#and fanfic facts LOL

[ikuzeminna]

AI tries to explain: Duo's popularity

ChatGPT, explain why Duo Maxwell is the best character on "Mobile Suit Gundam Wing."

"Duo Maxwell" is a beloved character from the anime series "Mobile Suit Gundam Wing," and while opinions about the best character can vary among fans, there are several reasons why some fans may consider Duo to be the standout character in the series:

Okay, let me cut you off already. Some fans? It is an undisputed fact in the fandom that Duo is the best character in the series, regardless of anyone's favorites, how dare you.

The poor boy earned it, putting up with everyone's crap and drama for 49 episodes and a movie.

Complex Personality: Duo Maxwell possesses a multi-faceted personality that makes him intriguing. On the surface, he appears carefree, cheerful, and often playful, earning him the nickname "the God of Death" with a smile.

Geocities! Geocitieeees! Or Angelfire, whatever. But "the God of Death with a smile" is ripped straight from one of those ancient fan shrines. Oh, the nostalgia.

However, beneath his jovial exterior lies a character with depth, a tragic past, and a sense of responsibility for his actions. His complexity makes him relatable and interesting.

Agreed but I also have to laugh at how this applies to pretty much everyone.

Relatable Backstory: Duo's backstory is one of hardship and resilience. He grew up as an orphan and had to fend for himself on the streets, which adds a layer of empathy for his character. Many viewers can relate to overcoming adversity, making his character all the more endearing.

I'm willing to bet money that that last sentence is a standard phrase AI throws in, regardless of who it's talking about. Because extreme few would call growing up in the streets as an orphan relatable. Especially with giant death machines running around.

Strong Moral Compass: Despite his occupation as a Gundam pilot and "the God of Death," Duo is guided by a strong moral compass. He is reluctant to take lives unnecessarily and often expresses concern for the well-being of civilians caught in the crossfire of war. This moral dilemma and internal conflict add depth to his character.

I didn't know he got paid for being a Gundam pilot or giving himself a nickname. :>

But agreed on his concern for civilians. He is, after all, the one who was so gallant as to try not to get Relena involved in the Operation Meteor mess. Little did he know.

Loyalty and Friendship: Duo values his friendships deeply, particularly his bond with Heero Yuy.

AI has been fed with fanfics: confirmed.

I always find it funny when I come across the claim that Duo is best buddies with Heero when, canonically, he doesn't even get the guy half the time. Try Quatre. He is definitely someone Duo makes a point to hang out with, in the series, the movie and even in the side manga like Blind Target.

Their camaraderie and shared experiences throughout the series resonate with viewers, highlighting themes of loyalty and the importance of human connections even in the midst of war.

.............No.

Wit and Humor: Duo's witty one-liners, humor, and comical antics provide much-needed levity in a series that often explores dark and heavy themes. His sense of humor can be a refreshing contrast to the seriousness of the Gundam pilots' mission.

Yeah, except, Duo is pretty serious during a mission. It's guys like Wufei or Heero who joke around when crap is about to hit the fan.

Character Development: Over the course of the series, Duo undergoes significant character development. He evolves from a carefree troublemaker to a more mature and responsible individual, showcasing personal growth and a willingness to face his past.

At this point AI is pulling stuff exclusively from fanfics. A carefree troublemaker? Significant character development? He evolves into a more mature and responsible person??

Does he stop pulling pranks, too, while he's at it?

You gotta give credit when AI says the above about the most serious, responsible and static character in the entire series. Bravo!

Duo and significant character development, please

Iconic Gundam: The Gundam associated with Duo, the Deathscythe, is one of the most iconic mobile suits in the series. Its unique design and abilities, as well as Duo's skillful piloting, make it a fan favorite.

All right, we're back on track.

Cultural Impact: Duo Maxwell has left a lasting impact on the Gundam Wing fanbase. His popularity has led to a strong presence in merchandise, fan art, and fan fiction, further solidifying his status as a beloved character.

True. Although Duo's popularity is also in large part due to shipping as well. The more shippable a character, the more popular. Or is it the other way around..?

While Duo Maxwell may be considered the best character by some fans,

Not some fans. All of us.

it's important to note that "Mobile Suit Gundam Wing" features a diverse cast of characters, each with their own strengths and complexities. Ultimately, the appeal of a character is subjective, and different viewers may connect with different aspects of the series and its characters.

Save it for a show this applies to. >_>

[starry-bi-sky]

Blood Blossom Au: Baby's First Commissioner Meeting :)

TL:DR This Post: Danny (orphan) gets poisoned with blood blossom extract by Vlad. He runs away from him and ends up under the care of one Pre-Robin Battinson Batman! Starry is loudly pushing her batdad agenda.

(Also known as "Late At Night, When The Nightingale Sings" on my ao3!)

This was a fun rough idea I've been sitting on for weeks, thinking about how Commissioner Gordon and Nightingale's first meeting might go.

---------------

Commissioner Gordon likes to think that he's adjusting to the new normal of Gotham very well, -- the new normal being grown men running around dressed like bats, in military-grade strength body armor, committing acts of vigilantism, -- and slowly, little by little, he was no longer being surprised when this new normal pops up out of the shadows like the world's most terrifying daisy. His shaving lifespan thanks him for it.

....

The kid is a surprise though.

Granted, he seemed to be a surprise to the Bat too.

There's been a string of murders lately, -- which, in Gotham, is kind of like saying there's been another storm during monsoon season. And there's just been another; in some dilapidated building down in south Gotham, with the broken, boarded-up windows and mildew-crawling walls to match. The victim is a man in his thirties, multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, left in the center of the room for the blood to pool out around him.

The place is already secured when he arrives, the building swarmed with officers and the forensic detectives. The Bat emerges shortly after he does -- or, he might've been here the whole time, hiding someplace dark and shadowy. For his own sanity, Gordon doesn't think about it too hard.

The kid is a surprise, and he appears like a bolt of lightning.

He shows up in the middle of a conversation Gordon is having with the Bat.

A whistle, sharp and loud, slicing through the air, meant for open air rather than a confined space. Gordon's ears pierce and protest the sound, and the solemn, murmured chatter floating through the room abruptly cuts off like the swing of a gavel. As he turns towards the sound -- as they all do -- he swears, up and down, that he sees Batman's shoulders jump, just slightly.

At the source, perched on the window, is a boy. A boy in a gray-blue scarf and an oversized black hoodie, one that hangs off his frame and has ace bandages wrapped around the wrists in some attempt to cinch the sleeves. The hood is up, big like the rest of it, and threatens to swallow the upper half of the boy's face whole in the fabric. What upper half Gordon can see, is smeared with some kind of opaque, black face paint. He's holding onto the side of the frame with one hand, on his hip is a grappling hook. A familiar grappling hook.

Gordon has multiple questions, and his officers tense up.

Martinez puffs up, brows furrowing as his face shapes into a frown. Shoulders rolling back. "You can't be here, kid--"

The reaction is immediate, like a spark to gunpowder, the boy yanks his fingers from his mouth and his mouth twists into a scowl. Head snapping over to Officer Martinez, his hood manages to stay on but Gordon swears that as he bares his teeth, the glint makes them look sharper than they should be. His voice is rasp and quiet and harsh; snappish in its hissing; "Put a fuckin sock in it, Martinez. I'm not stayin."

Martinez reels back, and the boy immediately veers his attention off him. Like a switch, his demeanor drops. Despite half his face being covered, his mouth twists into a cringing, apologetic smile. Slanted and off-beat, embarrassed. It'd be disarming if this wasn't Gotham, and if he didn't just hiss at Martinez like he was about to bite his head off.

"Sorry." He whispers, voice deceptively polite and softer now. Gordon has to strain his ears to hear him. "I was looking for him."

He points his finger towards-- Gordon? No, Gordon follows the direction, and finds himself looking at -- the Bat.

The Bat, who always looks stiff as a pole, now looks even stiffer. Somehow. Well, the explains the grappling hook attached to the boy's waist.

"What are you doing here?" The Bat says, gruff and unable to completely smother the stumble of surprise in his tone.

The boy still holds a sheepish smile, and slips off the window ledge. His feet hit the creaky boards with a near-silent thud, the Batman finds his feet and rapidly begins crossing the room.

Gordon notes the slight tremble in the boy's legs as he straightens. He adjusts his scarf, which droops close to his knees now that he's standing, and slings a backpack -- how long has had that? -- off his shoulders. When the Bat reaches his side, he does as he always does, and looms over the boy like a spectre. A threatening mass of shadows cloaked in all-consuming black. Standing next to him, the boy looks teeny in comparison.

The Bat is a man who terrifies even the most hardened criminals, Gordon has seen grown men shiver in fear at the mention of his name. And yet when the boy looks up at him, he doesn't even flinch.

Instead, his sheepish smile melts away like ice under the sun, holding only traces of his previous embarrassment. It remains as a shadow on his face, a small upturn at the corners of his mouth. The boy pushes his hood back just enough to reveal glinting, ice-flint eyes surrounded in tar-black face paint. He holds the backpack up with one arm. "You forgot this."

[oh-theatre]

Me starting a new WIP despite having a million unfinished ones:

[soundwave-radioandbroadcast]

Was chatting with my mom and she proposed this idea to me, and basically here it is/from what I remember of it.

Mom: Starscream should be in love with Optimus, but it's unrequired love because you know Optimus is like a big alpha liking the female transformers. But only Bumblebee knows the truth! So he tries to play matchmaker and plays romantic music to try and get them together!

Me: I-

Mom: STARSCREAM ALSO HAS DADDY ISSUES! YOU SHOULD WRITE THIS!

Me:...You know there is probably a fic like that out there?

Mom: IS THERE?

fun fact this entire thing sparked because I was talking about if Transformers were real, I would want Soundwave as my personal driver and she was just "Isn't Soundwave the one with heels and is very gay?"

[sluttygallavich]

Galladrabbles: autumn

Thanks, @millennium-time-machine, for this week's prompt. Great first prompt for @galladrabbles! <3

_________________________

His co-worker nudges him sharply, and Ian looks up as his crush approaches the counter.

“Hey, Mickey.” He sounds breathless. “The usual?”

“Hmm, feelin’ bold today. Gimme a venti pumpkin spice latte, eight shots of espresso, five pumps of maple pecan sauce, light foam, extra caramel drizzle, extra autumn sugar topping.”

Ian is stunned stupid. “Are—are you serious?”

Mickey laughs. “Nah, man. Just wanted to see that big orange head of yours explode.” 

“Asshole,” he says, fighting back a smile. “So…tall black?”

“Well…did say I was feelin’ bold. How ’bout your number, too?”

Battle lost, Ian beams.

[hailsatanacab]

I'll ask after that secret number 8!

I only remembered secret number 8 because I saw your wip here! I'd started this one based on the same prompt, then lost said prompt and stopped working on it 😅

Instead of a snippet, I'm just dropping it all here - maybe that way I'll feel inspired to finish it?

———

It’s a full house for dinner tonight and, really, that should have tipped him off.

Bruce sits at the head of the table, smiling softly as he watches over everyone’s antics. Damian is regaling Dick with everything they saw at the zoo that day (Danny had been so happy to see Delilah the purpleback gorilla again, and her new little additions to the troupe, too!) and how well they are implementing the grant the Wayne Foundation had gifted them. Tim, Steph, Cass, and Duke are all engaged in a thumb-war tournament which Danny has no interest in participating in. It just wouldn’t be fair on them.

Danny loves that look. The one where Bruce’s eyes crinkle when he thinks none of the kids can see him. It oozes love and it makes Danny’s heart, his core, ache. 

It’s been a little over a year since Alfred found him on the street and managed to wrangle him back to the manor to stay—even after the whole biting thing when he realised how rich they were. 

A little over a year here and Danny’s starting to feel like family.

Starting to feel like he might, just maybe, like to make it official.

“Danny,” Bruce says, drawing everyone’s attention. Danny starts at his name, but Bruce’s voice is warm and calm, and his shoulders lose their tension almost immediately. “Danny, I have something I would like to tell you.”

“Uhhh…” is all Danny can croak out, eyes flicking back and forth between Bruce and the rest of them. Smooth. Looking good, Danny.

Except… they’re all happy. All smiles, all relaxed body language, all radiating calm and love and acceptance. Well, not Damian—his face is as thunderous as it always is—which at least means it’s nothing too out of the ordinary.

“Danny, first of all, I just want to impress upon you that this is in no way something you have to do. You are under no obligation to join us and, no matter what, you shall always be welcome with us in the manor.”

Wait, what? Danny squints at Bruce, trying to parse exactly what he’s saying… Is he—is this them asking to adopt him? Do they want to make it official, too? 

It’s been a little over a year and of course Danny has imagined calling Bruce ‘Dad’. Of course he’s imagined being part of the family, of course he wants to make it official!

He can’t help the beaming grin or the bright and bubbling “Yes!” already waiting on his lips. All Bruce has to do is ask, all Danny needs to hear is—

“I’m Batman.”

The smile freezes on Danny’s face.

His lungs stop working, his heart stops working, he stops working, he just—

“And I’m Nightwing,” Dick smiles, breaking the awkward silence. 

Danny’s eyes snap to him, and then down to Tim when he admits to being Red Robin. Duke is Signal, Steph is Spoiler. Damian begrudgingly tells him he’s Robin, but Danny can barely hear it over the ringing in his ears.

“I’m Black Bat.” Cass cocks her head, almost looking concerned. It always felt like she understood him the most. Whenever he was feeling low, too in his memories, or stewing after a nightmare, she was always there, ready to card her fingers through his hair and never mention his tears. It makes his heart ache to think of it now. “It’s okay, Danny.”

It’s meant to be reassuring, but how—how can it be okay? How? 

Danny’s spent a little over a year with them. A little over a year with Batman. 

Batman, who works with the Justice League, who works with…

A little over a year. 

Just under 16 months since he escaped.

“Danny? Are you alright?” Bruce asks

Finally, his lungs kickstart and suck in a shuddering breath, only for everyone to drop their smiles.

Didn’t take them long, did it? Now that their ruse is up, there’s no kindness in their eyes, they’re just… cold, calculating. Evaluating. 

“Why?” Danny gasps, his fingers tingling, his heart in his throat.

Just under 16 months since he—has he escaped? Or was this just another one of their experiments?

"I... I trusted you, why—" Danny chokes back a sob, gritting his teeth as his shoulders shake. Why? Why would they do this? "I was happy here, with you. I thought... Weren't you happy?"

"Danny..." Bruce is looking at him, eyes narrow and eyebrows pinched, in some cruel facsimile of confused concern and all Danny can think is how much of an actor he is. How well he can play the part of a doting father. How much he made him want that.

"I don't understand, why..." 

"I'm sorry we didn't tell you before, I can imagine that it comes as a shock. We shouldn't have lied to you, Danny, but—"

"Stop it!" Danny slams his hands down on the table and pushes himself up on wobbly legs. Even standing, he feels so small. Smaller than Bruce, than all of his adopted siblings. They crowd above him when they all stand, too. "Just stop it! Why are you doing this, why are you still pretending? Stop it!"

It was easier, with Danny's biological parents. The knowledge that they'd do anything to get him on a lab table, to open him up and see what makes him tick, to rip him apart molecule by molecule, had always been there. He knew they hated ghosts. He knew they hated Phantom. He knew they hated him. It was easier because it was something he'd known all his life. When he died, when he became a ghost, he knew what to expect from them. It hurt, of course it did.

But it was easier than this.

"Danny, I'm going to need you to take a deep breath. You're having a panic attack and you need to breathe."

"Breathe?" Danny laughs, the sound harsh and choking, too high pitched in his hysteria. "You're joking, right? Or is this just more of the—the experiment?"

"Danny, please, we don't know what you're talking about, you—"

"You don't know? You're Batman! You work with the Justice League, you work with—" His words choke off as his stomach churns, bile rising in his throat. His whole body itches, screaming at him to leave, he can't go back, he can't, he can't, he can't!

Bruce takes a hesitant step forward and Danny scrambles back, his feet catching on the chair behind him and sending him careening to the floor. Where are the agents? Why aren't they swarming in, ready to apprehend him, strap him back on the table, carve him from the inside out.

"Please, Danny, calm down. We don't—"

Danny stops listening. His back hits the wall and he pulls his knees into his chest, his shoulders dipping down as he begins to sob. His heart throbs inside his throat, too painful to swallow around. Tears fall hot and heavy on his face.

Sure, he could run. He could phase out through the wall and he could be out of Gotham in a couple of hours. He's escaped the GIW once, he can do it again.

But that was before Batman knew who he was. Before he had the World's Greatest Detective on his tail.

Before he... 

He really thought this would be different, you know?

He wanted to make it official.

"Why did... Why were you so nice to me? Why did you make me like you? I really—I really liked you. I-I thought we could be a family."

"Danny, we are a—"

"Don't lie to me!" Danny snaps, but the force of his anger leeches all the fight from him, and suddenly all that's left is a bone-weary tiredness. There’s a lump in his throat that hurts. There’s a line down his chest that burns. "I don't care. I don't care anymore, I don't. Just... don't make me go back there. Please." 

Is it futile? He thought he knew how the GIW operated by now, the depths that they would go to achieve their results, but this... this was a whole new level of pain that Danny thought he had left behind him in Amity.

"We're not going to make you go anywhere, Danny, you're safe here, I promise."

"Safe? Safe? You must have—" he takes a deep breath, tries to stop the quivering of his voice. It’s all starting to make sense, now.  "The reason you're telling me who you are is because you must have told them everything already. I know the Justice League—I know you're working with them, which means the ex-experiment is over now, and they're coming to take me back. And I can't go back."

"Danny—"

"I can’t!” Danny glares at Bruce with all the rage he can, fingernails digging into his skin. “I’m not going back!"

"That's right, you're not going back, Danny. I won't let that happen." Bruce crouches down in front of Danny, his hands open and raised as if he's trying to say he's not a threat. "I don't know who you're talking about, and I'm sorry about that, but I can promise you that you’re not going back there. We will keep you safe."

Danny pulls himself closer, tucks himself further into the wall, eyes flickering all across the room waiting for that tell-tale flash of white as the agents start to swarm.

He should take his chances now and run, he should go, he needs to go!

The rest of them, his brothers and sisters of a little over a year, are spread out, giving him and Bruce some space. The same concern colours all of their faces. Why are they still pretending?

Steph is chewing on her thumb. 

Danny liked Steph and her brash confidence, her jokes. She's been promising to paint his nails for months now, they've just never found the time. He was going to go for green and black, or maybe a galaxy theme, depending on what she felt comfortable doing.

He likes them all.

"You were supposed to be my family." His mouth turns down at the corners and his voice shakes like a child. "You were supposed to—why? Why would you—I don't understand why you would make me like you..."

"This isn't an experiment, Danny," Bruce's voice is steady, soothing. "I promise."

"But you work with them and—"

"Who do I work with?"

"The Justice League."

"Yes, I do, but we—"

"And the Justice League works with them. The GIW." Danny trembles with the name, clutching tightly onto his hoodie. "I'm not going back there, Bruce."

Danny doesn't miss Bruce's look over his shoulder, nor Tim's nod in return. Tim turns slightly to the side to hide his movements, but Danny bets he has his phone in his hand, probably letting them know they can take him now. Guess this is it, then. They'll be here soon, and he'll be gone.

"Kill me."

"Danny? What do—"

"If you ever had any kindness for me, if you ever cared, kill me. Please, Bruce. I can't do it again."

"Danny..."

"End me now. Take my core out and break it, please, before they get here."

[bibyshitsuji24k]

if I had a nickel for every time that Smile has danced with Lizzy, I'd have two nickels.

Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

Bonus bc it's not 'canon' (but in my mind it is)

[dapper-lil-arts]

Girl...

[empress-of-snark]

someone please stop me cause I can't stop thinking about the potential of a Hellcheer Beetlejuice AU

Jonathan and Nancy are the newlyweds who tragically die young in a car accident. When the Cunningham family moves into their house (headed by a high-strung mother with a terrible instinct for interior design), they have no luck haunting them and have to call on the services of a bio-exorcist Betelgeuse (or, as he was known in life, Eddie Munson).

He takes the job but quickly gets distracted by the Cunninghams' beautiful but morose daughter, Chrissy, and comes up with a scheme to marry her in order to get a green card back into the world of the living.

[drivebypainter]

My favorite part of funny times in fiction is that for some of the characters it is straight angst.

Like for example, SQQ dies multiple times in SVSSS, acts like a fool in his attempts to hide his revival, and gets into lots of shenanigans. The silliness creates a lot of laughs for the audience. However, for characters like LBH, it is literally a 70K hurt no comfort fic.

Don't even get me started on YQY who in the background is like on his Mitski arc dealing with his poor Xiao Jiu whose qi deviation ruined any possible chance of YQY ever truly apolgising.

[torchstelechos]

Once, a long time ago, when you were still trying to figure out who you wanted to be, you read a book on the ethics of psychology. It wasn’t a big interest of yours at the time, but you had been told that trying to manipulate social situations to get people to like you was bad and wrong. As a child you had wanted to know more to understand what was considered bad or wrong so that you wouldn’t get in trouble (you had also wanted to know any loop holes so that you could continue to get people to like you without breaking any “rules”).

In that book, you had read about animals and their rights. Specifically, the different types of experiments you could do to an animal before it became cruel and harmful. Surprisingly animals had a lot more rights than humans in this regard. Though you think it was because they couldn’t speak up and tell you you were harming them in the moment, so it made sense. But one of the experiments was called “Learned Helplessness” which was a study about dogs who were taught helplessness via pain and then continued to not help themselves even when the harmful stimuli was gone. It was a psychology experiment conducted to learn about motivation in humans and how that may appear in abuse or harmful situations. 

Looking at Loop, all you can think about are the dogs in those experiments. Taught to fear the pain of trying, taught to be unable to help themselves. It’s a grim reminder of what Sif could have become if he had no one to talk to, it’s a grim reminder that you aren’t enough to keep him stable. It hurts your stomach to think about but. You can’t look away. Because that’s a version of Siffrin you failed, that’s a version of Siffrin that will never be truly happy with this life. This is Siffrin without a Loop. 

This is a Siffrin that learned to roll over and accept defeat. This is a Siffrin that is a helpless dog who could do nothing but cower from the unknown. 

You… Cannot say this. You will not say this. This is something that can NEVER leave your mind. So, lets try this again. 

Looking at Loop, you see a new friend. One you hope will let you be someone to them, someone they can count on. You will not let them cower away anymore. 

“Loop, can I ask you something?” 

“What is it, Fighter?” 

“Howl you doing?” 

“...Was that a pun? What were you even trying to pun that with? There aren’t any dogs here.” 

“Oh! Yeah! You're right, I was just thinking about that reeeeeal cute dog back at the House. You remember them? They were really fluffy and sweet!”

“You confuse me, Fighter.” 

“I know! But hey, that's what getting to know each other is for. We can learn how to not confuse each other, together!” 

“...Sure, let's try that.”

"Awesome!!"

[starry-bi-sky]

my body's aching like a knock-down drag-out

and my poor heart is an open wound A Childhood Friends Au snippet that very briefly delves into Danny's life post-accident. CW: Mild Mentions of Blood, Violence, VERY mild gore ig. Danny briefly recalls getting impaled during a fight.

------------

What they don't tell you about being dead is that it hurts. That it can hurt. That it can hurt more than when you were alive. That when you die, the emotions you die with stick with you like a leech that just won't let go. That emotions are ugly little thorns that stick their barbs into you and grow beneath your skin; or, at least, whatever’s left of it. 

Danny is familiar with anger. It kept him warm in Gotham, when his parents weren't home from work and he and Jason were crowding Crime Alley with their presence. It kept him warm in Amity, when the fresh sting of moving was still needling into his heart and he wanted nothing more than to rip and tear into the closest person next to him.

He's familiar with violence. With fights. With death. He's seen people die in Crime Alley probably every day. From overdose, from gunshots, from stab wounds; anything that can kill, rest assured he's seen it. He's familiar with getting his own knuckles rough and bloody when other kids turn and bare their teeth at him and Jason; they're all just starving dogs stuck in a fighting pit, primed and ready to rip out each other's throats. 

Black eyes, stomped hands, bloody noses. You name it; he’s had it. Gotham is paved with the blood of her children, and Danny likes to imagine that when he was born, the doctors handed his mother a file and told her; “Take it. He’s going to need it for his teeth.” 

Danny’s mom (and dad, for that matter) was too busy trying to keep him and Jazz fed, so Danny stole the file from her drawer with Jazz’s help, and did it himself.  

He’s familiar with anger, he thought he was getting better at it these days. It doesn’t come to him as easily as it did before. Of course, that was before Jason died. 

Danny is less familiar with grief. Caring kills and Gotham kills the caring, so Danny cares very little about other people. Or he tries to. But grief hurts. His grief hurts. It hurts too much. It hurts like a bug trying to crawl out of his chest; like a rat chewing a hole through his heart. Some days he wants to dig his hands into his hair and split himself down the middle. Some days he just wants to scream. 

He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead. 

He wants the whole city to hear him wailing, some days. It sticks itself in the back of his throat like bile, and Danny is one wrong retch away from letting it loose. It sticks in his lungs like all the tar he’s smoked in since he was nine. It pushes and aches at his temples, in his head, like his brain is trying to swell out of his skull. His thoughts becoming so loud they threaten to commandeer his tongue.  

He has no mouth, but he must scream. 

Something they don’t tell you about being dead is that it hurts. That it hurts more than when you were alive. Something they don’t tell you about being dead is that it’s violent. That it’s bloody. Or as bloody as it can be when everyone has no blood. 

Another thing they don’t tell you about being dead, is that it’s a lot like Gotham that way.

With no threat of death, Danny’s enemies forget death itself. Blood comes easy, like water, and teeth are encouraged. Bring your own fangs to the fight. Dying is something you can just walk off. 

Danny’s been dead for three months. He can’t say he’s been walking it off easy. He’s perfected the art of turning his nails into claws since his heart was still beating, but he can’t say he’s perfected fighting other ghosts. 

Scrappy is just not enough. 

He feels like he’s back in Gotham again. Back in her death-shroud alleyways, fighting someone bigger than him. But there’s no Jason to watch his back, and Danny has to get himself out of there alone. Or he might just not get up at all. 

Black eyes, busted lips. It’s familiar to him like an old scent, Danny isn’t quite sure that he’s missed it. It’s more familiar than his fights with Dash. 

But there’s no one else who can do it but him. Not Sam, not Tucker. He can’t lose them too. He can’t. He can’t. He can’t. His heart can’t take another break, he already feels like he’s going insane. 

With no threat of death, Danny’s enemies fight like death themself. He learns why when Technus puts a street sign through his stomach one day. It pins him to the asphalt like a moth pinned by its wings. 

Danny claws at the metal like how an animal caught in a trap chews off its leg, and every move is blinding pain. He thinks he was howling, but it’s hard to tell. He couldn’t recognize the sound of his voice. 

He bleeds green. It mixes in black with the pitch blackhole in his heart, which throbs and twists and cries in time with his reckless panic. The finger-choking terror of dying again strangles out the air he doesn’t need. His blood evaporates, only to reabsorb into him. It just bleeds out again, cycling like a snake eating its own tail. 

Danny breaks his nails clawing at the metal, and eventually gets it in his mind to pull it out. So he does, and the end drips ectoplasm green as he gets to his feet. In red-vision, Danny sends the sign back with snarling, vicious fervor. The pain is irrelevant in his rage.

Only after the fight does the hole the pole left start to close. Danny doesn’t shift human until it’s gone. Unlike other injuries, a scar stays behind. Ugly; mottled, it aches for a week with every twist and stretch his body makes. He hates it. 

Being dead is agony. 

Every part of him is in pain. Every step, every word he speaks, everything he does, it is prerequisite with pain. The body is temporary, but the soul is forever, and death has carved into it with its freezing green hands and left him with never-ending heartache. It has torn from him and stolen what of him it could, and in return it’s left him with sorrow. 

His pain is his grief, and he’s sobbed in the safety of his room more times than he can count. It’s still as fresh as the day he heard the news of Jason’s death. He knows, instinctively, that it will stay fresh forever. 

In his room, Danny shoves his hands over his mouth and shrieks in whatever, muffled way he can into his pillow. It’s not enough. It’s never enough. He needs to be louder. He needs to be heard. He refuses to be. 

Being dead hurts. 

[greenfrogartist]

Been a while since I’ve drawn anything but guess what

A fanart! For the fic “Missing”by @zoiaeras !

Honestly it’s more of how I imagine Peter’s design to be rather than a fanart, cause usually when I do a fanart I either draw a scene or as I’ve lately been doing draw what I imagine the cover would look like (to be fair I kinda drew the breakfast scene? )

So this is more like a very small character sheets?? And the design is wrong a bit (his hair is supposed to be a bit longer but I only ingrained the choppy hair part)

Tried to keep the blue and red of his spidey suit in, but darker and paler to show the effects Gotham had on him

Honestly the fic is amazing! and the pacing is a chef kiss, and the comedy is on point for me and what I love the most about this is that it’s doing other stuff rather than just sticking to the norm of peter - Gotham crossover

Other characters are present, there is a plot being made and the characterization makes sense for the life the characters lived, and we’re even out of Gotham and introducing other superheroes to the plot like Superman and the flash and also villains like lex Luther

And what’s fun about this fic is that currently, the strongest thing Peter have is his brain, but he is still stupid outside of building stuff (I love this adorable bean)

My most favorite thing about it is probably the plot point and that things are actually happening with consequences to them that change the status que of the fic

The fic feels like a never stopping train wreck about to happen and I’m so excited to see just how big the crash will be and how sharp the debris left of it are

Honestly I can go on and on about this fic forever but that’s mean more spoiler which is a big no no

Just know that if you want a dc x peter crossover, with more justice league characters in it, this is the fic for you

[damthosefandoms]

Jumbled

(ao3 link)

Summary:

RIP Sodapop Curtis, you would’ve loved having an IEP/504 Plan.

(AKA, Soda struggles in school his whole life, and doesn’t understand why, because it’s the 1950s and 60s and getting a diagnosis for a learning disability isn’t exactly on the table. Neither is the scaffolding and support he really needs.)

Sodapop Curtis was the type of kid who sat at the kitchen table for hours on end crying over math homework until his dad got home from work and struggled to explain it to him. All that effort, and then he’d always inevitably lose it somewhere between the kitchen table that night and his teacher’s hand the next morning and all that effort would be for nothing.

Soda was five years old when he started kindergarten, at the tail-end of the summer of ‘56. He remembers his mom comforting him the night before, when he cried because he was going to miss Ponyboy who wasn’t old enough for school yet and because Darry was going into fourth grade and would be on the other side of the school all day, and Soda would never get to see him. He remembers pouting because Keith Mathews, his and his brothers’ collective best friend from down the street was going into first grade after promising Soda last year that he’d get in a lot of trouble so he could stay and do kindergarten with him (he lied).

And then Soda was just plain miserable, sitting there on the bus sandwiched between Keith and a boy a little younger than Sodapop named Johnny Cade (who lives two doors down from the Mathews’ house and Soda never sees because his parents are mean and keep him inside all day), because Darry decided he was “too cool” to sit with his horse-crazy kid brother in favor of the big kids whose mommies don’t make them wash their hair when it’s dirty and greasy and walk around with those little black switch-combs and pretend they’re the coolest kids on planet earth, ‘cause one day those combs will swap out for blades and they will be.

Probably because they are, but Sodapop doesn’t know that yet—right now he doesn’t really know or care about grease or what side of town he lives on. He is six years old and the only thing on Soda’s radar right now is that Mama promised they’d save up for him to go to horseback riding camp next summer, and that’s his biggest dream. He wants to be a rodeo legend or win the Kentucky Derby or something. He hasn’t quite decided yet. He figures he has time to parse out the specifics—he just wants to ride a horse.

They get to school, and after a particularly pushy reminder that Mama told him at the bus stop this morning to make sure Soda gets to his classroom alright, Darry points his little brother toward the Kindergarten wing. Soda takes Johnny Cade’s hand in his because he found out on the bus that Johnny is going to have the same teacher as him, and they push through the hallway of their elementary school to find Mrs. Moran’s Room Four.

Soda very quickly learns that not every kid goes into kindergarten equally. Johnny is the smallest and the youngest kid in their grade, and Soda’s the second-youngest and it only takes a few weeks for Soda to think to himself that maybe that’s why he can’t read yet. He’ll be six soon, and that’s how old Evie is. Most of the kids who live on his side of town started kindergarten when they were six, he realizes. She sits next to Soda and she’s a good reader, but she’s one of the oldest kids in their grade and so of course she’s smarter than him. Then again, Sherri Valance, who is also in his class, isn’t going to be six until next spring—kind of like Johnny, and according to the birthday chart on the wall—he asked Mrs. Moran to read it to him one day when he couldn’t sleep during nap time and she very begrudgingly agreed, so he memorized everyone’s birthdays and how old they’d be turning because why not, right?—but Sodapop finds out that she went to preschool.

He didn’t go to preschool. He doesn’t know anyone who did. He remembers Mama talking to Dad about preschool for Ponyboy this year, but Dad said something about “expensive” and Soda stopped listening ‘cause they always get sad or angry when that word comes up.

Sherri Valance can read and she’s got pretty red hair and a backpack that’s not even a hand-me-down, and she went to preschool. So did all her friends in Room Three. Soda doesn’t know anybody in Room Three but he knows that the kids his friends know in there didn’t go to preschool. Timmy Shepard was in Room Three last year with Keith. He didn’t go to preschool either; heck, neither did Keith. But they can both read now, and they went to first grade, so Sodapop figures he didn’t miss out on too much.

Until it’s the end of the year and he still can’t read. Well, you don’t need to read to go to horse camp. Soda doesn’t nap a single time that year, either. He spends his precious kindergarten naptime not-reading the book Mrs. Moran gives him to keep him busy and picking at his cot when she snaps at him to be quiet. Mrs. Moran decided the day she read his first name off the attendance sheet that she didn’t like him, and Sodapop Curtis did not like her either.

First grade is so much better and yet so, so much worse.

Soda has a very hard time on his first day, because he misses his mom, and his dad, and Ponyboy, who begged to go to school too this year but he’s still too little at only four years old and Mama’s doing her best to get him reading now. Darry is in fifth grade and seems even farther away, and Soda doesn't have recess with Keith and Tim’s grade this year, and Johnny’s in Room Seven making new friends. Evie’s in Room Eight, and Soda’s trapped alone in Room Nine. Sherri’s still in his class. On the third day of school, Soda decides her hair reminds him of cherries. She laughs, and it sticks.

The best and brightest part of first grade is his teachers. He was put in Mrs. Larkin’s room, and she’s amazing; but when he gets there on the first day, there are two teachers in the room. Miss Luft, it’s explained, is a student teacher, which means she’s learning about first grade just like they are. She’s learning how to teach and they’re learning how to learn.

Sodapop still doesn’t even know the alphabet. He doesn’t know his sounds and he can’t keep his letters straight. Mrs. Larkin has him sit with Miss Luft when he tries to write a small moment story. She draws lines in marker on his paper for him to write each word on. Every line she has to make longer than the last because he can barely fit two letters on it, and he’s pretty sure she can’t read what he wrote any more than he can.

But Miss Luft always calls him capable. She has to explain to Sodapop once a week what that word means. He does his best to remember, but he has a lot of things to remember and it gets lost in the jumble somewhere.

He hears Mrs. Larkin and Miss Luft talking, sometimes. They hide their words behind stacks of paper and turned heads but he can hear them anyway.

Reversals. Attention span. Off the wall.

“And he’s low,” he hears Mrs. Larkin say one morning. “Mrs. Bolan’s got one that low too, but at least hers is quiet.”

He has no clue what any of it means. It’s all teacher talk, he isn’t supposed to get it, and he knows they aren’t trying to hurt his feelings, but hearing it makes him feel bad anyway because they don’t talk about other kids like they do him. They don’t get those sad looks on their faces about other kids, either.

“Does your brain get jumbled sometimes, Soda?” Miss Luft asks him one day when he’s sitting at his desk, eyes red and puffy from crying because he wasn’t allowed to go to gym class unless he finished his spelling worksheet. But he can’t. He’s been sitting here for forty-five minutes, ever since they got back from recess, and he can’t. Do. It. He tries to write his letters how his teachers have shown him but they just won’t appear in the place he wanted them to, like his pencil won’t obey him when he writes. He tries to start at the top line and somehow his pencil puts itself at the bottom.

He tries to write the letters anyway, but they don’t look like he thinks they’re supposed to, and he doesn’t even know what that means because every time he looks at a b or d, or m or n or h, or—god forbid someone tells him to write the letter k. It just looks like a stick.

His numbers are just as bad. Someone’s always reminding him to put the one before the seven instead of the other way around, but he doesn’t remember writing seventy-one, he can’t even count that high!

“Jumbled?” He says in a shaky voice, still trying to calm down.

“Like mixed up. Like it’s hard to think ‘cause you got too much going on in there?” She taps his forehead and he half-heartedly giggles.

“Yeah, it gets real jumbled. All the time,” Soda says.

“I feel like that sometimes too,” Miss Luft says, and she sighs. “Like I can’t think at all some days. Like my brain shuts off without me tellin’ it to because there’s too much goin’ on and I can’t focus, and just answering one question gets overwhelming. It’s too much. But it’ll be okay, Soda, I know you got it in you. I believe in you, you hear? If I could do it, so can you.”

She doesn’t say much else, but Sodapop has never felt more seen. He cries and clings to her on her last day at their school, hating that she only got to stay for ten weeks. Mrs. Larkin is amazing and he loves being in her class, but the year just drags on and on, and towards the end of the year Soda can’t decide if school is getting harder or he’s getting dumber. Maybe it’s both.

He gets to go to horseback riding camp that summer, and he meets a kid named Dallas who he thinks was in Room Seven with Johnny. Dallas is mean. Soda finds out he’s a whole year older than him, which confuses him because Dallas is in his same grade at school.

“An’ how come I never seen you at recess or nothin’?” Soda says one day at lunch. He’s got a bologna sandwich, because his mom swears by cold cuts. Dally stole an apple out of their counselor’s lunch and doesn’t seem to have anything to eat otherwise.

“They don’t let me out much,” Dallas says. “S’what happens when you spend all your time in the principal’s office.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. Just feels good to get in trouble sometimes.”

Soda doesn’t get him, but he likes horses, and so they become friends anyway. He and Dally start getting into trouble together, and Soda kind of starts to feel like he belongs somewhere. It takes his mind off the upcoming school year, which is great, because whenever he thinks about school, he gets butterflies in his stomach.

Dallas is in Room Twelve with Johnny when they get to second grade. Usually Soda keeps track of what classes all his friends end up in, but this year, it doesn’t matter anymore. Because second grade changes everything.

Mrs. Foster is ancient. She taught Soda’s mom once upon a time, and she had Darry in her class a few years earlier. Soda thought she’d be a great teacher because Darry loved her, but Soda can’t bring himself to even pretend to like her. She asks him what his parents were on when they named him.

“On what?”

Mrs. Foster just rolls her eyes and tells him to take a seat in the back where he clearly belongs. She lets him know that she’ll be calling him by his middle name this year. At least “Patrick” is “dignified.” Whatever that means.

Later, Soda can’t keep his words from erupting out of his mouth like a volcano during morning meeting, and she sends him back to his seat with a glare.

Five minutes later Steve Randle gets sent back to his seat for shouting out, too. He sits next to Soda in the back. He’s hiding a little red toy car in his desk and they play together. Mrs. Foster doesn’t seem to notice or care. She doesn’t call on Soda a single time that year, even when he does know the answer.

She also doesn’t like that Sodapop writes with his left hand. By the time he gets to third grade, he flinches and corrects himself every time he goes to pick up his pencil. He hopes this’ll solve the problem, but it never does.

Soda struggles the whole year. Steve doesn’t, and when Soda asks when his birthday is—he always needs to know, he needs to be able to sing happy birthday to all of his friends—Steve tells him he was born in April, the same year as Soda. Soda tells him how he can’t find a single pattern proving why he’s dumb, ‘cause age doesn’t seem to matter. Sherri aka Cherry is younger than him but smarter. She went to preschool. Johnny’s younger too, but he didn’t. Steve’s older and smarter but he tells Soda that he didn’t do preschool either.

“I did kindergarten twice, though,” Steve tells him. “Well, the first couple weeks anyway. Mom and Dad wanted me to start school when I was five but then I had to not do the whole year ‘cause my mom got sick and we were too busy and then she died so I stayed home with Dad. I did kindergarten the next year when I was six. Now I got friends in third grade and in second grade.”

They agree that Soda’s going to be Steve’s best second-grade friend. They trade that little red car back and forth and Soda still can’t read very well but he’s better at it now—Mrs. Larkin worked extra hard with him after Miss Luft left to make sure he knew his letters and sounds.

Mrs. Foster doesn’t seem to care, because she pretends he doesn’t exist. It’s a miracle Sodapop gets to third grade.

But it doesn’t matter. School doesn’t matter. Over time Soda just starts to remind himself that he has Steve, and Steve is smart, he’ll help him. Soda will get through this. Sure, after third grade Johnny gets held back, and it’s only a matter of time until Sodapop has to repeat a grade too, but… but he’ll be okay. He will. Someday a switch will go off and his brain will work right and he’ll be able to do it. He hasn’t failed yet, that has to mean something, right?

He hasn’t failed yet but no one has noticed he struggles, not his teachers, not his friends, no one. Maybe Miss Luft, but he’ll never see her again. He hopes she still thinks he’s capable. He had written in the book their class made for her that his favorite thing about her was that she believed in him.

As he gets older, he wonders if she even remembers his name.

But then again, he spends every weeknight crying at the kitchen table, physically unable to get past the first question on his homework sheets. In fourth grade Mama starts clearing everything off the table to help him focus, but he picks at the crumbs left behind from last night’s dinner, peels up the dried finger-paint Pony splattered everywhere, sits and rocks back and forth with each tick of the clock.

And every day after about an hour of making up little songs and fiddling on his paper until it’s spotted with holes, he starts crying, because he can’t bring himself to do his homework. And then Pony’s in school, finishing his homework before him, and Pony is just as much of a daydreamer, so that kind of stings. Darry has seven different classes to do homework for, on top of football practice, but he gets all his work done before Soda’s even started. His mom tries to help but it makes him cry even harder, ‘cause she doesn’t get it, it’s not about the homework it’s about his brain. It’s about Soda’s brain not working like everyone thinks it should.

It’s about his big, dumb, broken brain.

Johnny can’t read either, but he can focus, he can control his emotions and not cry or scream or stomp his feet at every little sound or touch, or overreact to things that aren’t a big deal at all, he doesn’t start throwing throngs off his desk when he’s mad, and he always has a reason why he does things. Steve can’t control his mouth or pay attention, but he can read and always turns in his homework on time. Keith never does his homework ever but he’s practically a genius compared to Sodapop.

Ponyboy brings home his first-ever spelling test and their mom sticks it on the fridge with a magnet.

That bright-red 100% is going to haunt Soda’s dreams.

Every night Dad gets home at 6:00 to find Soda still sitting at the table, eyes red and puffy, and tears staining his homework and the table. He chides him for the new mark Soda’s left in the table’s surface from digging the eraser-end of his pencil into it. Soda deflates, he didn’t mean to do that, it’s just—what else is he supposed to do? He’s not allowed to get up until his homework’s done.

Darrel Curtis Sr. is a loving father and a very easy-going guy, until he’s standing there over Soda’s shoulder holding his hand—his left hand, which Soda’s grateful for but also it feels so wrong after his experience in third grade—forcing him to write in the answers because he just doesn’t get that writing it is only part of the problem. His dad loves him, he’s gentle with his touch but every inch of Soda’s skin feels like it’s on fire when his dad makes him write.

It’s not his dad’s fault, but Darrel Sr. is only human, and he hates yelling at his kids, but he has to raise his voice to try to get Sodapop to hear him above his scream-crying because it’s the only way to help him learn.

Sometime when Soda’s in seventh grade, Ponyboy asks him what his problem is. Homework’s not that bad.

“I don’t like it anymore than you do, Soda, but I just don’t think it’s worth crying over, you dig?”

Soda throws his pencil at his brother, slams his history book shut, and walks out the back door. Ponyboy watches in confusion. When their mom comes in to check on them, he tells her Sodapop’s overreacting again.

Dally, who had moved away after third grade to New York but came back just in time to start seventh grade with Soda, finds him at the Pershing Park playground sitting on the swings. It’s where Soda ends up when he’s hopelessly overwhelmed by homework, or when the thought of school looms over him like a cartoon anvil. Something about pumping his legs and willing the swing to take him higher and higher takes away the sick feeling that the idea of popcorn reading Shakespeare in his fifth period English class gives him. Dally asks him if he wants to find something better to do, and a few hours later they wind up back at the Curtis house with busted knuckles and the beginnings of black eyes and they pour grease into Soda’s hair and grin at each other.

When Sodapop is sixteen years old, a sophomore in high school, his father finds him sitting at that same kitchen table, staring down over an assignment that’s asking him to write a thousand-word essay and Soda turns to his dad wordlessly, his throat is closing up, and his dad tells him to breathe.

But he can’t. He can’t. He’s going to be sick, he might actually throw up. He feels like he’s being stabbed in the chest. One thousand words. Sodapop can’t even count that high. He can’t even read Dr. Seuss. He can’t do this anymore.

“Dad, I want to drop out.”

“Aw, Pepsi-Cola,” his dad says gently that night, brushing Soda’s hair back and then pulling him into a hug, “I know you do. I’ve been talkin’ to your mother about it. We got the paperwork from the school. But I think you should think about it a little longer, alright?”

Soda agrees to try and finish out the year. His dad gets it.

His dad spent ten years listening to Soda cry over homework. His dad never called him dumb. His mom did what she could. But the only person in all his years of school who Soda ever knew really believed in him was Miss Luft, and she never came back.

He thinks maybe if he had more teachers like her, who believed in him and gave him extra help and supported him along the way, if there was something—something that made it so they had to listen to him, had to help him, had to accept that it wasn’t his fault he couldn’t read right, couldn’t focus, couldn’t control his mood swings or emotions or his volcano of a mouth… maybe he could’ve done better. Maybe if Mrs. Foster had let him write with his left hand, he could’ve figured it out.

Soda hopes one day they figure out what makes kids like him tick. What makes them struggle. He hopes one day that their schools will decide to help.

A few months after he talks to his dad, Sodapop finds the signed paperwork in his dad’s desk drawer. His parents have just been buried, and Soda can’t stop crying at the drop of a pin. He’s been skipping all his classes, but none of his teachers seem to care. It’s fine. He’s dumb anyway, a lost cause. They’ll just keep passing him up to the next grade without batting an eye at the fact that he never gets higher than a D+, no matter how hard he tries.

Sodapop will always be that one student who slips through the cracks.

He looks over the form to drop out. He figures the school will take it, if he pitches it to them as a last-will kind of situation. He doesn’t even need to ask Darry to give the okay, because Dad signed it months ago, like he had already known the decision Sodapop would make.

And he did. It’s dated that same night Soda sat at the kitchen table feeling like the world was ending and like he was dying because of a goddamn required word count.

But he knows Miss Luft believes in him, and he knows what his dad wanted, so he finishes out the school year—passes Gym and Auto Shop, too.

Soda hopes he made them proud. And now, he’ll never have to worry about explaining the dried tears on his spelling homework ever again.

[i-may-be-an-emu]

hi apparently my latest brainrot is two side characters who barely interact so here you go bon appetite :D

flash + movement warning

audio credit: “I wanna feel calm” by bears in trees

video credit: shoot from the hip (@shootimpro) improvised play #22 - The Milkman

[theregressionlibrary]

Agere/petre archieve promo post!!

Hi! Thought it was a good time to do one of these! So, if you don't know, this is The Regression Library! Here, we reblog and boost lovely age and pet regression related works such as fiction, headcanons, moodboards, audio recordings- anything!

A lot of people are too afraid to post their fandom regression stuff in the main tags and if a work is completely from scratch then it often struggles to get traction! So what TRL does is reblog and tag works accordingly and add them to our big big list so it's easy for people to find what they can enjoy!

Why send out a promo post? Well, to encourage people to submit more! As much as we love to go out and collect pieces ourselves, we can only search through so many tags. There are just so many different ways different people use tagging, and it's hard to think of all the different pieces of media out there that might have these themes! So! We would love for you and your friends to submit (by ask or DM) any works you have made or you have found. Original works or fandom related is great! Hope to see you soon!

*cough cough, please reblog*