does more to show Lukas's change in heart towards Elloren.
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samson mixpad mxp124fx manual
If you've ever researched recording multitrack software, you can attest that it can ridiculously over priced. As an artist, you want development . produce the best possible music. The matter though is that it can place you in the poor house! Those mixers at music stores can cost thousands of dollars! How in the field of can a starving artist afford so?
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Now I don't know if I'm just stupid BUT
I never see any Slavic representation in fiction, specifically I never see any Balkan Slavic cultures, and I think that's a real shame.
Our cultures are amazing y'all.
So in an effort to amend that, here is an incomplete list of some cultural traditions, beliefs, foods, customs etc. of the Balkan Slavs, specifically Serbian Slavs (Balkan Slavs includes Serbian people, Bosnian people, Croatian people, Albanians, Romanians, Bulgarians, Slovenians, Montenegro, north Macedonia and Kosovo, which is a lot and as with any other culture, we're not a monolith so I won't be speaking on everyone everywhere, only my own culture).
So first things first, what does our culture best translate to in writing? Well, Serbian Slavic culture works best for fairy tale fantasy stories/books. Those books set in one village or one small town, where everyone knowe everyone and everyone is the sixth removed cousin of their best friend's neighbor, very self contained and full of little bits of folklore and rich with history.
Why?
Serbia has never been a large or powerful country historically, in fact spending a lot of time colonized and oppressed by other more powerful forces, and so a big number of our people has always lived in villages and small towns. There's maybe 3-4 actual cities in the entirety of the country. So, since our people have always lived in small, somewhat isolated settlements and communities, the best types of stories to apply our culture to are stories with similar settings.
Now, as you can imagine, having that degree of separation has also lead to a huge variety in our customs and traditions, where each village would develop it's own little idiosyncracies and unique twists on established traditions, which may seem daunting when you're hoping to write us, but don't worry, most of the changes I speak of are picky differences that no Serb will really get on your ass for (hopefully).
Okay, so to sum up: Serbian Slavic tradition is best applied to pretty self contained, small scale books with simple settings. Fantasy is a great way to explore this by the way.
Now onto the fun bit, the actual resources!
Let's start with food.
When I tell you us Serbians place A LOT of value on traditional food, I mean it. Good homecooked food is the backbone of any household and there's a lot of pressure on us to become capable cooks. I'm going to list some of our traditional dishes and how to make them, but first I should mention that because Serbia spent about 500 years conquered by the Ottoman empire, a lot of our initial culture was forced to assimilate with theirs, so some of the foods listed here could possibly have origins dating back to the Ottomans, it's honestly impossible to tell at this point as during those 5 centuries the lines really blurred.
Onwards!
1. Musaka is a dish made with potatoes, ground meat, onion or garlic, salt, eggs, milk and spices to taste.
2. Đuveč is a dish made with potatoes, rice, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, onion, garlic, peršun (parsley), salt, pepper, oil and water.
3. Sarma is a dish made of several wrapped rolls with filling. The filling is typically made with ground beef, rice, onion, carrots, garlic, dry bacon and spices to taste. The wraps are pickled cabbage leafs. This dish also has zaprška, which is a mix of usually flour and some other spices meant to be fried and added into the cooking pot for extra smell and flavor. You prepare all the parts and then put a bit of filling on the cabbage leaf and roll it up. There's a specific method of rolling up sarme so that they stay nice and closed. After that you arrange the rolls in a pot, add water and cook.
4. Zeljanica is a type of pie made typically with a mix of spinach, nettles and sometimes other herbs as well.
5. Lenja pita is a type of dessert! It is usually made with either apple slices, cherries or sour cherries as well as powdered sugar. It looks a little bit like cake but it is very different.
6. Salčići are another dessert, a type of pastry made with puff pastry usually filled with fig pekmez (it's kind of like jam) and topped with powdered sugar.
~
I've hit the image post limit so if anyone wants to hear more about Serbian food lemme know and I'll do another post.
I'll compile another post for our other traditions and customs, since this post is way too long already and there's still so much I want to share :)).
I know us Slavic people aren't really a marginalized group by any margins so representation isn't as important as it is for marginalized groups but I still think it would be fun if more writers knew and included some Balkan Slavic cultures, and although I'm only talking about Serbian Slavs here, I think this could be a great introduction to my folk :DD
#writing resource#slavic cultures#balkan slavs#serbian culture#serbian tradition#slavic representation#in writing#slavic food#for writers
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Hi! Sorry it's so out of the blue. Some (long) time ago you said you headcanon Batman as Catholic because you want him to be his best self and believe this is the way. It deeply resonated with me as a fellow Catholic, I was just thinking about it today, and I gotta ask: how do you approach this subject with shows that are clearly NOT set in our world? For example Atla, where different belief system is pretty much written into the universe?
Hi!
This is a really good question. I'm not sure I have answers, but I think it’s kind of central to fantasy writing (using a very broad definition of “fantasy,” which includes “all things unreal”). How do we read, and how do we write, stories involving spiritual realities which aren’t real?
(Since I don’t have a clear answer, you get a long one instead.)
Some stories make it easier than others, of course. There’s sort of a spectrum from “basically compatible with Catholicism” to “explicitly incompatible”—on the one end you have Middle-Earth (presented as part of our own world’s pre-history) and Narnia (explicitly Christian, of course), and on the extreme other end you have things like, I don’t know, The Good Place or the Queen’s Thief series (both of which fairly explicitly deal with things like the afterlife and the creation of the world, and establish that the versions of those things in their universes are incompatible with Christian, let alone Catholic, doctrine).
In between there are a lot of stories that add weird elements to the real world but don’t directly engage with religious questions (Harry Potter maybe?) or exist in a different world with different supernatural setup but don’t have heavy enough worldbuilding to say that they couldn’t necessarily fit into the Narnia multiverse model (I’d put AtLA here, mostly).
Focusing on characters being their best selves specifically... I think, on the very deepest level, they can’t be that in a world without any openings for grace. But I also think that, when you’re writing a story, there are very many ways for the presence of grace to be felt without it being explicit—and, in fact, it is easier and more accessible for most of us, as writers, to include grace implicitly than it is to write about spiritual realities directly. Because that is HARD. It’s REALLY REALLY HARD and I honestly don’t think all of us can or should try to write stories about realistic (which is to say, occuring in the real world) spiritual lives.
But grace is to some extent visible in all good narratives, because goodness is present in all good narratives. Frodo is given implicit moments of grace, of course, and the Pevensies are given explicit ones, but even in less Christian worlds you see “fate” or “human spirit” or benevolent lesser gods or The Power Of Love reshape reality—and those are all figures or types of grace! They’re all in some way filling the same function, they’re all acting in accordance with some idea of Good which comes from somewhere beyond the explicable nature of their reality!
I think it is more satisfying to engage with a story the more closely it is in accordance with our Catholic reality, and it’s easier to do so on a deeper level. Sometimes a character being the best self it is possible to be within their narrative is just not as deeply good, or alive, or fulfilled, as they would be without the limitations of their world. BUT. At the same time, fiction doesn’t have to be realistic, and different kinds and degrees of realism serve different functions in their depiction of the supernatural just like in everything else. If a character follows and adheres to the Good that is present in their universe, as far as in them lies, then I think they’re their best self.
This is rambly, but... I keep thinking of the bit from The Last Battle. “Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted.”
If good done in the name of Tash is still service to Aslan, then I think good done in the name of love, or honor, or the Light Side of the Force, or the Law, is also service to Aslan.
(And if you want writing on Fantasy’s nature and functions by a Catholic who gave a lot more thought to it, it sounds like Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy-Stories” might be of interest to you.)
#these are my two cents anyway#if anyone else in the Christian writing circles wants to pitch in on the subject please do!#also anon i AM answering your other ask too it's just this ended up enough of an essay by itself :P#asks#anon asks#catholic#writing stuff
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AidaIro’s au’s are really Nene’s stories
I want to share something I always thought about regarding AidaIro’s Hanako au’s (ghost hotel, hoto, playing cards etc) I was talking out my ideas with Cat and Hope and by doing so I have something cohesive to share.
In my head I can actually imagine Nene being the one to come up with all these au’s cause she’s so creative and in her own fantasy world sometimes. She loves romantic things but also loves odd and dark things so I could see the au’s fitting that.
(That’s @thehopeelias art btw that she did for a Tiny Light cover/animatic we collabed together on here)
Monster Nursery
I think the other au’s are easier to see her come up with but I still think Nene would come up with the nursery one as well. Because it would be her desire to see Hanako as a teacher/researcher all grown up. And then she would just make it in the “unique way” Nene always does.
In some way she would want to see what the Yugi twins were like together grown up. And she added Kou to the story as well cause he’s their friend too. She wants to see them older and doing good things. But mostly she wants to make him into something he would be proud of and also see what the brothers would have been like together sharing that success, passion, and happiness.
Nene for this specific AU of Amane being a grown up researcher/teacher, she would be the child in this situation. Mitsuba is always a child, let’s be real. And the mokke... well the mokke are kinda like pet hamsters lol.
And because she loves monsters (like her veggie monsters) she’d want to make herself the coolest fire breathing monster of all of them.
She’d want to know Tsukasa more and how he would act as this adult who got to live out his dreams with his brother. Therefore she would attach herself to him just to bond with him more and see how he can be. How she can imagine him being.
In regards to Mitsuba, I think the only reason she put him in it is cause she’s never seen Mitsuba and Hanako interact and she would just be curious how Hanako would respond and be a father figure like Sensei/researcher to him. So that’s the reason for that.
The mokke were all that was left, she wants to see what Kou would be like caring for something. There’s no better reason for that one being just a mokke. Also Nene knows that he has a little sister he cares for, so taking care of the mokke is easy for him.
Ghost Hotel
The dark magical fantasies like Ghost hotel represents the desire she should be afraid of but secretly craves. Along with the obvious enticing mystery.
Royal (Playing Cards)
The Royal one is what she dreams of like having a prince riding a white horse. But does she really want that? Maybe she wants it a bit darker. A ruthless ruler that her country is at odds with or that is against the way she thinks a prince should be because she says she wants one thing but what she truly wants is a bit of a dark prince. A prince that can sweep her off her feet and rule the kingdom, protect her, and give her luxury in this all powerful fantasy.
Hanako of the Opera
The opera one represents mystery, wanting to know the man (the ghost) that she spends time with that no one knows about. At the same time still not knowing anything about him. At the same time he starts revealing little by little his past tragedy and judgment.
I think of this one line from phantom all of the time. I don’t know if I know if I got the wording exactly but he says something like:
“Why should I show compassion? The world has never shown compassion to me!”
It is very representative of Hanako’s true self. Showing more pain and passion and sorrow and darkness that she puts into this fantasy. Nene created this one to be more raw than the other ones.
Phantom Thief
Phantom thief... I only just recently kinda opened my eyes to phantom thief so.... To start with there are 2 versions. Technically.
One can just be her revised draft of a fantasy story. I’ll just say that. Similar to how a writer often goes back and changes things in their writing. It’s exactly like that. Even changing character roles. For example Nene as a waitress then Nene as detective.
But as far as the reasoning for the phantom thief fantasy is concerned...
Mystery and puzzle solving go together, yes, but...
Hanako’s ultimate goal is to steal the moon.
I’m still working this out but maybe in some underlying way it also represents unachievable dreams.
Additionally it represents Hanako as an outcast (like how phantom is) being “WANTED” by the Minamotos, who are the police. And then Nene working under Tsuchigomori. They aren’t trying to catch the phantom necessarily but mainly trying to uncover more information as detectives do. It is also like how Nene goes to Tsuchigomori for answers about Hanako which he doesn’t give her but at the same time Tsuchigomori sees that she has uncovered more about how Amane can be.
“In all the years I’ve known him I’ve never seen number 7 act like that.”
Tsukasa would be the one Hanako robbed from. Just like he robbed Tsukasa of his life when he killed him. In a deeper sense maybe taking away Tsukasa’s greatest treasure in his eyes, Amane himself. Nene would be the one that Tsukasa hires to do the investigating in this fantasy. Tsukasa liking to mess with things, Nene liking to uncover things (that part is still a theory but it makes sense for her character).
It represents everything Nene is trying to figure out and solve about Hanako. It has the people that he has history with when he was alive, helping her to understand this fantasy and get answers into the mystery that is Hanako. Hanako being the acclaimed villain in a way.
I think that sums up my analysis of all the au’s represented as Nene’s fantasy worlds and why they are set up like that. I may add more to this post as time goes on because I feel like there’s a lot more that can be fleshed out. But because these are AidaIro’s au’s you never know how much truth is behind them. They do seem to have a lot of hidden truths. So regardless I really love thinking like this, Nene is the one that created these stories.
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Dragon Age development insights from David Gaider - PART 1
This information came from DG on a recent SummerfallStudios Twitch stream where he gave developer commentary while Liam Esler played DAO, specifically the mage Origin. I transcribed it in case there’s anyone who can’t watch the stream (for example due to connection/tech limitations, data, time constraints, or personal accessibility reasons). A lot of it is centered on DAO, but there’s also insights into DA2 and DAI. Some of it is info which is known having been out there already, some of it is new, and all of it imo was really interesting! It leaps from topic to topic as it’s a transcript of a conversational format. It’s under a cut due to length.
Note on how future streams in this series are going to work: The streams are going to be every Friday night. Most likely, every week, they’re going to play DAO. Every second week it will be Liam and DG and they’ll be doing more of this developer commentary style/way of doing things, talking about how the game was made as they play through, covering quirks and quibbles etc. Every other week, it will be Liam and a guest playing a different campaign in DAO, and Liam will be talking with them about how DA changed their lives or led them into game development, to get other peoples’ thoughts on the series (as it’s now been like 10 years). Some of these guests we may know, some we won’t. When other DA devs are brought on, it’ll be in the DG sessions. They hope to have PW and Karin Weekes on at some point. Sometime they hope to have an episode where they spend the whole time going through the lore.
(Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6)
[wording and opinions DG’s, occasionally LE’s; paraphrased]
DAO’s development actually finished up around April 2009. They then put it on ice for around six months before release. Human Noble is DG’s favorite Origin. It’s one of the ones he wrote. He also wrote the Dalish Origin as well (Tamlen is his doing ;__;). DAO’s temp name during development was Chronicles. DG has never played any of the DA games after they were released. He played them pre-release loads of times, when they were half-broken or incomplete etc. This stream is his first time seeing everything played after completion.
NWN: Hordes of the Underdark was the first game where DG was a/the lead writer, in charge of other writers, as opposed to a senior writer. It was pretty well-received. In the fall of 2003, BW were just finishing up HotU when James Ohlen came to DG to talk. BW had been having issues during the development of NWN with the IP holder for D&D Wizards of the Coast, so they were interested in starting their own IPs that they would have ownership over (and also for financial reasons). JO said to DG that one of these new IPs would be fantasy and one would be sci-fi. He knew that DG was more fantasy-oriented, and so asked DG if he wanted to take this on. DG was down, and the first thing to figure out was what that fantasy IP was going to be.
JO gave DG an atlas of European history, which he still has, and said that he wanted him to make a fantasy world that is reminiscent of medieval Europe and reminiscent of D&D - “make it like D&D but not, file off the serial numbers really well”. This worked for DG because he was pretty familiar with D&D and there were also lots of things that he didn’t like about it and wanted to change. So DG went off and for the next six months worked on creating a setting, beginning with documentation and the map. This was kinda strange because they had no idea at that time what their story would be. JO was very interested in having a “genetically evil” enemy in the setting (like an equivalent to orcs). DG wasn’t a big fan of this and his initial go at the setting omitted this (i.e. darkspawn were not a thing) and was a lot more realistic. JO insisted on adding them later on.
This period of development wasn’t actually a good process. There were other people who were working on the project who were designing the combat side. Looking back, DG feels that they should have put their heads together a lot sooner. The combat designers had various ideas for various prestige classes and subclasses, and DG would be like “these are nowhere in the setting [lore]”. He tried his best to add a few of them after the fact, which is why we see things like DA’s version of the bard archetype. The combat designers and artists originally had a vision in mind of a game that was much more along the lines of the type of fantasy you’d find in the Conan the Barbarian world - bare-chested barbarians, sorceresses that show a lot of skin, a grimdark world with barbarian hordes. They were just assuming that’s what it was going to be. At this point in time DG had never thought, “Oh, maybe I’m responsible for communicating my ideas to them” - he’d never done this role before and was just told to go create the world. He created world-building documentation and would send out emails saying “I’m making this documentation, please go ahead and take a look”, not learning until later on that nobody outside of the writing team really likes reading such documentation. He learned tricks later on like making the docs more accessible, less dense and wordy, and overall easier to peruse.
There was no real ‘vision holder’ for DA. Mass Effect did a much better job of that. Casey Hudson was the project director and the vision holder for ME, and he had the power to enforce a set vision of what was and was not ME. ME therefore ended up having a bit more of a coherent vision. DG was in essence the vision holder for DA, but he didn’t really have the authority to enforce it on the artists. The DA teams ended up spending a good 3.5 - 4 years of the ~6 years of DAO dev time going in circles, not exactly sure what they were going to make, the various people working on it having different ideas of what ‘kind’ of fantasy they were going to make. The writing team were leaning towards LoTR; the artists were leaning towards Conan; at one point one of the project directors was leaning towards a point-and-click Diablo-style action adventure; and nobody was overriding anybody else.
The fans who hang out on the forums and in similar places have a very different idea about what kind of game they like and want to play versus the telemetry BW get from the public in general. As an example, fans on the forums tend towards playing non-humans and feeling that playing as a human is boring. Forum-polls reflected that, but BW’s general public-telemetry shows that around 75-80% of the playerbase played a human in DAO. Elves were at 15% and dwarves 5%. In contrast, in the core/forum-based fanbase, the human figure dropped down to 30%.
DG originally wanted Zevran to be a gay romance (he has talked about this before). He asked JO if he could do that pretty early on, thinking of Jade Empire which had same-gender romance options which were really popular. BW were surprised about that, and DG had no idea that the JE team were going to do this. For DAO, he had an idea for an assassin character. He had been reading about how the CIA and KGB would often recruit gay men to be their assassins, as they didn’t tend to have family ties. DG thought this was really interesting. JO was cool with the idea on a conceptual level, but thought that the work that would end up going into it would be better served if those characters could be romanced by both male and female PCs. Zevran and Leliana weren’t intended to be bi, they were “bi out of convenience”, but at the time these sorts of things (representation and such) didn’t enter into the equation as much as it does today. DG wrote Zevran in his head as being romanceable by men.
DG would ask the hair artists, “Why all the mullets?”, because he never understood that, and he’d get “a sort of shrug response”, and an indication that “it’s easier to model, I guess?” Having hair which is loose, in the face, in locks, coming over the shoulders etc wasn’t really supported at this point by the tech or the engine. Hence, they ended up with like five different versions of mullets. On the subject of the engine, for the first half of development they were using an upgraded version of the Aurora engine from NWN, and it was not good. Several years in they decided to switch. Trent Oster was in charge at the time of making a new proprietary BW engine. At the time it wasn’t ready yet, but the DA team decided to grab it, use it and hammer it into the DA engine. That engine had “so many little weird quirks”, like lighting on skin not working properly and looking bad, and one of the issues was hair. It was supposed to be BW’s proprietary engine but it really wasn’t optimized for RPGs and didn’t include a dialogue system. They had to custom-build the conversation system. (At the time Trent didn’t think BW should be doing RPGs anymore, which is a whole other story of its own). DG recalls programmers complaining about things in the engine that weren’t ready for ‘prime-time’. Even compared to games released concurrently, DAO’s graphics were a bit dated.
For the worldbuilding, they had an internal wiki and they kept everything on there. They ended up with a lot of legacy documentation on there very quickly. Eventually they solved this by hiring an editor whose sole job it was to wrangle the documentation. DG started work on the setting in the same manner in which he’d embark on starting a homebrew - ‘so like, first, here’s a map, oh, I like this name, vague ideas, a paragraph on each major nation, a rough timeline of the history, expanding, and it just growing from there’. After about six months, they brought on other writers, and by then he had around 50 pages of documentation. This 50 pages was a minute amount compared to the amount they had generated at the time of release. Originally, they weren’t sure where in the world specifically the story would take place, so DG made sure to seed potential and brewing conflicts throughout Thedas. They settled quite quickly on the new Blight starting in Ferelden. Once they established that, the writers went to town on taking Ferelden specifically and blowing it up detail-wise. Jennifer Hepler was in charge of the dwarves and Orzammar. Mary Kirby was on Fereldan customs and traditions.
The first version of the setting was more grounded in realism, almost like a post-fantasy. The dragons and griffons were extinct and a lot of the things that were thought to be fantastical were thought to be over with. During development, they started clawing these things back. They brought back dragons because the game was named Dragon Age (lol). DG was approached like, “Hey, we named the game DA, can you bring back dragons and weave them into the story more powerfully?” Wynne’s writer Sheryl Chee had a bit of an obsession with griffons and was often like ‘omg, griffons :D’, and this is the origin of Wynne’s dialogue with the Warden about griffons.
KotOR was the first time BW had tried to do a game that was fully voiced-over. For KotOR, BW sent the work of casting, direction and so on down to another studio in California called Technicolor. BW had little say in the process then and when they got it back, “it was what it was”. By the time they got to DA and the first ME, BW had a good system down for recording and VO had become an important thing in games at the time. BW are really one of the premieres for this, a lot of actors really like acting on BW games as they get a lot of space to act where they wouldn’t normally be able to do so otherwise. DG has learned a lot from Caroline Livingstone on how to encourage the best performance out of an actor. For DAO, DG worked together with the various lead designers and Caroline to decide on the auditions, casting etc. This was one of DG’s favorite things to do.
Gideon Emery as Fenris, GDL as Solas and Eve Myles as Merrill were times where DG had written the character and then went to Caroline and said “I have an actor in mind for them, can you check it out?” These were specific times where he was able to secure the actor he wanted. This didn’t always work out, for example there are times when actors aren’t interested or have no time due to scheduling conflicts or were too expensive etc. Eve and GDL were DG’s roommate Cori’s idea. Cori was a big fan of Torchwood/the actors from Torchwood, and worked as an editor at BW for a long time. Gideon was DG’s idea after playing FF12. For DAO, DG didn’t have any specific ideas in terms of actors. Casting Morrigan was the longest, most drawn out process.
The Circle went through a whooole process during worldbuilding. Initially, mages in the game weren’t supposed to have any “fighting magic”. The restrictions were originally such that in the lore, they didn’t teach mages that. Mages weren’t taught any magic that could kill people, only ‘indirect’ forms of magic that could support others. However, [during what sounds like] playtesting it was asked “Why can’t I cast a fireball? I just want to cast a fireball”, so the writers had to go back and rework how magic in the lore worked completely.
Flemeth was originally going to be voiced by Shohreh Aghdashloo, and she was totally on-board, but unfortunately because of DAO’s development delays, she was unable to attend the new recording time as she had a conflict in her schedule (she was filming House of Sand and Fog). Shoreh was quite disappointed about this and her family had been so excited that she was going to be in a video game. When the movie was finished, Shoreh came back to BW and let them know that she was still available, and this is how she ended up in ME2. For a while they were trying to find an actress with an accent that authentically mirrored Shoreh’s. Out of the blue around this time, Claudia Black’s agent sent BW an audition tape of her. At the time Claudia hadn’t done any games but wanted to get into it. The tape was of Claudia doing a beat poet rendition of Baby Got Back. DG still has this tape. DG was a big fan of Farscape and on listening to the tape, it clicked right away in his head that Claudia would be perfect for Morrigan.
The Fade ended up being a big irritation for the writers. They wanted the PC to be able to assume different forms and such while in there. A lot of this stuff proved too difficult for the combat designers to work out, and so it ended up getting changed a lot. They had a hard time coming up with gameplay that could work in the Fade. The mage Origin is DG’s least favorite of the Origin stories, as he’s really dubious about the Fade section in it. It didn’t work out like how they had pictured it in their heads. By the time they got to DAI, that’s when the Fade really looks like how the writers first described/envisioned it. By this point the artists were more keen to give it a more specific feel. DAO was made at a time when ‘brown is realistic’ was a prevailing thing in games dev.
The experience of a mage in the world isn’t represented or conveyed very well to the player when the player is a mage. The experience of the player when they’re playing a mage or have a mage in their party doesn’t really match up with how the world lore tells them how dangerous mages can be - for example, how they can lose control and so on, we never really have an example of a PC mage struggling with being taken over by a demon. This was originally supposed to be a subplot in DA2 for mage Hawkes, in one of the last cuts. In Act 2, mage Hawke was originally slowly being tricked by a demon in their head that they thought was real, only to realize at the last minute. Mouse the Pride demon in the mage Origin is the only time in the entire series that they really ever properly demonstrated how demons can fuck with [PC] mages. Also, PC templars were originally supposed to have a permanent lyrium addiction that they needed to ‘feed’, but this was scrapped as the system designers weren’t keen on it and felt that it was essentially handicapping the player.
Mages were originally also not supposed to be able to deal with pure lyrium (it would ‘overload’ them). There is a plot where mage PCs run around touching lyrium nodes to refill their mana bars. On this DG was like “Wtf is this?” The designers said that it works, and DG said “but it flies in the face of the lore”. This instance is an example of how the DA team was working where the various departments (writers, artists, designers etc) all had their own ideas about how the game and its world would work and never overrode each other (see above). DG feels that DAO is a little contradictory in that way. It’s only after the game came out that a lot of the people on the team really “bought into” what they’d put forward. This got easier as they went on, with people involved buying then into the things that make Dragon Age, Dragon Age. At one point, not everyone on the team was even aware of those things.
DG relates that originally, they would ask the artists, “Ok, can we get a village?” and said village once created would be quite generic and non-specific to DA. The writers would try to relate how things are in the DA world and list things that would be found in a village like this specific to the DA world, and the artists either didn’t read it or had their own ideas (DG isn’t sure which), and nobody was around to tell them not to do that and that they should do it differently. Everyone having their own ideas like this is why we ended up getting something that is this sort of “cobbled together half-Conan half-LotR mish-mash”, and after a while this sort of became DA’s “thing”.
Initially, BW had concepts drawn up for a lot more different creatures. After they went in circles for those years and consequently ran out of time to do all the models, they had to cut these concepts down more and more. Demons were among the ones that were the first to go (this is why we have situations like a bereskarn as the Sloth Demon in the mage Origin). The original concepts for things like spirits of Valor and Sloth demons were really good. Early on, JO made a list of D&D creatures that he liked. He picked the ones that they were thinking of doing, sent them to DG and said to make a “DA version of this”. For example, D&D succubi essentially became Desire Demons. Desire Demons were originally patterned off Sandman, neither male nor female yet really alluring, acting more like a genie and trying to ferret out mortals’ inner desires (which are not necessarily sexual in nature), without being overtly sexual. The artists’ version came back and that was basically the model seen in-game. The writers were like “What is this, this is nothing like the description?” and the artists responded that on the list from JO, it was included, in that you had to click on “succubus” to get to the Desire Demon description, so they had just read “succubus” and done their version of a succubus. The artists did loads of great work, but this was one of the instances were DG was like “???” By then, it was too late to change it. The writers were able to encourage them to make Desire Demons a little more fearsome, so that made it in at least.
The mage Origin was one of the more contentious Origin stories. It had like 4 different versions written of it over time. It was often the case that BW would hire someone, and writing an Origin story was their first test. Three different writers came in and wrote a version of the mage Origin and those versions just didn’t work. Finally they passed it to Sheryl Chee and she wrote it. The Origins were the parts of the game in general that were written/rewritten the most often. There were several others that got written that they discarded.
Duncan was slated for death from Day 1. When DG writes a story, the thing he does first is pick out the big emotional beats that he wants, such as deaths. He decides these ahead of time and the stuff in-between comes later and is more often changed. Oghren was also originally supposed to die, but this ended up getting cut. DG related a story of how Oghren came to be: At the time, there was a phase JO went through when he thought everything had a formula that it could be done by. One of these ‘creative forumulas’ was that all such IPs had a two-word name that they’re known by, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Dragonlance (being Dragon-Lance). This is how ‘DA’ and ‘ME’ came to be. One of the formulas he wanted to implement was how to distill the ‘comedy character’, like Minsc or HK-47. These characters were very popular with the fans and JO was certain that there was a way to figure this out to create one for DA. At the time, DG argued with him a lot about this. JO insisted it could be done. DG was originally supposed to write this character but ended up not doing so. JO came up with a list of comedic archetypes and had DG write a blurb about what kind of character each could be. These were then sent out to the team who voted on which was their favorite. This process eventually resulted in an archetype basically called ‘The Buffoon’ (think Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin, the kind of guy people laugh at because he’s such an oaf).
At this point ‘The Buffoon’ wasn’t named or made a dwarf yet. JO came to DG to write him, but DG said there was a problem which is that he hates this archetype. Homer and Peter are characters that he despises. DG is a professional writer, but this was comedy (outside of his areas of strength), and he felt the best he would be able to do is write a character who makes fun of this archetype and lampshade that. Comedy is something that has to come from within the writer. Oghren was given to someone else, and he ended up getting rewritten again anyway. By the time they were working on Awakening, DAO had not yet come out, and the assumption prior to the game going out was that Oghren was still going to be the most popular character from among the followers. The comedic character that ended up being the most popular along these lines was Alistair, which was interesting as he wasn’t intended as a comedic character, “so shows what we know”. DG was dubious that Oghren was going to be popular, because “he was kind of pathetic, honestly”, but that was the thinking at the time. Thinking he would be well-loved is why he was in Awakening.
On Alistair, any character DG writes is going to be sarcastic. At the time DG had made it a sort of personal challenge to recreate Joss Whedon’s dialogue patterns in his characters. Alistair was a sort of mish-mash of Xander from Buffy and maybe Mal from Firefly. DG wanted to see if he could do it, so Alistair was kind of quippy and self-deprecating. DG never really considered this to be Alistair’s main personality feature, but when other writers wrote him, they often had him doing this, as they liked the trait so much, and so this is how Alistair ended up as he did.
On dwarves, the dwarves being cut off from the Fade is very much baked into who the dwarves are as a race. There’s a specific reason why. This has been hinted at so far and it’s likely to come up in the future. DG had various ideas for some things that he wanted to include with the races or the way the world works etc. Some of them ended up never happening or some are mentioned only as part of the lore (templar lyrium addiction never coming up in gameplay is an example of this). Dwarven history and the nature of the dwarves is one of the things that survived pretty well though. DG calls Jennifer Hepler “mistress of the dwarves” and says that she did a really detailed, amazing breakdown of their history. After Jennifer left it was Mary Kirby, and DG feels that they did a good job of maintaining how dwarves were, in terms of both how they’re often presented in fantasy and yet also quite different in DA. Orzammar is one of DG’s favorite plots all together. You can really tell that Jennifer Hepler really enjoyed the dwarves and brought a lot of love to that plot.
DG draws a distinction between DA fans and the unpleasant people who harassed Jennifer Hepler.
They managed to keep the Tranquil in. There was a while there where they were going to be cut. At the same time, DG regrets that they couldn’t solve the making of the player more aware of how mages are dangerous, thing. Players could make a cogent argument like “they’re not that dangerous, look at me [mage PC]” and the writers were like “well... yeah, that is fair”. It was a case of showing one thing and the player experience of it being another. DG feels that this made the templars come off worse than they are. DG feels that they are being massively unfair and too extreme in their approach to the problem, but the problem itself is a real thing. He feels that there’s some merit/truth in the argument that mages are oppressed, but he looks at it more like an issue like gun control rather than as treatment of oppressed people, saying that we don’t have an example in real life of oppressed people who can explode into demons and cast fireballs and so on.
There are some funny pronunciations that worked their way into DA, and the reason for a lot of them is as follows: the writers had to create a pronunciation guide for VO, because otherwise you end up with a lot of inconsistencies. (Some did still slip through). The guide was online, and if you clicked on a word, an audio file for it would play. Jennifer Hepler was in charge of this and did a great job, but has a really strong NY accent, and in some cases the ‘NY-ness’ of her pronunciation endearingly worked itself into things (the way Arlathan is sometimes said is an example of where this happened sometimes).
Sometimes the writers trying to communicate the “hotness” of a character to the artists didn’t go smoothly. The writers would sometimes say things like, ok, this character is a romance, they need to be hot, and the designs would come back looking “like Burt Reynolds”, and the writers would be like “???” And then a character that wasn’t particularly intended to be hot, as in that wasn’t mentioned at all in the descriptions of them, would come back “accidentally hot”, and the writers would be like “Why couldn’t you have done this when we were asking for a character that was meant to be hot”, and the artists would be like “What?? He’s not hot”. And this became a thing (lmao - this discussion was prompted by DG being asked “Was Duncan meant to be that hot?”, for context). Some of the artists were so paranoid about their [in]ability to judge actually-hot characters that when it was time to pick an appearance, like for Alistair, they gathered up all the women at BioWare, and DG (“resident gay”) into a room to show them an array of faces and bodies like “Is this hot? Is this hot?” DG and co would sit there like, “How can you not tell? Is this a straight man thing?!” Anyways, this is why oftentimes we ended up with characters who are accidentally hot.
Over time, the writers realized that the way they communicated to artists needed to be managed better. The words they would use would have different connotations to them the writers, than what they did to the artists. For example, for Anders’ design in DA2, he was supposed to be “a little haggard”. When DG thinks of haggard, he thinks ‘a little tired, mussed hair, looking like you’ve been through some shit’. But the artists based on that produced concepts with super sunken cheeks, looking like he’d been terribly starved. The writers needed to develop a specific vocabulary for communicating with the artists, as artists think in terms of how something looks, but writers are thinking in terms of what the character “is”. Anders’ description talked about his history a lot, and the one visual-type word that jumped out was “haggard” due to its visual connotations. “A lot it came down to the writers being up their/our own asses.”
When they got to DAI, they had figured out that the way to get best results on this front was /not/ to have the writer go off and develop a long description and pre-conceived notion of what the character looked like in their head. In such scenarios artists don’t feel that they have much to contribute to the process or an ability to put their own stamp on who this character is and make them interesting to them (the best, most interesting characters are when people at all stages of the pipeline properly get to feed into it). They learned that the better solution was to bring the artists in earlier, and to give them little blurbs, and not name the character but give them an ‘archetype’-sort of ‘name’. For example, Dorian was “the rockstar mage”, “cool”, “Freddie Mercury”. The writers wouldn’t be sure that a particular concept would ‘hit’, so at this stage they would offer an array of options and sit the artist down and walk them through the concepts. The artists would then provide a bunch of sketches and it would go back and forth, with both taking part in the character creation process together. For the first two games, the writers were “really hogging” this process to themselves. They got better at not doing this and better at communicating with the artists by DAI.
There were a lot of arguments about how mages in DAO had a lot of specific lore words like “Harrowing”, “phylactery”, “Rite of Tranquility” etc. There was concern that this would be too confusing for players to understand and that it was too complicated. DG says that thankfully he put his foot down and pushed for this stuff to be kept. A lot of fans assume that as lead writer DG had all this influence, way more influence than he could possibly exert on a team. He wasn’t even a lead, he was a sub-lead, under a lead designer. He only had so much say. If the lead designer or lead artist wanted to do something differently, often there was not much he could do. Hence he had to pick his battles carefully, choose the important ones to fight. The mage vocabulary thing was one of these.
Templar Greagoir’s name is pronounced “Gregor” and it comes from a place in Alberta near where DG lived.
Codex entries are usually one of the last things that get done in a project like this, and so all of that kind of textual lore comes in super late and is super punchy as by then the writers have written so much and are exhausted. They had to find a way to make this process cute or interesting or fun for themselves, which is why a lot of entries are quite fun to read. Sometimes a writer would make a joke for banter [irl], and it would end up making it into an entry.
Only Morrigan and Duncan got unique body models in DAO. The companions all have custom-morphed heads but not custom-morphed bodies (Morrigan not included here). This is why every model has a necklace or a collar right at the point where they had to be attached to be a body. These sometimes used assets that couldn’t be used by the PC but were not unique to that character. Duncan probably got a unique model because he was in a lot of marketing/promotional material. Qunari were originally conceived as having horns.
Most people didn’t even finish DAO once (public telemetry again here), only approximately 20-25% actually did. The devs try not to read too much into this kind of thing, but the telemetry does tell them where a lot of people stop playing the game permanently (they call these “drop-off points”). One of these points in DAO is the Fade during Broken Circle. Sometimes when people interpret this data they involve self-serving biases, but it was generally accepted that the Fade there was too long, too complex, not interesting enough, etc. [source]
[Part 2]
[Part 3]
[Part 4]
[Part 5]
[Part 6]
[‘Insights into DA dev from the Gamers For Groceries stream’ transcript]
#dragon age#bioware#morrigan#solas#video games#queen of my heart#mass effect#lgbtq#jade empire#fenris#the Fenaissance#alistair theirin#lul#fav warden
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gruvia drabble
author’s note: ok. hi. here we are again. i go on a 1948392 year hiatus and then become inspired to write something from the most RANDOM thing. but this was too good to pass up. so essentially i saw a headcannon by @incorrect-ft-ez-quotes and then @bbygirljuvi added onto it:) look at my most recent reblog for reference if u want hehehe. yeah ok maybe i did add some bs healing abilities to juvia’s powers... sue me! ok here we gooooo i hope u cuties enjoy!!!
*
“Popsicle,” Natsu sighed. “What the hell are you doin’ back here?” He held his door in one hand as he stared at a recently familiar face.
“What, a guy can’t stop by and visit his best friend?” Gray nervously chuckled.
Happy and Natsu weren’t buying it, exchanging suspicious looks as Gray impatiently stood at the door frame.
“Best friend?” Natsu rose an eyebrow.
“And for the 4th day in a row?” Happy jabbed, hovering beside Natsu’s head
“Would ya’ just let me in?” Gray spat out, clearly looking jittery.
“Fine.” Natsu groaned, stepping aside so Gray could step in.
“But we’re gonna’ start charging rent!” Happy exclaimed.
“Whatever, I don’t care, just as long as I can hang out here for a little while.” Gray hustled in, plopping himself onto Natsu’s worn down couch.
“Ok, you can stay here on one condition, tell me what it is you’re freaking out about. And gimme’ the real reason you’ve been comin’ here.” Natsu folded his arms.
“Aye!” Happy mimicked Natsu, crossing his little paws.
Gray let out a groan, bowing his head between his legs before whipping his head back up. “It’s Juvia, ok!?”
“Juvia?” Happy asked.
“But, you haven’t tried avoiding her in forever. You guys have been all buddy-buddy lately.” Natsu was trying to piece this all together in his head.
Gray blushed, averting his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I guess you could say that.”
“So what’s the deal?” Natsu was doing his best to get straight to the point, as nuance was not his strong suit.
“W-well... we... kind of... sort of...” Gray scratched at the back of his head, searching for the gall to say it. “We got drunk the other night at the guild, and then I went to walk her home since she was pretty wasted, and...one thing lead to another and... we almost kissed.”
Natsu was as confused as ever. “So?”
“So?!”
“Well, don’t ya’ like her?”
“W-well-!” Gray stammered, and gave out a defeated sigh, bowing his head again. “Yeah.” He mumbled to the point that Natsu or Happy could barely hear him.
“So then why don’t you wanna’ smooch her?” Happy was almost as dense as Natsu.
“Gah! You guys don’t get it!” Gray sprung up. “Forget it. I’m gonna’ find a new hiding spot. Preferably, one that asks less questions.”
Just as Gray made his way to Natsu’s front door, there was a sudden knock. Gray froze in his tracks as a chill went up his spine. He had a knack for this sort of thing, knowing when Juvia’s around, and that chill only ever meant one thing.
“Shit.”
Gray needed an escape route, but his head wasn’t on straight. He frantically scoured the little house, looking from wall to wall, but there was only one door, and Gray was just feet away from it.
“Natsu, whatever you do, don’t-“
“Be there in a sec’!” Natsu shouted at the door.
“You idiot!” Gray whisper yelled.
Natsu opened the door to none other than Juvia. She was known for her expressive nature. The look on her face could tell you anything you want to know, without her having to say a word.
“Hi, Natsu-san.” Juvia said both frantically and nervously. “Juvia was just wondering if Gray-sama was here.” She held her hands together promptly, hoping that he would be there.
“Actually Gray-“ Natsu was cut off at the sound of shattering glass. He instinctively spun around to a disastrous scene, displaying a broken window, shards of glass everywhere, and no Gray to be found. “Just left.” Natsu finished the thought differently than he originally intended.
Juvia heard the shattering too, and she had her answer. Her Gray-dar never failed her. Using her Gray-dar she quickly scurried to the back of the house, crossing her fingers that Gray hadn’t gotten away yet. The first thing she heard was a hiss of pain, and as she turned the corner, there sat her Gray in the ground, holding his bloody knee.
“Son of a bitch!” Gray yelled in pain, applying more pressure to his cut knee. Sure, he was used to getting beaten to a pulp in a fight, but he wasn’t exactly expecting a busted up knee right about now.
“Gray-sama!” Juvia’s eyes widened at the blood, and she hurried to his side.
Gray finally realized her presence. He stopped writhing in pain for a moment, and tried to appear as casual as usual. “Oh...” He forced a laugh. “Hey Juvia. what are you doin’ here?”
“Juvia should be asking you the same thing.” She knelt by Gray’s side. “But first, let Juvia help.”
“I’m fine.”
“Let Juvia see it, Gray-sama.”
He sighed, giving in and releasing his hold. Juvia quickly took her hands and placed them on Gray’s knee. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and suddenly her hands became water, but it wasn’t normal water. It was soothing, and it was making the stinging in Gray’s knee go away.
“Juvia has been working on some healing techniques. It’s nothing like Wendy, but I can heal some minor, surface-level things.” She explained, using her water hands to massage the area.
“Now that Juvia has finally caught you, why have you been avoiding me?” She finally looked at Gray who blushed at the sudden eye contact.
“I haven’t.” Gray tried to sound as natural as possible.
All Juvia had to do was give him a look that practically screamed “oh, please.” before he cracked. “Ok, fine. I’ve been avoiding you.”
“Juvia knows!” She exclaimed.
“I just don’t want things to be awkward between us!” He explained.
“But you don’t think avoiding me for days would make it awkward?” Juvia finally finished his knee and reverted her hands back to normal.
Gray groaned. “You’re right.” He ran his hand through his hair, trying to hide his face.
“Is this about... the other night?” Juvia finally asked.
“Do ya’ really have to even ask?” Gray avoided eye contact.
“But Juvia thought the night went well! I had a lot of fun!”
“So did I! Until...” He cut himself off.
“Until we almost kissed?” Juvia finished it for him.
“Yeah.”
“I see.” Juvia paused. “Are Juvia’s lips chapped?”
“Huh?” He finally peaked up at her.
“Or did Juvia have something in her teeth maybe?” She was going into panic mode.
“No that’s not-“
Juvia cut him off with as gasp, and her hands slapped against her mouth. “Or does Juvia’s breath stink?! Is that it?!”
“Would you knock it off!” Gray finally stopped her. “It doesn’t have to do with any of that stuff.
“Oh.” Juvia sunk. “So Gray-sama just does not want to kiss Juvia then.”
“No!” He instantly cut off that thought, even though he was embarrassed by how eager he sounded. “Not that either.” He grumbled.
“Then..?”
“We were drunk. Yes, we were having fun and all, but, I dunno’.” Gray grumbled, looking for the right words. “We haven’t had our first kiss yet. So when we do, I want it to be... kinda’... special. I guess. In a way.” Gray finished with some filler words to try and take the heat away from his face, but it was no use.
“S-s-special?! Gray-sama wants our kiss to be special?!” Juvia lit up, almost freezing in time waiting for someone to pinch her, because she figured this had to be a dream. However, she still was a bit lost, so she put a pause on her momentary fantasy. “Wait, so then why have you been avoiding me?”
“Because I didn’t know how to tell you all that. I was trying to buy some time until I could figure out what to say.” Gray released a deep exhale. “But I guess I’ve said it all now.”
“You sure have.” Juvia said giddily right before she launched herself at Gray, tightly clutching Gray’s shoulders in her arms as her cheek was pressed up firmly against his.
“Gah!” Gray shouted in surprise, trying to keep his balance as Juvia leeched onto him. They were still sitting, but she almost knocked him flat on his back.
“But you know what, Gray-sama?” Juvia broke her clutch, making sure she was looking right at Gray.
“What?” He looked down at her curiously.
“Juvia thinks every moment with Gray-sama is special. So to Juvia, any time is perfect for a first kiss.” She smiled so sweetly is made Gray’s heart just about burst.
“Yeah?” Gray felt the corner of his mouth tug up.
“Yep.” She nodded in assurance.
“If you say so.”
And without a second thought, Gray closed the gap between them, planting a sweet and soft kiss on Juvia’s lips. As they parted, they leaned in and pressed their foreheads against each other, both wearing matching grins.
“That looked pretty special from in here!” Happy interjected from inside the house, followed by Natsu’s laughter.
Gray and Juvia jumped, startled by the sudden noise. “Happy, shut it!” Gray turned his head, looking through what used to be a window, and seeing Natsu and Happy standing in their living room.
“Maybe we wouldn’t be able to hear you two slobbering on each other if there was a window here!” Natsu yelled, referring to the gaping hole in the middle of his wall.
“We were not slobbering, you moron!” Gray blushed furiously, finally standing up and facing Natsu.
“That’s what it looked like to me!” Natsu teased back, wearing a devious smile.
“Aye!” Happy seconded.
“Mind your business, flame-for-brains!”
“Next time you need to hide out for a week, you ain’t comin’ here!” Natsu shouted.
“Fine by me.” Gray scoffed.
He then looked back at Juvia as she appeared a little on edge, wondering if she was going to have to break up a fight between Gray and Natsu.
He grinned once again, at the girl he couldn’t wait to spend more special time with, making more memories, and growing even closer
He reached for Juvia’s hand and squeezed it. “I was gettin’ tired of running away anyway.”
#gruvia#doyouevenshipbr0#fairy tail#gruvia fanfic#gruvia fanfcition#gruvia drabble#fairy tail 100 yq#ft 100yq#anime#manga#gray x juvia#juvia x gray#juvia lockser
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A long ass post in which I think too hard about future ACOTAR couples.
After lurking at the ACOTAR tag, I saw a lot of great theories and analysis that try to predict the trajectory of the spin-off trilogy. I’ve decided to write my own take on the subject (probably to my own detriment - involving myself in another ship war wasn’t on my bucket list this year, but here I am). I was thinking about what the potential future couples of the story might be, but through the lense of the plot - which couples make the most sense plot wise, which couple have the most potential to drive the plot toward. Here are my thoughts on the matter.
Before I start I will make a couple of disclaimers: 1) I obviously have my ship preferences, and it just so happens that the ships I like the most are the ones that according to me make the most sense narratively. That being said I’m not trying to be malicious or rude about all other ship possibilities - I actually like some of them quite a bit too. 2) I let the books speak for themselves. I do not invoke any paratextual information regarding those books: no SJM interviews or online posts. This analysis is based on what, imo, can be logically inferred from the text. 3) Of course there will be spoilers.
If that’s clear we shall being:
In my analysis I focus on the plot and which couples ensure the smoothest and most logical progression of it. Because of that I do not focus on the foreshadowing SJM included in the previous ACOTAR novel: I don’t quote anything, nor do I talk about previous interactions of those couples. In this analysis, I’m interested in the bigger picture so-to-speak. So first we need to establish what that bigger picture is.
Those books are meant to be standalone fantasy-romance novels with an overarching plotline that will reach its climax in the third book (since it's a trilogy). Each book will feature a different couple which apart from falling in love will lead the story to its next stage. What it means for the story is that the couples that we will be following are all heavily connected to the main story/conflict of those books. ACOSF established that story/conflict as stopping/defeating Koshei. I would argue that ACOSF also established Beron as a secondary antagonist as he is Koschei’s ally. With that in mind, the potential future couples all have to be connected in some way to those individuals.
We actually have a pretty small pool of characters to choose from. Since the story was pitched as SJM was writing ACOWAR, that book is where we can start our search for clues about which characters are going to be the future leads. I don’t want to use SJM interviews for information because things often change during the writing process, however, just in this instance I will note that recently SJM said that not much changed from that initial pitch so all foreshadowing in ACOWAR is still relevant. ACOWAR established 7 characters with potential future romances and storyline: Nesta, Cassian, Elain, Lucian, Azriel, Vassa and Mor.
Four of them are directly connected to Koshei or Beron: Nesta and Elain were made by The Cauldron gaining power that might potentially threaten Koschei and Beron. Elain is especially connected to Koschei - she’s a seer and had visions of him. Additionally, as far as we know she’s Lucian’s mate which makes her connected with Beron. Vassa was entrapped and cursed by Koshei and is currently trying to escape him. Lucian resides with Vassa at the moment, plus he is Beron's stepson.
Out of the 7 of the potential lead characters, two (Nesta and Cassian) already had their story told, which leaves as with 5 possibilities. Mor, unfortunately, also seems quite unlikely to have a book for herself in the near future because since ACOWAR no love interest for her was introduced and plot wise she also doesn't have a lot to do with Koshei. She has a connection to Eris (about whom I will talk about in a minute) and by proxy to Beron, but, again, there isn't a love interest for her in sight (I will talk about why Emerie doesn't seem like a possible candidate, at least not yet). With that we are left with Azriel, Lucien, Elain and Vassa. All of those characters have direct ties to Koshei and Beron with the exception of Azriel.
After ACOSF, three more characters caught people's attention as possible love interests too - Emrie for Mor, Gwyn for Azriel, and Eris for ...well for no one, at least for now.
Especially the Gwyn and Azriel ship gained a lot of traction among the fandom. I for one, don't mind them. I like the fanarts and the aesthetic but, logically, they together won't lead any of the two upcoming novels.
Gwyn, Emerie and Eris, are characters that were only just fleshed out on page in ACOSF, with Gwyn and Emrie being only just introduced to the story in ACOSF. Additionally, Gwyn and Emrie have nothing to do with Koschei and Beron so, unless they are paired up with one of the three remaining characters with those connections they won’t have their own books. Maybe, if SJM decided to continue the story beyond the spin-off trilogy, then we will get books with them as leads.
So, we are left with the above-mentioned quartet: Azriel, Lucien, Elain and Vassa.
So how do we couple those characters up?
Elain has two possible love interests - Azriel and Lucien. Technically, both ships work but if SJM goes with Elain and Lucian than their book would have to be the last, because that is where I imagine Koshei will be defeated. Also since Lucien is connected to Beron, I imagine he will be the one to strike him down for good, or at least have a huge rule in opposing him at the very end. If Elain and Lucien book will be the next one we are left with Vassa and Azriel to lead the last book, not together obviously. They would have to have different love interests - the last book would have to be either Vassa x someone (Jurian, probably) or Azriel x someone. To be honest, if the next book is Elain and Lucien that would mean Azriel isn’t getting a book because as I said Azriel x Gwyn makes little sense as the second novel in this trilogy and no sense as the third one because neither Az or Gwyn have connection to Koschei.
I strongly believe that the person who is most likely to deal with Koschei and the person who has the absolute right to defeat him is Vassa. She's the one who has been entrapped and cursed by him. Additionally it was her conversation with Feyre at the end of ACOWAR that was a giveaway as to what the spin-off trilogy is going to be plot wise. It also seems right up SJM alley to have her female protagonist defeat her abuser in a very poignant and satisfying way. I’m pretty sure that Vassa is going to be one of the leads of the future two books.
Lastly, I think we all can agree that at this point it's obvious that Azriel and Elain are two characters that SJM wants to write about and they will be main characters in the spin off novels, whether in the same book or not..
So to add all of this up we have two possible scenarios in fort of us:
1) The next book is going to be Elain and Lucien, and the last book is gonna be Vassa and someone (Jurian, Eris?, Azriel????). This scenario doesn't make much sense because: a) It would mean Azriel won't have a book (unless he's paired up with Vassa, which by now is not foreshadowed or hinted at at all). b) There's no clear love interest for Vassa, because Lucien would end up with Elain. Jurian is a possibility but he's, you know, Jurian. I don't think many people would want him as a MC. There's also Eris (bare with me here). Eris, technically, has a lot of the same plot connections that Lucian has (son of Beron, connected to the Night Court where most of our heros reside) + SJM clearly loves him. This couple is far fetched, obviously.
2) The most likely scenario, imo. The next book is Azriel and Elain - they have plenty of foreshadowing, Elain is connected to Koshei, the seer and the spy infiltrating Koshei/ Autumn Court (there’s plenty of possibilities as to how they together can be involved with the main conflict). The last book, Lucien x Vassa - the will defeat Beron, defeat Koschei, Lucian as the son of Helion the Spell-Cleaver will break Vassa's curse once and for all.
There's also other scenarios, however unlikely:
1) Gwyn and Azriel, Elain and Lucian (why yes: both Az and Elaine get books, why no: Vassa doesn't get a book which is unlikely cause she's the person most connected to Koschei, Gwyn has nothing to do with Koschei)
2) Mor and someone, Elain and Azrie or Elain and Lucian or Vassa and Lucian (why yes: we get a Mor book which is great, why no: Mor has nothing to do with Koschei, we don't have a clear love interest for Mor, Az or Elain, or Vassa are not going to get a book.)
To sum this all up. The characters that the fandom should keep an eye on are Elain, Azriel, Lucien and Vassa. The next books will be about them, and the most logical way to tell their stories is to couple Elain with Azriel and Lucian with Vassa. There is plenty of great analysis of the subtle and not so subtle way SJM is foreshadowing those couples since ACOWAR.
Of course I can be totally wrong with my predictions but judging by what's on the page I think I'm mostly right here. To be 100% sure we must simply wait
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What I Thought About "Echoes of the Past" from The Owl House
Salutations, random people on the internet who most certainly won’t read this. I am an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons.
What probably gets debated the most in the fandom is the legitimacy behind King being the King of Demons. Some believe that there's truth to his statement, while others, like me, like to think that he was just some stray Eda picked up off the streets. Either option seemed likely, especially since Season One never gave an answer that leaned one way or the other.
Then here comes the writers finally answering the question of who King is in episode THREE of Season Two! Because, again, they don't waste time on giving fans exactly what they want.
Fans wanted answers behind King, we got 'em, and analyzing what those answers mean requires going deep into spoilers. So if you haven't checked the episode out yet, I highly recommend that you do. Trust me, it's worth seeing.
Now let's review, shall we?
WHAT I LIKED
Luz Experimenting with Spells: Hey, look! More proof that Luz isn't an idiot like some people flanderize her to be!
But, seriously though, this is a perfect little thread to introduce into the story. Luz collecting knowledge from Lilith's old books and past work she and Eda made adds to Luz's intelligence while also providing a believable explanation for how she gets new spells. It's also nice to see that she has this little notebook (or spellbook) to help see what works and what doesn't. It's a level of experimentation that proves her dedication to becoming a witch while also exemplifying how she isn't stupid. Occasionally reckless, sure, but you can't say that the person who figured out an invisibility spell through showing her work is also an idiot.
Francios with a Knife: How did Francois get a knife? I don't know. But the fact that a random knife plopped out behind him with little to no explanation is funny, and I will not hear otherwise.
I don't make the rules. I just abide by them.
Luz’s Invisibility Spell: I breezed past this, but I honestly love this invisibility spell. More specifically, I love that there's a limiter. It can turn you, objects, and people you're in contact with invisible, but only as long as you can hold your breath. It helps make the spell something the characters can't always rely on, which is appreciated. Because if it works as long as they concentrate, what's stopping them from sneaking into Belos' castle and assassinating him in his sleep? It's a smart way of explaining why they can't always rely on something, despite how insanely useful it is.
Luz: Let's gush about Luz some more, shall we!
"Echoes of the Past" is another episode that has Luz on top form. She is constantly supportive of King, even if Lilith has a point in the dangers of indulging his fantasy as a powerful tyrant. Doing so would cause more harm than good, especially when King finds out Luz doesn't believe him, but her going along with it was all done with the best of intentions. Luz doesn't want to hurt her friend, and even if she did in the long run, she still makes up for it by helping King learn more about his past.
And, as another reminder, Luz isn't stupid. She's the first to say they should leave when it's clear how dangerous the castle is and is quick to figure out there should be more at the top. Luz is a loyal and caring friend who's also guarded and intuitive when the situation calls for it. This episode understood that, so here's hoping other fans will too.
Lilith: Yeah, she's still growing on me.
I feel like this episode shows a better idea of Lilith's place in the group more than the past two. She's a person who's obsessed with knowledge and learning but considers herself above the jovial nature of King, Luz, and definitely Eda. Therefore, she acts as the perfect catalyst for what jumpstarts this week's adventure. It doesn't surprise me in the slightest that she almost instantly dismisses King's claims due to considering herself more knowledgeable than everyone else. Still, I like how she's willing to believe King once she finally sees evidence that seemingly proves he really was the King of Demons, to the point of referring to him as "her lord." Hooty does the same thing, but it comes across as him fearing for his own life and choosing to be friends with someone who could maybe kill him in an instant. For Lilith, her newfound respect comes from the desire to learn more, and it's that desire that makes Lilith an enjoyable character to me. It's adorable to see, and it has some comedic flavor in moments like when she dismisses everyone else and their emotional revelations to take pictures of the carvings around her. I'm sure she'll cause some controversy like other characters with rushed reformations, but for me, I'm more than ok with her addition to the main cast.
More of Lilith’s and Hooty’s Friendship: HOW DOES THIS WORK!?
ON PAPER, IT SEEMS LIKE IT WOULD BE A BAD IDEA, BUT IT F**KING WORKS!
HOW?!
WHAT BLACK MAGIC DID THESE WRITERS USE TO MAKE A RELATIONSHIP SO UNEXPECTED COME ACROSS AS SO ENDEARING AND ADORABLE?!
And where can I get some for my stories...just asking.
But seriously: HOW?!
Hooty Making Himself Portable: Ah, yes. The classic bit where a character does something horrifically grotesque off-screen, and we have nothing but character reactions and sound effects to imagine what happened between shot A and shot B. It's an oldie, but given how hard I was laughing (mostly because of Luz's gagging), it's still a goodie.
Eda’s Portable Bathtub Boat Thing: I mean...I was expecting Eda would use something to catch up with the others, but...that thing...well...I mean, I'm still laughing just by thinking about it. That should tell you how well executed this joke was.
John Luke: ...I'm gonna go ahead and add him to the list because HOLY S**T was this guy disturbing! From his design to his movements to even the sounds he makes when moving, everything about John Luke screams as something that will stay in kids' nightmares for a while. Now, this might seem like a complaint, but to be honest, I'm more than alright with how creepy John Luke is. I highly doubt adult viewers will consider John Luke scary, but I guarantee he'll terrify some of the youngins that this series is aimed for. And that's fine. It's good to creep kids out a little bit with something somewhat scary, as it might introduce them to more good horror stories later in life.
Plus, the reveal that John Luke was only a guard for King is pretty solid narratively speaking. You can see how John never really meant to hurt King aside from one accident when Eda escaped with him. If you want to read into it, I guess it might be questionable to tell kids that something that looks dangerous is secretly nice, but that's really nitpicky, in my opinion. John Luke was a fantastic threat that is designed and animated well, with a solidly executed twist. Some might hate what he presents, most will fear him, but we can all agree on one thing: His theme is awesome (can I get the track for that, please)!
King’s Backstory: Finally, at long last, we know who King is, thus putting an end to a year-long debate. And I fully mean it when I say that the writers gave the best possible answer. Because in a way, everyone was right. Yes, King was just an animal that Eda decided to adopt, like the nature-loving hippie she is inside (She's got the hair for it). However, while he may not be the King of Demons himself, he is still the son of someone who deserves that title. So while he isn't the King, there's a chance he might be the Prince. Once again, there's no direct answer, but given how the writers came up with something that pleases everyone while still providing more questions for debate, it acts as a brilliant move, in my opinion. So whatever answer we get next, I'm sure it will be just as perfect.
Baby King:
My heart was not prepared for that level of cuteness!
King’s Breakdown: NOR WAS IT READY FOR THIS LEVEL OF SADNESS!
But in all seriousness, a HUGE round of applause to Alex Hirsch for his performance in this episode. He expertly captured the raw emotions of shock, anger, betrayal, and sadness that King must have felt when finding out that everything he believed he was is a lie. It's one of those moments where I don't hear a person voicing lines in a booth (or wherever the hell VAs are voicing characters nowadays), but instead hear a living person being emotionally torn apart. It was heartbreaking seeing King so vulnerable as he's so guarded with his emotions. Seeing him like this adds so much more layers to a character that many would mistake him as a cute, comedic animal sidekick. But just like with Luz, there's more to him than people will tell you.
“I don’t even know what’s real or fake anymore!”: I'm just pointing out this line because I believe it's what convinces Luz to help King learn more about who he is. Hell, not knowing what's real or fake is the main reason why Luz got sent away in the first place, so I feel like she can relate to King when he's in a similar predicament.
Hooty and Lilith vs John Luke: This was just a cool scene with some epic moments of dodging John Luke's attacks and some funny ones, like how Hooty said the word "pain." It's a ten out of ten that I would rewind to watch again.
King’s Other Horn: I'd question the logistics of how a horn that got broken off when he was a baby still manages to fit perfectly in the present...but it is neat symbolism of King accepting his past and letting it be a part of him, so who cares?
(The fact that the colors of the broken-off piece don't match the rest of the horn is nice attention to detail as well.)
WHAT I DISLIKED
It's a Little Too Predictable: I pretty much figured almost every little twist the episode offers. But, I'm willing to say that's because I'm in my twenties, and I've seen enough stories similar to this one, so I'm more likely to know what will happen. The little monsters watching this will see it for the first time, so they'll most likely get more surprised than me...And that was my only complaint about the episode...which is more of a personal problem than an actual issue...I guess that means it's perfect.
IN CONCLUSION
"Echoes of the Past" is an easy A+ in my book. It gives lore and backstory that furtherly develops the characters that episodes like this should. It also tells a tragic story about King that still sprinkles in a few good jokes every now and again to lighten up the mood. Sure, there are some nitpicks I could mention (how did King remember his own birth?). But when the good stuff is done so well, what's the point of dwelling on small, insignificant issues? This is still a phenomenal episode that flew past all expectations I had for it, and it continues the winning steak this season is having so far.
(But that's still three home runs in a row. Meaning that a stinker is coming. Ooiee, is it coming!)
#the owl house#the owl house season 2#king of demons#luz noceda#lilith clawthorne#toh hooty#the owl house reviews#what i thought about
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