#and it was usually aimed at me...

[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."

[kristoffs-lullaby]

no one will believe how disgustingly affectionate he is

[tetzoro]

fun fact: i loooooove love love kuroo tetsuro ෆ

[ourstaturestouchtheskies]

An Account of the First Aërial Voyage in England – Vincent Lunardi // A Pictorial Atlas of Fossil Remains – Gideon Algernon Mantell, James Parkinson, Edmund Tyrell Artis // Potorous Platyops – John Gould // Thylacinus Cynocephalus, Juvenile – Joseph Wolf // Choeropus Castanotis – John Gould // Hippotragus Leucophaeus – Joseph Smit, Joseph Wolf // Hapalotis Albipipes – John Gould // Pyrenean Ibex – Richard Lydekker, Joseph Wolf // Eastern Elk – John James Audubon // Royigerygone Insularis – Gregory Macalister Matthews, Henrik Grönvold // Sceloglaux Albifacies – John Gerrard Keulemans // Leporillus Apicalis – John Gould // Columba Migratoria – John James Audubon, J. T. Bowen // Moho Apicalis – John Gerrard Keulmans // ...Familiar Place – Lucy Dacus

for @artists-ache 💙🌹 📖

[notllorstel]

previous <<< 2nd wave of left hand speedrun batch☠️

[mirioho]

epel has the prettiest hair color hands down

[spotaus]

Hi guys, this is usually what a doodle page ends up looking like <3 (oh, and @ancha-aus thought you might like this! Not writing but certainly fuel to my fire lol-)

This one is New Age filled!!! (Close-ups abd Lore beneath the cut!)

1) Night and Cross!

Night is actually very clingy once he's a teen. He doesn't usually realize it, but around the castle he'll snake to be closer to his Knights so long as there's no one he needs to keep his composure infront of is nearby. Cross is the one who's not used to physical touch (when it's not Ink ofc) so Night in his personal bubble makes his heart melt but also scares tf out of him <3

2) Error and Night's Meeting!

Error was carrying his whole life on his back and trying not to get arrested for unintentional property damage at this point, so when he saw the chance to get back at his brother and prove he was strong enough? Yeah, he got that on chance instantly. And was VERY smug when Nightmare chose him. (Also, Error is wearing gloves, so less Haphephobia)

3) Dream and Blue designs!

I think these are good tentative designs! Dream probably has a more regal fit, but he likes to play up that rugged exile look- He's inspired by Archers, while Blue takes on that classic Knightly-vibe. Their equipment is mostly stolen from Night's troops or brought with them from Blue's home kingdom.

Also, Dream is approx Killer's height at this point, shorter than Cross and *much* shorter than Apple!Nightmare. (Hc that Skeletons tend to be tinier in stature thanks to weird monster beauty standards. Horror and Geno's fam are outliers.)

4) Horror and Dust designs!

Horror is naturally a very *large* monster. He's very malnourished when Nightmare meets him, but by the time he's a Knight Nightmare has made sure that's no longer the case. He actually loves comfy, simple clothes, but to play up the whole 'strong mysterious' bit he wears a more barbaric Knight's garb. He doesn't mind acting scary, it's more fun that way :]. Dust is very very small, and envies horror sometimes for his size, but his tiny stature let's him control his body and move a lot quicker. He's very much based on a rogue, and usually covers the lower part of his face w/ a black cloth, and the upper part w/ his hood or mask. Dust only removes both to bathe, eat, or relax in a safe location. (Ignore that I can't draw the stupid gaster blaster lmao-)

These last two were space-fillers, but Cross and his Borzoi (Windmill, otherwise known as Milly (Killer named her-)) and really bad first wips of Ccino! I think Ccino was a chubby, happy toddler, but lost a lot of 'weight' (bone mass? Magic?) due to stress and pressure and bad eating habits. So it isn't until a while after the Coronation that he starts to relax abd feel safe enough to eat normal meals (Nightmare used to guilt him into eating snacks together, but as his boss (and younger brother) he can encourage it more often). By the time Killer shows he's still not quite healthy, but he's better. As more weight is lifted off his shoulders, the better he is. (That 'beauty' most people saw was a more stereotypical slimness, but Killer never stopped seeing Ccino as beautiful-) I think he never looked traditionally underweight, so no one noticed, and it was only much later that Night processed it. (And maybe it's why Dream hardly recognized him later on-)

[bacchuschucklefuck]

My Accolades

[coopzine]

I've been going though our submissions today and there's some real good stuff in there :D but also there's only like 3 art submissions (compared to like 25 writing submissions).

Historically, most of our art submissions have come from tumblr users, so I'm calling on y'all: please submit your chicken art! We all love to look at cute doodles, pretty paintings, and other wonderful art alongside the excellent pieces of writing! Come enshrine your art in the hallowed halls of COOP! You can (and should) still submit if you've already posted your art on social media (BAWKtober participants I am looking at you!)

If you don't feel like you're very good at art, please know that some of my favorite pieces of art we've accepted are little doodles :)

[chalkrub]

drawing various beafts from bad written descriptions

[crowcryptid]

my brother really made me spend my new years doin this cause he wanted the moon knight skin. he doesnt even care about my pookie. he doesnt even know thats my pookie (even though the version of him in this game sucks i hate it)

kidnapping me to feed your cosmetic hoarding is evil :[ at least he'll get the skin now and leave me alone (you just have to reach gold rank)

[tetzoro]

happy saturday my lovely friendz ! i am spending the day baking bread and making soup so come on by whenever you’d like and i’ll make sure you have some :3

[stormyblue90]

Headcanons of BB Wolffe being a biter are OUT! BB CROSSHAIR being a biter and throwing the biggest temper tantrums are IN! He was the biggest brat in all of Tipoca City! Nala Se and any other caregivers probably got a binky thrown at them A LOT from BB Cross.

He only...somewhat mellowed out later in life...but is still a brat...

There is nothing that will change my mind on Crosshair being the youngest of the bad batch. Like at first I was just like oh yeah he’s the youngest, but then I read some fics and he was the youngest there and I was like that’s it he’s def the batch baby.

[cosmogyros]

Normally I don't plan my reading in advance, because I simply follow whenever my fancy leads me, but this challenge seems fun! 25 books I want to read in 2025 - let's go.

(I've been missing the classics recently, so this list is a bit classic-heavy. Also I ended up being unable to keep it to 25. Oops.)

Color coding:

pink = fiction

green = nonfiction

An asterisk means it's a book I already own in physical form.

As I read books on this list, I will italicize them.

1. Willa Cather - My Ántonia

2. Gabriel García Márquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude

3. Timothy Snyder - On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

4. Han Kang - Human Acts

5. Geraldine Brooks - Horse

6. Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone - This Is How You Lose the Time War

7. Ruth Kinna - The Government of No One: The Theory and Practice of Anarchism

8. John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath

9. Virginia Woolf - A Room of One's Own

10. Leslie Feinberg - Stone Butch Blues

11. Mary Doria Russell - The Sparrow

12. Banana Yoshimoto - Kitchen

13. Howard Zinn - A People's History of the United States

14. Betty Smith - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

15. Fyodor Dostoevsky - Notes from the Underground

16. Upton Sinclair - The Jungle

17. Jorge Luis Borges - Labyrinths*

18. Olga Tokarczuk - Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

19. Akwaeke Emezi - Little Rot

20. Naomi Klein - No Logo

21. Hengameh Yaghoobifarah - Ministerium der Träume

22. Kim de l'Horizon - Blutbuch

23. Yaa Gyasi - Homegoing*

24. Susanna Clarke - Piranesi

25. E. M. Forster - Maurice

26. Richard Adams - Watership Down

27. Ursula K. Le Guin - The Left Hand of Darkness

28. Henry James - The Portrait of a Lady

29. Mikhail Bulgakov - The Master and Margarita

30. Frank Herbert - Dune

Additionally, I'm going to tag on a second goal list. My "currently reading" pile has become way too huge, because I have a fickle heart and tend to hop around from book to book (or, as Bertie Wooster would say, I "flit and sip" like a butterfly). So I'm aiming to finish at least five books that I already started in 2024:

1. Albert Einstein - Essays in Humanism

2. Daniela Dröscher - Lügen über meine Mutter

3. Priscilla Murolo & A. B. Chitty - From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend

4. Frantz Fanon - Black Skin, White Masks*

5. Simon Blackburn - Think: A Compelling Intro to Philosophy*

[tirfpikachu]

sometimes you have nothing left to lose and everything to gain so without even choosing to do so you end up being more authentic and shameless than ever before. and when you do things it feels like an actual human being, an actual being completing tasks, and those tasks feel like ghibli movies, they feel like domesticity, and even if you live alone it's like you live with a roommate who is always there for you (yourself, your truest self) and before you know it you're thinking of that being living within you, that being you repressed, as your self, as your body, and you forget the fake mask you thought was yourself for years and years because others liked you better that way.

suddenly, when you care about other people's opinions, you start having standards about which people's opinions you hold onto, and you still find yourself placing your ideas as #1 on your list of priorities, because who else knows you better? who else has lived in your shoes, in your mind? only you have. others are simply making assumptions about what's going on in your mind and in your life. even your beloved spouse or bestest of friends would still not know what you are truly like deep down unless you tell her. only you are there for yourself 24/7, and only you know your entire journey from within!

choose yourself!!! choose yourself above everything else!

choose to put out there who you truly are, warts and all. because there is not a single flaw or trait or quirk in yourself that you would never find endearing and lovable and harmless in someone else. the greatest shame is being a hypocrite and inauthentic to the weird, scrungly, beloved creature you truly are. you are so human. you are so strange yet so normal. you are a breathing, living being. there is nothing wrong with you that you are incapable of welcoming with warm, open arms; chances are, you have already done so with others. you are your own cheerleader, trusted advisor, and closest friend. it's time to have that frenemies to soulmates arc with yourself. see it as a 2025 challenge. stop being the mask, begin simply existing.