#I offer the same caveat I did way back then

[longlivetv]

Cleaning out my phone during a teams based training and god I’m nostalgic for when everyone was complaining about this

[mxtantrights]

Can you write a Jason Todd x reader where they knew each other before he dies but then they reunite. Maybe they were robins at the same time. Y/n has element powers and their eyes change colors based on element currently using. They are afraid of having too much power. Established relationship please!!! I cannot handle slowburns

Broken Bird comes home

the night Jason died was the worst night of your life. The worst. No other night compares to it. Not the night after you spend in the fetal position and crying. Or the night after the funeral where there was no body. Or the night on the first anniversary of his death.

Night time is the worst for you. You just remember getting the calls from Bruce and your whole world shattering. Jason was more than your friend. He was your first crush, your first kiss, first relationship.

He used to do this thing when you two would hold hands on patrol. Your gloves covered your wrists so he would sneak his thumb inside of the leather and rub the inside of your wrist. Something about wanting to feel your pulse.

You had stopped being Robin about three months before you found out Jason died. You never really felt like you could be as good as Dick. And Jason was the only reason you stayed on as long as you did. But even that had it's caveats.

Bruce relied on you and your patience and understanding way more and tried to get Jason to model himself after you. Even though you tried to be more like him, less rule following and more march to your own beat and ask for forgiveness later.

But sometimes the two of them would put you in the middle of their endless tiffs. It drove you up the wall. And one night you just decided right then and there to stop being a Robin.

It's not until after the first year past Jason's death that you decide to go back on the streets to fight crime again. This time it's very different. You don't have anyone to answer to but yourself. And you have no one to look up to anymore.

You don't pull your punches. You don't think in black and white anymore. Everything is gray. And you operate in the areas that used to scare you.

It isn't long before Bruce reaches out, because he's been keeping tabs on you. He asks if you're sure about what you're doing. And he tells you that you're always welcome to come back, as yourself not as a Robin.

You respectfully decline his offer. You hated him the first eight or nine months after Jason's death. You hated how he wasn't there. You hated how that clown just walked free and continued terrorizing the citizens of Gotham.

You actually got to run into him once. Tracked him down, got him all by himself. And delivered a beating that brought him so close to the pits of hell that even you got scared. Bruce showed up then, told you it wasn't right. That you couldn't take justice into your own hands like that.

His words had no affect on you. You hated him for letting the clown go free like that. And you hated that he had a new Robin already.

It's probably not until the third year that you find your footing. You know how to operate as a vigilante. You don't get too mad when you see the new Robin anymore. And you talk to Bruce to check in and still decline his off to join his team.

In those two years you get better at controlling your powers. Yo hardly used them when you were Robin. And after Jason's death you over used them, packing a few punches that moved tectonic plates underneath your feet. This was a balanced way of using your powers. You were coming to understand them.

And then your world shatters again.

One night while on patrol, you notice your being followed. So you take a few turns to lose them. But they're pretty good. So you decide to corner them into an alley way. One where you can confront them.

In the dark you corner your tail. He stands a foot taller than you. All that you can really make out is that red helmet of his. Nothing else tells you about him. He's even using a voice modulator.

You ask him why he's following you. He doesn't answer. You tell him to back off. He doesn't answer. You, at your wits end, run ups o him and are about to deck him when he grabs a hold of your wrist.

You try to pull back but he holds you. It's not that tight. He's not hurting you, you realize. He's just holding you. When you look down at your wrist, you realize that he's touching you right where Jason did.

You wrench your wrist away from him and take a step back. You're about to haul off a bunch of curses at him when he starts speaking to you.

"You're pulse." he says.

Your spine goes straight at that. Jason used to say that, why is this guy saying that to you? You moves to take another step back but you don't. You look right at him.

"Jason?" you ask.

The man starts moving at light speed. All at once the helmet it coming off. You see a tuft of white hair amongst the black. And then he takes off his domino mask. You see it in his eyes. It's Jason, it's your Jason, but it's not.

"How is this possible?" you ask yourself, taking a few steps forward.

When the tip of your shoes meet his boots, and he doesn't move, you take it as a sign that he's okay with you being this close. You hesitantly reach up towards his face but you take your hand back. You don't notice the storm clouds you're forming. Not until the rain starts coming down.

"It's me." he says.

You can't help the tears that come out of your eyes. Or how you start sobbing uncontrollably. Jason wraps you up in his arms. You feel your whole body start to go slack in disbelief. He's real. He's alive, he's here.

"I'm sorry I made you wait." he says.

You wrap your arms around him tightly now, "You're back. You're really back."

You pull back from him a bit, he looks down at you. You can read the worry in his eyes. You reach up and cup his face. He lets out a strangled breath.

"I missed you so much."

a/n: I had to stop myself before it came a behemoth and I dragged you on for a slow burn. this was really fun to write. Especially the elemental part! thanks for sending this in !! <3333

[finnlongman]

Do you have to get a master’s degree or a PhD to publish research? Or work at a university? I don’t currently plan to go into academia but I really enjoy doing research, is it possible to do that as a hobby/side job? (Specifically asking in relation to literature, obviously research in things like the natural sciences requires the extra training and lab access by default)

An important note to start with: basically nobody is getting paid for academic publishing. Especially not for articles. They write them for free, they're peer-reviewed for free, they're edited for free. The only people making money are usually the big corporate owners of journals, if it is a big corporate journal and not one of the small independent ones. It's all a huge scam, obviously, but the idea is that people who have an academic job will be publishing the research produced in the course of that job, and thus they are already being paid for doing the research. In an age of precarious employment, it doesn't really work like that, but that's the idea.

That means you can't really do it as a side job, because there isn't any money in it. Doing it as a hobby, on the other hand, is theoretically possible, although I'd have some major caveats to offer:

On the publishing side, I can only speak for my particular field of medieval Celtic Studies, which is weird and old-fashioned and works on arcane and unknowable systems that deeply confuse anyone in a field advanced enough to have heard of "digital submissions" and "online journals". One of our major journals is literally run by one guy who requires you to do all the page proofs by hand and post them back to him and you can buy the (physical-only) journal for £5 per volume. This is not typical for academia these days, so all of my answers are going to be shaped by that.

On the publishing side, you definitely don't have to have a PhD or an academic job to publish an article, which I know because I have published several articles and am only now doing a PhD, so by definition I did that without a PhD or an academic job. This is unusual, for the record; I know very few people who've published before doing a PhD, but that's partly because a lot of my friends went straight through from undergrad to postgrad with no time out, and thus wouldn't have had time to be publishing in between, whereas I took a more leisurely approach.

However, two of these articles were significantly based on my MA work, and one of them -- the only one so far published in an actual journal rather than a conference proceedings -- would have been completely impossible without skills and knowledge gained during my MA. That isn't to say there is no way to gain those skills without doing postgraduate study. But it does mean that there are specific skills required that require training and experience, whether you get that in a university context or find a way to learn it outside of that. (For example, palaeographical or linguistic training, or a firm grounding in theoretical approaches, specific methodologies, etc.)

The purpose of doing an MA or a PhD a lot of the time is to pursue research and gain those skills. If you really enjoy doing research to the point where you would want to publish it (note above: zero financial reward for doing so), I would question why you don't want to pursue higher education. There are lots of reasons not to, for sure, so this isn't me saying the only valid research comes out of that environment or that it's the only path to academic fulfillment. Again: I published articles before I started my PhD. One of my articles is even based on undergraduate work, though substantially revised and redeveloped.

But... that is a point. It was substantially revised and redeveloped. Because for the most part, work produced without the higher-level study and skills (whether gained formally or informally) is not going to be of the same calibre as work produced with them, which seems kind of obvious when you spell it out. There is more to literary research than just close-reading a text and having a lot of thoughts about it, because if there wasn't, nobody would need to do postgrad study about it.

Literature may have different, less obvious skills required than natural sciences, but that doesn't mean it has none. It does mean they may be easier to acquire outside of formal academic courses, but that doesn't mean they don't need acquiring, however you do it.

There are also practical barriers to publishing as an independent scholar. Sometimes these are financial barriers, where not having institutional support will mean you can't publish open-access because you don't have the funding to support it. Sometimes they're things like library access -- when my article in Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies came out in 2022, I was not currently in academia, nor was I living within easy reach of an academic library, which made it incredibly hard to check references or follow up on suggestions from peer reviewers. The editor of the journal was kind enough to send me scans of articles that had been recommended by reviewers, but not all editors would do that, and so without access to past scholarship, it would be very hard to write something academically solid.

Again, there are other ways to gain that access. I have spent a fair bit of my adult life working in universities in a non-academic capacity, which entitled me to use their libraries even though I wasn't a student or officially "in academia". Many fields have a larger proportion of their scholarship digitally available, which can make it easier to access without physically going to a library. Etc. But it is a barrier, and the financial hurdles are less easily overcome. (Fortunately, very little in my field is pay-to-publish, but Open Access costs can be troublesome!)

I guess what I'm trying to say is that all of my currently-available articles were published before I started my PhD, and I was not "in academia" at the time that I wrote them, but all but one of them was based on work I had done as a student, and they relied heavily on skills and knowledge I developed as an MA student. I am now as a PhD student seeing elements I could have done better, having built on those skills and that knowledge further. Subsequent work was submitted while working for a university in a non-academic capacity, because this gave me access to their libraries. (Which really shows you how long I've been procrastinating on finishing the edits for this article, because I've been a PhD student for over a year now... I originally submitted it in January last year, whoops.) Again, I have ended up subsequently revising this as I improve as a scholar.

So, technically I have done research as a "hobby" alongside a non-academic day job. Technically it is possible. It is hard, but you can do it, if you really want to. But I think I would have struggled to produce anything of a sufficient standard for publication if not for my MA and the skills I learned during it, and there is zero financial reward for academic publishing, so it's definitely not a viable "side job".

Having said all that: If you want to keep researching things alongside your other work, there is absolutely no reason not to do that. Formal academic publishing isn't the only way of doing research, you know? It's probably not even the best way, even if it's the current institutional standard for sharing that research with other people. But you can just... learn things, and enjoy them, and post about them on your blog, and so on. Lots of people do this. Sometimes the most useful website collecting resources or variants of a text or commentaries or whatever is run by a complete randomer with a job in a totally unrelated field who is just super into this in their free time.

And I will also note: my MA and PhD thesis proposals both came out of research that I was doing independently alongside my day job when I realised that I needed more support and skills to do it properly, so I would benefit from doing it as part of a formal programme. I did not originally plan to do postgrad study. By the time I finished undergrad I was fairly sure I was done with academia forever, because I'd mostly been miserable at uni. But it hit a point where I kept chasing up details by myself and going "damn, I wish I knew how to read these manuscripts", or "if only my Old Irish skills were better", or "I wish I could access this obscure text that's only found in special collections of that university library", and that's the point at which I decided to do an MA. So sometimes it happens like that too.

(I have been adamant all along that I wasn't aiming to stay in academia as a career. Given that my previous claims that I was not going to do a PhD and then, before that, that I was not going to do a Masters, turned out to be categorically false, well... I'm not necessarily right about that. I would certainly love to keep doing research, but the short-term contracts and precarious employment of early career academia don't appeal to me, and there's absolutely no way I want to start moving cities/countries every year or two again when I've just managed to get semi-consistent healthcare after moving back to the UK and having to start on all the waiting lists from scratch. I am too chronically ill for that kind of lifestyle and, I suspect, for the demands of academia in general. We will see how long I can stretch out "getting people to pay me to research things" without those aspects, but it may be that I end up as an independent researcher alongside my other jobs again. At least now I live in Cambridge, and can access the University Library as an alumnus wherever I end up working... that's something!)

I published 'early' both because I felt I had something to say and if I didn't say it, nobody would say it (nobody else cares about Láeg), and also because I didn't think I was sticking around in academia, so if I didn't say it then, I would never say it. I was definitely right about the first part, but if I end up sticking around, I'll disprove the second part and I'll probably start regretting publishing at such an early stage as I continue to disprove my own points with further research. I do think that's normal no matter when you start, lol, but there's a degree of "and why do I expect any more senior academics to listen to what an MA student had to say, anyway" at times. (Because I don't believe in hierarchies and I'm convinced I had something meaningful to offer, that's why, but hey.) The only tangible benefit to having published that research for me was being able to point at it when applying for PhD funding and say "look, I'm already published and everything!". The main benefit to other people wasn't much beyond what it would have been if I just... put that research on my blog for them to read anyway.

Where am I going with this? I don't know. I apologise, this is rambly as hell and I'm going in circles, I'm not very awake. Maybe I'll just stop there. I could start talking about popular history books that you'll find in bookshops and how most of them are written by people without postgraduate degrees, but I don't really know that much about those, and I feel this would be getting us off-topic.

tl;dr you technically don't need postgraduate qualifications to publish academically, but you do generally need postgraduate-level skills to produce work that's good enough, however you acquire them; there are a fair number of practical barriers to publishing without institutional support; and there's no money in any of it anyway

[theforsakenprince]

okay okay before I lose my train of thought. The way Destiny uses the dichotomy between Light and Darkness is so fucking interesting to me and way more complex than just "light good, dark bad" (and just for clarification, I'm talking about the Traveler vs. The Witness here, not the actual light and dark abilities themselves. that's a different post.)

The Traveler and Witness represent several different things, but the things that are most focused on are 1. simplicity vs. complexity and 2. choices and the lack of choices. These two go hand in hand because more choices make things more complex inherently and less choice makes things more simple. The Traveler obviously represents choice, and The Witness wants to take it away; to make the universe more simple.

The sword and bomb analogy demonstrates this pretty well. A sword is made with very few materials and has a single edge for one purpose: to slice and cut and stab. A bomb, however, has many more moving parts, with each individual part having some sort of function. It's more complex and probably does a lot more damage, but it won't work if even one part malfunctions. More choice offers complexity, but with the caveat that more things can go wrong. Less choice makes things simple, puts everything in neat boxes that serve a single purpose.

The Witness wants things to be simple. It wants an answer to every question and wants things to act in a predictable way. That's why it tries to convince us that the Darkness is the only way to salvation. Why the worms forced the osmium siblings to follow only their nature; Oryx can only seek more knowledge, Xivu Arath can only be war, and Savathun must deceive to keep their immortality.

The Traveler gives the Lightbearers the exact opposite. It wipes their memories clean and gives them a fresh start, to make their own choices whether they be good or bad ones. It gave them a second chance, to be better than they were in their previous lives without the burden of those memories. And of course, some chose to be awful people, but that’s sort of inevitable when giving so many people so much power. Most Lightbearers did decide to be better as shown with the Guardians today, and they decided that by their own free will.

Which brings me to the reason I wrote this whole thing, Savathun. She, frankly, doesn't give a shit about either Darkness or Light, she just sides with whatever will give her what she wants with the least amount of strings attached, which is immortality. So she gets rid of her worm and gets a Ghost to revive her. And what’s the first thing she does? Get her memories back. The second? Go right back to being her old self, and doesn't even stop to consider her history of genocide and lies. She remains the same. She's still the same person she was billions of years ago when she first became Savathun, which goes against the entire philosophy of the Traveler. Savathun doesn't want to change, and you can't force someone to change if they're completely set in their ways.

It's just interesting to me how Savathun rejects the Darkness and embraces the Light now without understanding (or, more likely, caring) about why the Traveler created the Ghosts and the Lightbearers.

[vickyvicarious]

Good observation that Dracula's great grimness at informing Jonathan that they must part soon changing to his usual smoothness when Jonathan refuses to return to his room as dictated. Or gives Dracula the pleasure to go "before we part and before you become one of us let's play one more time, lets see you walk back into my arms from danger once more, for good this time". Maybe he even expected this small rebellion from Jonathan, knowing him. Especially after he dared scale his walls. It's more satisfying to "earn" Jonathan's submission. An unbreakable will bending to his is sweeter.

I think Dracula absolutely loves Jonathan's stubbornness... but only with the caveat that he is in control of the situation and can prey upon it. This response is extremely belated, but I kind of like answering it now because I think Dracula's treatment of Renfield so far, as opposed to Jonathan, is so revealing. He's ignoring Renfield completely. He has no interest in him at all. Because Renfield wants to be with Dracula. And Dracula doesn't care to spend his time with people who want to be around him; he's only interested in forcing his company upon those who don't want it. It's a huge part of the fun for him.

If someone like... Seward, for example, had been sent to Castle Dracula, he wouldn't have lasted anywhere near as long. Because I think he would be too enticed/interested in the vampires, and thus he'd bore Dracula a lot faster by being too willing or even eager to play along. Then again, someone who refused to play along at all would get boring very quickly too - if they don't submit and play his game he'll force them into submission with violence and that'll be the end of it. Jonathan managed to thread the needle perfectly with playing along on the surface while still constantly trying to resist behind the scenes. It was interesting and fun, a challenge that never made Dracula feel truly threatened. (Of course, he didn't realize the full extent of Jonathan's resistance/that he did have cause to be threatened...)

And he loved it! He was having so much fun! He got to genuinely enjoy Jonathan's company, but also enjoy how little Jonathan enjoyed his company and how he couldn't do anything about that. He got to keep pushing and pushing and pushing him and watch Jonathan almost break again and again but still just keep bending. To tempt him into disobeying and then punish him for it. To force him to rely on Dracula himself for protection and thus stick even closer the more endangered he gets. He gets to work for it, while at the same time never actually facing real risk other than losing his new toy (and Jonathan always settled down in the end, always let the game continue). ...And then he had to call it quits, because he had a schedule to keep. Yeah, I think he was genuinely kind of upset about that. And so when he got the idea for the wolves, he cheered way up again.

Because Dracula was able to offer Jonathan exactly what he claimed he wanted, but in such a way that they both knew he would never accept it. Instead, he forced Jonathan into a situation where he was forced to "choose" Dracula instead, one last time and more definitively than ever before. It was the perfect way to end their time together. Well, except one final victory - 'rewarding' Jonathan's choice by honoring it with one last night together, with delaying no longer and finally drinking from him.

Contrast all of that to Dracula's complete disinterest in Renfield, despite his avowed goal of conquering England and spreading vampirism here. You'd think a servant who willingly came to him would be helpful for that. But no, because Renfield came to him truly willingly, wanted to enter freely and of his own accord.

Dracula likes the kind of person who enters freely and of their own accord... because they're alone in the wilderness with wolves at their back. He likes those who stay because doing otherwise would be their certain death. He likes those who don't want this (who struggle and struggle, who have an unbreakable will) and yet are forced by him into accepting anyway.

An unbreakable will who bends at his command - that's how Dracula saw Jonathan, and he loved him for it. Right up until the point he decided he was finished, and acted to break him once and for all anyway.

[bluedalahorse]

on flaws as opportunities and organizing the beef

I’m in the place now where I have enough distance from Young Royals season 3 to think about what felt flawed about it for me, and it led me to some interesting revelations about how I understand the characters and the story.

And to be clear: this does not mean I didn’t love season 3 with every fiber of my being, or that I think it sucks forever. Even a great production has flaws. The wonderful thing about being in fandom is that we love our shows deeply but also like to pick them apart, and in picking them apart we come up with ideas for future fics and fix its and character studies. Writing flaws are always an opportunity.

Anyway…

Thesis statement: Wilhelm and Simon don’t actually have the same beef with August, and the show should recognize that.

Or, to put it more formally, August causes them different problems that need to be addressed differently. I think that by acknowledging that more directly, and leaning into the discomfort that creates between Wille and Simon as a couple, the writers could have cleaned up some of the Wilmon-related messiness I saw in season 3 and have been mulling over for a while.

Caveat: I still need to do a full, formal rewatch of the third season. But I’ve rewatched here and there these are my preliminary thoughts.

To start, let’s recap Wille and Simon’s conflicts with August in season 1. For Simon, August is a bully and a gatekeeper when it comes to the world of Hillerska. He makes fun of Simon for being “socialist” and puts Simon in a position where he’s bringing in alcohol and then drugs for richer students’ recreation. August doesn’t pay Simon back for the alcohol the first time, which also shows a profound lack of awareness of Simon’s financial situation. Despite bullying Simon, there are times in August’s mind that he probably thinks he’s done Simon a favor. I do think, as flawed as he is about it and as much as he’s making weird speeches and doing aggressive forehead kisses, August assumes he’s really helped Simon out by getting him on the rowing team. But from Simon’s point of view this is all just more gatekeeping. Simon sees Hillerska as his ticket out of Bjärstad, and he wants to succeed in his merits as a student and a musician. But the way August treats him reminds him that his talent matters less than how many favors he can do rich boys. It also reminds him that he’s expendable to Hillerska students—August is absolutely ready to let Simon take the fall for the drugs when he feels it threatens his position.

Wille, meanwhile, is not excluded or gatekept by August but rather included more than he wants to be. Prior to the release of the video, Wille mostly finds August’s “come here and let me play your surrogate big brother” antics annoying. The debate over whether to let Simon or Alexander take the fall for the drugs is something that increases Wille’s ire toward August and makes it more serious, enough that we see Wille out August for his money troubles. But Wille also entrenches himself further in the system as a result of their argument—he still uses Alexander as a scapegoat, and he offers to pay August’s boarding fees afterward as an attempt to restore the peace between them. Their relationship isn’t seriously fractured until August releases the video. This harms Wille in the sense that it sets Wille up to deny his authentic self and makes it hard for him to engage in intimacy without trauma getting in the way. In essence, it puts Wille in a similar position of trauma that August was put in when the Erik and the third years initiated him. (Much much much more publicly, yes, but let’s note that transfer of trauma, because YR is about cycles.) 

The video also throws Wilhelm into a space where he starts to doubt his connection with Erik, because Erik told Wilhelm he could trust August. At the end of 3.4, Wille tells August that Erik would hate what he did, but I suspect he’s been wrestling with the uncertainty over whether Erik would really accept him and Simon for a long time. I don’t know if Wille really trusts Erik even though he says he does. In my opinion, it’s August’s release of the video that first brings this sense of doubt about Erik into Wille’s mind, and for three seasons we’re watching him slow burn toward actually voicing that doubt and grappling with it.

I think it’s tempting to believe that the trauma of the video release unites Wilhelm and Simon against August, and makes them feel the same sense of pain and loss, but ultimately I don’t know if that’s true. I’m not sure I see Wille and Simon as two boys in love against the world, at least not in a way that isn’t complicated. For Wille, the video affects his ability to express himself authentically and makes him doubt his relationships with his family. For Simon, the scandal of the video will now forever follow him when he wants to break free of Bjärstad and become recognized for his own merits. These are different harms from the same event that need to be dealt with differently.

One of Wille’s flaws is that he doesn’t fully realize that. I think he tends to center himself without realizing it, and sees the harm that happens to Simon as an extension of harm to himself. I actually think this is pretty interesting, and pretty in line with how Wille would have been raised as a prince. We see Kristina telling him that everything he does reflects on her and the family, so it’s natural that Wille might see a threat against Simon as a threat to himself without really thinking through how they’re going to be impacted differently. And the “prince” as a literary archetype has always been somewhat rooted in the “rescue” of others.

I explained this to @heliza24 and she said something really smart, which is, “the thing that necessarily gets lost when you muddy that is how much Wilhelm’s violations of Simon resemble August’s violations of Wilhelm.” And she’s right. I’d been trying to find a way to say that some of Wille’s actions in s3 remind me of August’s more toxic traits, and that part of Wille’s hamartia in s3 is he can’t see the ways he’s behaving similarly to August even as he shuts August out. When August releases the video, it puts Wille in a position where the royal court and Kristina are forcing him to conform more-more-more, and to hide his authentic voice from the world. Wille in turn inflicts that on Simon, acting as the royal court’s mouthpiece when they want Simon’s songs or May Day pictures deleted. We see Simon worn down to the point where he’s almost fading away. It’s actually pretty upsetting.

To that end: I also can’t help draw parallels between Wilhelm’s insistence on public gestures of affection with Simon and the way August and Felice walk arm in arm after they get together, the way he clearly wants to be seen with her. I also look at the way Wille craves Simon’s constant emotional support—especially on the night of his birthday—and see August reaching out to Sara as his emotional support lifeline.

Now, for what it’s worth, I still don’t see Wille as this awful, irredeemable person. (I don’t see August as this irredeemable person either, for that matter, and this is part of why I see Wille and August’s healing as intertwined and interdependent.) But I do think one place that season 3 fell flat for me was in the way Wille never got to recognize that his own issues with August and Simon’s issues with August weren’t exactly alike. And for Wille to recognize that some of the things he’s trying to do to heal aren’t equally healing for Simon. (Seriously, I almost tore my hair out when Wille joined the choir. It wasn’t a romantic gesture to me—I found it creepy! Let Simon have one space to himself!) 

It probably would have helped to have one scene where Simon articulates that to Wille, and really point it out. I get it if we don’t have time for Simon and August to resolve their shit in one season, and since Wille is the protagonist, he and August resolving their shit is going to take precedence. But when Wille and August are still at odds in the first part of the season, I do feel this vibe where like, Wille assumes he’s the avenger for wrong done to both him and Simon. And I kind of wanted to see that reckless avenger vibe get addressed.

@heliza24 probably describes this better than I do, but season three does have a habit of obscuring Simon’s agency from the audience, mostly so the writers can manipulate the audience’s reactions to Wilhelm and Simon, and especially so they can keep us in the dark about the fate of the Wilmon relationship during the breakup cliffhanger between episodes 5 and 6. I don’t know if this was the greatest choice, to dangle the cliffhanger over our heads, because it ends up moving a lot of Wille’s development into the last 10-15 minutes of the season and creates an issue in pacing and character arc. I wonder if they could have spaced his character arc out a little more and infused the tension into other moments and ideas. I think that could have been more satisfying.

Incidentally, this is a season 3 writing problem that’s foreshadowed in season 2 with the way Felice and Wille’s friendship is written. Felice essentially becomes Wille’s confidant as Wille attempts revenge on August. This makes sense, as Felice has her own beef with August based on how awfully he treated her in their relationship, and she’s friends with Wille, so it’s a natural alliance. But once again, it’s different beef, impacted by Felice moving through the world as a Black girl with a rich white mom, and not a white boy prince, and Felice never gets a chance to say so. Maybe it shouldn’t matter, but it does matter because season 2 episode 3 ends with… Wille kissing Felice just to feel something!!! And at the beginning of episode 4 everyone’s talking about what happened and what might be a new relationship between Wille and Felice!!! Gosh does that remind anyone of Felice’s predicament in the middle of season 1? It sure does remind the random girl in the choir, who says Felice only dates bluebloods!

The thing is, I wish Felice had been able to make that comparison more explicitly in her conversations with Wilhelm. Things obviously don’t get as bad with Wilhelm as they do with August, and Wille and Felice talk things out. But Felice doesn’t get to express herself about that as much as I wanted her to, and we don’t get much of a sense as to whether or not this changes Felice’s views of Wille’s revenge plot. She forgives him pretty quickly, and I don’t know if she should have. Just a little more careful planning on the writers’ parts could have given Felice the agency she needed in season 2.

Anyway! Let’s talk about stakes. The stakes for Wilhelm in season 3 are that he’ll become August—or more accurately, that he’ll construct an armored facade like August has constructed to get through life, and that he’ll hurt other people in the process. (This is true for Wille even with him being queer, I think. Wille may be queer, but his whiteness and wealth and power and literal hired staff of PR-minded humans are going to frame how the rest of the world responds to that queerness.) Whereas for Simon, Sara, and Felice the danger is that, in order to maintain their place in the upper class system, they’ll become dependent on someone like future August or future Wilhelm, who has a lot of power and spends most of their life in armored facade mode. 

Wilhelm and August reconciling is still important, because when they recognize one another’s humanity, they can actually be vulnerable with one another the way they need to be, and take that armor off. And I think by forging that relationship with one another, they have a space to really question the values they are raised with and act better to loved ones in the future. But we’re really just witnessing the first step. And there’s a lot more steps they need to take with one another, and with the other people in their lives.

What can I learn from this as a fan and writer?

Thinking about this actually helped me understand a point of view in fandom that I’ve always disagreed with. I still disagree with it, but I think I understand it better now. Periodically I’ll encounter points of view where August is seen as the worst kind of evil, the sort of person where you unite with each other to take him down once and for all. You know… Avengers Assemble! Or something. In some fan’s minds, he’s the kind of guy everyone at Hillerska should turn against at once and ultimately reject for the sake of narrative catharsis. A symbol of the corrupt system and nothing more.

And I never really saw August that way. He can be awful and annoying at times, and extremely harmful at other times. He often makes things much worse for our other main characters a lot of the time. Often times he is the most direct representative of the system that’s causing them problems. On the other hand, he’s also capable of really, truly caring about people and community, as much as he gets in his own way about it. We also know a greater extent of his trauma now and how it affects him. All in all he seems as human and as in need of liberation as all the other characters of Young Royals. It makes sense that he’s the one of five who hasn’t left behind the system yet, but I feel like one day he can maybe get there. I feel like those are the writers’ intentions, and the show’s intentions overall. Certainly this is also the version of August that Malte’s acting reflects.

I think I also understand now why I don’t always see eye to eye with others about Wille. I adore Wille, but I think sometimes the assertion others make that “Wille has one brain cell and it’s being in love with Simon” feels threatening to me rather than adorable. Wille is really really fascinating to me in that falling in love nudges him to question things about his position, but it doesn’t erase his relationship to his privilege entirely, and he can be pretty flawed in how he understands his power and how it plays out in a relationship. I think for others, they might see Wille as protective and caring toward Simon. Whereas I see him (and prefer to see him portrayed) as intending to be protective but definitely at times overstepping and putting Simon in a more negative place than before. I think part of this is caused by a writing problem in seasons 2 and 3. We see the negative impact the relationship can have on Simon—look it absolutely breaks my heart when Ayub mentions how Simon deleting his social media will make him sad—but I don’t know if Simon gets as much of a chance to articulate that to Wille or even to the audience as I want him to. And I also see Simon and Wille’s very different conflicts with August as part of that.

Moving forward… these flaws in seasons 2 and 3 don’t ruin my love of the show. They aren’t me saying the show is bad. They’re disappointing, because Young Royals is so good in so many ways that it sucks when it does let us down. But basically everything I like has a flaw one way or another, because literally no work is perfect. And right now I’d rather look at the flaws in YR and say, this is something I can learn from and play with in fanfic.

(And sometimes there are times when tumblr wants to explain all the flaws of a show away and idealize it and I wonder… can we not do that? Because sometimes claiming a show is perfect and flawless limits discussion and creativity. I get just as frustrated with people idealizing the Wilmon pairing and putting it on a moral pedestal, which has ultimately led to me blocking the tag from my dash. I like them a lot more when I think about them as complex teenage humans who fuck up a lot and not a godlike ideal of romance. I love them, your honor! But I think I need to love them independent of the tag.)

As for where this goes in fanfic, I think this once again leaves things open for fans to explore. Once again, I think there’s a whole interesting story to be explored in terms of how August and Simon work through their shit, and how that really has to happen in a space that’s in part independent of Wille. A shared relationship with Wilhelm might be the catalyst for why they’re working through their shit, but some of what’s going to happen has to happen without him there. (For what it’s worth, I think we see flashes of Simon and August beginning to understand one another throughout the series—Simon is running some really interesting mental calculus when he realizes August has an eating disorder, shout out to Omar’s acting there—but those threads always get dropped or interrupted. It’s infinitely frustrating to me as someone who likes both characters and wanted to see them talk honestly for once but didn’t quite get that.)

I also think this gives me interesting questions about where Wille and Simon’s relationship could go next in fanfic. Independent of the monarchy, I think Wille is still going to have to work through his instinct to be an angry avenger or reckless rescuer at times, and the part where he assumes he and Simon are harmed in the same way by the same things. Even in a world where Wille doesn’t have a title, he’ll still have wealth and white privilege that Simon doesn’t. And I don’t think that has to get in the way of their future happiness, but watching them navigate through that is something that draws me into a story idea.

So, you know. This has been an update on my fannish desires. At least, my fannish desires that do not involve the rest of the YR characters, various ships on Heartbreak High, and Interview with the Vampire season 2 finally airing today. There’s a lot going on in this brain and none of it is the work I need to get done.

[skaruresonic]

Why do you guys always add the caveat of "Sonic only kills... if he absolutely has to" like it matters? Dead is dead.

Does Sonic kill? Yes. Okay, good, we have established that he does. There's no need to add fine print. It's not like those he kills can suddenly un-die just because he says "You left me no choice. :<" which tbh I'd argue he almost never does anyway

And no, Sonic does not whip out killing as a "last resort" after exhausting all available options; otherwise, he would not have stolen Eggman's jetpack hose at the end of Lost World.

This idea that Sonic just lets Eggman go all la-di-dah when he technically could kill Eggman right then and there is so incredibly bad-faith. Why doesn't Sonic just seize the opportunity?

1.) You're assuming he hasn't tried, many times, while also forgetting that Eggman is good at escaping and surviving things that would usually kill other people,

and 2.) I don't know, same reason Shadow doesn't kill everyone in the room and then himself even though he technically could at any given moment. You're pointing at Sonic just... Being Sonic(tm) and citing that as damning proof that he's somehow bestowing freedom on people. Literal "Luigi wins by doing nothing."

This is predicated on the most asinine possible reading of the games' various endings. You are literally making shit up and trying to convince people that that's how it went down in the games.

To hearken back to the SA2 example, the game says N O T H I N G about Sonic "letting Eggman go"; you just assume he did. We don't know how the crew got back to Earth. We don't know if they took a teleporter. We don't know if Sonic and Eggman left at the same time, even though Sonic is last to leave the control room. We don't even know if Eggman snuck away like usual. You are essentially writing fanfiction of the events you think transpired, because the game's insistence that Sonic's beef with Eggman isn't the ending's emotional priority at that point in time has eluded you.

"He doesn't attack rulers" - why would he? What beef does Sonic have with the President? With Elise? Is the implication supposed to be that he otherwise would have reason to attack them if either one got too big for their britches? That sounds a little panopticon-ish for how Sonic usually operates, isn't it?

Fuck me, the Commander is 10x bloodthirstier than the rest of GUN, and yet Sonic still chooses to team up with him in the Diablon boss fights just to stop Shadow's rampage. Again, Sonic makes allies out of convenience; he doesn't go out of his way to rehabilitate people.

Besides, if these world-ending exceptions occur on a regular basis, then they can't exactly be called rare, can they?

This is such a circular goddamn argument. You're arguing as if the mitigating circumstances really matter to Sonic's character. Like he performs some form of moral calculus of "Should I offer this guy freedom?" before every kill, instead of playing things by ear and by common sense.

When nearly every game has Sonic killing the monster du jour because he absolutely has to or else the world will end, the last part of "Sonic only kills when necessary" really doesn't matter anymore, does it? It becomes less of a rarity and more of a pattern.

Like, the only thing you could possibly be implying here is that Eggman doesn't count as the kind of villain that merits the "omae wa mou shindeiru" treatment from Sonic, despite being the most persistent threat to the planet.

Also, Sonic hates Eggman so badly that Shahra has to beg him to save his facsimile. King Shahryar merely suffers from the misfortune of resembling his nemesis, and Sonic only begrudgingly saves him. He wasn't like "Oh, no, poor Shahryar! I'll rescue him right away!"

Sonic so happens to accept the help of new allies out of pragmatism. He doesn't make the conscious decision to offer people freedom and second chances like he's the arbiter of who gets to live free or die. If someone he "lets go" so happens to survive, that is pure coincidence.

Until those who fuck around find out, he will continue to throw down with them without scruple. Conflating what is essentially Sonic making allies of convenience with "Sonic rehabilitates people through the power of justice" is not only wrong, it's disingenuous as hell.

Besides, if Sonic is supposed to be the series' rehabilitationist, then he's really fucking shitty at his job, considering that half the time he's not even the one doing it.

It's other characters like Amy and Cream who sway hearts and minds. It was Cream who befriended Blaze and introduced her to the crew long before Blaze and Sonic ever had their final confrontation. It was Amy who won over Shadow and Gamma. It was Rouge who convinced Omega to team up with her and Shadow against Eggman.

Some important nuance is definitely being lost in these debates, and I don't know what, but rest assured Sonic lives the way he wants. He does what he feels is right.

It so happens that the thing he wants to do is the right thing. I need you all to understand that that is not me saying Sonic is immoral, or even amoral. I am saying that Sonic is not guided by staunch principles of freedom and justice because, ironically enough, principles would limit what he wants to do.

[necrotic-nephilim]

I love the new ask game :D

Maybe "You wouldn't." with Bruce/Jason?

send a quote and a ship and I'll write a short fic!

tysm anon, i'm glad you're loving it! i love that this got requested twice because it was such a fun one. warning that this one is *dark*, it deals with hypnotism/brainwashing and non-con as a result of that. it's *sort of* inspired by Gotham War but is based in pre-Flashpoint and basically my twist on a realistic but fucked up way i think Bruce would try to control Jason psychologically. just 3.3k of Jason suffering. enjoy <3

“Come home, Jason.”

It was a dream Jason had had a thousand times in a thousand ways. Bruce’s hand outstretched, offering Jason a white flag and compassion.

Only this time, it wasn’t a dream.

The cold ground underneath Jason’s palm was real. He could smell the dirt caked under his fingernails as he clenched his fist, panting hard.

He had a gun pointed at Bruce with his other hand. Jason was knocked to the ground, but he wasn’t down.

He was never down; a mutt going belly up. That’d never be him.

For some reason that Jason couldn’t put into words, the gun was shaking in his hand. He never had it in him to actually kill Bruce. But somehow now, his resolve felt more shattered than usual.

“Your home isn’t mine,” Jason said through grit teeth. He could taste his own blood in his mouth, but the fight was already muddled in his head. Was it one of the goons he was fighting or Bruce who’d hit him? He wasn’t sure.

Bruce loomed over Jason. It was a look he practically had patented. Cape billowing, shadow cast over Jason in such a way that Jason felt so impossibly small. He knew all the tricks and how Bruce pulled them off, but that didn’t mean he was immune to them. No matter how much Jason grew and made a name for himself, Bruce could always make him want to shrink into himself.

But he wouldn’t. He refused to hand that weakness over to Bruce.

“It always has been your home,” Bruce’s voice was far too gentle for his immovable stance and shadow-hidden face. Jason didn’t like the contrast. “Just for the night.” He took a step toward Jason, hand close enough for Jason to bat it away with his gun.

He knew this dance. Like a song that Jason had never actually heard, but still seemed to be woven into his soul. A long-forgotten melody as he descended into this hell. Bruce was reaching into Jason’s mind to pull out all of Jason’s worst nightmares about how he rolled over like a dog and gave in.

It made Jason’s lip curl in disgust, even as cold ice dripped down his spine.

“Go to hell,” Jason snarled. He didn’t sound how he wanted to. His voice was too high and it was like he was Robin again, pre-pubescent and looking at Bruce like he hung the moon. That moon was bleeding all over them, now. “I will shoot you if you don’t back off,” he warned. Not lethally, they both knew that unspoken caveat. But that didn’t mean Jason wasn’t acutely aware of every weak point of Bruce’s armor and very ready to give Bruce a new scar for his misplaced nostalgia-tainted love.

“No, you won’t,” Bruce said calmly. Not as an order, but as a simple fact.

Jason scoffed. “Like hell-”

Bruce whistled, a sharp and high note that made Jason’s brain nearly split in half.

And he-

He dropped his gun.

It tumbled out of his hand with his palm forced open. A muscle reaction that felt the same as a doctor knocking a hammer against Jason’s knee to make his leg kick out. So out of control that he just stared at his open, empty hand for a moment.

“What the fuck?” Jason spat out, blinking a few times. “Was that an EMP or something?” He hadn’t been looking at Bruce’s face. It sounded like a whistle, but Bruce could’ve activated some high-tech weapon through his gauntlet or-

Or something. Some sort of Bat-gadget that used a magnet to pull the gun out of Jason’s hand, or whatever other mcguffin Bruce had access to. That was the only logical answer that fit easily into Jason’s mind.

So why did it feel so wrong?

Why was Jason’s heart beating so fast?

He’d felt this fear before, in a dream.

Jason swallowed to keep his throat from closing up. He pushed himself to his feet and tried to grab a dagger from his belt.

He tried. And tried. It was right there, inches from his fingers twitching at his sides. Jason knew he was in control of his body. He could shift his weight and stretch his limbs and crack his neck.

But he couldn’t seem to grab a weapon.

Jason made a fist instead. He couldn’t raise it for the punch.

“You’re okay,” Bruce promised, trying to soothe the panic that was crawling up Jason’s throat. He reached up and stroked Jason’s face and Jason couldn’t seem to stop him. He wanted to pull away from the disgusting false kindness. But he fucking couldn’t. “We’re going home now.” Bruce’s tone was too calm, too even. Perfectly soothing and unbothered by Jason’s growing panic.

“No,” Jason choked out. He still had his words and could fight with them, at least. “What the fuck did you do, you bastard?”

Bruce’s expression changed but was impossible to get a full read on, hidden by the cowl. “What I had to. To keep you safe and bring you home.”

“I’m not yours,” Jason put as much force as he could into every word. All his hate, all his rage, dripped like a venom that was keeping him alive. He used his hatred to hide the fear that was swirling his thoughts, making them harder and harder to make sense of.

Something was wrong. All his worst nightmares of Jason just giving in and agreeing to go home with Bruce as an obedient little soldier were coming to life. Like sick prophecies he couldn’t escape.

Something was very wrong. Jason’s whole body was starting to shake and he instinctively reached for his chest, trying to find what was wrong. Something was lodged deep inside of him that didn’t belong. Something that Jason had to pull out before it took deeper root and he was- he was lost to some terrible unseen thing lurking in the corner of his mind. Whatever it was, Jason needed it out now before-

Bruce clicked his tongue. Jason was at least certain this time the sound came directly from Bruce, watching his mouth move to form the sharp clicking noise. Distinct and-

Familiar.

The fight or flight bled out of Jason’s limbs. His body calmed, even as his mind was still fighting the feeling. Muted and distant now, but still definitely there. Jason fumbled between the lines of a forced calm and natural panic. He didn’t know which one he wanted, which was the right one to be feeling.

The calm was entrancing. Hypnotizing, even. A siren trying to lull Jason under the waves so he would just sink into the current. The water was so warm and inviting, promising an existence where Jason wouldn’t have to feel so much pain all the time-

Hypnotizing.

It was hypnotizing.

Jason vaguely remembered Talia mentioning a hypnotism expert that Bruce once knew but she couldn’t convince Jason to train with them. He thought it sounded like a bunch of pseudoscience bullshit. Everyone knew hypnotism was a dumb Placebo.

Everyone it seemed, except Jason’s body. Which felt like it was trying to sink into the dirt under the weight of forced calm Bruce had wrapped around him.

“How-” Jason’s mouth was full of cotton. “Did you brainwash me, or something?”

“Conditioning,” Bruce corrected. How was he so casual about it? “It took months to make sure you wouldn’t notice. I did what I had to, to keep you safe from yourself.” He dared to run his fingers through Jason’s hair, pulling Jason’s pliant body forward until his forehead was pressed into Bruce’s shoulder. “This isn’t a punishment, Jason. I need you to understand, I didn’t do this to save Gotham. I did this to save you.”

He made the words sound like a love confession. They were the most terrifying words Jason had ever heard. They sounded more like a prison sentence Jason’s soul had been damned to then something sweet.

Jason managed to shake his head. His ears were ringing as he tried so hard to fight against the siren song. Bruce’s body was so warm. His words were barbed wire wrapped in a lullaby. They pierced Jason so deep he was sure he had to be bleeding everywhere. He could taste it, after all. Nothing made sense.

“You wouldn’t,” Jason whispered, almost delirious with how surreal it all felt. His tether to reality was cut cleanly by his puppeteer, razor-thin wires shackling him in place. A promise.

Bruce dared to press a kiss against Jason’s temple. “I already have.”

Jason went limp. Bruce caught him around the waist, easily picking him up to hold Jason gingerly.

Like a lover.

The nightmares of Bruce’s touch tasted so real.

Oh, fuck.

The nightmares.

“You’ve done this before,” Jason realized, tears of betrayal pricking in his eyes. The nightmares were real. They were distant, hypnotized memories he couldn’t quite reach in the back of his mind. Locked away until Bruce decided to unlock this conditioned, obedient side of Jason to play with. Using him like a toy.

Bruce was a psychotic bastard who always went too far.

But this. This was something new. An incomprehensible horror Jason could’ve never imagined Bruce doing. That was why they had to be nightmares, not memories. Bruce never would’ve done that to Jason. Jason never would’ve just laid there and taken it from Bruce. He wasn’t some lap dog for Bruce to domesticate.

He wasn’t.

This wasn’t real obedience. It was forced submission.

This wasn’t real at all. It couldn’t be.

This wasn’t Jason.

He wouldn’t have let this happen to himself.

He didn’t realize he was crying until Bruce was wiping the tears away. Daring to be fucking gentle, like he wasn’t perfectly aware of Jason’s inner turmoil eating him alive.

“Let’s go home,” Bruce said, adjusting Jason into a bridal carry and ignoring as Jason’s shallow breaths gave way to soft sobs.

The worst part was, Jason could feel himself slipping deeper into the corners of his mind. It was disturbingly easy to fall for the drowning nothingness that quieted all his rebelling emotions tearing him apart.

It was easy to give in to Bruce’s conditioning.

Before Jason knew it, he was tucked into the Batmobile, limbs completely immobile as they drove down familiar streets.

The anger melted away first.

Then the fear.

All those feelings left and Jason was just-

Empty.

He was going home.

Moments of clarity came to Jason in short, chaotic bursts. The first one came to him as Bruce was stripping him of his clothes, throwing them to the ground without a care in the world, desperate to consume Jason with hungry hands.

He could see Bruce’s face, now. It was all Jason could see.

Those awful, wanting eyes. Looking at Jason like he was just another toy of Bruce’s.

“What…” Jason’s words were slurred and barely fit in his mouth. “Stop- Bruce, stop-”

“Shh,” Bruce pressed his mouth against Jason’s and Jason was sinking again, unable to stop his body from reacting and kissing back. “I’ve got you.” The words were already so far away Jason barely heard them, even pressed against his mouth.

Bruce tasted like peppermint and sweet compliance.

The second clear moment was the longest one.

It came to Jason with a gasp, chest heaving for air as if something had been choking him.

He wasn’t being choked, though.

He was being fucked.

The gasp turned into a startled moan when a long thrust drove right into Jason’s prostate, his entire body jerking. Jason’s arms were wrapped around Bruce’s back, clinging to him like some kind of needy animal as Bruce drove into Jason’s body. A mutt with his belly up, compliant, like he was afraid of.

“Stop fighting it,” Bruce murmured into Jason’s ear, immediately knowing that Jason was lucid.

How could Jason stop fighting when he didn’t know he was fighting in the first place? He wasn’t in control of the mess in his head pulling him in too many directions.

He was so wrought out that all he could do was cry, anguished.

Jason wanted to push Bruce off of him. He didn’t want this pleasure. Jason’s arms moved sluggishly, but at least seemed to obey him, pushing weakly at Bruce’s shoulder.

“No, no no no,” Jason chanted the only thing he could get out. A mantra, a plea, and a prayer all in one. Every thrust rattled his bones with new, yet familiar feelings that were too real.

The parts of Jason’s body not under his control bloomed under Bruce’s touch. His back was arching and he was grinding onto Bruce’s cock. It made no sense, how he tried to claw at Bruce’s skin while chasing more and more of Bruce deep inside him.

It was where Bruce belonged, an insidious voice whispered in Jason’s ear. Where Jason belonged, too.

No, Jason fought back in his own mind.

God please, no.

Bruce just kept moving and fucking Jason. As if it wasn’t rape.

It was rape, wasn’t it? Jason’s consent wasn’t real. Bruce had made it up.

All of this was made up. Jason would never let Bruce do this to him.

“You’re beautiful,” Bruce soothed, pressing flowering kisses down Jason’s throat. Jason tried to turn his head away but he had nowhere to go, trapped underneath Bruce.

“No,” Jason repeated. He hit Bruce in the chest when a particular thrust made Jason’s own cock twitch and a moan rolled through his body.

Jason was hard. There was already precum dripping out of him.

Would he come like this? Did he have words, when he was completely under? In some of Jason’s nightmare-memories, he could remember begging Bruce for more. More touch, more pleasure, more orgasms.

That was what Bruce had reduced Jason to. A wanton whore who didn’t even have control of his own body. Jason violently shook his head, trying to wiggle more control into his limbs. He managed to just barely kick Bruce’s leg. Not hard, but enough to make Bruce stumble, catching himself with a hand against the mattress. A hand that wasn’t touching Jason anymore, making him sigh in relief. He could keep this momentum.

He just had to hold onto the control-

“I love you,” Bruce said, voice silky and going down Jason’s psyche like smooth whiskey. The burning aftertaste was there, trying to start a fire strong enough for Jason to fight back with, but Jason just swallowed.

Those words were the needed trigger to push Jason back down. And worse, this time it wasn't a gentle descent. He felt like he was being smothered by a pillow inside his own head. Jason was pretty sure he actually screamed before his body was taken from him.

Jason only managed to give Bruce a parting glare.

Lucidity came for Jason again with water raining down on his body. Hot enough to steam up the space, making Jason’s muscles sag.

He was in a shower. Leaning against Bruce. Practically clinging to him like a fucking child.

He could feel the soreness in a deep, disgusting place Jason never wanted to know Bruce could reach. Two gentle hands were massaging shampoo into Jason’s hair. The scent that Bruce used, not Jason.

Even when all this was over, Jason still wouldn’t be able to get Bruce’s scent off his skin.

Bruce had to be doing it on purpose.

“I hate you,” Jason spat the words out as fast as he could. He knew he was going to slip away again.

He knew there was nothing he could do to stop it. Acceptance was an ugly pill Jason hated swallowing with every fiber of his being.

He had never hated himself more.

Hating Bruce was an easy second nature. But this level of self-hatred was new, even for Jason.

He was so tired of feeling it. Of feeling at all.

Bruce didn’t use words this time. Jason’s ugly confession wasn’t acknowledged. Warm fingers just pressed into a specific spot against the back of Jason’s neck and he was boneless again.

Jason’s last thought was wondering just how many triggers Bruce had programmed into him.

He probably didn’t want to know.

Jason’s final moment of awareness came in Bruce’s arms. He was pressed against Bruce’s chest, finding himself tracing idle patterns across Bruce’s skin while Bruce was reading something on his tablet.

There was cold, bitter anger freezing Jason’s chest over.

But mostly, there was numbness.

Emptiness.

Jason didn’t say anything this time. He didn’t see the point when his words meant nothing to Bruce. He just glared into nothing, hand going completely rigid, then curling into a useless fist.

He didn’t want to know how many times he had been here before.

Bruce leaned down and kissed Jason’s brow. Jason wrinkled his nose but gave no other reaction. He kept his body perfectly still, even with it in his control.

“Do you want to remember?” Bruce asked.

Confusion clouded Jason’s muddy senses. “What?”

Bruce brushed stray hair out of Jason’s eyes and tilted his chin up, forcing him to look into Bruce’s lovingly unforgiving eyes. “Do you want to remember this time? You don’t have to remember if you’re not ready.”

Not ready. Jason didn’t like how those two words were heavy and had so many implications that they turned his stomach.

“No,” Jason couldn’t stop himself from telling the truth. Bruce had asked if he wanted to remember.

And Jason didn’t want this. He needed to remember. But more than anything, he didn’t want to remember this. It made his skin crawl.

He wanted this to be a bad dream.

The logic side of Jason’s brain was screaming and begging to remember this. If Jason knew this was real when he was away from Bruce, then he could get far, far away. He could run.

He could go anywhere.

Bruce hummed and nodded. With understanding Jason could feel down to his core, an awful thing.

He’d done this before, after all. The routine was down pat, for Bruce.

And for Jason, it was a new horror that he was going to learn over and over again.

Maybe Bruce got some kind of sick enjoyment out of this wretched cycle. Jason knew Bruce’s end goal, even if he wouldn’t admit it to himself.

He couldn’t. Admitting it made it real.

And this wasn’t real.

It couldn’t be.

Instead of slipping under the edge of conditioning, Jason just slipped into sleep. His body relaxed and Bruce pulled a blanket around him, tucking him in and murmuring something Jason didn’t quite catch.

Jason drifted into a dreamless sleep.

With a swear and a jolt, Jason woke up. His heart was pounding and he grabbed his chest, breathing hard. He sat up, swinging his legs over his shitty bed in his shitty warehouse.

“Fucking nightmares,” Jason grumbled, getting his body to calm down. The nightmare was already slipping away. It was something so ridiculous that he didn’t bother chasing it. Something about Bruce touching him and Jason just letting him.

A snort came out of Jason’s chest at the thought. He stood up, shaking himself free of stupid night terrors.

Jason rolled his eyes and wandered over toward his fridge, mind already drifting to think about the case he was working on, looking over the board on his wall to give his attention to something that actually deserved it.

Like he’d ever let Bruce get close to him, Jason wasn’t just some mutt belly-up starved for attention.

Over his dead body.

[myrfing]

hi!!! sorry this might be a bit of an odd ask, but i saw that you get some comms from the crepe site (the eating gif one is sooooo cute) and i wanted to ask what the process was like to use that site to order commissions? is knowledge of korean needed? is it like skeb where you can enter comm details in english and it auto translates it for the artist? thank you for your time!

HI not odd at all! I hope more people use crepe, there's many talented artists on there. There is no auto-translate like on skeb. I run everything through the DeepL translator or good old google translate. I also use the Simple Translate extension for Firefox to make this a lot easier. I have 0 knowledge of Korean so I like to double check back and forth & try to use simple, straightforward phrases. Thankfully the website is also designed pretty intuitively, it's just a lot double checking on my end :J...

I pay via stocking up on Points via Paypal and use that to pay artists. In short: you select a commission type from the artist's page, fill out and send in their request form (it seems to be customizable on their end so they differ between artists), and if they accept your commission, they will invoice you via the site's chat system. They will also likely ask any questions they have about your request in here. Once the site confirms your payment, then it's relayed to them to begin working on your commission. Some artists offer check sketch, etc., stages that are facilitated by the site in the same chat, some don't. When they finish, the site will notify you via email & that chat thread, you receive the file, review it, and confirm the completion. At that point, no changes can be made, and the transaction is complete.

Here's a shitty mspaint guide:

To sign up via email:

Follow this link. Enter your email and hit the link to send an authentication email.

2. In the email from crepe, hit the verify button.

3. Fill out your new credentials, then hit the create account button. You can review the terms & services via the subtitle link.

4. This next page asks you what your account is for. The left box = I'm here to commission artists. The right box = I'm here to take commissions as an artist. Make sure the left box is selected and hit next. (Text below informs you you can swap to an artist account later, and artists can commission from other artists)

5. It then scrolls you to the option to verify your identity. This lets you communicate via kakaotalk, adds a layer of security, and verifies your age for 18+ commissions, but unless you have some form of S. Korean ID, hit "I want to do it later". Then hit the "I don't want to verify now" option again on the confirmation popup. I'll add on to this post on how to verify via passport as an overseas user, but it's not necessary unless you want to get hole & pole commissions.

6. Account creation complete :~)! the button just takes you to the front page which displays random commissions you can browse.

To commission an artist:

I'll use the artist who did the snacking animation for me as an example! Say you find an artist you really like, and you go on their page. Here's an overview.

Let's say I click on the top one. It will take me to this page. Scroll down and review all the information and terms about this particular commission type. Artists will tell you what you get, what they will and won't draw, pricing caveats, what you're allowed to do with the commission, and whatever other pertinent info here.

2. Once you've reviewed everything, scroll back up and hit apply. The price is a range; artists will tend to charge more for high detail/addons!

3. You will be taken to their application form. Again, this is different for each artist, and you're gonna need to carefully fill it out case-by-case. Once you've filled out everything required, scroll all the way down and the submit button should no longer be greyed out. It's purple like all the buttons so far. Hit that, and it will show you your completed application and send it to the artist.

4. At this point, you wait for them to either accept or deny your commission. Here's an overview of your header bar menu, click on your icon to access it. You can check commission progress history, the application you submitted, and your messages here. Your messages are where you're going to be alerted if the artist accepts or not, it will have a notif mark. You can also stock up on points, but you can also do that when they invoice you.

5. Once the artist accepts, you'll get a message. It's in the messages where you'll deal with all communication and the procession of your commission. If you're not completing your steps (i.e. paying, checking the sketches) by hitting the purple buttons, the commission can't continue. These buttons will sometimes take you to different pages, i.e. charging points for the invoice, to the comm timeline page to receive your files and confirm steps...U Must play it by ear here and translate on your own because I'd need an ongoing commission to show you & I'm on ice soup week right now

But that's pretty much it! Some things:

I usually begin my applications with a blurb specifying I'm using a translator as an overseas customer in case they are not comfortable working with the language barrier or I start saying some crazy ass mistranslated shit to them. Ex: 안녕하세요! 저는 기계 번역을 사용하는 해외 고객입니다. 번역이 제대로 되지 않은 텍스트에 대해 사과드립니다. 해외 고객은 받지 않는지 알려주세요.

I tried asking if an artist takes tips once, but there's no built-in system for it and Paypal seems to be the only avenue for it, which I think the site disallows you from sharing (?) to keep transactions moderated by the site. They said "don't worry about it", but I dunno if this is universal

Try to not leave descriptions in your ref images, it's hard to read in your application. Enter it as text in the boxes.

I leave a review once per artist within a month, I am nooot sure about the etiquette about leaving multiple reviews. I don't think it would hurt but uhhh I haven't checked

"Omakase" = artist's choice for most of the image composition. You can still give refs of course and make a simple request, but this means you can't nitpick/have total control over what the artist draws.

"Water level" = NSFW 18+ stuff. I habe no idea what a better translation for the term is yahoo mario water level

👍 enjoy your beautofial art

[kassandras-one-braincell]

Eivor x Fem!Reader - Of Lascivious Flora

Kinktober 09: Sex Pollen [explicit]

Word count: 1362

Ao3 link here.

Men, minors and ageless/default blogs DNI. You will be blocked immediately upon interaction.

Mother Nature decorates her woodlands with curious blooms, a species of which Eivor spotted blanketing a forest clearing. The not-quite-poppies swayed delicately in the autumnal breeze, painted a gentle, yet vibrant, pink. Above the petals, the air glittered a mellow gold in the afternoon sun creeping betwixt the treetops. There was a whimsy about that patch, far too tantalising to resist.

Your inquisitive selves advanced towards the clearing. As you drew closer, it became clearer that the resplendent aura lingering above the flowers was a thick cloud of pollen. The cloud almost whispered to you both, beckoning you to bask in the freshness of the petals.

With a sigh, you breathed in the tranquil scene surrounding you. Specks of the pollen flitted into your lungs. The fragrance was overwhelmingly sweet; it had the aroma of fruits cooked in sugar, drowning in honey. Sticky. Moreish. Something you could almost taste, given the comforting warmth that flooded your tongue.

Within seconds, the warmth had spread to your fingers and toes, coupled by a thrumming in your veins. Not yet unpleasant – in fact, breathing became easier as the muscles in your throat relaxed, welcoming more of the estranged spores.

That hazy heat drew inwards towards your heart, then southward, threading its way through your core: the catalyst. Rapidly, the warmth intensified. Every cell in your body suddenly had a weight, a conscience, a need for sensation. Your mouth felt dry, yet salivated all the same. The pads of your fingers screamed for texture. Stimulation. And your thighs, gods, did they half tremble with the lust for something nestled between them. The throbbing of your quim and the slick dripping from it weren’t foreign agonies, but never had you been reduced so quickly to this wanton state.

Instinctively, you looked to Eivor, your better judgement telling you to declare your affliction a peculiar illness, while every fucking fibre of your being screamed to seduce her.

One glance told you this was an affliction shared.

Amaranth dusted your sweetheart’s lightly sun-kissed cheeks. Her mesmerising blue irises had been all but swallowed by blown-out pupils. Ravenously, her gaze drifted from your mouth, over the column of your throat, pausing at your undoubtedly heaving chest before lingering just below your navel. Eivor seemed to catch herself, for a fraction of a second; those eyes flickered to yours, harbouring a fragile restraint.

Thickly, you swallowed and bashfully asked, “You too?”

She relinquished a shaky breath, running a hand – a strong, marred, delightfully large hand – through the flaxen locks cropped-short atop her head. “It’s the flowers, right?” she reasoned, shifting her weight.

You nodded, unknowingly reaching for the neckline of your dress, tugging it away from your pyretic skin. The gesture didn’t offer a trace of cooling reprieve.

Of their own accord, your eyes wandered to her arms, frustratingly concealed by her tunic. You’d have burned that tunic given the chance, maddened by the need to sink your teeth into the skin underneath. You wanted to leave a pretty constellation of bitemarks and scratches amongst the webs of ink, well aware of the effect it would have on her.

“Darling,” you began, urgency undercutting your tone. “I can’t make it back to the settlement like this.”

Eivor’s tongue darted out to wet her lips. “I want to devour you,” she confessed. Another time, you’d have scolded yourself for how visibly you waned at the thought of her feasting between your thighs. She met your gaze. “But I won’t be able to restrain myself if I do.”

As far as caveats went, that was hardly unappealing.

Hands desperately unravelling your belt, you made your plea. “Help me out of this damned dress, will you?”

Your heart managed a torturous, solitary beat before Eivor shrugged her tunic over her head and tossed it to the forest floor with abandon. Ordinarily, you would drink in the sight of her body laid bare, but your body yearned for a stern fuck, and to delay that would be your demise.

Eivor’s lips crashed into yours ferociously, a clashing of teeth averted by luck alone. Guttural moans escaped you both as you finally had something to taste. Her spit was as sweet as the pollen in the air, but not as sweet as the greedy hands that roughly kneaded the flesh of your rear, spreading your slick folds. “Fuck,” you whined against her mouth. Intoxicated by that sound, Eivor repeated the motion.

The faint stimulation was tormenting. Far, far more intense than expected under the influence of the pollen, but not enough. Weakly, you gave her biceps a squeeze. The flesh was a soothing balm and a vicious burn all at once. “Dress, Eivor,” you urged, muffled by her lips.

“Sorry,” she mumbled back, giving you two last messy pecks before dropping to her knees. Clumsily, she gathered the skirt and hiked it up to where you could grab the fabric. The moment your thighs became exposed to the pollenated air, she latched onto the flesh, kissing anywhere her mouth could reach thirstily. Her lips left a fire in their wake. Before you could collapse into her, you managed to hastily pull the dress over your head, casting it aside. Eivor supported your weight as you gracelessly lowered yourself to the woodland soil. She threw off your balance with a hand hooked under your knee, her other arm cradling your waist, rendering you flat on your back with her narrowly hovering above.

You anticipated the mild discomfort of uneven ground, yet the abnormal blossoms were supple as a pile of feathered pillows beneath you. The petals curled around your bare limbs, almost caressing your feverish silhouette.

Eivor favoured a timely approach to making love, but in this titillating moment, desperation prevailed over decadence. Half of a plea had escaped your lips when hers found swift purchase upon your aching sex. A blissful warmth enveloped your clit, followed by a deep, reverberating moan. Unabashedly, Eivor buried her nose into your mound, deeply inhaling your scent.

Her tongue, searing and wet – she had been salivating, no more composed than a drooling mutt, and the revelation made you drip – passed over your folds fervently, as if she intended to smother her taste buds with your essence. She had one of your legs over her shoulder, too famished to reposition the other. Caged by an esurient grip on your thigh and an anchoring hand on your navel, you couldn’t writhe away from the pleasure if you tried.

But you wouldn’t. No, not when every hounding lick sent a bolt of lightning through your core. Every greedy suck from those plump, perfect lips submerged you in ecstatic flames. Ragged mewls bled into the air. Every shallow breath you took ushered in more spores, feeding the pit in your stomach threatening to engulf you from within.

Delving a hand into the flora, you honed what lingered of your ability to think on Eivor’s mouth on your heat. Agonised by an otherworldly need for release, you raked your nails across her scalp, knowing how she adored the subtle sting. That slightest hint of pain was always something she delighted in, and you silently begged that she’d respond in kind.

Amidst your pleasured cries and stuttering hips, something of coherence crept past your dewy lips. “I need— Eivor!” you rasped.

Your nails carved crescents into her head as her undivided efforts were devoted to your most sensitive nerves. Eivor’s affirmative hum vibrated into your quim. Craving your undoing, she hungrily lapped at your clit, suckling and licking and whorishly groaning until your peak struck you with violence. You screamed through gritted teeth, curling in on yourself, back lifting off the impossibly plush flowers. It was both death and divinity, a force that made your muscles melt and joints contort.

But the tantalising full-bodied warmth, the needle-like nerves pricking your fingertips and deep-set arousal never subsided.

Heaving, you glanced down at Eivor through half-lidded eyes, unsure of how to ask for more. As she indulged in the savour of your spend, she met your wanton gaze. Her frosty eyes were speckled with that same pallid gold as the curious pollen.

She would leave you in ruins.

[uncanny-tranny]

I'm trans nonbinary and I really kind of hate myself for it and feel like such a fucking freak and I don't even know why because I didn't even grow up around a lot of homophobia or anything. I let everyone assume I'm a (trans) man because in my head if someone found out I was nonbinary they would just think I'm so fucking wierd, even when I'm in spaces or with people I know for a fact wouldn't actually think any of that. I don't feel this way about anyone else, just me. I'm really sorry if this is too much of a vent kind of thing I totally get you deleting it or whatever, but any advice you have would be really great.

I want to preface this by emphatically saying: Nobody here (least of all myself!) are judging you. I am sure many trans people who are following this blog know how you feel intimately. It's a consequence of the world we live in, not an intrinsic failure of character. I want to make this clear because you were incredibly vulnerable and I don't want you to worry that your vulnerability is a bad thing. It takes a lot to open up like this, no matter if you're on anon or not.

I've talked about this before, but this is a process that takes... a long time to work through, if I'm honest. I've been out since I was a young teenager, and now as an adult I still fall into the trappings of feeling similarly to you. What helped for me is to generally avoid judging myself for when I do feel like this. I think trying to outright ignore how you feel is very inefficient - I have tended to be a person who needs to feel those awful feelings so that I can look back and notice exactly what went wrong. I wouldn't specifically recommend that you do this - I have had many years of combating internalized transphobia to feel this is effective for myself. But, regardless of where you are in your journey of internal acceptance, I will advise this: don't judge yourself for these feelings. It is easy to do, but you don't deserve to have even more feelings of shame, isolation, or overall feelings of hopelessness or helplessness.

Often, we won't know exactly "why" we feel these feelings of internalized transphobia. For me, I also didn't grow up with outright homophobia, but I did grow up with the idea that I would only be loved if I was cishet, so when I discovered I was neither, it was jarring. I thought I would never be loved. And years later, I became open to the idea that I might have been wrong because there were people along the way - friends, certain family, strangers, even - who showed the love I felt I surrendered when I realized who and what I was.

It has helped me to expose myself to other trans people, as well. It's a delicate balance, at times, because there are moments where I find myself growing envious of another trans person for the way I perceive their own transition. It's a natural response, I guess, a natural human response that is amplified when you are part of a group that is often maligned. But I have found that the pros outweigh the cons: I see trans people of all identities now, trans people who look like me, who have incredibly similar experiences, who taught me so much about what it actually means to love and be loved. It's funny, because I'm largely a trans man (with caveats), yet some of the people who have deeply impacted me forever weren't always the same as I am (in fact, one of the first true "I look up to this person" experiences was from a trans woman who I still to this day admire and look up to).

I'm not going to lie, this (how you're feeling) is an incredibly common, but sometimes devastating result of so many factors. While we all go about these feelings in different ways, it can be hard. Therefore, it's important that we support each other. I want to offer my support to you, and let you know that you aren't going to be looked at by others in the way you might fear. It's hard to even conceptualize, honestly, but I am being honest. I understand that some of what I might have said won't resonate with you now, or ever, and that's okay. When we have a community to talk about ideas as a way of support, we can start to have more resources that we might be able to utilize effectively.

Your vulnerability right now isn't going unnoticed. It took a lot to express this, and I hope you might read this and feel even slightly better. I wish nothing but good things for you, nothing but bountiful joy and understanding that you deserve so much from this world.

[havendance]

Okay, I'm finally returning to the AU where Jason and Barbara are swapped so that she dies in a Killing Joker and Jason is paralyzed in A death in the family.

The simplest way to set up this AU (and why over-complicate things yet?) is to have it so that when Barbara Gordon opens the door, the Joker shoots to kill. However long later, when Jason is beaten half to death by the Joker, he survives the bomb, but he’s left paralyzed from the waist down. The Doctors say he’ll never walk again.

For now, Barbara Gordon is dead and we shall leave her there. She doesn’t haunt the narrative in the same way that Jason did. She was an adult when she died, removed from her former mantle. She wasn’t Bruce’s daughter. Her death weighs on Gordon, but then Sarah Essen returns to his life and his dead daughter fades into the background. Bruce, Dick, and Jason remember her, but there is no Batgirl memorial in the cave. She is just another symbol of the dangers they face. She comes up in vague aborted references and heavy silences.

(Now that I think about it, in a world where Barbara Gordon’s dead, I bet Helena ends up as Dick’s second primary love interest…)

Meanwhile, with Jason, we have a fairly standard Jason Lives!AU with the slight caveat that he’s in a wheelchair and can never become Robin again.

We’re not going to spend long on that because it could go any number of ways and I don’t want to be here all day, but to his some major points:

A Lonely Place of Dying doesn’t get triggered. Batman without Robin when Jason is paralyzed is worse, but not bad enough for Tim to feel the need to interfere. His parents probably still die in Rites of Passage because Batman is highly unlikely to leave Gotham to chase after some random kidnapping for ransom when he’s being overprotective of his recently paralyzed son. Or just have the Drakes die in a plane crash and skip the racism.

Jason as Robin is a character who doesn’t have many ties outside of Batman. Stuck in a wheelchair, he struggles even more with dilation. Barbara’s dead. Dick’s around more, but he still spends most of his time with the titans. He can’t be Robin and that means that he feels like he can’t be part of that community, losing the few connections he had there. On the civilian front, his injuries lead him to being held back a year. He doesn’t know any of his classmates, and stuck in the hormonal battleground of high school, he acutely feels the way that being stuck in a wheelchair makes him different.

I still need to read Oracle: Year One, but Jason is initially attracted to computers because of the anonymity the internet offers. On it, he can pretend to be normal; people don’t see the chair before they see him. From there, it expands into a way he can still help Bruce and be involved in the mission. Bruce says he doesn’t need to do anything, but with so much of their relationship tied up in being Batman and Robin, Jason wants to.

There is another Robin eventually. Dealer’s choice as to who. You can make an argument for Tim (the classic option), Steph (Girl power + Steph & Jason friendship) or, I don’t know, Lonnie ( I know he has fans, though, in full disclosure, I am ambivalent towards him). Whoever the choice, it’s alternatively important that they have the approval of both Dick, who originated the mantle, and Jason, who left it vacant.

But that’s enough about Jason. You want to know who I really want to talk about in this AU? You guessed it! Helena Bertinelli and Cassandra Cain.

It’s time for No Man’s Land baby~ (absolutely no one is surprised.)

Bruce leaves on an international guilt trip and brings his son with him, much to Jason’s annoyance. It’s over three months before he’s able to convince Bruce to return, and even then it’s only on the condition that Jason enrolls in a boarding school where it’s safe. (Jason is so looking forward to turning 18 when he can finally prove to Bruce that he can take care of himself.)

Meanwhile, Huntress is the sole vigilante presence in No Man's Land. It isn’t long before she recognizes the limits of her own mantle and takes on the mantle of the Bat. In this universe, she is called Batwoman.

It is as Batwoman that she runs into Cassandra, who has been living on the streets of Gotham.

No wait, better idea. Headcanon time: In between acting as two separate vigilantes, Helena also somehow finds the time to run a makeshift classroom for some of the kids stranded in No Man's Land. She recruits them to do odd jobs and in exchange,, she shares some of the food she has stashed wavy and tries to make sure they have at least some education. 

Cassandra is curious and comes first for the food and then for the stories and the reading/writing lessons she doesn’t understand. When she sees Batwoman for the first time and makes the connection, she becomes even more intrigued.

When Batman enters and starts working with Helena, Cassandra saves them both in a handmade costume and ends up as the new Batgirl.

Helena remains as Batwoman after the end of No Man’s Land in this AU. She misses being the Huntress, at the end, but she has Cass to look after now. They grew close in the chaos of No Man’s Land and now the girl’s moved in with her. Helena needs to be better for Cass. She can’t go back to killing because, on one level, Cass wouldn’t let her. On another, she doesn’t want to betray her trust. So she holds the line. She stops her more self-destructive tendencies and tries to do the best for Cass despite the fact that she doesn’t understand her on a fundamental level.

This all leads to her being a more integrated part of the batfam. She's featured in more Bat comics and plays a major supporting role in Batgirl.

Post-No Man’s Land, Jason turns 18, moves off to college, and starts his own Birds of Prey type team. Bruce stalks him, Jason yells at him for it, etc etc.

And now, we’ve arrived at the moment you’ve all been waiting for: Red Hood!Barbara Gordon!

Barbara Gordon’s Under the Red Hood arc is a narrative commentary on fridging and is ideally written by a female author. In this universe, Barbara Gordon was a character who was killed off and vanishes from the narrative. She was a thing pre-crisis but never really a presence post. She is a tombstone next to Sarah Essen. A name mentioned when arguing about the Joker, quickly forgotten to focus on his paralyzing of Jason.

She comes back loud and angry, insisting on being remembered. Look at me, she shouts. Look at my pain. My story should be about me. She sets up a series of circumstances and clues all point to her. To the terrible things that happened to her. Bruce and Gordon have made her death about them, she’s taking it back. Reclaiming it for herself.

She also torments and antagonizes Helena and Cass. They replaced her, they took her place. They don't even know what they've done. They are the first to see her face and they don’t even recognize her. They don’t know the legacy they have claimed. Barbara Gordon rages.

And then, of course, future writers ruin that shining star of an arc by making her ~evil~ and ~crazy~. It’s probably all because coming back from the dead made her infertile and she can’t ever be a mother. Women, am I right? (eyeroll)

Anyway, I want a Red Hood!Barbara Gordon arc now.

[the-sparrow-sings]

So I'm playing Fable 2 again and I'm making my new Sparrow everyone's porblem.

(Under cut so I don't clog everyone's dash)

She's essentially the same as my Classic Sparrow (murder girl raised as a living weapon, generally a Hero but becoming corrupted by the choices she feels forced to make and the weight of her responsibility), BUT with two differences.

New Sparrow was a born Villain. I've decided to headcanon that in THIS version of the Fable Universe, Archon Blooded Siblings are always a Hero and a Villain; the level of Hero/Villain each of them are varies, but that's what I decided to go with.

Now, Rose in this AU would have been a Heroic Hero, but Sparrow was a born villain - she has a darkness inside of her (inspired by the Baldur's Gate 3 Dark Urge) that gives her a proclivity for darker things, which is why she engages with The Temple of Shadows, but she isn't willing to go as far as to annihilate Oakfield - at least not that early in her journey. She learns after going back to Bowerstone for the first time in a decade that she has a hefty desire for praise, thus she indulges in all the pageantry of heroism, while feeding her darkest desires as privately as she can.

She met her husband in Westcliff; initially she planned to just use Lez to open the Oakfield Demon Door and then Sacrifice him to the Shadows, but he grew on her during the journey from Westcliff to Oakfield (the male Thug voice model says "Woof Woof" if you praise the dog in front of him, and for that reason he lives lol) and she decided to keep him around. They have a daughter together, Libby, who inherited Sparrow's evil and her father's aggression. She visits them often, and was a doting mother while Libby was a baby. She loved that she could come home covered in blood and he would not only not run in fear, but be incredibly attracted to her. (One of his sex lines is "Big and strong, just how I like 'em!" which is great, because I had Accuracy and Physique almost maxed out before she even went to the spire. Lez knows what he's ABOUT.)

It's actually her family that inspires Sparrow to start buying up properties and businesses to build an empire; she wants her family to want for nothing. (1000 gold upkeep!)

In The Spire, she discovers that she can indulge her sadomasochistic tendencies and be rewarded for it. Were it not for her intense drive to destroy Lucien, she may have turned on Garth to remain there - she had genuinely bonded with The Commandant (having been raised by Theresa essentially as a vengeance fueled living weapon, this Sparrow was well suited to Spire life).

After the Spire, the first thing she does is reunite with her family; obviously Libby has grown. She remains a doting mother right up until Lucien murders her family.

After defeating Lucien, Sparrow chooses to wish her family back, mostly because she cannot live without her dog...but she never visits her husband and daughter again.

She hopes the world will forget that they exist. If her enemies believe she doesn't care about them, maybe this time they will be safe. (She maintains their upkeep in secret).

This Sparrow turns to Reaver for solace and companionship in much the same way my OG Sparrow does, with the added caveat of him being one of the few people aware that her original husband and daughter are still alive. This extends to Sparrow taking up Reaver's offer to help her become immortal, like him (which "sadly", due to Theresa's interference, does not stick).

For Libby's role in the extended Lore, she grows up jaded and angry - she learns that her mother isn't dead like her father claimed; in fact, she's the queen of fucking Albion. Libby eventually becomes a Bandit Queen in her own right, a fully Villainous Hero.

Now, canonically, since Fable 3 takes place 50 years after Fable 2, Sparrow has to be between 50 and 60 years old when Logan and the HoBW are born (which is part of why I headcanon that she extended her life like Reaver did), while she was 18 when Libby was born. As such, Libby is considerably older than Logan. If Logan was 25 during the events of Fable 3, Libby is 35 years older than him, and is 60 during that timeline.

I like the idea of Logan meeting Libby shortly after Sparrow's death, fighting her as the new King of Albion VS The Bandit Queen, and not realizing that she's his sister until she's forced to use her will abilities to fight him, and she volunteers the information by way of telling him that he "is the spitting image of Mother." Covertly, Libby assists Logan in his eradication of the Trolls.

In this, Logan is actually the one of the siblings born to be a Heroic Hero, meanwhile his sisters, Libby and Olivia (my HoBW) are Villainous Heroes like their mother. (Libby also clocks immediately that Olivia is Reaver's daughter - Libby does not meet Olivia, but bullies Logan relentlessly about their father being fucking Reaver)

[elliebyrrdwrites]

The Heist pt. 7

in which we get a bit of a backstory for Theo and Hermione.

Two Dates

“Let me get this straight,” Blaise’s brown eyes narrowed in on Draco as he leaned back in his seat. Draco sat across from him at his desk, a cup of tea in his hand. Theo sat to Blaise’s left, while Granger sat on her favorite spot atop Draco’s desk, the corner closest to Zabini.

Draco didn’t miss the way Zabini’s eyes kept drifting toward the thighs pressed together as she flipped through a book on Phlebotomy.

“You want me to help you screw over Astoria Greengrass.” Zabini’s cat-like gaze settled back on Draco. “The woman I was set to marry before your family swooped in and cemented an engagement.”

Granger looked up from her book, suddenly intrigued with the conversation.

“I think I did you a favor, if you think about it.” Draco murmured before taking a sip of his tea. “You were always pining after her older sister. Things would have gotten messy.” He added before adding another spoonful of sugar.

“The same woman,” Zabini went on, undeterred. “That you left at the alter.”

“So, I did us both a favor.” Draco lamented.

Theo snorted but quickly covered it up with a cough when Zabini shot him a glare.

“I think the deal works out in your favor quite a bit.” Granger said and held up a perfectly manicured nail. “You will get more publicity and recognition for your research facility with willing participants.” She held up a second finger. “And you get a fascinating artifact to study.”

“Plus you get to screw over the girl who rejected you.” Draco tossed in, causing Granger to look at him, her eyes warning him to behave. He grinned brightly at her as he took a sip from his tea. Her eyes warmed but the warning remained tucked into the edges.

When Draco slid his eyes back to Zabini, he found the wizard watching Granger, a calculating look in his eyes.

“Okay,” He nodded. “I’ll do it.”

“You will?” Theo asked, his chin resting in his hand, elbow pressed into the chair.

“On one condition.”

“Of course.” Theo rolled his eyes.

“Naturally.” Draco nodded, expecting a caveat in his agreement. “What do you have in mind?”

Zabini’s eyes seemed to brighten as he looked, meaningful, from Draco to Granger. “A date with you.”

Granger snorted that snort that caused a recent bout of fondness in Draco. “Me?” She looked behind her.

Theo scoffed and said, “That’s preposterous,” the same time that Draco reacted with, “Excuse me?”

Zabini grinned and stood from his seat. “Those are my terms.” He dusted of his suit and stepped closer to Granger.

Theo stiffened in his seat while Draco found his jaw aching from how hard he was clenching it.

“What do you say, Granger? One little date can’t hurt. Surely, it’s nothing compared to all of this,” His hand gestured, flippantly, toward the desk. All of the information and proposed offers were laid out.

Granger straightened, her shoulders rolling back as she appraised Zabini.

“Okay.” She nodded.

Draco’s jaw loosened and he forced his mouth to lift in a grin as Theo did no such thing. He openly protested the agreement with a scowl and the lowering of his head into his hand.

“Perfect. I’m free on Friday evening. Pick you up at seven?”

“That’s the night before!” Theo hissed but Granger nodded and stuck her slender little hand into Zabini’s much larger one.

“It’s a date. F.Y.I. I don’t do Indian food on a first date.”

“First?” Theo was appalled as Zabini chuckled.

“I don’t do Thai.”

“Make it expensive.” She said before looking back to the book in her lap.

Zabini looked at Draco. “Tell the Potters that my office will get in touch with them later today.”

“Will do.” Draco grinned at his old school mate and leaned back in his chair, finishing the last dredges of his tea.

Theo watched Zabini left, but didn’t say a work until the flare of Draco’s Floo alerted them to his departure from the home.

Draco watched as Theo turned in his seat and the two men’s eyes met. They exchanged the same look of unease before they both looked to Granger as she said,

“Would either of you consider yourself an artist?”

Draco lifted a brow while Theo shrugged. “I’m a con artist. That counts, right?”

Granger huffed out a laugh and looked up at Theo with a playful roll of her eyes. “Can you draw, though?”

Theo nodded at Draco. “That would be Draco’s expertise.”

This caused Granger to twist and look at Draco. “You draw?”

“I doodle.” He sniffed.

“He lies.” Theo stood and stretched before moving over to the bookshelf he enjoyed browsing, though the selections never changed.

“Why?” Draco asked her and she jumped off the desk. She quickly dropped her book onto the desk before summoning photographs, likely from her charmed little purse.

“I already ruined one walrus ivory myself.” She explained and spread a few pictures of The Wand onto his desk. She made her way over to his side of the desk and leaned over his left arm to point to the first picture. “I figured out how to create the flint like carvings, but I’m afraid I’m a shite artist.”

Draco chuckled, but his nose was filling with her scent, making him crave something citrusy. Something sweet.

“I had to go see Cormac again to get another.” She paused and looked up at Theo who was pointedly looking away from her, and into a book Draco was certain he wasn’t reading. “I’d really rather not go see him again.” She added, her voice lowering.

Draco nodded and ran his finger over the carvings on the photograph of The Wand. She had printed several angles of the Wand, allowing him to see every angle. “I’ll do it.” He assured her, and looked up to meet her eyes. She was still leaned over his arm, and her breasts brushed slightly against his bicep as she smiled down at him.

“Do you have the ivory in that clever little purse of yours?” His voice was lower than he had meant, but his eyes greedily took in the way her lips parted in shock before they pulled into a grin.

“It is.” She pulled away and moved to get the purse that was sitting on the coffee table in front of the couch.

He knew that she could have summoned it but chose to fetch it, as if eager to put distance between them. Draco thought that it might have been to hide the blush that filled her cheeks as she turned away.

The familiar sound of the Potters drifted down the hall, towards the study, apparently arriving through the Floo.

When they entered the room, Teddy Lupin was trailing them, his bright blue hair nearly as blinding as the smile he flashed them all as he hurried over to the stack of magazines in Draco’s study.

“Potters,” Draco greeted them with a nod of his head.

“Hey.” Ginny frowned and cut straight to the point, as they had just come back from their first meeting with Astoria.

Ginny, being incredibly proactive, didn’t wait for Astoria’s personal assistant to schedule the Potters in. No, the witch somehow found the witches preferred restaurant for dinner and just happened to be stopping by for takeout. The two witched had hit it off and scheduled brunch for the next morning.

“We have a problem.” She said, as she settled into the chair Zabini had vacated. Potter glanced over at Theo who was watching Granger with narrowed eyes.

“Astoria is in.” Harry said, which didn’t sound like a problem.

“But?” Draco drawled.

“But she insists that other well-known members of the Wizarding worlds high society partake.”

“So? Zabini will more than likely garner enough high class assholes to throw their support in.” Theo frowned as Granger retrieved the ivory from her purse.

“Well,” Harry rubbed at the back of his neck, suddenly very uncomfortable. “She’s asked us to get your support.” He said to Draco. “Said if we can get you involved, then she would agree.”

This was surprising, but Draco merely grinned and held his hand out for the ivory that Granger was walking over. “Did she.” He hummed and allowed his eyes to run over the smooth piece of ivory, almost identical to the last one she had shown him. “This one is better,” He lifted his eyes to Granger, who nodded her agreement. This one appeared older, and therefore required less aging on their part.

“Well?” Ginny prodded Draco, pulling his attention back to her and her husband.

“I’ll need a date. Granger?” He looked up to the witch to find her eyes twinkling with amusement.

“You want me to go as your girlfriend to what? Make you ex-fiancé jealous?”

Draco shook his head. “Not jealous. If I let her think I’m single, she’ll find a way to rub it in my face.” Or sink her claws in, he thought to himself.

“How does this help our situation, exactly?” Theo pushed away from the book shelf.

But Draco looked up at Granger and grinned at her as he replied, “I can think of a few ways it could help.”

She licked her lips and tilted her head. “You have dimples. When did you get dimples?”

“So is that a yes?”

She rolled her eyes and let out a bored sigh. “If I do, then who is going to act as lead researcher?”

“Theo,”

“Polyjuice?” She asked, eyes shining.

“Ugh, I hate polyjuice. Let me transfigure myself.” He whined.

“Transfiguring wont be enough. You’re too recognizable.” Granger reasoned. “You cannot transfigure your eyes, Theo.”

Theo looked up from his book, a bit dumbstruck. “My eyes?”

“Yes,” Granger sighed. “They’re quite distinct.”

“They are lovely.” Ginny mused, agreeing with Granger.

“Is that what you think?” Theo demanded of Granger but she merely shrugged.

“So it’s decided. I’ll go if Granger agrees to be my date.”

“I will, as long as Theo takes on the role as Lead Researcher.”

“Do I need to point out the fact that you’ve just accepted two dates in one day?” Theo closed the book and shoved it onto the shelf.

“This,” She gestured to Draco. “Isn’t really a date.”

“It isn’t?” Draco asked with a grin.

She sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Who else are you going on a date with?” Harry asked, thoroughly amused. Ginny looked exceedingly excited.

“That isn’t really a date, either.”

“Don’t say that to Zabini.”

“Zabini?” Ginny squawked.

“It’s part of the deal we made in order for him to go along with stealing from Greengrass.”

Teddy tossed his magazine onto the table and eyed Theo. “Why are you so upset about Aunt Hermione? Do you want to take her out on a date?”

Theo scoffed and attempted several syllables before he rolled his eyes and shrugged. “I already have.”

“Details!” Ginny exclaimed and clapped her hands together. Granger, meanwhile, only smirked at her friend while Harry lifted an eyebrow.

“I thought you two were just partners in crime.”

“We are. That’s when it first started.” Theo grinned.

“It started out as a date.” Granger slid herself onto that corner of the desk she preferred so much. “But instead of giving me a kiss at the end.”

“We partook in a good ol’ round of B and E.”

“B and E?” Teddy asked.

“Breaking and entering.” Hermione supplied before looking at Draco, who was grinning broadly at her. “We broke into Marcus Flint’s home and took a souvenir.”

“What was it?” Harry chuckled.

“His broom.” Theo snickered.

“Brilliant.” Ginny giggled.

“We worked together a few more times but it wasn’t until —” She stopped herself, eyes widening.

Draco watched as the blush that usually accompanied uncomfortable situations blossomed and then spread across her cheeks and all the way to her neck.

“So you never kissed?” Ginny prodded.

“No,” Granger said the same time Theo replied, “Possibly.”

Everyone stared from one to the other.

“We didn’t.” Granger insisted but Theo pressed his lips together and shrugged, innocently.

“Theo was getting over his relationship with Pansy Parkinson, so even if we had, it was most likely to get over her.”

Draco recalled it with a grimace. Theo had been thoroughly destroyed by Pansy leaving him over his choice of lifestyle. Theo had tried to be good for her, but it was a job with Draco that ultimately led him to lose her in the end.

Theo twitched. “That’s old news.”

“You haven’t dated anyone since.”

“I dated you.”

“We went on one date and never kissed, Theo.”

Theo simply fidgeted with his tie, tucking it into his blazer.

“Where’s Seamus?” Granger asked, suddenly.

Everyone looked at one another but it was Teddy who finally replied.

“I think he’s on a date.”

“On a date?” Granger checked her wrist, for some unknown reason, as there was no watch tied to it. “It’s lunch time. Who is he on a date with?”

“He, um.” Teddy shrugged and sucked through his teeth.

“Teddy.” Harry said with a sigh and the boy relented.

“He met some muggle woman at the museum.”

Granger looked to Theo with a frown before she cleared her throat and addressed Teddy. “Are you ready to practice?”

The young wizard nodded. “Who am I stabbing first?”

Granger’s nose twitched as she considered everyone in the room. “Me.”

“What do you mean, he’s stabbing you first?” Theo’s brow lifted as he drifted closer.

A tray full of sharp needles and tubes and vials with a goopy glob of something in it appeared on the coffee table as Granger summoned them from where, Draco had no clue.

“Teddy needs to practice drawing blood.”

Theo jumped back and scowled at the witch. Everyone looked at Harry who deflated under their expectant stares. The Boy Who Lived gulped and forced a reply.

“Fine.”

[itspileofgoodthings]

🌟 Did my bi-monthly check of your blog, and you know I cannot resist a Jane Austen Personality ask game

(also praying for you in the new year and sending you so much love <3)

Grace!! thank you so much for the prayers and the love!!!! Will so very happily take both ❤️❤️❤️

Your Austen heroine: Emma Woodhouse

okay but Grace, right?? RIGHT?? Let me explain. So here is my usual caveat about all Austen heroes/heroines existing in a very specific set of circumstances with very specific flaws/character traits resulting from them. So please let me say you do not have Emma’s fatal flaw of interfering or her Extreme Blindness (I don’t think you would have bungled the Elton thing for example) but you do both have a very fascinating way of combining intellectual analysis and this very deep interest in personal relationships seen from a bit of a distance. Again Emma is so much bossier than you are and much more interested in sort of managing things, whereas I doubt you are interfering at all, but that same impulse of seeing the Bigger Picture and Seeing the Story in a way that is both analytical and yet not Coldly Detached in the way of Academia is the same!!! It’s the personal that draws you in, always, the relationship dynamics but you always have a strong view of what it is that you’re looking at and a desire to understand WHAT you’re looking at that IS analytical. You also do have a strong desire to arrange figures on the board and even sometimes shape the board itself; you see the possibilities ALWAYS in a way that’s very compelling.

There is also the same strong charm and the sense of moral duty that exists right alongside and yet also underneath that deep interest in people. Also you have a wonderful sense of, not exactly gathering people in but of stopping by their front porch or having people stop by yours for a friendly visit and that is so Emma to me. Like I love the bi-monthly visit! You are a visitor! And you have things to gather and to garner and to learn on the way. Tea to offer, gifts to bring. But you always have a home/central core to go back to when you’re finished like Emma does.

This is just my two cents/instinct. As always I could be way off base here.

[corellianhounds]

I don’t want to have to write all the context and justification for the idea I have right now so I’ll just put this on the WIP stack (story of my life), but consider a Temporal Chalice storyline à la TAZ Balance. An artifact so powerful it holds command over time itself, confronting the cupbearer with their deepest fears, desires, flaws, and mistakes, and the ability to act on a crucial moment in the trajectory of their life, whether they realized it was crucial or not.

The chalice lies before them on a raised pedestal. The offer can only be accepted by one of them, and it comes with two caveats: All of time, from the moment they choose to change and after, will be altered.

And secondly: After they change fate, all of their present memories will be gone. History will be rewritten, and they will never be able to tell in which ways it changes or stays the same.

The Mandalorian is shown a fork in the road. A young family in red is suspended in time: to their right is the city street leading to an underground cellar, only empty for the moment. To the left, the street continues, and beyond it he spies the approaching Mandalorian jet squad. Before, his eyes had been so tightly closed he must have missed the momentary glimpse of their saviors in the distance. If he can manage to redirect his father’s focus, to force him to veer left instead, Din knows he can lead them to safety. He is being offered the chance to save his parents’ lives. 

“… If my own parents don’t die, somebody else will,” Din says quietly. “I know what it’s like to lose them. I can’t wish that on somebody else.”

Boba Fett is shown the back of a Jedi approaching his father from behind in the arena stands. He is ten years old, and he has a gun in his hands.

“… My father was not a perfect man,” Boba said, his voice carefully devoid of emotion. “My path to this point in life would have been harsh either way. I don’t need a second lifetime of hardship to remember.”

“Disgraced magistrate Greef Karga” echoes at the back of his mind as he watches the scene unfold from a third person point of view. He is given the chance to exonerate himself of what he did before being stripped of his title and run offworld before arriving on Nevarro. He has time to escape and absolve himself of any wrongdoing.

There’s a long moment of consideration before Karga speaks, the veteran showman smile nowhere to be found. “I wouldn’t have become a better man if I hadn’t been caught,” he says grimly. “I would have continued doing what I did because I got away with it. The only reason I changed is because I was held accountable.”

Luke sees Dagobah, and an X-Wing. There are two figures outlined in the gloom, one corporeal and small, the other ethereal and old. If he chooses not to go to Cloud City and stays to finish his training, he will have the strength and knowledge needed to end the war sooner, potentially saving untold thousands of lives at the cost of those dear to him.

“… I don’t think I could make the choice any differently, even knowing what I do now,” Luke says softly. “My masters were training me to have the strength to kill my father. I don’t think I would have had the mercy to spare him long enough for him to redeem himself, and I would have lost what little time I did have with him.”

But what about those who may not be able to accept the present as it is? The ones who would have the knowledge and opportunity to right the wrongs of the galaxy and save innocent lives? To undo past mistakes?

Cobb Vanth is fifteen and has just arrived in the next settlement to pick up supplies. If he immediately returns to the orphanage his mother runs instead of staying the night, as he once did, he’ll be able to put out the fire and save a dozen young lives, and his mother won’t be forced to live with the survivor’s guilt for the following week before she ultimately makes the choice that will leave him an orphan too.

There’s a long arena with targets lined up at one end. Her sister, laughing, stands tall and confident in front of the back wall, hands on her hips with an apple balanced on her head. She is alive, and the girl not yet called Fennec Shand stands at the opposite end, her crossbow still pointed low as she squares her feet. She isn’t yet the marksman she’ll become, and she has the chance to avoid the biggest mistake of her life.

Cara Dune sees an office she’s never been in before, a high-rise view of Coruscant from the windows. There is a covey of New Republic officers poring over data showing the plot to frame and kill her entire crew for the crime they didn’t commit, and the evidence to frame her for it when she runs.

Una is standing at the back of the courtroom. It’s the two-sun rotation where Max Rebo’s band plays yet another encore for Oola to dance to, Jabba’s raucous, rumbling laughter spreading through the room with his odious breath. She knows there is a sliver of time before the next song starts, and if she can maneuver through the crowd fast enough, she knows she can coax her friend into playing along, just for the night. Right now, with the chalice in hand, Una sees the other girl who would arrive the following day and would have taken Oola’s place without Oola having to die first. Jabba liked fresh girls with braids to pull as much as he did the lekku of Twi’leks.

Ahsoka sees herself as a child, looking up at a young Jedi Knight with a scar bisecting one eyebrow. She knows this scene, has had it etched upon her memory for decades. She could decline his offer and divert her life’s course entirely.

Leia is shown the first time she ever met Lord Vader at age fourteen. She is standing beside the man who raised her as his own, the two of them across from the figure in black. Captain Antilles is next to her and he has a gun in his holster.

Grogu, a child, is given perhaps the most difficult choice of all: The ability to prove Palpatine’s treachery to his masters and prevent Order 66 from happening at all, perhaps preventing the entire war. The tradeoff is that he will grow up in the temple, and he will never meet the man who would become the Mandalorian.

Han Solo is shown the future. His hand is on the door. Leia and Ben are behind him.