#and I was like... I should get some sturdier black ones that go with my clothes better

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

just got new sandals and a really nice new dress for under fifty bucks!!!

[princessanonymous]

When Night Comes

Platonic Yandere Vampire

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First Chapter

11. 𝓟𝓾𝓷𝓲𝓼𝓱𝓮𝓻 𝓸𝓯 𝓛𝓸𝓿𝓮

He descended the stairs leading to the cellar, locking the door behind him. Taking on a path he was no stranger to, he moved with a confident and measured pace, his every step echoing through the dimly lit corridor. Passing the wine cellar, he continued on, guided by memory, until he reached a door that only he possessed the key to.

From his pocket, he extracted a golden key and inserted it into the lock. As he turned it, a resounding click announced the door's release. He winced as his enhanced hearing picked up the sound of the door creaking open. Nevertheless, he proceeded into the room.

On a table within, lay a black casket, and Dorian couldn't help but smile affectionately at the sight. He observed its occupant in silence.

He looked peaceful, his eyelids closed, a vision of serenity, with defined features. A cascade of midnight-black hair, like a river of silk, flowed around him, pooling onto the pillow in elegant disarray. Stray strands occasionally danced in the faint breeze, adding to the enchantment of the scene. His dark eyelashes casted delicate shadows on his cheeks. High cheekbones framed his serene face, and his skin, smooth as porcelain, bore no imperfections.

He caressed his cheek. Some might look at the man and think he was dead. After all, a stake piercing one's heart generally led to death. Dorian knew better, and the corner of his lips quirked up. Vampires like them were far sturdier than mere mortals, after all and while a stake through their heart would immobilize them— put them in a slumber, some would even say —, it wasn’t enough to kill. Decapitation in this weakened state would, though. 

Dorian’s eyes landed on the ring the other wore. He could, if he wished to, remove it. He could then place him under the vicious, unforgiving glare of the sun and watch him burn and turn to ash if he wished to. He could kill him for good. Teach him a lesson. The other vampire wouldn’t even be able to do anything in this state. Perhaps the blonde would wake him up before so, just so he could hear his screams. 

"My visits have become less frequent of late," he acknowledged while passing a hand through the other’s hairs. "I have been terribly busy recently." A smile formed on the blond's face. "We have a daughter."

He paused for a moment, as if expecting a response. His hand inched closer to the stake, and his fingers wrapped around it. He could do it if he wished to. He could free the other from this forced slumber. He could pull it out. A second hand joined the first. Then, Dorian stepped away, letting go of the blessed wooden object.

With a cold gaze sent in the slumbering vampire’s direction, he reminded himself of why he shouldn’t. At least not now. He didn’t deserve it now. He didn’t deserve to wake up just yet. Not when he had tried to leave. 

"Poor Killian," he began sarcastically with a sneer, receiving no answer. "Here you lie, a tortured soul who wants nothing more than to be rid of your nature." Their nature. His voice edged with bitterness. "If you did, you would be dead by now. Rotting, decaying in the dirt, consumed by worms."

He collected himself, brushing any potential trace of dust and dirt from his clothing, and spared one last glance at the man before turning and departing the room. He should just be rid of him. Dorian could get rid of him easily. Killian wouldn’t deserve less in his eyes, after all. The blond might find someone else more agreeable than him. His stomach churn at the thought, though. He locked the door securely behind him and ascended the stairs.

Checking the old grandfather clock in the entrance, he noted the time: 11:40 PM. (Y/n) would soon descend to have a meal with him. The young girl had proven to be quick to grasp new knowledge, and she had adjusted to her life within the estate. She was, if not content, at least no longer overwhelmed by her past. There had been a time when her cries filled the days, and instead of restful sleep, she shed tears over the prospect of her new — far better — existence. Now, an air of resigned apathy clung to her, a stark transformation from her earlier emotions. She had learned. Learned not to mourn such matters. She had also readily adapted to her new schedule, her days spent in slumber and nights in activity. 

The vampire found himself pondering the recent transformation in his child's demeanor, contemplating whether her newfound apathy might, in fact, be a welcome change. He had grown accustomed to the serenity that accompanied her lack of protest, appreciating the tranquility of moments when she refrained from making a fuss. Children were better when they behaved after all. His child was meant to be seen by his side, adorned in lavish dresses only fit for princesses, looking like a beautiful little doll. Her purpose was not to voice her opinions or express herself through tantrums, but to exist as a silent but striking presence, a living embodiment of grace and beauty.

Dorian entered his bedroom, making a wardrobe change into more appropriate attire for the evening meal. He then proceeded to the dining room, where he took his usual seat. While food was not a necessity for a being like him, he still indulged in the occasional delicacy, and the time spent with the child was a welcome diversion. He was served a glass of blood and sipped it slowly, paying no heed to which servant's life had been sacrificed for his drink. As long as they didn't soil his estate while spilling the blood, he spared little thought for such matters. Dorian avoided killing within his home. The paintings and tapestries on the walls were too precious to be stained. Furthermore, hunting was far more gratifying, satisfying an urge within him. Yet, with a child who he preferred not to leave on her own, he had settled for this arrangement.

By 12:10 AM, he noticed the girl still hadn't come down to eat. A frown furrowed his brow, and he resorted to ringing a bell, summoning a servant to remind the girl of her mealtime. Ten minutes passed, and still, she had not appeared. His patience wore thin, and he sighed in frustration. He had believed that they were past the point of dealing with her tantrums. Pouting, glaring, or even crying he could endure, but refusing to eat was an entirely different matter. She was still a mortal after all, eating was a necessity for beings such as herself.

Dorian rose from his seat, frustration building within him. He made his way to her room, hardly paying attention to the bustling servants he encountered along the way. Upon reaching the girl's bedroom, he opened the door to find two servant ladies engaged in an agitated conversation.

"Where is my daughter?" He demanded, annoyance evident in his tone. He had little patience for another one of her tantrums. The two girls exchanged uncertain glances before one of them spoke. "I do not have all night," he sneered, issuing a warning.

"We don't know, sir," the first servant admitted, following her words with profuse apologies.

Dorian's eyes narrowed to slits. "What do you mean, you don't know?"

"We are all looking for her," the second servant began, but he silenced her.

He stormed out of the room and thundered, "I want everyone here. Now!"

In a short span, the entire staff of the household had gathered, all looking highly anxious. He paid no heed to their nervousness, as he had more pressing concerns.

"Where is my daughter?" He repeated his question, prompting various answers, all centered around the fact that they had no idea of (Y/n)'s whereabouts.

"Speak. Clearly," he growled.

"We don't... we have searched everywhere, sir," one man admitted. "She isn't here."

Anger surged within his chest. "She can’t have vanished," he reprimanded, throwing his arms up in frustration. The assembled staff instinctively stepped back in fear.

Attempting to regain his composure, Dorian's enhanced senses failed to pick up any trace of her scent. Every corner of the house had absorbed her fragrance by now, and the servants' constant muttering and apologies drowned out any other sounds he might have detected. 

Gritting his teeth in frustration, he hissed, "Quiet!" Even in the ensuing silence, the sound of their heartbeats echoed loudly in his ears. 

Perhaps, if he were to slaughter them all, the silence would finally prevail. He soon chased that thought away; he needed more people to search, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t furious at them for their incapability of finding one child.

"You are useless," he ranted, his canines emerging, and his nails taking on a more menacing form due to his anger. "Utterly incompetent! Split into groups and search every floor. Leave no stone unturned." The servants hesitated, apprehensive of his demeanor. With another surge of anger, he snapped, "NOW!"

[skkfujoshi]

Feels like we have matching wounds

“I blame you for all of this…”Chuuya mutteted “Whatever makes it easier for you,little lamb.”“Stop calling me that.”

Ahrahabaki shrugged looking at his nails,well,talons more like.Chuuya had been able to see him for years.Two,to be specific and had,until now,ignored him completely.

Not that the god spoke much.Then again,gods rarely had to speak to get attention.You gave them the time of day if you knew what was good for you.

Chuuya obviously had no clue what was good for him as the fact he killed his father attested.

Seeing Ahrahabaki was the closest he came to dreaming.It would happen at night,when he’d fall asleep and the two would find themselves on a beach.Chuuya recognized it as the one from that picture the Flags gave him.

“Did you pick me because I looked like you?”

The god perked up,blacked out,animal eyes blinking at Chuuya in all too human bewilderment.Chuuya had no idea why he was so bewildered.

It was a fair enough question.He had Chuuya’s face.With blackened irises,corruption marks and much longer unkempt hair but still,Chuuya’s face.

Ahrahabaki flapped his black wings for a moment,adjusting the manacles around his ankles before playing with the chain.

He laughed, though it sounded more like wheezing and sobbing.

“Chuuya,was it?I can look like anyone or anything I want.The only reason I look like this right now is because it’s all your puny human mind can bare.My true form…”

Another laughing wheeze.

“Well…Man much sturdier then you have been driven insane by it.”

Some part of Chuuya wanted to take offense to that.And probably should have.But that wasn’t what his mind clung to.

“Anyone?” “Yes,anyone at all”

He paused turning to Chuuya for a moment.A brief frown pulled at the god’s lips,but he scoffed.Then he turned away.Chuuya did too,figuring that meant the end of the conversation.

After a few,moments though,he felt a ghost of a touch against the top of his head.

He whipped in the direction and regretted it only moments after.

“For what it’s worth,Chuuya,I think you did the right thing.”Dazai’s voice said

Except it wasn’t quite …It had a vague buzzing quality,like barely noticeable static just underneath.The same thing seemed to happen to Chuuya’s own voice when Ahrahabaki took on his form.

And it was,truly,just one of many options.Chuuya realized that as he stared at what was in every aspect a perfect replica of Dazai.Down to the darkness of the eyebags.

“Stop it.”he muttered swatting the hand away

Ahrahabaki sighed,going back to his usual appearance as he stretched his arms above his head.

“I really thought you’d appreciate  that look…Oh well.Still,killing your father can only help us…” “What are you talking about?” “Well,Chuuya,now that he’s dead our power is only ours to use.” “Huh?” “Without him as the boss and you out of the mafia,no one will use it for their own goals anymore.We’re free.”

The word free rang an odd cord.Chuuya wouldn’t necessarily say that he felt trapped by his connection to the mafia but it was…Limiting.

How many normal teenage experiences did he lose out on because of this job?Did he even truly know?

Just because he’d hypothetically leave certainly didn’t mean that he’d have to cut contact did it?He could still call Kōyo whenever he felt like it.

But…He shook his head.Rūynosuke already lost Dazai.He couldn’t lose Chuuya too.

“I’m not leaving.Besides,need I remind you that ‘our power’ has almost killed me on multiple occasions?” “Only because we couldn’t communicate properly.I couldn’t instruct you in how to use or deal with it.” “Convenient,ain’t it?”

Ahrahabaki rolled his eyes,or at least Chuuya assumed that’s what he did.Lack of pupils kinda made it hard to tell.

“Little lamb,you are my vessel.If you die,I die.That’s the truth of the matter.You can choose whether you believe it,but I’ll tell it regardless.”

Chuuya tsked,annoyed and picked at the seam of his pants.

“Think on it,if you must,but I assure you,hearing me out will be for the best.For both of us.”

-

“We’re done.”Kunikida said,just as Dazai was pouring them a drink

He turned to look at his boyfriend,confused,as he put the bottle down.

Then he snorted.It wasn’t the first time Doppo said it.Usually the statement followed a bad joke post coital or Dazai messing with him,causing him to break another pen.

Dazai wasn’t sure what caused it now,but he knew not to pay it much mind.

“Sure we are.And I’m going to become the Agency’s president once Fukuzawa retires.”“Who’s Chuuya?”

Dazai only allowed himself a single blink before he said,in a joking tone and a with a sly smile:”What are you talking about?”

Without missing a beat,Doppo pulled out a picture and handed it to Dazai.

Dazai didn’t have to look at it to know which one it was.

He only brought two photos with him once he left.One of Mori ,stolen from a staff information file and currently hidden under the one loose tile in the bathroom,that he used for stabbing when he got frustrated and the second…

Well,he was looking at it right now.It was a photo of Chuuya on his 18th birthday,sitting on the rooftop,looking at the sunset as he finished off a glass of wine.In the corner of the photo was a small scribble by Dazai

Chuuya’s 18 now yet he’s still travel-sized :)

That photo was stored in-

“Did you rummage through my closet!?” “No,I didn’t.What I did do however is wash that extra bedsheet that you don’t use.And found this under it.At first I wasn’t gonna say anything.”

Dazai scoffed.

“And what inspired you to so bravely speak up?” “The fact I heard the name before.”

Dazai ran his hand over his hair casually,as his heart hammered in his chest.Fuck…Why did him and Chuuya have to be so good at their job and get fucking wanted posters?

And why did he have to be so shit at hiding stuff?

“And where was that?”he asked calmly “You.During sex.Five days ago.”

Dazai’s relief mixed terribly with guilt in his gut.It felt a bit like quick drying cement was poured down his throat and now it was weighing him down,freezing him solid from the inside.

“What?” “You were probably too high on endorphins to realize it at the time.”Kunikida added,wiping his glasses

The slight spite in Kunikida’s voice stung,but Dazai didn’t hold it against him.He’d argue he deserved even more.

It did explain some things he supposed.For example why Kunikida immediately went to bed once they were done.And why he was so curt with Dazai the day after.

Still,he tried to appease.

“It won’t happen again.” “Dazai-“ “I promise it won’t.I swear it won’t.” “Osamu-“ “I’ll never speak his name again,I won’t so much as think it.I’ll throw that photo out and-“ “Osamu!”

Dazai sighed,looking down at his feet.

“Doppo,please…Please don’t.” “It’s not just this.You know it’s not just this.” “I can be better.I’ll stop the suicide attempts,I’ll show up to work on time,I’ll never make fun of your ideals again-“ “You’re just saying that so I won’t do this.”

He hated how gentle Kunikida’s tone had gone.Because that meant he had thought about this and thoroughly.That he prepared himself for everything Dazai could possibly throw at him.That he steeled himself to end things no matter how much Dazai might beg him not to.

“Please…” “Dazai,sit down.” “No.” “Humor me.”

Despite himself Dazai did as asked.

“Look,’Samu…I’m not angry.” “Bullshit.” “Shut up.I’m not angry,I’m just hurt.And I know you didn’t mean to do it.At least I’m pretty sure of that,but…Despite the lack of intention,we’re still better off apart.At least,as a couple.” “I told you I can-“ “I’m not going to make you change everything about yourself to make me happy.And I’m not gonna settle for being sloppy seconds just so you can stay comfortable.”

Dazai buried his face in his hands and sighed,the laugh following after awkward and flimsy.

“Please,please,tell me you’re joking …”

He didn’t even really know why he was trying at that point.But it felt wrong not to at least make one last attempt.

Doppo was good for him.So good for him.He was moral without fail,without compromise.He’d keep Dazai not necessarily on the straight and narrow path,but the right one nonetheless.

And Dazai fucked it up.He didn’t look up to see Kunikida shake his head.

“Think of it this way…It’ll be a lot less painful now then it would have been a year in.I don’t resent you and we haven’t reached the sunk cost part of the sunk cost fallacy yet.” “You really know how to cheer a guy up a guy,Kunikida…You should become a life coach or something…”

Kunikida lightly hit him on the arm.

“Don’t be stupid.”

The sat in silence for a moment,Dazai not knowing what else to say.It was so…anticlimactic and Dazai found himself just a bit disappointed by the lack of explosion.

If it had been Chuuya-

He pinched his cheek hard.How much of an idiot was he?That’s exactly what got him here.

“I always had a feeling you know?” “Sure.” “No,really,there were these…These moments where I seemed to fall short of your expectations.You’d get this distant look in your eyes and then the next second it’d be gone.”

Dazai looked up from his hands at Kunikida who seemed to have a similarly distant look on his face as he recalled it.Though,Dazai suspected,his exe’s thoughts wandered far closer to home than his own ever had.

He took his partner’s hand.

“Kunikida,if there’s anything I can do to make it up…” “Dazai,you don’t have to .” “I dragged you along for two months.I do.”

Kunikida sighed exasperated,pushing up his glasses.

“Show up on time tomorrow and tell me about him right now.That will do.”

-

Mori smelled like antiseptic and ink.Most people hadn’t really appreciated the fragrance,Dazai chief amongst them.

Chuuya wasn’t one of those people though.Oh sure, it stung his nose in an awful way but…It meant his father was close by,so he couldn’t really dislike it.

Or so he thought.Because now he was choking on it,drowning in it.And he loathed every moment.

It was so bad he almost considered moving to his and Dazai’s old room,but snapped himself out of that bad choice quickly enough.

He did the right thing,right?Mori lied to him,to the mafia,he was terrible and manipulative,he had slapped Chuuya for saying the truth…

But he was one of the best bosses the Port Mafia had.Granted,the bar was not set particularly high by his predecessor but still…

If Chuuya came out with the truth,people might be sympathetic to a point but nowhere near as forgiving as those that figured Mori’s secret out were to Mori.

Because his father’s predecessor was a disaster.Someone was bound to do it.Things were going fine with Mori at the helm until Chuuya messed it up.

Still,now he did all he could to help the course smooth itself out.They had allowed him to vote despite having been fired,on the basis that he probably knew ,at least somewhat,who his father would have picked were he still alive.

And Chuuya did know.He knew the whole trajectory.After Chuuya begged to be Akutagawa’s mentor in addition to Dazai,he was no longer in the running as the successor.Something about abusing his privilege and connections.

Then Osamu became the runner up once the Dragon’s head conflict happened.

And once he died,Mori turned his eyes to Kōyo,keeping her closer than he ever had before.

A fair choice.Kōyo was very patient and had an ability both great in offense and defense and unlike Hirotsu,she was quite young.Not that the man was dying,but he had seen three bosses come and go already.

Also,she was quite a bit more sociable than either Chuuya or Osamu combined could’ve ever been.

So,Chuuya had put in his vote for her. 

And his conscience had quieted after he had done it.Not permanently though,much to his chagrin.

He glared at the ceiling and took a deep breath.At least no one was gonna pick Ace.That would just be-

“Chuuya?You up?”Rūynosuke asked from the other side of the door

He got up and put on his best smile before confirming he was in there.

“They already done down there?”he asked,all fake cheeriness

Rūynosuke nodded,not noting Chuuya’s mood even though he probably noticed how odd it was.

“Yes.The moment of truth has come and gone,it seems.” “Great.Who is it?” “You.”

Chuuya blinked.He had to have heard wrong.Rūynosuke had always been rather quiet in regular conversation.Maybe he misspoke.

“What?”

Akutagawa sighed,almost regretfully.

“You,Chuuya.You’re the new boss of the Port mafia.”

Previous fic part <—. Next fic part —>

First overall AU info post

[vodika-vibes]

Rex x Reader

Pairing: Captain Rex x Reader

Word Count: 1736

Warnings: None

Songs: None

A/N: A half idea that I'm toying with, mostly. It is an AU. Plus, I feel like Rex should be written about more.

Divider by Saradika

“You know, I did tell you that this was a bad idea,” You say to your cousin as you sweep your flashlight from one side of the room to the other, making a face at the rotten wood, “I think I just saw a rat.”

“You probably did, Miss Priss.” Your older cousin, Yani, said with a roll of her eyes, “It’s not like anyone’s lived here in, like, years.”

“I think this building is a hazard,” You add as you direct the beam of light from your flashlight to the ceiling, which looks one violent sneeze away from total collapse.

Somehow your cousin manages to project her eye roll into her whole body, it would be impressive if it wasn’t so annoying. “You can always leave, baby cousin.” 

“Ugh. I didn’t say that I wanted to leave,” You counter defensively, turning the beam of light towards your cousin, “All I’m saying is that we need to be careful.”

“I definitely should have left you behind,” Yani says loudly, “Come on, the floor looks safe this way.”

“You can’t determine structural integrity by looks alone, Yani. You know that.” You reply, though you still follow after Yani. Exploring condemned houses is not your idea of fun, but you can’t let her go alone either.

The floor creaks loudly under your feet, and you’re careful to make sure to walk close to the walls. Theoretically the floor should be sturdier near the walls, right? Yani, however, bounces down the hall like she doesn’t have a care in the world.

“Why are you walking so slow? Hurry up!” Yani orders from the end of the hall.

You sigh, and weigh your options. And then you sigh again, Yani will absolutely leave you behind if you don’t keep up with her. So you step away from the wall.

Halfway down the hall, there’s a sickening crack, and your stomach falls as the floor gives way beneath you. You see Yani’s horrified face as you begin to fall and you hear her scream your name…and then the world goes black.

The first thing you note when you wake up is pain. Pain in your head, your arms, your back, and your legs.

You’ve never been in so much pain in your life.

You slowly open your eyes. You expect to be laying on concrete, or something, looking up at the hole that you fell through. But you’re not doing either.

You blink blearily, trying to understand what you’re looking at. It looks…well…it looks like Yani’s canopy bed. Only decorated in dark blue rather than Yani’s neon yellow. 

Slowly, very slowly, you sit up and look around.

You’re in a bedroom. A very nice looking bedroom, decorated in dark blues and whites. There aren’t any windows, but the room is comfortably lit with natural lighting from somewhere.

You slide to the edge of the bed, and swing your legs out from under the silky comforter, painfully getting to your feet.

You’ve been changed into a different outfit. And you’re covered in bandages, bacta infused bandages, based on the look of them.

You limp over to the door, each step like a knife into your feet and legs. You’re barely halfway across the room when the door clicks open, and a man steps into the room.

He looks just as surprised to see you as you are to see him.

He’s tall and broad, with blond hair. And he looks very concerned to see you up and about. “You should be resting,” He says. His voice is deep and soothing, somehow.

“Where am I?”

He pauses, and sets a tray of bandages and medical equipment on a table next to the door. “You’re in my home. I found you. You’re very badly hurt.” He gently, but firmly, guides you back to the bed and settles you back on the pillow, “My name is Rex. How are you feeling?”

“Bad,” You reply honestly, wincing in pain.

“You shouldn’t have tried to walk,” Rex chides, walking back over to the door and grabbing the tray of medical equipment. “I have some pain medicine and bandages for you. Let’s see if I can get you comfortable.”

You watch as he treats your injuries, his hands sure as they check and rewrap sutures. “Are you a doctor?”

“Hm? Oh, no. Some of my brothers are though. My brother Kix is the one who patched you up originally. I’m a soldier.” He pauses, “Or, well, I was a soldier. No need for soldiers when the war is long over.”

You tilt your head, “What war?”

He’s quiet for a long time, “Ah. Never mind that.” He presses a water bottle into your hand as well as some medicine, “Take these, it’ll help with the pain. And you’ll go back to sleep.”

“...thank you.”

Rex shakes his head, “Don’t worry about it.” He waits until you take the medicine, and then he takes the water bottle back, and waits until you drift off to sleep again.

It takes time for you to recover.

After a month of him caring for you, Rex admits that when he found you, every bone in your body was broken, and that the first time you woke up was after two weeks in a bacta tank to try and stabilize you. 

And slowly, very slowly, you come to view Rex as a friend. He’s calm and patient, and so very gentle with you, as though he’s afraid that he’s going to hurt you.

You question, only once, why you’re not in a hospital and why you’ve not seen your parents. Rex’s answer gives you only more questions than answers, but it’s easy to trust Rex, so when he asks you to not ask questions until you’re completely healed…well, it’s a simple thing, really.

In total, it takes you over four months to recover enough that you’re able to walk without pain. And Rex is there for every day.

“You’re doing much better,” Rex notes as he watches you go through physical therapy with the droid that he acquired for you. 

“I feel a lot better,” You agree as you limp over to a chair and settle on it. According to the droid, you would likely have the limp for the rest of your life, “Everything doesn’t hurt, at least.”

He smiles at you. “I’m glad to hear it. There was a time I worried you weren’t going to wake up.”

You shake your head, “You and your brothers have taken excellent care of me. I’m lucky I have you in my corner.”

His smile widens, and you blush slightly, averting your gaze from his, “I’m always happy to help, cyare.” Rex says easily.

He’s started calling you that recently, though whenever you ask when it means, he just grins at you and tells you that it is a nickname and it’s nothing bad.

“I know you are. You’ve done…more than I would expect from a stranger.” You get back to your feet, wincing as your bad leg twinges uncomfortably.

“And you’ve done too much, cyare.” Rex replies as he gets to his feet and walks over to help support your weight.

His hand is warm against you, and you lean into his warmth without really thinking about it. Rex smiles down at you, “Trying to leech my warmth, cyare?” He jokes.

“I wouldn’t have to if it wasn’t so cold in here.” You grumble.

“Maybe I keep it cold to have an excuse to have you pressed against me.” Rex says easily.

You blush dark red, and bump him with your shoulder, “You shouldn’t say stuff like that.” You mumble, “I might actually start believing you.”

Rex shifts and brushes his lips against your ear, “That’s the point, cyare.” And then he pulls away and winks at you, “Come on, I had your favorite lunch made.”

You’re blushing even more, “You spoil me.”

“Yup.” Rex guides you out of the exercise room and down the hall, but he stops before getting to the dining room.

“Rex?”

“I’m in love with you,” He says quietly, and then he laughs as your jaw drops and your face burns, he reaches out and lightly brushes his thumb against your lower lip, “Can I kiss you?”

“...yes please.” You whisper.

You barely manage to get the phrase out, before his lips are on yours. His lips are warm and dry, and so very gentle against yours. He breaks the kiss for only a moment, before his lips are back against yours. The second kiss is deeper and more desperate than the first, and your back bumps against the wall as you hook your arms around his neck and his hand slides around to cup the back of your neck.

He breaks the kiss and presses his forehead against yours. You’re both gasping for air, and Rex leans in to kiss you again. And then he closes his eyes and, with great effort, he moves back to give himself some space.

You look up at him, confused, and he laughs, “Can’t think when I’m that close to you.” Rex admits, “There are…I need to tell you some things. The truth about some things.” He murmurs, “Should have told you ages ago. Don’t want you to leave me though.”

You blink at him, hazily, “You’re married?”

He laughs, “No. No, I’m not.” He pauses, to collect his thoughts, “When you fell,” Rex began, “You fell a little further than you thought, or than I ever thought possible. I, we, had no idea that it was possible for someone to fall from the Mortal Realm into ours.”

“Rex…what?”

He sighs, “Cyare, you fell from the mortal realm into the realm of the fallen.” He grips your hip tightly, “The realm of demons. We…we don’t know how to send you back to your mortal realm.”

You gape at him, “So…you’re a demon?”

“Captain of one of the many Demonic Battalions, in fact.” Rex admits. 

You hesitate, and then you nod slowly, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.” You confirm. “You’re…Rex, you’re you. I’m not more afraid of you now than I was 10 minutes ago. You’re Rex.” You say, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world. Which, really, it is.

Tension drains from his shoulders, “You’re not leaving me.”

“Of course not.”

You squeak when his lips crash back against yours. One of his hands tangles in your hair, while the other one slides around your back, pulling you flush against him. “Thank you,” he breathes against your lips, before pulling you back into another deep kiss.

[capricioussun]

It’s been quite a while since I really talked about my version of horrorfell here and since I’m taking nine million years to finish the reference sheets for everyone, I’d like to explain a little smth about Dusk’s design and how I typically draw him. (CW for medical stuff)

If you go in his tag, you’ll see two primary designs, presurface and post, post being the one I draw more often. Since I’m not great with details it probably doesn’t stand out very much, but the way his face (and much of his body) was “restructured” was using a medical-magic procedure I decided can and should exist for more serious injuries. I’ve thought a lot about medical-magic stuff and how it works depending on type of monster, but I won’t get into it now – back to Dusk.

Being a skeleton monster worked in his favor, as they could treat specific wounds with a sort of “bone graph” (made from supplementary magic and some of his own) that works sort of like paper mâché. They put a brace inside his skull, applied the “graph”, let it heal enough to remove the brace, then applied another sealing/protecting layer. They did this for most of the damage on his head, and some of the smaller issues elsewhere, but it can’t be used for larger damage since it runs a little weaker than actual “bone” would.

It worked very well, but as I’m sure is very apparent, half his face is still missing! Partially because of the above problem, but mostly because a lot of excess magic actually escapes from that opening. Sealing it up would worsen the difficulties he already has with magic build up (he has a harder time expelling what would be a healthy amount of magic because he can’t utilize means most others can or like he used to (usually via sparring or general exercise) which is extra bad for a monster with as high levels of magic as he has!).

That’s why there’re so many eyes in there, and also why you can’t see into his skull. The magic causes distortion similar to the way you can’t really see the back of any skeleton monster’s skull through their eye sockets! Sometimes it even emanates red or black “mist”, which is usually indicative of Dusk needing to expend some extra magic.

Anyways! So those are the patches, but he also has fake teeth! They’re made of a sort of “magic acrylic”, which, while similar to the patches, are much sturdier, and were one of the other methods used elsewhere on his body (primarily for damage to his limbs and ribs, metal was also used on his spine, hands, and feet, since they needed the most support). A lot of the smaller cracks on his skull were also patched up a bit, which is why they’re more faint.

Overall, I imagine it took several years to implement and perform all of his procedures and treatments, since they also had to take a lot of time and be careful with as damaged and delicate as his body was to start off with. But! It’s well worth it! On top of the medicines, he is much more comfortable and capable of movement than he would’ve been otherwise!!

So that’s why I draw his teeth more prominently and try to add lots of sort of “fault lines” where the patches are! If I coloured him more properly, those spots and his teeth would also be slightly different colours from his natural bone, due to his own bones being permanently discoloured while the replacement looks more like healthy bone :*)

[theowritesfiction]

Okay so I haven't been posting about the ATLA characters in D&D lately, but that's still on my mind and I've created the Fire Nation kids in D&D.

Let's start with Mai. Mai is obviously a rogue, I don't think this needs much explaining. Even if we mostly see her attack with throwing daggers from distance, I think she'd be just as happy stabbing people from stealth, up and personal. <3 Mai's alignment would be True Neutral, although I guess before Boiling Rock you could argue that Lawful Neutral also fits her.

Ty Lee. What's the closest D&D class to a circus performer. Obviously, a bard! Ty Lee gets to be the proverbial jack of all trades that fits her quite well. Ty Lee is the Chaotic Neutral member of the cast. :)

Azula and Zuko. I didn't want to go the obvious route and make them both wizards or sorcerers who specialize in fire spells. Also, both of them are skilled in hand to hand combat, especially Zuko, and I wanted their D&D builds to reflect that. So, I decided to do the following. Azula got to take the Court Mage build, which gives her some interesting defensive tools and basically allows her to be in the thick of the melee as she dishes out magic damage. As for Zuko, I recreated him as a Fighter, but he got to take the Spellblade subclass. I think this solves it quite nicely. Azula is better at bending/magic, and Zuko is better with swords.

As for their alignment, well, I'm sorry, but Azula is going to be Lawful Evil. As for Zuko, well I guess that depends on whether we're talking pre or post redemption. Still, it's hard for me to see even Book 1 antagonist Zuko as evil aligned, I mean he was kind of a soft villain most of the time. Post redemption I would put him as Chaotic Good because he's still kind of a mess and like he himself admits, he doesn't really know how to be good.

After I had created these characters, I decided to put them through some of the Solasta campaigns. My first group was dangerous ladies + Katara. It worked pretty well. Azula and Katara ended up holding the line, while Mai popped in and out of stealth to pick off the enemies one by one. Ty Lee just bounced around pitching in, but unlike her show counterpart, not being very effective lol.

For my next campaign, I decided to replace Ty Lee with Suki, just because I figured Suki would be both a little sturdier and also do a bit more damage than Ty Lee. It proved to be a good decision. Ty Lee could be occasionally useful, but as the characters level up and gain power, Katara can easily do all the healing by herself, and Azula is starting to dish out some insane damage, so a bard's supplementary damage/healing isn't necessary, sorry Ty Lee :( I wish the game would allow me to play with a group of five.

Lastly, I happened to find a spell scroll, but I'm still debating whether it's responsible to let Azula learn this spell. Let's make a poll:

[magpiecaranthir]

Hi! Hope your ask box sitch gets fixed soon 💜 Do you have any thoughts or opinions about clothes and fashion in middle earth from any time period and any people? I’m doing a little fashion timeline project for myself and thought it could be fun to hear other opinions if you feel like it 💜

Oh, from what I hear it's not going to get fixed like, ever. But that's fine that's what I have this acc for now :)

Ok ok so you opened a big can of worms I'll try to keep the lid on best I can

So I'll ramble about the Dunlendings first because I have been knee deep into their existence with my recent fics I cant leave my babies alone. It's all over the place bc I got in ramble mode sorry. Also, it's very long lol.

Ok so dunlendings are said to be the descendants of some of the haladin, right? So their clothes are partially influenced by that in the same way gondor is influenced by former numenorean trends and the likes

I fucking hate the movie depiction of the dunlendings. Look at this shit. No. I refuse.

What I will take from that shitshow is the primarily dark hair and the preference for shorter (not more than like 5cm) unadorned beards, and some incorporation of furs.

The dunlendings used to live in the forests of Middle earth, not just in what would come to be Dunland. But when the numenoreans needed wood they chased them off.

Based on that I think they used more muted, natural colours like greens, deep reds and oranges, brown, the occasional black. They preferred light fabrics back then, especially in the settlements close to the shores and further south. They did a sort of tiedye to imitate natural fur patterns during hunting. That's something they do even in later ages.

When they were forced to migrate inland and into the mountains (what would be Dunland) their fabrics in general became sturdier. Thicker linen, more wool, and the likes.

They keep the population of larger predators in check in the mountains, so their furs make it into the garments fairly often. Usually used for children's clothing because they are very much mortal and they know babies and elders need a bit of extra protection from the cold.

Usually they also have ceremonial furs for special occasions (usually any type of bear for holidays of sorts)

And pelts with peculiar colouring/patterns or from mountain lions/wolves/other pack animals and the likes for special festivities relating to members of the community. (Think wedding, burial, birth).

Not everyone wears those to all celebrations. They are worn by the one who is the star of the show and their family, so to speak. Bride and groom's families wear those, while everyone else wears normal festivity clothes.

Those are accompanied by fairly unadorned clothes with sturdy but artful geometrical embroidery, usually around the hems, collars and cuffs.

Belts worn by the males are the centerpiece beside the felt, and are very artful, especially because in my hcs every village has mastered the art of burning patterns into leather. The belts are wide and loose, and usually are made from a prey animal of their formal fur garment bc they believe they should not deprive predator from prey, even in death.

Women wear usually dresses for celebrations, they are sturdy and have several layers so you can mix and match depending on the season. So several underlayers, chemises, stockings per ensemble.

The dresses themselves formal but not center-stage formal, but every single one has a decorative overskirt you tie around the waist. That comes on and off, and the dress is perfectly complete without it. That one has lots of embroidery.

The women in the family usually start embroidering a fabric when the baby is around 5 and shows some character, and its finished when they marry. Jts their dowry of sorts. If no women are in the family/can sew then theres usually elders who are more than happy bc while dunlendings do not particularly care for fashion statements, the overskirts are an expression of love from the community for the girl/woman.

Every day clothing is still muted in the later years of the 3rd age, and each settlement has their own preferred garment and usually pelt of choice. For example, you'll have a settlement close to the mountains of Dunland where the people prefer bear fur over wolf, while a settlement further towards Rohan/south prefers wolf pelt over bear. It's not entirely dependent on where they live.

Also families that havent moved away for a few generations have developed special embroidery similar to family heraldry, which gets more elaborate with every generation bc they take pride in their heritage and survival despite the numenorean's best efforts to get rid of the dunlendings.

I'll cut myself off here because it's already so long lol.

Idk if the dunlendings are something you're interested in, but imo much of these things (use of natural colours and tyedye to blend into woodland realms, use of ceremonial furs and artful belts and hand-me-down dedicated embroidery) are what have been passed down from the haladin people, and adjusted to the current time/living situation of the dunlendings

[life-in-the-monster-haus]

"i know she doesnt have a body any real person can have but you shouldnt bodyshame it!!" ok so does how someone treat a doll show how they feel about real peoples bodies or not??? @ that person not you

I don't know how to answer this because it's not directed at me.

But I'm gonna do it anyways.

I love Monster High with all of my cold black heart, HOWEVER one thing I have always had contempt for was how super thin the characters were.

On one hand, as an artist myself I get it! they aren't supposed to look like real people, they are stylistic skinny! but on the other hand - any style that does not allow for bigger characters is a garbage art style and whoever endorses it is a hack artist whom I refuse to respect.

That being said: the G1 doll bodies set an unrealistic standard for actual people to try and replicate and you all KNOW they did. I comb the MH tag pretty regularly and I have seen the most depressing eating disorder posts, pro-ana/mia propaganda, calorie counters to look like cartoon characters. it's not right, As someone who had an eating disorder in High school I refuse to let that social sickness ruin my happy place and I report these posts with extreme prejudice because I don't want that brainwashing that infected me to hurt anyone else, I didn't deserve that, NO ONE deserves that! I will shield this fandom from that poison with every fiber of my being.

The G1 bodies looked good while dressed but the nude dolls looked so awkward, there is only one person I can think of who looks like that, a French Model named Isabelle Caro, Should I perhaps message Ms. Caro to ask how she feels about having this one in a million body that she shares with a popular doll line?.... oh wait! I can't! Because she's fucking dead.

She was only 28 when she died. The cause? immunodeficiency due to anorexia. This poor woman needlessly died because of an obsession with being thin. Her death was not in vain though, 4 years after she died France (her home) put a ban on super thin models and in her later years Ms. Caro used her platform to denounce super thin models and warn others to not be like her. a beautiful person taken from us too soon.

I also have personal reasons for not wanting people to get the wrong ideal about super skinny bodies. When I was in High school I had a boyfriend with Anorexia, I loved him with all I had I told him he was beautiful and that I will love him, thin, fat, buff, whatever makes him happy... but my words fell upon deaf ears as the disorder was a lot louder than I was, he was so painfully skinny. 3 years later he had a heart attack and died. I'm not a doctor or nothing but maybe if he was sturdier he would have survived the attack and still be here with me... I don't know. But I would not wish this pain upon my worst enemy.

Now that you know -why- I am so highly motivated to protect others from this blight I hope you'll understand me a little better when I say that Mattel making their dolls thicker is good for everybody involved, there is literally no downside. People who are naturally skinny still get dolls to relate too but now so do other types of people! it's an absolute win! except for Muscular girls y'all kinda got the shaft - but fingers crossed Abbey brings us a new buff body! (which we need, we also need an even chubbier body too but I'm not going to hold my breath) We need every BODY to make our world work. G2 gave us a weak and pathetic attempt at meatier doll bodies, it was too little too late but an attempt was made!

Now... if you read all of this and your a thin person with hurt feelings (Like whoever sent this anon clearly is) you need to get over yourself buttercup. I'm a busy bitch and I don't have time to coddle thin people. Similar to how Black people should not have to tip toe around White folks because their precious white feelings get hurt when they're told they have privilege, I am not going to coddle the thin who make it sound like being told to "eat a sandwich" once in a GREAT while somehow compares to what People of Size face daily, I don't play in the Pain Olympics, there are no winners in the Pain Olympics only losers.

I just won't do it, it's exhausting and I'm already exhausted from navigating a world that doesn't want me to exist.

If your thin and normal I'm confident you can see where I'm going with this and won't wrongfully misinterpret my words as some thinly veiled skinny shaming (which isn't real) Unless you are a Bride in Uganda I don't want to hear a word about how hard life is being thin, that's it! that's the only group of people who I'll give a pass too. everyone else can get a grip and do some research yourself, I don't get paid enough to pander to curious but cowardly thin folks.

[herearedragons]

a way to show them (fic reupload)

Adina closes one eye and sticks the tip of her tongue out, trying to paint the line above her left eye in perfect symmetry to the right one. For a moment, she’s almost made it - but then her finger twitches and the pattern is ruined with a bright cobalt smear all the way to her temple.

Adina curses. Behind her back, a laugh sounds:

“Come on, kid! It’s not supposed to be a masterpiece.”

“Shut up, Ashar,” she mutters. She spits on her finger and tries to erase the smear.

“Just saying, you spend way too much time on it,” Ashar says.

“Well, you just dump a jar of paint on your face and call it vitaar,” Hissera says. “Doesn’t mean we should all do the same.”

Adina turns to look at them and snickers; Ashar’s face is one solid red stain, his features buried almost completely beneath the thick layer of paint.

“You look like your face got cut off,” she tells him.

“Keeps me sharp in a fight, though,” he grins.

“Should've mixed some rashvine in there,” Hissera murmurs. "Maybe then you'd stop burning your eyebrows off with those flasks."

She’s midway through her own vitaar, painting a jagged black line across the stitch scars on her lips, turning a former Saarebas’ mark into a toothy grin stretching from ear to ear.

Ashar rolls his eyes. “Fine, you big artists. Wake me up in two hours when you’re done working on your war face.”

Once he strolls off, Hissera comes up to her and kneels down by her side. She looks at the tiny pocket mirror in Adina’s hand and offers her own mirror instead, much larger and embedded in the lid of her vitaar kit.

“That should make it easier,” she says.

Adina nods and mutters a “thank you”. Now that she can see her entire face, fixing the smear becomes less of a problem; she paints a new line over it, curving up to the base of her horn, and mirrors it on the other side.

“Good job,” Hissera praises her. Adina grins, happy for the compliment.

“Ashar means well,” Hissera adds.

Adina shrugs. “I know.”

“For some, vitaar is just protection, or a boost to their abilities. For others, like me,” Hissera taps a blackened finger on her painted lips, “It’s a way to show the enemy exactly who’s going to kill them. They put stitches on my mouth, and I tore them open. Compared to that, anything others can do to me is just a joke.”

 This, Adina thinks, is why Hissera’s so cool. Her stone-cold stare, her voice that never rises to a shout, but sends chills down your spine. She’s scared of nothing, and everyone knows it, and if they have some sense, that makes them scared of her.

“I wonder,” Hissera says suddenly, “What is it to you, Adina.”

“I…” She opens her mouth and closes it; Adina knows the answer to that question, but it’s kind of embarrassing.

Hissera watches her reflection in the mirror with dark red, almost black, eyes.

Finally, Adina gathers the courage to reply.

“I want to be beautiful,” she says, “But... in a terrifying way."

She gives her reflection a bitter glance; four blue lines on her face aren’t exactly going to do the trick, and she knows that.

”…I need to get way better at this, though.“

Hissera is silent for a moment - and then, the black painted grin is broken with the white of her smile. She laughs quietly and ruffles Adina’s hair.

"You will,” she says. “You will, imekari-saar.”

The next time they’re in town, Hissera buys her a larger mirror - and a paintbrush. Adina doesn’t know a lot about art, but she can feel that the brush is expensive; soft to the touch, but doesn’t bend too easily, and trimmed to have a wide edge for broad strokes and a fine point for detail.

She locks it in her jewelry box, along with the rest of her treasures, and swears in her heart to make Hissera proud.

* * *

Ashar begrudgingly agrees to let her practice on him; Adina sees how much he struggles to remain still, tapping his fingers and fidgeting with the buckles of his armor as she covers his face with broad strokes of the same bright blue paint she uses; a basic rashvine mix, to make you sturdier against the elements.

“No offense, Saar,” Ashar mutters, “But I could’ve done that myself.”

“Oh, I’m just getting started,” she says.

He groans:

“I’m going to be dead by the time it’s done, aren’t I?”

“Sitting still for a moment won’t kill you,” Hissera says, and only then Adina realizes she’s right behind her back, watching.

She swallows and cleans her paintbrush before dipping it into the next paint.

She scatters short, bold strokes all over Ashar’s forehead, bursting from between his brows and curving back down under his eyes, dripping down like tears; a whirlwind mosaic of red, yellow and green - bright and flashy just like the potions he uses. Some of the colors blend and bleed into each other; Hissera passes her a small box over her shoulder, and Adina opens it to find a thick golden paste inside.

“For highlights,” Hissera says.

Adina uses the tip of her brush to paint guide lines over the swirls, giving them direction and bringing out the features underneath the paint. When she leans back to examine her work, it’s not perfect, but it’s good.

She holds up a mirror and taps Ashar on the shoulder:

“You can open your eyes now.”

He blinks a few times, adjusting to the light; then, his eyes focus on the reflection. For a moment, his expression is hard to read underneath the paint - and then, the tall, loud rogue squeals.

“Holy shit!” he whispers.

The first moment of fascination turns into sheer delight, as he laughs and leans closer to examine the shiny gold lines and the vibrant colors.

“Blue is my favorite color,” he says. “How’d you know?”

“I didn’t,” she says, “But I’m glad you like it.”

“Holy shit , Saar,” he repeats and shakes his his head, still smiling. “I’ve never looked so pretty killing people.”

She sticks her tongue out. Ashar pats her on the shoulder, then pulls her into a hug. Adina laughs.

“Now, excuse me,” he says, “But I’m gonna show that off to the entire kith.”

* * *

She has to mix Aqun’s paint from scratch every time; the propotions are different from what she and the others use, and the paint he keeps for daily use is always a boring dark red, maybe a little box of black or white for highlights.

Like it’ll kill you to wear bright vitaar more often, Adina thinks as she rummages through packets of herbs and bottles of pigments and tiny vials with all kinds of extracts; she’s assembled quite the collection over the years, nearly taking over Hissera’s position as the main herbalist when it comes to mixing vitaar.

She keeps the red in her palette, but makes it bright, closer to the color of his eyes; fresh blood, not dry. Black and white are nice too, Adina decides, and she adds a deep blue to them as well; not a common color for war paint, more soothing than intimidating, but it fits him.

Deathroot solution, a sharpshooter’s paint; the toxin numbs the muscles, makes your eyes water, lets you go longer without blinking - giving you those precious few more seconds of sight in battle.

She keeps the pattern he uses, too; red around the eyes, one corner curves up to the forehead, the other goes down along the nose, then curves out around the mouth like frown lines. Kind of like a bow’s curve - so she adds an arrow in the middle, from the forehead down to the nose, and, after a moment of thought, a couple more on his forehead. A hall of arrows falling down against a dark blue sky.

She paints the upper half of his face in blue, and the lower half in black; the red streaks are bright against either background. She accents them with gold, but the pattern is still missing something. After a moment of thought, she dips her paintbrush in white and paints a pair of eyes on the line between black and blue, spiky, like the symbol of the Inquisition.

“There,” she says, satisfied. “Now you’re scary enough.”

He is; if she leans back and squints, the pattern becomes a dark mask of a creature with four eyes and no mouth, made of night and arrows.

“I’ll trust an expert’s word on that,” Aqun says; his speech already begins to slur under the toxin’s numbing influence, but Adina is used to deciphering it. She grins in response.

* * *

Bull looks reluctant as he heavily settles on the crate next to her - and, to be honest, so is she.

Adina knows it’s different now, he’s not a crazy Qun-person anymore, he’s one of them now; she thought it had sunk in by now, but by the frantic pounding of her heart she can tell that it hadn’t.

This thing she’s about to do - it’s a display of trust on both sides. She never considered this, until something made her think it was a good idea to suggest this to Bull.

They stare at each other for a moment - and then, with a sigh, Bull pulls up his eyepatch.

“Well, Saar,” he says, “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

She picks up her paintbrush, her box of paints; she doesn’t have anything special prepared for this one, no color arrangement, no plan. She tried to think about it, but nothing came to mind - and now there she is, staring at Bull’s face, no idea or theme to hold on to.

She doesn’t know him. How can she show his enemies who he is if she doesn’t know him?

Then, Adina looks at the eyepatch, and a thought passes through her mind; he pulled it up, but he’s going to have it on when fighting. There’s going to be a diagonal line across his face; the pattern would have to work with that.

She dips her paintbrush in red and draws a thick line right where the leather cord usually is. Her hand trembles a little; she doesn’t know if he noticed or not. She leans back, tries to think of shapes, of colors, not of people.

Looks a little unbalanced. She adds another stripe right across the first one, making it a symmetrical “X” shape across the upper half of Bull’s face - or three triangles with the tips meeting between his brows, almost like a half-mask.

Right. Now she’s getting somewhere.

She picks up the gold paint; usually she saves it for highlights, but not this time. Her mind works at twice the pace; we need something bright, a voice in her head says, bright and big and scary - but beautiful, like sun on a dragon’s scales.

Adina blinks, turns around. For a moment, she expects to see a figure behind her back, but there's no one there. Suddenly, she’s quite certain she didn’t pick up the gold paint, someone handed it to her, but... who?

A hazy memory of a thin frame, wide-brimmed hat - and then it’s gone.

Adina shrugs and returns to her work.

She paints the spaces between the red lines with solid gold; she forgot to wash the red from her brush and the result is more of a bronze, but somehow that’s even better. She stretches the color all the way up to Bull’s horns, then cleans the brush and goes back to the red, painting long lines over the lower half of his face, dripping down like blood. Struck by sudden inspiration, she switches colors again and carefully paints a scale pattern over the bronze - like a dragon.

After that, just a few highlights in white and she’s done; she holds up a mirror and waits for the verdict.

Bull pulls the eyepatch back on, careful not to smear the paint - shouldn’t bother; it’s already dried, - and inspects his reflection. Adina sees his eyebrows rise; after a moment, Bull hums and nods, and looks at her over the mirror.

“Not bad,” he says. She smirks like it’s no big deal, but she’s not sure how much that really does to hide the huge wave of relief that washes over her at the moment; whatever this was, she got through it, and she even did well.

* * *

After all of her friends are set and ready to go, and she’s done admiring her work on their faces, Adina walks away and sits down in the grass with her box of paints and her brush and her mirror.

There’s a bundle that takes up almost half of the box, vials and bottles and small boxes wrapped in cloth; paints she doesn’t use a lot anymore. They’re all perfectly good, and some of them were her favorite colors - but ever since the explosion at the temple, those paints have names attached to them, so she can’t just use them for anything she wants.

Adina unwraps the cloth; some of the containers slide out, clinking together. She runs her fingers over them, picks two; Ashar’s blue, Zahra’s orange. They always go well together, especially if you put a little gold in the middle. Or Katari’s yellow - but Katari’s yellow is deathroot, and it won’t mix well with Adina’s special recipe, so she settles on just the two bottles.

She picks them up, turns them in her hands.

“We’re going to another temple,” she tells them. “Elven one, this time - and I might see Corypheus again. If I do, he’s getting what he deserves, I promise.”

She can’t put a lot of paint on right now, so she settles on a simple streak over each eye, blue with an orange edge, and a little bit of gold between them applied with the tip of her paintbrush.

A way to show the enemy who’s going to kill them.

She’d take them all with her, if she could; usually she tries her best to fit as many colors as possible in the patterns she wears, all from the same bundle, each with a name to it. Today, though, Adina has something different.

She cleans the brush and puts it away along with all the different paints, and pulls out a small wooden box; her special recipe. She opens it and breathes the thick, moss-like scent of crushed felandaris and the prickling undertone of lyrium that makes her nose tingle with the threat of a sneeze.

Adina sets the mirror on her knees, dips her fingertips into the paste and draws a four-finger arc on her forehead, then another one on the lower half of her face, curving all the way down to her jaw. She paints an arc on the shaved side of her head as well, draws a ring around her throat and covers every inch of her exposed arms with spirals. The paint is thick and greenish-brown; right now it looks like dry mud than anything else, but the moment she casts her first spell, those lines will light up.

In her mind, she can already feel the stinging on her skin as the lyrium powder burns off, bursting into blue flames, making her figure wraithlike, making her that much closer to being one with the Fade, one with the spirit fighting at her side, what she should be. Saar.

She can almost feel the pain, tugging, sharp, not enough to paralyze her but enough to make her see blue instead of red, to feel the path of every single spark of energy passing through her body. The burns will take a few days to heal; that’s why she saves it for special occasions, like this one.

Adina looks in the mirror; her friends’ colors are vibrant and odd against the dark swirls, but they will stay with her when the rest of the vitaar burns away.

She smiles.

[sinkingtime]

Remaking the DCU

I know, i know, everybody and their dog has said something about this. It's not even the oldest piece of writting I have rattling through my head!

Anyways, Justice League should have had zero villains and at least two dozen heroes.

More seriously, my single biggest problem with Justice League was the rebirth of Superman. He stays dead. Actions have consequences. I guess the ideal scenario for this hipothetical alternate history is that some executive a few years later is asked when we're going to see him again, and he goes all serious "what do you mean? he's dead".

So we start with Man Of Steel. That one was ok, actually. Yes, Jonathan Kent's suicide was stupid, and Zod's execution was poorly handled, but neither one actually matters to my purpose today. This one can stay unchanged.

Next is Batman v. Superman. Believe it or not, this one is also mostly good. The biggest problems are the character assasinations of Lex and Batman, and the actual death of Superman; but my whole thing today is to make that death stick so obviously that stays. I'm ok with just quietly dropping Lex from the franchise, and new, eviler Batman actually has some potential going forward.

So, the only important thing is to remove Wonder Woman. More specifically, the party scene stays, that was good. The sequel bait emails can stay, but her old photo needs to have her in regular clothes, not the armored bikini. And that exchange should probably be moved to after the credits, though that's not very important. Most importantly, she's NOT in the final battle. We don't get to see "Wonder Woman" before her movie, is the point.

If the choreography/story requires that Batman and Superman cannot take Doomsday on their own, have Alfred show up with a spare power armor. Though I also feel it should not be so hard to have a satisfying final battle with just the 3 of them. Make Doomsday a little slower and sturdier, so Batman can almost participate; their plan is for Superman to distract him so Batman can backstab him with the kryptonite spear, until it becomes clear that won't work and Superman picks it up. Something like that should work, probably.

That's basically enough for this one, but if i can have a couple minor changes: Remove all of Batman's guns. He can still murder all the henchmen you like, he just has to do it in melee; he's specifically anti-firearms for reasons beyond his being a good person. Also, an off-hand remark between Bruce and Alfred, saying they got the armor(s) from "their underground connections". As foreshadowing for next movie.

Next movie is Justice League? I think, i'm not going to look anything up at this time. Anyways, big superhero events need setup, so I want 3 more movies between Batman the fifth Superman and Justice League.

So next is actually Steel. For those who don't know him, he's basically Iron Man if he was a random employee instead of the CEO. So that's already a hard sell; there's actually a famously bad Steel movie, which I haven't seen so won't say anything more about it. And there's also a very good one, named Iron Man.

On the other hand, Steel was a famous part of the actual Death and Return of Superman comic series, so it's important to get him right here, as a sort of double-bluff. And the fact that he doesn't own the company makes his version of the story more about self-sacrifice and determination compared to Tony Stark's unashamed greatness. Not that I'm saying that's necessarily better, just different enough to justify the movie's existence.

The other problem is that the movie cannot be named "Steel" nor "Man of Steel", since both names are taken. And the guy's name is Irons, probably can't use that without Marvel's lawyers smiling. I don't know, call it something, that's not so impoortant.

The actual movie starts with news footage of the Batman/Superman fight. Our hero, John Henry Irons, recognizes the Supermanbuster Armor as being one of the prototypes he's worked on, even despite the black paintjob. So he does a little digging, realizes his company has been secretly selling to foreign governments and crime syndicates, and even the intended U.S. Army contracts are not as legit as they first seemed. Could get Amanda Waller namedropped here, maybe. Plus some general accounting misbehaviours, unsafe disposal of waste, etc etc.

He tries to speak up but is instead discredited, fired and falsely imprisoned for something minor, but with the implication that they could frame him for worse if he doesn't shut up. Cut to a few months later, he's let out of prison and has the regular "returning-to-society" difficulties. Settles for a crappy job as a youth counselor-type in a very poor neighbourhood.

One day he sees, maybe in the news maybe in person, that some street gangsters in the area have super-advanced weapons of the sort he once worked on. That's what motivates him to do something (again). He breaks into an abandoned hospital/church/something, where his earlier research showed they had secretly buried some old, failed prototypes of the power armor (which he originally had thought had been safely destroyed, as per protocol). He picks up two or three of those, and with them builds himself a single, mildly functional one.

His first move is to strike against those low-level criminals, both to remove them from his area and to steal their superweapons. He also intimidates them for info on how and where they got them. With the weapons, and maybe some maintenance tools they had in their hideout, he's able to improve his armor to actually stand up to bigger threats. This is also when he puts the Superman symbol in the chest, in memoriam.

He also has a giant warhammer, very high tech, that he should build at this point. What exact capabilities it has varies, but in this case i envision the head holding omnidirectional thrusters that he can finely control from inside his glove. Not strong enough for him to actually fly, but he would sort of skate along the ground, being pulled by it. Should be able to get some cool fights and chases out of that setup.

The rest of the movie should be fairly simple. Strike at the company's factories and warehouses, steal what tech he thinks he can use, steal and leak to the public any incriminating info, destroy the rest. All interspersed with scenes of him dealing with those kids, trying to steer them to the right path, helping them deal with their thematically appropriate problems. He's not particularly respected, but none of them hate him or anything.

Standard movie logic would dictate the grand finale is the CEO grabbing a suit of experimental power armor to take the fight to Steel, so I'm going to say "not that". Instead, he's been sending assassins at him, probably since shortly after the first attack on company holdings. At first it's just regular gunmen, who are basically nothing to the armor. Then hitmen with the company's high-tech weapons. Eventually a few guys with actual superpowers. Just 3 to 5 relatively minor bad guys, that we'd be confortable introducing with no more backstory than "does violence for money".

Those Steel doesn't actually defeat; he does some damage but mostly narrowly escapes a few times, and ultimately they stop chasing him when it becomes clear the rich guy is no longer rich enough. He's lost everything, Steel wins, though he does have that awareness that there's bigger threats out there that he probably should tackle and probably cannot.

The actual ending is some of those kids showing up to the school/community centre/whatever with Superman symbols (poorly) drawn on their shirts. He says he also misses him, but they tell him that no, it's about this new guy who's been fighting to make things better. They start bickering about theories, it's a woman under the armor, that's clearly a robot, etc etc; he finishes the movie satisfied that he is in fact inspiring the people.

Could also have an after credits scene, news saying Wayne Enterprises is buying out whatever is left of value of this company "just as they did LexCorp last year". Not really necessary though.

Next is Wonder Woman. That one is also good, really. Obviously I agree with everyone else online that the final fight with Ares shouldn't have been, but it doesn't actually matter to my "better Justice League" agenda, so let's let it be.

In the spirit of "one small change", let's just say she shouldn't have her lasso. Ares claims to be the god of Truth, she famously wields the Lasso of Truth, it seems obvious she should get it from him. Either pick it up from his corpse afterwards, or hijack it mid-fight to use against him, like in Shang-Chi. This does require rewriting all the movie so she didn't have it, but I don't think it changes any plot, just the battle choreographies.

The last movie before Justice League has a very important purpose: whatever happens needs to be extremely public and very dramatic. It's what finally convinces Bruce Wayne he needs to stop stalling and found the League already. Could have an after-credits scene to that effect.

One other thing I'd like to use this spot for is having a villain as a hero. Not "reformed" or "anti-"; nothing in the text or subtext to tell us he was ever anything but a Perfect Paragon of Justice, but we recognize the name and powerset as belonging to a villain. The obvious choices are Poison Ivy and/or Mr. Freeze, but that's a little too obvious. Sinestro could work, using the power of the Yellow Lantern for good and also to keep it from those who wouldn't; but the franchise wouldn't be ready for a space-based character like that. One of the more monstrous guys could also be fun, Clayface or King Shark. Maybe Metallo, now that kryptonite exists but won't be useful otherwise.

The other other thing I'd like to introduce at this point is magic. And yeah, Wonder Woman is a little magical, but not really. She's just another implausibly attractive alien. I'm talking spell words, secret knowledge, magic items and places and times, etc. Zatanna or Constantine, someone like that.

So obviously my answer is "all of the above", and my choice is Jinx, from the Teen Titans cartoon. Who I guess does become good in the end, but whatever. In this version she has the innate power of "bad luck", meaning things go wrong for her and those around her, in normal ways but with greater frecuency than normal; and she learned sorcery to contain and suppress that, but also can use it to fuel her magic.

We further go ahead and establish that "nobody can draw power from two sources", as a general rule for magic going forward. It's important to have rules to make magic seem logical, and this is a restriction I haven't really seen used that I think has narrative potential. Important to this movie, since Jinx has the bad luck reservoir innate to herself, she can't ever forsake it and seek another, by whatever means other magicians would normally use.

This, combined with the fact that it's in the nature of her power for things to go wrong, lets us make her the perfect introduction: she can have immense magical knowledge and skill, basically arbitrarily high, but still be limited in what she can actually do. All the exposition we could need in the future, but she doesn't automatically trivialize things. And in an emergency she can always decide to give it a try, draw a lot of power and attempt a huge, powerful spell; which may or may not work, depending mostly on how much movie there is left.

For her civilian life, she's a small business owner, something that helps with that "great store of arcane knowledge" bit. Bookshop, antiques, something like that. She'd have one employee, who isn't in the know but she's friendly with, to be the core of her supporting cast. I'm thinking maybe single parent plus adorably precocious child.

Anyways, for the actual plot: we start with her cleaning some graffitti off her shop, when she notices that part of it is a mystical symbol. She either knows this or rushes to the secret room to consult her notes, but either way confirms it: someone is trying to extend their influence over her land. Actually all the city, now that she knows to look for it she sees the symbol all over the place.

For the record, her city is Green Lantern's city, which was canonically destroyed during Reign of the Supermen. We're not doing Reign, but Superman is dead, should be able to make a few people nervous about that.

She does some more research, maybe has a cop friend, maybe she beats up some small gangsters, something. She learns there's a new group muscling in on local crime. They have some huge and savage war dogs, they are weirdly strict about how their mark needs to be drawn on places, they have had the guys steal some weird stuff, and nobody really knows exactly why the usual crime lords have not moved against them, but as far as anyone can tell they're just gangsters. Maybe a weird cult, at worst.

Obviously she knows it's worse than that, does some more research, being careful since they may be here to look for her specifically. She uncovers traces of summoning, the weird dogs are obviously hellhounds, so it seems the big plan is to summon some powerful demon lord. Maybe Darkseid, maybe Trigon, it doesn't matter since it's a misdirect: the actual plan is to teleport the entire city into a barren hell-dimension, where they figure they'll be able to enslave all the people and live like kings, once it's cut off from the larger world. They're mostly collecting the summoning tools so nobody can use them against them.

She also does have a run-in with some mages of their inner circle, whom she has to use obvious magic to escape, so that's when they learn there's another mage in town and start looking for her. They start the final ritual a little ahead of schedule, so she rushes to stop them, but she hasn't learned the twist so she's been preparing anti-summoning talismans and whatnot. She isn't ready to stop a teleport, the cult's leader is mocking her for that, so as a last resort she unleashes her power on the spell, hoping to mess it up.

The teleport still picks up the city but fails to leave the world, bounces it around and eventually drops it in the other side of the planet. I'd like that to be Spain or Italy, but I guess it would end up being China, for marketing reasons. Could also get a cool sequence out of that teleport bouncing all over the place, like in Doctor Strange but from the perspective of the entire city.

The ending is the cult, enraged, trying to kill her, but they're really no match for her now that she's not holding back. She lets her power spread out, so all the attacks end up hitting random people. That still means she takes some hits, but since it's a crowd against one, the chaos is to her advantage. At the end she destroys their magic source, which for this case I'm going to say they had a statue or staff or something that was the core of their entire group. This lets her definitely render them non-threatening without having to kill anyone, and without having to establish she could depower people at will; it's just these particular fools who were depending on an easily-destroyable power source.

For the final shot, she's at the edge of the city, with some other people including her friend/employee. They meet some people from the newly neighbouring city, who also came to investigate. Camera cuts as many of them are about to say something.

As I said, the after credits is Bruce reading reports or talking to some employee. His Foundation is basically picking up the entire project of building a new city to repatriate the people displaced; his team of lawyers and accountants have been sticking the bills to as many organizations or government divisions as they can, but it's still a huge expense for them. Also, all the world's governments are panicking about who did it and why and what will come next. So he finally decides to get that Justice League started, and calls Diana.

Is that too much? My end credits scenes keep getting longer. Maybe we can consolidate that, he reads most of the exposition in the newspaper, then tells his assistant (offscreen, via intercomm) to get him in touch with "Ms. Prince, at the Smithsonian, urgently". Or she's the one reading the news, then someone tells her Bruce Wayne himself is asking to meet her, he's waiting in meeting room 3, and her answer is "well, it's about time". Something like that could work, I guess.

So, finally, Justice League. The basic point of this entire wall of text is that they shouldn't revive Superman. Shouldn't even consider reviving him, except for maybe a few easter eggs to make us think that's where the movie is going, though it's probably also too late for those. I'm also generally dissatisfied with all of the other things Justice League did, though. It's cliché to say it, but it was trying to be Avengers and had no real way of pulling it off.

So instead I want to skip all the way to Justice League Unlimited, basically. This movie is a workplace drama/comedy, but the workers are superheroes. They still fight some crime and help with natural disasters and whatnot, but almost offscreen. Mostly they talk about it, and we see brief snippets, possibly still frames. The core of the movie is in the interactions between the large cast, setting up lots of friendships and rivalries for future movies; and the wrangling of all the egos involved to make it an actual team. It starts hopeful, then looks like they'll break away, then something brings them together and gives them hope this can actually work, the end.

I also kinda want it to be a musical. A legit one: the music isn't integrated with the narrative in any way, it's a part of the medium, like subtitles. Since there will be way more characters than we can actually develop, this is both a way to help shore that up and the perfect opportunity for the random music episode. But since I cannot and will not write any music, there isn't much to say about it. Please imagine that it is good, thank you. Let's talk about that alleged huge cast.

Wonder Woman is in, obviously. She's the public face of the League and the main recruiter. Batman is not a member. As far as the people are concerned, he's a maniacal murderer who has not been seen for months. They do know that Bruce Wayne is secretly their mysterious sponsor, though all members understand they're not supposed to talk about that.

She's actually sad about that, having become friendly with the man, and at some point I want her to ask the other members "what about this 'bat man' i hear about?", possibly while they're having lunch. The others automatically assume she means "when are we taking him down?" and begin speculating about that instead. Some think he's dead, some think he retired, a few think the Director is waiting for them to prove themselves a little more before deploying them in his hometown, someone suggests he already had the bat assassinated, whatever else we can think of. Diana, and therefore the scene, starts tuning them out.

When she reports that to Bruce, he tells her that it's ok, actually. He understands that the name of "Batman" is forever tainted, and it's well deserved. He could make up a new persona and go punch crime, and maybe he will someday, but for now he thinks he can do more good behind the scenes like this.

We also have both Steel and Jinx, of course. She may help recruit someone from the country her city ended in, if there's any interesting super over there. Which is to say, the target country should really have been chosen with that in mind; I just didn't feel like looking anyone up right now. No Research, Only Memory!

They also get both Flash and Cyborg, but can't find Aquaman. He also doesn't get to have action until his movie. Diana thinks she can contact him, but doesn't mention it; atlanteans and amazons have long kept each other's secrets. She's wrong, this particular atlantean has no contact with that civilization, but we don't actually learn that in this movie.

I also want them to have the Wonder Twins. The restriction in their power is kinda interesting, actually. Not much specific to say about them, sorry.

They also get Chole Sullivan, originally from Smallvile. In this version she's one of Wayne Enterprises' accountants or managers or something, whose psychological profile told Bruce she could probably be trusted with logistics for this secret project. She mostly mans the central communications, so when a member calls she responds with "Watchtower here", meaning the headquarters and whoever may pick up; but since she's the only one doing so the others start treating it as her codename.

She's also Lois Lane's cousin, so I find it funny if she returns in a very minor role, as part of Chloe's supporting cast; neither knows that the other knew Clark Kent (and Chloe doesn't know he was Superman), so it should be funny for us that they never even come close to noticing they have that in common.

Also, she should have the extremely minor healing powers she had in a late season. In that case it was illegal kryptonite research, but it doesn't have to be. I'm operating on the assumption that there's lots of people with random unexplained powers, anyways.

Speaking of minor powers, here's an original character: a girl who can fly, reasonably fast, but is very weak. Normal human strength, and her flight capability is like a third of that. She's been studying to be a paramedic since even if she can't move people, she still can reach them, and so hopes to help in that way. She's very excited to join the team and do good along all these people, but a little intimidated that everyone seems more super than her. I'm thinking of calling her Streak or Stripe, but haven't actually checked if those names are taken. My guess is "probably".

I also want another traditional villain. Let's say King Shark, for real this time. He's scary, maybe a little rude, but definitely a good person.

I also really like Static Shock, but I actually like his origin story enough that he should get a movie, so he's not in this one. Could still be foreshadowed, in a list of people they're thinking of approaching. That does mean his movie is another minor rewind, but that's probably ok.

Definitely get Nightwing. I know he's canonically the Robin whose death turned Batman into Punisher, but I'm pretty sure that was never said in the actual movie. And if you're going to have a dead Robin it should be Jason Todd; it's in the name and everything. So yeah, he's in. He knew Batman before so he and Diana could have an interesting conversation about that.

Add Stargirl, from the HBO show. She has a staff that can fly and shoot energy beams, and is clearly intelligent but doesn't really communicate. She's also a trained gymnast, constantly bouncing about on that thing and nearby walls and stuff. All of that is good, makes for good opportunities for interesting choreographies. I would make the staff explicitly magical, so she could hypothetically learn spells and draw on its light to fuel them. She's also been trying to teach the staff morse code.

The woman that would become Livewire joins, but doesn't have any powers. She's in charge of actual public outreach for the group, Diana may be the face they put in posters but doesn't do speeches. She probably gets that radio/tv/whatever program but League-sponsored. May or may not turn evil later, for the purposes of this movie she's just an easter egg.

Martian Manhunter joins secretly, as part of the regular janitorial staff. Nobody knows he has any powers. He's considering if he should come out and volunteer for action, but for now he's just observing them.

And we need at least a couple refusals. Let's say Captain Cold, who is content with his life of minor crime and not willing to get in the kind of fights these guys seem to be gearing up to; and Raven, who senses Jinx's innate powers and wants nothing to do with any group that would take her in.

Round that up with a bunch more minor supers, some originals, some very obscure, and I think we have a decent movie. Logically this is where I should stop, but I'm going to keep going up to Joker, which is where DC seems to have given up in having a wide interconnected continuity. Which for the record is ABSOLUTELY the right choice, they should have done that long before, but for the purposes of this exercise I need more continuity, not less.

So two more things on Justice League. They will have the Watchtower, as in the space station. Probably not this movie, but we should leave with the impression that it's definitely going to happen. Construction is underway, or at least already approved. Chloe knows about that project, which is why she started using that callsign; she was thinking eventually it will be true that that's where you call when you use the League's comms.

And then we need an after credits scene, of course. This may need to be cut into little snippets fading to black into each other, both because it's long and because it would get reprised in the actual movie.

We open in space, with a wide view of the Earth, heavily damaged. Maybe a single giant crater, like in Adventure Time; maybe it's torn to shreds, like in Agents of Shield. The camera pans over to the moon, covered in dome cities, most of them in ruins, like the future in Chrono Trigger. Inside one of them, in what seems like a futuristic military base, a woman is getting dressed in a dark blue one-piece outfit. Her back is to us, because obviously, but also to hide the Superman logo on the chest. Spoilers, by the way.

She goes to a room where a bunch of scientists and high-ranking millitary are milling about, clearly waiting for her. She should float, not walk, her feet never touch the ground. I don't think we should actually see those feet in this scene, but it should still be clear from her movement that she's just gliding. Maybe some technician walks with her a bit, for contrast.

She assumes position at the center of the room, one knee down, hugging the other, in a small platform surrounded by pokey bits. That position should allow us to look at her face without seeing the logo, so the camera should do that. The highest ranking officer addresses her, thanking her for her part in this momentuous occasion, etc; she responds with something about it being an honour. It's clearly a practiced speech for both, probably long standing tradition.

They're both addressed only by their ranks, no names. I don't know enough about millitary hierarchy to tell you what she should be; she's clearly respected, but doesn't have anyone under her command. Lieutenant? Major? I don't know.

After the pleasantries, they turn on the machine, a bunch of special effects happen and everything dissapears except fo her. She's now kneeling in the moon, which is completely empty as in reality. She stands and looks up and to the side, and smiles. This is when we finally get a full view of her costume. The camera moves a bit low and to the side, to show us Earth, which is not destroyed. She flies off towards it, disappearing in the distance. The end.

This was Matrix Supergirl. Kind of. In the comics she was a bunch of nanobots so could shapeshift into any body she liked; this version will be a human given powers by future super-science, so doesn't have that particular power. I also think she was from an artificial pocket universe, not a bad future, but don't quote me on that. Anyways, she'll be back later, enough Justice League.

I think next was Suicide Squad, right? That's stupid, let's push it far into the future.

Next will actually be Static Shock. He's a high school or college student that got involved with a gang once, and had the misfortune of getting dowsed in chemicals that gave several of them various superpowers. He specifically gets control over electricity, and can float metal objects to surf through the air.

I actually would change that. He's a member of an activist group instead, it was a peaceful protest that got unfairly suppressed by the police. Should probably be protesting something fictional, related to a previous movie, but it could also be something stolen from real-life news. Also, it's not just them that got powers: a few protesters, some bystanders, and at least one cop.

Most of them go variously evil, at least a couple try to ignore it and keep to their normal lives, and of course our hero takes it upon himself to get the others in check. The cop also allegedly becomes a vigilante, but he's clearly doing the overzealous brutality thing. He gives Static the old "we're not so different, you and I" speech, and is ultimately the one he must defeat to complete the story.

At the end of the story, maybe after the credits, I'd like one of the guys who tried to stay neutral to be inspired by Static and decide to take up heroism. I'd further like that to be Poison Ivy, in this case just called Ivy I guess; but I'm not sure it's worth changing her origin like that. She's usually a genius scientist who gave herself her own powers, it's kind of a disservice to remove that. But also DC has too many supergeniuses, so maybe it'd be ok? Not sure actually.

Next is either Wonder Woman 2 or Aquaman, I don't really remember but I also already broke the canonical order, so Aquaman it is. This is another movie that was basically ok, the only strictly necessary change is to remove the scenes at the start where people know him and love him, since this is his first adventure.

Besides that, I really liked the idea that they thought the magic trident would give its wielder control over the creatures of the sea, when it turns out that control is a requirement instead. Except I don't actually know if that was intended or it's me reading too much. So I would like to make it canon: in the final fight against Discount Killmonger, they are surrounded by various sea monsters, clearly formally witnessing the duel. At some point he actually gets the trident from Arthur, poses dramatically with it and orders them to devour him. Their only reaction is to look from him to Arthur, who tells them he's ok, don't worry, as he struggles to stand up; and every creature backs away a little and relaxes visibly. That's when the bad guy understands why and how he will never be worthy, and he flies into a rage, resumes the attack, back to the normal movie.

Next is Wonder Woman 2. Kind of. If it's going to be a prequel again, it could really have gone at any point after the first Wonder Woman. So I have arbitrarily put it here.

Wonder Woman 1984 was a mess. Famously so. For my purposes, there were 3 ideas that went into it: the wishing stone, the cat-themed frenemy, and the undead boyfriend. Any one of them could have been good. Any two of them may have been good. All three, well it didn't work. So, gotta pick.

The wishes thing is the most interesting, from an analyst perspective. The way a "be careful what you wish for" story works is that it teaches the hero a valuable lesson about the "wants vs needs" thing. And the main reason we like them is the joy of outwitting the jackass genie, either watching the hero do it or imagining we would do better. Wonder Woman Big Brother didn't do either because it wasn't really a wish storyline. It started pretending to be, but it was actually about a guy gaining omnipotence, with a weird quirk to it. And the really interesting thing is that you can't fix that without making it more clichéd.

I'm serious, I'm torn about this one. I WANT to say it's a good thing that they tried something original, even if it didn't quite work out. But on the other hand this movie feels like an object lesson for why "subverting expectations" shouldn't be your sole guiding principle. All I can say for certain is that I don't have a good twist for this one, so moving on.

Cheetah is easier to fix. She's still a coworker at the museum, who both admires and resents Diana, gets her hands on magic, starts trying to impress her, ends up trying to kill her. The only difference is instead of a wishing stone, she found the Sword of Omens.

Zombie Trevor is a little harder, in that we need some excuse for why he's back as a ghost, ideally related to one or more previous movies. If that is sorted, though, his actual plot is easier. They are both horrified by it, certainly don't sleep together at that point, instead they go looking for a way to undo the magic. Only she wants to find a way for him to still be back to life afterwards, while he's more willing to go already, and just give this poor dude his body back.

So I want both actually. But the ghost thing is actually better later, as a team movie. For this part of the release schedule, I pick the cat. The movie's name is Wonder Women. Surely that won't be confusing for anyone.

I'm also going to play the "first gay character ever!" card. Barbara is explicitly romantically interested in Diana, also very closeted (this is still in the eighties) and quite unhappy about it. Also, Diana hasn't been celibate all this time; in fact the movie opens with her having just broken up with her boyfriend. The other girls are trying to get her to gossip, but she's too good hearted to badmouth him. All she says is "it wasn't meant to be".

His name MAY be "Maxwell Lord", but probably not. Just some nobody we never hear from. All that matters is that she's now available; Barbara can't help but feel some hope, but she squashes it down, telling herself "it's not meant to be". This is what stresses her, eventually leading her to mess with the artifacts in her care, and accidentally finding the one that gives her cat-themed magic. Nothing big at this point, maybe it sharpens her senses. She freaks out, puts it back, and runs.

On the other side of the cast, Diana also hasn't been a pacifist all this time. She doesn't use the bikini armor, she goes out to fight crime in men's clothes and a mask. Should probably read all of her publication history to find the most masculine-sounding alias she's had, and make that what the people in this era call her.

Anyways, the next day Barbara gets into some problem, either crime or an accident of some sort. Diana-in-disguise saves her, but she recognizes her. They have a talk afterwards, where she promises to keep the secret, and Diana thanks her, telling her she's "a good friend". She smiles of course, but also almost cries. Please imagine Bart Simpson going through this scene frame-by-frame.

Afterwards, some of their friends at the offce (museum, whatever) comment that the two of them seem to be closer lately. Barbara panics and starts trying to deny everything, then Diana says they were both at the <EVENT>, where <CODENAME PENDING> saved them both. They turn to gossip about that, somebody asks if he's handsome and Barbara sighs and says "like a dream come true". Somebody remarks that they'd never seen her like that before, so she starts panicking again; Diana intercedes again, saying she had hoped he would be taller. They all laugh, "I bet you ALWAYS say that!", but finally change the subject, so Barbara can finally relax.

She does spend the rest of the day daydreaming about Wonder Man The Manliest Man Who Ever Manned. At the end of their shift, she finally decides to steal the amulet to see what's up with it. It increases her senses, balance and helps her jump a lot. She also may be stronger than before, but not superhmanly yet. No physical changes yet. She decides to also steal some body-concealing clothes and a mask, and go find Diana.

She finds her fighting some thugs. Nothing she couldn't handle easily, but she's still interested when this mysterious new kid joins in to help. They finish the fight, climb atop some building to talk (Barbara is surprised how easily her hands hold her weight), and she immediately unmasks and explains everything. Diana dissaproves of the theft, but is actually excited about having a partner, so she agrees to fight crime together.

Few months pass, the two are becoming closer friends, their coworkers all agree both seem happier than they'd been "in a good while". They also speculate about the mysterious hero's new mysterious ally. Student? Brother? "Maybe lovers?" "Bill, don't be gross".

Barbara is actually considering coming out to Diana, even if she knows she'd be rejected; but she remembers how she felt when she had to reject her best friend, and decides not to put her in that position.

She also starts having physical side-effects while wearing the amulet, though: her nails and teeth sharpen a little, her eyes start getting a little odd. Diana suggest she should maybe take a break, or they should try and research the amulet, but she refuses.

Eventually her superheroing starts getting a little more cruel than Diana would like. They argue about it, but both agree it's not that bad, she's new to this, she will do her best to control herself. It will be fine.

Until the day she tries to strangle a thief that's clearly trying to surrender. Diana fights her to save him, she's still far stronger at this point, and drags her off to talk.

At this point she notices there's more changes under the mask. She still looks human, but her skin has cheetah-like patterns, and her ears are already changed. She tells her this can't go on, that she has to give back the pendant. Barbara agrees, takes it off and de-transforms, then breaks down crying. They go together to store it in the museum, hidden inside another artifact that they expect shouldn't be moved much.

That night, as Barbara is sleeping at home, there is some sudden noise. Traffic or something. She wakes up and instantly jumps far away, ends up hanging from something. Let's say her roof has exposed beams. Once she calms down and realizes she's still hanging by her hands, she calmly readjusts her weight and lets go, easily landing on her feet.

After a bit of pretending to be normal again, she takes up the mask and goes out to patrol alone. Diana is disappointed and worried, so she confronts her, but she tries to brush her off. She grapples her and tries to take off the amulet, but it's not where she usually kept it. I guess I should establish what exactly that is, no? Let's say a green gem, cut in the shape of a cat's eye, in a golden pin. She usually put it in her sleeve, on the inside. So this frisking is a little intimate, but not too much.

So she asks what she's done with it, Barbara replies that she doesn't need it anymore. They fight some more. Eventually Diana binds her in the lasso to force her to tell her the truth, and she repeats. "It's where we left it. I don't need it anymore". Diana softly asks "why?", thinking about the amulet and wondering for what reason it works like that, but Barbara goes on a rant about how it's all so easy for her, she doesn't know what it's like to be anything but perfect, and then Diana apologizes and withdraws the lasso.

After a moment of awkward silence, she decides to keep going. She never had to hide what she is, to know she doesn't belong among people, that she lives in defiance of nature, and so on and so forth. All her metaphors should be carefully chosen so they could apply to Diana's amazonian/divine heritage, so she's absolutely confused. Until Barbara runs out of euphemisms and screams "you have never been in love with another woman!", and then everything suddenly makes sense.

Next she's clearly trying to say "in love with you", but can't, so she finally shuts up. In the silence, Diana says, very calmly, very matter-of-fact, "no, I have. It's really all the same to me". Because of course Wonder Woman is bi, how dare you ever think otherwise.

Cheetah screams and punches her, transforming mid-punch to be more catlike than ever before, so she's actually strong enough to send her flying and to the ground. Then we cut to the museum, where the thing they put the brooch in starts shaking, then explodes, the brooch flying away. It flies all the way to the fight, hits her in the face and also drops her to the ground, so Diana quickly gets up to investigate.

She sees the amulet has replaced one of her eyes, and whispers that they have to find a way to get it off her. Cheetah wakes up, says "no. Never again" and starts attacking. She's stronger, but Wonder Woman is faster, so she mostly has the advantage. Except she doesn't actually try to get away, just dodges and tries to talk her down, so eventually she catches her and begins strangling her. After struggling a bit, trying to get her off in vain, she summons a huge bolt of lightning to strike her down.

Because she can do that. This character is kind of ridiculous, actually.

Cheetah lets go and falls to her knees, breathing hard, stunned by disbelief and also electricity. Wonder Woman recovers her breath first, and asks her to please give up, let her find a way to help her. Instead she gets up and gets her hands around her neck again, very ineffectually at first, but slowly regaining her strength. Diana doesn't even raise her hands this time, just looks at her sadly. As she starts having trouble breathing again, she whispers "please", to which the answer is "never". Lightning strikes again, and at the same time she reaches and pulls out the brooch with her hand. Barbara falls over, dead, and she picks her up and brings her to the sea or forest or desert (I don't know what's closest to where they live) to bury her. The end.

After the credits, Wonder Woman is leaning against a handrail, staring out a large window. A random superhero, someone we haven't met yet, approaches to ask her what's up. She has the brooch in her hand, and just says she's thinking about an old friend. "Today would have been her birthday". He smiles, then looks confused and asks her "how can you tell, up here?", and the camera pans out, to show us they are in the finished Watchtower Station.

Next is Task Force X. They can still do the "some sorta suicide squad?" joke, but the movie should have the better name.

A lot is wrong with Suicide Squad, but mostly in execution; and I can't just say "edit things competently". I mean, I can and will, certainly the idea is there isn't a remake because the first one was good. But I also have a specific criticism: they need an antagonist that is not a direct consequence of their existence. "Villain of your own making" is good when it gives the protagonist an important lesson to learn, or tragically fail to; but in this case the only one that could receive it is Amanda Waller, and she's not that important. She's an inciting incident with delusions of recurrence, really.

So instead the team is assembled against Atlantis. After their existence was made public during Aquaman, most nations sent diplomats. A few of them have been taken prisoner, it is the team's mission to recover them without letting the public at large learn that anything happened. Secretly, the diplomats actually have gone rogue, requesting and receiving asylum in exchange for various secrets, the actual mission is to prevent that. They still hope to extract them alive, but the secret orders strongly imply that it's a secondary consideration. And extra-secretly, Waller and whatever superiors she actually serves hope they can steal advanced atlantean tech, at least one member has extra-secret orders to do that. That should be enough to get a decent heist/spy movie out of this.

The roster needs to be diferent, of course, mostly on account of a majority of the action being underwater, but also because it wasn't that good. They all have advanced breather masks, by the way; Atlantis already gifted that technology to the world.

Harley Quinn really has no business being chosen for this. And Joker certainly won't appear. I have bigger plans for these two. Kind of.

Deadshot is probably also off the team. Maybe keep him as the one that dies early. Maybe.

Boomerang is in; his throws don't work right under water, so he spends the movie practicing and figuring that out, then at the end actually manages it.

The expendable soldiers have no place here, this is a covert mission. They get ONE army liason/handler, and I guess his name may as well be "Rick Flagg", but he's not a loveable decent guy in over his head. He's a cruel and reckless leader, in trouble for multiple disciplinary actions, and this mission is pretty much his last chance to prove his worth and stay on the army. Definitely knew the secret mission from the start, may be the one with the double secret orders.

Killer Croc would have too easy a time underwater, but maybe that's specifically why they picked him. Keep him if there's good stuff for him to do that doesn't entirely render the rest of the team pointless; if that balance cannot be found, replace him with Solomon Grundy.

Diablo, maybe? I like the idea that he constantly complains he's useless for this mission, but since it would be true, it's kinda stupid that they deployed him. Could go either way.

And I want to use this movie to do the reverse of Jinx: a well known hero, who in this continuity is and always has been a villain. I like Beast Boy for this, but he probably is too useful to the mission, like Croc but more so. So instead let's say Hawkman. Just like Boomerang, he has trouble flying underwater, but eventually figures it out.

For callbacks, add Captain Cold, one of the superpowered assassins from Steel, and the ex-cop from Static Shock. At least one of them should try to abandon the team and seek refuge from Atlantis, then be killed for it. I nominate Cold on the grounds that he's the only one I have any empathy for, though obviously if these were real movies the others would also have been settled and developed by now.

Round things out with 2-3 obscure or original characters, and that's it. They infiltrate Atlantis secretly, skulk about, interacting mostly with each other. Some good action, some inevitable betrayals, about half of the team makes it out alive. Should be fun.

Next comes Supergirl. It's a bit of a misdirect. Certainly, she's here to change the past and avert the terrible future she came from. Which she does easily; between the intel she was given for the mission and the might of the League, they get that sorted out within the first twenty minutes of the movie. I'd like if either the threat or the solution can tie in to some future character's origin story, but it's not really necessary.

What matters is, after they win, she stands around stoically, clearly waiting for something to happen. When one of the others asks her what's up now, she panics and runs to double-check things, but all is well. It will be impossible for the future to turn out how she knew. And she doesn't understand why she still exists.

That's the actual point of the movie. She thought she was signing up for a suicide mission, she had made her peace with that, and now suddenly she has a life ahead of her, in an extremely strange world. So she'll need to adapt and figure out herself, with the help of a handful League members that felt closest to her during that initial mission.

Probably not Wonder Woman. I feel she's being overused.

Probably yes Chloe. Just because I like her.

Definitely Nightwing. He's the nicest person in this universe, would both be inclined to help her and good at it. Also, he'll be important later.

Probably Steel or Cyborg, either could be interested in the future. She wasn't a scientist, but probably still can help them with some stuff that's common knowledge.

Probably King Shark, could be funny if those two end up becoming friends.

Should probably add at least one more woman, so let's say my original flying paramedic. They can fly together.

Since the movie is all personal self-discovery, I don't have much in the way of plot specifics. She starts kinda numb and detached, they drag her all over the world to experience different things, eventually she starts seeming content and like she'll be ok. The end. So, in no particular order:

She does some superheroing, of course. Just a few things, but public enough that the media starts calling her Supergirl. Someone, but not her, complains that it "very clearly" should be Superwoman. She doesn't care either way. For the record I agree, it's kind of a bad name, but it's far too well known to not use it.

Her hair is not super. Some villain manages to cut off a bit of it, laughs, then shatters his sword against her face. After beating him they drag her off to "get that fixed". She assumes they mean they'll artificially accelerate the regrowth, but it's just cutting the rest of it to match. Afterwards she says she could have just done that herself.

She doesn't have a name. Insists in being called by her rank. Eventually Bruce presses her for more info, in his position as the League's Director, and she snaps into attention, rattles off some numbers and letters (in the alpha-bravo-charlie system), and specifies that she's a Sargeant (or whatever her rank actually ends up) of "the Legion". Turns out they don't have names in the future; they have serials, for official functions, but those aren't meant to be human-readable. For everyday life, they use pronouns and whatever titles may have been earned. Should make her serial be a reference. Author names or comics issues, something like that.

(The Legion of Superheroes is a team from the year three thousand and change, who are capable of time travelling trivially and use it to hang out with Superboy or, if he never existed, Superman. A version of Supergirl is sometimes a full member despite also existing mostly exclusively in the present, though I seriously doubt it's this version. Basically none of that is true for this movie, the name is just an easter egg; but since she's explicitly from a Bad Future, we retain the possibility of a more canon-compliant Legion in the Better Future.)

For the same reason, she treats all names as titles, gramatically. When talking to someone it's normal, "what do you think, Chloe?", but when talking about someone it becomes "the Chloe said..."

They visit Atlantis. She's seen bits of it before, but "never imagined it used to be so beautiful. Or so wet".

Somebody suggests she should visit Superman's grave, and she agrees, then everybody is surprised when she leads them to Kansas. That's common knowledge in her time, she didn't know it wasn't for them. If Chloe is here, she specifically should freak out about that. Maybe she wonders about "that time our bus almost fell into the river".

At the graveyard they meet Martha Kent, who recognizes her despite them already having gotten her into civilian clothes by this point. She apologizes for hijacking her son's symbol, her superiors insisted; and they exchange a heartwarming talk about his legacy. She also calls her "Mrs. El". The future doesn't remember everything perfectly.

They go eat lots of different foods. If King Shark is here, one of the dishes is shark-based, so she looks to him nervously. He tells her to go for it, it is delicious, and she just says that "shark culture is weird" before having a bite. They probably explain that to her off-camera.

They keep getting mildly annoyed that she just tells everyone she's from the future, uses names and codenames exchangeably, and in general doesn't seem to care about secrecy. If King Shark is here, who couldn't hide if he wanted, he finds her honesty refreshing. That's probably my best idea for why those two bond.

Nightwing gets a call, apologizes and goes away from them to answer. He returns to explain it was his girlfriend, they had a date, but obviously he had to reschedule for this. Somebody suggests they all go see her, he says she doesn't know anything about his work, and doesn't want any of them outing him. Supergirl says it's ok, she can act normal, and he just looks at her, then down. The camera follows him, to show us her feet, floating a few centimetres in the air. "Have you EVER touched the ground?" "Of course not, it's dirty".

Speaking of her feet, she really does float all the time. She can float in her sleep. It's her favourite part of the augmentation. I don't want to do any actual casting, but I'd like her to be a somewhat shorter actress, so it can be clear she's usually floating up to be eye-level with the others. Not intentionally, but as she speaks with someone she slowly slides into position. If it's someone shorter, she rotates without bending, to still not touch the ground. I imagine if two people of noticeably different heights were having an argument in her presence, she'd end up softly vibrating halfway between their levels.

Turns out they have basketball in the future. They double-check with her that all the rules are the same, then bring her to play, but the first time she bounces the ball down it splatters against the ground and tears to shreds. So, turns out they have super-basketball in the future. She apologizes and says she'll wait for them to invent reinforced balls.

The final scene, which I guess means this was in a slightly particular order, is her having been set up with a department, via the Wayne Foundation, for her to have a civilian life. It's in the city where Supergirl normally lives, not Matrix, but Kara Zor-El. As the moving company is getting furniture and stuff in, her neighbour comes to say hi. He introduces himself, I don't know the name but someone from Kara's normal supporting cast, and she shakes his hand and says "Hi, I'm...", then trails off. The camera focuses on her face, looks like she's trying to think of a fake name, but then she shrugs and says "I'm the Supergirl". The end.

After credits, Dick Grayson is getting ready for that date with his girlfriend. She's a perfectly normal human, named "Star". They head off to what seems like it'll be a lovely evening.

Next is Shazam. This is another fantastic movie, literally the only change it needs is that Superman cannot show up after the credits. What with being dead and all.

So instead, Shazam is waiting alone on a rooftop, clearly barely able to contain his excitement. A bunch of superheroes teleport in from the Station, here to recruit him. As they start the round of introductions, Jinx looks at him, her eyes glowing with magic, and she says "wait, how old are you?". He stutters for a second, then flies away at superspeed.

Next is Jokerz. That's a gang of hooligans that wear clown makeup, do small crimes. Originally from Batman Beyond, they only knew Joker from old history. In this version they formed shortly after Batman killed him, the day after he killed Robin. See, that's why I'm basically ok with his characterization in BvS. It's a terrible introduction for the character, but it makes a pretty good ending.

Also, I don't know exactly when Robin died, or if it was even explicitly established. For my version of the franchise, anything between five and twenty years before Batman v Superman would work; mostly it affects the required age range for various actors. I'm going to go ahead and officially say 12.

Anyways, Harley Quinn has finally been let out of Arkham, where she turned herself in after she succesfully captured Batman, but he convinced her Joker would never have wanted him dead.

She does her best to reintegrate into society. Lands a job at a beauty parlor, she's good with makeup. And costumes.

She gets a very small appartment, where she's friendly with the other tenants. We see her at night, trying to sleep, but she can't. After a while she gets off the bed and to the ground, then falls asleep.

One day, a bunch of Jokerz come into the shop, scare away the other customers and get on the chairs, demanding they "freshen us up". All the other employees are frozen with fear, but the youngest guy approaches them, then Harley, then some of the others. They just clean their faces, then paint them back.

One of them gives what seems to be the owner a big wad of bills. She whispers that it's too much, so he says "oh, ok", throws a chair through the window, then looks back to her. She nods frantically and all the clowns leave, laughing. After they're gone, Harley falls to her knees, crying and hyperventilating. The others move in to try to help her.

Meanwhile, at their hideout, the specific clown she worked on is admiring her makeup very carefully. She digs through a collection of old newspaper clippings they have, for a photo of the original Joker. He looked just like her. They all pass that paper around, as she climbs on a table and starts doing poses. She's the one that would become Punchline, if I had anything for her to do after this movie. Still gonna call her that. Maybe her original face paint looked like that.

So they start following Harley, asking her to join up and "be their Queen". Wherever she goes, there's clowns making a nuisance. Eventually she's fired from the salon, and the next day it's mysteriously burned to the ground. Her friends no longer talk to her, strangers avoid her even when no Jokerz are around.

One day a bunch of them suround her, the biggest and strongest pulls out a reproduction of her old costume. The original one, from Batman: the Animated Series, though clearly very poorly made.

She finally snaps, and goes to beat the crap out of that particular clown. At first he laughs, but after the first couple hits he starts trying to defend himself, and can't. She's a ridiculously good hand-to-hand combatant. All the while, she's ranting about how they're all a disgrace to the Joker's memory. He may have gone too far, at the end, but at least he was trying to do good. He stood for something. These idiots don't seem to do anything except whatever helps them not have to think.

She finishes with the guy broken and bloody, moaning incoherently. She grabs the costume, uses it to wipe his blood off her hands and tosses it over his head. She purposely walks between the two clowns that happened to be standing closest to each other, so she can push them both aside. Once she's gone, all the clowns start laughing again, except the guy on the ground, who can't, and Punchline, who's actually thinking about it.

While Harley is trying and failing to pick her life back up, she tries to whip the Jokerz into shape, find some good for them to do, "as our Queen demanded". They don't care. After a while she also gets disgusted, and goes to vandalize the police station and then the chief's home, so they will finally go and arrest them all.

She goes to find Harley again, to ask her to join together and find the True Way, to honour Joker's memory together. She calls her "doctor" this time. I don't have a specific idea for this sequence, but they try. Go find lost puppies, try to seduce/torture a politician for incriminating info, whatever. They may get romantically involved, I don't know enough about Punchline to say if that would be ok.

She keeps pushing for what Joker's Cause was, which Harley is evasive about. She says she's struggling to remember. We may get brief flashbacks of various ridiculous plans he tried, over the years. Eventually she has to admit there isn't one. She had been lying to herself, the Jokerz had been right all along. Punchline is offended and leaves. "I hoped you, of all people, would understand".

Harley cries a bit and does some soul-searching, finally deciding she's better off this way. "The truth has set me free". She plans to continue looking for small ways to help people, not for anyone's memory, but because it feels good. I want the final montage of her good deeds to be a spoof of the one Superman got in BvS. She's pulling someone's couch on a rope. A bunch of kids are surrounding her, reaching their hands for the food she brought. I don't remember what else he did, but whatever it was, she gets a visually similar but relatively insignificant version.

The movie ends with her trying to sleep, but she can't. After a while she climbs up onto the bed, and finally falls asleep.

After the credits, the police have finally received the report on that burned beauty shop. It was a superhuman of some sort; there's no possible way the Jokerz were involved in that one. So they have to re-open the case, and have no idea where to begin.

Next should be Watchtower, except I don't really have a good idea for this. The basic setup is that Chloe's on vacation, visiting her cousin, and their party/cruise/concert/whatever gets hijacked by terrorists or something. She intentionally left her comms behind, so she has to step up and Die Hard the day.

Is that enough? I feel it needs more.

Next is Lobo. He's one of those characters that was designed to offend as much as possible, so we will sand down his edges a bit, but not much. His world exists, and it exists in the Legion's future. He insists he will always abide by the letter of the law. Maybe he's a good singer or cook or something, I don't know.

We open with various League members sitting at a large table, talking about their respective relationships, plans for the weekend, and so on. Let's say Static, Nightwing, King Shark, Cyborg, my original flying paramedic, one of the Wonder Twins, two or three more. The other Twin is also there, sprawled on the table, growling in frustration.

They start showing off pictures. The spare Twin says "That's a huge security breach. You all know that, right?" Then an alarm goes off. Cyborg gets up, then a moment later the others do, though they look at him, confused. "Someone is approaching the planet. We just installed it last week." "Could it be a test?" "Test was last week."

They start running out of the room, but they hear Supergirl's voice. Not over comms, she's shouting hard enough for the whole Station to hear. "NOBODY WORRY I WILL RESOLVE THIS DO NOT CONTACT ME WILL REPORT LATER BYE".

Outside a bar somewhere, we see a bunch of motorcycles. One of them is some sci-fi looking abomination. Inside, Lobo is holding a though-looking guy by the neck with one hand, fiddling with the other with some device connected to some wires going to both of their heads. He says something in a strange language.

Someone breaks a chair over his neck, but he doesn't care. He messes with the device some more. "How about this? Now can you understand me?" The guy nods frantically, so Lobo snaps off the wires from both of them, pockets the device, and lets him drop. "Well see? That wasn't so bad".

Supergirl walks into the bar, classic Western style. She calls on him to meet her outside. Possibly she calls him by his species' name, if there is a canonical name for them. He looks around the room, smiling. "Well sorry fellas, you're all quite lovely but damn do we have a winner!"

(More generally, he's going to spend the entire movie hitting on her. I'd like it if we could somehow make it clear she's not necessarily uninterested, it's just that she can tell he's not serious.)

She wants him to abide by a set of rules that she's clearly struggling to remember (he corrects her pronounciation). Some sort of Prime Directive, this planet has not made contact with the galaxy. He goes serious, promises he will abide to the relevant protocols, and asks if she will be his local contact for the job. She agrees. He suggests they hide his space-motorcycle somewhere safe, "so as to not spook the natives". They bury it in the Sahara.

He's a galactic bounty hunter, looking for the runaway princess <name> from the <name> empire. I'm sorry I don't remember the names, that's Starfire, Nightwing's girlfriend, though she doesn't know that yet. She does recognize the empire's name, she's a little nervous about that.

He has some counter-surveillance data; there was a network of detection beacons, <Starfire's planet>'s make, around the solar system, that he carefully stayed outside of. A whille ago they went down, and a much weaker version went up, provenance unknown; he waited a while in case that was a trap, but has decided to come find her before the trail gets too cold.

She realizes he means the League's system, Cyborg and Steel designed it, based on vague recollections from her. The target must have turned off hers to avoid being detected. He seems genuinely upset that she's the one breaking non-interference, but she insists she's a local. She's just from the future. "Fine, future, whatever. You're not my princess anyways, let's go".

So they're going to follow his data, basically calculations of where the info from the systems used to go, hopefully directly to her. Along the way he tries to do some tourism, pick some fights, comedically misunderstands various things. She's mostly struggling to keep him in check.

Since they're starting from the Sahara and the end point is the Teen Titans' city (not that they exist, but we should see the name as they go in), I figure they should go northwest, through all of Asia and across the Bering Strait; or they could walk across the South Pole and therefore South Africa and all of America.

The only thing I can say for sure is they should pass through the abandoned displaced city from Jinx. She explains that was before she arrived, but she understands it was a botched mass teleport. "On an entire city? That's why you test on adorable small animals first!" Other than that, whatever route gives us the best buddy cop comedy/road trip.

After a movie's worth of that, they find "Star" and Dick together, enjoying a nice time at the park. Supergirl recognizes him and asks to wait, but Lobo doesn't want to waste the surprise and attacks. Dick tries to help defend her, but she stops him, claiming this is a legal bounty. Also, he would die. They argue about that, making it clear the two know each other well.

"Star" meanwhile had been struggling semi-ineffectually, just enough to not actually be captured while still pretending to be a regular human who doesn't understand what's going on. Lobo notices that, so he picks up a car and crushes her with it. Then he drops an incendiary grenade on them. The other two stop arguing to stare, stunned. He asks Dick "for the record, you guys can't survive that, right?".

She floats out of the wreckage, her clothes partially burnt, her skin cracking and starting to evaporate, to reveal her natural orange skin underneath. He smiles and jumps to attack her again, but she catches him with tendrils of pink light. He pulls out a bigger grenade, fiddling with the buttons and dials one-handed, telling her she has until he's done arming it to surrender, unless she wants to continue their fight "in the smoking ruins of this charming little continent". So she tears off his head. Mostly because he's a bit one-note and there's not that much value in seeing him again, but also because I need to kill off some characters besides Wonder Woman's love interests.

After that, Supergirl is absolutely terrified, so Dick recovers first. He asks why she didn't tell him, she points vaguely at the two of them and asks when HE was planning to tell HER. They look like they're about to start shouting at each other, but instead they both take a deep breath, relax, and start explaining how they each understand the other had good reason for keeping their secrets.

With their relationship succesfully salvaged, Supergirl finally speaks up. She asks the princess if she's a member of the Pink Lantern Corps, also sometimes known as the Star Sapphires. She says yes, that's why she chose that human name. (Incidentally, I love that the name was technically a red herring.) Supergirl starts cursing nervously, probably some future swearwords, and goes to check Lobo's corpse.

His bounty was issued by the Star Sapphire Debt Collectors, not the Imperial Family of <PLANETNAME>. The princess is also surprised to hear this, she always thought her sister was just trying to drag her back to the throne because she was too lazy to rule. But it turns out she has to actually go and deal with whatever is going on. So she goes to say goodbye to Dick.

After the requisite "don't go/i must/etc", he gives her a small box he was carrying, telling her he had hoped to use it tonight, "though I've been telling myself that for almost a year now". It contains a diamond ring. So she takes out her Pink Lantern ring, which she wears in a necklace under her dress; she transfers all its power to the new one, and then gives him the old one. They kiss one last time, and she picks up Lobo's corpse and flies away into space. He waits until she's out of sight to spit out a bit of fake skin.

After the credits, Supergirl is in an office room on the Watchtower, slouching in front of a computer. They're making her write up reports on everything she remembers about "ancient galactic politics". She complains that she barely passed her history classes, then whoever is with her (either Cyborg or someone new) reminds her that's better than literally anyone else in the world, so she gets back to it. We should get a brief look at her screen, it's full of sequel bait.

And now I'm really running low. I have two more big events I want to add, and not sufficient build up. We need 3 more movies here.

First is something about magic. A Jinx sequel, or Zatanna's introduction, possibly both. I kinda want the bad guy to use mass mind control. If Zatanna is here, she's offered League membership at the end, but refuses.

Second, that spin-off from the end of Static Shock. If it's about Ivy, she interacts with Swamp Thing. It wants to end humanity, she convinces it not to. If it wasn't her, then something else, I don't know.

Third, anything that doesn't affect the status quo. Possibly an Aquaman sequel set entirely within Atlantis. Or Gorilla Grodd, though it's getting a bit cramped for secret civillizations that were there all along. Maybe a day in the life of one of the less-powerful supers.

With that we go into Justice League: Rebirth. This is when Steve Trevor returns as a ghost possessing someone. Along with a hell of a lot of other people. Also, the actor doesn't come back; we will trust the audience to remember who is being possessed by whom.

The movie starts in the Watchtower's kitchen. One of the cooks briefly blacks out, then starts panicking at herself and her surroundings. She's screaming in some strange language, and pawing at her head like something was missing. The others get her out of there, since it's full of dangerous things, and ask the heroes to go get help.

They fetch Diana, who is old and well-travelled, and Jinx, keeper of many secrets. By the time they arrive, she's calmed down a bit, grabs someone's face and stares at him like she's expecting something to happen, then panics and starts screaming again. They tell them she keeps doing that. Neither of them have ever heard that language.

Wonder Woman speaks into her comm, asking Watchtower to let her speak to everyone in the League. Chloe, at her control room, clicks at her keyboards a bit and replies that "you have all hands". Back at the cafeteria, she takes off her comm to clearly hold it in her hand as she announces they have an important message, if ANYONE understands it, please report to the Station immediately. Then she holds it to the cook, who is briefly confused but does start speaking into it.

Somewhere during that we should get extremely brief snippets of various superheroes through the world receiving the message. A few of them are already dealing with people acting weirdly, though nothing so extreme. It's also heard in all the speakers in the Watchtower, including a room where the janitors are taking their break. One of them, on hearing it, immediately flies away and through the walls (without harming them). "Huh. Did you know John was a ghost?".

He rises from the ground in the cafeteria, but before anyone can ask him anything he speaks out in the same language, so everybody shuts up, and Diana backs away so the cook can see him. She's clearly relieved, but also confused, and asks him a question. He looks a bit embarrased, but then transforms into his martian form, by which I mean the fully alien body, not the green-skinned human we normally see. She shouts in joy and runs to hug him, but everybody else immediately goes on guard. A few actually point their weapons at him. Diana says "please explain".

He does. He's originally from Mars, was also a janitor, actually, at a lab researching teleportation. When they called for volunteers for testing, he signed up. Animal tests had gone perfectly, seemed like easy money. It went wrong, sent him outside the world, past the twin moons and into the third orbit, where he got stuck at the center of the planet, in a half-teleported state. He doesn't know how long. He tried to reach out with his telepathy, could barely sense there was people around, but nobody seemed able to detect him.

"Wait, you have telepathy?" "You may notice I don't have a mouth right now".

He stayed trapped until Zod attacked. His ridiculous sky beam machines somehow disrupted his suspension, which let him escape towards them. He finally materialized among the rubble in Metropolis, disguised himself as a dead body, and has been hiding ever since. And, somehow, this is his wife.

She takes over the explanation, transmitted telepathically by him. After his accident, the teleport experiment was cancelled. It was theorized it was the telepathy that caused it, actually, that it interacts with the process in a way she doesn't understand. He agrees that sounds right. The experiments were resumed three years later, that's martian years of course, when the environmental crisis suddenly started getting worse. The plan was to teleport all cities to some more habitable planet. Before final testing could begin, she got sick, then got worse, then suddenly she was here.

This is actually fantastic news for him. All this time he'd been worried and puzzled by the fact that humans have pretty good surveillance footage of his planet, and have never found any ruins or anything. But if the plan was to take everything along, maybe it worked. Maybe they're still out there, somewhere.

Though it also makes him wonder exactly how much time has passed. Gallileo would have seen the towers, right?

Chloe interrupts the moment to tell Diana she has a call from the Smithsonian, through the cafeteria speakers. Also, why isn't she answering her comms. She puts it on and tells her this is not the time. Camera switches to Chloe, who says it's a guy claiming to be her first boyfriend, "though they all want to believe that, right?". She listens to a response we don't hear, says ok and clicks at her machine. "Look, it's not that we don't believe you, but, well. We don't really believe you".

Then the camera cuts to the museum's director's office, where a guy is at the phone. He thinks for a moment, then says "ok, tell her, if she speaks a hundred languages, did she really expect me to believe she doesn't know what marriage means?". A woman who is with him raises an eyebrow and starts chuckling.

Elsewhere, Jason Todd is sharing some beers with Dick Grayson. "So, what's with the toy ring?" "A gift from my girlfriend. And it's actually bulletproof." "Girlfriend? Finally! Call her, let's meet up." "She... had to go back to her planet." "Oh, I see. Of couuuurse".

Clark Kent is trying to convince Steel that he is Superman, with little success. He reached him by following the graffitti of his symbol. He's also very out of shape and extremely out of breath. Finally they agree the two had never met anyways, Steel lets him borrow his phone to call someone better. He doesn't know the number.

Joker actually returns in Harely Quinn's body. He doesn't know if he's really a spirit from hell or she's having some psychotic episode, and more importantly, cannot decide which would be funnier. He breaks into Wayne Manor to yell at Bruce for giving up the cowl. He's half panicking, asking what "she" means and how "she" got there anyways. "Same as you, through the waterfall, up the staircase, through the clock." Bruce's face twists with fear. "You know, the day your parents died is a terrible passcode. I always meant to talk to you about that".

Back to the museum, Diana meets with Steve and his friend, who happens to be her mother. Her first question is how they found her, so he pulls his phone and says "these things are amazing!". I recognize that scene realistically has to be product placement, but I'd like it if it could be shot that way but the phone is a WayneTech.

The next question is how are they back, which they don't know. "One moment I'm crashing that plane into the sea, next a pretty lady asks if I want more beer. I thought the vikings were right!"

Hippolyta informs her she has a sister now, Donna. She was 15 when she had her accident, should be queen now. They've told her lots of stories about Diana. "Any of them true?" "That would be an incredible coincidence".

Some more people return, including various who we never knew of but logically should exist. Cyborg's dad, who I think could plausibly have died in the short video we saw back in BvS, I'd have to rewatch but that would be cool. Jinx's old sorcery mentor, Jonah Hex (I don't know anything about him except his name, but that is enough). Would-be Livewire's high school crush, the one that got away, to war. If our Flash isn't meant to be the first Flash, an older one; otherwise Starman, the previous wielder of Stargirl's staff. A prominent member of the activist group Static Shock was a part of, killed during a protest, which is what inspired him to join. Anyone from Task Force X who mentioned family right before dying. Definitely someone for King Shark, though I don't know him enough to say who that would be. Various friends and family of random members of the League. One or two famous actors or singers.

I'd like someone for Shazam, but actually there isn't anyone suitable. Which seems a good excuse to explain. There is a version of the Blackest Night/Brightest Day storyline going on somewhere else. This world doesn't have Lanterns and never has, the closest it's ever gotten was when a single Pink spent a few years hiding here, so the only effect this world is seeing is the return specifically of people who are loved by those close to her, then those close to those people, and so on. Also, it's not a one-time event. More and more people keep popping up as the effect spreads.

Jinx and Jonah do some divinations and figure out part of the above. Not the broader implications, but that "love" seems to be the key, and that the magic has a direction they can track. Maybe if they reach the center they can undo everything.

Some more people return, but only one matters. Supergirl's older brother. Which she complains is stupid, even if her destroying his timeline counts as him "dying", that will not have happened for centuries. He can't be born yet, let alone dead. She's actually venting into the League's comms, so the mages determine she has a point, he's an interesting case. They arrange to meet, somewhere on the planet.

Brother explains. After they sent his sister to the past, everybody was waiting for something to happen, but nothing did. He elaborates that it's not like they thought they would actually see the world change into a better one or anything like that; but they had instruments, which he doesn't even pretend to understand let alone be able to explain, that should have picked up the temporal distortions in the last moments before existence as they knew it stopped.

It took them a couple years to prepare agumentations for someone else, to try again. "Sister, it was the boy you used to dress in your clothes" "We were five!". Anyways, that also didn't work. The higher ups were debating trying a third time when a piece of planetary debris hit the moon, shattering the last remaining artificial atmosphere facility. He was deployed to do emergency repairs, his suit sounded an alarm, and then he was here. He assumes that was probably the End of Humanity.

His sister doesn't take it well. She starts mumbling silently, like she's trying to complain again. Then she starts breathing hard, like she wants to scream, but also can't. She finally flies away.

Elsewhere, Wonder Woman has been gathering people affected, trying to set up some semblance of order. Static Shock and his old idol are there. Martian Manhunter too, but not his wife. Some other heroes, and a bunch of civilians. Static's hero actually has taken the stand. He reminds his fellow returned to be respectful of their borrowed bodies, those people are the real victims here. He encourages them to prepare notes explaining everything, for after someone finally fixes things.

Martian Manhunter interrupts to say they can just tell them. Everybody looks at him. "It's only control they lack. All their perceptions work just fine". Everybody tries to process that. "Did... seriously no one notice?"

The news spreads through the League's communication network, so we get some of their reactions. Lots of horrified faces all over the world, of course.

In the Watchtower's observation deck, some hero pulls up his mask to throw up over the handrail.

At her station, future!Livewire is on air, so she gets it as text. She's trying to read it to her audience but can't get the words out.

Somewhere in the arctic, Supergirl screams "Of course! AND WHY NOT?!"

Joker, tied up in the batmobile, starts laughing like a maniac. Bruce apologizes to Harley, puts on one of those atlantean breathing masks, and pushes a button that fills the car with sleeping gas.

Clark has been trying and failing to excercise at Steel's gym. "i guess.. he won't be... as grateful... as we thought..." "I also have ice cream?" "...okay".

Jonah tells his host to be ready, he's going to try a spell to contact the other spirit within himself. It doesn't work, though. "I suppose the other spirit is me. I wonder if anyone has any spells for this sort of situation". So they resume trying divinations to find the way to unravel everything.

At approximately this point there should be the first returned who was specifically beloved by someone also among the returned, but I don't know how to make that explicit, short of the mages figuring it out.

Jinx finally announces that the lynchpin is someone in the League. That's why the effect spread through their ranks first, before reaching the public at large. They want everyone who has had someone return to report the time; the first one is probably the origin. Then they intend to study those two people, to find a way to extract the returned safely without killing them.

Jonah steals her comm to naysay that. He says they will break the spell immediately. "We all had our time. We cannot ask these people to give us theirs". He looks sternly at her, who looks about to argue, but closes her mouth and nods instead. Then he tells her they better keep up the magic search, since her ill-advised words will probably cause some of them to not volunteer their information. Unfortunately, he doesn't know how to turn off the comm. She does it.

At Diana et al's place, she wants to try and find that way to keep everyone. Steve is against that, the guy on the comms was right; but she doesn't recognize his voice, she trusts Jinx's expertise. They start the split over this issue, as I had already advertised. Static's idol stands behind Steve, he had basically already spoken for that side, though he didn't know they would have to. Some of the other civilian returned look towards Diana. A few walk slowly to her side. The minor generic supers also start splitting up.

Martian Manhunter declares they're being ridiculous. None of them knows enough to decide anything. He flies through the roof.

Diana says he's right, they ALL need to learn more, so she leaves. Everyone that had sided with her follows. The last one is Hippolyta, who apologizes for her daugther before going after her.

Supergirl flies back to her brother and the mages, to scream at them about what the HELL they are thinking. They, mostly Jonah, try to calm her down and explain that it would be irresponsible to let this magic run any longer, but she tells them to shut up. That he was dead at the time so he probably didn't hear, but she travelled across time to save "aproximately everyone". Over ten billion people, dead before the end of the century. Any survivors basically a rounding error. So if she gave them all those lives, why can't they give her ONE. She pulls her brother into an one-armed hug.

They're looking at her with a mix of worry and fear, so she takes a deep breath. Still angry but more composed, says she's not even asking for THAT. Not really. Just some time. What would that magical research take? A few months? Couple years, maybe? And then they can make things right, for everyone. Because she's never actually saved a life; nobody has. All those people will still die eventually. But now, they finally have a chance to START saving people. She will help with anything they may need from her. As will all the others, surely, once they understand.

She extends her other hand towards them. Jonah backs away, but Jinx slowly walks forward and takes it. So Supergirl flies away with those two. We hear her voice again, he still has her comm in his hand. "Attention, all who want to help save EVERYONE. I have the Jinx. Join us in the <her city>". Then Wonder Woman's. "No, come to the Smithsonian. I have a secret bunker we can use". "Roger, on our way".

He is about to speak into the comm, but reconsiders. Instead he goes to find a random civilian, asks her to say "Watchtower, private question please". She's a bit confused, but complies. After a bit Chloe says "We are alone, what is it now?". So he explains. Probably we cut to her frantically typing away, so we don't need to hear the repeat exposition. She says that, yeah, about the same happened up there. Everybody already teleported down, she's alone with "the new guy".

Martian Manhunter is sitting at another computer next to her, reading text logs of all League chatter. He's the one to suggest Jonah should rendezvous with "Static Shock and his ancestor", who seemed to be gathering allies for that side. She looks at him curiously, and he says, until he's made up his mind, he should help keep both options viable.

So everybody else in the League starts rallying around their respective leaders. Cyborg is for waiting. He specifically thinks he can probably make robot bodies for the returned, at least temporary ones; he's waiting for Jinx to have the opportunity to discuss that with him. Flash is against, though I don't have anything specific. King Shark is also against; he should try to convince Supergirl, or at least suggest that they send him to talk to her. Stargirl is for; Jinx tells her she will have to perform whatever actual rituals she ends up designing; it'll probably be too dangerous for her, given the nature of her magic. The Wonder Twins are split, it doesn't matter which is which. We see a vast majority of the League converging at both locations. Both sides also have a bunch of civilians hanging with them, though the vast majority of people don't know as much as we do, and a lot of those that know run away from the upcoming conflict.

As the groups are gathered, both mages begin explaining. It starts by cutting between them fast, like one of those distant duets, but as soon as they mention "love magic" Supergirl taps her fist on her palm and says "Ah, the <Starfire's name>!". Everybody turns to look at her. "You know, the Nightwing's girlfriend? He's your patient zero. Come on!"

She picks up Jinx and flies away. Diana signals to 2 or 3 fliers to follow her, then begins instructing the rest in defending the place.

Supergirl flies through Nightwing's city (Blue Haven? Blood Haven? Something like that), scanning with her x-ray vision, looking for him. This should give us the opportunity to see more people reacting to the situation, some confusion, some horror.

They find him and Jason, still drunk, sitting against a wall. As soon as they land, he tries to point his finger at Supergirl, but can't aim properly. "Hey! You met <name>. Tell him she's real!" "What, like she won't lie to cover you? We ALWAYS do that!". Jinx approaches them, does some scanning magic, and announces that yes, this is the origin.

Supergirl starts trying to pick up all three of them, but the drunks keep squirming and spilling away. The other fliers finally arrive, so she says "Ah, good! Bring them!" and flies away with just Jinx again.

Next we need another scene in Static's camp, but I don't have anything specific. In general we keep switching between the two camps, as the two mages figure out what they can, sometimes requesting some resource or action from one of the heroes. When Jonah announces that the other guys have the nexus, they gear up to go on the assault.

They meet above ground, in the museum, formed in two lines facing each other. Jinx and Jonah step forward, to argue about the risks, potential rewards, and likelihood of either, none of which is exactly known to either of them. Supergirl starts the fight, by lasering someone who can absolutely take it, but it still causes both sides to charge.

Static uses his electricity to keep most of the other side in check. A few of his side hang about to protect him, most of the rest split in two to go engage Supergirl, who was already out of his area-of-effect, and Wonder Woman, who is immune to electricity. A few others start getting out and try to disrupt someone, he keeps moving to re-capture everyone. Flash is running all over the place, taking potshots where he can without risking getting caught.

Supergirl just flies slowly through the battlefield, letting her pursuers punch her, staring at them angrily. Occasionally she shoots small lasers out between them at the larger battle. Wonder Woman dances between her assailants, nobody can touch her. She keeps looking in Static's direction, waiting for an opening.

(Various of the minor, so far unnamed characters should get cool moments during this fight, to showcase their unique powers. Ideally, the audience should leave the theatre arguing about which origin story should come next, with the nerdiest in each group going "well, in the comics...")

Diana finally gets Static with her lasso, grounding his power. He shocks her as hard as he can, just in case, but she's unfazed. His bodyguards try to get it off of him, but nobody can even budge it, though it's not even tied up. The crowd he's no longer controlling begins to overwhelm them.

Flash focuses on Diana, kinda like the Omni-man fight. He can't actually hurt her, but it's distracting enough that some of the others almost get her a few times. After a bit of that, she tries to trip him, forgetting that she has Static grappled, so she splatters him against a wall with a squelching sound that makes everyone pause.

She darts out between her crowd, could have done it at any time really, and goes to craddle the corpse. Nobody's fighting anymore. Supergirl breaks the silence. "It's alright". Everybody stares at her, except Diana. "He'll come back. Everything will be alright!". A few of the crowd smile and nod. Others look at her with disgust. Not along party lines; there's people on both sides reconsidering.

She approaches Diana, asks her to give her the corpse so she can store it in a freezing cavern in the moon, "in case that makes things easier. Later". Diana doesn't respond, but doesn't do anything when she takes him from her arms and flies away.

Dick wanders out onto the battlefield, asking what's going on and can they please be quiet, his head is killing him. Everybody is startled by him, both sides look at each other but nobody wants to move first. He stumbles to where Diana is still sitting on the ground, staring at her hands, and hugs her. She starts crying then.

Jinx and Jonah whisper something to each other, then approach them together, both making signs to everyone else to stand down. They ask him to let them study him, together. To make an actually informed choice. He doesn't understand, but asks Diana if she'll be ok. She nods, so he follows them somewhere more open. They sit on either side of him and begin doing some magic. Everyone else approaches to observe, Diana last.

Eventually Jinx cries out and looks away. Everyone around them holds their breath. Jonah says the magic seems to be doing a search. They can't tell how or why, but the resurrections are just a side-effect. They no longer think there'll be a way to make them permanent, after whatever it's looking for is found.

Supergirl just returned from the moon. "We just find it first, and hide it from the spell". Jinx screams that they can't, it's too strong. Jonah agrees; he'd never imagined magic this powerful could exist. "Yeah, I bet. It wants a person. A worthy host". They're both about to question her, but instead scan Dick again. They're not sure, but it seems almost right. "So we find and kill this person. And then no one else has to die. Ever again!"

So now everybody is looking at her with a variable mix of horror, disgust and anger. Except Dick, he's rubbing at his temples and asking them to hold on. Diana is the one to stand up and speak against her. Remember that as Supergirl speaks with someone, she slowly flies into place so their faces are adjacent. I don't actually know how most of their argument should go, here's how it ends: "And what if you are the host this spirit is looking for?" "Then I hope you'll show at least a little gratitude for my sacrifice." "What if it wants your brother?" Then she punches her in the face.

As with the argument, I don't have an exact idea of how the fight should go before it ends. All I can say is that these are arguably the two strongest characters we have, so it had better be good. It ends with Diana grappling her from behind, holding her head to keep her laser vision away from some convenient innocent bystanders. She begs her to stop a few times, but she won't. Then she scrunches up her face, and shifts her arm to block the lasers with her armband.

She grimaces with pain as the metal grows redder with heat. Eventually it snaps and falls off. A bit of molten metal sticks to Supergirl's chin. Most of it falls on her chest and slides right off; her suit is extremely high tech. Wonder Woman keeps her arm in place, now she cannot contain her scream but manages to have it come out as an extremely tortured "Pleeeeease!".

After a while, it does stop. She falls into a sitting position, and Supergirl ends up lying on the ground, head in her lap. She's still looking up at her with immense anger, but also crying. Wonder Woman's forearm has two very small burn marks. Both are breathing hard. They get up, and slowly make their way back to Dick and the two mages. They are terrified, he's confused.

Both start pleading with him. He needs to stop this. He needs to give them time. They already lost too much. They can save everyone. And so on. He's visibly struggling to pay attention. Eventually, Diana phrases it as "forsake this connection" (that's the official term for a mage giving up their power source, most often in order to claim a better one; she knew that already, but probably we should hear it earlier this movie), and that finally pierces his headache. Kind of. He stands up and proudly declares that he'll "never give up on <Starfire's name>!". The ring on his finger lights up.

All over the world, the possessed spasm briefly, then a pink light flows out of them. They start looking at their hands and around them, in immense relief and disbelief. All the lights converge on Dick Grayson.

Supergirl screams and punches him. He flinches, and a barrier of pink light intercepts the attack, producing a shockwave that knocks to the ground everybody not already flying. She pulls back, her knuckles are very slightly bruised. He's fine, more confused, but apparently completely sober. She punches his barrier again, very slowly, almost just for show. Then she screams again and flies away.

As everybody stares at everybody else, waiting for someone to talk, Chloe's voice comes over their comms. "The new guy says it's over. What happened? Somebody report!". The end.

After credits, Dick Grayson is being escorted into an office. He's wearing his Nightwing costume, but all the blue has been replaced with pink. Inside is Harley Quinn. She has clearly been crying. The man that led him in leaves them alone. He pulls a chair a little closer to hers and sits down.

She sobs and apologizes incoherently, he says it wasn't her fault. She starts to retort, but he says "No, shut up. Look, the entire point of that fiasco was to make people meet with their loved ones, right? So if there's one person we can be sure didn't summon someone, it's whoever they ended up in! So you didn't do it. I bet it was that stupid cult of his".

She smiles briefly, then gets serious, but at least she's more calm. He makes a deliberate show of looking around the room, as if there could be eavesdroppers, then leans in towards her. She also leans in. "Or maybe Batman! I always had my suspicions with those two, you know?" She laughs this time, a healthy laughter, none of the clown nonsense. He sits straight and pretends to adjust his costume. "Come on, let's get you out of here".

The camera cuts to outside, to show us this was inside Arkham Asylum. She says "Ok, I'll try".

There's some more stuff i want to explain, though there's no good way of actually getting the info into the movie. Pretend the director said it in an interview afterwards.

The power wasn't searching for a host, Dick was always the only candidate. He was being tested. That's why it revived people who someone loved strongly, rather than people who themselves loved anyone; to tempt him away from his relationship. That's why the mages didn't feel quite right with Supergirl's analysis of the search, even if they couldn't exactly articulate the difference.

That's also why we didn't get any minors, returned nor possessed, and neither his nor Bruce's parents: if you got someone you would not at least consider spending the night with, it's because you're not that close to him. (Originally I had some kids and Martha Wayne for a "why did you say that name?" joke, but then I thought about the implications.)

He could also have exorcised individual people, by telling them "sorry, I have a girlfriend"; if he did that enough times, to enough different people, that would also eventually be enough for him to pass.

I suppose this means he's officially bisexual. At the very least, he wouldn't object hard enough that the Light could justify not giving it a try, just in case.

So, a few more half-formed ideas before the last big movie.

First, if Livewire is going to go evil, the League just killed her first love and lost their electric character. Now is her time.

Next, unless maybe it's instead, The Wonders. Diana takes extended leave of absence from the League to go visit that sister she learned about. Donna is 15, apparently Hippolyta died a few days before the events of Rebirth. At the end of the movie, Diana may choose to stay and/or Donna may choose to travel.

Also I guess she should romance an amazon, who dies. Just for nostalgia's sake.

Next, anything mostly inconsequential. Maybe one of those origins we were hoping people would be clamoring for. Or give a sequel to whoever is currently most popular, other than Supergirl or Nightwing.

Next, Cheetah. Starring that guy who got possessed by Jonah Hex. Turns out that's the best power source Jinx could get him on such short notice. He can access the same transformation Barbara had at the end of Wonder Women, minus the gem in her eye; and he learned how to do a little divination magic, though he's not as good as the others.

Since he remembers where the brooch was and they didn't actually take it after attuning to it, he should at least consider infiltrating them and stealing it. That could be the whole movie, or a quickly dismissed thought. Only issue is I'm not really sure if this guy should be a hero or a villain. If he's bad it's derivative, if he's good it's sexist. Which is better? I'll have a poll on

And so, finally, Red Daughter of Tomorrow. Very loosely based on one of my favourite comics, Red Daughter of Krypton, in which Supergirl becomes a member of the Red Lantern Corps. My Supergirl is not from Krypton, hence the name change.

The point of the movie is she wants to repeat the events of Rebirth, try and permanently resurrect everyone who ever has or ever will die. She gets a Red Lantern ring, goes to space to ask for help with that, but instead learns why they can't and shouldn't if they could. But the real point of the movie is for the narrative to finally get away from Earth, so we can get movies in other worlds. So along the way she should visit various interesting cultures, which would interest people in sequels; which I can't think of right now, except for one.

But before we start, some exposition on the nature of Lanterns in this universe, that I hope would come up more naturally in the actual movie.

They do not have a lantern-shaped object, nor do they need regular recharges. I'm keeping the name "Lantern" mostly for the brand recognition, though there should probably be a vaguely plausible excuse referred to somewhere in the movie.

They don't manifest finely-designed objects. They can surround themselves with a soft glow that gives them a livable atmosphere, and can spread it to others they touch, though it's calibrated for the Lantern and may or may not be good for other species. They can also strengthen that into shields, which gives it a more glassy look.

They can sprout tentacle-like protrusions, that are clumsier than most intelligent species' appendages, but also far stronger. Pinks' are softly curved, as we saw at the end of Lobo, Reds' have more jagged edges; I haven't thought about the others.

They also have or can produce various magical effects that are thematically associated with their corresponding emotion. They are capable of applying it beyond that, by regular sorcerous training, but that is rare; some theorize the power intentionally avoids those that could twist it outside its respective emotional type, though it doesn't abandon those that learn to do it afterwards.

The actual "rings" are not important. A newly-minted Lantern does get a classic-looking ring, made of some mysterious quasimagical material that, as Dick told Jason, is extremely durable; though not enough for it to really matter, as it's usually protected by its own power. As <Starfire> demonstrated, Lanterns can transfer the power to other items if they prefer, and they don't have to be rings, any clothing or jewelry will do. Anything that is considered "worn".

(Technically unrelated, her people don't use rings around their fingers, that's why she turned hers into a necklace. I think her costume has fingerless gloves, right? Let's say there's some traditional nonsense going on there.)

Lanterns are not the "police" of the cosmos. They control a small-ish sector of the galaxy, which is treated as a pseudo-nation, but is generally divided among colours unless a foreign threat presents itself. All space nations follow a general policy roughly along the lines of "leave them be". They also would mostly keep to themselves and probably wouldn't even be known in the wider galaxy, except that their magic keeps spilling out when looking for more hosts.

If they were properly united, there is no doubt they would be the single greatest galactic power. Since they are not, it is arguably the <Starfire's planet> empire.

All these facts are broadly well-known in the Legion's future (though the empire has since fallen), which is why Supergirl was instantly cowed when the princess revealed she was also a Star Sapphire: either the two powers are having an alliance, and she should have been nicer to their joint representative; or they are at war over her, and she should pick up her planet and run away.

So, movie. We start with Supergirl flying into the Watchtower. Various people try to greet her, but she ignores everyone. She's clearly scanning around with her x-ray vision. We may get a look through that, a couple members doing funny stuff.

In a training room, various fliers are practicing, Nightwing among them. Still the pink version. She comes in, rushes to grab him by the shoulders. "I need to go to the Lantern Space. Take me there". "What? I can't-" "You can. I know the way, come on!"

He shakes her off and backs away a little. "Where have you even been? It's been months! You can't just show up and-" "The <Starfire's name> needs you. Ever thought of that?" He looks surprised, then worried.

"Why are you even still in this planet? You should have gone to check up on her immediately." This actually relaxes him. "Ok, so you don't have info. Don't scare me! And I trust her to come if she needs any-" "What if she died?" He freezes again. "Actually, that's probably why your power needed a new host." "N-no, you're just-" "Or would you even care?"

He suddenly raises his hand, like he's about to slap her. She smiles, and sticks her face out, hands behind her back. He takes a deep breath and turns his back on her, to tell her about how he understands some of what she probably feels, it's not healthy for her, she has friends who would like to help, and when he turns around she's gone. "Oh, wow. That takes me back".

Her next stop is at the Sahara. She rummages through the storage compartment of Lobo's bike. First she pulls an interstellar communicator, checks that it has signal and the battery seems good, and sets it aside.

Next she pulls a small leather-bound book. It's full of photos of men and women, of various alien kinds, in underwear or less. The keen-eyed viewer will notice one Martian among them. No humans (yet?). She actually pauses to admire them, maybe does the head tilt thing, then shakes her head and tosses it over her shoulder.

Next, another book. Also sexy pictures, of Lobo himself. This one she burns in her hands.

The third book has what she wanted: his info on bounties, contacts, informants, etc. She searches it for the contact info related to <Starfire>'s bounty, and enters those numbers into the communicator.

First she's formally requesting help. Starts introducing herself by her Legion rank and serial, before realizing that's stupid, but finishes saying it anyways, and adds "codename Supergirl". There is no answer.

She makes various requests, steadily growing more desperate. Then angry. She ends up challenging all the Lanterns to come and face her wrath. "Every Green is a coward and the Reds are worse! Every Pink is a selfish bastard! The Yellows are one big JOKE!" I don't remember the other emotions, sorry, but assume she does and has adequate insults; this is our exposition for what the various colours do.

She ends up crying over the bike. Then she looks up. A red light is descending from the sky. She drops the comm, grabs a comically oversized gun, and flies up to meet it. It's not a person though, just an empty Red Lantern ring. She stares at it incredulously, then her face contorts in rage. "I don't want you! I want them BACK!"

The ring just floats peacefully before her. She starts shaking and snarling, then shoots at it with her laser vision. A long, sustained beam, growing brighter while she screams away. Lobo's gun shatters under her grip. She stops, rubs at her eyes, then looks again. The ring is still there, apparently untouched. She curses and sticks her left index finger right into it.

At the Watchtower's observation deck, one of the superheroes is trying to talk with Nightwing. He's holding a handful of flowers behind his back, which Dick can't see from his position. He stutters for a bit, and is told to stop, take a deep breath, and then tell him what's up. Supergirl flies in right above them, says "Sorry, his girlfriend called!" and grabs him with her Red Lantern tentacles, then drags him away before either can react. He grabs his face with the other hand, starting to cry softly, and tosses the flowers over the handrail.

(I'm getting some good mileage out of that set.)

On the way out of the planet, as he starts complaining, she tells him once again that they need to try and save all the dead people. He mostly believes what he was told, afterwards, that it was never possible; but decides it's worth a road trip, just in case. He also asks how she suddenly got a ring. "I challenged everyone to a fight, and they sent me this instead" "Sounds like 'come and get me, then' to me" "Right? Let's not keep them waiting!".

So, space adventures! Like I said, there's only one I have plotted out: the visit to Palace <Starfire's planet's name> in the city of <same name as before>, Capital of the planet <same name>, Seat of the Just and Benevolent <same name>, Queen of the <same name> Empire. (Would that sentence be more or less funny if I knew the actual name?)

Since that's the alleged reason for her to bring him, they should probably go there first. But there is some important events there, because all I know is those events and one locations so it's impossible for me not to put them there. So it has to be halfway through the movie, maybe two thirds. Let's say she got lost; the stars probably moved a little in a thousand years, right?

They reach the palace, skip to the front of the line for supplicants (he doesn't wanna) and ask for a meeting with the Queen. The guy at the desk is about to tell them off, but she shows him her ring, and he immediately bows and leads them into the castle, leaving the booth unattended.

On the way, Dick apologizes for the abruptness to the guy, who says it is no trouble. Then he asks her why are they here anyways, that's the one place they know she won't be. Supergirl says yes, but, her sister surely keeps track of her. Or at least can tell them where not to bother looking.

The guy leads them to an office, announces "Lantern Corps!". The door opens from inside. He lingers a moment before them, then bows and leaves. Inside it's actually <Starfire>, wearing an elaborate dress, sitting at a table overflowing with paperwork, frustrated. She sees them, then jumps to kiss him.

Afterwards he asks what she is doing here, and she says her sister tricked her into defeating her for the throne, so she could "run away and be a useless piece of <some alien food, probably>". Then she steps back, collects herself and says, more formally. "Thank you, friends, for coming to our aid. I am glad to tell you the crisis was finally resolved..." she pauses and counts with her fingers "...nine human days ago. Eight and a half? I think."

Supergirl sticks her hand in Dick's face and shouts "I TOLD YOU!". He rolls his eyes, pushes her away, and introduces her, telling his girlfriend they met once, before she left Earth. She studies her face for a bit, nods, and then jumps to kiss her, startling them both. Before either can react, she jumps back, shouting "Sorry! I forgot!" at him. That actually jogs Supergirl's memory, so she's the one to explain.

It was customary, among the <empire> nobility, to kiss those of lower social standing, as both greeting and goodbye. <Starfire> points at her and looks at him, nodding vigorously. She continues saying that, the historians theorize this served to force a moment of mutual vulnerability, to show no ill intent and no suspicion of the same from the other. The queen is clearly confused by the peculiar wording, but says "No, it's just polite."

He finally shakes out of his stupor. "So, the day we first met...?" "I'm sorry! I'd only been to your world for half a year".

Afterwards she really does need to finish that paperwork. They are officially welcome as Imperial Guests, so it's basically a montage of a luxury vacation. There's various normal stuff, fancy food, baths, massages, various artistic performances. They split off for her to participate in gladiatorial fights and him to try and learn a music instrument, sort of nunchakus with whistles.

As the fighters leave their weapons at the entrance, she puts her ring in a velvet cushion. It floats up to spin above it instead. She shoves it down with her finger, but it floats up again. She shoves it down again, holds it with someone's sword, and goes to the arena. It floats up again, pushing the sword off the table.

The scene should intercut between them, fighting and playing with similar movements. They meet again afterwards. "It was nice". "They disqualified me for the indestructible clothes".

Eventually he asks why all the servants are always waiting a moment before leaving their presence. She hadn't noticed, but immediately understands and begins laughing. They are waiting for them to kiss them; but not too long, it would be unwise to draw attention to your superior's lack of manners. He's not sure how to answer, settles on "good to know".

She reminds him, since the custom is to kiss your inferiors, he shouldn't try to kiss his girlfriend the Queen; wait for her to initiate. Good to know, again. Also, that as both Imperial Guests and members of the Lantern Corps, they should be effectively high enough to be safe from anyone trying to kiss them, except naturally for the Queen. He repeats that it's good to know, though he's visibly getting uncomfortable. She smiles. For the same reason, then, the two of them are at liberty to kiss any servant or commoner they desire, and could probably get away with anyone else on the planet, except naturally for the Queen. "OKAY YES GOOD TO KNOW THANK YOU".

After that, they finally have dinner with <Starfire>. Supergirl makes sure to look at his face while she's getting her kiss. They make some small talk, then she tells them she hopes their Tests were not too difficult. That they guessed the Whites would try to corrupt them, but didn't really have people available to send to check.

They both freeze. Some food falls from Supergirl's open mouth. She's clearly referring to the events of Rebirth (and assumes they both joined the Lanterns roughly at the same time, but that's unimportant). They're both trying to think of something to say. "...I was drunk for most of it". She laughs, almost spitting out a flourescent drink. "Yes, if they'd warned me we are immune to <some alien drug, probably>, I'd have tried some first!".

He asks what she means by that, but Supergirl shoves his face back. She says they're actually after info on what exactly happened back then. <Starfire> sighs deeply, and tells them to follow her to a nearby planet.

The White Lanterns are transdimensional abominations, trying to "devour the souls of every person in the galaxy, past, present and future, across all possible realities". About a hundred worlds' worth of people were lost, approximately, before they noticed and banded together to put them down. They did also lose almost a thousand Lanterns in the war; mostly Greens and Reds, these should expect more recruiting in the near future. In the end they were succesful in sending them back, they will be unable to try again for, more quick finger couting, seven hundred human millennia, at least. There is a project to find a way to store information in a medium that can survive that long, to leave instructions for next time; though they have suspicions that last time someone may have tried the same, and failed.

Supergirl whispers "try one millenium", and asks why the Lanterns, specifically, faced this threat. They didn't, of course; most governments sent soldiers or other resources. But Lanterns proved protected from their corruption, at least until the power itself is corrupted completely; and by the time anyone realized that they had already assumed command of the war effort. That's why the media called the enemy at large "White Lanterns", after the fully fallen members; though they were not actually the first they were certainly the worst. She asks what happens, specifically, to the people pulled from other times. From the future. An already averted future. They are kept alive until they have been the access point for three or four other temporal displacements, then their soul is devoured. Maybe "unmade" is a better word. Dick pokes at <Starfire>'s face, then points at Supergirl.

Her Lantern tentacles are dancing around her, carving away at the barren ground. She's shaking with rage, her hands opening and closing compulsively. Her mouth keeps moving, but no sound comes; she's not even breathing. <Starfire> looks at her sadly. "Oh. Yes, I feared this. Come on." She pulls Dick's hand. He tries to grab Supergirl, but she specifically pulls him away from her. "It's fine, this planet is empty." "WHAT?" She smiles, grabs him by the waist and drags him into orbit.

Supergirl's tentacles keep slowly growing longer, so she flies slightly higher and higher. Eventually she accelerates and flies high enough they can't reach anything, though they still move as if to try. She's high enough to see the horizon in all directions. She starts using her laser vision, which is Lantern-enhanced. It cuts mountains and digs deep enough in the earth to release magma. Her tentacles finally grow long enough to reach the ground from here, so she sinks one in and lets it plow a giant line as she flies around the world multiple times. Then she sees that, and it reminds her of the destroyed Earth in her past/future. She stops instantly, and all the Lantern energy dissipates. She tries to breathe, but there's no air so she just closes her mouth.

<Starfire> appears before her, very worried, and drags her back to the dinner room. "Better?" She nods weakly, then takes a small breath and says yes. "Then, don't dim your Light outside an atmosphere!" She smacks her in the back of the head, then hugs her. After a moment she looks around the room. "I think Dick got lost. Don't do anything until we're back, ok?" She nods, once. The Queen kisses her, then leaves again, and she sits back at the table, to eat slowly and with a vacant expression.

After a few days, a small montage of relaxing activities, and another trip to the same planet where she doesn't actually destroy anything before returning, <Starfire> announces she will probably be ready to leave "next morning, or the next one". She also reassures Dick that Pink Lanterns are just as powerful, which makes him say that that's not better, before admitting that "it is a little better, sorry".

That night, as he lies awake at the edge of a big bed, <Starfire> enters the room. Before he can react, she's on top of him, tugging at his costume and rubbing her hands on his face and chest. When he pushes her away, she rubs her face against his hand; but then he whispers "wait" and she immediately jumps to the side, sitting on the bed with her hands on her lap. She asks him what's wrong. He just stares at her incredulously.

"He doesn't want me in the room." The camera pans out to show Supergirl floating above the other edge of the bed, which is far too big for two people. Her eyes are closed. She's struggling to contain a smile. <Starfire> turns to look at her calmly, with an inarticulate questioning sound. Dick is startled; she had been pretending to be asleep. "Or him." She points away from them. The camera pans further to reveal a servant, standing at attention beside the bed.

<Starfire> pats her own thigh once. "Ah, yes, I remember this! Sorry, could you leave us?" The servant bows and exits the room. (The camera may resume normal operation now.) Supergirl laughs, and spins around to make sure Dick can see her face. "But I was really looking forward to this!" He stutters and turns his face to the other side. "I'm sorry, but he's more dear to me. We really must insist. Maybe you can ask my sister?" "Wait, WHAT?!"

In a bigger, more luxurious room, a servant is playing the instrument Dick tried to master, much more gracefully. Three more hold trays with food and drinks. A dozen wait at attention, in a line, alternating by gender. Lying on the ground, one foot on the bed, is the Elder Princess of the <name> Empire. She's tossing and catching a plastic ball one-handed, with a bored expression. She misses and it bounces off her stomach, then rolls off and stops near her face. She doesn't lower her hand or look at it. The first servant on the line walks over to pick it up and put it in her hand, then without waiting goes to stand at the back of the line. She waits until then to keep playing.

There is knocking at the door. "Sister? Visitors!" The first servant in line goes to open; the Queen kisses that one, Dick looks uncomfortable, Supergirl smirks at him. The servant goes to the back of the line. Then she goes and kneels on the ground to kiss her sister; Supergirl really wants to look at him, but some instinct draws her eyes to the princess instead. She's squeezing her toy a little harder than is warranted.

The Queen stands up, purposely walks away from the path between her friends and her sister, and introduces them by name, then as members of the Lantern Corps, then as her friends. She only says her name (which I don't know, surprising nobody) and resumes playing with her ball. Now it's the Queen that inexplicably pulls Supergirl's attention; her eye twitches once, but she forces herself to smile and asks, as sweetly as she can, how her day has gone.

I don't have the details of their conversation, it is pointless small talk. All that matters is that Dick and <Starfire> are polite and pleasant, while the princess and Supergirl are both about as rude as they think they can get away with. Eventually the Queen says they should leave; Supergirl says she wants some food.

The princess is directly between her and the food-bearing servants, so she flies right across, her feet almost touching her; she doesn't flinch or stop playing with her ball. After eating one of each different thing, she turns back to fly across the princess again.

As she reaches her, she swiftly rotates upside down to kiss her. The princess squeezes the ball so hard that it bursts, releasing pink smoke and glitter (it belonged to her sister). She rotates back upright and continues floating away, but the princess jumps to her feet, spits out a piece of fruit, and grabs her by the hair. "How DARE you?! I am STILL Queen of the <name> Empire, you insignificant..."

She suddenly covers her mouth with both hands, her eyes wide. "Of course! My apologies!" Her sister swiftly removes her ceremonial robe. Underneath she has her regular costume, except pink instead of purple, and the ring Dick gave her, again on a chain around her neck.

(She has also carved the symbol of the Pink Lanterns on every facet of the diamond, but I don't think we should get a close enough look to see that.)

She gives the dress to the next servant in line, who steps forward to receive it; she kisses that one far more shortly than she has anyone so far. Then she goes to grab Dick's arm, "Come, we must stop bothering her", and drags him away.

The other two watch them go, then turn to look at each other. "I hate you." She lifts her hand between their faces, to show off her ring. "We get that a lot."

And so it was that the three Lanterns came to travel together. They shouldn't meet any others. Maybe another Red, but the other colours are held in reserve for the future.

Now that she's away from her home and travelling with humans, the former Queen will try to not kiss anyone except her boyfriend; though she should forget or almost forget a few times.

And so we must come full circle. Early in Red Daugther of Krypton it is established that Red Lanterns, specifically, cannot ever give it up; it will inevitably kill them to try. Then, at the end, she does it anyways. I have already gone on record as standing against that. Choices should have consequences. I should make that this blog's motto. So instead the sport scene serves to show she can take it off, at least temporarily; and she will not give it up. In fact, neither of them should return to Earth, at least not immediately.

Bonus lore that may or may not be able to make it into the actual movie:

The Test for a Red is to prove their rage is righteous. As in, they honestly believe so; all Lanterns work on emotion, not moral or factual reasoning. Supergirl passed when she tried to refuse the power in exchange for something she held more important. If she'd immediately tried to take the ring, it would have dodged her, though she wouldn't automatically fail: it would keep dodging, to provoke her, to have a chance to judge her.

If she had made her challenge just a couple weeks earlier, she would have triggered another mass resurrection. Since it would be of people who are deeply hated, the consequences for the world would presumably be worse. On the other hand, since she would then have tried to stall in order for her allies to have a chance to hijack the magic and corrupt it to non-wrathful purposes, she would have quickly failed.

The Test for a Pink is to stand by a relationship that is already otherwise threatened. The way it should work is that the candidate would receive visions of alternatives. So in Dick's case, he'd see hot singles in his area looking for a man just like him. The visions are true, those people exist and are not being manipulated in any way; though it is illegal mind reading in most legislations that have rules about that.

Also, the test is not technically about resisting the temptation. He could have gone to fetch <Starfire>, then bring her along to seduce one or more of those people together. Could even do it on his own, without her knowledge, if he genuinely believed that that does not endanger his relationship, and still pass the test.

For <Starfire>, it was when her mother was sick. She was tempted with visions of other worlds. She wouldn't abandon her, but she knew she would lose her soon, so she was undecided. After the queen died, at the eulogy, she said that no matter where her feet took her from that day on, she would always carry her in her heart. That's actually a stock phrase, but she meant every word, and that was enough. Her ring politely waited in her room until all rituals and paperwork were done. Then she picked it up, to follow her latest vision, to Earth.

If she had been tested during the White War, instead it would have returned another of her dead ancestors, and of those around her, and so on. Since basically everyone has at least one ancestor they could love, the rate of spread would have been much higher. That world would almost certainly have been lost.

Few non-Pinks through the galaxy know this, but strictly speaking the Star Sapphires are a sub-group among them, who take charge of quickly and discreetly settling criminal charges resulting from the illegal visions received from new members' Tests. They officially hold themselves not accountable for other colours, but often intercede for them, on a case-by-case basis.

For jurisdictions that would exact prices they deem unacceptable (death, slavery, forfeiture of the ability that enabled the crime, among others) they instead declare war, rallying the entire Pink Lantern Corps, and as many members of other colours as will join. This is the main reason why their name is largely considered synonimous with their colour.

<Starfire>'s visions resulted in four lawsuits for illegal world-wide surveillance. One of them was decided in her favour on a technicality; their world had a long history of tourist slogans inviting "all people everywhere" to "come and watch the most beautiful world". The others resulted in what would have been the single largest fine paid in Star Sapphire history, were it not technically split three ways. They had hope to charge her back for some or all of that, they used bounty hunters because she had hidden in an uncontacted planet, and they didn't want to risk making contact, only to receive a fifth lawsuit.

She used the resources of of the Empire to pay back the fines, plus lawyer's salaries, plus reasonable interest. This is not actually related to how her sister stuck her on the throne, and in fact was not known to her at the time, but still will go down in history as part of her inaugural celebration costs. Given the short duration of her reign, she is the third most expensive, averaged per unit of time; and will have been the fourth by the time the empire falls.

She was also accused by the Star Sapphires of unlawful execution of a duly deputized agent of them, on the grounds that she should have removed his arm instead, and then probably all his other limbs for safety, which would probably have been survivable for him. They were unable to find a neutral jurisdiction to bring the case (they do not keep courts of their own), as Lobo seemed to have been either a national hero or persona non-grata everywhere in the galaxy. The charges were held in abeyance, then officially pardoned following her unprecedented valor during the White War.

There are already rumours in the Empire that she may be secretly Green or Red rather than Pink. Or even in addition; nobody can actually do that, per the "one magic source" rule, but such myths are still common. The most popular numbers are two and seven.

If Supergirl had paid more attention in history class, she would have recognized the princess' name when Lobo first mentioned her, as "the greatest Green Lantern who ever lived". She would then have vetoed his plan, brought him to hide in the Watchtower Station, and recruited the League to discreetly and politely find her and ask her to please not bring that kind of danger to their world. She would have turned herself in peacefully.

He would have spent the search time seducing as many superheroes as would have him, as well as sharing advanced scientific knowledge. "Anybody asks, you heard it from that future babe you got, yeah?". Earth would eventually honour him as a Founding Father, after Unification. He also would have recognized Martian Manhunter and informed him where his people's home world is, though he'd refuse to ferry him. Ok, enough fanfic-of-the-fanfic.

The elder princess of the <name> Empire fills her room with an unnecessary amount of servants, in part, to make other nobles that visit her feel they have to spend the time kissing them all, or else feel guilty for skipping that ritual.

They do in fact use their tongues. Legion historians believe it was to give the other party a chance to bite down.

Their empire eventually fell, at least in part, due to a mass outbreak of an illness that would later come to be informally known as "noble's breath".

Supergirl's vision is enhanced by the Red Lantern magic because it recognizes it as a manifestation of her rage; I hope it comes across that she has consistently used it that way.

Lobo's space-bike still works. It doesn't have any life support; his people can survive in deep space for extended periods, and he enjoyed bragging about that. Plus it makes it less desirable to thieves and joyriders. Supergirl is also capable of some extra-planetary travel; if she had not been recruited to the Red Lanterns, she would have debated with herself for a few months more, then taken it to go to space that way.

The timeline for <Starfire>'s life on Earth is a bit tight, but I think it works out. She arrived roughly seven years after Jason Todd died. If DC has any canon fictional city in Mexico or Canada, she should have lived there first; otherwise Mexico City, on the grounds of being the most densely populated in the hemisphere.

At first she still behaved as a royal, which made her highly unpopular among her neighbours. Also accrued some charges for public indecency, on account of all the kisses. A month in, these convinced her to self-exile, cross the border, and promise herself she would do better. Dick met her while he was in <the Titan's city> to help investigate a serial killer, who turned out to be three freak accidents and one copycat.

Zod detected her planetary surveillance system on approach, but unlike Lobo, didn't bother trying to determine their origin; he simply assumed it would be either Kal El or the locals, and decided to charge ahead either way. She knew had had happened to Krypton, and considered his actions a legitimate salvage effort by a dying species; though it was being conducted in a more aggresive way than she would like, she determined to stand neutral and let the two worlds sort it out, one way or the other. Superman finished things before it could get bad enough to test her resolve.

(If he hadn't and things had gotten worse, she would eventually have gone to Zod, to plead for mercy to her adopted home, and offer her Empire's help in having his people settled in an unhinabited planet instead. He would have refused, as a matter of pride. She then would have left, with as many humans as he allowed her to evacuate (plus her boyfriend, regardless), to help them set up a new world.)

By the time she left Earth, the Whites were starting to be active, though nobody had realized the magnitude of the threat, and the Lanterns had not gotten involved yet.

After coming back from her aborted trial for Lobo's murder, her sister challenged her to a celebratory match of a popular collectible card game, of which she herself is thrice Galactic Sector Champion. Through the match she kept taunting her to escalate their gambling; after the Imperial Gown was on the line, she cheated and was disqualified.

Since the contest was not to the death, the forfeit wouldn't necessarily have been binding, but she publically declined to invoke that clause "out of deep shame and regret for having resorted to such tactics in the heat of the moment". She is also banned-for-life from all organized play, which she does regret.

<Starfire> was Queen when the Lanterns called for help; her Empire sent the single largest armed contingent of any space nation. Her taking charge of such a large part of the army is what gave her so many opportunities to demonstrate her bravery.

The end.

After the credits, King Shark runs into a recreation room at the Watchtower. "I hear she's back! Where is she?". He's holding a chess board in his hand, the folding kind.

And one more thing. Here are my ideas for the posters for all these movies.

Man of Steel - Same as the canonical one.

Batman v Superman - Same as the canonical one, unless it shows Wonder Woman, then photoshop her out. I don think it does, though.

Steel - Closeup of the metallic Superman symbol.

Wonder Woman - Same as canon.

Jinx - Her loitering against a wall, under an open ladder.

Justice League - Multiple sheets of paper, with sketches for various potential League logos.

Static Shock - Protest sign, filled with bullet holes, abandoned in a rainy street.

Aquaman - Same as canon.

Wonder Women - Both of them, in their masked identities, posing dramatically together on top of a rooftop.

Task Force X - Folder labelled "Top Secret". Photos of various members peek out.

Supergirl - Her doing a deliberate rip-off of the one for Terminator. The jacket is over her regular costume, open enough that we can make out the symbol on her chest. Replace the gun with some object that ends up being useful to change the future.

Shazam - Same as canon.

Jokerz - That one Beatles' cover, but with clown faces. Not Joker or Punchline. Probably realistic versions of specific clowns from episode 1 of Batman Beyond, if that can look decent and still recognizable.

Watchtower - Her empty workstation. Cellphone, headset, and some other devices abandoned at the table.

Lobo - Him doing a deliberate rip-off of the one for Terminator 2. With his space-bike, and a sci-fi rifle long enough to go off-panel.

Magic 2: Sufficiently Advanced Boogaloo - If Zatanna appears in an important role, a top hat, some playing cards, etc. If she's only here as a twist or missing, something related to the bad guy.

Unnamed Static Shock Spin-off - If it's Ivy, her lounging sexily among leaves and petals, dressed in more leaves and petals. The greenery is carefully arranged so if you step back, it looks like a monster's face. If it's not her, no idea.

Undetermined - No idea.

Justice League: Rebirth - One of their regular shots of the team in a line, staring stoically at the camera, but it's alternately costumed heroes and regular people.

Livewire - Official-looking document bearing the League's logo, on fire.

The Wonders - Impossing marble statue of the late Queen Hippolyta of Temiscira.

Undetermined 2: Handwave Harder - No idea.

Cheetah - A desk drawer full of jewelry, prominently featuring the cat eye brooch.

Red Daughter of Tomorrow - Her hands doing the Twilight cover, apple replaced with the ring.

And that's it. Thank you for reading. Now go back to your family, they must be worried.

[odekiisu]

Basic Guide to Clone Trooper Armour

I don’t know about you guys, but I have a hard time keeping the terms for various parts of clone armour straight in my mind. So, I decided to make this Guide To Armour, to make my life easier for those times I’m drawing or writing stuff and need to reference what this, that or the other piece is called, how it’s put on or taken off. (I’ve also tried to include/come up with some casual or slang terms for some parts because you cannot seriously expect these guys to use the Right Proper Terminology for everything all of the time.)

This is based on the Clone Wars cartoons, because that’s what I know best. Also, this is just the standard armour of regular troopers; if y’all want something about the possible additions/variations that you could have then lmk and I’ll see what I can put together I guess?

Note: a lot of this terminology is taken from medieval knights’ armour. Many terms are originally French; alternative names provided where possible. I did do a bit of research on medieval plate armour, which is the closest thing I can think of to clone armour, but I am by no means an expert so if you have any input or corrections feel free to @ me. Likewise, if you’ve cosplayed as a clone trooper or stormtrooper, I’d very much like to hear about your experience wearing this stuff, how it moves and how it might be similar or different to the “real thing” so to speak.

Figure 1: Clone trooper armour, front view. Kix got chosen for this because he’s a vain little bastard and loves to be painted. (ETA: this diagram now comes with a second, funnier version.)

(long post under cut)

Figure 2: Back view of armour.

According to Wookieepedia: The armour is produced on Kamino and has UV spectrum markings visible to Kaminoans. It is made of plastoid-alloy composite, and the plates are attached to the bodysuit via magnatomic gription panels. In general, Phase II armour is lighter, stronger and more ergonomic than Phase I, which has been described as heavy and uncomfortable (Wookieepedia also says that it weighs ‘just under forty kilograms’ which sounds like way too much but eh, I’ll roll with it.)

Body glove/bodysuit – the stuff worn under the armour. Provides thermoregulation, some level of protection from things like blasterfire, vacuum, etc. AKA: blacks.

Helmet – The Bucket. Stuffed full of various tech: tracking device, display screen, comlink… Phase I helmets also have life support capabilities, while Phase II helmets do not, requiring an external oxygen supply*. Helmet crest contains comlink antenna. AKA: bucket, I think Rex once called them sun-bonnets, etc… this is the piece likely to have the most slang terms associated with it. Go wild.

* this is according to Wookieepedia; I’m a bit sceptical but I haven’t yet seen the episode it refers to. I headcanon that Phase II is capable of limited life support for emergency situations, but extended missions require external respirators.

Cuirass – there is some conflicting information on whether this refers to just the front chest armour or both front and back. If both, it consists of breastplate and backplate, joined at the sides and shoulders. Shoulder connections appear to be different for Phase I and Phase II: Phase I has a separate piece covering the shoulder seam, implying that it can be opened, whereas Phase II looks like it has an integrated flexible band; it may or may not be possible to disconnect. Either way, the front and back pieces must be able to separate in order to get the whole thing on.

Plackart – belly piece, wraps around the back to protect kidneys as well. Probably flexible to some extent, has been seen to slide down under belt, as demonstrated by Jesse in Figure 3. Might also have to have at least one open-able seam in it in order for troopers to get into it efficiently.

Figure 3: I have no idea how the lower edge of this isn’t stabbing him in the crotch, but *shrug*.

Spaulder/shoulder bell – also known as pauldrons irl, but that term refers to a different item this context (the pauldrons that commanders, captains and ARC troopers wear), so I feel like it might be better to differentiate between them with different terms to avoid confusion. That’s just my opinion though, you feel free to do as you wish.

Rerebrace – bicep plate. Phase I has cutouts in the back to fit pointy elbows (see below); Phase II does not.

Couter – elbow plate. Pointy elbows in Phase I, unpointy elbows in Phase II, as shown on Figure 4. In Phase I appear to be attached to vambraces in the animated version, Phase II is more mobile. I admit, I’m not a huge fan of this word, I kinda prefer elbow plates.

Figure 4: Phase I and II elbows. Am I getting way too into this that it’s gotten to the point of studying clone elbows? *shrug* who knows.

Vambrace – forearm armour. Has wrist-mounted comlink (see below).

Gauntlet plate – covers back of hand. The 212th absolutely calls these “droid-punchers”, no you cannot convince me otherwise. I think I’ve seen fanon that some troopers sharpen the front edge of this plate to do more damage when punching. Decide for yourself if plastoid alloy would do more damage to the metal of a droid’s chassis if sharpened or unsharpened (and therefore sturdier).

Codpiece/crotch plate – covers the front hip and crotch area. Possible slang term, courtesy of @mockingjay34​: cockblock

Skidplate – covers butt and back hip. A lot of troopers probably just call this piece their shebs, and once again you cannot convince me otherwise. Note that in the clone wars cartoon, Phase I armour is triangular in the back and has a sort of erm… diaper shape, in that the codpiece and skidplate are connected in the crotch (I cannot imagine that being comfortable in any situation, but then again, I have Thicc™ Thighs. Do clones have thigh gaps? Also, I would not want to get pinched by the armour joint between crotch and thigh plates).

Figure 5: Sniper Butts! (Featuring Echo and Fives in quite possibly the only comfortable position in this armour.)

In Phase II the crotch and butt pieces are separated, which sounds a lot more sensible, as well as having better butt coverage – think cheeky panties vs full briefs.

Figure 6: Hardcase kindly demonstrating the new crotch plate alongside some significant gaps in his armour… please get yourself some bigger shoulder bells my dude!

I’d imagine that, given the amount of time these guys spend fully armoured, there should be some way of conveniently opening some of this up or removing individual plates for practical reasons (and if any particular trooper wanted to use this feature for… other things, well, that’s their own business).

Cuisse/Thigh plate – covers thighs. Phase I and II have different shapes in the back to account for skidplate shape, with Phase II having significantly less coverage in the upper thigh/butt area, but I guess better range of motion.

Figure 7: Troopers Hardcase and Dogma demonstrating the Butt Cutouts, or Buttouts.

Poleyn/knee plate/knee pad – important for maintaining kneecap integrity. Like elbow plates, appears to be integrated into greaves in Phase I, but moving freely in Phase II.

Greaves – cover shins, nothing fancy.

Boots – boots. Do not appear to be armoured, are soft enough to bend your toes for walking/kneeling/whatever you need bendy toes for.

Belt pouches/boxes/compartments – A place to keep your stuff when out & about. I’m assuming this is a Pocket Substitute. Clones deserve pockets too!

Comlink – Generally four large square buttons and one smaller one (live action has more buttons). They also have comlinks in their helmets. Wookieepedia mentioned that they used wrist comms in the show so that the audience could clearly see when characters were talking to each other. Possibly used for long-range communication, whereas the ones in the buckets could be for shorter range?

Life support/those box things on their back – I have no idea what they’re actually called but these also have different designs for Phase I and II. On stormtroopers they contain a power pack and a small oxygen supply, and I guess it’s reasonable to assume that they have the same life support function for clone troopers. Also read somewhere that they have comlink scanner for long-range communication?

Thermal detonator – why would they all have bombs on their back? Seems unsafe. Also I don’t think I’ve ever seen one used? Idk. These things confuse me.

[geraltrogerericduhautebellegarde]

Waffle House AU

It’s never mentioned but for clarification, Jaskier has a beard in this. Anyway, @officerjennie, @all-hail-the-witcher, and myself shouldn’t be left alone together because then things like this happen. I love you both.

Geraskier, rated t, modern au and Geralt's still a witcher

-

The first time the man showed up, it was nearing three in the morning. The Waffle House Jaskier worked overnights in was as packed as ever, that’s to say there were two regulars sitting at the bar and a hoard of bugs flying around the place.

The man in question was dressed head to toe in some sort of armor that looked like it belonged in a steampunk cosplay and covered in an odd black substance that looked sticky. Even from across the restaurant, Jaskier could already smell the foul odor rolling off the man in waves. It was so strong Jaskier was surprised that he couldn’t see it.

Walking to the other end of the bar, closest to the corner table the man had seated himself it, Jaskier shouted at him, unwilling to get any closer than necessary, “What do you want to drink?”

“Coffee,” the man’s voice was deep, more a growl than anything else.

Wrinkling his nose in displeasure, Jaskier grabbed the coffee pot and a mug and made his way over to the table, singing loudly to himself as he did so. Jaskier’s voice bounced off the shitty interior of the Waffle House, making it echo in a most unpleasant way. Jaskier switched to humming an upbeat tune as he approached the man at the table and began pouring the coffee.

“So, what do you think of my singing?” It was a question Jaskier asked all of his late-night customers. Their answers would determine whether he would keep them as regulars or do his best to run them off.  And his best never failed.

“Hmm.”

Jaskier frowned at the non-answer, “Come now, three words or less.”

“Filling-less pie.”

Spluttering, Jaskier pointed at the man angrily, “You know nothing about music. What do you want to order?”

“Hashbrowns. Smothered and covered.”

Spinning on his heal, Jaskier stalked away from the man without responding, instead muttering angrily under his breath, “I’ll show you filling-less, you bastard.”

-

Dropping the plate in front of the man, Jaskier watched as the rubbery meal bounced uncomfortably off the plate before landing back on it, somehow looking even worse than it already had.

“What is this?” The man’s voice held no inflection and Jaskier had no way of knowing the man’s feelings as he looked at the pathetic plate in front of him.

“Your food.”

“I ordered hashbrowns.”

Jaskier had to hold in his gasp as the man’s eyes, the most unusual golden shade, met his.

“Well, this is what I’ve brought you.”

The man looked back at the plate, flipping open the joke of an omelet, revealing that it was just eggs cooked in a pan and folded over, “There’s nothing inside. What kind of omelet doesn’t have anything in it?”

“Oh? Do you not like filling-less omelets? What a shame.”

Jaskier stalked back to the bar and took a seat by the regsiter, pulling his book back out and pretending to read it while he watched the man from the corner of his eye. He didn’t even look back to Jaskier’s direction, instead staring grumpily at the eggs in front of him before beginning to eat them.

The man ate quickly and before long he was walking over to the register where Jaskier sat, throwing a wad of bills down on the counter, “Keep the change.”

“I will.”

“You’re a shitty waiter.”

“You smell bad.”

And that, Jaskier assumed, would be that and he would never have to see the weird, smelly, strangely attractive man ever again.

-

The next night when the man arrived again, this time covered in a weird flaky green substance, Jaskier couldn’t help but eye him suspiciously. People didn’t typically return after Jaskier provided intentionally bad service, at least not if they were sober and of a sound mind. Jaskier couldn’t confidently say this man’s mind was sound, although he did seem sober.

Jaskier grabbed the coffee pot and a mug and stalked over to the corner table. He filled the cup halfway.

“More hashbrowns?”

The man wrinkled his brow, a frown on his face “Yes.”

Wandering back to the kitchen, in no rush, Jaskier stuck his head back in to look at the cook, “More eggs like last night. And can you add something weird to them this time?”

The line cook saluted him before reaching up to grab something off the shelf above his head. Jaskier winced, he wasn’t sure what exactly was in the mixtures of spices that were kept up there, but he had never had a good experience with them, that was for certain. This would for sure run off the weird tone-deaf man for good. The cook was done in no time and Jaskier walked the plate over to the man in the corner, throwing it down on the table like he had the night before.

He did no more than blink in surprise when the table collapsed. Jaskier wasn’t sure exactly why the table collapsed, the plate and shitty eggs didn’t weigh very much, and he hadn’t thrown the plate down particularly hard. But, it wasn’t the weirdest thing he has ever seen in the Waffle House, so he simply caught the man’s eye and shrugged, turning and walking back to his seat.

He watched amusedly as the man juggled his plate off the table before propping it up awkwardly and moving seats. That hadn’t been part of Jaskier’s plan, but it would certainly work in his favor.

-

Jaskier was shocked when the man walked in for a third night in a row. The normally difficult to fluster waiter was very aware that his face was the very picture of surprise. Luckily, the man didn’t even look at him as he walked over to the table in the corner. He shook it a bit before sitting down, presumably making sure it wouldn’t collapse today. To be honest, Jaskier wasn’t overly confident it was any sturdier now, but it did appear that someone on day shift had at least made it look as though it was fixed.

Grabbing the coffee pot and a mug, Jaskier couldn’t help but hope this wouldn’t truly become a ritual. He didn’t want a man in his Waffle House if said man couldn’t tell that Jaskier’s singing was nothing short of marvelous.

“Hashbrowns again?”

The man nodded, staring out of the window rather than looking at Jaskier. He wasn’t in the weird steampunk armor anymore, this time wearing a soft black tee shirt and worn in jeans. It also seemed he had managed to find a bath and was able to get all of the weird grimy things off of him.

He really was quite attractive all cleaned up, Jaskier couldn’t help but notice.

“What’s your name?”

The man turned to look at him, “Geralt.”

Walking over to the kitchen, Jaskier put in the order and sat back down by the register to wait. It wasn’t long before One-Eyed Larry grunted at him from his usual seat at the bar, “Napkin holders on fire, kid.”

Looking over at the table in front of Geralt’s, Jaskier saw that the napkin holder was, indeed, on fire. Sighing and getting a glass of water, Jaskier walked over to the table and poured the glass on it, drenching it thoroughly. Waving away the smoke, Jaskier turned the napkin holder around, making sure the fire was completely out, before putting it back in its place and taking his seat again.

Geralt’s golden eyes followed him curiously the whole time.

If the man was going to be spending his nights here, then he would need to get used to these kinds of things. It was three in the morning in a Waffle House, weirder would happen.

A few minutes more passed before there was a bell ding from the kitchen, signaling that Geralt’s food was ready. Jaskier tossed the plate on the table as was tradition, smirking when he saw the surprise flit across the man’s face. No doubt he hadn’t been expecting to receive hashbrowns, smother and covered as he had first asked for two nights prior.

What could Jaskier say, he was rather weak for a pretty face. Even if was a rude one.

“If you agree that my singing is spectacular, I’ll let you take me out for coffee sometime.”

“Good coffee or this shit?” Geralt gestured to the mug in front of him.

Jaskier scoffed, “You think I would ever eat or drink anything from here?”

“That’s comforting.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.” Jaskier sat a notepad and pen on the table, “Leave your number and I’ll call you tomorrow to cash in.”

Later when Jaskier cleared the table, he couldn’t help but smile at the neat handwriting on the notepad.

Looking forward to hearing from you. You should get your napkin holder checked out.

-

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[wishfullyeternal]

Crowley x Reader- Healing Your Wings, My Dear

Crowley x Reader- Healing Your Wings, My Dear

Words- 1192

Warnings- Depictions of blood, cuts, scrapes, etc. Swearing

Anon Requested- Sorry to bother you but I wanted to know if you could make another Crowley fic where he has wings again? Totally don’t have to but I read the first one and I thought it was an amazing thought and I can’t stop thinking about it! It could be a fluff where Crowleys wings somehow get injured and the reader helps bandage them and then they lay down and the reader grooms them and stuff idk. Again, you totally don’t have to do it! Thank you!!

A/N- Ayeo bros! Back at it again! Thank you for the request, had a lot of fun making this! Hopefully you like! Love you lovelies!

"Ah, bloody hell!" You jumped up from your chair, dropping the book you were reading, quickly scanning the room to find that Crowley was facing away from you, his suit soaked in blood.

"Crowley? What the hell happened to you? Where have you been-"

"Just a few little cuts from the Winchesters, nothing too bad darling..." He trailed off, his eyes rolling into the back of his head before slowly focusing on you. He slid against the wall and to the ground, his face going far too pale for comfort, much like a porcelain doll. Except he wasn't porcelain, and should never be.

"Ah fuck!" You ran to the bathroom, looking desperately for things to help Crowley but only found a small first aid kit. (You'd think he would keep at least something useful for injuries, but alas you were wrong)

"Hey, hey, you'll be okay." You opened up the first aid kit to find little to no supplies.

"Damnit Crowley how do you not have anything! At least invest in a good first aid kit you blithering idiot," Crowley started to chuckle but then sucked in a breath, wheezing harshly. You grabbed some alcohol and poured the clear liquid onto a cotton round, making sure not to get too much on your hands.

"No not that dear, it's not me, it's the wings..." He trailed off and winced, letting the wings appear behind him, void-like black with sparks of red scattered throughout, more towards the scapulars than anything else. But they weren't like how you had seen them the first time, instead, they had large cuts and scrapes all around them, with feathers bent out of place and down covering the floor. He shook them up and had to harshly bite his lip to keep himself stable.

"Oh Crowley, please let me help," He nodded and lent the left-wing to you, it was so bad that through some of the cuts you could see the light shine through, barely covered in anything but a thin layer of skin. The veins that coursed through the wings were the most visible and caught your eye with not red blood, but black.

Quickly though you put the alcohol pad onto the dried patches of blood, smeared from cuts that were still oozing. Crowley let out a harsh breath and sighed heavily. Looking at him his chest was rising and falling rapidly and if you weren't fast enough he would go into shock. He was a demon but still inhabited a human body, so ailments still affected him just as much as a regular human.

"You're gonna be okay, don't fall asleep on me, gotta make sure you're still breathing," Crowley's brown eyes looked at you with an emotion that was somewhere between the spectrum of disbelief and comfort. You began to clean the bigger cuts, making sure to keep them sterile before packing them with the small amount of gauze in the first aid kit. The cotton round soaked in alcohol was now a dark grey color from the blood as you threw it to the side, examining the scrapes and putting bandages on as needed.

"I'm going to need to pluck some blood feathers Crowley, but let me do the other side first," Crowley noticeably shook his head, knowing the process would be quite painful, but if not done swiftly and correctly the feather wouldn't clot itself and he would lose a lot of blood.

You then again soaked another cotton round in alcohol, swiping along the sides of scrapes and cuts, letting the round grow more and more black with the more blood it picked up.

"Damn, that hurt," He winced when you went over a tender spot, a bruise already forming over the exposed skin of his wing.

"Sorry," You were blunt with your response, focusing on the task at hand, and pouring some hydrogen peroxide on a particularly bad wound, allowing it to fizz up and grow white, killing the bacteria that would be too painful for you to use straight rubbing alcohol on.

"Now I'm going to take these tweezers and pluck out some feathers, promise you won't kill me okay?" Crowley lightly laughed and nodded,

"Gotcha love, no killing" You put the tweezers at the shaft of the feather that was broken, blood already beginning to hinder the process. It covered the surface of the tweezers and caused them to slip, making you resolve and use your fingers. You didn't warn him, knowing that if you did the pain would probably be greater, and instead pulled harshly, letting the feather release itself from his skin. A small amount of blood came from the pore of the wing, but other than that it was quite clean, and a new one would eventually grow in its place.

"Now for the others," You said to yourself,

"This time try to warn me, darling, I don't fancy being violated in such a way," You rolled your eyes and shook your head, warning him until the last one.

"Done," You said, brushing off your hands and cleaning up the mess you had made. Crowley plopped himself onto his bed, and sighed deeply, desperately wanting sleep to overcome him.

"Get up for me, I want to do something," Crowley groaned and reluctantly sat up, you sat behind him and looked at the ruffled feathers, seeing ones that were out of place and down in places where down should not be.

"Let me groom them," You weren't really giving him a choice, but he obliged and stretched them out. You ran your fingers through them and began carding through the ones that were obviously bent out of shape, and massaging places that were swollen.

"Thank you love, I appreciate it" You nodded and just smiled,

"Happy to help my king of hell," Crowley quietly stretched the wings again, letting you gently reach to his uropygial gland, where oil secreted and allowed his wings to be waterproof and sturdier than before. He tried to control his breathing, but at the touch of that gland, his breathing became erratic, knowing the area was quite sensitive.

"Sorry, I just want to make sure they'll heal correctly," Crowley didn't respond and let you slowly spread the oil onto the wings, allowing it to seep through and cover the entirety of the wings. Once finished the wings showed new life, although the scars wouldn't heal completely, and he would still have some missing feathers, they were still beautiful to you. After leaving the room to wash your hands from the oil, you found him sleeping soundly in his bed, his suit still on and wings lazily spread across the bed.

"Crowley," You shook him gently, he only groaned and said,

"What, I'm trying to sleep," You pursed your lips,

"Crowley move, give me some room!" He began to bitch and moan, but stopped himself,

"Fine," He moved the wing covering the bed over himself, cradling his chest and letting you finally lie down. The both of you were immensely tired from the debacle, and sleep came easily. You felt Crowley's wing begin to brush against your midsection, slowly letting itself release the tension it held. You let the warmth envelope you as you fell asleep, letting your eyes close and mind quiet.

[crackinwise]

My pet AU is Kiyotaka and Mondo somehow out in the post-Tragedy Japan, surviving and saving people. Like either they didn't agree to stay locked in Hope's Peak for safety, or they survived the game and left with the others but didn't join Future Foundation. Major points up front, details divided into sections under the cut:

Mondo's objective would be to find his gang, and Taka's goal, besides finding his dad, would be repairing society while punishing those responsible for its destruction. But their direct task is keeping each other safe & helping victims along the way.

Mondo even stresses calling Taka "Ishimaru" instead of "bro" or his given name in front of others, so they might KNOW who's saving them. Taka caught on quick & is very grateful.

Taka would have kind of a breakdown reconciling who he is with what he has to do in a lawless world where every public moral is ignored. He keeps a small ledger of places they loot from, to compensate in the future.

At the start, Taka can only sleep burrowed against Mondo's chest or back, blocking out their damaged surroundings & pretending everything is as it was.

He cries in Mondo's arms one night after he couldn't avoid killing someone to save Mondo's life, and that's the tipping point. He thinks if he was better, stronger like his bro, he'd have noticed sooner & found a better option. Mondo is being so brave; he's Taka's rock and Taka wants to be as steady for him too. Their souls are already connected so obviously he just has to borrow more of Mondo's spirit, right?

That's how Ishida is created.

(In reality, Mondo just compartmentalizes and shoves down unhelpful feelings. You thought he needed therapy BEFORE all this, oh man-)

Ishida:

Taka ends up slipping into the Ishida facade for fight and flight; any time adrenaline kicks in and he feels he needs that boost. Sadly, that's most of their waking time. He guards Mondo and anyone they're saving like a fierce watchdog, and won't hesitate to bite.

He'll only come out of the role when he personally verifies it's safe and if Mondo can confirm it. Survivors are confused by the dual-sided Ishimaru switching right in front of them, but they're so grateful (and so much weird crap has happened) that it never phases them long.

Too many times, Ishida will go all day without a break. This means when their hideout for the night is absolutely safe, that it's okay to let go, Taka just collapses in exhaustion. But Mondo is there to catch him.

Mondo feels conflicted over the Ishida role because Taka is just a beast in it--it's very flattering and a little hot--but it also makes him worry more than before about Taka's health. He comforts Taka with a lot of praise and reassurances, and Taka sleeps lightly but otherwise fine.

Relationship: (slight mature warning)

When they touch, Taka swears he can feel the link between them flare to fuel them. Twin fires ignited. Mondo doesn't know about all that, but when their eyes meet it definitely makes him feel invincible, so, he can believe.

If they weren't already new boyfriends when The Tragedy hit, all this closeness makes sure of that soon after. Being together is their happiness and, for a while, their only link to pre-Tragedy lives. Vows not unlike marriage were exchanged one night. Where one goes, the other will follow. Anywhere. Always.

When they kiss, safe and alone, Mondo will ask what Taka wants; what he can handle that night. Sometimes it's just the kisses before passing out, sometimes it's more intimate touches to please them both after another hellish day.

Sometimes Taka will ask to be made love to, for obvious couple reasons, but also because Mondo inside him makes their tether feel stronger, more complete. Like going over the invisible line in bold marker. Taka believes any marks they can create with their mouths, any traces of themselves they can leave on or in each other, the easier they can find their bond and tap into it. (He had started a nervous habit of pressing in on lovebites to keep Ishida going when tired.)

Mondo tells him he doesn't need to find a poetic excuse for fetishes and Taka lovingly answers with a stomach punch.

Crazy Diamonds:

Mondo's gang members, the ones not dead or overcome with Despair, are slowly found and joined back up.

Any smaller and sturdier motorcycles are kept when found. If Mondo was able to keep his own in this version, it's a bit heavier than would be good for any off-roading--and much too loud for any stealth--but he refuses to part with it.

Every gang member respected Taka/Ishida the second they saw him fight beside their leader. Before Mondo says a word about him. They readily take orders from him in either form. The change in appearance was a surprise, but they're already used to some members wildly changing demeanor in or away from the gang, so it's easily accepted.

With the gang as backup to keep watch during downtime--after Ishida sized each one up and watched them for loyalty--the pair can feel a lot more relaxed. They joke about having a date in a blown-out restaurant they find, and they can finally enjoy a deep sleep.

When the group finds safehouses with more than one room, Mondo & Taka are given their privacy. Taka tries to insist everyone deserves a chance at privacy and they should rotate, but changing a gang's long-established hierarchy is a losing battle. And Mondo's not on his side because when they're alone he can be as sappy or touchy as he likes.

Legends:

Taka and Mondo save a lot of people over their journey and kinda become a legend that gets spread around and gives people Hope.

This area still needs work from me. Probably some research into Japanese myths and supernatural symbolism. A placeholder right now is something corny like "Two Men with burning eyes and thunderous voices will answer your cries for help. But if you're evil, the two will appear to you as One Demon and drag you down to the land of the dead."

There's also probably a need for costume changes since their color scheme is the same black & white of the Despair Remnants and monokumas killing people. Legend or not, it'd be easy for traumatized survivors to not know they're good guys at first.

Darker Moments: (blood, violence and vague attempted sexual assault)

After he killed a man to save Mondo, Taka luckily (he wouldn't use that word) doesn't have to again. Hurt? Yes. Beat unconscious? Yes. Maim? Yes, but some of the vile dregs of humanity are caught doing things that deserve worse--

--That deserve Mondo. Once when they were still traveling alone, a group of Remnants jumped them, managing to separate the two, and one knocked Taka out with a bad blow to the head. Mondo dispatched the others attacking him and got to Taka right as the Remnant was about to do something unforgivable.

Mondo snapped. He still doesn't remember what he did, he just remembers coming to in all the blood and dazedly picking Taka up to take him to a place he knew was safe.

Taka never finds out. He woke up a day later with a bandaged head and Mondo crying and kissing his hands. Mondo just told him he beat some and scared away the others.

Minor Details:

They try to always fight back-to-back and, to observers, seem to read each other's mind for where to move.

Taka/Ishida would use a sword or hand-to-hand. The pickaxe might just be a random pickaxe they find, if he uses it at all. Kinda hard to carry both a sword and a railroad pickaxe on your back, and I can't imagine it balances very well. (The size in official pics would be a 5lb head w/2-3lb handle.)

Mondo seems like he would use anything lying in debris to fight. Poles, pipes, chains. Aaaand maybe the knives he mentions in School Mode.

For any costume changes, Mondo would keep his jacket at least. A beacon for the Diamonds. Maybe a purple tank top, and different pants better for knife holsters. Unless the holster should wrap around his waist or hip instead?

Any changes to Taka's outfit would keep his armband. It's a reminder of his Talent and his goal to make Japan even better than before. Also wanna keep his boots or change to more rugged ones.

End Goal:

Obviously they'd end up in Towa, after the events of Ultra Despair Girls. They're reunited with Takaaki and Takemichi. Maybe they help set things right there a bit, or Makoto would get word to them about his plans vs Future Foundation's. Look at me, do I look like someone that knows how to end things?

There is no way you read all that. (I love you if you did.) But feel free to use all or any bits of it in your own works. Almost positive I'll never get to compose all this into a coherent fic format. I might update in short scenario posts under a 'Tragedy-survivor au' tag if I think of anything.

If you have a question or want something expanded upon, ask away.

[potatoes-is-are-food]

Demon Shit [Part 2]

I’m making this a whole ass series, we’re gonna call this the demon shit au or whatever, feel free to send in asks about it and stuff, and get ready for more parts!

| NSFW - no actual secs scene in this one

When you woke, you felt like you’d been hit by a train. You struggled to move, shifting a little and groaning. A light chuckle came from slightly above you and you pried your eyes open to look into Dabi’s cyan ones.

“Sore?” he teased, running his fingers through your hair. You gave him a look and he clasped his hand dramatically over his chest, “not the kicked puppy look, doll,” he pulled you close and inspected the bite on your neck, stroking along the marred skin carefully with his thumb before letting his hand rest on your shoulder.

“That doesn’t hurt anymore, right?” He asked, giving it a little tap. You craned your neck, reaching up to feel it yourself and finding only ridges like an old scar and not the gaping wound that it should be. You looked up at him, intrigued by the look of concern on his face, and shook your head.

“Good,” the corner of his mouth twitched up and he leaned in, placing a chaste kiss to your lips. You trailed your fingers lightly along his bare chest, skin catching on the metal of his staples.

“Do these hurt?” You asked, meeting his eyes again. He gave you an expression you couldn’t read.

“Yeah, but not to the touch,” he paused, “They’re sort of like a punishment. I’m not as nice to everyone as I am to you, little sacrifice,” he teased, half-smiling and planting another soft kiss to your forehead. You felt you shouldn’t press the matter, settling back into bed and burying your face in his chest.

He hummed, stroking your hair for a minute before giving your back a pat and detaching you from himself, standing and opening the curtains. The lighting outside hadn’t changed at all in the hours you’d spent in the house. He stretched, and your eyes moved across the taught muscles in his back and arms.

When he turned to face you again he materialized the same outfit he’d had on yesterday. He helped you stand, shaking a bit and clutching the soft, white bed sheet around your body. He sighed,

“Shit. Shouldn’t have ripped your dress,” he muttered, looking down at your little sheet-clad form.

“Can’t you make clothes?” You asked, giving the sleeve of his jacket a little tug. He shook his head,

“Nope. I can only do that to myself. Technically speaking they’re not real. And I can only do a couple things,” his hand curled under his chin, one finger tapping against his jaw. “It’s fine,” he said, ruffling your hair, “You just stay here for a bit and I’ll be right back, okay? Take another nap or bath or something.”

You shook your head, grasping his sleeve again tightly, “Don’t leave me here by myself,” you felt a lump form in your throat at the thought. This place wasn’t even real if your assumption of what a “pocket dimension” was was correct.

“It’s safe, sweetness,” he cooed, wrapping an arm around your shoulders. You shook your head, tears welling in your eyes as you pleaded with him with your expression. He tutted at you, giving your forehead a light flick.

“Less than an hour. Promise,” two fingers tilted your chin up as he leaned down, swiping his forked tongue along your lip and flicking it into your mouth when you opened for him, followed by his lips meeting yours. He groaned softly against you before pulling away, wiping away the strands of saliva that followed.

“Be right back,” he trailed his thumb down your cheek, planting one more brief kiss to your temple, and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. You followed, opening the door to find him gone.

With a little shiver, you pulled the sheet up around you tighter, bunching up the material so it wouldn’t drag behind as you explored the house. You went down the stairs, wincing as several places on your abused body flared in pain, and padded through a little sitting room. The whole house was like a doll’s house, and everything downstairs seemed to be fake. The sinks didn’t work and the fridge didn’t open, and you quickly grew bored, deciding to take Dabi’s advice and have another bath.

Entering the room he’d ...had you in, you took in the sight of the disgusting bed.  The blankets were bunched in various places, shredded in others, and the whole thing had pools and specks of blood, sweat, and cum on it. Your sacrificial dress was in shreds in the corner. You awkwardly turned away, into the attached bathroom.

You dropped the sheet in front of the mirror as you gasped at your reflection. Your hair was a mess, and your body was covered in bruises and scratches, mostly hand-shaped or matching the spacing of his staples. You hadn’t even noticed them scraping along your skin, but they definitely had. The bite he’d left looked like an old scar. You noticed your lips were a little swollen, too, and not just the ones on your face.

Starting the bath, you tried to comb through your hair with your fingers and splashed a little cold water from the sink on your face. You sat on the edge of the tub, blankly staring into space. Was this a dream? You knew the witch meant business, she’d told you if you fucked up her ritual she’d kill you and she definitely meant it. You laughed in spite of yourself at the thought. You’d fucked up the ritual and then fucked her demon.

Lowering yourself into the hot water you sighed, stretching and letting it soothe your sore muscles. You wondered what it meant to be a sacrifice. What did he mean when he said he was going to “keep you”? There was too much to try to sift through, so you pushed it all to the back of your mind and decided it didn’t matter. He clearly didn’t have any intentions of killing you or he’d have done it. And at least some part of him seemed to care about you. Your face burned whenever you tried to place your own feelings, though.

What you thought was roughly half an hour later you heard movement in the house. Feeling shy you grabbed the sheet off the floor and pulled it over the top of the tub, covering most of the rim. The footsteps stopped outside the door and Dabi knocked, opening the door without waiting for a response.

“Got you something to wear, little sacrifice,” he held up a bag from a store you’d never heard of, setting it aside and crouching beside you, “What’s this for?” He trailed his finger under the sheet, raising a brow at you. You felt your cheeks heat up and sank further into the water. He chuckled, grabbing the sheet as he stood and holding it out for you to use as a towel, keeping his eyes on yours.

You begrudgingly stood, cold air making goosebumps raise on your skin. Dabi wrapped the sheet around you and helped you out of the tub, rubbing the fabric over you to dry you off.

“So shy,” he taunted, running a thumb along your cheek affectionately. “I know I fucked you stupid earlier but you remember me seeing you naked, right?” He crouched, bunching the sheet up and drying your legs. Eye level with your hips, he reached and gently dragged a finger along your puffy, still sore folds, making you whimper.

“Poor little thing,” he withdrew his hand, placing a brief kiss to your pussy that made your breath hitch before reaching for the bag and rustling through it and producing a white dress, similar to the one he’d ripped off you, “We’re doing another ritual. The dress isn’t necessary but it’s traditional and you looked so cute in the first one.”

You stepped in, using his shoulder for support, and he pulled the soft material up your body until it was settled in place. It was very similar to the first one, but made out of sturdier material. You shifted a little, squeezing your thighs together uncomfortably.

“Um, Dabi?” Your brows knitted together as you looked up at him. He hummed in response, shifting through a different shopping bag, “Could I have some other stuff to wear with this? Like under it? And shoes…?” You trailed off, trying not to sound ungrateful for what he’d already given you. He gave you a wink,

“I’ve got ya, doll,” he lifted your feet one at a time, guiding them through the lace panties, pulling them up around your hips and giving the waistband a little snap. You stepped into the stockings he held up next, his hands gliding up your legs as he fixed them for you, planting a soft kiss on each knee as he finished.

“Why are you dressing me and stuff?” The question came out quiet and nervous as he pulled the dress down to affix a bralette around your chest.

“I take good care of my things,” he murmured, kissing the top of your head as he fixed your sleeves back into place. He reached into one of the bags and pulled out a long black coat, draping it around your shoulders. Pulling out a pair of boots and helping you step in, he tied the laces for you as you spoke,

“What are you going to do with me? After we summon your friend?” You fidgeted with the hem of your dress, not looking directly at him as he stood, adjusting the coat on your shoulders.

“Sacrifices usually live in pocket dimensions like this one. Sometimes their demons will let them stay in what you’d call the real world, but they can’t visit as often like that so it’s not as popular,” he explained, tilting your chin up to look at him, “I’m going to keep you in a bigger pocket  and you’re going to live there. I’m also gonna use you to summon my friends and they’ll be able to visit you. You don’t have to do anything, just keep a couple demons happy for a few thousand years.”

Your eyes widened and his hand wrapped around your shoulders to stabilize you.

“Thousand?” You gasped, gripping his wrist and gaping up at him. He laughed, flicking your forehead as he’d done earlier,

“Yeah. Thousand. You’ll live as long as I do so probably another six thousand or so,” he pressed his lips to the spot he’d flicked, clearly amused at your shock, “So,” he continued nonchalantly, “Time to go.” His fingers threaded through yours as he pulled you out of the bathroom and down the stairs.

Once you stepped through the front door with him the pocket dimension was gone and you’d stepped into a busy street, struggling to keep up with Dabi’s fast pace as he dragged you behind him. You tugged on his hand to try to get him to slow down, but he just tugged back, making you stumble a little. Pulling you off to the side he lifted you onto his back, continuing down the street quickly, weaving through the crowds of people easily.

“What’s your friend’s name?” You asked, resting your head on his shoulder.

“Tomura,” he paused for a second, “he’s… not as used to people as I am. Women especially. Just, uh, be aware of that,” he finished, still sounding unsure of his words. You tensed a little and he rubbed his thumbs gently along your thighs as he supported them.

The streets became less crowded as he carried you, eventually setting you down and holding your hand as you maneuvered through desolate alleys. You came to what looked like the back door to a business and Dabi entered, pulling you in behind him before slamming the door shut and leaving you both in darkness.

[avaritia-apotheosis]

Phantom Children Ch. 6

Hi guys! I'm back <3 (also, I'm currently looking for alpha/beta readers for Phantom Children, so if you're interested, feel free to shoot me a message!)

In Which: Danny Attempts to get Answers, Bruce Learns, and Dick Finally Learns What's Inside the Door that Doesn't Exist

AO3 | Prologue | 5 | [ 6 ] | 7

DANNY IS KNOCKED DOWN three, four, eight times on the ice. Each time made his back ache, his bones bruised and tired, and his mind burning with embarrassment and a drive to lash out. But each time he gets back up. Each time he lasts a little bit longer against Talia.

The ice still shifts, cracks and rumbles with every wrong move. Danny learned to roll with it. Move on light feet but attack with a firm stance, gauge which parts of the ice are stable and which should be avoided. Multi-tasking has never been Danny’s strong suit, but he’s good at learning and learning quickly.

Talia corrected his form as much as she beat him down. Exploited every one of his openings until he learned to defend them and praised him whenever he managed to pull one over her. The League’s martial arts was the holy amalgamation between almost every single fighting style there is, mashed and refined to perfection to become almost unpredictable to the untrained. A vast improvement to Danny’s previous ‘fuck around and see what works’ brawling and had the added benefit of meshing together with his spontaneity.

“You are doing well, Daniel,” Talia said as she sheathed her sword, hand resting just above her hip. “You have improved greatly in such a short time, as I have expected.”

It takes every ounce of Danny’s superhuman energy to not collapse to his knees, his every breath a ragged shudder as he tries to get his breathing under control. “Still can’t beat you, though.”

“Very few can boast that feat.”

“I’m not exactly sure if that’s supposed to make me feel any better or not. Do I get my prize at least?”

Tahlia tossed her braid over one shoulder with a laugh. “Come, then, let us rest in the caves. The sun is to set soon and we must make camp before we freeze to death.”

“Hypothermia is so last season. I’m way too cool for that.”

He didn’t know whether to be disappointed that Tahlia didn’t react to his pun. It was pretty clever, in his opinion.

('Puns are the lowest form of comedy,' said mind-Jazz.

Says the one who named the Box Ghost the ‘Crate Creep.’

'That’s alliteration, not a pun.')

It was kind of pathetic that even his mind-version of Jazz was smarter than him.

“What would you like to know first?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Sarcasm dripped from Danny’s voice. He sheathed his sword and let it hang loose at his side. “Maybe how old this mysterious brother of mine is?” Ancients, his life was weird enough already, it wasn’t supposed to sound like the B-plot to a bad soap opera.

“Damian is younger than you by a little over four years. He will turn eleven this year.”

“Huh. Never been an older brother before.”

“Perhaps you might have been, if circumstances had been different.”

Cryptic. Great. Danny stepped over a particularly large crack in the ice and scampered over to solid ground. “You gotta give me more than that. What’s he like?”

“Prideful,” she said. “But skilled enough to warrant it. He was raised like a prince—as how you should have been.”

“And he lives with…our dad?”

“Yes. In America.” The cave was deep enough to shield them from the worst of the eventual mountain winds. Tahlia had already started building a campfire with equipment from her knapsack, embers eating away and growing into a steady flame. He sat down, legs crossed, beside the fire, hands tucked beneath his armpits.

He bit his lip, a question forming in his mind. “Do…do we have the same dad?”

Tahlia looked up at him. “Of course. Only your father has had the privilege of being called my beloved, and only he is worthy enough to have sired my children.”

Once night fell, it fell quickly. Blanketing as far as Danny could see from the mouth of the cave in a thick darkness. Snow fell from the skies in thick tufts and covered their footsteps.

“Does he—do they know about me?”

“No, they do not.”

“And you probably aren’t going to tell them anything about me, if you could help it.”

“That is very perceptive of you, habeebi.”

“You won’t tell me anything more about them, will you?”

“In due time, I will.”

Danny blew part of his fringe away from his face. Figures.

Despite the ever-present niggling at the back of his mind, Bruce had yet to see what was in the flash drive. The weeks since his strange meeting with Vlad Masters suddenly exploded with criminal activity with the recent breakout in Arkham and the brewings of another gang war in the shadows of Gotham’s paved streets. It was all hands-on deck. And Bruce, whether as Batman or Wayne, had always prioritized Gotham and its citizens over anything else.

The flash drive remained on his person despite the crisis, tucked away in one of the sturdier compartments of his utility belt to prevent the data inside from becoming damaged. Sometimes he found his hands gravitating towards it, fingers brushing against the button that would release the mystery from its confines before he realized what he was doing and steeled himself. Hands fisted to his side and attention forcibly directed elsewhere.

Eventually, the rogues were placed back into Arkham, and Gotham let out a shuddered breath of relief as it remained standing for another day.

Most of the family were out on a light patrol, cleaning up the remains of the breakout and helping where they can. Jason and Dick bickering over the comms whilst Barbara laughed in her clocktower.

(“It’s not that bad.”

"‘It’s not that bad’—shut the fuck up.” Jason spat. Bruce could hear him revving his bike. “You’re a fucking idiot, you know that? Certified Grade A idiot. B’s gonna kill you.”

He could hear Dick roll his eyes. “Sure, pile it all on, Jaybird. Blame the victim.”

"It was your fault.”

“It’s not my fault I didn’t see it there!”

"You tripped and got a concussion. From a stick. A. Stick.”

“Can we please just leave that out of the report?” Dick groaned. Barbara laughed. “Oh god.”

“Richard motherfucking John Grayson. I swear if you vomit on me then—”

“I’m not gonna vomit on you! You just turned the corner a little too fast. It’s nice to see you care though.”

"Fuck no, I just don’t wanna smell like regurgitated cereal.”)

Damian was benched from a patrol. Their last conflict with Poison Ivy ended with Damian sticking a bad landing and twisting his ankle. He dealt with it with as much grace as can be expected. Meaning that he spent the last few days sulking as he caught up on his missed schoolwork and shooting daggers at everyone else who came back from patrol.

Bruce flicked the flash drive open and plugged it into the computer. The flash drive contained only a single folder dated six months ago.

He clicked it, and a news headline popped up.

LOCAL TEEN DIES AFTER DRIVING OFF CLIFF

Beneath it, a picture. Blue eyes. Black hair. A familiar face.

Blood pounded in Bruce’s ears. He could hear nothing except a sharp gasp from Damian behind him.

When Dick and Jason arrived at the batcave, it was to an eerie silence. Not that it was usually loud, only that Bruce spent most of his free time down in the cave and Dick had come to expect hearing some signs of him around. Typing on keys, the clicking of a mouse, the heavy thuds of a fist meeting a punching bag or a training dummy, etcetera, etcetera. Or maybe even Alfred cleaning up around the cave, feeding the bats, or restocking their med bay.

(Dick, it turned out, didn’t have a concussion. Probably. Not a severe one anyway. What mattered most was that he managed to convince Jason to have dinner at the Manor. Alfred was making a tarte tatin for dessert tonight and those were absolutely to die for. )

One of Tim’s cases took him to the other side of Gotham. The only person in the cave was Damian, who was staring agape at the batcomputer.

“Why the hell is the demon spawn looking at old pictures of Bruce? We get it. They look alike.

“Uh, Dami? What’s up?”

Damian snapped his mouth shut. “I believe it might be best if you asked father that, Grayson.” Despite his clipped tone, there seemed to be little anger in his voice. His proud shoulders were hunched over on the chair, eyes trained on his lap.

He looked so small.

Damian clucked his tongue. “He’s upstairs, if you need him. So is Pennyworth.”

Dick shot a glance at Jason who raised his hands in mock surrender. “You’re up golden boy. Whatever the fuck the old man’s problem is this time, I’m not dealing with it.”

Dick sighed. “Fine.”

There was a door in Wayne Manor that didn’t exist.

When Dick was a child and recently adopted by Bruce Wayne, one of the first things he did was explore the manor. It’s the prerogative of every child that somehow found themselves in a large mansion—even more so given the castle-like exteriors of Wayne Manor. All castles have secret passages, and if the Batcave lay in the subterranean depths below, then surely the manor proper must have its own secrets.

Dick would tumble and cartwheel along the hallways, opening any and every single door he came across. A lot of them were just empty bedrooms or unused parlors and sitting rooms; the furniture covered by white sheets to keep the dust away. Alfred was probably magic, but even he can’t keep the entirety of the manor dust free.

The majority of the unused rooms were unlocked.

Except for one.

It was a room in the west wing, on the second floor. A couple doors down from where Bruce’s and Dick’s were. Why it was locked, Dick never found out. But he was curious since it was the only room on that floor that remained shut.

When he asked Alfred about it, the old butler only said that it was an unused storage room they preferred to keep locked just in case. When he asked Bruce about it, he’d be quick to change the subject. Usually something Batman related. Which, well, always worked, because it was Batman related. And Dick, young and spry and itching to fly under Batman’s wings, would quickly forget about that curious little mystery in favor of punching bad guys in the face and flipping over rooftops.

At some point that locked door quietly disappeared, leaving a blank expanse of wallpaper and a decorative vase where it once stood. It was never brought up again. And Dick slowly forgot that it was ever there in the first place.

Until now.

The wooden table and vase were shoved off to the side. Wallpaper sliced away to reveal the lines of a doorway. The door, covered in its faint damask wallpaper, was kicked open, the wood around the bolt splintered and cracked. He could hear voices—Alfred’s and Bruce’s—speaking softly on the other side.

He pressed his back against the wall and kept his breathing quiet.

“Three times, Alfred.” Bruce’s voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper. “Three times she’s done this to me.”

“Master Bruce…”

“I don’t—I don’t understand why—” Bruce choked, swallowing a shuddered breath. “Damian, I can understand. Jason, I can too. But…This? I—” Bruce suddenly quieted. Dick knew the jig was up.

He unlatched himself from the wall and slowly slid through the once-hidden-door, a hand kept on the frame. “Um. Hi, Bruce? Alfred?” The words fell flat, stilted. Dick winced as he said them. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop but, uh…” He trailed off the second he registered what was in the room.

It was large, as so many rooms in the manor were. The room was covered in peeling green wallpaper with faded pictures of baby deer and owls and other woodland creatures prancing about. There was a dresser on one wall. A shelf filled with little picture books and stuffed animals on the other. A brown teddy bear had fallen on its face on one of the shelves.

In the middle—where Bruce was hunched over—was a crib. The wood streaked and aged with time, the beddings within pristine and untouched, if not dusty. Hanging overhead was a mobile with little animals dangling on a string.

“Worry not Master Dick. It is good that you are here since it will inevitably involve the rest of the family at some point.”

Dick nodded absentmindedly, trying to lock eyes with his guardian. “B? What’s—what’s going on?” Dick took one step deeper into the room. “The pictures in the cave. I thought they were you since they were too old to be Damian—” Bruce’s hands on the crib’s railing flinched.

Dick’s breath hitched.

“They’re…not your photos, are they.”

Bruce took a deep breath in, the lines of his shoulders tense. “No. They’re not.”

In their line of work, the answer could have been anything. Clones, magical doppelgangers, alternate universe counterparts, hell, even just someone’s genetic code being coincidentally similar to another person. But…this room, this nursery, pointed towards only one conclusion.

“Who is he, Bruce?”

Bruce angled his head towards Dick, unshed tears glimmering in his eyes. “He’s my son, Dick.

“He’s my son.”