#also his helmet is totally one of those ones with the wings on the sides of it

[jalo-parker]

Insert hermitgang lyrics here

Hes a feathered dragon! The feathered bits are based on a swallow-tailed kite :] tis the season for them to be around where I live so I've been seeing a whole bunch of them its so cool..

[adamsappl]

miscellaneous adam headcanons

adam is left-handed naturally, but has learned to be ambidextrous.

adam's longest standing long-term relationship is with eve. he's had a lot of trouble holding relationships that aren't wholly casual.

speaking of his relationship with eve: he LOVED that woman. still does. he and lilith were made for each other, yes -- but it felt. different. with eve. adam doesn't really know how to describe it. he knows he loved lilith from the beginning because he was MADE to do just that ;; but he actually had the time to fall for eve. he doesn't know that he'll ever be able to get over lilith, but by all means, eve was the love of his life. not that he'll ever SAY any of that.

he has a guitar collection! the one that doubles as a holy weapon is his pride and joy ( he loves that thing more than he does most people ) but he takes very good care of all of them.

i've talked about this before but he HATES people seeing his face. if ever you want to piss him off, trying to take off his helmet without his permission is the easiest way to do so. the mask stays ON during sex.

he is SO cold, all the time. his robes are made of thicker material -- but even outside of that, he usually wears warmer clothing. he likes to cover up.

even so, his fashion sense ( outside of work ) consists of leather jackets decorated with spikes, ripped jeans ( usually with leggings on underneath, ) big combat boots, and things of the like. he also has ear piercings and owns quite a bit of jewelry, though he doesn't often wear it.

for a soul as ancient as his, adam is SHOCKINGLY up-to-date with modern technology, slang, etc. he's not TOTALLY caught up with it all, but he's close enough.

he goes on dates and goes in and out of relationships and sleeps around, but lute is genuinely, genuinely the only person adam's actually connected with in SUCH a long time. their whole situationship is strange and adam is in no rush to start putting labels on it, but she is his #1.

adam is somewhere around 9ft tall, and has a crazy wingspan to match. aside from warmth and general comfort, the sheer size of his wings is why he usually keeps them tucked away at his sides rather than exposed at his back.

he has a weirdly high pain tolerance for someone that hasn't actually FELT pain in millenia.

though the guitar is his instrument of choice, he can play a large variety of instruments! generally, he has an affinity for those of the stringed variety.

adam has dyscalculia. that's it that's the headcanon.

adam is bisexual ( and has a preference for women/fem presenting people, ) but he's been in denial about it for literally as long as he's existed. he's slept with men, he's dated men, etc etc, but if asked, all you'll get from him is yeah obviously i'm straight wdym. i was just curious. mind your business.

[montammil]

In the Darkest Hours - Part One

CW: Lab whump (a little), multiple whumpers, inhuman whumpee, rockslide, obsessive behavior, pet whump (hinted), briefly mentioned abuse

When Liam was little, he saw one of the last ever documented Winged's ever to exist. Her wings were flame-red.

She was in a circus, but even child-him chose to ignore the bruises on her body, how every part of her except her wings were well-kept. He, and the audience, were too stunned to really pay attention. Not like they would've cared, anyway. Many people had Winged's as pets, no one was required to respect them.

The numbers dwindled down over the decades, and soon Winged's were even being poached. Masters had to keep their Winged's in closed doors at all times, and eventually the government took the last ones away.

Liam became infatuated with wanting to find more. He was sure there had to be at least one more left, but he was sure there were more than that. He was sure if he just looked and studied hard enough, he'd find something to find more and become rich. He'd even get a Winged of his own, and he hoped it'd have bright red wings, just like hers.

He started working for a private research center, surrounded by the research of all creatures that aren't human. Laws were different, there were more equal rights for others like the Horned, Scaled, and Gilled, but since there were no Winged's out there... there were no laws protecting them.

As he grew older, he grew more bitter. His obsession started to dwindle down by the time he reached thirty, and he thought he moved on, accepting that if there are any more Winged's on this planet, the chances of him getting his hands on them would be low.

Until one night, that is.

...

Alden has gotten better at hiding his wings, even if it still hurts like hell. He's managed to tuck them by his sides, and though it looks strange and unnatural, people still seem to shrug it off, considering he's done this several times.

He's glad he lives in a remote and cold area, because it gives him an excuse to bundle up and hide his wings better, and go to less-populated markets.

"Hey, Al. Haven't seen you in a while."

"Oh, hey, Em. Sorry, I've been kind of busy."

She chuckles. "I can tell. If you spend all your time in those caves, you're going to get hurt, you know."

"I'm fine."

She raises a brow but leaves it at that with a casual goodbye once he pays for his things. It's a miracle he can afford it, barely scraping by. At least he never has to worry about his medical expenses, since there's no way he'd trust any doctor with his wings. He'd get turned in, no doubt.

Alden goes to drop off his things at his cabin, and then decides some mining wouldn't hurt. He hit it big about a month ago, at least bigger than what he normally finds there. 

Since no one's ever down in the caves or the river, he decides to throw one of his jackets off. Everyone else in the town thinks he just gets cold easily, which is somewhat true, but not totally true.

He hums quietly to himself as he makes his way down the steep rocks. It's also extremely conventional he lives so close to the mining site. He grabs his helmet with a cap light from his backpack, his pickaxe and chisel, and leaves the rest of the equipment outside the cave. 

He knows where everything is, and he likes keeping his surroundings clear so no one gets hurt. He takes one of the mining lamps and lights it up, walking in further until he gets to his first spot of interest.

He sees something shiny in a small crevice of the rocks, so he picks up his pickaxe and chisel and starts hacking away at the rocks, trying to get whatever it is out of the crack. 

He has no idea what it might be, but it has to be valuable or it wouldn't be so deep in the crevice.

It's difficult work, and by the end of the day he's covered in sweat and dirt, and near what looks like the back of the cave. He decides he'll try one more location before leaving.

Just as he gets back to the close entrance of the cave, he finds one more area. He only hacks at the spot four times when he feels the whole cave start to shake. 

His head snaps up and he tries to look at what he's doing, but it's too dark, even with the light on his helmet.

Before he can rush out of the cave, the whole thing caves in and everything goes black.

...

"Dr. Schultz, you won't believe what we just found!"

"I really don't care," Liam responds bitterly, not looking up from his paperwork. "Can you shut the door on your way out, Blake? That'd greatly be appreciated--"

"It's a Winged."

That causes Liam to abruptly stop writing. His ballpoint pen falls out of his hand and onto his desk. He looks up at his assistant with wide, disbelieving eyes. "You're kidding."

Blake smiles. "No joke."

Liam quickly stands up from his desk and looks at him. "Is this real? You're sure?"

He nods. "He was recently transported here. He might be asleep for a while. Poor thing was in a cave that had collapsed."

"Show me now."

They make their way to a certain room, and Blake opens the door to room 640, where the Winged is located. He moves to open the door for Liam, but Liam shoves past him and throws open the door himself. 

He runs over to the Winged, who is currently laying on a bed with all sorts of medical equipment hooked up to him. He immediately goes to examining his wings. "Good, they don't seem injured much..." He frowns deeper at the color. "Blue. I wanted red wings."

"He's likely the last Winged alive," Blake mumbles, out of annoyance of Liam's reaction, or lack thereof. He knows a little about the slightly younger man's obsession with Wingeds, but he really thought he'd have more of a reaction at the extremely rare find, regardless of the color of wings.

Liam doesn't acknowledge him. He seems to be focusing on the Winged, taking in every detail. "Do we have any kind of file for him yet?"

"Not that I know of."

Liam continues to stare at the Winged in silence for several minutes. "I think we need to do some tests first before we do anything with him. We'll have to bring in some other doctors. Schedule an appointment with Dr. Herman for me. I have a lot of work to do."

"Yes, sir."

"Oh, and when he wakes up, notify me immediately." He doesn't wait for Blake to respond before leaving. He simply walks out the door without a goodbye, as per usual.

As soon as he's gone, Blake looks back at the sleeping Winged. He thinks the blue looks nice, shiny and almost iridescent.

History has proven Winged's are more comparable to obedient dogs than birds, given they are loyal and compliant, even if they start off stubborn and short-tempered at first.

Liam can have the Winged as his patient, but Blake wants a loyal pet. He thinks he's found the perfect candidate.

[p-artsypants]

No, You Go First (7)

Ao3 | FF.net

For anyone wondering and lamenting about the angst and heartbreak coming with this development, I tried to keep it light. :)

And all marriage and wedding stuff is just not going to be historically accurate. They’re helmets aren’t correct, Berk isn’t a real place, so I’m making up the lore for that topic (based on what we see in the third film).

—

A few days into her engagement to Snotlout and Astrid was ready to throw herself off a cliff. 

Was that too dramatic? Or perhaps morbid?

Didn’t matter. He was just so…obnoxious. 

“And I told the guy, you know what I said to him? I said you mess with the Snotster, you get the horns! That’s what I said!” 

“And this was Tuffnut you were fighting with?” She drawled. 

“No, that was the last story. This was a totally different guy. A guy you never would have met.” 

“Right.” She smirked. 

She was trying. The chief had worked so hard to get the ceremony delayed, she figured she ought to at least try to make the time worth it and attempt to fall in love with Snotlout in the meantime. 

It wasn’t working, but no one could say she wasn’t trying. 

She spent time with him. Time she’d normally spend with Hiccup. That was the hardest part, of course. When separating herself from Hiccup, she also separated herself from Toothless and Stormfly, and at such a critical time in her training too! 

She tried not to think about that snowy afternoon in the hayloft with Hiccup either. It was for the best that she forget about him entirely. 

That was easier said than done, of course. Especially as he sat at the table across from them. 

“Snotlout, Astrid,” he said cordially. 

“Hey Cuz! How goes the Dragon Sympathizing?” Snotlout chuckled. 

‘How goes the woman stealing?’ “It’s great, thanks for asking,” Hiccup responded, bitterness in his words. He unfurled a large piece of paper in front of them. “Now, since I’m working in the forge, have design experience, and the gods apparently hate me, I’ve been assigned the task of designing your…” he sighed hard. “Your wedding home.” 

Wow, the gods really did hate him. 

“Oh really?” Snotlout said, with a disgusting curl to his lip. “Is that so?” 

“Yes. So do you want to give me helpful input, or do you just want me to wing it?” He smoothed the blank paper out. “And don’t worry, I’ve already planned two nice sized beds in different rooms.” 

“Haha,” Snotlout stuck out his tongue. He considered all of this, his mouth scrunching up. A very unused thinking face, if there ever was one. “I want a nice big basement. A place to spar and tame these bad boys,” he flexed his arms. 

Hiccup didn’t comment on it, just drew a box off to the side to signify the basement landing. 

“Oh, and of course, I want a giant metal ‘S’ on the front. For Snotlout!” 

“Or for ‘Stupid’.” Hiccup muttered.

“Shouldn’t it be a ‘J’ for Jorgenson?” Asked Astrid. 

“Or ‘Jackass’?”

“This is my house, Astrid. Not my dad’s.” 

“His name starts with an S too.” She argued back. 

“Okay okay,” Hiccup butted in. “Let’s talk about accessories later, once it’s built. Focus on the house.” 

“Well,” said Snotlout. “Make sure the bedroom can fit the biggest bed possible.” 

Both Hiccup and Astrid scoffed. 

“Hey, it’s not what you think! She kicks!” Snotlout pointed at Astrid. 

“I do?” She sneered. “How do you know that?” 

“Yeah. Remember that camping trip we all went on last summer? Me and Tuff shared a tent, the fish boys shared a tent,” he pointed at Hiccup. “And you and Ruff shared a tent.” 

Hiccup did remember the camping trip, because it was the first and last annual trip for his generation. He was supposed to share a tent with Fishlegs, but the boy took up the whole tent by himself so Hiccup had to build a lean to to sleep in. He ended up laying in poison oak and got a horrible swollen rash and got the trip canceled. Of course, that had been another blow to his popularity. 

“Ruff said she had bruises for weeks from you kicking her,” Snot explained. “So I want a nice big bed. Preferably one with one of those chastity boards that I can drop if she gets too violent.” 

Hiccup started laughing then. 

Astrid kicked him under the table. 

“Ow! I can see why you’d kick in your sleep! It’s muscle memory!” 

She kicked him again. 

Hiccup rubbed his sore shin and then lightly drew the main outline of the house while Snotlout and Astrid watched. He drew the area for the loft, and made a note of ‘big bed with board’. 

“That’s all I care about,” said Snotlout. “Astrid’s going to be there more often since…” he attempted to whisper, though it was still full volume. “She’s the woman!” 

“Thanks, Snotlout.” Astrid droned. 

“Anytime. You kids have fun! I got stuff to do!” He waved with a flourish. 

So Astrid was left alone with Hiccup to design her marriage home to another man. It started out awkward, but then it became kind of fun. 

“Do you enjoy cooking? Would you like a dedicated kitchen area?” 

“I think…if I had the space, I might try to cook more often. Mom’s teaching me to make bread, but my loaves are pretty flat.” 

“Bread’s not too hard. You must be kneading it too much, or not letting it rise.” 

“That’s what mom says! Wait, you know how to cook?” 

“Of course! You think my dad has time to make meals with all his chiefing?” 

“Hmm. I never thought of it before. I guess it makes sense.” 

“Of course, I don’t always cook. We often get food from other people in the village. Mrs. Sorenson makes too much stew, or Fishlegs’ mom brings a small shepherd's pie.” 

“Do you do the other chores too?” She asked. 

“Like laundry and mending? Sometimes. The other ladies sometimes stop over and pick up our laundry. I assume they think ‘I might as well do theirs while I’m doing laundry’. I do all the mending though. I made this tunic!” 

“Not surprising. I saw your leather working on Toothless’ tail.” 

“You know, I learned to sew from Snotlout’s mom. She taught him too. Told him a man ought to know how to repair his own clothes if he can’t find a wife.” 

Astrid snorted. “Are you saying Mrs. Jorgenson thought Snotlout would be single for a long time?” 

“Your words.” He smirked. “How about the bathroom? You want an inside tub?” 

Astrid’s eyes widened. “An inside tub? You can do that?” 

“I’ll put it under the stairs, and put a grill underneath so you can have warm water.”

“Now you’re spoiling me!” 

Hiccup smiled. “You should enjoy something about this marriage.” 

“Pft.” She shook her head. 

Together they planned out a dream home. It raised Astrid’s mood considerably. If she had to be married to a man she disliked, at least she was living in a cool house. 

Astrid looked at Hiccup, a big smile on her face. It was nice to spend time with him again. If she was lucky, Snotlout would let her continue to be friends with him. Then again, jealousy might ruin that. 

“I’ll take these prints to Gobber, and we’ll get to work.” 

“Where’s the house going?” 

“At the edge of the woods. If you’re lucky, you can sneak out to see Stormfly.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “And there’s space for a stable for her when the time comes.” 

“Thank you, Hiccup. That’s so cool.” 

He beamed at her. “Anything for you, Milady.” 

—-

They were getting away from Berk for a few days. The village thought Hiccup and Stoick were going for a father-son bonding camping trip, but really, they were going on a secret scouting mission on dragon back. The idea had been passed back and forth a few times, that maybe the reason they hadn’t been able to find the dragon’s nest with the boats was because only a dragon could find it. It was Hiccup’s thought, and he had just been able to convince his dad that a two man scouting mission was better than introducing Toothless to the tribe as a compass. 

And getting away from Berk for a while would be a good distraction from Astrid.

“Remember dad, keep it light.” 

“Aye lad. I was about to say the same thing.” He checked over his pack, as Hiccup peaked over. 

“You don’t need the flint.” 

“Oh. Right! That will be convenient.” He took it out. “I packed a knife. Are they going to be alright with that?” 

“Toothless trusts you now. You can bring your hammer too, if you want.” 

Stoick considered it, and decided to take it with him, just in case. 

They left early in the morning, before people could see how little they were taking with them. 

“You think Astrid will mind that I’m taking Stormfly?” Asked Stoick.

“I asked her, and she’s thrilled that Stormfly gets to go on the trip. The poor Nadder doesn’t get off island a lot these days.” 

Stoick nodded. “Astrid’s been rather busy. She brought over some soup two nights ago.” 

“She did? Why didn’t I get any?”

“You got dinner with the other men working on the house, didn’t you?” 

“Yeah…I guess…was it good?”

Stoick smirked. “You want to know what Astrid’s cooking was like?”

“I asked, didn’t I?”

Stoick chuckled. “That you did. It tasted a lot like your mother’s cooking.” 

“That good?”

“Son, your mother was known for her kind heart and good looks…not her cooking.” 

Hiccup snorted.

They reached the cove, and Toothless and Stormfly started dancing around, full of energy and excited to see them. 

“Hello, pretty girl,” Stoick said cautiously, petting Stormfly’s snout. “You’ve seen me a few times. I’m no Astrid, but do you think I could fly you for a while?”

Stormfly squawked and lowered herself so he could mount her. Hiccup brought over a saddle. “Here, don’t want to get a sore butt.” 

“Thanks son.” 

Hiccup helped him strap the saddle on, before climbing on Toothless. “You think you can handle your first solo flight being a long one?” 

“Astrid seems to have whipped this Nadder into shape. As long as she cooperates with me, we’ll get along great.” 

“Sometimes I think you’ve made great progress accepting the dragons, and then you say things like that.” He took off. 

“What? What did I say wrong?” Stoick called back. He gave Stormfly a little pat, like Hiccup had instructed, and she took off into the air. 

Once Stoick caught up to Hiccup, they started their journey in earnest. 

“So,” said Hiccup. “Where are we going?”

“The raids come from the North. I think that’s where the Nest is. Hopefully as we get close, the dragons will take us right there.” 

“And we’re not going to hurt them, right?”

“I’m certainly not taking the nest by myself.”

“I’m here.” 

“What are you going to do to a dragon? Let them eat you so they can choke on you?”

“Ouch, but fair.”

“This is a scouting mission, first and foremost.” 

Hiccup nodded, trying not to think too much about what was so uncertain. What were they going to find at the nest anyway? It was a nest, after all. Were they storing it all for winter like the Vikings did? Maybe they’d find a bunch of babies. Then he’d feel really bad. 

Hiccup wanted to end the raids. But he didn’t know if he wanted to do what it took to end them. 

“You’ve been busy lately,” Stoick noted. “Between studying the dragons on the island and forge work, I rarely see you.” 

“I’m trying to keep busy. Besides, Snotlout and Astrid’s house isn’t going to build itself.” 

“We put up houses overnight. You don’t need to work so hard on it.” 

“I want it to be nice for her…and Snotlout.” He added as an afterthought.

“Should I invite some of our allied chiefs with young daughters to come and meet your acquaintance?” 

Hiccup frowned. “No. And I don’t really want to talk about my love life anymore.” 

“Fair enough.” Stoick gave a respectful nod. Then, after a few moments of silence, he added, “knowing Snotlout, he won’t live to see 20. You can have Astrid when she’s a widow.” 

“DAD!” 

They flew on and on. Conversation hadn’t been easy for them for many years, but since that fateful night before the snowfall, when Hiccup had just shot Toothless down, their relationship had started to improve. Stoick was still a Viking with years of dragon slaying under his belt. While Hiccup was a boy filled with ideas of things that were—well, not dragon slaying. Bridging the gap between the two was difficult. 

So it was no surprise that they flew for an hour without a single word exchanged. 

“Hmph,” Stoick grunted eventually. 

“You say something, dad?” 

“Just thinking,” Stoick peered over Stormfly’s side. “The ice on the sea is pretty thick. I don’t know if we could’ve gotten a ship up here even in the summer.” 

“Then if we are close to the nest, it would make sense, right? Go where the ugly pink things with pointy sticks can’t go.” 

“Who’re you callin’ ugly?” 

“Not you, obviously. I meant all the other vikings.” 

Stoick snorted. “A fair theory…if you throw out the idea of them migrating for winter.” 

“Maybe they just…hunker down?” 

“Perhaps.” Stoick took a compass out from his saddle bag. “We’re still heading north. I would have thought we would have reached the nest by now.” 

“Do you think we’re off course?” 

“Hard to tell what the right course is in the first place. We’ll go a bit further, and then take a wide loop back.” 

“Looks like a bit further is fog.” Hiccup pointed. 

Stoick narrowed his eyes. It sort of looked like the fog he encountered at Helheim’s gate. “Maybe we aren’t so off course after all. Let’s see if we can get above it.” 

The fog was thick, and it was impossible to see the ocean below it. But it did have a top, and they rode over it like a boat in the water. The fog went on for what looked like forever, to the edge of the world. Hiccup’s heart began to beat faster, as a sense of unease settled over him. Somewhere in this fog, somewhere near, the nest of dragons laid. 

Toothless’ ear flaps raised, and he course corrected suddenly, making Hiccup jolt. 

“Buddy?”

Stormfly let out a squawk and likewise jolted to the right, focused on something. 

“Easy girl,” Stoick said softly, but deadly serious. “I think they’ve got the trail.” 

Hiccup swallowed thickly, the anticipation of discovery thundered in his veins. He had a horrible feeling that by time the reached the end of this journey, his life would be irrevocably changed, and he didn’t know if that was exciting or terrifying. 

Stoick and Hiccup flew side by side, with maybe one wingspan of space between them. 

They watched, with shock and awe as a figure breached the fog in front of them. A human in grotesque, animalistic armor holding a staff, rose in front of them, standing tall, proud, and unafraid.

If they were riding several hundred feet above the sea, what was he standing on?

Several deafening seconds passed before Toothless warbled. 

The person swiveled quickly, startled by the sound. Hiccup could not see their face, but they clearly saw him, and tapped the staff twice. The figure sank into the fog, only to emerge quickly on the back of a huge dragon, easily twice the size of Toothless. It was orange and had two sets of wings.  

“Toothless, it’s okay, it’s okay!” Hiccup quickly assured his dragon, but more to himself. 

The stranger and his dragon flipped backwards and dove back into the fog. 

“Wait!” Hiccup called, and urged Toothless after him. 

“Hiccup!” Stoick shouted after. “I can’t keep up!” 

“Stormfly’s a tracker, you’ll find me!” And he raced off, afraid to lose this stranger. 

The appearance of a human filled Hiccup with all sorts of emotions. If there was a person in charge of these raids, then perhaps they could be reasoned with? They could trade instead, and Berk could learn how to train dragons like this person had! 

Toothless burst through the wall of fog to find a rocky island, halfway made of giant ice spikes. Distantly, he heard his father yell. “What in the beard of Thor is that!?” Before he and Toothless dove into a cavern. 

“Careful, bud!” Hiccup attempted to slow his friend down, but Toothless blasted an echoing roar down the tunnel, and proceeded to nail every twist and turn. “Wow…” Hiccup whispered, delighted to learn something new about his dragon. 

How did that other dragon navigate through here?

Toothless landed in a cave. There were a few other dragons resting that perked up when they entered. 

“Halt your approach, viking!” A woman’s voice called. “Your kind is not welcomed here!” Hiccup spotted her then, with the dim light shining through the ice. She was crouched up on a ledge, her dragon behind her. “This is a dragon’s sanctuary, not a killer’s playground!” 

“I’m not a killer!” Hiccup protested. “I’m a friend to dragons! All I want is to bring peace between vikings and dragons.” He hopped off of Toothless. “See? This is Toothless. He’s my best friend.” 

The woman used her staff to lower herself to the ground, as she slinked closer. 

“We’re trying to find a way to get the dragons to stop raiding us.” He stood rigidly as the woman crept ever closer. Her movements were like a wild animal. “I just want to talk.” 

“You’re so young…just a boy…” She cooed, coming closer still, and reaching a hand out towards him. 

“Uh…yeah…well, I’m sixteen. I just look small.” He attempted to chuckle. “Late bloomer.” 

Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at him. “...Hiccup?”

His eyes widened and he blinked several times, stunned. 

The woman removed her helmet and tossed it to the side. She stepped into his personal space and caressed his face, her callous fingers trembling as she touched him. 

She had vibrant green eyes, auburn hair streaked with gray, and high cheekbones. 

“Should…I…know you?” Hiccup asked, extremely uncomfortable. 

The woman seemed to fight for words, then eventually said, “...no.” 

“You certainly seem to know me…” He desperately tried to joke as she touched his hair. 

She had tears in her eyes as she kissed his forehead gently. “You’re so beautiful.”

“Okay!” Hiccup chuckled uneasily as he danced away from her. “That’s…that’s enough of that for me, thank you.” 

The woman kept staring at him, a wistful smile on her face. Then her brows drew into a crease. “That man with you…?”

“Oh, that’s my dad.”

“...Stoick?”

“Yeah! He’ll catch up soon.” 

She backed up, fear rolling off of her in waves. “I have to go. He can’t see me.”

“Wait wait wait,” Hiccup grabbed her arm. “You can’t leave! We need your knowledge! Dad and I are training the dragons, but the rest of the tribe still hates them. Please, we need your help!” 

“Hiccup!” Stoick’s voice echoed down the tunnel. “Add to your notes! Nadder’s don’t have great night vision!” There was a clatter of rocks. “Ow! Watch it missy!” 

The woman looked stricken towards the cavern entrance. “Please Hiccup, he mustn’t see me!” 

“Why? Dad’s really mellowed out these last few months. I think since we’re so close to peace, he’s finally calmed down. Whatever you’re afraid of, don’t be.”

“Hiccup…” Her jaw trembled. 

Hiccup knew he wasn’t that strong. This woman could break free of his hold easily, but she wasn’t trying. Was she afraid of hurting him? Hurting his feelings? 

Finally, Stoick and Stormfly all but fell into the cavern, Stormfly tilting so that he fell off. 

She squawked angrily at him. 

“It wasn’t my idea!” He yelled back. He grumbled as he stood and dusted off his clothes. When his face raised to find his son, his eyes went wide and his jaw dropped in shock. 

Hiccup got behind the woman and pushed her forward. “Go on. He won’t bite.” 

As the woman turned and met Stoick’s gaze, the look on his father’s face changed to something he had never seen before. Awe? Reverence? He looked damn near tears. 

“Well, go on!” The woman shouted at him. “Get ta shoutin’!” She stood a little straighter. 

Stoick took off his helmet.

“I didn’t come home, afterall. All this time…never said a word about where I was. And now—”

Stoick only stepped closer, eyes riveted on her. 

Hiccup watched, goosebumps running up his back. A part of him had a guess at who this was, but the rest of him denied it vehemently. After all, she was dead…

Wasn’t she?

“By the gods, Stoick! Won’t you say somethin’?”

Stoick raised a hand to her face, touching her so tenderly. “You’re as beautiful as the day I lost you.” 

All the fight went out of his woman, and she clutched onto Stoick as tears started to roll down her cheeks. 

Stoick kissed her then, tenderly. Like someone who hadn’t kissed in so long and wanted to savor it. 

“D-dad?” Hiccup whispered, overcome with emotion. “Is…is she…?”

“Aye, lad.” 

The tears on Valka’s face doubled as she rushed back to Hiccup and crushed him into a fierce hug. “My baby…my baby boy!” 

“M-mom…Mom!” And he hugged her back, coming unraveled at the seams. All these years, and he finally had his mother. She was here. She was alive! 

Stoick surrounded them and lifted them off the ground in a hug. He was laughing and weeping, so overwhelmed with emotion, it just spilled out of him. 

Hiccup looked at his beautiful mother. “Let’s go home, mom.”

Valka looked much more forlorn and reserved at that. She pulled away from the boys, slowly backing away towards her dragon. 

“Val…?”

“I can’t go back,” she breathed. 

“Why not, love?” Stoick wasn’t accusing, just concerned. 

“Hiccup said so himself, the tribe still hates dragons. I’ve lived alone, among them, for 15 years. I…I couldn’t go back to a society that hates them. And…I don’t know…” she looked at her hands. “Being away from people…it changes you. They’d hate me too.” 

Hiccup looked to his dad, pleading.

“We can’t leave you here, Val. I just found you! I don’t want to lose you again.” 

“I know, my darling. I don’t want to leave you…but…”

“We’re close!” Interrupted Hiccup. “I’m working on stopping the raids, that’s why we came out here. It won’t be long and then–” 

“They won’t understand.” Valka said patiently. “They didn’t back then. If I return before there’s peace…it could endanger your father. He’d be a traitor. They don’t know you’ve befriended dragons, do they?”

Stoick shook his head. “It’s been our secret.”

“The cove!” Hiccup chirped. “The shack in the cove! She can live there until we get everything figured out! And you can bring—um…” He looked at the large dragon that was now examining Toothless with wise old eyes. 

“Cloudjumper.” 

“Cool.” He smiled. “You can bring Cloudjumper, and come and go as you want, but that way, you’ll be near, and we can see you!” 

“Please Val…” Stoick begged. “That’s reasonable, isn’t it?” 

Valka was quiet for a bit, mulling it over. It would be a slow start. Like stepping into water up to your knees instead of jumping right in. “Aye. It’s reasonable.” 

“Then you’ll come back with us?”

Valka swallowed, and then nodded. “To the cove. For now.” 

Stoick grabbed her into a tight hug and kissed her face. “Thank you! Thank you!” 

Valka started giggling as she half-heartedly tried to escape. “Alright alright! Let me just pack up a few things.” 

The men followed her through the caverns as she led them to her living space. It was like a balcony to an auditorium, and she led them in through the back. She had fur pelts for sleeping, a large clay pot for cooking, and other odds and ends. 

The boys didn’t see any of it. In front of them, they had a perfect view of what was inside the giant ice pillar. 

One dragon surrounded by hundreds more. This one singular dragon was the size of the mountain the Great Hall was built into. Not the hall itself, the mountain. It was mostly white, and had a great mane of fins from its back. Two huge tusks protruded from its mouth, big enough to wipe out the village with one swipe. 

“I didn’t know dragons could get that big.” Stoick said, weakly. 

“Every dragon colony has its queen, but this is the king.” Valka said proudly. 

“Is this the guy causing the raids?” Hiccup asked, desperately hoping the answer was no.

“No.” 

Both Hiccup and Stoick breathed a sigh of relief. 

“The Bewilderbeast is a kind and benevolent alpha. But all dragons from a certain distance can hear his call, and come to worship him. It is likely how your dragons found this place.” She picked through her belongings, deciding what was worth taking with her. 

“But…something like this…is causing the raids?” Hiccup pried. 

“It is likely.” She bagged up some strange looking tools, only the gods knowing what they were for. “The night I was taken…” She paused and looked to the ceiling. “Cloudjumper had landed on our house. I went to protect you, Hiccup. You were just a babe. But what I saw instead…he was watching you with awe. I had expected a horrible sight, but I saw a kind and gentle creature. I don’t know why he took me. Perhaps to fulfill his task? But as we flew from Berk, he broke away from the rest, and continued north. He brought me here, and the alpha graciously let me stay.” 

Cloudjumper appeared from the other wall, blocking the sight of the alpha. Toothless appeared next to him, tongue lolling out. He seemed to be having a good time. 

“I can only guess that Cloudjumper is loyal to this alpha first, and whatever spell sent him to Berk…he broke from it before he could deliver me.” 

Stoick rested his hands on his waist and chastised the great dragon. “You could have at least brought her back, you know!” 

Cloudjumper just cocked his head, looking mildly offended. 

“It’s in the past now, love.” Valka stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. 

But was it really? That dragon, that other alpha, was still out there. A great tyrant. Was it the size of this alpha?

Or bigger?

Valka didn’t take much with her. Some things she had made from whatever she could find she would start to pack, and then Stoick reminded her gently, “Love, I can get you actual socks made of wool,” or “darling, Hiccup is a very talented blacksmith, I’m sure he could make you a better hammer than a rock tied to a stick.” In the end, she ended up taking some armor she had made from dragon hide, and a stack of journals she had made herself from homemade parchment and leather. As Hiccup held one for her, he studied it, seeing a few doodles in the margins. It gave him a strange feeling.

He and his father had been polar opposites. He could never see much of his dad in him, besides a few physical traits like his nose. 

He took after his mother. Knowing that gave him a sense of belonging. He wasn’t the only one of his kind. He wasn’t the odd one out anymore. 

Before leaving, Valka made a point to say goodbye to the alpha. She spoke to him like an equal. She introduced Hiccup and Stoick, letting the beast breathe a wisp of ice onto them. She explained that she was leaving for now, but may come back to visit. Then she kissed his scales and gave him a hug.

As much as one could hug a mountain. 

Stoick just stood amazed, enraptured that his wife could speak to such a creature. 

Then it was time to leave. 

“What’s this?” Valka’s voice came hard as she finally noticed Toothless’ tail. “A wound from the tribe?” She snarled. 

“Actually…that was…my doing?” Hiccup tensed up. “It’s kinda…how we met. I knocked him down, and when I went to finish the job…” He patted Toothless’ snout, feeling that old guilt bubble up. “I couldn’t do it. I cut him free, but he couldn’t fly. So I decided to study him. I made him a new tail, and learned how to fly with him. Dad and I made a deal then. I wouldn’t go into dragon training, if I worked in the forge and tried to find a way to end the raids.” 

“He did good, for a while,” Stoick rubbed Hiccup’s head. “Figured out the dragons don’t like eels–”

“Aye, reminds them of sea serpents,” Valka added, nodding like it was common knowledge.

Hiccup filed that tidbit away for later. 

“So we had vikings waving eels around during raids instead of weapons. Scared the beasts right off!”

Valka laughed. “That’s a funny thought.” 

Hiccup’s mouth pulled to a thin line as he admitted. “The eels are gone on migration, so the tribe is going to have to go back to weapons unless I can come up with something else…that’s why we went out. To see if we could find the nest and stop the raids.” 

The pieces to the puzzle seemed to click for her then. Where Berk was, what was going on… “how long ago did this happen?” 

“Ah…about a month or so before Snoggletog.” Hiccup mused. 

Valka looked surprised. “That’s been six months now? It took me three years to get Cloudjumper to let me ride him!” 

Hiccup tried not to feel too smug. 

“Well of course!” Stoick said, smug on his behalf. “He’s our son. So he’s a genius.” 

So they were just having a smug-fest, huh?

Valka smiled at both of them. “Let’s go home, my loves.”

The flight home was fascinating. While Hiccup may have trained the dragons faster, Valka still had several years of flying under her belt. She occasionally stood on Cloudjumper, but most of the time, she was climbing and jumping to sit behind Hiccup or Stoick. Like the height of a 400 foot fall didn’t scare her at all. 

Hiccup supposed that it really didn’t. Cloudjumper would catch her, he was certain. Like Toothless would catch him if he fell. 

Stormfly might catch Stoick with some prodding, but he didn’t want to test it.

“I never pictured you as a Nadder fan,” said Valka to her husband. “Not that I imagined you liking dragons in the first place. But if you were to appreciate one, I thought it’d be a Monstrous Nightmare.”  

“Aye. Those boys are mighty impressive. Too afraid he’d light me on fire though. No, this Nadder is–she belongs to Hiccup’s friend, Astrid. Our one other dragon lover.” 

“Astrid…Astrid…the Hofferson babe?”

“Oh she’s a babe, alright. Tell her, Hiccup!” Stoick laughed. 

“Not funny dad,” Hiccup droned. 

“Where’s the lass now?” Valka asked, missing the resentment in Hiccup’s tone. 

“She’s been busy. Her parents have her in cooking and sewing lessons. And this is all a secret, so she couldn’t get away.” 

“Oh, I see.” Valka nodded astutely. “You’re sixteen now, Hiccup? That’s marrying age…” She began to tease. 

“Yeah, and that’s my least favorite topic. If we could steer clear of it?”

The ride back was much more animated. Hiccup told his mother all about the things he had discovered about the dragons. Valka shared her own insight, her words occasionally being garbled together into nonsense. 

It quickly became apparent that she really truly hadn’t had anyone to talk to in years. Once she started talking, she went on and on, admitting things a bit too easily. Neither Stoick nor Hiccup minded, but Hiccup could picture a few judgmental vikings that would give her a hard time if they saw her now. 

Eventually, they arrived at the cove. 

“Oh, this is darling!” Valka cooed. She looked over the little shack with fondness. 

“It’ll be a little cramped, but since the weather is nice, Toothless won’t try to get in there with you.” 

“Oh we can share!” She said enthusiastically. She then spoke to Toothless, making nonsensical noises. He responded with a friendly warble, his mouth opening wide. “Retractable teeth!” She chirped, sticking head fully into Toothless’ mouth. “Amazing!” She pet his tongue. 

Stoick looked quite ill. 

While Valka was making herself at home, Stoick started up a fire to make dinner. “Now, all we need is some fish.”

On cue, Cloudjumper barfed up a dozen long dead fish. Toothless, wanting to be included, barfed up a half of one on Hiccup’s lap. 

“Oh…thanks buddy.” Hiccup patted his nose. 

“Good boy, Cloudjumper!” Valka praised, and talked to her dragon in that weird garbled language. Then she scooped up three of the slimy fish and took them over to the lake to wash the dragon saliva off. 

Stoick looked even more ill. “You know…I think I have some yak jerky stored in the shed…” 

The little family gathered around the fire and for the first time, ate together. Hiccup ended up trying his mother’s fish, which wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t good either, but at least it was cooked. 

They sat and talked past sunset, when the cove grew dark and the only light came from the fire and the half moon. 

When silence fell, and Toothless laid his head on Hiccup’s lap, Stoick started to whistle. 

Hiccup found it odd, as he rarely heard the man do so. 

Then he started to sing, and Valka gasped. 

“I'll swim and sail on savage seas

With ne'er a fear of drowning

And gladly ride the waves of life

If you will marry me…”

Valka gazed at him, eyes shimmering with tears. 

“No scorching sun

Nor freezing cold

Will stop me on my journey!

If you will promise me your heart

And love…” He held the note for a second, hoping that she would finish it. 

And she did. “And love me for eternity

My dearest one, my darling dear

Your mighty words astound me

But I've no need of mighty deeds

When I feel your arms around me.” Valka stood, holding her hands out to Stoick, and they began to dance. A dance that Hiccup had seen at weddings before, but never experienced, obviously. 

“But I would bring you rings of gold

I'd even sing you poetry

And I would keep you from all harm

If you would stay beside me.”

Hiccup had never heard his father so full of joy. Genuine, down to the core joy. He got goosebumps the moment he realized it was because his wife was taken. His very joy had been snuffed out, and he hadn’t been this truly happy until she was back in his arms. 

“I have no use for rings of gold

I care not for your poetry

I only want your hand to hold

I only want you near me.”

Hiccup watched his parents; his long lost mother, and his emotionally distant father, as they danced and batted their eyes at each other like teenagers. Their love had never left. It was always there. After 15 years, it only took a glance, and they were the same as they had been.  

“To love and kiss, to sweetly hold

For the dancing and the dreaming

Through all life's sorrows and delights

I'll keep your laugh inside me.”

A cold, hollow feeling swept through him. A very sad and lonely thought rattled in his mind, and interrupted the happiness he was feeling. 

‘You’ll never have this,’ the traitorous voice said. And it was true. In only a few months, Astrid would be married to Snotlout. Then what? Hope his father found a good match for him? And then be stuck on the same island as her and see her miserable everyday? No. He wanted what his parents had. This intense love that transcended time. He was desperate for it, even. When Hiccup had his worst days, he’d think back to the afternoon in the hayloft, when they kissed and held each other. Sure, the kissing had been amazing, but her touch was addicting. The embrace they shared, that was so much flesh against flesh, he craved it. It was an intimacy he had never had with anyone. A connection that gnawed on his soul. 

Much like his connection to Toothless, a friendship that went beyond the ability to speak…if he and Toothless had to separate, there wouldn’t be any other dragon to fill that hole. Likewise, there wouldn’t be another woman to take Astrid’s place. 

Maybe in a few years, it wouldn’t hurt so bad. 

“I'll swim and sail on savage seas

With ne'er a fear of drowning

And gladly ride the waves of life

If you will marry me!”

Stoick and Valka laughed in each other’s arms once they finished their song. They giggled and kissed and muttered sweet nothings in warm tones. 

Hiccup was content to leave them in their bubble of love until Toothless let out a sad croon. 

Valka and Stoick looked at Toothless, and then at Hiccup. 

“Son?” Asked Stoick, concerned. “What's wrong?” 

“What? Nothing, nothing!” 

“You say that, but you got a waterfall on your face.” 

Hiccup wiped the slew of tears from his cheeks, hoping they had been invisible in the night. 

“Oh, my baby boy!” Valka cried. She rushed to him, and scooped him up to sit sideways in her lap. 

Hiccup went from desolate, to confused and embarrassed. Sure he was small, but he was still 16, almost an adult, and she was holding him like a toddler. He looked at his father. 

Stoick just gave a half hearted shrug and said, “just let her have this, son.” 

Hiccup chose to relax, and Valka took the opportunity to comb her fingers through his hair and kiss his temple. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Momma’s here.” 

Hiccup wiped his face again, making sure all those pesky tears were gone. “I’m fine, mom. Really. Just got emotional about you and dad.” 

“Ah,” said Stoick with a nod. “I know what this is about.” 

“It’s not anything! I was just—“ 

“Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III you are a terrible liar and you know it. This is about Astrid, isn’t it?” 

The use of his full name made him shut up. He just gave a little nod. 

“What happened?” Asked Valka. “Do I need to talk to her?” 

Hiccup sighed. “No. Astrid’s engaged to Snotlout.” 

“Snotlout? My nephew Snotlout?”

“Yeah.” 

“Well my boy, unrequited love can be hard.”

He shook his head. “It’s not that.” Then he spilled the truth, telling her all about how Astrid was there at the beginning, when everyone thought he was just a screw up. How she had studied the dragons during training, and in turn he had given her pointers to help in the ring. How she had gotten hurt from the Nightmare and everyone had cast her out, except for him. How they rebelled and freed the dragons from the arena. 

It was surprisingly easy to talk to her. 

“And then…she kissed me. I think she was happy that I did what I could to help her feel better. Ever since then, we had occasionally exchanged kisses in private. We didn’t want to tell anyone right away because we both knew contracts and marriage and babies would be brought up. I don’t know if she had any deep romantic feelings for me, or just…liked me more than the other boys.” He sighed. “But Spitelout and her father bet on her fight against the Nightmare. If she lost, she’d have to marry Snotlout. It’s all been arranged. He even admitted to noticing how close Astrid and I were and decided to act quickly so Snotlout could marry well. She didn’t get a word in.” He didn’t mention anything about the hayloft. That was his little secret with Astrid. Besides, a kiss was a kiss. That’s all that mattered for the sake of the story. 

“Well how do you like that!” Valka barked. “Why the little Hobblegrunt! I can’t believe he would pull this stunt! You know, your father and I were married first, even though Spitelout is older. My father kept trying to marry Spitelout off to other ladies but he refused every offer. He threw tantrums and ripped up every contract that was made. When he was 20, he brought Helga home and said he was finally ready to get married.” She shook her head. “He was seeing her the whole time. Dad could have arranged a contract for them, but Spitelout decided not to say anything. We all knew they liked each other too. Helga’s father said she wasn’t interested so dad never bothered.”

“Well, Snotlout likes her. I think that’s about it.” Hiccup shrugged. 

Stoick cleared his throat. “You know that’s not it, Hiccup.” 

“Dad, you’re not going to tattle, are you?”

“Tattle?” Valka chuckled. 

“Oh! I’ll tell the whole sorry truth! That lout brother of yours is doing this to slight us! Apparently, I didn’t protect you, so he’s been holding a grudge for 15 years! He saw a great opportunity to embarrass us, and took it!” 

“But I think Snotlout really does like Astrid, shallowly.” Hiccup added. “Two birds, one stone and all that.”

Valka scoffed with a little headshake. “Men can be so petty.”

“So…would you talk to him?” Hiccup asked, hesitating. 

“Oh my darling,” she hugged him closer. “I would. For you, I would do anything. But I don’t think it’s wise right now. If I suddenly reappeared, I’d have to explain where I’d been…there would be a lot of accusations of me being a traitor, and your father could get in trouble. Spitelout might even feel more betrayed and double down. No dearest, I can’t help you.” 

Hiccup sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that.” 

“I know!” She perked up, a wicked grin on her face. “You should fight Snotlout! Show who’s the better mate!” 

Hiccup chuckled weakly. “Except Snotlout would smear me across the arena floor. I’m the weak one here.” 

“Oh. Right…well then you’ll simply need to bed her!” 

Stoick choked while Hiccup froze, wide-eyed. 

“It’s quite simple! Once your scent is on her, it will deter any other potential mates!”

Stoick started laughing then. “My love, these are young people, not dragons. If Astrid sleeps with Hiccup while under contract, there would be outrage, scandal! Remember? That happened to the Ivarson lass.”

“Oh,” Valka blushed. “Of course. Perhaps I’m not the best person to ask for advice now, hmm?”

“At least it’s entertaining,” Hiccup chuckled, leaning on her shoulder. 

Suddenly, there was a sharp crack up above, like someone stepping on a stick. 

Stormfly perked up and gave a happy little squawk. 

Astrid appeared at the entrance, her axe cutting through the air like she had a grudge against breathing. “Stupid barbaric idiot! Who does he think he is, ‘3 foot massages a week’? Gah! Oh I’m massage his feet alright! With a hammer!” She then realized there was a fire going and she wasn’t alone like she thought she’d be. “Oh, you’re back…” But as she took in the sight, she realized Hiccup sat in the lap of a strange woman. “Uhhh…”

“I can explain.” 

[bigskydreaming]

Okay, so you know “Justice League meets Batman’s kids, who they’d previously been unaware existed” AUs?

So picture that.....but this time, instead of them just having no knowledge of any of these other Gotham vigilantes at all....the Batkids all migrate to various cities as they get older and become known as their protectors - Dick in Bludhaven, Tim in San Francisco, Cass in Hong Kong, etc....

Meaning they’re all established figures, the Justice League are aware of them as solo local heroes who stick to their cities and so they just don’t interact with them much if at all, or else some are members of team lineups but are particularly vague about their histories or life outside of the team’s adventures....

So the big reveal isn’t that they become aware of all these other Gotham vigilantes all at once....its that some big conflict or whatever requires a huge team up of all available heroes, and in the aftermath, they figure out that like.....despite being known as solo heroes who work alone or loners outside of their team settings, 80% of these heroes all not only seem to already know each other, they seem to be related.

And so naturally they all turn to Batman, who has profiles on every known hero and they thus figure had researched these individuals too and just never mentioned this little detail, and they’re like, “Did you know about this?”

And then Nightwing turns to him too, arms crossed and is like, “Yeah Dad, did you know about this?”

And the infamous Red Hood is all: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have never met any of these people before in my life. Lives? Whatever.”

And then Red Robin moodily grates out “I have no siblings.” Since he’s nursing a grudge since Dick and Jason broke into his apartment the night before and replaced all his custom Red Robin gear with Darkwing Duck merchandise and his vengeance will be swift and also totally disproportionate because things escalate quickly in this family, that’s true in every universe.

Cass meanwhile has deftly skewered Jason’s lie by walking over to him and brazenly patting down the man with many many guns with no fear whatsoever. He squawks and futilely attempts to bat her hands away as she riffles through his many pockets, but he doesn’t seem shocked, just annoyed. Eventually, she pulls away and triumphantly reveals a box of Hello Kitty themed band-aids.

“So these are yours then? Just for you?” Black Bat asks smugly. Red Hood squints at the box.

“What the fuck? How long have those been in my jacket? Why are those in my jacket? Did you freaking plant them in my jacket just on the offchance you could at some point in the distant future use them at my expense?”

Black Bat frowns, puzzled. “Yes?”

“Oh come on, Dead Hood,” Spoiler says with an exaggerated toss of her head meant to convey she’s rolling her eyes beneath her own mask. She skips her way across the room to Black Bat and then drapes herself languidly all over the smaller woman. Who in turn doesn’t so much as twitch beneath the sudden added mass as Spoiler holds out her hand towards the box of band-aids. 

“One please. I have a boo-boo,” she says with easy familiarity straight into the intimidating cowl of Black Bat. Only then does she deign to finish her train of thought with Red Hood.

“I mean seriously, are you saying you don’t have potential blackmail set-ups, pre-rigged releases of incriminating material, and a random assortment of traps, pratfalls and mortifying scenarios in place for the express purpose of being able to humiliate any and all of your siblings at any given moment, without any need for additional prep time?”

“Is this true, Little Wing?” Nightwing whirls on the larger Red Hood with a faux-scandalized gasp. The founder and leader of the Titans, formerly the Teen Titans, renowned for his stratagems and calm competence when directing squads of supers in the heat of battle while he keeps pace with nothing more than naturally acquired acrobatics and a utility belt that apparently uses the same technology as Wonder Woman’s invisible jet....now appears to be....staggering with the back of his hand pressed to his forehead, moaning about how he felt....faint? 

What is happening right now, several dozen superheroes want to know. Is this a drill? Are they supposed to be checking for signs of a mental ambush from undetected psychic saboteurs? Did they all hit their heads at the exact same time and are now experiencing some kind of shared mass concussion?

Look, that wouldn’t be the weirdest thing to ever happen on the Watchtower. 

“Have I failed you so utterly?” The veteran child hero bemoans with a dramatic twirl - that when contrasted with his stern demeanor of a mere ten minutes ago - makes the fears of telepathic infiltration seem less paranoia and more....concerningly probable. “Did you learn nothing from me? Did you learn nothing from B?”

He stops and jabs a finger up at the sky. “Quick, everyone! What is the very first rule of Living While Batty?”

As if by rote, over a half a dozen voices chime in from all over the room, causing various heroes to jump. Spooked by yet more and more vigilantes joining in some kind of mass recitation like they and they alone have some kind of clue what the hell is going on and everyone else just hadn’t been invited to the party. Which is just rude, honestly. Nobody likes feeling like they weren’t invited to the party. Not even superheroes. 

“If you’re not going to bother preparing for every possible contingency and at least six impossible ones, you might as well just stay in bed.”

Even the Red Hood joins in the Illuminati chant or Cub Scout pledge or demonic ritual or whatever the fuck that just was, though his slumped and exasperated posture gives away every hint of sulkiness his headgear otherwise would have kept safely hidden. He’s surprisingly more...expressive, than most who’d only known of him by reputation had expected him to be. The day continues to yield surprises.

“Of fucking course I do,” he growls out, snatching the box from Black Bat. She doesn’t even fight to hold onto it, just lets it go with a knowing smirk. “I wasn’t surprised by the idea of it, I was just surprised she bothered with such a weak effort. Like yeah whatever, actually those could be mine. I use those all the time at home. So what?”

He aggressively yanks one of the band-aids out of the box, fumbles with the peel-off strips with one hand and he roughly rolls up the sleeve of his jacket with the other. Then just slaps it on his forearm and raises said appendage high, showing it off this way and that. “See?”

“Oh yeah, for sure,” Signal drawls from the other side of the room, nodding his head approvingly. “Totally convincing. Nice job walking that one back, you really showed them.”

Red Hood’s head snaps in his direction with ominous intent. “Watch it, Day-Glo.”

Signal just snorts.

“Yeah, like I’m gonna take constructive criticism on my name and costume from a dude who’s spent the last several years calling himself Red HOOD while running around in a freaking HELMET.”

“Its not meant to be literal, you fucking pedant.”

“So wait, its not literally a helmet? Huh, does it at least protect your head literally, or just like...symbolically? Like if Bane were to clock you across the head, would your concussion just be a metaphor? What’s the treatment protocol for a metaphorical concussion? Fluids, bedrest and a philosophical prescription of two chapters of Chicken Soup for the Soul as needed?”

“Laugh it up, KC and the Sunshine Band,” Red Hood bats back. “You just got yourself disinvited from Thursday night’s poker game.”

Signal just grins and folds his arms over his chest cockily. “Please. You’ve been looking for an excuse to ban me for weeks, cuz you know until you can prove I’m using my ghost vision to cheat, you can’t actually bring suit against me for it in Family Court.”

“That, and also Family Court isn’t a real thing, you toddler. Stop validating Wing-a-ding-ding’s obsession with Shitty TV Nostalgia and just call it that thing where Oracle traps us all in a room until we settle our latest fight without anyone getting stabbed.”

“Yeah, but like, say that five times fast,” Spoiler pipes up. “Its just not practical. Family Court’s way easier.”

“Says the one who’s not even in our fucking family.”

“And yet I grace you all with my sublime presence anyway,” she blows a kiss at him, beatifically unbothered. “You’re welcome.”

The Red Hood scoffs and rounds on his heel, zeroing in on Batwoman in the far corner.

“Hey Auntie B, my siblings are all dead to me and I just helped stop an alien invasion so I deserve nice things like a fun Saturday night. Can you get me into Dad’s fundraiser so I can crash it? He won’t put me back on the list until I promise not to bring any C-4 with me and I won’t promise not to bring any C-4 because he should just trust me that I won’t when I say I’m not gonna and he won’t trust me that I won’t until I admit I shouldn’t have brought any to that sting last month where three tiny little yachts blew up through barely any fault of my own, and I’m just not gonna do that ever because I have convictions and I feel I shouldn’t have to be punished for that. Y’know?”

Batwoman blinks at him. “Kid, I’m not gonna lie to you. You’re my nephew and I love you, but I stopped listening three seconds into all that.”

“Ugh, fine. Can you help me crash Dad’s event tonight so I can teach him a lesson about why he should just trust me not to make a scene so I don’t have to always make a scene to make a point.”

“Tempting as you make that sound,” she says wryly, “I have a strict policy for dealing with you lot and your......everything. I only worry about tolerating one of you at a time, and there’s seven of you, and seven days in the week. You each get your own. You know perfectly well its Robin’s day today. You get me on Tuesday, just like always.”

“Auntie B, we’re not like other families, are we?” Red Robin’s delivery is sarcastically childish and his question clearly rhetorical. Most of his attention is fixated on whatever it is he’s doing with his wrist-mounted computer. 

“No sweetie, we’re all severely fucked in the head and a little bit too comfortable with that.”

“Just checking. Oh hey, Hood, I just emailed you a patch for the hole in your firewall I exploited when replacing all my shit using your accounts just now.”

“You did what?”

“Used your accounts to pay to replace all my stuff that you fucked with last night?” Red Robin says slowly. “Did you not realize that I’ve been sticking within ten feet of you for the past five minutes just so I could clone your devices and do all that while BB and Spoiler kept you distracted? I gotta say, bro, I feel like that’s on you then.”

Red Hood swivels his helmeted head in the direction of the aforementioned two. Black Bat waves. Spoiler shoots him an utterly unrepentant thumbs up.

“You’d side with your ex over me? That’s what its come to?”

“My only allegiance is to chaos,” Spoiler says brightly. Black Bat shrugs.

“Plus he bribes better.”

“Hateful,” Red Hood points at Black Bat, moving on to level the same finger at Spoiler, who curtsies in acknowledgment: “Hateful-er.”

Then the finger rounds the bases to aim judgmentally at Red Robin. “Hateful-est. And that was all Nightwing’s idea anyway, not mine.”

“Oh, I assumed as much,” he says casually. “Your idea of a prank tends to have more of a Carrie vibe. Or be a literal literary reenactment.”

“Its called an homage, 4chan.”

“Whatever, plagiarist. And anyway, I couldn’t go after ‘Wing for payback on this one. He used an Immunity card. If you didn’t want me getting back at you, you should have used one too."

Red Hood looms aggressively. Red Robin ignores willfully. Round and round they go. Superheroes who can survive excessive G-Forces are getting dizzy just watching them have a largely motionless stand-off. That shouldn’t be how that works, but whatever. All the most infamously reclusive and isolated heroes in all hero-dom are apparently part of the same one big reclusive and isolated family of fucked up weirdos and they’re all officially bonkers. Nothing makes sense anymore. Reality broke. Try another stall.

“Okay, but see, in order to have an Immunity card, I would have to participate in one of you losers’ stupid Immunity challenges,” the Red Hood drags out with exaggerated patience. “And I’m just not going to do that, on account of those all being fucking stupid. You see the problem there?”

Red Robin just shrugs. “I don’t know what to tell you, bro. You can have principles or you can have an Immunity card. You can’t have both.”

Meanwhile, on another side of....the same room.....look, its like, an octagonal room, probably. It has a lot of sides. Robin fends off questions from an aggrieved looking Superboy.

“You never told me you had a bajillion brothers and sisters!”

“Yes but I never said I didn’t either.”

Superboy rolls his eyes. “Oh yeah, so I should just assume everyone I meet has a bajillion secret brothers and sisters?”

“Well clearly it would have worked out in your favor in this instance if you had, now wouldn’t it?”

“Assuming of course that you can trust what has been said or implied here today and I am actually related to any of those numbskulls. Which I am not actually admitting to,” Robin tacks on hastily.

Superboy eyes him dubiously. “You joined in the same creepy chant all the others did and then got super self-conscious and looked around to see if anyone had noticed. Which uh. I did.”

“First off, your interpretation of body language is abyssmal. I do not get self-conscious,” Robin says with a delivery that probably could have benefited from being a little less self-conscious. “And second....that proves nothing. I guessed what they were going to say.”

“Word for word,” Superboy says super-skeptically.

“I’m very good at guessing things. You know this.”

“Okay. Guess how much I believe you right now then.”

Robin glares and folds his arms grumpily across his chest. 

“And what was that anyway? Was that like....you guys’ family motto or something like that?”

“Oh no,” Spoiler pipes up. “That’s much shorter.”

Superboy balks at that. “Wait, you guys actually have one of those for real?”

“Yup,” Steph says, counting out the words with her fingers. “He who laughs last....probably works for the Joker. So tranq him just to be safe. See? Only sixteen words. The first rule of Living While Batty is way longer, and what we said was just the abridged version. You should hear the original, before Black Bat put her foot down and refused to memorize it unless sizable edits were made.”

Superboy hovers between her and Robin now, both in mid-air and on the verge of taking Spoiler’s words as an invitation to hear just that. A low growl arises from Robin’s direction.

“Must you?” He asks the older vigilante, with a most put upon expression.

She looks at him pityingly. “Do you actually need me to answer that? Like, we’ve met, right? Hi, I’m Spoiler.”

“Wait, so Robin said that I just never specifically asked him if he had a bajillion brothers and sisters, and that’s why he didn’t tell me, so that means he wouldn’t have just lied and there’s not some code of secrecy that flat out forbids telling other people stuff, right?” Superboy realizes excitedly.

“Yes, excellent direction. Go on,” Spoiler says, steepling her fingers. Robin buries his face in the palm of one hand.

“Soooo, what other stuff could you tell me about Robin’s super top secret family that I wouldn’t think to ask about but that he would tell me about if I knew what questions to ask?”

She claps once, lightly but with emphasis. “Well done. You’ve passed the first barrier. Untold secrets await you behind just a few more.”

“I’ll get you for this,” Robin vows calmly. She waves a hand at him.

“Yeah, yeah. Just make sure you do it before January 1st, remember? You’ve promised retribution like ten times already this year and those don’t roll over, y’know. Rules are rules.”

“Enough!” Thunders a voice then, from the front of the room. Well one of the fronts anyway. Like sides, it has a lot of them, but this is the one where Batman’s standing. All eyes snap to him. Which is kinda just what eyes do when Batman says stuff like that. Its like his superpower, except he doesn’t actually have superpowers, which is what makes it scary. But where the snapping of the eyes (directional) is usually followed by Batman saying something else besides just “hey look at me,” here he pauses in the wake of his own call to attention’s waning reverberations. Uncharacteristically silent.

Not that, y’know, he’s normally Mr. Talkity Talk, but usually his silences feel like he has the words to fill them, he’s just withholding them. This though, this feels more like he doesn’t have any words at all. And he’s as confused by it as any of them, and most everyone else is confused by Batman being confused, and its this whole trickle down economy of confusion and its wrecking havoc on the value of the golden silence standard.

Of course, not everyone present is rendered spellbound with confusion.

“C’mon B,” Nightwing cajoles, leaning forward and practically radiating delight. “I think you know what you have to do now. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Its not likely to come around again.”

Red Hood snickers beneath his helmet and chimes in. “Yeah Pops, go ahead. You do this and you’ll actually have my respect for a whole twenty four hours. No, wait. Sixteen. No! Eight. Yeah, eight. Still a good deal.”

“Carpe diem, B,” Red Robin grins, leaning back as if to enjoy the show.

“Hey! Infringe on my trademark one more time, dude,” Signal throws a faux-glare at the former. Red Robin just quirks an eyebrow.

“And what, you’ll start saying Yum every time you eat a burger? Oh no. I’m hoist by my own petard.”

Signal flips him off with a grin and then redirects his attention back to Batman. “Yeah seriously though B, you kinda gotta do it now. Because if you don’t do it, then you’ll forever be the guy who didn’t do it, and you don’t want to be that guy, do you?”

“Yeah you really don’t want to be that guy,” Spoiler shouts out. “Nobody likes that guy. He’s the worst.”

“Do it, do it,” Black Bat starts chanting beside her, steadily picking up speed and volume. Several others start joining in. Even Robin appears to be slightly anticipatory, albeit trying very hard to hide it.

Batman sighs, and somehow everyone manages to hear it. Stills. Waits for....something? Nobody but them seems to have any clue what, but the air is thick and heavy with portentiousness. Something is about to happen, and all most of the heroes present could say for sure is it was something they never would have in a million years seen coming.

Finally, Batman straightens with the resigned air of a man about to have oh so many regrets. He crosses his arms, shakes his head, and in an absolute deadpan monotone, says:

“You are awful children. You know you’re killing me. You’re killing your father.”

[heavensofficialfloutist]

More Random MDZS Headcanons! (Modern AU Version)

- Lan Xichen and Wen Ning are absolutely the types to use emoticons. Not even just the most basic ones like they'll go out of their way to copy-paste the tiny faces even for a simple conversation. (ﾉ´ヮ`)ﾉ*: ･

- I drew this before, it's one of my very first posts, but I think the SangChengYing trio would all look fantastic with piercings/tattoos. I'm also writing a fic with this concept. Jiang Wanyin with a helix and lobe on his right ear, no tattoos. Nie Huaisang with a triple forward helix piercing and a small hand fan tattoo on his collarbones. Wei Wuxian with a double helix and industrial on his left side, then a triple helix on his right, both lobes, hoop on his lip (left side) and a navel piercing, he's also got one of those wings on his back tattoos but with like roses (or lotuses) and stuff in them, plus a black butterfly on his nape.

- I genuinely think that Wei Wuxian has a Tumblr account. Nie Huaisang too. Wei Wuxian usually either posts art or the dumbest of shitposts. Nie Huaisang posts art and sometimes poetry/fanfiction. Lan Wangji doesn't know what a Tumblr is and Jiang Wanyin is too afraid to ask.

- Wei Wuxian drives a motorcycle but he only has one helmet. As a gift (birthday, anniversary, whatever) Lan Wangji got him another one for 'safety' reasons, totally not because he wants to ride on it with him but is kind of awkward and doesn't want to ask.

- Jiang Wanyin wears tracksuits/workout gear almost religiously because it's the most comfortable for him (or so he claims). Mans does not care what other people think of his clothing style.

- A-yuan and Jin Ling going on playdates as children because we never got that in canon.

- Wei Wuxian and Jiang Wanyin got their wisdom teeth taken out on the same day and were SO out of it. It was hilarious. Yanli filmed the whole thing. Jiang Wanyin was very emotional, poor baby :c Wei Wuxian was very loopy and then tried to call Lan Wangji who could not understand a single thing he was saying with the gauze in his mouth. Good times.

- Nie Huaisang would wear Dark Academia-style clothing because it's a) comfy and b) stylish. The perfect combination.

- I headcanon Wei Wuxian with ADHD and Nie Huaisang with Autism. In a modern world, Nie Huaisang would bring noise-cancelling headphones around just in case, while Wei Wuxain just brings a whole-ass piccolo to fidget with. They look out for each other by carrying cinnamon gum or sour candy in case one of them has an overload in public and needs to snap out of it quickly.

- The swords are transferred as animals. Bichen is a rabbit. Subian and Chenqing are cats. Baxia is a pit bull. Etc

- Nie Huaisang has one of those ceiling hammocks for stuffed animals that he can't keep on his bed and every time Nie Mingjue walks in and sees it he internally sighs for like ten seconds.

[crowfootwrites]

Mayans Take Their Kids Trick-or-Treating | Headcanon

Didn't include Miguel and Nestor because I was trying to keep this one MC-centric, but lemme know if you want HC for those two!

I meant for this to be shorter, but then I got carried away with all the fluffy feels, so...

Bishop: This year, your son is old enough to decide what he wants to be for Halloween, and he wants to be Spiderman – Bishop has been reading the comics with him before bed for the last couple of months for some father/son bonding time. Your son doesn’t ask either of you to dress up; he’s just excited to have both of you to himself at the same time. He walks down the sidewalk between the two of you, holding your hands and discussing the pros and cons of different types of candy. You catch Bishop gazing over at you a few times, a small, proud smile playing on his lips as he spends his evening with his family.

Taza: Taza’s not super into Halloween, but he tags along for the memories, wanting to commemorate your son’s first Halloween. You have your son decked out in a handmade owl costume that Taza helped you think up, and you carry him in your arms. He’s too young to really know what’s going on, but his gummy smile never leaves his face. You make Taza take a million pictures, but you’re also sure to hand the camera to Bishop periodically to get some good pictures of all three of you.

Tranq: Tranq is in full dad mode for Halloween, his twin girls in elaborate costumes: one as a bumblebee and one as a butterfly. They walk on either side of him, each gripping one of his hands and every once in a while he lifts his arms to swing them, making them squeal. And since his girls have him wrapped around their fingers, the three of you were even able to convince him to don a pair of wings himself. You can’t help but giggle at the sight, the glittery white wings comically small on him. You follow along behind them taking a million pictures, dressed in your ladybug costume, still amazed that you were able to find such an incredible man.

Angel: You are all in on Halloween and having a kid, to you, means getting to relive a kid’s Halloween experience. Your son wants to be a pirate and so you spent a couple weekends hand-sewing your and his coordinating pirate costumes. Sometimes, Angel would come home late from the club to find you hunched over the kitchen table with a needle and thread and his heart would swell with admiration at what a good mom you are. Angel does not dress up, but you successfully bribe him (with some treats of his own later *wink*) to at the very least don a pirate hat and carry a fake sword attached to his belt. Angel hangs back and grins like a fool all night, watching his girl and his son enjoy themselves, divvying up candy and posing for silly pictures.

EZ: EZ has been reading Me, Frida with your daughter, and so she practically begs to dress up as Frida Kahlo. The three of you had even taken a Saturday to scour Santo Padre for appropriate huipil and skirts and made a day of it, getting tacos and ice cream and of course, stopping at the bookstore. You pin her hair up and weave colorful flowers into it. As you trick-or-treat, EZ is almost as excited as your daughter, the pair of them happily explaining her costume to anyone who asks (and EZ’s eyes twinkle with pride as he watches her nerd out). You hang back and take pictures, adoring your little daddy’s girl, who still comes running back to you to beg for a piece of candy here and there.

Creeper: Creeper takes a backseat and goes along with whatever you have planned for you guys’ first Halloween with a kid, just wanting your son to have a good time. You pick out a cute dragon costume, which Creep totally gets behind. The two of you don’t dress up, but Creeper carries his tiny dragon all night, showing him off to his brothers like a proud papa. When the little man gets cranky, you head home so Creeper can take his time putting his son to bed before the two of you curl up on the couch for a more adult kind of Halloween party.

Coco: Coco doesn’t fully dress up, but puts on a wizard’s hat at his daughter’s request, to coordinate with her tiny witch costume. Letty joins in, both you and her dressed in glow-in-the-dark skeleton unitards. Letty takes the reins, walking her little sister up to front doors and helping remind her what to say when the door opens. You get some great pictures of your daughter looking up adoringly at her big sister. Coco hangs back a little at first, chain smoking nervously, not sure how to involve himself and always a little worried about messing up. You remind him that just by being here he’s building memories with her, and gently encourage him. Your daughter winds up walking between Coco and Letty, holding their hands and begging her dad for candy. He, of course, gives in, and she’s eaten a quarter of the bag before you even get home.

Gilly: Much like Tranq, Gilly is living his best big soft dad life, carrying his kiddo when she gets too tired to walk anymore, the pink tulle of her princess dress heaped in his arms. You get a priceless picture of Gilly wearing a giant grin, cradling his sleeping daughter against his kutte, her tiara slipping and a piece of half-eaten chocolate clutched in her chubby little fist. You all head home a little early, ready to put the princess to bed and relax on the couch with a scary movie and some popcorn for a little Halloween fun of your own.

Riz: Riz helps you brainstorm ideas for costumes, always wanting to be involved where his daughter is concerned. Even though she’s old enough to have some opinions about what she wants to dress up as, she asked for help deciding and her parents were going to give it. Until she comes home from kindergarten one day demanding to dress up as a biker. Riz laughs and scoops her up, his face completely delighted. On Halloween, she is decked out in a black, child-size kutte that you embroidered skulls and roses on the back of, and a sparkly green open-face helmet. She insists that her papa also wears his kutte, and the three of you walk hand-in-hand all night while she tries to sneak Starburst from her candy bag.

[leamy-world]

Some afterthoughts on The Devil Judge (spoilers for all the drama!)

Hello everyone! I hope you’re doing well!!

I wanted to write my thoughts after the finale aired because ep. 13-14 made me a mess and were too nerve-wracking! After these two episodes, i only wanted the week to go by fast to see how the finale unfolded (but at the same time, this drama entertained me sm i didn’t want it to end haha).

Watching this drama each week and reading your reactions and thoughts made me enjoy it even more, i’m glad i came back on tumblr! It was a really nice ride (more like an emotional rollercoaster haha)! It motivated me to write my thoughts and analyses on fictions i watched in the future, especially My Mister and Beyond Evil!! I forgot how much fun it was to do that and putting my thoughts into words gave me a little closure to my watch haha

These are just some afterthoughts & personal interpretations i had and were maybe probably already discussed, but i couldn’t get them out of my head haha

See you around and take care!!!

THE CAST. It left a strong impression on me and i can’t see other actors playing their respective roles!

—   Yohan portrayed by Ji Sung … i have no words, this devil judge left me speechless! His character, to his Devilish Smile (and hollow laugh in front of CKH and his son, or Gaon), his variating voice intonations (like damn, he’s a living ASMR like Lee Sung Kyung), his held back emotions and touch-starved and even desperate touches when it came to Elijah and Gaon, to his rage and unhinged moments! 

I winced seeing him contort in pain when Sunah revealed Elijah accidentally lit the church fire, and the two times he hugged Elijah totally destroyed me. His last scene with Gaon showed how gazes & micro-expressions alone could convey unspoken words as strongly. I’m weak for these kinds of scenes, My Mister for example did it and killed me haha

For this post, i rewatched some scenes and damn, Elijah and Yohan’s support of Gaon after Soohyun’s death was really emotional …

(They had no business in making Gaon have this kind of dream, those german scissors left a ... strong impression on him haha)

—   Kim Min Jung’s depiction of Sunah’s was hauntingly beautiful, a femme fatale who kept a broken child deep inside (and at the same time surfacing on her manners and personality) and a strong businesswoman. It’s a fascinating character i loved hating as a villain but still sympathized with. The scene where she murdered the former foundation’s president sent me chills down my spine (i still have her shot of her, sitting at his bureau and manipulating his speech video)! 

The melancholy slipping through her facade when she visited the mansion the first time in a while, as well as her devastation in front of the President’s scheme, by the young girl’s bed at the hospital were memorable. The tension between her and Yohan was incredible: they both managed to keep a very disturbing but enthralling aura, tangled with nostalgia at the same time each time they met.

(Looking at her reflection is a recurring pattern for Sunah’s character, i found this shot above interesting, divided in the two ends of the mirror, as if her self can’t be found on the other side anymore)  

—   This was the first time i saw a drama with Jin Young and i really loved his playing! Never thought I’d say one day i enjoyed someone’s tears and rage on screen, but his crying scenes stuck with me, especially in the prison yard and the last episode (he deserves therapy after all he went through, really) … And his letter to Elijah … (i’m glad nobody harshly revealed the truth to her, i’m really glad!)

I loved to see how his gaze evolved through this journey with Yohan. His endearment to Soohyun, Elijah and Yohan was very precious ;; Even though Yohan was the one who was first seen feeling lonely, Gaon’s loneliness since his parents’ death slipped through his seemingly fine world, i found that interesting! (And on a lighter note, i’ll always remember the truth behind Mrs. Ji’s cooking, Gaon’s epic reaction, and the pure comedy she gets to own a healthy food shop thanks to Yohan!!) 

I also enjoyed his supportive friendship with Jinjoo!!

—   Park Gyu Young’s acting was also on point! It’s really too bad she didn’t get more screen time because i wanted to know more about Soohyun!! I felt robbed haha, because when TDJ began airing, they introduced her as one of the ‘main’ characters of this story ;; The scene when she was on CKH’s suicide scene really left a mark on me + when she was confronting Yohan, especially after she took Elijah out!

—   Elijah. Just Elijah, our best girl!!! Apparently it’s one of Jeon Chae Eun’s first roles, she did so well!! Along with Ji Sung and Jin Young, she gave a whole new definition to the Domestic Scenes, i swear. These scenes will keep a special place in my heart for a long time! Her adorable smile and cheekiness were a refresher in this show!

(They could change TDJ’s concept in a second season and make us a domestic slice of life series, i wouldn’t mind AT ALL! Take my money!!)

Seeing her complicated relationship with her uncle unfold before us deeply moved me. The complete loneliness she silently depicted moving to her bed in the wheelchair, after Gaon left the mansion was heart-wrenching. And also the scenes after Soohyun’s death, hurting with Yohan seeing Gaon’s pain (the way she spoke her worry for the two of them, Yohan couldn’t let the words out properly to Gaon).

—   CKH’s character, played by Jang Young Nam, was amazing. Her acting already shattered me when i watched Nobody Knows! Her cold gaze, her harsh tone, she was badass i have to admit! 

The narcissistic rage was well depicted in her character, and even though i get where many’s opinions on her death come from (i share it too sometimes, but i feel it more for Sunah), i found this final decision fitting to the character, especially if you look how she treated her own son (each hold felt like a grip from rage eg. in ep. 3, as she maybe felt her son was the cause of her demise).

(HUGE SPOILERS FOR BEYOND EVIL BELOW!!!!) 

She reminded me of HKH’s ending: seeing his path to success was crushed with no way out of it except death on his own accord (in his eyes, because it was his absolute life aim, every single being, to his own wife and son, and means, even bending the justice independence, were his expendable ways to pave his path), HJW’s father was set on suicide before his son barged in. 

(Funnily enough, the filming spot for CKH’s house is the same for HKH’s house haha)

—   And also … Lawyer don’t-worry-i’ll-get-you-out-on-probation Ko deserves a round of applause for the best lawyer he is hahaha

THE STORY’S DEVELOPMENTS (AND SCRIPT). I feel like this story could very well have been developed on 20+ episodes! Even if i know some scenes in a script are sometimes (bound to be) cut in the drama, TDJ’s script leaks make me feel there was SO much more to be told, and so much more to explain some plot events in the airing drama!

Because the story was ambitious, both character and plot(twists which give you whiplash)-driven (and also the filming context with the pandemic), i feel like some choices were made.

The lines of thought about justice and the drama’s attempts at its ‘true’ definition are not lost on me. It was really interesting!

On a side note (there will be many, bear with me haha), the symbolic behind the app’s name, DIKE, which i’m pretty sure (correct me if i’m wrong, i only have some very rough basics in korean haha) is the korean romanization of Nikè, or in ancient greek Νίκη, the greek divinity of Victory ( ‘ㄴ’ in korean sounds like an ’n’ but its pronounciation is more abrupt/brisker, to the point of what could be sounding to ears like a ‘d’).

Nikè is most of the time represented as an attribute to other greek divinities who also embody the victory eg. Zeus or Athena, thus seen as a bestower of victory (in any domain, be it war, games = interestingly enough, the live court is set in a colosseum-like room, arts, …)  to the humanity on behalf of these gods (Nikè sometimes stands in her palm as an attribute of Athena, like the owl or the helmet). But sometimes Nikè was also revered an independent protective divinity.

Nikè is represented as a winged divinity in a long robe, flying above the victorious, assisting the humans in their works/challenges eg. handing them a laurel crown as a sign of victory, or a helmet, etc. Its mostly known representation is the Winged Victory of Samothrace (or The Nike of Samothrace) sculpture in the Louvre. The brand Nike also used it in its logo.

It calls back to Yohan’s line: « I make sure i win before the game starts », and in fact, since the beginning, unbeknownst to everybody witnessing the trials and participating to them, the app was his way to win. It foreshadows the ending of the story, Yohan finally taking down the foundation. It also adds to his god/devil image: he assumes the role of the intermediary/abyss of the « gods » (the Justice), taking in all the hubris of the society in order to bring the justice (well, guess we could say it put some hold to the cycle of the powerful culminating to chaos?) back, in some sort of catharsis through DIKE.

It might be a stretch, but Nikè’s winged representation could be found on Gaon’s tattoo (at first to me, it looked like a phoenix/winged angel, which symbolizes a ‘reincarnation’/new beginning for Yohan finding peace, a second chance to his past and Elijah thanks to Gaon & Gaon finding a new world even if his first crumbled ie. his parents and Soohyun’s death and professor Min’s betrayal).

(The whole virus plot by the end of the story made me feel a little uncomfortable given the actual context and the conspiracy theories that are spreading, but it wasn’t used carelessly and served the commentary of the powerful and how far they would go, i think? That said, a fiction, especially a dystopia like this, stays a fiction but when they used it, it gave me a forced laugh haha)

Now, if someone gets to translate some script bits, i’m really looking forward to:

K’s backstory!!!!!

Isaac and Yohan’s past!!!!

More about Elijah!!

Where’s the cat???

What was the script saying for Gaon and Yohan’s confrontation in ep. 12? When Yohan faced the window, waking up from a nightmare after Gaon left?

ABOUT SOOHYUN’S BACKSTORY. (Now, this will get long, i’m sorry but i needed to let my thoughts out haha) The drama introduced her as one of the four main characters with Gaon, Yohan and Sunah. I had so many expectations for her character! Especially from the three scenes we got of her:

➔ In the first episode, we see her save a young girl in the street from two men, looking up at the poster « A safe Korea will be realized from now on. »: it was a great introduction to the blatant lie of the ‘safe’ dystopian world that was being created in the story. It also showed how Soohyun felt in front of this insecure world. A side note, but seeing her hug the young girl like that reminded me the hugs she gave Gaon: she wanted to protect him from this unjust world with all her might (especially the scene in the restaurant where she hugs him). ➔ Her two confrontations with Juk Chang! ➔ Her dilemma and emotional turmoil when she erases Gaon’s presence in CKH’s office.

She was portrayed in the story as Gaon’s pillar since his parents’ tragic death and his moral compass. She’s the lawful citizen, despite feeling helpless to the world’s changes, who hopes it could be saved as long as the rule of law is preserved by everyone, and this begins by respecting it themselves. 

But she was not standing around and i kind of regret this was not shown more in the story: she kept doing her best in the « system », fighting from the inside the injustice hoping the little changes could make a difference someday. Because she couldn’t take Yohan’s path, in no way: the system/the law must be respected for it to be sustained. And i’m glad they addressed this point in the drama: Yohan chose to take on the role nobody wanted or even dared to assume, knowing fully well he became a criminal the second he began his plans (just as lawyer Ko said he was no longer a lawyer once he sided with him). 

This must not be glorified, nor vilified. As he said, it was a choice he decided to make. She mirrors his choices to some extent and i would have loved to see more of their interactions or her thoughts about that! And how she worked through the system to change things, her vision of the justice. They showed us the flashback of her career choice in high school, and it could have been interesting to learn more about her! 

A backstory about her saving the youth and meeting Sunah by accident would have been very interesting (given Sunah knew all about her since the beginning and ordered to kill her). Their meeting wouldn’t have foreshadowed Sunah’s plans, quite the opposite, and it would have given more ‘substance’ to her plans. We were robbed of this relationship haha! 

And of course, seeing her side with Yohan & Gaon for a short while (because seeing her team up with them all along the way could’ve been a little ooc) would have been dope. Her arresting Juk Chang while the two of them stop the gang was the closest thing we had to their teamwork ;;

Among the drama’s main focuses (the self-pity of the powerful and the never-ending cycle of their greed, the power displays it ensues which come in many forms in the system’s game), the conception of justice was developed all along the drama. It would have been really interesting to see whether Soohyun’s conception of justice could have changed in her own way!

And professor Min’s potential manipulation of Soohyun!!! Some scenes on their interactions could have been nice to see and explain why she focused solely on Yohan, the only side of the whole story she knew! Her reporting to the professor about her investigation (and him feeling she got too close to the truth) would have made sense because, as she saw Gaon growing apart from her as he was getting closer to the Kangs (especially since she saw him interact with Elijah when they invited her to the café, like Sunah saw how Gaon fit in their family at the dinner scene), she would’ve wanted to protect him without him knowing because she knew it’d have hurt him. It could have paralleled Gaon’s reports on Yohan to the professor at the beginning of the drama. And that could have explained (aside from the whole love triangle dynamics they had) her reluctance to tell Gaon Yohan was the one who told her his whereabouts when he was in danger in ep. 13 ; this scene also was one of the only moments addressing the lack of communication in their relationship. Seeing her feeling confused over Yohan could have been interesting!

(This also got me wondering whether in the script, Yohan’s injury was ever addressed.)

Also, i’m curious about her family, if the script mentions something about them: did they know Gaon?

About the loveline between Gaon and Soohyun: while the friendship could have stayed as is (it already felt pretty genuine in my opinion and strong friendships also deserve to be portrayed in stories), i’m convinced this drama wanted to set Gaon as the center of a subtext love & morality triangle between Soohyun and Yohan (and K and Sunah on Yohan’s part). I think i would’ve appreciated Gaon and Soohyun’s loveline so much more if they developed it more! And it had to develop in the very same episode she died: apart from the confession and kiss scene (i’m curious about the scene’s description in the script), the flashback of their moments, seen from Gaon’s pov, came just right in to ‘explain’ it! 

Of course it wasn’t the main focus of the story and there was already so much happening, but their new relationship development and her death almost had no impact on me even if it was set as a turning point for Gaon (and K for Yohan, as a cement to their respective decision to fight the system and how they would do it), and it made me really really sad! Of course it was a plot device (and i now wonder what would’ve happened if she or K wasn’t dead), but if it was bound to happen, the emotional impact was lessened!

Jinjoo’s character development and her relationship with Sunah happened really really fast, and i wonder how the script describes it!

Sunah’s involvement with the juvenile care center!!!  Her scene at the hospital left me really sad.

(Also, on the love plot, Gaon and Yohan jealousy bits weren’t used later as an expression of their envy towards the other’s status/life/etc. and were actually directed to people outside ie. Sunah/K/Soohyun in the plot, which makes me think they really wanted to set it as a love triangle!)

ABOUT SUNAH’S DEATH. I feel really really conflicted on this point. Her story was a parallel to CKH (and of course Yohan, i’ll talk about it below): two women — coming from totally opposite backgrounds — climbing their way up by their own means in this power circle. And despite all their accomplishments unnoticed (because they were the ones seeing through their plans while the others were mainly seen tearing each other into pieces), they could still be ruthlessly ejected from this world any day, part of it because they were belittled as women all the same, and chose to end her life on her own accord, still having agency over it. 

As someone else pointed it out, it also acts as a « poetic » retribution for her murder of Soohyun and K. BUT her exiting the scene in some other way staying alive could have contrasted with CKH’s suicide (especially since she overthrew the president who was the only one on her side getting in her way and even killed him in the end). Especially in a show that deals about how the justice can be carried out!

Of course, Yohan and Sunah were a foil to each other in their respective fights and traumatic past: the drama showed us how having someone to reach out to and protect (Elijah, Isaac and Gaon to Yohan ; Soohyun, Yohan and Elijah to Gaon) can become a driving force. Sunah, despite thinking this could be a weakness, also longed for companionship (from Yohan mainly, but also from Jaehee), and had no one to stop her crossing the line and preserve her from herself and the world. At least someone hearing her story, staying by her side and trying to understand her. 

Each time she said ‘can you be a little nicer to me?’ to Yohan made me feel for her (and also that one call with Jaehee), it was the only cries of loneliness she silently let out!

On a totally random note, i would have loved to see her interact more with Gaon (especially by the end of ep. 15, when Yohan was arrested)!

The story gladly didn’t end Yohan’s traumatic past and growth in death, but what about Sunah? In any case, Sunah was a really good and complex character, i enjoyed her character!

What about Jaehee? How did she react to Sunah’s death???

What about CKH’s family after her death???

I would have loved to hear more about Sunah’s plans as well! Scenes where she would play with Gaon for example (in Yohan’s presence or not, like at the photoshoot)! 

(This comment above foreshadowed, along with the dinner scene in ep. 11, she used him all along!)

Her involvement behind the scenes was only exposed in ep. 15 but i wanted to know more about her (motivations aside from her focus on Yohan, what did she plan to do before finding out a look-alike to Isaac, ...)! Given the elements in the plot, i get the idea she planned this whole business with the foundation first to reach the top and wanted to bring Yohan up with her (eg. leading the foundation or becoming the president) or down without her along the way, because she wanted his companionship. Maybe the script expands on it more? Did she really believe in the Dream Home project? Because as we saw her speech in the juvenile care center and her strong reaction to the youth being harmed in these schemes, i believe she kinda wanted to protect them as the best revenge on her past, because nobody could do it for her?  

THE ENDING SCENE. The ending was pretty good and didn’t give us an all-out tragedy, so i’m really glad! I still can’t believe Gaon was ready to blow his life away once he learnt Yohan’s death AND wanted to die with him (falsely) realizing Yohan wouldn’t change his mind, dead set on his decision (no pun intended!). And Yohan’s reaction to this ............... Now, their last scene is left to the viewers’ interpretation, but it felt to me like a new beginning to Yohan and Gaon’s relationship! As it was already said by many people on tumblr, Yohan wasn’t sure if Gaon would still be by his side despite it all, and he didn’t expect Gaon to feel this way. They’ll definitely meet again, it’s a promise of more in the future (especially Yohan’s nod, on the verge of tears and Gaon’s two relieved/endeared smiles, full of forgiveness). Gaon will join his new world once he’s done or they’ll come back to him once Elijah’s recovered.

And this game of hide and seek/hunt reflected their relationship development: Yohan felt unattainable at first, but he chased after him in the maze that was his devilish game, symbolized by the crowd, chasing him motivated by his suspicion, curiosity, anger and hate, disbelief and disappointment, empathy, worry, affection, desperation and love, until he finally reached him and they understood each other among all the crowd, living metaphorically in the same time, facing each other on the same (ground) level.

(A scene in the first episode, Gaon seeing a maze of Yohan’s reflections, maybe symbolizing he could not see through his facade in the beginning, being an enigma to him at first sight ; the choice of the reflections in the mirrors through the drama is interesting and reflects the story: depending on the angles, a story can hold as many meanings as there are points of view, the complete image surfacing once everybody’s story is told)

(Just like how, in ep. 4, Yohan shows Gaon the wicked system right under their noses, Gaon’s enraged and confused gaze directed right at Yohan after they all block his view by clinking glasses ; Yohan hoped he would understand what lies beneath but Gaon understands it fully through his own past in ep. 7-8)

(The crowd is cleared from their/our view in the final scene, leaving the two of them facing each other without any obstacle/reflection on their path)

Gaon kept Yohan’s watch all the time even in moments of doubt, sorrow and rage (the best PPL in drama history so far haha), Yohan finally got to Gaon and entered his world as Soohyun did, reaching out when he needed it the most, to stop him doing something he would regret deeply. It was symbolized by the scar he got on his left hand from preventing Gaon from stabbing him (that’s also why he caresses his scar in a bittersweet way, lost in thoughts, reminding him of their last meeting).

As @i-guess-it-rains said + according to the BTS’ editing (it passed off as a joke but i can’t erase it from my brain now haha),  the way the scene where Yohan defused Gaon’s bomb was framed looked at the same time like Yohan was also carefully handling Gaon’s heart (the bomb countdown clock radiating a red glow on his chest), on the verge of exploding. Now i have The Nights lyrics in my head haha (« My heart is going back to you, i just don’t know »)

On another note, i realized that in ep. 12, after Gaon left, he’s seen trying to call Soohyun in order to reach for her since their last confrontation, but right before, his finger glides over his contact, hesitating on Yohan’s contact before choosing to call Soohyun.

While in ep. 8, he only reaches out to Soohyun after his breakdown in the prison yard (without thinking to call Yohan because he was in the core of his doubts and pain at that time and needed space to reflect on all the events):

And it parallels to Sunah attempting to reach out to Jaehee in her loneliness at the top, hesitating before deciding to call her.

Now i hope TDJ will be on Netflix! It’d be very nice to get to watch the drama in high quality and have more people to see it!

I heard it got a webtoon adaptation so i also look forward to it once it will be translated!

A SECOND SEASON? When i first saw the ending, i thought it got wrapped up nicely and didn’t « need » another season, but it also left some parts open and laid out a new background for further developments (the system repeats itself but in another form, Yohan leaves the scene with his signature smile, maybe up to something else again, saying metaphorically or irl to Gaon he’ll come back if he doesn’t do well), kinda like Stranger/Forest of Secrets s1 or The Guest ending (the corruption doesn’t end there). I also heard it got high viewing rates in SK, so maybe it will be taken into account? And well, i’ll miss the cast so i would welcome the idea haha

THE SOUNDTRACK. The whole OST was stellar (and their titles are on point really!)! Getting to hear it without voices or noise over and with my headphones on made me realize it was even more beautiful! Because I Have You, Warmth That Melts Loneliness and If Only… are the end of me (especially If Only aaaaaaa)! Don’t get me started on Enemy of Truth’s title to the OST playing for the church fire because it’s devastating ;;;

If Only’s title … It leaves us filling in the blank space, the dots to Gaon’s thoughts when he learns about Yohan’s past and how it impacts him to this day.

The 4 songs were amazing (there’s also Different from the Outside but i still didn’t get its lyrics). Tempest was definitely etched in my mind as TDJ’s main theme haha And The Nights was my favorite!  

➔ Tempest was Yohan’s iconic theme and depicted his lonely path to revenge after the tragic events in his life, and his (fated) encounter with Gaon, how deeply it will change him in this journey in ways he didn’t expect. It perfectly introduces (with Chet Faker and Flume’s Drop the game) and concludes the drama!

➔ What you gonna do was THE revenge epic song making everyone revel in the ��bad guys’ despair and Yohan’s badass moves! 

➔ The Nights felt like it was both Yohan and Gaon’s theme and Gaon’s sorrow after Soohyun’s death: at first i thought it was only Yohan’s, but his revenge and the last episodes proved me wrong! The song’s lyrics mirrored themselves (‘my/your night shines on you/me’), as if a complete understanding between Yohan and Gaon was found on their dark road. Yohan’s night shines on Gaon: Yohan’s broken past and all his misunderstood or hidden sides, his dedication to Elijah. Yohan’s rage (almost wrath since the biblical and god symbolism are there haha) and desire to take the inique system down waked Gaon’s own rage, buried deep inside, and made him move forward too. Gaon’s night shines on Yohan: all the time he spent with the Kangs, Gaon’s deep empathy and understanding, helping him reconnect with his niece, their dinners at night, his rage exploding when the truth about his parents was revealed, his desperation on the last two episodes (in ep. 15, seeing Gaon’s realization everything was a lie and Yohan was innocent, and in ep. 16, Gaon wanting to die by his side). Gaon’s night also shined on Soohyun, who wanted to protect him with all she got each time she saw him crumbling down.

There was still light on their dark road (which looks like a callback to Nightmare’s lyrics, « Save me from myself / Save me from this darkness that has lost its light »).

➔ Nightmare felt like it was Yohan and Sunah’s theme. When it last played when Sunah’s death happened on screen, it left me speechless (and if i remember correctly, the ‘save me from myself’ bit was played right when she shot herself … o u c h)!

[beyfantasy]

Redesigned PPB All Starz from my BEYBLADE AU "Beyfantasy" in 2010.

My rule for this group is: if you put the old and the new pics beside each other and squint - you will see almost no difference! Not much has changed from their old designs, but I wanted to remodel their weapons since the former was a bit gaudy. Max's weapon was going for a more minimalist style so I tried to follow that format with the PPB All Starz. The weapons remodel demanded new poses so that was the fun part- I paid attention to silhouette and motion for those! The commentary for this group is pretty short since the changes are subtle.

Mage Emily The combination of: tennis, ice skating, mage, and fairy elements- was still the main aspect of her design. 

Her dress giving the impression of flowy deep water is the same as in the old, but I decided to let her sport her glasses on her eyes this time. Her skirt was also changed to be more flowy.

Her slightly longer hairstyle was kept since it emphasizes more of her formality over playfulness. 

Her racket has the four elements engraved on it to channel her spells- she relies on this tool since she's not of the magical Fae blood. 

I had so much fun giving her a flowy pose while still keeping a similar silhouette with the old artwork. Mage Emily will always be one of my favorite designs in the Beyfantasy!

Shooter Michael I remember being proud of the pose I gave him in the old artwork, but it wouldn't work well with his new weapon design. 

For his new artwork- I wanted to give him the silhouette of an eagle. Originally, he was supposed to have both gloves lit up and arms raised symmetrically with the beams looking like two wings on each side- but that made him look comedic. 

I wanted to express him as a "handsome superstar actor" so I went with a more confident manly pose! I made sure that his artwork silhouette still has an eagle aspect to it!

I took this chance to show off the star design on his unlit glove with the other hand. 

Not a lot of changes in design since his first art was already a good base. His old profile listed his weapon as "pellets" but I changed it to "beams" since he'd be firing attacks that look more like quick lasers than energy bullets. Just like Emily, he relies on his gloves technology in battle.

Forward Eddy I couldn't say much here since the goal was simply to "improve the old design" so it looks like an "evolution" rather than redesign.

I worked hard on designing the shoes before so I didn't want to change too much- but I ended up altering it a bit anyway. 

While I liked his old pose, it made him look off-balanced so I went for a more natural yet confident pose in-motion! I focused on drawing his physique properly.

The ball and armguard definitely had to change. It's also difficult to explain how his weapon works- he uses the tip of the armguard to "charge" the ball with poison and the ball releases that poison when it's thrown. It's some high technology going on. Emily can probably explain it, but she'd rather not because it's a kingdom secret. 

Brawler Steve Steve's artwork is the design that went through a lot of changes. I liked the idea for him before, but it most definitely needed to be fixed. 

I remember that I crammed his artwork back then within 8 hours from start to finish. The funny thing is, I was also under a time crunch working on this new artwork- it took me 2 days to finish it so I was on my pc nonstop (history repeats itself.) I gave myself an entire month to contemplate on his design though so the redesign was taken more seriously and not exactly crammed as it sounds like. 

The idea for Steve was a mix of a football player, and a masked wrestler. In the old design- the masked wrestler aesthetic was more apparent. For this one, I made the football player aesthetic be the dominant theme.

I scrapped the idea of floaty armor as his weapon and made use of his gear- helmet and pauldrons. They normally look plain, but ignite when he starts to charge up since his battle style consisted of tackles and dashes. 

I started with a more typical football player running pose for him, but it looked to similar to Eddy’s so I changed it to something more suitable for a “brawler type.” His pose was supposed to express his aggressive style and his short temper, and serve as a parallel to Eddy’s.

Those are the designer's notes on the PPB All Starz Beyfantasy Remake! Their character descriptions were rewritten like the rest. This group was satisfying to redesign because it was an improvement of the old design than anything of a total overhaul. I had ideas for them I was proud of as a kid, but I was limited with my inexperience and narrow grasp of costume construction and design. It feels good seeing the glow up and polished designs! It’s like i redeemed myself. Thank you for reading ^-^

[ikuzeminna]

Scene Analysis - Heero’s Farewell

AKA The Helmet Scene

This is one of the most famous scenes in the entire series. And it’s certainly one of the most interesting as well, thanks to a number of factors. We have a mood change, we have Heero finally fulfilling his promise to Relena to bid her farewell, we have a clear picture of how their relationship has evolved throughout the series, we have a retcon of the previous episode to make this scene work and a million other things, frankly. So, let’s get to dissecting it.

First, the setup. The previous two episodes, episode 46 and 47, present us with a Heero who, in my opinion, acts a lot like during the beginning of the series. It may just be me, but he comes off as rather brusque. Sure, he and Relena may be throwing compliments at each other, but there is a curtness to his tone and the ordering around (”You’ll stay here with me”) that annoy me personally. When Relena initially asks him if he came for her he even deflects, claiming that Noin and the others are worried about her. Sure.

Again, I don’t like it.

If I had to guess, I’d say Ikeda’s intention of not making their relationship romantic but keeping it symbolic paired with being unable to write normal teenager relationships is at play here. I’m putting the blame on him since he is the director, but I may be wrong, so sorry if I am. In any case, the farewell between Heero and Relena is just a loaded glance. They don’t speak, there is a huge distance between them, they just look at each other meaningfully and then Heero gets ready to fight. It’s pretty much Earth and Space, ever at a distance, yet bound by ...uh, something.

Come episode 48, the other writers apparently bound and gagged Ikeda, locked him up in a closet and gave us take 2 of the farewell, which the fandom knows as the helmet scene. And it really shows that someone else was in charge during the last two episodes because we suddenly have the most gentle, most tender sounding Heero in the entire series, complete with sparkly eyes and teddy bears.

And this, I like because the point of Heero’s character arc is regaining his humanity. So having him act like in the beginning kinda ruins that. So thank you, person, who made these decisions.

To clarify, episode 47 has Relena in a dark hangar with her helmet in her hands looking up at Heero who is about to board Wing Zero. He then enters the cockpit and closes it. That’s apparently the end of their interaction. Come episode 48 though, the hangar is lit, the helmets are on and the cockpit is wide open for Relena to jump up and talk to Heero one last time.

And here we see the aforementioned mood change. Gone is Heero’s brusque tone and his weird reluctance to admit any kind of fondness or affection. Instead, he freaking pulls her in during the conversation, because an inch from your face is the ideal distance when speaking to a person apparently. And not just that; he is softly smiling at her the whole time and instead of making it an order, he gently asks her to let him go.

I trust everyone can see how glaringly different this is from their interaction in the previous two episodes.

And there is so much more still. In their conversation Heero reveals his newly made promise to protect Relena (and the Earth Sphere). This goes aaaall the way back to Cinq, where he initially told Quatre he didn’t see much sense in fighting for Relena or her country. Through the various events, he did end up protecting her though, then he was forced to attempt to assassinate her again as Chief Representative of Romefeller and now we are at the point where the peace Relena promises, or at least wants to fight for, is something that Heero believes in.

This is so important for his character because he was the guy who would spout stuff like peace only being the result of war and not believing in it. This is also the lesson he later tries to make Wufei see in their fight in Endless Waltz. Heero is not a soldier anymore at that point; he has become a normal kid who belongs to and wishes for a peaceful world. So yeah, very important moment here.

It really makes me wonder why anyone thought the loaded stare of ep. 47 was enough.

Even more so because here Heero finally fulfills the promise he made Relena back in Cinq: he bids her farewell before leaving. Back in Cinq, and frankly, in all their previous interactions, Heero would just up and leave without a word. It started in episode 6, it happened in 10 and again in Cinq when he went on the suicide mission to Luxembourg. And Relena didn’t even ask anything special of him. She just wanted him to let her know when he’d leave. She didn’t demand a reason, she didn’t want to give him permission, it was just a simple goodbye she wanted.

Yet, Heero does all of the above when they talk. He tells her why he leaves to fight, he asks her to let him go and when she refuses, thinking he is intending to kill himself again for the billionth time, Heero shines even more light on his character development by telling her to believe in him. He isn’t trying to die on the battlefield.

Heero pushes Relena out of the cockpit at this point and gives her a look that honestly creeps me out a little even to this day, as the cockpit closes and he maneuvers Wing Zero into position to take off. Relena, placated by his plea and stare, says the she does believe in him.

And then, because he may not plan to die but is prepared to do so nonetheless if it can bring peace, he actually holds up his end of the promise and tells her that which she previously wished to hear. And it’s wonderful, because he really shouldn’t have.

See, at this point Relena has witnessed and heard of seven attempts and brushes with death of Heero’s. On the beach, at the harbor, falling down the side of the hospital, blowing himself up with his Gundam, asking the Noventas to kill him, nearly getting slaughtered by Zechs and then later by the mobile dolls in Luxembourg, this girl has seen a lot with him. So it’s a very reasonable assumption of hers to think he would do the same thing again here and throw his life away. Which is why Heero has to assure her that’s not his intention.

But because he knows the risks, he knows this might be the last time they talk, so he kinda chickens out a bit there after that bold “believe in me” and bids her farewell nonetheless, just to be on the safe side, I assume. Because he later also tells her not to worry over him since his life isn’t worth much anyway.

And while getting her wish of hearing a goodbye should normally make her happy, Relena freaks here. Here he is, a friend she has known for a long time and who means a lot to her, as he was what gave her the strength to carry on after her father died, sounding like he isn’t going to return. And Relena is heartbroken because Heero is important to her. The parallels to her father show us how much Heero’s death would affect her.

Her crying out Heero’s name in that agonized manner isn’t meant to be taken romantically. This is a girl fearing her friend will die.

I really love this entire scene because it not only gives us heaps of character development and normal human interaction, which those two sorely lack, it also brings a bunch of stuff full circle, illustrates their personalities well and makes for another interesting break from traditions.

What I mean with the last point is that normally (or at least in the 90s), the guy is all business when he has to go out and fight, being all stoically manly about it, while the woman will be emotional and initiate one final time of intimacy, and the guy may respond before going off to battle. I have this overblown image of Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal, Clint Eastwood type of flicks in my head. You know, the manly stuff.

And here we have Gundam Wing, where Relena doesn’t even care about herself or her feelings for him, but instead is only concerned about Heero’s well-being. Which is why I would have totally bought Relena’s feelings for Heero being purely platonic had Endless Waltz with that super tender caress not happened.

Which also portrays her natural selflessness, in contrast to Heero’s credo of living life acting on your emotions. And boy does he act. He is very much cranking up the romance here with how close he pulls her to him and how very tenderly he speaks to her. Ship it or not, it’s obvious here he likes her. Which in turn tints all their previous interactions.

Ikeda might have wanted a purely symbolic relationship between them, but the geniuses behind this episode ruined that. They gave us Heero displaying his feelings for her, which in turn made all that came before a massive slow burn of sorts.

Hah.

This is something I find highly amusing personally. If you removed the helmet scene and that caress from Endless Waltz, I wouldn’t see it. But those two scenes are enough to make me believe there are feelings there and it’s amazing to see how little it takes to make me change my mind. Then again, Gundam Wing is big on subtlety so this is practically on par with screaming it from the rooftops.

But still, thank you. Thank you writers for inserting this scene and generally giving us two amazing final episodes. You hit all the right marks in my book.

[seiin-translations]

2.43 S1 Chapter 4.3 - Drifting Yunichika

3. IN-AND-OUTER

Just continuing to wing all the volleyball jargon here cuz i have no idea what’s going on

Translation Notes

1. Don’t know if there are English equivalents for these terms, but the Japanese uses  terms like 表レフト (omote-left) and  裏レフト (ura-left), where omote refers to the aces of the team, who are put in the front row for as long as possible, and the ura refers to the players diagonal to them

2. A broad attack is basically where the spiker approaches and jumps towards the net when they hit

3. Pipe in volleyball refers to a back row set aimed at the middle of the court

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He had lied to Haijima about one thing.

Just before he entered the training camp, he received an email from Yorimichi for the first time in a long while. I’ll be back home in August, so let’s have some fun. Then call me when I don’t have practice. That was about all they exchanged back and forth, but he somehow failed to bring that up. Kuroba didn’t think that hanging out with Yorimichi was in itself a bad thing. He wasn’t going to go along with his smoking and drinking and riding double on a bike with no helmet like he used to. Even he had already learned to be sensible about that. He loved volleyball, his team was important to him, and he had self-awareness as a member of a sports team. …And yet, Haijima talked like he flat-out didn’t trust him.

Ah…geez, I’m feeling kinda gloomy.

“I’m getting a second helping of rice.”

When he stood with his empty bowl in one hand and a sullen look on his face, Uchimura, sitting across from him, looked disheartened.

“After eating so much meat yesterday, how can you eat again in the morning? I’m still not very hungry.”

“That stuff all got digested when I ran at night. Maybe you should have gone for a run too, Senpai?”

“I’ll have to decline, since I’m not so young anymore,” his senpai said like he was an old man, despite the fact he was only a year older than him.

The school cafeteria was usually open to students only at lunch time and only to faculty and staff in the morning, but during summer vacation, breakfast was prepared for club members using the boarding house. In addition, special meals were offered to members of the athletic clubs, which was much appreciated. The morning special for today was the combo of grilled fish and deep-fried chicken. The after-meal fruits were bananas and oranges. They were free to get second helpings of rice.

When he opened the lid of the six-litre gas rice cooker, the only remaining amount of rice was the rice grains sticking to the inside of the rice cooker.

“Ma’am, there’s no more rice!”

He hit the edge of the iron pot with the rice scoop and called out to the kitchen. “How much white rice can you all eat? There are students from other clubs coming for lunch, so please hold back a little.” A small old lady in an apron powerfully carried a stainless steel cauldron to replace the empty pot. White steam was rising from the pot where freshly cooked white rice was glittering.

When Kuroba left the rice cooker after piling a mountain of rice into his bowl, Okuma and Oda were lined up behind him looking like this was perfectly natural. Aren’t these two on their third bowls?

He returned to the table where Uchimura was, poured the natto over his rice and started eating his second bowl. Uchimura was also not lacking in appetite, and even though he was talking about something or other, he stored everything in his stomach without leaving a single grain of rice or a piece of vegetable on his plate, and he was about to peel an after-meal orange.

“I have no complaints about your stamina. But your mental strength though… Can’t you do something about it?”

“…I know that. You don’t have to tell me.”

“And? What happened to your partner with the mental strength of steel?”

“That’s how you’re comparing us…? Haijima’s still sleeping.”

Last night, he and Haijima were dragged out of the boarding house, and the two of them were made to do twenty dashes on the slope between the mountain and the school. In the darkness of night where there was only moonlight, they could only hear each other’s dying breaths as they dashed up the slope, pitching forward and almost falling, then staggering downhill, and repeat. Every drop of his urge to make merry with his school trip-like mood had been wrung out of him, and he fell asleep in an instant as soon as he collapsed onto his futon after he finally returned to the boarding house, where everyone was already completely asleep. As expected of Aoki-senpai, he had felt.

He woke up this morning feeling hungry as usual because he had recovered his strength after sleeping, but Haijima hadn’t recovered yet, and he was still lying flat on his futon as though he was dead. It’s not like one of our senpais came to keep an eye on us, and they wouldn’t have known if you had cut down on the number of dashes… He wasn’t that kind of flexible guy. When it came to volleyball, Haijima seemed to “not want to lose to anyone,” not just in practice, but also in preparation and cleaning, and he didn’t cut corners. Well, I think that part of him is pretty admirable, but he only has two hands, so there are times when you just gotta cut those corners.

“Haijima doesn’t have much stamina, right? I guess he’s not perfect.”

Uchimura tilted his head while tossing an orange into his mouth.

“That guy has plenty of flaws.”

When Kuroba answered sullenly, a plastic tray was placed on the table with a bang.

“O-Oh, Haijima. Good morning.”

Uchimura pulled himself away from the table, flinching slightly.

“…’Sup.”

With a sour expression like there was a sign reading “low blood pressure” pasted to it, Haijima pulled the chair next to Kuroba. His club activity switch still wasn’t flipped, so he was wearing his glasses, and his thin bangs were bouncing in a strange way due to his bed hair. When Kuroba somehow failed to speak up and kept silent, Haijima also kept silent towards him and began to bring his food to his mouth with his eyes mostly closed and a face that looked like he was about to throw up. He spiked with his left and right hands, but he basically used his left hand for holding pencils and chopsticks.

Kuroba, who had been wolfing down his second bowl of rice without a care in the world, slowed down his eating speed to match Haijima’s, thinking that it would look like he had an easier time even though they ran the same amount.

“You don’t look so good, you know? Don’t force yourself to eat if you can’t eat. Just eat a banana or something. I’ll eat one too.”

“I’m just sleepy from all the sleeping time I lost. I can eat.”

Haijima was strangely stubborn towards Uchimura’s concern for him, and he greedily shoveled down the rice that he had been slowly bringing to his mouth with so much vigor that he had to wash it down with miso soup. Is he doing this out of spite…? No wait, I have stuff I’m annoyed with him about too. Kuroba wasn’t happy with him. But Haijima didn’t even notice his dissatisfaction anyways.

He felt like an idiot and began energetically moving his chopsticks again. The fatigue in his body was reset after he woke up from sleep, and he planned to show his best performance today, but the gloomy feelings in his heart still haven’t cleared up.

Uchimura shrugged his shoulders at the two who were tilting their bowls and turning their chopsticks like they were competing against each other, then said, “I’ll be leaving, then,” before taking his tray and quickly leaving the table.

*** Kuroba’s position was the so-called “front-left” among left-side players, and it was considered the ace position in high school volleyball. Oda was the back-left, diagonal from him. (1) The left-side players, who took on a large percentage of the team’s total attacks and hit from both the front row and back, generally had the most number of hits. Aoki was the front center, and the back center who was diagonal to him was Okuma, who they were trying to polish at a quick pace. The right-side position that was diagonal to the setter Haijima was filled by Kanno. The left and right-side attackers, as well as the centers, were the so-called “attacker” positions. 

The basic six-person team composition was two left-side players, two centers, and two right-side players. Due to the rotation, front row and back row players often changed places, attackers in the same positions were placed diagonally from each other so that the front row’s height and offensive power were maintained. The ability to receive in the back row was also necessary for the left and right positions. Receiving formations were the key to using more difficult combination attacks. 

There was also a player in a special position called a libero. He mainly replaced a center player, who retreats to the back row, and played a central role in receptions (serve receive) and digs (spike receive). It was this position that did the miraculous dive in the middle of a rally. Hokao was this libero. And Uchimura was like a jack-of-all-trades who could step in if there was a shortage of people. There was no way Seiin could afford to have a reserve for each position.

They spent the afternoon of their second day of training camp practicing combo attacks. Two to four attackers went onto the court and coordinated a team play together with the setter Haijima. Although he had many thoughts about Haijima, Kuroba called out to him for a set. “Alright, over here!” Haijima glanced at him. He felt like he had an annoyed look on his face.

Haijima ignored Kuroba, and—also skipped Aoki, who also jumped for a C quick, before jump back setting the ball to Kanno, who ran right up to the antenna on the right side. The precision of Haijima’s back set was so unchanged from when he set from the front that it made one wonder if he had eyes on the back of his head. Quick attacks ranged from A quicks to D quicks, with A being the closest to the left side from the setter’s set position. B was a little farther. C was the closest to the right side with a back set, and D was a little farther. A combination attack was when another attacker got involved with the decoy quicker and disrupted the opponen’s blocking. Of course, there were times when a set went to the quicker. It was the setter’s chance to show what they could do by putting together a tactic that made full use of all the attackers on the court and make the most optimal set at each moment.

That’s what Haijima talked about yesterday. A combo with a center’s C quick and a right side’s broad jump—.

A sharp spike was driven in with a slap from the right side.

Kanno-senpai is so good…he marveled inwardly. He was an attacker whose special qualities were his fast swings and good control, and he was also good at getting around blockers (there was a suspicion that the blockers momentarily forgot his existence because he had such a weak presence). The right side also jumped to a double quick along with the center. A wide-ranged broad attack (2) was also required. Many times, a player who is a consistent receiver would be put in the position. It was a position that required the ability to be an all-rounder. Kanno wasn’t assertive, but he reliably executed the role that was given to him without hesitation. It seemed that Haijima also had a high opinion of Kanno. A guy who fundamentally didn’t communicate with other people always said a few words to him and made minor corrections after each set.

He called the set with all his might and when he was ignored, he felt that he was being lame, so he was determined to make up for it by hitting a big one as soon as possible.

But that didn’t go according to plan. After that, Haijima didn’t set to Kuroba at all. Not even a single one after several hours of play. It seemed that today, Haijima’s interest was in creating a combo between the centers and the right-side players.

Halfway through practice, he stopped calling for the sets and his jumping became half-hearted, which made Oda angry with him several times. “Kuroba—. Concentrate more. Even if a set doesn’t go to you, look around and think about your next move.”

“…I know that.”

When he answered with a rebellious attitude, Oda shrugged his shoulders like he had no idea what to do and made a proposition to Haijima. “Haijima, why don’t you try another combo after you finish this one? The pipe (3) might be faster if you do it with Kuroba.” He didn’t like the way he talked like he was obviously fussing over him. Even though we’re both first-years, it’s like only Haijima is special…I don’t disagree that he is special, but he doesn’t even seem to notice how much he’s valued by the captain, much less be thankful. The things that he was happy to be told about yesterday strangely got on his nerves today.

Though Haijima looked extremely annoyed at having cold water thrown on the practice he was taking part in, this was the first time in a long while he looked over at him.

“Kuroba.”

His body reflexively stiffened at being called. Haijima put his hands on his hips, kicked the floor with his heel once, sighed, and then spoke.

“There’s no point in you being here, so just get out of here.”

“Hah…!?”

His voice cracked at the sudden discharge notice.

“Wha, you…Don’t get too full of yourself, is a setter really dropping an attacker because of a personal grudge?”

“Grudge?” This guy looks like he has no idea what that means.

“You’re still mad that you had to run because of me.”

“I’m not gonna be picky for a stupid reason like that. Are you an idiot?”

This guy really put an emphasis on the first syllable of “idiot”. Don’t play blind to your stupidity! He really is such an unpleasant guy.

“So why…”

He grabbed Haijima’s arm and pressed him for an answer. Haijima’s face twisted slightly as he glared back at him aloofly. He looked and saw that he had put too much strength into his fingers and they were digging into Haijima’s arm, turning the skin there white.

He clicked his tongue and dropped Haijima’s arm as though it was on fire.

“Uchimura-senpai, could you please do receiving practice with me?”

He turned on his heel and left the court with long strides. “Huh? Alright,” Uchimura answered in puzzlement and followed him. “That moodiness of his…” The mutters of his senpais, who seemed to have given up on him, hurt his back, so he couldn’t turn back to the court anymore. I’m not the bad guy here…While frustration welled up within him, he pushed the ball cage to a corner of the gym. If he were to roll this thing with all his strength and smash it against the wall, it would dissipate a little, but that wasn’t going to happen, so he had no choice but to use all his self-control and push it with normal force.

The training camp that had been fun until the first night had suddenly become boring. Was this payback for getting carried away by feeling like he was on a school trip, just as Haijima said? He wasn’t really getting carried away. He had been plenty fired up for working hard at practice. That was all gone now with Haijima’s attitude.

He was the one who joined the team in April, but Haijima, who joined later, became an indispensable member of the team from that point on, and their senpais yielded to him. More than anything, Oda was captivated by Haijima. When it became like that, now that Nagato was gone, he was the only one treated like a halfway middle schooler, and not acknowledged as a necessary part of the team.

Previous || Index || Next

[dragonotaku-justineverything]

Will Pyrrha and Yang do themed Halloween costumes for Jaune this year?

“Of course we are~!” Yang called out from JNPR’s dorm’s bathroom. “We went as a cop and his two hot female prisoners~. Jaune got a lot of jealous stares that night~.”

A whimper from Pyrrha also came from behind the closed bathroom door. “I should have just gone with one of the silly and fun idea’s Jaune had picked.”

“Oh come on Pyrrha, it was a great idea! Our outfits were totally on point and we rocked the roles!”

“W-why did we need to handcuff ourselves to him as well though Yang!?”

“To sell the look P-Money. Aaaaand to let all the pervs staring at us know we were taken. Speaking of which, Jaune! You ready out there Lover Boy?” 

“Y-yeah, I got everything on. How about you girls?”

“You betcha, just sit back and enjoy the view~!”

The bathroom door swung open slowly and Yang strode out soon followed by Pyrrha. Both stood side by side in front of Jaune who was standing in the middle of the dorm. All three of them took a minute to take in each everyone’s costume.

Jaune had on a very large, and very fake, suit of armor. From head to toe, helm to boot, he was dressed in a stereotypical plastic night costume one would see in a kid’s cartoon or comic. The look was completed with an equally fake plastic sword that hung loosely on his hip and a small shield on his left arm.

Pyrrha had on a full body length, frost white robe tied tightly shut around her. The only parts of her skin that were visible were her face, hands and a small portion of her feet that were in sandals. In her hands, she had a book with a plain black cover tucked against her body. On her head, or rather over it thanks to a little stand hairclip, she had a yellow tinfoil ring acting as a halo. On her back, she had a pair of white, feathery wings attached to her robes.

Yang easily had the most revealing outfit out of the three, though still not much. Yang had on a small, obsidian black, leather jacket, too small to actually be zipped closed so it was left open. However, under her jacket, Yang still had some modesty and wore a matching leather tube top over most of her impressive bust with only a little top portion of her cleavage showing. The edges of her top had been frayed and cut to look like flames of points. For footwear, Yang wore a pair of shiny latex, black boots with two inch heels that went all the way up to her mid thigh, hugging her legs all the way up~. On top of her still wild mane of blonde hair was yellow headband with two curved, red horns, easably  visible amongst all the yellow. Like Pyrrha, Yang also had a pair of wings attached to her jacket, but hers were black and purple, bat-like wings.

“Well Jaune, what do you think of your personal angel and devil~?” 

Jaune took off his plastic helmet to answer her clearly. “I think you two look as beautiful as always. Those costumes sorta suit you two.”

Pyrrha blushed lightly and smiled wide at the compliment. “Thank you Jaune. The same goes for you.”

Yang walked up to Jaune and began inspecting his plastic armor. “Don’t know why you can’t just use your regular gear for you costume.”

Jaune rolled his eyes but let her inspect him over. “Because of the new guidelines for costumes this year from Professor Goodwitch Yang. No actually weapons or gear, only props. And don’t forget Yang,” Jaune stared right at his blonde girlfriend. “No, and I quote, ‘revealing, lewd, or provocative state of attire’.”

Yang only look a little sheepish when she retorted, “I don’t know why you’re talking to me.”

“Because something tells me Professor Goodwitch added that rule since last year because of the costume you had us wear.”

“Hey! It was Pyrrha’s idea!”

“I-I never said to make it sexy! I just brought up cops and crooks! You were the one that wanted to make it revealing!”

Yang turned to argue with her girlfriend, but stopped when she couldn’t exactly call her wrong. “Okay fine, I’ll take the fall for that one. But I know the new rules. Why do you think I’m not wearing the bikini version of this devil costume?”

“There’s a bikini version?” Both Jaune and Pyrrha couldn’t stop themselves before those words left their mouths.

Yang just smiled smugly back and forth between the two. “Yup~. Shame Prof. Goodwitch wouldn’t allow it.”

Jaune managed to stop his mind from dwelling on the idea of Yang in a devil bikini for very long, however Pyrrha wasn’t as strong as Jaune could see her face growing redder and redder. “Y-yeah well, she might still think what you are wearing is too much.... or too little in this case.”

Yang rolled her eyes and sighed, annoyed with this discussion already. “Then we can just ditch the Halloween party earlier than we plan too anyways and watch an extra movie or something that night. Either way, fine by me.”

Pyrrha nodded with Yang’s backup plan. “That would still be nice I suppose. Speaking of which, now that we made sure our costumes are all good and fit us, should we move onto thinking of some movies to play after we leave the party?”

Jaune nodded and pulled out his scroll. “Sure.” He opened up a page and began scrolling. “What were you girls kind of thinking in terms of movies? Besides scary obviously.”

“Oh how about one of those comedic, satire horror movies from the Scary Movie series?! I love those!”

“Maybe some with a bit of action too? Perhaps some zombie films?”

[meggie-stardust]

GUNDAM WING - REWATCH - 45 - 47

You guys get a triple episode this week! You’re welcome, bitches.

45. Signs of the Final Battle

There’s that space crew working again. I hope they support the position of White Fang...

Quatre: I no longer need the ZERO system; I’ve absorbed it

Howard: You guys gotta rest, it’s happy hour somewhere *flips on Margaritaville*

Does Treize think he can win in space? Yes. Yes he does, obviously 

Can a launch be “very successful” or just successful or unsuccessful 

Oh, hey, Hilde, Whats up?? I forgot about Noin!Lite

CANS is a bit wishy washy. Oh no, don’t blow up the earth. Oh, hey we need to blow up all the gundam. Only we can have a gundam. 

Those minidisks are back. Usually I forget this was made in the 90s.

Whey would my brother start a fight when they could just talk? Relena didn’t you read the tags: Friends to enemies to lovers, slow burn, 300K, major character death

All the “girlfriends” are having a secret meeting. 

Hilde is delivering plans about a weakness in a battleship... Interesting... 

This isn’t a kids game; are you sure CANS???

Wufei is like I’m just gonna jump in for Duo here, since he sucks at Chess

Duo: Hey, Heero you wanna play 5 person chess? This is how we do it on L2

The alarm goes off and they’re all doing cool Flying V formation like the mighty ducks. 

Wow we could have had this the WHOLE TIME if they just TALKED TO EACH OTHER??? We were robbed.

I have questions about the structural integrity of a mobile suit in space. Hilde isn’t waring a space suit, and her mobile suit is compromised… Wearing a helmet seems to be an aesthetic decision only.

Can we talk about the glint in Deathscythe’s eyes? Because it’s so badass.

Duo can tell that it’s Trowa and Heero just by how they pilot… interesting… (Is my 1x2x3 shipper showing??)

It’s canon: Duo is better than Heero and Trowa combined. 

Don’t get me wrong, I like Hilde, but if the show had balls they would have killed her Rogue One style

The pilots new flight suits are A+ 

46. Milliardo’s Decision

$10 Milliardo’s decision is to put his helmet back on and become Space!Zechs

OOOH Tallgeese II has entered the battle

Treize: I built a Gundam before, but I just want to pilot the same mobile suit as my boyfriend so I also build the Tallgeese II

Oh hey, Wing keeps showing up... I wonder what’s gonna become of it this time....?

I don’t even know what what’s happening here with them all hanging out, but I am here for it. 

Trowa: be nice to women; Wufei’s flexy arm thing breaks

Duo about Heero: he makes mistakes just like the rest of us; the rest of the pilots are all silent not because they disagree, but because they are thinking of all the fucked up shit they’ve seen Heero do in the past. 

To quote Brand New/Taking Back Sunday, Heero is as subtle as a brink in the small of my back

Heero’s a little short of a storm trooper...

Either Relena is just super excited to see Heero or they are slowly reducing the oxygen in her holding cell

Hilde brought them the data, and then Heero doesn’t even leave it with the other pilots, he literally brings it back to LIBRA??? WHERE IT CAME FROM

The closed caption just said [mysterious charm] AMAZING

Zechs: Guys I have a really cool idea, but I need your help to move my desk to the observation deck for ~the aesthetic~

IDk what look Heero is going for when he’s sneaking on the libra, but it’s not half bad, and it comes with a neckerchief 

What is this amazing pose of Tallgeese II standing on the shuttle. AMAZING. Treize is such a BOSS 

Wait. Zechs was a hologram the whole time?! That’s so extra, I love it.

How are all these people magically connected. How does Une immediately wake up when Treize is about to do something crazy

Did Une just take Wing?! I have no memory of this

Zechs: CANS restrain Dorothy; CANS:  FINALLY my moment has come!

Wow I have no memory of this

Wing Gundam pushing Treize out of the way and Dorothy losing her mind

OMG IT WAS Lady Une the whole time?!

Way more badass than any of us gave her credit for. Going from being in a coma, to launching a Gundam into space, to taking the brunt of a beam canon. Lady Une is the MVP of this episode.

47. Collision in Space

Heero: I’m just gonna have a little nap right now, and then when Treize fails, I’ll go ahead and blow up the Libra

Howard: Which side should we root for guys? Whats the over under on White Fang? 

Sally: OK, we’re gonna side with Treize, ok guys? Hope you agree because this is gonna get crazy.

CANS: Why do the Gundams hate us even tho I just gave the orders to destroy them last episode?? 

Well, last episode Duo was the superior pilot. This time, not so much... 

Treize: I would thank the Gundams, but I think my silence is better, they’ll totally get what I’m going for 

Dorothy: Wait, you can’t move the libra? I have to view of the battle #priorities

Peacemillion is just the right side to fly in and destroy Libra. How convienent.

Noin folds like a lawn chair, but so does Zechs

CANS IS SUCH A BITCH

Peacemillon’s plowing into us… it’s the only thing that’s gonna plow into you

CANS: How could this happen?! 

Treize is so proud of the ships

God Relena, do we have to spell everything out for you about what’s happening right this second

Heero: I need Wing Zero. Good thing it just crashed into this ship

Trowa about Wufei fucking off: He’s fulfilling an old promise. That means Wufei and Trowa did talk when they bro’d downed at the circus

Treize: that pilot has to be that kid… play it cool. Don’t him know you remember his name.

Heero said butt

This is what I’m here for; Duo infiltrating everything. 

Trowa is the best. Just do a double spin out of the way and a bow. Ta da!

DorothyxQuatre duel. This is the only Quatre ship I’m here for. 

I was just wondering what happened to the scientists.

We built an error into the canon… interesting, where did you get that idea

Duo looks so badass threatening the scientists. More of this please. 

Epyon standing there like a Gargoyle 

Crushing blow??? GET IT???? GUys do you know what he’s gonna do next?????

Thoughts:

I am glad that @mpanighetti and I decided to do these 3 episodes as a group, and then finish out the series with the last two episodes together. 

I had very little memories of some of the details here, and I get why... honestly, these are weird kinda filler episodes. When a series is only 49 episodes, we don’t get a lot of time for nothing to happen, but the writing is getting looser at the end of the series, and if this arc had happened in the first 1/2 all of this would have probably happened in 1 episode, and instead we get 3. 

There are a lot of badass moments here: Duo, Une, Treize.... but the rest of the episodes feel a little flat... 

What I think I remember for the next episode(s):

I have so many memories of the penultimate episode (which i will make a whole post about separately) but we get an epic battle between Treize and Wufei, and I honestly forget how things fully wrap up during the last episode, so I am so excited that we’ve made it to the end. I can’t wait to write up my final thoughts and then rewatch Endless Waltz.  

[fizzingwizard]

Episode 32 arrives! It’s, I gotta say, quite an improvement on what we’ve had lately. Quite an improvement. Even so, it’s nothing that’s gonna rock the world... but hey, I was so desperate for something different to happen that y’know what, I’ll take it.

Pic of the week:

A Digimon who just wants to roll around in the grass. Go’way, baddies.

More below!

So as you probably gather... we start with Takeru this week! Haha! Good riddance Taichi! I luv ya but I’ve had enough of ya! Take a break!

jk I totally missed him the whole thirty seconds he wasn’t on screen

Takeru and Patamon are running for their lives, of course! Patamon makes a valiant effort to evolve to protect Takeru but...

... Poor baby. He gave it the ol’ college try but he just ain’t as young as he used to be.

Things look grim until Komondomon shows up with a creepy disembodied hand sticking out of his fur!

Phew, it’s just Sora. Her brilliant plan to rescue Takeru is to grab his arm and drag him along with them... I mean... sure... Whiplash has been proven Not A Thing in this universe so...

After getting rid of their pursuer, the group checks in with the others. I’m reminded of how silly separations feel when you can just communicate with each other by walkie-talkie. Yamato’s been riding Garurumon for a long time now lol. At least we got to see him...

He sweetly encourages Takeru and tells him the best thing he can do to help Patamon with his evolution issues is be there to support him. Then he tells Taichi “I leave Takeru in your case.” Ok sure, like Sora’s not right there...

Taichi: In my care? Should I point out that I already lost one little sibling to the dark side? Nah...

Seriously, though... that’s the current situation. Taichi is actively going over SkullKnightmon to get Hikari back. If Takeru stays with him that just means Takeru gets to go into danger again too. Of course, it seems that the dark side is suddenly uninterested in Takeru and Patamon so... I guess it’s okay 9_9

We then check in with Mimi! Who is being her awesome Mimi-tastic self. Ugh I love her.

Wondered what happened to Golemon. Turns out there was nothing much to worry about because no one loves a macho boxing match like Tachikawa Mimi. If there’s ever a season where these kids grow up, I hope Mimi is like, a big fan of sumo or something.

Taichi: O... kay... well... Mimi sure is... an intersting person...

Agumon: Hey you should make her your girlfriend!

Taichi: what nOOO BAD IDEA ABORT ABORT

Meanwhile, the situation with Jou is, um, questionable to say the least...

(how is keeping that towel on)

Jou: HEEEEELP!!!

Taichi: ... you didn’t hear anything, did you? Me neither. *closes link*

Finally we check in with Koushirou. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what he says. -__-;

At least we see him get bombed a bit. He’s okay though.

Meanwhile unconscious Patamon gets a visitor from baby angel Lopmon, who tells him about hist lost memories.

He adds that the other legendary warriors have lost their power and it’s up to Patamon and his bond with Takeru to save the world more or less.

He encourages Patamon to find his hope.

Patamon: Who am I? What am I? All before me is dark. I know not what path to take.

The others, having nothing better to do, peep on Patamon’s crisis of faith.

Takeru relates a story about learning to swim and being scared of the water, but Yamato stayed with him so eventually he was able to learn to do it. Aww. Not quite comparable to Hikari’s “I wet the bed and Taichi changed the sheets and then told our parents that he was the one that did it” from the 99 series but still pretty good.

The sweet moment is interrupted by a flash of light! Then dark! Then light! Then dark!

It’s another scary Digimon! Oh dear. It’s Kerberomon. A three-headed Cerberus as I’m sure you figured out. Once again, this show does not how to convey what the stakes are. After everything we’ve been through, it’s hard to take random nobody Digimon as serious as each episode wants us to take them... but it’s obvious from the build up here that Kerberomon’s going to be tough to beat for Reasons.

Greymon gets hit and says, “I let down my guard!” MAYBE DON’T DO THAT THEN

Also it is very windy.

Le ouch. This is the Digimon from earlier whose name I forgot to take down. He’s come back with his friend...

... Scarier-in-the-dark-mon.

They’re surrounded~ Oh noes and whatnot.

Taichi is a bit cool here, clinging to Komondomon’s helmet and directing the battle like a war general. Mostly he’s telling them how to avoid getting hit by Kerberomon’s powerful attacks but I like that we get to see him using his head like this.

What I think is happening here is, Komondomon isn’t as fast as the kids could be if they were on their own, so their speed is hampered and that plus the number of assailants makes this battle tough. I am sure we’re supposed to assume that the reason WarGreymon doesn’t appear is because it takes a lot of energy to bring him out, even though last time he appeared twice in the same episode -.-;

Sora decides to be useful and goes to help Takeru get to safety.

... She is immediately struck by an attack and collapses, badly hurt somehow. This is so dumb. First of all, they don’t even animate her getting hit. There’s a flash and then she’s down. She should at least get to throw herself over Takeru protectively or something. Geez. 90s anime did it so much better. She’s just standing there and gets hit. What, did she forget there was a battle raging around her?

Second, WE ALREADY HAD DAMSEL IN DISTRESS SORA. It was Jou’s motivation to be cool way back when this show was rather more interesting than it has been of late. Why do the boys need Sora to get SERIOUSLY INJURED to be able to fight?? WHY?? Like, Taichi gets caught in the line of fire ALL THE TIME, but he never gets injured to the point where he can’t continue on. (Except for that one time with Devimon but those were exceptional circumstances!)

Like, why are we making Sora so weak?? This is so unnecessary.

I guess Yamato was right by entrusting Takeru to Taichi instead of Sora though...

... Uhhh.... never mind X’D

Taichi: Whew... m-maybe no one saw that...

Our be-bibbed god reappears to offer sage advice.

Patamon recalls his final moments as Seraphimon... being enveloped into darkness.

This is cool - we see his angelic wings turn to demon ones briefly before he slides back to lower levels. Not sure if it means anything but we have been theorizing that Patamon could still be infected by the evil that wounded him in the past.

Patamon then recalls things that happened after he was reborn and I’m reminded for the billionth time how much harder the emotions around Angemon’s death hit in the 99 show...

Suddenly Patamon realizes - his hope is Takeru, and he is Takeru’s hope.

The boys put on their game faces. This is what I mean by Sora really didn’t need to get hurt here. I get that it gives Takeru a reason to be protective, but the thing that evolves Patamon is Patamon’s feelings, the same way Agumon’s feelings were what rescued them from Devimon etc. That’s an interesting thing about this show - the Digimon’s feelings seem as important to evolution as, if not more than, the kids’.

Patamon evolves!! Very creepily! But... not to Angemon!

He becomes Pegasusmon! Who... looks a lot bigger than I remember, even considering Takeru is very small... xD

So this is pretty cool! I’ve been wondering how on earth the show was gonna keep introducing evolutions after already using up so many key players, especially for Taichi. But it looks like Armor Digimon can appear, and that makes me think that we could see all kinds of evolutions for the entire team that we’ve never seen before. I like that idea, but I don’t really know if this show has time for it. Maybe it will just be Pegasusmon and Nefertimon who are available to Takeru and Hikari so the writers can preserve the angels for the most epic moments only. That seems the most likely way things will go here, and the only qualm I have with it is, they’ve played all of Taichi’s cards already, and he’s the main character. He has to have something else in the future...

He attac!!!!

Kerberomon doesn’t last long, although why is wholly inexplicable. What about Pegasusmon gives him the edge when MetalGreymon and Garudamon couldn’t handle it? Is it because he’s an Armor Digimon? That may be it but the show doesn’t bother to explain.

Another thing I’d love to see, if there are gonna be more than just one evolutionary tree for the partners, is the kids actually strategizing when they decide which evolution to use. One of the cool parts of Tamers was the kids actively supporting their partner with skill as well as heart. I don’t think that’s gonna happen in this season, but you know, a girl can dream.

Takeru: Hurray for murder!

The three Digimon work together to put the lid on Kerberomon. Garudamon has the coolest moment. Squash.

Taichi checks on Sora who seems fine now. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

Aw, but these two really are adorable.

What a sweet ending card T_T I want more of these.

Okay so yeah, this episode was a much needed upper after the stream of “watch Taichi fight random forgettable monsters” episodes we’ve had lately. I’m glad we got it. I still, just, like, why can’t they get the emotional build up right?? I wouldn’t say 99 Adventure did anything insanely unusual in how it treated the various crises the kids faced, but it def did a better job than this show. In 99, they understood the importance of moments of reflection, of talking about things, of showing expressions and how other characters react... And I still feel like this reboot DID do that, at least somewhat better, in the beginning. Like what went down between Yamato and Taichi after Ogremon was killed. That was pretty good.

They’ve totally lost what makes Digimon great. I hope this episode is a sign that they’re gonna take it back, but, my heart just hearts y’all.

Next episode... I’m rather surprised since we are REALLY overdue some face time with Yamato, not to mention Mimi and Jou, but apparently we’re sticking with Taichi. At least it looks lke we’ll get some new plot stuff related to Hikari.

If this all leads up to something that makes sense, I will retract all my complaints, I swear. Except about the gratuitous nonstop fighting. But the rest, I will take back.

Taichi’s determined!! This is Digimon Adventure! Let’s go on a freaking adventure!!

[valkyrieofsmut]

How would the boys of reacted if mc had a kid already but the dad skipped out so she’s now trying to take care of them with their current situation?

It took a while to think about this and come up with an answer for everyone, but I think I’ve got it. Current, I’m taking as RIGHT NOW in the story. But there’s also a future (more relationship-y) answer I’ll try to give. 

Classic- Oh, hey, a kid. He’s just accepted the kid into the plans with everything else. Give head ruffles and jokes, is the basic hilarious prankster uncle that is always the favorite of the kids. MC’s kid gravitates to him, and after getting to know him and checking him out, MC is fine with this, as long as he’s not doing crazy, dangerous stuff, or things that could hurt her kid. 

When things start to get Serious™, Classic starts to think of the kid as his own, probably without even realizing it at first. He’ll just wake up one day and stretch, getting ready for work, wondering why it feels weird that the kid isn’t running around like he’s trying to break the sound barrier, like his brother used to when he was getting his coffee in the morning… When he realizes that he’s totally fallen for MC, it makes so much sense! Of course he’d think of the kid as his; that’s what happens when you have a mate; you have kids with them! And, additionally, if that worthless deadbeat ever tries to come around looking for his kid, claiming some sort of “parental rights” that ass is going to get a lesson in family. Because it doesn’t matter where the sperm for the kid came from, which he’ll gladly remove the source of, if he ever comes back, but who loves and cares for them, nurturing them as they grow. 

Creampuff- A child, oh, yes, those happen! Wait… where is the other parent? He what?! Well… excuse him for a moment… there are some shrubbery that need… yelling at- yes, it helps them grow! And when he gets back, you have now unlocked mother hen Creampuff, and if she didn’t get constant pictures and updates of what they were up to, MC might worry that her kid had been kidnapped… 

Creampuff may not be interested in the making of kids, the physical way, anyway, but this kid is his, now, and he’s ready to be a parent! He’s not sure how he feels about a romantic relationship, though… maybe he and MC can just work it out like a split custody situation, like he’s seen at work! Except they won’t have to go to the police station to exchange the kid. What wonderful parents the two of them are, already!

Red- heh… a kid… Wow… Red knows how to be a dad, and even has some confidence at what to do, but… the other stuff… makes him kinda nervous. What do you say to a kid whose mom you want to bang until the sun explodes? Ha- definitely not that. It takes some time, but after he gets used to the kid and relaxes a little, he’s already acting like a parent, like he did for Edge. He’s used to it being dangerous, so he’s going to make sure the kid is ok. And teach them all sorts of cool stuff. If you start them young enough, they’ll have insanely high levels of comprehension as they get older! MC better be ready for her kid to be learning advanced mechanics- as in, you know those hoverboards? Not the stupid ones that have wheels and catch fire- the ones that actually hover, like that one movie! Yep… that’s going to probably be the goal for her kid’s senior year science fair project… better get started on it now...

When stuff gets serious, Red isn’t going to be able to keep his hands to himself- honestly, sweetheart, we gotta get on makin’ that kid a sibling. been too long wit’out one a’ready… though i know ya were jus’ waitin’ on me ta cum along- heh heh! Red’s “dad mode” is activated, and well… if anything, that… actually might just make MC see things Red’s way about needing a sibling for her kid… He’s just so… parental… it stirs something primal that looks for the ideal mate… Yeah… she’s not going to stand a chance. 

Edge- Ugh- another one?! A small one?! SIGH! Well, he may act like a hardass, but, he values childhood, and remembers how rough his was, despite Red trying to make sure he got the best of one he could afford without letting him be in danger. So he may act like he’s irritated and annoyed with MC’s kid, but he’s actually very flattered if they follow him around, and he may do things particularly slowly and demonstratively so they can learn by watching. He may also leave candies or treats for them… And, when the kid shows to have learned something from him- of course he’s going to act offended at the thought that he actually meant to help them! But the pride and affection he’s radiating is poorly hidden. He also won’t let anyone touch them, though it’ll be “JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE TOO WEAK TO ATTACK ME DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN ATTACK A CHILD!”

When things get serious, he will finally officially take the kid under his wing and- holy shit, had she thought that he was secretly training her kid before?! Now Edge is always talking, teaching how to do something, showing new things, and standing at her side as he urges their kid to show off what he taught them. He is full of pride, chest puffed out to the max. If anyone implies that his child doesn’t meet any standards- he’s going to have to “have a talk” with them- a terrifying talk, where that person might just have to change their clothes after, because- how does someone get so scared that they get waste matter on their shirt? Who knows, Edge certainly doesn’t. He’s never seen that happen before… twice, from the same person, anyhow. 

Blue- He’s not phased by the fact that she has a kid. She’s amazing, who wouldn’t want to mate her?! Wait… her kid’s other parent did what?! It’s alright- neither of them has to worry about anything, now, not while he’s there! He’s already taken to playing with the kid, loving that they’re as energetic as he is, loves driving with them on his bike- yes, he’ll make them wear a helmet, and sit in front of him if they can’t hold on tight enough, but they still get to feel the amazing freedom. 

When things finally get serious, he really doesn’t change, except that he says “GO ASK YOUR MOM” less and takes on more parental responsibilities. He is their parent now- oh stars, he’s their parent, now! He talks to Stretch a lot; he knows how to be an amazing datemate, and mate, but a parent?! Stretch assures him that he hasn’t messed up the kid enough for it to be noticeable yet, so that’s a good sign. Blue gets irritated and spends a lot of time asking MC if she thinks he’s doing the right things, but when she tells him that he’s been acting like a great dad the whole time already, and that he hasn’t messed up anything majorly, yet, he realizes that being a parent is more about doing what’s best for the kid, and less about doing everything “right”. He then begins the campaign for another kid. “DON’T GET ME WRONG! I LOVE OUR CHILD DEARLY, BUT… I WANT MORE KIDS… THEY NEED SIBLINGS TO RUN AND PLAY WITH! … Don’t Worry, Dove, I’d Never Leave You And Our Children Like That Unlucky Moron Did. He Just Couldn’t See How Lucky He Was To Have Two People As Amazing As You In His Life… But I’ll Never Forget. I Think About It Every Day, Already, Actually.” 

Stretch- He has a very serious and very strict “eh” policy about kids. Cool, a kid. Nothing about this situation changes how he acts in the least. Just another person around, though he’s maybe not the person the kid should hang around with, at his own admission. “don’t want ‘em growin’ up to be lazy like me, do ya?” But he won’t turn them away if they want to play games or hang out and take a nap for a bit. 

If Stretch has already gotten to the point where he’s thinking about being serious with MC, he’s going to take her kid into consideration, too. It wasn’t awful being a stand in parent for Blue, and he’d probably make a pretty good uncle, but… he’s not sure he’s got it in him to do it again… but for MC- what the hell, he’ll give it a shot. He’s not going to mess them up too badly, after all; he’s not doing it alone this time! And now he has someone to teach the inner workings of what he does at work- no, it’s not because he’s lazy and wants someone to do his job for him! … ok, that thought may have come up when he decided to teach ‘em- but only for a second! His job skills are important, and will give the kid lots of opportunities when they get older- even if it’s just to start working as his assistant and make things easier on himself, he’ll be up to date and able to take over one day. Stretch will be a proud papa that day, just the same as he was when they graduated top of their class at MIT. Can you- can you believe he actually had a hand in- in building that person…? It’s so surreal… and beautiful… 

Black- Hmm… his pet has a young one already… but he doesn’t scent any other humans on her… Ah, that’s why- Wait- what?! NO, NO, NO, LOVE, YOU MUST BE MISTAKEN, YOU SEE, YOU TOLD ME THAT THIS MORONIC, INSIGNIFICANT WORM IS STILL ALIVE SOMEWHERE! HE IS… YOU DIDN’T KILL HIM FOR BETRAYING YOU?! WHY, LOVE- YOU’RE TOO GOOD FOR THIS WORLD… WOULD YOU LIKE HIS HEAD ON A PIKE FOR A WOOING GIFT? NO? ALRIGHT, SUIT YOURSELF, PET. He just is absolutely stunned that someone so stupid could exist. But, there is no accounting for taste, he supposes. MC and her child are in his care, now, and that means they receive all of the benefits that entitles them to. If the worm comes back- he’s not going to play nice- he’ll show them exactly what they missed out on when they left his family behind to pursue whatever had caught his fancy. 

He’s already acting like a mate and father by the time things get serious, and he is very proud of how smart his child is, but not surprised- after all, they did come from MC’s loins, and were tutored by him. This just shows how great any children they have together will be, and… maybe they should have them now? He’s always heard that you shouldn’t have a large gap between kids, as it can lead to discord in the ranks. Yes, now would be a fine time to start… NOW TELL ME, LOVE, HOW MANY WERE YOU THINKING? WE SHOULD PLAN THIS OUT SO THEY ARE SPACED PERFECTLY AND WE CAN GIVE THEM ALL THE UTMOST TRAINING AND AFFECTION. 

Mutt- Oh, a kid? Hm… Interesting… he guesses. He really skulks around a bit more before he comes over to hang around MC. It’s not that he’s afraid of the kid or doesn’t like them, he just really doesn’t want to be interrupted while he’s trying to get some time with MC. He also doesn’t want to scar them for life by them walking in on him with their mom in all sorts of compromising positions! All sorts of them. Wherever they happen to be… Really, he’s being considerate. 

Mutt, in the future, when things are serious, and MC already has a kid? Cool. Pretty much nothing changes. Everything is the same, except that now that MC is his, so is the kid. So he’s going to keep a socket on them like he did his bro. And he’s going to make sure that no one messes with them. They’re going to turn out very loved and very confident, and very, very safe. Mutt may disappear sometimes, but he always comes back, and when he does he usually seems pleased; kid’s doin’ great. made some new friends. And let me tell you something… If this boy ever meets the douchebag that donated sperm for his kid- he’ll say thanks. And explain all of the accomplishments the two have made without him, bragging how amazing the kid turned out without him. Right before he beats the shit out of him. 

(as a side note, I was inspired by Mutt’s little section in this post by @tyranttortoise, and have something planned much like this… yay!) 

Axe- When he first saw her, his plan was solid; food for his brother. When she used her cleverness and wits and fought to stay alive, he had a bit of respect for her, though he didn’t think it would help her. When she managed to get him and his brother to go back to the camper and he could smell the other scent, knew there was a small human hiding and locked away in the cab of the truck, even though he couldn’t find them, and she was giving them her food to go away- giving up their food to throw off attention and protect her young… it struck a chord with him about how he was protecting his brother, and- well damn… he just couldn’t eat her now! 

After that, when they went around with the bros, she always had that protective front up, never going to let her child be hurt, and… damn it… it just made him like her more. When the boys were reminded that humans can’t survive in the cold, Axe went to collect them, and found that she was even sharing the blanket nest- giving her own heat to keep her child safe and… fuck… he’s pretty sure he’s fallen, but he’s going to resist this weird feeling as hard as he can! Then, when she’s helped and provided for them, his brother, and him, in addition to her child, even though they did what they could to pool resources… He’s a lot more apt to be violent if the others come by and try to take her. She is their human, her child is their child now, and he will kill anyone who tries to mess with them. When the humans move to the lodge, he’s up there, every day, takes the kid out, shows them around, is very sure to have them back for lunch and dinner, teaches them everything he can so they can be strong and take care of and defend themself. Her kid is offended that Axe makes them wear one of those leash backpack type things tied to him, until Axe explains that it’s for him, so he doesn’t get lost from them, then, being MC’s kid, and seeing the example of how to take care of others their whole life, they understand, and Axe is greatly amused at the tiny version of her he now has running around with him. MC is very surprised at all of the hunting, trapping, and survival stuff her kid has learned with Axe, and is super proud of that smart little squirt! And so is Axe. Proud as a dad. Which is what he is when things are serious. He is a proud dad. 

Crooks/Bun- Oh, poor Bun is distraught when he finds out. You Mean That FIrst Night When You Gave Us Your Food, You Were Doing It To Protect Your Baby?! SANS! YOU ABSOLUTE CAD! HOW COULD YOU?! He takes the little human under his metaphorical wing and tries to teach them all the fun stuff he knows, like puzzles! And how to tie all sorts of pretty knots! And useful ones as well. He remembers what it was like when he was a baby bones and Sans did his best to keep his life fun, innocent, and worry free, let him have a childhood instead of having to grow too early, or, really at all, until everything hit the metaphorical fan… He will reenforce your claim to be camping, inviting you to stay with them and claim that you just chose a bad year to camp here, trying to do the same for your kid not to disillusion them. It’s No Trouble, Really! Your Mom Is A Great Mother, And You Are Both Such Wonderful Friends Of Ours, We Want You To Have Fun On With Us On Your Vacation, Too! 

When the others come, he will keep them away, far away from the cabin. He didn’t want her to know, but he would be heartbroken if he let her kid’s image of her fall one tiny bit. Yes, talk all you need to, but let’s do it far, far out here- how about in the road?! How about at the lodge?! Not Here, Where The Baby Might Hear! He feels like his nest is empty when they move to the lodge, and is up there every day, helping to cook and clean, being the mother hen he used to be, and feeling absolutely overjoyed to have a little one to tend to! And the fact that she asks him to take care of the baby when she has to go do something, or needs a moment to herself makes his magic sing! Life is so wonderful right now! And no, he doesn’t care how old the kid is, or how many times anyone says anything- they can almost fit in only his two hands! (you know, depending on how far apart he holds them.) And any young that small must be a baby! Luckily he doesn’t try to spoon feed them. That could be a fight, depending on the kid’s personality. When things move to the point where it would be considered “dating” or “Seriously Dating” he’s glad to have this child with her. He loves them both very much. 

Dusty- The first time he met her, he didn’t know, so he had no opinion, though he’ probably be thinking about some exp, and thinking about pseudo revenge. But, after he’s gone off, found out what he needs to know and come back- 

A kid- oh fuck, a kid! No- no, that can’t be the same kid! They look different- he knows they do- shut up, Paps, he’s trying to think because he doesn’t want to do something wrong! That’s the human’s kid! Yes! That’s right! Ok! Ok. Ok… ok, he’s ok now. He’s very anxious around MC’s kid because he’s afraid that he’s going to freak out, flashback, and attack. He is very careful to always have someone else around when he’s with the kid. Someone that can either get the kid out of there, or kick his ass to stop him. He’s very nervous about if things get serious, and fights it, actually, not wanting anyone to count on him being around, because… he’s afraid that things will fall apart in the worst way possible. 

Ask Masterlist?

[huilian]

for @ascreamingbean!!!!!

Damian looks at the handful of people who made it through to the other side, searching, hoping for a familiar face, even when he knows it’s impossible. But then, things are never impossible in their line of work, are they? He has died and came back to life. Many of his family have died and came back. What’s one more miracle?

Richard could have miraculously gotten out of the compound. Jason could have survived in space without any protective gear. Stephanie and Cassandra could have activated their transporter just before their pod exploded. Timothy could have had the time to squeeze into the portal before it closed shut.

They could have. Their family have done more impossible things. 

Richard, Jason, Cassandra, Stephanie, Timothy. Richard, Jason, Cassandra, Stephanie, Timothy. Damian chants their name inside his head, still having hope that they can be here, against all odds, if he wishes it enough.

He sees none of them. 

No. 

Damian closes his eyes, begging to anyone who will listen, even though he is aware that he should know better. Just one. Please. Just let one of them make it, and he would never ask for anything ever again. Never. Just let one of them make it, just let one of them be here with him, any one of them, and Damian will never complain about or wish for anything ever again. 

Just one. Please. Just let one of them survive.

He opens his eyes and looks again, going so far as to activate his mask’s face recognition algorithm, but he still can’t find any of them. Not a sight of an electric blue sweep, shining bright in the darkness. No hint of a red helmet, boldly declaring the owner’s presence. No blonde hair blown up by the wind, nor splotches of yellow in a black suit. No red tunic that he used to hate so much.

It hits him, then. There’s no one. He’s truly alone.

He’s Robin, and he’s alone in the midst of dozens of people, who are all looking at him with frightened faces, the only people left from their earth. 

He’s still Robin, even when there is no Batman, no Nightwing, no Red Hood, no Black Bat, no Batgirl, no Red Robin. 

He’s still Robin, even when he doesn’t know how to be one without anyone else, and so he looks at the terrified expressions aimed at him, all looking at him for directions, and he grits his teeth, schools his expression, and lifts his chin up. 

He’s Robin, and he is going to help them, no matter what he’s feeling right now.

“Follow me,” Damian says, with conviction he doesn’t feel. Follow the protocol for being in an alternate earth. Be calm. Make sure the civilians are alright. 

Be calm. 

Damian starts walking. 

***

“Are we ready to go?” Tim asks Richard, who is still looking at the glaring, ever-increasing number, counting the number of people who died, and the list of the hero-casualties. 

Father’s name is on that list. So is Superman’s. And Wonder Woman’s. And most of the League’s. 

They have lost, and they are now running, fleeing for their lives. Well, the ones still alive to do so. 

Damian looks at the humongous ship, ready to fly away from this earth in search for another place to live, and imagines that he could see the crowds of people huddled inside. This is it. All that is left of his earth. 

There were other ships and other heroes. Richard had arranged for it all. Then they destroyed every single one of their ships except this one, and all the people within it. This is their last chance. Their last saving grace.

Damian wonders where his mother was when the strike hits, and whether his mother survived it or not. If she had survived it, would she refuse the heroes’ help? Or would she be amongst the scared, traumatized, and tired survivors, who had hope to live for only moments before they were also killed? 

She is not here, that Damian knows. 

Damian sees Richard takes one last look at the list of names, scrolling through them like he wants to commit it to memory. He had taken charge of the rescue, and now the evacuation attempt, as soon as it was clear that whatever had been left of the League cannot handle the situation anymore. He had called for anyone that was still alive in his entire network of friends and acquaintances, and even rivals, to come help and save what was left of the earth. 

His network of friends brought their own connections, totalling in hundreds of people working to save earth. But it still wasn’t enough. 

They were not enough. 

And so here they are, rounding up the last of earth’s population, hoping to find a place for them somewhere else. 

Richard’s face is calm, but Damian knows his brother. He knows how to look, and he sees grief and regret and pain. 

Most of the names on that list are just that to Damian, names. He doesn’t know them, other than the vaguely familiar names here and there. The source of Damian’s despair is more on the fact that nearly all that was left of his earth was gone.  

(He is letting the fact that Father is dead, and Mother is most likely dead, and that Pennyworth is dead, and that… No. He is letting that fact hover somewhere in his mind, not allowing it to settle, because it is not done yet. They are not done yet. There is still work to be done.)

Damian is sure that Richard feels the same sorrow and regret, if not more than what Damian feels, about the fact that earth is as good as dead and that most of humanity is beyond saving. But even if Damian only registers the list as just names in a sea of millions of other names, he knows Richard must have known them dearly. 

Richard must have loved them, those names on the list. 

And so the grief and the sorrow and the guilt is much, much more personal for Richard, because these are the people whom he had asked for help, and they have died for helping him. 

Richard stays looking at the list for a long, long time, almost ignoring Timothy’s question on whether they are ready to go. The longer Richard’s eyes are transfixed at the list, the more worried Damian feels. 

Because what if Richard decides that he should stay here, with the rest of the dead? What if Richard decides that he should die here, like they did?

No. Damian had lost enough people today. Earth has lost enough people today. He is not going to allow the best of them to die too. 

Damian opens his mouth, ready to tell all that to Richard, when Richard finally closes his eyes and lets out a long breath. “Yeah, we're ready to go.”

Damian had just allowed his heart to settle from the fear that Richard is not going to come with them, when the alarm blares out. 

“What is that?” Richard asks, switching immediately to mission mode. 

“It’s them,” Stephanie says from where she’s watching the camera feeds. “They’re coming here, ‘Wing.”

“How long do we have?” Richard says. 

Stephanie looks at him, before shaking her head. “Probably a minute, two. Absolutely not more than three minutes, that’s for sure.”

Silence greets their little huddle, with everyone looking at each other. Damian locks eyes with Cassandra when Jason says, “Then we better get moving.”

“There’s not going to be enough time,” Richard replies. “You guys go, I’ll hold the fort.”

Damian’s heart drops. “Are you not coming?” he exclaims. 

Richard looks at him with those same kind eyes that had made Damian loosen his guard around this man, once upon a time. But there’s something else in those eyes. Something like hunger, like Richard is drinking in every detail of Damian’s face, memorizing them. 

Damian does not like that thought. 

“Not enough time, little D,” Richard says, bringing Damian into his embrace and pressing a quick kiss on Damian’s hair. He presses Damian closer to him for a while, before releasing him while saying, “Now you guys need to go.”

“No!” Damian objects, the moment those hands break contact with his shoulders. “You’re coming with us, Richard!”

“Dick,” Timothy says, voice as distraught as Damian feels. He doesn’t say anything, just their eldest brother’s name. Somehow, Damian still understands what Timothy means by that. 

He doesn’t want Richard to stay behind too. 

“Go,” Richard says, undeterred. “I’ll hold them off as long as I can. Jay, you’re in charge now.” 

Jason, standing silently behind Cassandra, doesn’t say anything. He just looks at Richard. The two of them share a second of eye contact before Jason nods, face solemn. 

Damian does not like this. Are they giving up, just like that? They’re supposed to be heroes; they’re supposed to stick together!

“Richard, you can’t be serious! We’re not leaving anyone behind, you taught me that!”

“Damian,” Richard bends down to look at his eyes, “little D. This is the one time where you do leave someone behind, okay?”

“No!” Damian cries out, but his objections remain unheard. He grabs Richard’s arm, trying to get him to come with them, but Richard just maneuvers around him, giving Timothy a quick one-armed hug, Cassandra a kiss on the cheek, Stephanie a squeeze on the shoulder, and Jason a soft smile. Then, he brings his other arm to pull Damian into another hug. 

The hug feels like it lasts for a thousand years and for a mere millisecond at once. 

“Be good, yeah?” Richard whispers into his ear, then releases his embrace. “Go,” he says, addressing everyone. “Take care of each other.” 

And then, he grabs his escrimas and his explosives and the rest of his gear. He turns around to face them one more time, before he walks out of the door. 

Damian’s feet, that were frozen during the entire exchange, unfreezes themselves and move towards the door, wanting to stop Richard from doing this, to drag him and make him come with them. But before he can get anywhere, leather-clad arms grab him and lift him up.

Jason��s voice greets his ears. “You’re not going anywhere, twerp.”

“Unhand me, Todd!” 

“No,” Jason says, voice not accepting any protests. “Now come on, time is wasting.” 

Jason simply repositions his hold on Damian and starts walking, getting several of the civilians still outside the ships to come in. He could have let Damian down, make him walk on his own, but he didn’t. He keeps Damian in his arms, as if Damian weighs nothing. 

Strangely, Damian doesn’t mind too much. The absurdity of the situation certainly distracts him from the reality that that was the last time he is ever going to see Richard. 

Richard stayed behind, in the end, even though it’s not because of the reasons Damian thought. His worst dream has come true. 

Damian buries his head on Jason’s shoulder, wishing he could pretend that it’s Richard. 

He can’t. 

He does it anyway.

***

Robin had done his duty. He had brought all the people from his earth to safety, seeking refuge in this universe’s iteration of the Justice League. 

He didn’t leave anyone behind. He will never leave anyone behind ever again. 

Robin had been a hero, or so they all say. 

That should have made him happy. That had been his goal, after all, a long, long time before, when he first put on the uniform and put the R on his chest. He had wanted to be the best Robin out of all of them, and so be the best hero. 

Right now, Damian doesn’t feel like a hero.

He feels like a failure.

Robin should have been able to persuade Richard to come with them. Robin should have been able to get Jason to escape with them. Robin should have known that Cassandra and Stephanie’s ship is going to get targeted. Robin should have made sure Timothy got out first. 

He doesn’t deserve the name Robin. 

“Robin?” a voice calls out to him. Damian looks up to meet a green domino mask. His heart does a little flip, expecting it to be this universe’s Robin. 

It isn’t. Of course it isn’t. When Damian had briefed this universe’s Justice League about the forces that decimated his earth, they informed him that Batman and everyone affiliated with him are currently unavailable. 

Damian doesn’t know whether to feel relieved or devastated. 

“It is Robin, right?” Green Arrow- who is still Connor Hawke in this universe- asks again. 

Damian wants to say no, wants to refuse the name forever, but he hasn’t actually said his name to this Justice League. He had just said he is Robin and left it at that. They haven’t asked for more information. 

Damian decides that he is relieved that Batman and everyone from the family is not here, because if they were here, they would definitely ask about his identity, question his parentage, demand to know how he became Robin, and make him tell them things he doesn’t want to tell them yet. 

He is quite happy to not tell them his name yet, thank you very much. It will lead to questions after questions after questions. He is, after all, from a version of their future. A horrible future, but a future nonetheless. 

“Yes,” Damian whispers hoarsely. 

“You’re not the Robin I know, are you?” Hawke asks again. 

A thought comes into Damian’s mind. The Robin that Hawke knows is Timothy, he knows that much from what his older brother told him. And that means that this universe’s Damian Wayne has not come into contact with his father yet. 

Maybe he never will. Maybe Damian Wayne doesn’t exist in this universe. 

Maybe that’s how it should be. It definitely would have saved his family a lot of pain. 

“No,” Damian answers, not volunteering any more information. 

“Okay.” Silence, then Hawke says again, “Do you have a place to stay for tonight?”

“I-” Damian begins, but before he can say anything else, a flash of electric blue catches his eye. His words immediately falter. 

It’s not Richard. Not his Richard, at least. This Richard has never given Damian the Robin uniform. This Richard has never spent countless hours staying up with Damian. This Richard has never loved Damian. 

Maybe it is better that way. 

“Robin?” Hawke calls again. “Are you alright?” 

“I... I’m fine, Green Arrow.” Damian swallows, trying to get his bearing again, but before he even comes close to it, a voice calls out. 

“So you’re the Robin from an alternate future.” 

Richard’s voice makes Damian lose any semblance of serenity he had left. It doesn’t matter that this is not his Richard. That voice is the same. 

The kindness is the same. The warmth is the same. The compassion is the same. 

Damian misses Richard. Why didn’t he drag Richard with him? Why didn’t he beg Richard to come with them? Why didn’t he offer to stay behind so that Richard can go? 

Why did he let Richard die for him? 

It should have been Richard here. Everything would have been better if it was Richard who was here and not Damian. Richard would have been better at comforting the survivors, at making them smile even despite everything. Richard would have been better at handling the entire situation with this universe’s Justice League. Richard would have been better at facing this universe’s version of their family. 

Richard would have been better. It should have been him here, alive.

It shouldn’t have been Damian. He doesn’t deserve it.

He abandoned his brother. He’s a failure. A mockery of the name Robin. An insult to everything his family tries to be. 

He doesn’t deserve to live. 

Damian realizes that he still hasn’t answered this Richard’s question. But he just smiles at him, waiting for his answer, exactly like how Damian’s Richard would. 

It makes the knife already stabbing Damian’s heart twist even further. 

“Yes,” Damian finally answers. “I am.”

“Have I known you yet?” Richard asks. 

“Can’t tell you,” Damian says, because he will not be the one who tells Richard about the series of events that lead to him being Batman and making Damian Robin.

It’s bad enough that he subjected his Richard to it. He will not do so to this one as well. 

(Damian knows now how much pain and suffering and anguish Richard felt during his time as Batman. Damian also knows now how much he added to that pain. He will not hurt this Richard like that. Never again.) 

“That’s a no, then.” Richard smiles at him. The sight makes Damian want to throw all caution to the wind and just curl up next to his big brother. To bask in the comfort that his big brother’s presence provides. 

But this is not his big brother. 

“I can’t tell you,” Damian says again, wishing that he can tell Richard everything, but knowing that every word that comes out of his mouth will bring him pain. 

Why wouldn’t it? Damian lives off the pain of others. Everyone who knows him suffers eventually. 

Dies eventually. 

He’s not going to let this Richard die too. 

“Okay,” Richard says, accepting his deflection just like that. “It’s fine if you don’t want to tell me yet. I’m just here to tell you that the Manor is always open for you, Robin.”

“You don’t know me,” Damian chokes out. 

“No,” Richard answers easily. “Not yet. But you’re Robin, and so you’re family.”

Damian closes his eyes and doesn’t dare do anything else. He knows that this Richard hasn’t known him, hasn’t learnt all his tells and habits, but it doesn’t matter. Richard will understand. Any version of Damian’s big brother will always understand him. 

Damian closes his eyes and tries not to let that sentence break him completely. 

“Thank you,” he eventually says. “But no thank you.” He’s not going to come to the Manor. He can’t. 

He is not going to let himself ruin another version of his family. 

Once is enough. 

Once is more than enough. 

Richard smiles at him with the same kind smile Damian’s Richard gave just before he left. Just before he died. 

Damian turns around and walks away, ignoring the perplexed Green Arrow and the confused Nightwing. It’s better this way. 

Damian is not going to make another version of his family suffer. 

***

They managed to leave, flying away from the compound just as it exploded, flames licking around the body of the ship. From where he is, Damian can see the compound turn to ashes, he can imagine the sound of the explosion, and he can almost feel the heat of the flames reaching his face. 

No one could have survived that. And even if they do, they are not going to survive living in the wasteland that Earth has become. 

Damian can feel the truth settling into his bones. Richard is gone, and he is never going to see him again. It makes his mind go slower, his lungs expand smaller, and his body falls apart. It makes him want to curl up and stop, not caring about anything else in the world.

He doesn’t get the chance to do that, because they are only barely out of Earth’s orbit when Jason, looking out of the windows of the ship, says, “Shit.” 

That does not bode well. Not at all. 

“What is it?” Damian asks, mind turning on again from the haze he was in. He is already dreading the answer. 

“They’re coming after us,” his older brother says. 

Damian’s heart drops. They are coming after them, and they are going to destroy them. 

After all, this is just a small evacuation ship. What chance would they have, against the same forces that destroyed the Justice League, that killed hundreds of other heroes, that decimated his earth? 

Against the same forces Richard gave his life and still failed to stop? 

Not a chance, and all of them knew it. 

“What are we going to do?” Timothy asks. 

Silence, for a while. All of them are waiting for Jason to speak. He’s the eldest now, --the reminder makes Damian’s heart clench--, and in charge, by Richard’s words. Even though none of them ever actually put any weight on that, still, they wait for him to speak. Somehow, the fact that there is still someone else to take charge, to make the impossible decisions, to take the weight of the world on their shoulders, makes Damian feel some semblance of relief. 

(Even if his heart breaks with the reminder that Richard is no longer with them. Because if Richard was here, he would be the one taking charge, not Jason.)

Finally, Jason speaks, voice heavy with the weight of hundreds of lives that are hanging on this decision, all that is left of their earth. “All of you are going to take these people in pods and get the hell out of here.” 

“And you?” Cassandra says. 

Jason looks at her, for once looking as young as his actual age. Damian has never seen him look that young before. 

Damian knows that legally, Jason Todd is only twenty-two years old. Somehow, it has never registered in his mind that that means the Red Hood is also only twenty-two years old, perhaps even younger, considering the time he spent dead. The Red Hood had always seemed to be an imposing figure, as old and as large a figure as he needed to be. 

But Jason Todd is only twenty-two years old, and it is Jason Todd looking out at them now, not the Red Hood. Jason Todd who is a terrified, distressed, absolutely petrified, twenty-two year old.

Surely, twenty-two years old is too young to be making decisions for the entirety of earth’s survivors? But no one else is here to take up the responsibility, and so the weight falls on Jason’s shoulders, no matter how young he is.

Damian wishes Richard is still here.  Richard would have shouldered the burden without even a second thought. 

(But he did, and that burden cost him his life.)

“I’ll stay in the ship,” Jason says, voice calm even as his face looks terrified. “Be bait. Throw them off our scent. Give you guys and the rest of them a chance to survive.”

“No,” Stephanie says. “You’re not doing that, Jason. We’re in this, and we’re in this together.”

“What else are we supposed to do?” Jason shouts, then belatedly realizes that everyone in the ship is now looking at him. He closes his mouth, gives a forced smile to the civilians surrounding them, and turns back to them. “What else are we supposed to do?” he hisses. 

That’s the problem, isn’t it? There is absolutely nothing else they could have done. Damian can’t force Jason to come with them, because their close escape from the compound didn’t leave them unscathed; their navigation system is fried and useless. Someone had to pilot the ship manually at all times, and so for this to work, someone would have to stay behind.

This is like the situation with Richard all over again. Someone staying behind to give the rest of them a chance to survive.

But maybe… Maybe Jason doesn’t have to do it alone. It’s what Richard would have done, had he been here. 

“I’m staying with you,” Damian says. 

“Like hell you are,” Jason exclaims immediately. “You’re going in there first.”

“What?” No, no, that couldn’t have been right. Why on earth would Jason want him to be in the rescue pods first? It doesn’t make sense. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m saying that you’re going in that pod first if I have to throw you in there myself, Damian,” Jason says. Damian’s face must have looked absolutely confused, because Jason sighs, kneels down (kneels down!), and grabs his shoulders. “You know that’s what Dick would want.”

Damian frowns, mouth already open to protest, because how dare Jason bring up Richard, when Cassandra chimes in, “He’s right, little brother. You’re going in there first, and that’s not up for discussion.”

“What?”

“Dick would kill us if we let you stay here,” Timothy adds. That’s probably true, but Damian is not going to give up without a fight. 

He’s not going to let another member of his family die.  

“That’s what he would have done!” Damian says. And it’s true. That is what Richard would have done, if he is here. 

Damian had been angry at him for doing just that enough times to say that with conviction. 

“Yeah, little D,” Stephanie says, face perplexingly kind, the same kind of face she wears when comforting a victim. But Damian is not a victim. He knows what the consequences are, and he is making them with eyes wide open. “That’s what he would have done,” she continues. “But that’s not what he would have wanted for you.”

“I...” Damian starts, but he doesn’t know what to say. Mentally, he’s damning Stephanie for knowing exactly what to say. Damning Timothy for caring, now of all times he could have done that. Damning Cassandra for backing Jason up.

Damning Jason, because even if he will never admit it, Damian does not want him to die.

“Trust me, kid,” Jason says, giving Damian a rueful smile, “he would have said the same thing. Now get the pod ready, and get in.” 

“But-” Damian tries again

“No. I’m in charge, so you’re going to listen to me. Get going, Robin. That’s an order.”

“I-” Damian splutters, but Stephanie pulls him away from them and towards the pods, calling for the civilians to come with them. 

Damian glares at her, wanting to continue the argument, but he can’t, because despite it all, he’s still Robin, and Robin doesn’t argue with Batgirl about who is staying behind in front of all the scared, most likely traumatized civilians. 

Doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to, though. 

As he walks, he sees Timothy give Jason a nod before going to the computers, taking two small devices from it, and he hears snippets of conversation between Cassandra and Jason. 

“I can… you don’t need to…”

“...done it already… shouldn’t let… fine…”

“…brother… proud..."

“...other side…”

He sees Cassandra rise up to her toes and plants a kiss on Jason’s cheek. Her own cheeks glimmer underneath the fluorescent lighting of the ship, bellying the fact that they are wet. Somehow, the sight makes Damian fight to keep a handle on his own tears. 

Damian knows death. Knows it intimately. Knows that it is inevitable. He couldn’t have survived the streets of Gotham, much less his childhood, without knowing that. 

But still, he clenches Stephanie’s hand, and whispers, “He’s not going to make it, is he?”

Stephanie clenches his hand back. “No, Damian,” she says, voice wet with the effort of holding back her own tears. “He’s not.”

***

Damian ends up in a small, one-bedroom apartment, one of many that this universe JLA provided for all the survivors of his earth. They are all, understandably, concerned about him living alone, but since he doesn’t want to stay with this universe Batman and he refuses the offer to stay with anyone else, they really do not have a choice. 

Besides, it’s temporary anyway. If Damian knows his Father, and he does, despite this being another version of him, he will not leave him alone for long. 

The League will not leave him alone for long. 

But they left him alone for now, in an apartment that feels larger than life, despite it not being actually that large, because he is alone. There is no Timothy to squabble with, no Cassandra to share his findings with, no Stephanie to tease, no Jason to argue with, no Richard to grumble to, no Father to annoy, and no Alfred to complain to. He is alone. 

He is well and truly alone.

Damian asked to be alone. He specifically asked the Justice League to leave him alone. He hides from this version of his family, not wanting to forget his own but at the very same time craving  the companionship that his family will give him. 

Even when this version of his family hasn’t known him. Even when they probably do not want to know him, not after they find out that Damian left their counterparts to die. 

He deserves to be alone. 

But right now, with the seemingly endless dark room, and the seemingly all-encompassing silence, Damian just wants someone to hold him. He closes his eyes, trying to fool himself that the room is dark and silent and lonely because he wishes it to be so and not because he is truly, really, absolutely alone. 

It doesn’t work. The darkness seems to stretch further and further. The silence seems to enter into every crevice of his body. 

Damian can’t take it anymore. Damian puts his hands on his ears, thumping them slightly to make a sound, any sound, to stave off the silence. He presses his eyes closed, forcing himself to see something other than darkness. 

Something. Anything. 

His mind complied. But the image it pulls up is the glimmer of tears on Cassandra’s cheek; it is Timothy’s clinical movement as he forces himself to move; it is the determined yet scared face of Jason, facing death for the second time, yet still keeping his head held up high and proud. 

The thumping stopped. But there’s something else. 

Voices, rough with the effort to hold back tears. Pleas, full with grief and misery. Reassurances, even when the one giving the reassurance is doubting themselves. Cries that come again and again and again.

Damian doesn’t remember the cries. 

Oh. 

It’s his cries. He is crying. 

The silence never seems as expansive as it did just then, with only the echoes of his own cries and the memories of the last words he ever heard his older brother say reaching his ears.

***

Jason didn’t make it. They watched the ship zoom past them as they were turning on the cloaking technology on their pods. They watched the forces that followed them out of earth follow Jason’s trail, leaving the two pods to travel to safety. 

Jason didn’t make it. 

Damian looks to Timothy, wondering what they are going to do now. Timothy looks back at him, probably also wondering the same thing. 

Then, their comms crackle and Cassandra’s voice comes out. “Tim? Damian? Do you copy?” 

Right. Cassandra is the eldest now. In the span of less than twenty-four hours, they have gone through two eldest siblings. 

Damian almost doesn’t want to believe it. 

“Yeah, Cass,” Timothy answers. “We copy.”

“Okay,” Cassandra says. “Everything alright on your end?”

“Yeah,” Timothy says, fiddling with the controller on the pods. “Cloaking is still going strong, fuel should last until we reach the Linsnar system, and the emergency transporter is on and ready to go. What about your end, Cass?”

“It’s the same here, Tim,” Stephanie answers. “Cloaking good, fuel good, and emergency transporter is good to go.” 

“Okay,” Timothy says. “Remember the emergency transporter is for absolute emergencies only, because I do not know where we would end up if we use it.”

“Copy that, Tim,” Stephanie says. “Just checking the coordinates one more time. We’re going to-” 

Stephanie’s voice is interrupted by a crash, loud enough to be heard even through the comms.. Damian and Tim look at each other before the two of them rush to the window, trying to see what is happening. 

“Steph!” Tim cries out. “Steph! Cass! Answer me!”

Static noise responds back, adding to the panic they are in. Then, from the darkness of space, where previously they could see nothing there, an explosion bursts through and they see Stephanie and Cassandra’s pod materializing before their eyes. They were hit, and their cloaking mechanism no longer worked. 

They were hit. 

How could they have been hit?

“I thought their cloaking is on, Timothy,” Damian breathes out, eyes transfixed to the glaringly obvious pod in the nothingness of space. 

“It is,” Timothy replies. “It must have been a random strike. A lucky strike. The cloaking tech is immaculate.” 

“What…” Damian is almost afraid to say it. “What's going to happen now?” he asks, eyes still frozen on the visible pod. 

But before Timothy can answer, something else happened. Damian is still looking out at Stephanie and Cassandra’s pod, and so that is why, when the beam hits, Damian is treated to a very clear, almost slow-motion view of their pod disintegrating. 

A scream reverbs inside his ears. Who is screaming?

Oh. It’s him.

Damian doesn’t even register the fact that he’s screaming, head still trying to process the fact that they are gone. They’re gone, disintegrated right before his very eyes. 

Stephanie and Cassandra are gone.

In the span of twenty-four hours, they have gone through four eldest siblings. Tim is the eldest now, if that word even carries any more meaning now that it’s just the two of them left.

It’s just the two of them left. It’s just Tim and Damian left. 

It’s just the two of them left.

***

Damian looks at the doors of the bus. He can do this. He's Robin. He can get inside a bus. 

But he's not Robin anymore, is he? 

No. He can do this. If he can't even step foot inside a bus, if he can't even do this absolutely mundane thing, then what was the point of it all? 

What was the point of everyone's sacrifices? 

Damian takes a deep breath, trying to force his feet to move, but before he can lift his foot, someone behind him calls, "Are you going in or not, kid?"

Damian turns around, apologies already on his lips, when he sees the long, flowing, blonde hair. 

He stops dead. 

It can’t be her, can it? She died in the explosion. She died with her best friend, his sister, by her side. 

Stephanie died by a chance shot, and Damian will never see her again. Not his Stephanie, anyway. Not the one who brought him to a bouncy castle, not the one who stole his ice cream, not the one who would tease him relentlessly. 

“Kid? Hey, kid. Are you okay?” the woman asks again. Damian looks at her, now. It’s not Stephanie. 

Not his Stephanie, and not this universe’s Stephanie either. 

Damian almost feels disappointed. 

“I…” Damian swallows and says, “Yes. I’m going in. Sorry for the delay.”

“It’s okay,” she says, smiling down at him. She doesn’t really look like Stephanie, but Damian sees Stephanie’s smile superimposed on top of hers anyway. “I have a little brother who does that zoning out thing all the time.” She shakes her head slightly, giving out a small laugh. “Where are you going?” 

“Gotham,” Damian blurts out, uncharacteristically honest, still out of balance from the memory of Stephanie’s smile. 

He knows that this universe's version of his Father is going to search for him, and he doesn't want him to come unannounced to his place. No. Better for him to go to Gotham first, to get the lay of the land first.

(Even though he really, really doesn't want to. But Batman searching for him is inevitable, and Damian is not in the habit of trying to deny the inevitable. 

Well. Not anymore.)

“Uff,” she says, “what are you doing in Gotham? There’s nothing good there.”

“Oi!” someone calls from somewhere behind the line. “You kids going in or not? We don’t have all day!”

“Yeah, yeah, cool your horses, man!” she replies, before turning to Damian and saying, “But he’s right. Come on, we need to get in.” She takes Damian’s hand and steps into the bus, pulling Damian with her. 

Damian could have fought her off. But he finds that he doesn’t want to. Maybe it's the memory of Stephanie from before, also doing the same thing to him, that stops him from resisting. 

Damian lets her grab his arm and pull him inside the bus. 

Two women, with a child between them. A burly man sitting next to a teenager. Someone in an ill-fitting suit. 

A wisp of black, shoulder-length hair, with eyes that seem to look into your soul. 

No. No, no, no. 

It’s not her. It’s not her. It’s not his sister. 

Damian turns around, trying to stop himself from seeing Cassandra overlapping the girl sitting just seats away from him. It’s not his sister. It’s not the woman who would laugh without laughing, it’s not the woman who would look at him with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, it’s not the woman who would bop him in the nose whenever she feels like it. 

It’s not his sister. Damian will never see his sister again. 

He turns around, only to see the long, blonde hair he mistook for Stephanie’s earlier again. 

No. They are not here. They are not here. 

But they were, before. They were in a pod, and they were hit. 

What if this bus is hit too? 

“Kid?” the woman with the blonde hair asks him, concern in her voice. “Are you okay? You’re hyperventilating.”

Damian doesn’t even realize he’s hyperventilating until she tells him so. 

“I…” Damian tries, but he can’t get the words out. “I…,” he tries again, and fails again. 

Damian gasps in a breath, trying to get his lungs and his heart and his voice back in control. “I’m sorry,” he finally says, before running out of the bus. 

He can’t do it. 

Gotham will have to wait.

***

Timothy turns the transporter on, gesturing for the civilians to move, then turns around and says to Damian, “Get in.”

“What?! No!” Damian protests. “I’m staying here with you.” 

Timothy grabs Damian’s shoulders and says again, “Get in there, you little brat.” 

Damian flicks the hand on his shoulders away. It doesn’t move, in a surprising amount of strength from Timothy. He tries again, before moving tactics and says, “No! I’m staying here with you until all the civilians are out!”

“Damian, for once in your life, listen-” Timothy shakes him with the word “-to-” he shakes him again “-me. Get in.”

“No!” What kind of monster does Timothy think he is? He’s not going to just abandon the civilians still here, much less his brother. Because that’s what Timothy is, even with all of Damian’s protest otherwise. 

His brother. 

“Listen to me, you little twerp. I need someone on the other side to help the civilians already there.” 

“Then get someone else!” Damian protests. He’s not leaving. He’s not. 

“There is no one else, Damian. Get in there!” 

“Tim,” Damian says, calling his brother with the shortened, familiar version of his first name for the first time in the years since he’s known him, “I’m not going anywhere. We’re going there together or not at all.”

Damian sees Tim take a deep breath before saying, in a voice that betrays his calm expression, “Damian.” The grip on Damian’s shoulder tightens even more. “You need to go. Please.”

“No! I-”

“Help the civilians,” Tim cuts in. “You’re Robin, remember? We took an oath to help them.”

Damn him. Damn him to the deepest parts of hell. Why did he have to remind Damian of that?

“Now fulfill that oath, Damian,” Tim continues, uncaring of Damian’s hate-filled glare. “Be Robin.” 

“I hate you,” Damian spits out, holding back tears. He knows exactly what Tim is doing. Why else would Tim insist on him getting in first? If he needs someone on the other side, he could have easily told Damian to hold down this end and climb in himself. 

He knows Tim is trying to spare him, trying to get him to live. But Damian can’t argue with the order to save the civilians. He can’t argue with the order to be Robin. 

So the only thing he does is spits out the same, tired sentence he has said to the man in front of him hundreds, if not thousands of times before, and hoping that his brother understands what he actually means. 

Tim bites his lips, mouth moving as if to say something, before abandoning it to put his hand on Damian’s head. “I know,” he says, eyes telling Damian that he understood exactly what Damian meant, and it’s not what Damian actually said. “Now go, little brother.”

Damian breathes out heavily, in an effort to keep the tears from going down. He nods and walks to the edge of the transporter, helping someone climb in. Then, he looks back and meets Tim’s eyes. 

He refuses to believe that this is the last time he will see Tim again. He has lost too much today. He refuses to lose Timothy on top of it. 

“You’re stepping into this transporter as soon as possible, do you hear me, Timothy?” Damian demands. 

“I promise,” Tim says, holding the eye contact. “Now go.” 

Damian searches Tim’s eyes, looking for any kind of deceit, but he doesn’t find any. Damian takes one last look at his brother, the only one left, and steps into the portal. 

He believes that Timothy will follow him, as soon as possible. The question is, will as soon as possible be enough? 

***

He eventually managed to go to Gotham. Or, more precisely, he eventually managed to go as far as Bristol, getting into the Manor's grounds. 

He sits on top of a tree that hasn’t grown his favourite branch yet, might never grow his favourite branch, and observes his, but not really his, family. 

It’s not his. They are not his family. 

But they look so, so much like them. 

Damian knows that this universe is several years behind his own, and he, theoretically, knows what that entails. Jason has not returned to Gotham yet, Richard is operating out in Bludhaven, Stephanie is still figuring out her place as a hero, Cassandra is still learning how to be a person instead of a weapon, Timothy is still Robin, and the only one besides Alfred who regularly goes to the Manor. 

But he really is not prepared to actually see it. 

He sits on the branch that is not his favorite and watches as Timothy does the drills that he would continue to do well after he stopped being Robin. Laps around the Manor, then several calisthenics routine, and then a few more laps around the Manor. Damian has watched him do this routine countless times. 

But never this young. Never as Robin. 

Damian watches Timothy’s red, panting face, and remembers the hands on his shoulders, pushing him towards the transporter. He watches Timothy’s mouth moving, and hears the words his brother spoke to him. 

Be Robin. 

How is he going to be Robin, when Timothy is still Robin here? He is redundant. 

Useless. 

From the Manor, Damian can see his father coming out to meet Timothy. No, not his Father. 

Bruce, then. 

Damian sees Bruce walk out to the grounds and feels himself retracting further into the shadows of the tree. He is not ready to meet them. He is not ready for them to see him. Managing to get to the Manor is enough for the day. 

When is he going to tell them? He can’t hide forever, can he?

Maybe he can. After all, Captain Marvel operated for many years without the League being the wiser. He could ask Billy Batson for advice. 

Damian sighs internally. Who is he kidding? The moment he gets into contact with Captain Marvel, his cover, if that is what this hiding can be called, will be  blown. He’s not going to get into contact with Captain Marvel. 

Beneath him and several feet to the right, Damian can feel Bruce and Timothy talking together, exchanging words and ideas. It is so very much like Damian’s first few encounters with them that he is transported back several years and many, many heartbreaks ago, when his Father basically ignored him in favor of Timothy. 

He hated Timothy then.

How much he wishes he could go back. 

Damian watches as Timothy walks into the Manor with Bruce, face clear and still strangely innocent. A very far cry from the Timothy Damian had met years ago. 

A very far cry than the Timothy who had told Damian to listen to him and leave. 

Damian had never listened to Timothy before. Why did he choose to listen to him then, at the worst possible moment?

He looks at Timothy’s face, clear of the worry his Timothy carried all the time from the moment Damian met him, and something clicks in his brain. 

Oh. That’s why he was spared.

He can spare them the pain. He can spare Timothy the grief of losing his best friends and his father, he can spare Stephanie the grief of dying and being brought back feeling wrong, he can spare Cassandra her abduction. 

Damian can spare Richard the pain and the grief and the burden of having to take care of him. 

He can spare this universe’s Damian Wayne from growing up to be like him. 

Damian waits until Timothy and Bruce have entered the Manor, and starts to climb down the tree. 

Be good, Richard had told him the very last time he saw him. Be Robin, Timothy had ordered him before he pushed Damian into the transporter.��

Take care of each other. 

Well, none of his family is left for Damian to take care of, so he will just have to take care of this universe’s Damian Wayne’s family. He can take care of this Damian Wayne. 

Damian feels the Wayne Manor grounds meets his feet and he walks away, careful not to trip any of the abundant alarms. He still has some time to plan, and he doesn’t want to just come up to the door and tell them about it all. 

He has to make sure they are ready. He has to make sure he is ready.

***

Damian stands in front of the Manor door, feeling a sense of deja-vu. He has done this before. He has stood in front of his father’s house, preparing himself to knock, oblivious to the reception that he would get the moment the door opens. 

This universe’s Damian Wayne will never know the feeling. If Damian knows his Father, and he does, even though this is not truly his Father, he will go and find this universe’s Damian Wayne as soon as he knows that he existed. 

That Damian Wayne would have been five, six years old. He would grow up to be a completely different person. 

He would grow up to be a better person. How could he not?

Damian knows that the moment he rings the doorbell for the Manor, everything will change. He could still go back. He could still turn around and pretend this never happened. There is no trace of him here. No alarms tripped, no footage of him, and no hint of him ever being here. 

He could go back to pretending he doesn’t exist. 

But he can’t do that. Not when everyone had given up their lives for him.

This is the reason he is alive when everyone else has died. So he can bring his knowledge to his family, and so he can make sure that this universe’s Damian Wayne will never become like him. 

That Damian Wayne will never do the Year of Blood. That Damian Wayne will never know the struggles of fighting his mother every year for a hint of his father’s identity. That Damian Wayne will grow up cared for and happy and loved. 

Damian is here to make sure that the Damian Wayne in this universe will never grow up to be like him. 

He takes a deep breath, and presses the doorbell. 

Alfred opens the door, much like Damian had predicted. Damian also knows that he has his shotgun within reach, as like his Alfred does everytime he opens the door for an unfamiliar face.

“Can I help you, young sir?” Alfred asks, voice as polite as ever, but still full of threats. 

Damian looks at him, at the face that he misses so but knows is not really the same. His lips turn up into a small smile, and he says, as evenly as possible, “My name is Damian Wayne. It’s good to see you, Alfred.” 

He knows he won’t get away with just saying that. He knows that there will be hours upon hours of explanations and answers demanded of him. He knows his father, and he knows his family. 

But it’s a start. 

It’s a start.