#and its... a weird premise lol. at least i think so

[mbat]

before i pass out for the night. since my brain is back on dan and phil as if its 2016 or something i need to put this out into the world. this isnt some sort of important life changing post, just a personal funny thing

so when i was 13 and fixating on dan and phil, i read a lot of fanfics. like, i guarantee that even after all these years that, if i had the statistics, that fandom was the one i read the most fanfics for and constantly. i couldnt tell you what nearly any of them were about, and i have a feeling that many of them are probably lost to time by now. i also dont know if i need to mention that yeah, a lot of them were shipping, and yes ive long grown out of that. (the dnp fandom is actually what made me grow out of that)

anyway all this to say that over the last 6 years after i stopped fixating on dan and phil, one fanfic stuck with me and i just. i think about it every once in a while. its been over half a decade. it wasnt a groundbreaking fic, i dont remember any quotes or specifics, just the premise as of at least the first few chapters. idk why it stuck with me

it was literally a fic about. if the world had gotten to a point where almost every child was born as like, a science baby instead of a natural baby, and phil was a science baby, but dan was a natural baby. and there was somehow this like, thing where the science babies would bully the natural babies for some reason idek, and this was a highschool setting and i think dan was a new kid in school. and what gets me about the fic is that dan was some small shy scared kid and phil was some mean jerk bully. and how wild that is compared to how they are in real life

this isnt me trying to find the fic or the person who wrote it or any of that, this is literally just. i remember this fic at least once every few months and i needed to get it out of my brain somewhere

[littlespoonevan]

Hi Ciara ☺️ I’ve been following you for years and years, pretty sure it was you that got me into skam back in the day and 911 more recently. So thanks for that 😄 Are you taking fic prompts by any chance? Because I saw a prompt in the wild that I would LOVE to see your take on (no pressure ofc!). The prompt is simple: either buck or Eddie brings up the topic of them getting together, like “have you ever thought of us being together?” And they have a frank, honest discussion about it. I love a good miscommunication and/or pining moment but I so rarely see this instead and I think it fits so well. I read another fic with this prompt and loved it, it’s called at the kitchen table by iphigenias. But that one was set during bucktaylor so I’d also love to see a similar premise but set post bucktommy! Anyway sorry for the very long ask luv u

ahh omg first of all, you sent this to me so long ago and i'm so sorry i'm only getting to it now!!! the good news is, 8b made this specific prompt very easy to imagine in a canon setting asdkjfh. also i looooove the idea of situations where the characters know how they feel and they're not quite ready to take the leap but just knowing is enough to make them feel all ✨✨✨ inside so that is what this is lol

this is set in some nebulous time post-8x15 when eddie is home and everything is fine and peaceful ❤️ i really hope it lives up to what you wanted :')

-

Buck passes Eddie another beer before climbing over his legs where they’re propped up on the coffee table to reach his own seat in the other corner of the couch.

“Thanks, man,” Eddie says and Buck hums in acknowledgment, slouching deeper into the couch cushion and picking up the remote to unpause the TV.

It’s a quiet Friday after an even quieter week and Buck is grateful for it. Especially after the turmoil of this past month. But Bobby’s safe and Eddie and Chris are home and Eddie hasn’t brought up kicking Buck out of his house yet so he intends to savour this night for all its worth.

“Hey, you never told me what happened with Tommy in the end.”

Eddie doesn’t even look at him when he says it, voice nonchalant and eyes trained on the movie they’re watching, but Buck still chokes on his beer.

“Um, what?”

Eddie casts him a sidelong glance. “Things seemed pretty awkward at that call yesterday.”

Ah. The call. The one that required air support. And of course, there was no one else at Harbour they could’ve possibly sent. Because the universe hates Buck.

Their greeting had been politely stilted until Eddie had appeared at Buck’s side and touched the spot between his shoulder blades to let him know they were ready to leave and then Tommy had made the same face he’d made in Eddie’s kitchen two months ago. Buck had almost swallowed his own tongue in an attempt not to snap back – not least of all because Eddie still doesn’t know what Tommy had said.

He knows they slept together. Knows Buck hasn’t called Tommy since. But that’s it.

“Oh it’s just-” Buck waves a hand, taking another pull of his beer to buy some time. “We had a…disagreement last time we spoke.”

Now, Eddie pauses the TV, feet dropping off the coffee table so he can turn more towards Buck. “When he stayed over.”

Buck cringes. Eddie has never really shared his opinion on Buck taking Tommy back here but it has to be weird, right? They were in Eddie’s room. At least it wasn’t his bed.

“Yeah. He just said something and it’s…” He shakes his head, not bothering to finish the sentence and hoping Eddie will let it drop.

He doesn’t, obviously.

“What’d he say?”

For a moment, Buck weighs his options. The odds of Eddie letting this go if he keeps being evasive are slim. But likewise, he can’t think of a good enough lie to satisfy Eddie’s curiosity. Dropping his head against the back of the couch and staring at the ceiling, he finally says, “He said something about you. And it pissed me off.”

“About me?”

He can hear the confusion in Eddie’s voice but he doesn’t dare raise his head to see what his face is doing.

“He um, implied that- that you were competition. For him. And that he was more willing to get back together now that you were gone.”

Eddie doesn’t answer right away and the silence stretches so long Buck has no choice but to look at him. He doesn’t look angry, at least. If anything, he looks like he’s working through a particularly difficult puzzle in his head.

Eventually, he asks, “When you say ‘implied’…?”

Buck clears his throat. “Uh, I believe his exact words were, ‘Now that the competition’s out of the way.’”

Eddie opens his mouth only to close it again a beat later and Buck finally lets the anxiety gnawing at his insides consume him.

“I told him it was stupid, obviously. And that it made no sense because you were straight. And-”

“Did he think I had feelings for you or that you had feelings for me?” Eddie interrupts.

Buck frowns. In the aftermath, he’d only ever really thought about what Tommy was insinuating about him, not Eddie. “Um, the second one? Or- b-both, I guess? But it doesn’t matter, I told him-”

“It’s okay, Buck. You don’t have to convince me of anything.” Eddie’s voice is gentle when he cuts in, too much of a soft place to land that Buck can’t help the way the frustration deflates out of him.

“I know, sorry. Just- he and I haven’t really spoken since then, so…”

The room quiets around them again but Eddie doesn’t press play on the movie. Buck plays with the label on his bottle and tries desperately to ignore the weird tension in the air until-

“Have you ever thought about it?”

Buck snaps his head up, finding Eddie watching him with an inscrutable expression. “Thought about what?”

“Us. Being together.”

For a second, Buck has the horrible, churning feeling that he’s somehow been caught out – that Eddie has unravelled the thread he’s kept so tightly wound in his head with just three simple words – but then he scrambles. “Wh- But- I mean, you’re straight and-”

“What if I wasn’t?”

The words pull Buck up short and his brain short-circuits long enough that all he can manage is a dumbfounded, “What.”

“What if I wasn’t?” Eddie repeats, voice still so, so soft. “If that’s your only argument against it-”

“Is this you coming out to me?” Buck cuts in and Eddie lets out a quiet laugh.

“No. Not really. Just- take that out of the equation. Have you thought about it before?”

“Have you?” Buck asks but it sure as hell sounds like Eddie has and-

“Sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” he echoes, throat constricting. “Whe- when is sometimes?”

Eddie shrugs and Buck feels slightly hysterical at how calm he’s being about all of this. Why is he being so calm about all of this?

“A few years ago when I was having a hard time. Back when I was working at dispatch.”

Buck remembers it. Remembers Christopher on the phone telling him he could hear yelling from Eddie’s room. Remembers breaking Eddie’s door down and that one sickening, horrifying moment where he thought Eddie was dead.

“You were taking Chris to school and making us dinner and helping me clean the house and sitting with me after therapy and we weren’t together but sometimes it felt like we were.”

For the first time since the conversation started, Eddie looks away, glancing down at the beer still in his hand. And even though it feels like his vision is swimming, Buck still sees the ghost of a smile on Eddie’s face before he continues.

“I loved you so much for it, y’know, because I really don’t think I would’ve made it through those months without you. And- I don’t know. Sometimes it felt…comforting, I guess. To think that you were my partner outside of work too.”

The words, “I am,” rise up inside his throat so fast Buck nearly bites clean through the inside of his cheek to stop them from tripping out of him. And it’s just-

He doesn’t know what to say.

He doesn’t know how to process what Eddie’s admitting to. Is he even admitting to anything? He’s admitting he took comfort in Buck’s presence, sure, but that’s not him saying he’s in love with Buck and- and it’s different. Because Buck likes men. So for him to entertain it would…would really fucking hurt, actually. And Buck is so tired of being hurt-

“So, back to my earlier question. Have you ever thought about it?”

Eddie is looking at him with wide, patient eyes. And it’s a look so full of understanding and fondness Buck can feel his throat constricting again and…

“Tommy and Maddie kind of made me think about it.”

Eddie raises his eyebrows. “Maddie’s involved now?”

“I told her what Tommy said.”

“And what did she think?”

Buck lets out a reluctant huff and looks anywhere but Eddie’s face. “That it wouldn’t be so crazy.”

Eddie hums but doesn’t say anymore.

“So I guess I thought about why they would think that,” Buck continues, squeezing the bottle in his hand so tightly he’s afraid it actually might shatter. “And I- I get it. I think.”

It’s the understatement of the century. Because maybe he’s never let himself delve too deep into the thought but it’s only because he knows what he’d find if he did. And he can’t allow that. Can’t do anything that would risk him losing Eddie permanently. He’s too important. Buck is happy with the pieces of him that he’s allowed to have. He doesn’t need all of him, he can survive on this alone.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” he breathes, finally meeting Eddie’s gaze and swallowing the lump in his throat. “We’re important to each other.”

For the first time since the conversation started, Eddie’s calm composure falls away and his face splits into a devastating smile. “Yeah, we are.”

He imagines it, then. His fingers catching in Eddie’s collar, reeling him in for a kiss. He almost thinks Eddie would kiss him back. He doesn’t actually do it because everything feels a little bit too precarious right now but-

But.

“So we’ve both thought about it,” Eddie says, voice betraying nothing even if he’s still smiling.

“Guess so,” Buck croaks in reply.

Eddie’s flicker all over his face and Buck doesn’t know what he finds there but his expression softens and he says, “We don’t have to think about it right now.”

The words come out quietly, a tentative reprieve that has all the air rushing out of Buck’s lungs.

Because this feels like the precipice of something and Buck isn’t sure if he’s ready to take the leap yet but maybe he doesn’t have to. Because maybe Eddie will wait and maybe Buck won’t look for another place to rent and he can take Chris to school again and make them all dinner and it can feel like they’re…

Partners.

He wants it so much it scares the shit out of him. He’s never even let himself imagine Eddie might want it too.

For now, he lets himself sit with the idea of maybe.

Maybe he loves Eddie. Maybe Eddie loves him back.

Maybe there was never any competition to begin with.

“Okay,” he whispers, trying for a smile that matches Eddie’s own.

Eddie ducks his head in response, the faintest pink colouring his cheeks as he picks up the remote and presses play on the movie Buck has no intention of watching anymore.

Their eyes meet once more before skittering away and Buck breathes out a laugh.

Partners. Maybe.

-

[momo-minomo]

Fic Fairy Friday: Cryptid Batfam

Sorry for missing the last few Fridays, friends. I'm struggling with some health problems lately so I might not be as consistent with this as I'd like to be.

BTW, if anyone wants to help me make #ficfairyfriday an actual thing and use the hashtag to recommend fics based on a theme that would be really cool. Doesn't matter what the fandom, rating, or potential pairing may be if you have a specific trope or pairing that you really love think about making a rec list for it some random friday?

This week is for fics with the Batfamily either as actual cryptids, pretending to be cryptids, or just freaking out the rest of the JL by being cryptid-ish. Enjoy!

The Fic Fairy Friday Masterpost

Code Cryptid by SummerKnight717

Summary:

In which Dick Grayson and Tim Drake tag team to make both Bruce and some very unfortunate kidnappers regret all their life decisions. Jason Todd is definitely not the only theatre kid in the family... Dick really doesn't like putting on the Batsuit, thank you very much. So when he has to, he is at least owed some fun in it...

Momo's Notes: Let's start out with a bit of humor, shall we? Tim and Dick team up to be unhinged as always and convince a bunch of Gotham goons that the Batclan are inhuman monsters. Bruce regrets everything that led to this moment lol.

when in gotham: don't drink the water by wesslan

Summary:

In Tim’s defense, there had never been anyone around to tell him not to drink the water. All in all, Tim thinks he turned out quite alright. All things considered. - or: Tim grew up drinking Gotham's tap water. He developed some weird abilities as a result. Bruce, Dick, and Jason react.

Baby Birds and Bat Caves by IzzyMRDB

Summary:

Gotham was built on a cave system. Batman has referenced a Bat Cave before. Tim is currently in the cave system. He is in the cave system that he entered from Drake Manor. Drake Manor is right next door to where Batman- The Bruce Wayne- lives. Holy Cavern, Batman! Tim had just accidentally wandered into the Bat Cave’s cave system. OR Tim, having found a weird hole after a storm, decides to go exploring ignoring the fact that This Is Gotham and They Probably Have Cursed Stuff Down There. Luckily, it was just a cave system that spans the entire Gotham underground. Unluckily, Tim is a very curious child.

Momo's Notes: Both of these have a similar premise so I'm including them together. Tim's neglectful upbringing basically raising himself causes him to make some... questionable decisions that horrify the Batfam because every average Gothamite knows you NEVER drink the water/enter the caves beneath Gotham because that shit CHANGES people. Cue oblivious cryptid Tim!

The Rest of Forever by raven_of_hydecastle

Summary:

Everyone knows the Bats are talented. Despite not having powers, they're the best of the best. But the Bats will tell everyone that's just because they've been doing this a very long time. It isn't until Kon wonders how long Tim has been seventeen that he realizes how literal that is.

Momo's Notes: This is short and sweet but I just love the idea that the entire Batfamily views the JL's aging as a skill issue.

shadows, shortbread, siblings & other stolen things by RoyalRampionEngineer

Summary:

Tim turned around. Robin's shadow was still anchored to his feet, giving him finger-guns. Tim slumped down, and the shadow made to pat him on the back. "You're going to get me thrown in Batman's secret prison," Tim muttered to it. The shadow, of course, did not reply. It did pick up the street cat shadow, cradling it in its arms. "Fine!" Tim threw his hands up. "But you're at least going to help me study vocab if you're sticking around." ... Or, Tim accidentally steals Robin's shadow. (I think you know where this leads)

Momo's Notes: Tim accidentally steals Robin!Jason's shadow and can't give it back because shadow Jason takes one look at this insane eldritch child with no supervision and adopts him.

More Precious Than Gold by Drag0nst0rm

Summary:

Most dragons sleep on their hoards. Bruce's hoard sleeps on him. Or: Bruce is a dragon. Predictably, he hoards orphans.

Momo's Notes: This is a fantasy AU but Bruce is an actual dragon who hoards children so I'm counting it lol. The unique dragon lore in this is really fun with the effect being hoarded has on living humans.

robin reptile by awonderofworms

Summary:

Superman streaks up into the air, singular and alone, a whole group of alien beasts already making a beeline for him - and Cassie can’t help but tighten her knuckles. Big Blue is floating calmly, almost at odds with the foreign shrieking and howling around him, all aiming to rip him into shreds. But he’s not planning to fight, Cassie realizes. Which means… he’s bait. But for who? Who’s stronger than him, strong enough to have Superman trust them like this, in the fight? As she’s thinking, trying to fit the puzzle that seems unsolvable - Superman tilts his head, minutely, something like a smile on his face, and disappears into the sky. A roar splits the heavens. OR Robin - and his family - have this secret that they don’t reveal to anyone, until the very (nearly) end of the world.

Momo's Notes: Let's keep with the dragon theme for a couple fics, yeah? This one is from Wondergirl's point of view of the Batfam letting go of secrecy to save the world. I love the Core Four friendship on display, here.

My Teeth Are Like Swords by Titans_R_Us

Summary:

Tim waits under the huge clock at City Hall for midnight. He doesn’t know why all city halls like to sport a giant clock like it’s all the rage, but whatever. It seems like the best place for a bit of melodrama. (Besides, he’s taken tips from the best drama queen cough starts with a ‘B’ and rhymes with juice cough). The hand strikes the top and the clock booms, each gong vibrating his body underneath the clock face and finally—finally—Tim turns eighteen. And Tim Drake Wayne gets what he’s been waiting for.

Momo's Notes: Okay, technically this fic is listed as unfinished but I think that's an accident because while there's other places the author could take it if they ever come back to it, the story as it is FEELS complete to me and has a fully finished story arc of Tim hiding what he is, inheriting his power, and the family learning about it and accepting him so I'm going to include it. Bonus points for the Tim vs Ra's bits in this. I can never get enough of these two trying to outwit each other.

What's worse than a bat? A CHILD. by Beryllium_4

Summary:

The Justice League being convinced the whole of them are demons for a fic. Batman not doing anything to clear the misunderstanding.

Momo's Notes: The JL are under the impression that the entire Batfamily are literal demons but it's the kids that are the most terrifying.

You, Me, and the Humanity in Between by JUBE514

Summary:

Bruce doesn’t know what’s wrong with his child, but he’s pretty sure kids aren’t meant to work like this. From the day he had looked up into the tops of the circus tent and saw a frightened mirror image of a boy who had just experienced the worst day of his life, Bruce had instantly gone into emergency mode. The Gotham PD had wanted to pass the boy off into the care of the circus. The circus had mumbled underneath their breaths about superstitions, about not having a boy like that with them, about not being able to handle something like Dick. So GCPD, not knowing what to do, had started talking about one of the handful of overburdened boy homes that handles a majority of Gotham’s unlucky orphans. All the while, the camera lights flash bright and loud, wanting to know everything. Bruce couldn’t let that happen. Not then, not ever again. -- Bruce is trying his best to protect the city that he loves. He doesn't know how exactly his Robins came to be- they're not fully human, not even at all. All he knows is that he wants to keep them safe.

Momo's Notes: This fic and the next one you may recognize from other Fridays but you may have noticed that I don't mind including fics on multiple lists if they apply to the theme since not everyone will want to check out every list. This remains one of the most unique magical creatures I've ever seen in a fic. All three eldest Robins are magical beings that eat emotions stored in sentimental objects. Isn't that so cool?

Loading and Aspect Ratio by JUBE514

Summary:

So, it didn’t start out like this. Alfred would scoff at the statement, about how Bruce was trying to justify the whole situation to himself. It had started out as a simple design, black everything with black outlines and black hood. It got a little more intense as the world went on, got wind of his ghost on the streets, and became scared of The Bat . So Bruce got a little more creative with it, Alfred and him had a good laugh over the name, the scare, and Alfred had a vicious streak of humor that he had passed onto his ward- So now the suit had a visible bat-theme, an insignia to drape in the shadows and to paint across the streets of Gotham. It only took a year into the whole charade of heroism for Bruce to overhear a conversation between some goons- some low level thug hired by the Riddler this week- about nothing at all pertaining to what the hell the Riddler was doing in the sewers but instead: “ The Batman can fly, you know, I’ve seen his wings.” -- A world where nobody has wings, but people think they do, and that changes everything.

Momo's Notes: Another fic where the Batfam aren't actually cryptids but everyone believes they are (or to be more accurate for this one, believes they're metas). Bonus points for really adorable SuperBat and the brotherhood between Tim, Dick, and Jason.

Bat Out Of Hell by arguablysomaya

Summary:

Five times the Bats are weird, and one time that weirdness saves the world Or, the Bats are weird, everyone that’s even remotely aware of the superhero game knows this. But, odd as they are, they’re still humans. Which is why it should probably be impossible that they’re such forces of chaos. And when they’re all together? Well, most people are just glad they’re on the good side. And they are. Mostly.

Momo's Notes: Okay so hear me out on this one. The Batfam aren't cryptids and no one mistakes them for being one but they're all so damned WEIRD and abnormal from an outside perspective that they might as well be. Bonus points for entire chapters in both Cass and Duke's povs!

[prettyboykatsuki]

im way too caleb pilled bc im reading your sylus fic (have only gotten to the part where sylus tells reader to ask him to spoil her) and started thinking abt mc growing up being spoiled and babied by gege but then gege 'dies', so mc would feel a certain way about being praised by sylus but shed feel too weird and ashamed about it bc 1. its happening via sex and 2. gege is dead-

@nanamimizz tagging you in this to terrorize you sorry

i do not rlly care for sylus so this is not me being sylus biased lol. i can def see this happening but i do think he's probably the LI with the most like... idgaf attitude about replacing caleb in a really particular way. he's not hung up that you're obsessive over that guy in the same way other LIs are. all the romances happen in diff timelines as stated as infold - but in this instance, your attachment to caleb does not Deter sylus to be like defeated even seeing how sorry and sopping wet and pathetic you get about your gege.

i think this is particularly because sylus has had a lot of time to process things. its part of the reason he can be so level with mc on the surface despite holding such intense feelings. he's really considered you so deeply i dont think it matters.

that being said - while sylus is absolutely a loverboy like. to end all loverboys - i do think a small part of him is delighted by how embarassed you are. more specifically because you wouldn't be this ashamed if you didn't like it, would you?

that's what i think makes the dynamic interesting. sylus does not slow down for you in this instance bc of that i think - which is what makes it possible. he is very VERY accommodating and eager to go at your pace. but that guilty, sullen, flush expression you show him when he's praising you—playing with your clit almost idly and you're just melting underneath it. so so so ashamed and so so so turned on, so desperately eager to have someone kind of.... revitalized that kind of spoiled part of you that has been absolutely fiending for attention after the loss of your one and only gege. but you know sylus isn't a replacement either - so whatever shame you're feeling is from a very sincere embarassment

how reluctantly you're accepting it form sylus of all people - a person that you've developed an almost one-sided distaste for. or at least it used to be that way.

sylus is many things. patient and gentle among the most important. but he's also clever and an opportunist. it'd be a huge waste if he let you squirm away on the premise of guilt or shame. so he really doesn't let you get away with running away during that i think. like he sees you weeping but he just kind of holds you and talks to you in the same sweet way. but sylus is even more calm about it then caleb is. he's calm and sensible and soothing and tells you it's fine to cum this way - he won't tell anyone.

i think that is what makes you snap ultimately. a secret just between you and sylus. for some reason it sort of soothes that part of your brain and you cum easier for it. yk

[tawked]

I think the reason the X-Men are a bad metaphor for racism is that they're actually a metaphor for disability made wrong and strange by the perceived need to broaden the scope to be more relatable to a wider audience via an attempt to be representative of all marginalization.

You know, a story that started with a bunch of kids living at a segregated special school run by a dude in a wheelchair preparing to enter adult life, discriminated against for their appearances, "deformities," abilities and assistive devices. It seems unsubtle to me but I've been in Disability World my whole life so this is the lens by which I see things. The fact that I very rarely see disability-based readings of the X-Men kinda suggests I might be an outlier here? But hear me out.

So, the Doom Patrol represents the other strategy with the same starting premise. Unlike the intentional broadening of subject the X-Men underwent in the 1980s, Doom Patrol has simply never lost sight of its disability focus. The criticism of the Doom Patrol is that it sometimes leans too hard into disability as the root of misery and conflates being disabled with being a "loser." In the 1960s stories, The Chief's role is to give them stern talking-tos about believing in themselves that actually do parallel the stiff upper lip attitude the non-institutionalized disabled were treated with back then (and in some cases are indeed treated with today), but it's not like they're ever going to tell you Robotman, who became a brain in a giant assistive device after a car accident, somehow represents black people lol. That's what Cyborg is for and he is at least actually black and not metaphorically black.

Anyway, my point is, when people criticize the X-Men as a bad metaphor for racism, I always have this feeling like... Yeah, no shit, you're witnessing the generalization of one minority into an ur-minority. Of course no one can really see themselves in that, that's not really how marginalized people experience our marginalization. It's how well-meaning but kind of ignorant non-marginalized people think of the marginalized.

It's especially jarring because disability is somewhat unique in how we culturally address it. Hear me out.

If I treat my black friend (who's black) Eric differently because he's black (he's my black friend), that is fucked up. There is no meaningful difference that exists between myself and Eric on a basis of our skin colour or parentage. Any differences that might exist are social constructs and human reactions to imposed social realities. Paradoxically, in order to be a good friend, Eric must treat me differently than he treats many other people, because I am disabled, and the difference in how he treats me is accommodation. I cannot access the world without this different treatment. A difficulty in navigating discussions of equality is that disabled people, in many ways, require equity in order to function. Allowing all peoples to walk on the same street means nothing to those of us who cannot walk.

Getting out of the crowded elevator because Eric wants in: gross and weird.

Getting out of the crowded elevator because Emily On Wheels wants in: the right move, the elevator is her only option, while you have the option to take the stairs instead. Discriminating in the sense that you are making a choice because of her difference, but not necessarily bigotry because this choice is to enable rather than to oppress. I mean obviously if you roll your eyes and act like a big bitch about it while doing it you are being a bigot but we're talking broad generalizations here.

You can see how, when constructing a metaphor for discrimination, if one is not careful, one may be seen to be endorsing equality without equity, or seen to be endorsing treating people read metaphorically as black differently based on that metaphorical blackness when one wants to make a different statement about ability and accessibility. Especially because bigots often equivocate race and disability so it's become this enmeshed intersectional issue and -- I'm getting beyond my own scope here, sorry.

tbh, even if the X-Men were just about disability, it'd be imperfect. The Doom Patrol is imperfect. The character of Cyborg is imperfect. There will never be a perfect metaphorical superhero who directly represents a social issue or marginalized people, hence why it's important to just... have superheroes who are of these demographics. You know, instead of Kitty Pryde being metaphorically Jewish, she's just Jewish. Instead of Cyborg being metaphorically black, he's just black. Then you can examine what you want to say without over-extending concepts like the mutant metaphor into areas that contradict, and can treat these fictional constructs instead as catalysts for the issues you want to discuss. Or just treat them as realities of the fictional world without necessarily attempting to write them as analogies all the time, Tolkien style. The war parallels will come, even if that's just not what you're writing about, because you're a butch battlefield queen and these wounds they will not heal etc.

Anyway, look, maybe I'm incorrect here. Maybe the disabled man running a special school for people who look different, are different on a basis of the things they can and cannot do ie. seeing without a visor, and are discriminated against specifically for their different abilities, really did represent racism all along, and I'm just huffing swamp gas. Maybe it's a coincidence that the X-Men hit shelves around the same time the concept of deinstitutionalization and the creation of in-community special schools for people who previously would've been institutionalized since early childhood began going mainstream in American politics.

But this is my theory and I'm sticking to it. A lot of the awkwardness in X-Men as a metaphor derives from the desire to expand scope to discuss a universal discrimination when discrimination cannot be made universal, and a lot of the smoother, more recognizable metaphorical writing in Doom Patrol is such because it chose one subject and stuck to it.

i still like both x-men and doom patrol. this isn't a qualitative argument. i actually think there are virtues to a universalized metaphorical marginalization narrative when one's target audience is cishet white boys - maybe relating to wolverine and learning to care about storm might make someone care about black women a little more, y'know? i can hope. i can hope.

[boyslit-moving]

ok now that i've remembered! and also gotten my adhd meds for the first time in years xD its time for

SHARK MECHANIC AU!!!!!

for @bearbait-adventures and @cryptic-ink, sorry this took forever 😭

anyway! the basic premise is of course a Sharkface Lives AU but this one has 'adopted by the chorus armies' 'close quarters rivalry with the freelancers' and 'Sharkface gets attached to his ducklings' flavors as well :)

Main plot points:

Instead of stopping and bracing, Carolina takes a leap of faith at the lake below the cliff and hopes to use the bubble shield to break their fall (instead of yknow ALL enhancements). Sharkface gets caught up in the avalanche and gets pushed off the cliff as well buttttttt..... lands in a heap, unconscious.

“Looks like the hill ate up most of that, at least,” Epsilon quips. They watch the pile of snow where ‘Sharkface’ disappeared. It’s quiet for a minute. “Think he’s dead?” Carolina makes a face at him. “I think you’d know if he was.” “Yeah, I was just fuckin��� with you, he’s knocked out from the impact.”

He wakes up in the custody of the New Republic, and Kimball wants what intel he's got. He won't talk in front of the freelancers, but he doesn't give a fuck about the mercs so he spills what he knows (which isn't much to be honest. He didn't pay much attention to anything that wasn't 'Freelancers')

Kimball needs all hands on deck so she's hoping there's other skills he has that they can put to use, if he can be trusted not to attack anyone.

Jensen drives past with a vehicle at that exact moment and they hear a loud crash and Jensen's apologies. Kimball gives a long-suffering sigh and asks if he's a mechanic. Luckily for her, he has some experience.

He gets assigned to their vehicle "bay" and starts fixing things up under the head mechanic's supervision. He's also got a second, secret job which is to prevent Jensen from test-driving or moving any vehicle by driving it lol

Everyone's pretty scared of him bc jfc did you see his face and he's ALWAYS scowling if he doesn't have a look of focus going on. But he's helpful if not congenial and to his dismay and confusion, Jensen takes a shine to him.

Palomo is worried and confused and jealous because he's told her just to call him "Shark" instead of Mr. Sharkface sir, um, Mr. Shark, I mean, uh. lol it also cuts down on the number of "s" she has to pronounce :)

He tries to confront Sharkface about 'stealing his girlfriend' that he's never asked out or even confessed to but Sharkface is like kid sit down and stop worrying. You guys are too young and I don't like girls. Palomo is like. ...oh. Sharkface is like you better hurry up and confess to her though either of you could die tomorrow.

Tucker comes by later and is like dude how the fuck did you do it. (Do what?) Get Palomo to make a fucking move instead of pining like some sort of pathetic teenager. (Aren't they teenagers?) You know what I mean dude, it was pathetic. (Just told him to step on it because one of 'em could die tomorrow.) ...shit, was that really all it took?

Jensen encourages Sharkface to join them for meals at their makeshift canteen but he usually has her bring him an MRE back to the garage and he eats it alone on a crate. Palomo now starts bugging him to join them too. And then Tucker. He's annoyed but they are wearing him down. One of these days he's going to let someone drag him by the hand to the mess hall.... 😩

Haven't written how he gets along with Lopez yet, but I suspect they'd be the sort of quiet bros who work next to each other, never say anything, but consider each other a quality friend lmao it's possible Sharkface knows spanish, but it might be funnier if he doesn't, but Lopez still takes a shine to him anyway because he 1. doesn't pretend he knows spanish 2. doesn't say weird racist/humanist shit to him 3. doesn't talk to him at all and 4. has mechanical skills on par with at least Jensen. he can't be as good as Lopez because Lopez is literally a robot

Carolina tends to avoid the garage so she doesn't inadvertently piss him off and also because Epsilon HAS to make snotty quips or he'll literally die, so she can't risk it. Wash is usually the one picking up a vehicle or checking readiness status down there, and Shark glares bloody murder at him every time he's in there even tho it scares the hoes (the other mechanics get jumpy when he's in murder mode lmfao)

Also out of his armor, Wash is 100% sharkface's type and he's SO FUCKING MAD ABOUT IT. "get out of my school" note type situation for real

Eventually this could probably become an enemies to hatefuck to ah shit I actually feel something for you situation but I just haven't written that far lol

Anyway, I'm sure there's more to plot out re: the actual timeline of the war but I wanted him to be somewhere safe and feel included :) he's one of those guys that needs people, but all his people were killed, and alone he's just going off the rails and a perfect target for manipulation *glares at Price*

ty for your interest, I've been really happy digging back into these 😊

also one last snip bc i like it

"How'd you do it?" Tucker asked, leaning on the open shell of the Warthog engine Sharkface currently had his greasy fingers in. "Do what?" he growled. Fucking stupid little cap was just out of his reach. "Get Palomo to ask Jensen out. He's been like awkwardly crushing on her for months." Sharkface gives him a weird look and shrugs. "Just reminded him they could die anytime so there's no point waiting." "Huh." There's a bit of silence in which Tucker watches him fish the piece out from where it was dropped in the assemblage. "I don't actually know if their gross weird teen nerd romance is any better than him insisting there's nothing going on, but he's not bugging me as much, so thanks." Sharkface squinted over at him. "That's what you came in here for?" "Yeah, why?" Sharkface snorts. "You guys really do just stand around and talk.” "Uh yeah?" Tucker grins. "That's kind of our whole thing, dude." Sharkface smirks back at him. "Hand me that wrench if you're gonna stand in my light."

[noel-levine-fan]

day 12: wedding / free day

notes under cut

wedding concept notes: no elaborations here other than that i like to imagine them getting married in secret for some aus, may or may not be applicable to my drawing. also wanted an excuse to use noel’s june bride outfit

art notes: i dont like the premise of this drawing (* not the marriage sirinoel marriage is based) likw i just think the way i drew it is really weird and i also like barley tried on making the background look like... anything or giving it any kind of depth with lighting

free day notes: i did have a specific idea and got to the lineart of it but there was no way i was gonna get it done in time and i just could not stand the incongruence of this being the ONLY day i didn't do on time i knew i was gonna feel so bad about that so i just made a doodle since its free day i can do whatever so i could get it done in time maybe you will see my original concept one day but probably not because it was one of the drawings i cared about the least it just felt so random (i get it's free day but like still lol)

[zaptrap]

Seeing that you've been here since 2012 is INSANE like you've witnessed it all huh. You've seen probably SO many weird and crazy things in this fandom like man that's so cool for you I feel...

ive def seen and participated in a lot of dumbass bullshit over the years LMAO. although notsomuch during the skybound-to-seabound era cuz i'd lost interest for a bit

Random shit I remember off the top of my head (plz feel free to fact-check):

deviantart era: (2012-2013)

that bright green ninjago ask meme

like, literally everybody making self-insert purple ninjas (sometimes orange, teal, or rainbow) and shipping them with their fav ninja

everyone making their own genderbends of the ninja. cole was almost always called nicole or colette lmao

people also naming their accounts (name)-the-ninja (or "teh-ninja", since this was 2012)

there's a non-zero probability that if you were in the fandom during the season 1 era, you're a furry now

naruto crossovers

half-snake ninja aus.........wonder who uh......who could've done that.....heheh (me) (that was my whole deal pre-nindroid!jay lmfao)

everyone posting like, doll-maker things they made of ninjago? especially dragon ones

(me) posting leaked screenshots of season 2 eps that i found on the lego wiki or smth lmao. this is also how i found out zane was a robot. i think i kept posting leaks when i moved to tumblr

legends of chima releasing and i thiiink it was supposed to be a ninjago replacement? like, legitimately? though a lot of people weren't happy about it. "furry gang drug wars" was a phrase used a lot lmfao.

tumblr era (2013-2016 for me) (may overlap with dA era)

everyone losing their minds over the shirtless ninja in ns2 lmfao

that one video of kirby marrow (rest in peace) saying cole was 14

that other vid of like, behind the scenes and it was the ninja's actors but like in-universe? it's where "cole bucket" comes from

also some behind the scenes vid with the actual voice actors lol

thinking back on this, im like 100% sure it was bullshit but when the end of rebooted aired, there was a rumor going around about fans being so upset over zane's death that they carved a snowflake on their stomachs. lots of people were freaking out lmfao

the rise and fall of "fucknoshittyninjagoOCs" (ashamed to say i heavily participated in harassing this blog even if i rlly didnt like the premise.........)

maypong

lots of tension with instagram cuz of all the art reposts. like. tons of reposts. i remember someone blocked me when i said to take something down but then unblocked me the same evening and apologized LOL so

roleplay twitter accounts (twitter was kinda not-as-a lot at the time)

nindroid!jay of course. its so old there was an update that was made in flash lmfao...

absolute fucking shitloads of AUs and headcanons. i dont think this has changed much but like. there were so many lmfao. entire threads

actually there's too many fucking AUs. im scrolling through my main blog and i cant fuckin find anything cuz ITS ALL THESE STUPID AU THREADS THEY AREN'T EVEN LIKE DEEP LMAO

ask-all-the-ninjagians

the absurd screenshot redraws i did. like they were super stupid lmfao. icr which blog they're on but they're on my comp still at least

ninjagians just. being a term used at all lmao

the ninjago fan-tournament during ns4. people would draw/write about their ocs doing whatever prompt was posted and then everyone came together to defeat a big bad snake man

tbh i started naturally losing interest during ns5, and then VERY QUICKLY dropped the show (and therefore fandom) when skybound came out lmao............... so i dont really remember a lot from this era and everything after

and now im back :D

i hope this is insightful! xD

[skiiyoomin]

I was wondering if you could write a saiki & reader oneshot fic with a reader who has DID & C-PTSD and paranoid tendencies? I understand that that might be a bit too hard to write but just in case I got some recorces that might be handy, here is the link to DID listing from my own copy of the newest version of the DSM https://www.dropbox.com/sh/htaraej65e34tg9/AADBATmelRQFUBfTMxaJ3W6wa?dl=0 as well as this website that has a lot of good info on it https://did-research.org/ and this page I found that has a brief overview of C-PTSD https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24881-cptsd-complex-ptsd but I also recommend quickly reading thru the different types of flashbacks (shouldn't be that hard to find info on)

The main idea is that because of the mix dissociation,switching,paranoia, different types of flashbacks etc that the readers thoughts are very fucking confusing to saiki (feel free to use this premise for any kind of plot you want just try not to make it overly angsty is all I ask, well as un-angsty as you can get with C-PTSD anyways lol) I just wanna see more y/n / reader inserts that I can actually relate to but the saiki K fandom is so small

Can be platonic or romantic

Hi!! So sorry for the late reply, I researched as much as I could so if theres anything remotely wrong or different please tell me! Ngl, im not very sure i like how it turned out, nevertheless I hope you enjoy :))

Also i totally get that its hard finding stuff for saiki k which is the reason why i write for it in the first place, they totally deserve more recognition!! Feel free to send more requests in the future!!

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Content: somewhat angsty but not really, i tried to be as vague as possible so as not to trigger anyone, reader suffers from trauma, DID, CPTSD, swearing, fluffy ending? slightly oc saiki

Summary: Saiki was used to listening to many types of thoughts, and at one point, nothing he heard surprised him. However when you came around, he was beyond confused. What sparks as a little curiosity might turn into something more.

✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:

ღNo matter what

He was used to it, or at least that's what he used to tell himself. Throughout the years he had heard all sorts of thoughts, at one point, he learned to tune them out when need be, having listened in on weird enough ideas that now don't surprise him anymore.

When you came in the picture, he was...baffled, to say the least. Confusing wasn't even close of a word to express how he felt. Your thought process was anything but simple. At times it'd be a fuzzy mess almost as if you lost part of your memory, other times, you'd think as if you were a completely different person, contradicting many of your previous thoughts. But what disturbed him most was the series of traumatic thoughts that would cross your mind. Flashbacks he realized in that moment.

In the beginning he felt annoyed, as per usual. Often times, he'd find you in class with a dazed expression, which to be frank, he had seen enough times to not give it a second thought. But then his attention would be caught when your mind would wander and you'd start thinking in a very unusual way. They were so unlike the person you presented to be, so much so that Saiki was left perplexed and in need to understand exactly what was going on.

The more it happened the more worried he'd be. There were days where you acted a certain way, and other days where you acted completely different. He could tell you weren't being fake trying to act differently for attention, after all, your thoughts lined up with the you acted and the things you said. Rather, it was the abrupt changes in your behaviour that had him thinking for far longer than he normally would.

Along the way, he also picked up how you'd flinch if you were in sudden physical contact, the way your shoulders would tense and the way your heart beat would speed up. Saiki wasn't stupid of course, he was aware that all of this was caused by some form of trauma.

He knew not to pry, yet his heart strings pulled everytime he saw you having a bad moment. So he began to follow you, in disguise of course, and even if he seemed like a stalker, he couldn't help it. Eventually he began to connect the dots, your reactions, behaviors, everything. It made sense now.

Unconciously, his words began to soften around you, his touch became gentler, he looked out for you in ways he had never done so with others. You began to notice but in no way did you mind, if anything, Saiki was someone you took great comfort in. What started of small slowly grew into something neither of you expected.

Of course, that didn't make it any less hard for either of you. Like right now. You were laying in Saikis bed, your head resting on his shoulder as you watched a movie, when suddenly a specific scene had triggered an anxiety attack. Your mind was racing through flashbacks of the many disturbing events you had gone through. Saiki was up almost immediately, having read your mind and sensed your reaction.

His touch was soft, his hands cupping your face so gently you'd think he was scared to break you, which he was. He was in no way someone who could comfort others easily. Nevertheless he tried his best. He attempted to lower your heart rate, rubbing small circles against your back as his other hand held the back of your head. No words were needed, they never were. He had, in a way, been there for you, way before you two even became a thing, so none of this was a surprise for either of you.

That didn't ease the guilt in your heart any less. You always felt bad. You knew Saiki could read you, literally. And well, it wasn't pretty. Countless times you had attempted to push him away, yet he never budged.

"'m sorry" you mumbled against his shoulder as your rested your head on it.

He cupped your face in his hands, pulling you to look at him.

`I won't let you push me away. The things you went through won't make me see you any differently, because to me you'll still be someone I cherish'

Your eyes welled up as you looked him deep in the eyes, finding nothing but love for you. Still cupping your face, he ran his thumbs under your eyes, wiping the tears away. He leaned forward, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead.

'I love you'

"No matter what?"

`No matter what'

[yellowocaballero]

Itwau? Covid puppy Tim just sounds very funny to me lol

"AU where Tim was quarantined in a radioactive house with the least functional family of all time and he's released into the wild three years later incredibly under socialized and dysfunctional" is, in fact, the premise.

I'm so vauguely unhappy with the fic that I refuse to post it. But also it's not straight up bad. But also I'm worried that it doesn't do justice to Cass, and doing justice to Cass is important to me. But also isn't any predominant Cass good. But also blah blah blah have a scene.

Short scene, and a CW for references to a sexual relationship between a minor and an adult. And an apology to Tim/Bernard shippers. The scene's a good summary of everyone's dysfunction, I think.

A rock collided with the window.

Tim’s aim was true, as always. He shifted his balance on the withered tree branch, mindful of its tired creak, before flicking another pebble and hitting the glass panel again. The sharp thunk was clear in the mild night, and Tim only had to wait another minute before a face appeared in the window. Tim waved. The face grinned.

The carefully maintained window slid upwards, and Tim easily hopped off the branch to land on the windowsill and slide inside. The boy inside had already stepped away, locking the bedroom door and fixing the deadbolt.

“They home?” 

“Mom’s on nightshift and Dad’s out with his friends again.” Bernard turned back to Tim and smiled at him. ‘Out with his friends’ meant he was getting drunk and wouldn’t be back ‘til morning, but that hadn’t bothered Bernard in a while. “Hey, you.”

“Hey.” Tim stepped forward and kissed him eagerly, and after a half-second Bernard kissed back. It was a comforting and familiar kiss, and after so long it was definitely Tim’s favorite. “It’s so good to see you.”

Bernard gave him another kiss before stepping back, yanking some old clothing off his desk chair and stuffing it in the laundry tote. Tim shut the window and started taking off his mask, the buzzing energy in his limbs already melting away. Cass was expecting him back at three in the morning, so that gave him three hours here. More than he needed, probably, but it was never bad to surprise Cass by coming back early.

“How was your day at school?” Bernard asked archly, and Tim rolled his eyes. “Did you make the soccer team? How did the math test go?”

“How do your math tests go?” Tim asked pointedly, and Bernard abruptly looked a little guilty. “Right. Who cares, honestly. It’s not like you’re ever going to use the stuff.” Left unsaid: or ninety percent of what you’re learning in that weird little schooling co-op you attend, you freak.

“I will be loved for my pretty face, not my brains,” Bernard drawled, sitting down in his desk chair. Tim sat on the bed and pressed the secret button on his boots, letting them deflate and yanking them off. “I shall marry a powerful enforcer for the Penguin and live the rest of my life awash in chocolate and weed.”

“Will you still remember me when you’re rich and powerful?” Tim panned. He started unbuckling his tunic, undoing the golden arrow-shaped clasps running down the center. “The little girl next door?”

“You are anything but the girl next door.”

“Oh, I’m well aware.” Tim smirked a little, letting his hair fall over his face in the motion he knew Bernard liked to see. “You’re already fucking a territory boss, Bernard, it’s hard to go up from here.”

“Uh. Yeah.” Bernard laughed a little, short and sharp. “That’s still so wild. Only fifteen and you’re already a gang leader. You’re, like, one of the fifteen most powerful people in Gotham.”

“Sure am. Let me know if your parents need another job or anything. I don’t got a lot of employees, but I can find something for ‘em.” Tim brightened. “If you guys ever need to run into protected territory you know I’m right next door! You’d be the safest teenager outside of the Garden.”

“That’s - really nice of you, Tim. Thanks.” Bernard caught Tim’s thrown tunic, putting it on the desk behind him. His eyes lingered on the dull R, but he quickly shoved it away. “We’re doing okay, though. I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

“You don’t have to tell me, I’ll find out.” 

“Fantastic things to hear. I love it.”

Tim grinned at him, shucking his gloves and carefully tossing them at Bernard so he could put them next to the tunic. “You know what to expect from me.”

“Lord help me, I definitely do.” Bernard held the gloves, finger rubbing against a ridged green thumb. His posture was stiff. Tense. He was nervous. Tim stopped undressing. “Look, I -”

“Quiet.”

Bernard fell silent instantly. Also suspicious. Bernard was one of the more contrary people Tim had ever met, and he knew Helena. Tim stood up, silently walking towards the window and sliding the panel open so he could sit on the windowsill and check the surroundings. Nobody out there. It was the only window in the bedroom, so Tim was forced to close it. He spot-checked the rest of the room, finding nothing out of ordinary.

Long-suffering, Bernard said, “Tim. Why are you looking for an ambush?”

“You’re nervous,” Tim said bluntly. Bernard opened his mouth indignantly. “You would break if your parents were kidnapped.”

“I - yeah, fair.” Bernard paused, clearly debating with himself, before saying something he was clearly fairly certain he’d regret. “What did your other ambushes look like?”

“Somebody planted intel of a human trafficking ring in a brothel,” Tim said. He undid the locks on the door and poked his head out into the hallway, just to be sure. “There were trafficking victims. But there were also several pounds of explosives.”

“Yikes. Everybody make it out of that one alright?”

“Yeah, we always check over the premises of a tip like that. If the story involves starving babies being cooked into stews it’s a dead giveaway for a trap.” Tim closed and re-locked the door. Bernard opened his mouth again. “Do you really want to ask that question?”

“...point!” 

“Don’t worry about it, babe.” Tim walked over and leaned against Bernard’s desk, crossing his arms and grinning down at him. The cool look was slightly hampered by the wobbly leg. He’d have to offer to repair that. “The Upper West Side doesn’t see the worst of it. Don’t do anything stupid and you should be okay. And you get in any trouble just call me.”

Bernard smiled weakly. He grabbed Tim’s hand and squeezed, and Tim squeezed back. Tim wondered when would be a good time to start undressing him. Three hours was enough, but they should probably start. “It’s weird thinking about how crazy fucking lucky I am. My mom has a job with that laundry group and my dad just got that reconstruction job for the cops.” Tim did not like the cops as much as the cops liked the cops, but Gordon kept them in check. “We still live in our house. I got my own job at the orchard. The co-op and my friend and stuff. I got you. Couldn’t have imagined this three years ago.”

Three years ago Bernard and his family lived like anybody else - hiding from looters and scavenging for FEMA aid. “There’s more and more families like yours in Gotham every day,” Tim said. The thought made his heart feel lighter. As Robin, he saw the change grow and grow. It was amazing to watch. “Just watch, Bernard. One day soon everybody’s going to have a job. Everybody’s going to have food on the table. Gotham’s getting better. Isn’t it fucking wild?”

“I feel like a person again,” Bernard said. “We were living like fucking animals for ages and now I feel like a human person. Shit, Tim, I know you see the worst of the worst nonstop. Maybe one day soon you won’t have to see grotesque shit every day.”

“Maybe one day soon I’ll stop having to punch the grotesque in the face,” Tim said lightly. “Speaking of the grotesque, hurry up and strip for me.”

Bernard froze, and Tim knew why he had been anxious and tense since Tim stepped into his room.

“Ah,” Tim said.

Hurriedly, as if he wasn’t already far too late, Bernard said, “Can we talk?”

Tim stared at him, and he knew the weight had returned to his expression. Bernard’s eyes anxiously flickered around the room before focusing in on Tim, steady and alert in an intimately familiar way.

Bernard was a confident person. He probably used to be fearless. Tim wouldn’t know. Nobody was fearless in Gotham anymore, and more than anything Bernard was a very, very smart person. It was just good sense to be careful with the apprentice of the most dangerous person in Gotham. And, these days, a gang leader. 

Tim had been dangerous when they first met, even at fourteen. He had been nicer back then, but Bernard hadn’t been stupider. It had been a risk. Hero had begun to fit strangely on Batman. 

But they had been two very smart, very curious boys with little adult supervision. Having sex with Robin did incredible things to Bernard’s already considerable ego and Tim liked being cool and hot to somebody as cool and hot as Bernard. 

Bernard had often bemoaned how he was fucking actual Robin and he couldn’t even tell anybody. He was so cool and sexy he had bagged actual Robin, and yet he would never rule the school. Tim had laughed and swatted him with a pillow.

The thought of anybody wanting to brag over being with Tim, that scrawny nerd Tim Drake with no friends and nothing interesting about him…life had gone crazy in every way. 

They had always limited it to Tim sneaking into his bedroom in the middle of the night. He had never even been downstairs. Tim had been excruciatingly clear that they were casual, Bernard had felt extremely adult at the concept of casual sex, and they both had a regular hook-up ever since. Tim just dropped by whenever he was anxious, stressed, wired, or bored. He really hoped Bernard hadn’t caught feelings. He wasn’t so sure. Cass had never met him, so he couldn’t ask. Tim didn’t go into detail about Robin stuff, and Bernard didn’t go into detail trying to satisfy his insatiable curiosity about his dubiously ethical missions.

Bernard had only brought up a rumor once. The Jokerz in Amusement Mile had grown far too rowdy, and some of the leaders were making noises about taking the territory from Harley and returning it to ‘the real mad lads!’. Harley had asked Tim and Cass to come in and help definitively destroy the burgeoning coup before it began. 

Destroying coups obviously involved a lot more than beating up the rabble rousers and calling it a day. It was really a fear based endeavor. You had to stop anybody from even dreaming of crossing you again. Harley had done most of the work, but Tim and Cass played back-up. They weren’t Batman, but they definitely had their own cred on their own merits.

Tim had just waved off his concerns. “You know way better than to listen to the Batman rumors, man. Just ignore them.”

“Yeah, I know they’re all Batman Morningstar. I was just asking if they’re true.”

“And I was just telling you to ignore them,” Tim had snapped. “Why are you arguing with me?”

That had ended with Tim leaving in a huff and Bernard closing the window in a huff. But Bernard hadn’t asked again, so Tim counted that one a win. Bernard was the most curious person Tim had ever met, a miniature investigative reporter in an uncaring apocalypse, and a part of him was always striving to seek out the truth and ferret out secrets. 

Bernard had also grown a survival instinct. He didn’t do that anymore. Even with Tim.

So Tim kept his posture loose and forced his expression into something light and pleasantly neutral. Bernard recognized the mask, but he also recognized the ‘I’m pretending I’m not a dangerous person so you feel safe’ face, and he silently gestured to the bed. Tim slowly sat down, bouncing a little old on the old mattress, and Bernard slowly moved to sit next to him. 

Their thighs brushed, but they didn’t look at each other. They sat in silence a little, Bernard wrangling hard with how to say something difficult. Tim really hoped this was just ‘let’s not do this anymore’ and not ‘I jumped inside radioactive waste and I’m going to conquer Gotham’. 

Finally, Bernard said, “You remember Sid?”

Thank god. No need to bring out the Hazmat suit.

“The guy in your math group?” Tim asked. To his own strange surprise, he couldn’t fight the smile. “The reason you failed your test?”

Bernard flushed, shoving him lightly on the shoulder. “You’re the one who snuck in the night before we had it!”

“Yes, I’m so sorry I disrespected the sanctity of your math club to have fantastic sex with you. It’s all my fault. Nothing to do with the guy who had sex with you of undetermined quality during your math club.”

“It’s not a club, it’s a co-op - oh, never mind.” Bernard had visibly relaxed, and Tim gave himself a mental pat on the back. He saw Bernard mentally cross out ‘Robin’s gonna go into a jealous rage’ on his list of potential conversation outcomes. “We’re just getting…I don’t know. I like him a lot. Like, a lot a lot. I haven’t met anybody as nice as him in years. I’ve started volunteering at the soup kitchen with him, he’s been teaching me how to make tamales. He’s useless with art, but he keeps on borrowing my art supplies to draw trees. Terribly. He sucks.”

They had been going on dates? He hadn’t mentioned that. “I thought you guys were casual too.”

“It started out that way. But we just saw each other in class so much, and he’d always insist on walking me home the entire way. It was so corny. And…I don’t know, Tim. I just didn’t want something casual anymore. We had a connection. So he asked if we could get more serious. And I said yeah.” Bernard shrugged, rubbing his shoulder. He ripped it open on a barbed wire spike two years ago, and it hadn’t healed right. Tim gave him small back massages sometimes to loosen it up. “He says that he wants to be monogamous and just focus on each other. I want that too. So we both agreed to stop seeing our other guys. So I guess what I’m saying is - it’s really not personal Tim, I swear, it’s just - like, the shape of my life right now -”

“Dude,” Tim said. “I’m so fucking happy for you.”

Bernard sagged, all of the tension drained from his body. “Thank god.”

“What, did you want me to start crying?” Fat chance of that. Bernard grimaced. He had obviously been worried about that and a lot more. “You’re an awesome lay and I’ll miss being with you a lot. But that’s not worth ruining the good thing you have going on right now. You deserve to be happy. If monogamy is what’s making you happy right now, then go for it.”

“You are taking this super well,” Bernard said, almost incredulous. “We’ve been seeing each other for a year and a half, dude. It’d be pretty normal to be upset.”

“Are you kidding?” Tim asked. “I said a billion times that we were casual, Bernard.”

“I’m aware, but casual doesn’t mean we don’t give a shit about each other.”

“Of course I give a shit about you. That’s why I’m really glad you’re happy.” Tim clapped Bernard on the shoulder and stood up, moving to grab his left glove. “I liked sleeping with you because you’re a good guy and a lot of fun. But you know I really just sleep with people for fun, Bernard.”

Benard’s mouth twisted. “Fun’s one word for it.”

“Stress relief,” Tim amended. “And there’s plenty of people in Gotham I can relieve stress with. I got, like, four on the regular.”

“What, including the twenty year old?”

“You have some sort of vendetta against Ruby and it’s very rude.”

“She’s twenty, she needs to get someone her own age.”

“It’s really none of your business. So come on, tell me more about Sid. Amusement Mile’s actually pretty great for date night these days.”

“You’re insane.”

Tim shoved his uniform on as Bernard told him more about Sid. They were pretty sickening. Tim could tell that they would only get worse. Monogamy was out of fashion among kids these days, which caused some pretty spectacular juvenile drama. Tim was more familiar with the Garden’s culture than the greater Gotham teen culture, but the Garden’s queer scene was pretty dire. All the gay people had already slept with each other and battle lines had been drawn. 

Truthfully, some part of Tim had always worried. He knew distantly that he had started kind of young, and that he put very little of himself into any of his partners. They were all short-term. But he knew he had taken Bernard’s virginity, and that Bernard was the person he kept coming back to, and he didn’t want his weird-ass sex life to conflict with Bernard’s normal life. His normal happiness, as much as any of them could possibly scrape together happiness from nothing. He thought he might have ruined him. That, at least, was a relief.

“Tim.”

Tim finished sliding up the window panel, turning around. Bernard stood in front of him, uncertain and anxious and sad. As gorgeous as ever. Thin, without muscle or hard edges. Big eyes and sure hands. He had been so awkward as a kid, but had more than made up for it with enthusiasm. He had been warm.

“Are you ever going to find somebody too?” Bernard asked. “I mean - are you ever going to let yourself?”

“I’m Robin, dude. Ninety five percent of my time is spent doing Robin shit.” Tim sat down on the window frame, swinging his legs outside the house. “My life isn’t schools and friends and boys. So you have fun for both of us, okay?”

Bernard crossed his arms, mouth twisting. “I want to ask if we can still be friends, or if we can still meet up after this and do normal teen boy shit. But I’m pretty sure I know the answer to that one.”

“If you ever need help, page me,” Tim said. “I’ll come running.”

He disappeared in a swish of cape, and after a few seconds he heard Bernard sigh and close the window after him. 

Tim sat down against the wall of Bernard’s house, hiding in the darkness obscuring him from view. He pulled his knees to his chest and dropped his forehead on his kneecaps, wrapping his arms around his knees. 

Tim sat like that until the moment had passed - unmoving and silent. He didn’t cry. He didn’t even think much. He just sat there, curling into himself.

Then he stood up and left, roaring his bike engine a little louder than necessary and ripping away from the battered street.

*

The drive home was longer than usual. Batman was waist deep in a case that was proving to be a massive pain in the ass, so he had called in all of them to help. Now it was everybody’s pain in the ass. Cass and Tim had been running ragged on Batman’s heels for the past two days, so they had crashed in the Clocktower for the night. Stumbling home from a long night out and falling into the king sized bed with Cass in their shared room on the fifth floor was sweetly nostalgic, and Tim had been sleeping easy the past two nights. Diamond District was theirs, but it just wasn’t familiar like the Clocktower was. 

Tim pulled into the garage at 1:30am, far before his promised return time. Cass would be happy. He already sorely missed her, even after less than two hours away. He needed a hug. Or sister cuddles, which sometimes were sweet and sometimes involved her lying on him and refusing to move. Fuck, he’d even take that right now.

For the first time in a while Tim wished desperately that Cass was not privy to every single thought and emotion he had. He didn’t want to share this with her, but there was really no way around it. She wouldn’t mention it if he didn’t want her to, but she would still know. Best they could do.

He dragged himself into the lobby of the Clocktower, which was the one floor that had rooms and objects for real people who actually used the Clocktower for things that were not fighting crime. Barbara had, obviously, ripped it all up and replaced it with servers. They used the ground floor above the garage as the storage space for their heavier and more durable supplies, such as replacement parts for the cars. It was also where they kept the brig. Don’t ask. 

The lobby boasted a leftover reception desk, made of thin wood with a cracked marble top that had seen better days. Old rolling chairs were pulled against the sides, and the desktop was cleared of everything but cigarette butts and ashes - Helena wasn’t allowed to smoke inside. There was normally nobody sitting on the rolling chair. Today, there was Batman.

Tim stopped short. It wasn’t Batman - it was Bruce, wearing sleep pants and a tattered shirt. Sandals, for the consistent potential tetanus. Tim had barely a few seconds to notice that Bruce looked tired before he saw Tim’s entry, and the deep-set exhaustion settled into a glower.

“Tim!” Bruce barked, and Tim’s spine snapped ramrod straight. “Where have you been?”

What the hell? What was this? “Out?” Tim cried, beyond baffled. “Did something happen? Did I miss a rendezvous?”

“A rendez - Tim, you and Cassandra said you were retiring for the night two hours ago. I expected to find you in bed, not gone. Where were you?”

Holy shit. He couldn’t be serious. Tim couldn’t believe this. It strained his mind, like a weak computer trying to run one of Oracle’s three disc programs. 

“Okay,” Tim said slowly, “back up. You said we were off duty from the mission for the night. I didn’t fail to update you on anything.”

Bruce’s lip ticked backwards. “On mission or off, I expect you to be where you said you would be. And not sneaking out.”

Automatically, Tim said, “What makes you think I was sneaking out?”

“You deactivated the motion sensors, security cameras, and perimeter silent alerts. You also took the old suit without the tracker.”

Oh. Right. Yeah. That one was pure habit. He had been kind of guilty about this at first. “If my movements are off the field they don’t need to be logged.”

“Why don’t you want them logged,” Bruce said flatly.

“Why do you need them logged?”

“You were not where you said you would be and I couldn’t find you leaving on the cameras. If it wasn’t for Cassandra I would have worried that you were abducted.”

“There you go. Cass knew I was fine.” Abducted? From the Clocktower’s security system, with Cass right there? That was a completely irrational fear. “I wasn’t off the grid.”

“She wouldn’t tell me where you were.”

Right. Tim had sworn her to secrecy about this years ago. She had promised to keep it even from Bruce, but that had never been put to the test before. Man, she was brave. He’d have to find her a pastry. 

“That’s because I was on personal business. She told you I was fine, right?” Bruce’s lips thinned. “Then I was fine. I’m sorry, Bruce, can I be excused? Nothing I did tonight was mission relevant, so I can’t see where I broke any rules.”

“Broke any -” Bruce halted hard, mouth twisting strangely. “Right. I never gave you two a curfew.”

What the fuck. “We have work at any hour of the night.”

“I am well aware. Tim, I -” 

Bruce stopped short. He blinked hard at Tim. Tim tried to see if he could make a break for it or if he had to deal with being pointlessly reamed out for the next hour. 

Somewhat strangled, Bruce said, “You’re wearing your tunic improperly. Your boots are fixed unevenly. Your left glove is unlatched. Cassandra refused to tell me where you were.”

Ah. Shit. Tim didn’t blink. Lying was a terrible idea, so he stayed silent. It was important to take the time to compose the proper rhetoric.

Slowly, as if he couldn’t believe the words he was saying, Bruce said, “Tim, were you with a girl?”

“Not during mission hours.”

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

“I don’t have a girlfriend during mission hours,” Tim said. Or at all, but Bruce would perceive a flat denial as a lie. “I was not obligated to report this to you and I was not obligated to log my off-duty movements. I did not do anything wrong and I would like to be excused.”

Bruce stiffened, and Tim stiffened too. It was the oddest sort of Mexican standoff, one with uncertain weapons and an unknown result. The analytical part of Tim’s mind worked overtime to puzzle out how to get Bruce to leave him alone and get out of this. He had to figure out how Bruce was thinking and attack the train of thought directly. Through applying the art of misdirection, he could -

“I am not a punch clock, Tim,” Bruce said shortly, and Tim halted. “You aren’t allowed to do whatever you want, even if it’s outside of the Mission. I expect you to behave like an upright young man. Not sneaking out in the middle of…” Bruce sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why even hide this from me? I’ve never prevented Robin from having friends or partners in his civilian identity.”

Bernard had not been in his civilian identity. Whatsoever. Information that did not have to be shared.

“Taking off my mask is not a civilian identity. I don’t have a civilian identity. Where would I even find the time, Bruce? We get one day off a month and we work fourteen hour days. You already control how I spend fourteen hours of my day, and now you want me to log and document my two hours of free time a day? You should have specified.”

“That’s not the point,” Bruce said, and Tim could hear the frustration in his voice. He should probably back off and back down - just agree and apologize and be done with it - but it just wasn’t in him today. His head was pounding with exhaustion and his heart still hurt. “Omitting information is different from hiding it from me. I am only asking why you went through such great effort to hide something as simple as a girlfriend from me.”

It wasn’t a girlfriend. Bernard was not his girlfriend. None of them had ever been girlfriends, not even the actual women. The only permanent relationship he needed in his life was Cass, and everything else was stress relief. Or stressful, if it was the rest of the ‘family’.

He hated this picture Bruce painted. What must it have looked like to him? Was there some meet-cute during an undercover mission where Tim bumped into a redhead passionate about literature? Did they go for walks in the park, make tamales together? Did he tell her that he loved her, but they just couldn’t be together?

It was sickening. It was wrong. It had been Dick and Jason’s. Tim knew that was the picture summoned in his mind right now: Dick’s teenage flings, Jason’s juvenile middle school romances. 

What had that looked like for them? Had they sat around the dinner table, eating steak and potatoes talking about Dick’s day in Gotham Academy? Had Dick excused himself early, claiming that he was hanging out with Jennifer or Bailey or Heather? Had Bruce given him that extinct smile and asked - so Jennifer/Bailey/Heather, huh? You been seeing a lot of her, haven’t you? And Dick would stammer and pretend to be late and run out of the room, and maybe Bruce had laughed at him.

Jason would have told him. He would have burst into Bruce’s study where he was doing taxes or some ridiculous crap, announcing that he had gotten a date! With a girl, obviously, no homosexuality in this apple pie world. And Bruce would have clapped him on the shoulder and said something about how he was a man now or some utterly asinine bullshit like that.

Did Bruce think that was the situation? The idea itself was insulting. Batman wasn’t delusional. He was practical and grounded. He always considered all of the factors and made the decision that guaranteed the best outcome. He didn’t let pathetic fantasies control his behavior like this. Bruce wasn’t acting like Batman. 

Why did the thought flush such sick rage through Tim? It made red climb in at the corners of his vision, sending every inch of his skin buzzing. Bruce was supposed to act like Batman. Bruce was Batman. Everything Bruce did was the right thing to do because it was Batman doing it. And when Bruce strayed from that - forgot Batman like this - then Tim always pulled him back on the right path. It was always an accident, a slip of control. It had never been on purpose like this.

It was weak. It was weakness. Standing in a ruined Gotham, fucking daydreaming about Dick and Jason and mansions and schools and boyfriends and dates and connection and - while Tim was out in the real world, sacrificing for the real world. Hypocrisy. It was sheer hypocrisy. 

Tim lost his grip.

“I only tell you about the mission because that’s all you’ve ever fucking cared about!” Tim yelled. “I tried telling you about my life when I was a little kid and you shut me down every damn time! If I say it’s none of your goddamn business then it’s because you told me that! I always listen to you, I always do what you want, so don’t give me the third degree when I do exactly what you’ve trained me to do!”

Bruce completely shut down. His face blanked out, a weight settling onto his features. He stepped forward and Tim stood still, forcing himself not to tense. 

The sick anger flipped instantly into something else, just as powerful and nauseating. His eyes darted to the exit before he forced himself to keep them on Bruce.

It was natural. It was smart. Tim was confident, but he wasn’t fearless. He had never told Bernard that he understood how he felt. Sometimes he wondered if Bernard had known anyway. It was just the structure of their world, it was nobody’s fault. Bernard even felt it a few hours earlier, and god knew Tim had worked triple time to make sure he wasn’t rough with him. Bernard had noticed and appreciated the effort. Bruce never made the effort. Tim wasn’t sure if he had never noticed or if he just didn’t care. Or if it was the point. 

“You do not talk to me like that.” It wasn’t a threat or a command. He said it with the utter expectation that it would become true. “I expect you to act respectfully, Tim.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If you only have any respect for me as your mission command, then that’s your prerogative. We won’t have this conversation you find so useless again. But if you ever hide anything from me again, no matter how irrelevant it is to our relationship, you will be acting against the interests of the organization. Do you understand?”

You did not want to act against the interests of the organization. You did not.

“Yes, sir.”

“Sometimes I wonder if you actually understand anything I’m saying or if you are just trying to make me shut up.” Tim flinched hard, but Bruce just sighed. “Forget it. It’s in one ear and out the other with you. I can’t…just do what I say, Tim.”

“Yes, sir.” He worked hard to bite down on the words leaping to his tongue, but he had lost all ability to restrain them. “So do you want daily logs of my sex life or can they be weekly?”

Then Bruce’s expression really darkened, and Tim wasted no time in scampering off and taking the rickety freight elevator to his old bedroom. 

Cass was still awake, obviously. She was lying on their old bed, all of the lights on and playing the GameBoy. They had liberated a large cache of batteries from the Penguin, so they were booting up the GameBoys with abandon. When Tim walked in and flopped on the bed next to her he saw that she was playing Pokemon Blue again. It was kind of impressive that she had figured out how to play with a barely kindergarten reading level, but she could memorize the words and what they did well enough. Amazingly, the skills were transferring to real life. She could navigate some of the higher level children’s books now. She was so cool.

She looked up from her game, looking towards him. Tim watched her register it, all of it - Bernard and Bruce and moments obscured by shadows. She dropped the game and immediately pulled Tim into a hug, and Tim clutched onto her for dear life. 

Tim buried his face into her shoulder. “I just need you. Right?”

And Cass had heard him say the words verbally so many times before that she understood completely. She tapped the base of his spine twice with one knuckle. Yes. 

“You’re enough,” Tim said, because she fucking had to be. Because he had no other choice. Because she promised to protect him and keep him safe. Because she loved him and would stay, and that was all Tim needed. “This is enough.”

[piggybankstomfoolery]

I'm rewatching the Disney TVA pilots for the first time since they showed up almost a year ago, gonna try to scribble down my two cents as I work my way through them:

Country Club (Big City Greens): I like this one, it's one of my favorites here! I don't know anything about BCG and have never watched it, but this made me want to check out the show someday. it may only be an animatic and not as visually fancy as the others, but the characters at this stage are already very fun and well thought-out. I think it speaks volumes about how strong the premise and storytelling is when it stands above some of the other pilots in the collection that have full animation but weaker storytelling.

Shred Force: an absolutely gorgeous pilot and a cool premise. The reason I started rewatching the DTVA pilots was because I stumbled on an old Mercury Animation demo reel from 2014 which has some clean HD footage from Shred Force and Thunderbeards, and I remembered how cool this one was even in its grainy leaked version. The facial rigging for the main old man rock star they spoke to stood out to me as exceptional. I love the idea of the kid leads often leaning on rock Wayne's World style, but then having to engage with and/or learn other music genres in order to solve their problems and grow as characters. Musical genres have only become more fluid and broad in the years since this was made in 2012, which makes me feel like the idea's got even more potential today. Really hope they can either revisit this somehow, or someone else picks up the torch and tries their own take on it.

Fish Hooks: I've never watched Fish Hooks and don't plan to, but this was fun. There were a couple really funny lines in this one that got some good laughs out of me; "I'm pregnant. LET'S TALK ABOUT IT" and "I've been trying to get fired for years" will probably enter my quote vocabulary at some point.

Martian Soap: Probably my least favorite of all the pilots, at least from what I've seen so far. There's one shot in the pilot that's nicely drawn and makes good use of the art style, while most of it is hard on the eyes, hard on the ears and a slog in the writing department with tons of cliches and hackneyed interactions. I hope I never watch this one again.

Mikey (Milo) Murphy's Law: I watched all of Milo a few years ago, and I came away from it thinking that the very first episode was the best one, so I'm not surprised to find out that it was also the pilot. The rough animation scrambles for the wolf with the beehive on its head are also gorgeous. I didn't expect this animatic to go so hard in the animation side of things. I wonder if Weird Al is also doing the voice in the pilot?

Jake's Team Pirate (Jake and the Never Land Pirates): it's a preschool show, I don't have a whole lot to say here, but it was a nice and gentle pilot to put on when I got up this morning and was still half-asleep. I think cutting the fourth purple-hat kid made a lot of sense, this crew currently feels bloated and it gives the shy kid more to do. More gorgeous Mercury animation, albeit with some visual bugs and errors which tells me this is either an earlier cut or could have been cut off with a "good enough, let's move to series already". I will always love Captain Hook and Smee. Also wow I guess I had more to say here than I expected

Beverly Hills Chihuahuas: all I know about BHC is that the movie poster was all over the place for a time and I never watched the film. The animation is very interpolated without much easing aside from full-on easing at -100 and 100, so movement often comes off very flat, but it still has some really visually nice moments at times... so I'm torn on whether I like it lol. The design for the lady who owns the mansion is very cute, i'd draw some pin-up art of her if I had time to draw pin-ups of every cute lady I saw in leaked animation pilots

Squirrel and Rabbit (dunno what the title is for this): it's okay. Very, very Adventure Time. I remember grumblings from folks in DTVA around 2015 about them having to make shows that felt less Disney and more CN/Nick (with Pickle and Peanut being a popular scapegoat), and this feels like something they would've grumbled about. Looking back, the grumbles (and the girth of original ideas in these leaks) feel so humble and refreshing compared to today as we all continue living together in the derivative sequels/remakes/reboots IP rotten slop hellscape of the 2020's. Probably wouldn't watch this again, aside from maybe skipping to the main song at the end. I like the message of confidence regardless of the hat, it's simple but it's nice.

Mega Mega Woosh: Again, very Regular Show (the writing plus the animation studio also being the same doesn't help avoid the similarities lol), but very fun. One of my favorites in the bunch. I realized while rewatching this that some of the lines became quotable for me, which is a good sign. Will probably never see this get made today, but I wish it was a thing.

The Rapscallions: this is maybe my favorite pilot I've seen so far alongside Shred Force. I love the pairing of the retro futuristic/EPCOT art direction alongside 70's country/folk music, it gives the atmosphere so much whimsy and runs with (what I assume is) the general idea of "the future, but maybe as imagined in the 70's". The character foundation is maybe a little too far on the wacky side of things for my preference, but I still really like this one. Mercury's animation is always a treat, and there's some great work in this one too. Compared to most of the pilots, this one felt very Disney in a positive way. Really wish this one had made it to series.

[house-of-tykayl]

Is there a mandate in Teen Titans Go where they say Robin and Starfire are never allowed to be an actual couple in the show?

I don't understand why they don't want them to be together they make Starfire reject Robin.

I don't think it would cause any problem if they become a thing, they can still make comedy jokes in the show while being in a relationship at the same time.

i think TTG is a low effort parody show, so to change something fundamental to the original concept (having TTG robin chase TTG starfire) would take too much effort. the show would have to replace the conflict of unrequited(?) love with another conflict funny enough to move an episodic story forward for an infinite number of seasons.

so yeah, there probably is a mandate/rule (in the show bible or something) to prevent TTG robstar from becoming "official"

(also if you dont find the idea of TTG robstar being unrequited funny, then tbh i feel like TTG's kind of humor and even the original concept of TTG just isnt for u... it's not the 2003 cartoon v2, it's a parody and always was. by this point i feel like it (TTG's parody elements at least) are such a specific kind of humor that 89% of people won't enjoy it, and thats fine)

anyway there's also how TTG had more sincerity in season 1 when it was more like a really weird sitcom, where the titans' relationships (while still subversions of the 2003 cartoon) were mostly genuine bonds even if they acted like lobotomy patients sometimes. the comedy had limits and the characters had empathy. so if TTG robstar would ever have a chance at becoming anything near canon, it would have been back in s1, though still unlikely

but later seasons of TTG can be very mean spirited, overly cynical and deconstructive, depending on who is writing the episode (assuming the episode is even character focused at all, which became less common over time). the show went from a parody of the 2003 cartoon to a parody of everything besides the 2003 cartoon lol. sometimes i feel like post season 1 some of TTGs writers took the mob hate to heart and let negativity poison the original sitcom premise before slowly selling out

so i dont think genuine relationships between the TTG titans can happen anymore, some of the writers hate the characters enough to have broken up their friendships (someone even messed with cyborg & BB once omg), let alone the romantic relationships. except maybe that doesn't matter either because TTG resets most of its continuity every episode?? ironically TTG could still turn the ship around in terms of the series' tone and direction, though i doubt they will if the current direction makes more money

weirdly enough whenever TTG shits out another AU thing, like the big 2018 movie or the night begins to shine universe, suddenly theres unironic robstar shipping/hints in it that are soooooooo cute. besides being shipper bait this is probably because those TTG AUs feel removed from the main TTG series, so their stories feel more free like they're allowed to be sincere again, like the main show's original season 1.

unless the romance is supposed to be a joke, it needs sincerity in order to work. and its impossible to write sincerely when youre a contractual writer buried under 300 layers of irony and cynicism who doesn't even like the show youre writing for... and thats what i feel happened to the main TTG show ,compared to some of its AU stuff

tl;dr i just cope and pretend like TTG is still the goofy sitcom it used to be, partially coz season 1 TTG robstar had the (admittedly very low) potential to be real, and even if it didnt happen at least their friendship was consistently sincere. and very cute

[kimberlyannharts]

some quick thoughts on Power Rangers Infinity since I'm about to leave on a flight and probably won't be able to really talk about it until next week -

= DEFINITELY not targeted to the main series' audience, so I feel a majority of the fandom is going to hate it, but it's fine for what it is. I liked the art a lot, at least

= It honestly plays its premise way straighter than I thought. I figured it was going to be a full-on parody with a bunch of jokes at PR's expense but most of the humor seemed to derive from "hey, isn't it weird that [x] is a team of Rangers?" which, on the one hand, I'm glad I didn't have too see the same five jokes again after over a decade in this fandom, but still kinda threw me off kjfkj especially when these guys start talking about their teams essentially getting killed

= Unfortunately Lola being a Navarro isn't relevant to the overall story; it's not even why Poisandra targets her. I guess it was just meant as an easter egg, as again, obviously Lola lives in "our" universe rather than the Dino Charge one, but still, kind of mean of them lol especially since, as much as I love her, I'm not sure why Poisandra was the villain chosen here. Loved her, though

= Despite what the solicits might make you think, it's not connected to the main series, either. Which should not be a surprise

= Honestly I liked the polar bear WAY more than I ever liked Yale kjkdjfkjdkfk

[genericpuff]

Okay I need someone to know there is an equally bad Hades x Persephone story (it might've been self published? But I'm not sure. I read it years ago as a gift from a friend).

But the basic premise of the story is very similar to a touch of darkness and lore Olympus. The names are changed slightly - Persephone is now Persy or something and hades is Hayden.

Persephone works at an accounting firm or something as a new hire and guess who the new business partner is that her company is trying to strike a deal with? Hades who's Uber rich and handsome. Only difference is for some reason Persephone has the power to make people tell her their deepest secrets so like for example when she was a kid people would confess creepy things to her - like her middle school teacher blatantly admitting to being a pedophile and she does nothing about it. (Granted it's like what would she do even magic powers aren't admissible in court but still). And there's a love triangle with some random human guy? Who is immune to her powers through sheer will power (and masturbation. Yes this is a plot point).

At some point Persephone travels Hayden's domain (which is somewhere in Asia like Shanghai for some reason and not Greece). I gave up at that point. There was lots of creepy things going on in the story a la "young new girl Persephone is constantly almost assaulted at every turn due to her irresistible beauty and people's need to tell her their secrets").

Worst book I've ever read. It's so bad I cannot for the life of me remember the title but it fashioned itself as a modern retelling of Hades and Persephone.

Could it have been The Cursed God? That's what I pulled up from a google search at least LMAO

Here's the summary:

"Hades is coming for me. But that doesn't mean he can have me . . . He says he knows me. Who I am. What I am. I'm pretty sure my boss Hayden is on some sort of weird power trip. He's sexy as hell, but has an arrogance that spells danger. I'm only serving drinks in his seedy strip club until I can afford my own flower shop. I just have to avoid the inexplicable pull between us in the meantime. Then he claims I'm Persephone and he's Hades, the God of the Underworld. He says I was taken from him and now he's here to awaken my spirit so he can take me back to the underworld. That his position in the underworld depends on it. Either he's crazy . . . or I'm a mythical goddess. A queen of the underworld. His Queen."

There was another one I found called Descent. And its summary is equally crazy:

"He was my savior once. Twice. Now he’s become my tormentor.

Hayden Montgomery was my best friend’s big brother. The last time I saw him was that Halloween night. The night he found me in the ruin of the chapel. The night he carried me home through a storm that was the omen warning us all of what would come.

That was five years ago. Now, he’s back. But he’s not the same man he was.

Once upon a time, I’d fantasized about our happily-ever-after. Once upon a time, I think I loved him.

But that was before he stood in the wreckage that is now my life and offered me the solution to my problems. And the cost? My body and my soul.

There’s something dark between Hayden and me. It binds us for better or for worse. Mostly worse. Like the moth to the flame, we can’t seem to resist the draw.

I just don’t know which of us is the moth and which the flame, but either way, we’re both going to get burned."

That last bit about the moth and flame is just- it's so delightfully Twilight "the lion fell in love with the lamb" vibes.

Anyways. Those are the two closest ones I could find that matched your description, but this has me learning that there are ... a LOT of 'modern' retellings of H x P that involve Persephone being an uwu babygirl and Hades being some wet rag abusive dickhead named Hayden. This is a sub-genre I didn't know existed and now I'm wishing I could just scrub my brain of it LOL

On the one hand, part of me now wants to believe that this issue goes deeper than Rachel, that Rachel is just yet another side effect of a bigger problem... but then I spot all the publication dates on these H x P "dark romance" books are from 2019 onwards. Obviously LO doesn't exist in a vacuum either, it's clear it took influences from works that existed before it, it's not the first "modern" retelling of Greek myth. But I can't help but feel a sense of dread that really makes me wonder just how much LO's existence has subsequently oversaturated the market with these "retellings" of a story that was originally a tragedy and meant to sympathize with the mothers whose daughters were forced into marriage, the same way 50 Shades and Twilight oversaturated the market with the "dark romance" genre itself, which is really just a dog whistle for abusive relationships at this point.

Don't really have anything else to say to close out this post. It's just depressing and I desperately want us all to hurry the fuck up and outgrow it instead of dressing up the same abusive "relationships" with a new coat of paint every 5-10 years.

[hsslilly-blog]

heres overseer sakura and julian striking the vault boy pose for rad school story. the cropping looks a bit weird on the second drawing but its okay. its fine ❤️ more stuff under the cut as usual!

sakura got to be the overseer after she was chosen by the vault’s mainframe computer. she was the first one to be chosen, so she considers herself the “main” one of the bunch. such thing does not exist, but the fact she thought it did says something about her and means the experiment is working just fine. before being an overseer, though, she was the vault’s loyalty inspector. i went back and forth between this and making her a shift supervisor but i think making her the person who literally inspects if you are being “loyal” and sticking to the rules of the game vault is very sakura-like. also, adds an element to the au/vault atmosphere. no one really likes the censor.

i gave her two traits that might seem counter intuitive (and maybe they cancel out each other in the game? i didn’t check) but for the au i decided to use the traits in a more figurative sense. well at least for the vault dwellers. sakura has a lot of discipline and she has a set of principles she follows very closely, which is both a strength and a weakness. and both the great escape quest (the one this au is based on) and twelve angry classmates (best quest in game) demonstrate this very well. she has a tendency to… take things too far! even when new information that contradicts her is presented to her. whole premise of the au. so both traits work together.

tagged skills for both of these guys were hard because like i said on the other post, i didn’t want to give the vault dwellers any combat skills. i did end up giving sakura unarmed because she does some crazy physical stuff in the original quest and because she is an active person (her parents make her do all of that stuff on her backyard). this means she would have a higher endurance than the other vaulties, which would give her an advantage in a scenario where radiation finds its way into the vault. huh. speech makes sense for her role (in the vault and in the au) and repair = tinkering = cogs = steampunk. really. sorry.

julian was the second overseer to be chosen and as far as sakura is concerned, that makes him the second in command. he used to be the vault’s little league coach because of course he would. i tried making his vault suit resemble a football uniform. also his pip-boy is covered in stickers from the kids he used to coach. i think he would get really into his overseer job and he’d go along with sakura for the most part. i think his reasoning is different, though. while sakura gets stuck on procedure and then on her (stubborn) ways, i think julian truly believes this is the only option they have. he’s… trying. i don’t think he understands the whole radiation thing 100%. either sakura is keeping information from him, or he just didn’t make the connection yet (everyone is going to die because ezra is basically a ticking time bomb).

i chose loose cannon to reflect his anger issues and good natured because julian gets along with mostly everyone. this is why 6 CHA seems wrong for him but i’m trying to stick to a maximum of 40 S.P.E.C.I.A.L. points for each character (which is the limit in new vegas). i also liked making everyone extremely unlucky because lol this is NOT a fortunate situation.

julian has survival as a tagged skill because 1. he’s shown to have survival skills in multiple quests in high school story (he likes camping a lot) and 2. every game of football i’ve ever watched looks like a warzone to me. i chose unarmed for the same reason. barter… i think he’s the match to sakura’s speech in the same way wes is the complimentary barter to the mc’s diplomacy. i think it makes for an interesting overseer dynamic. also, julian used to be a bully and he’s past his days of messing with people but i think it’s a… skill. pushing people’s buttons, i mean. so. he also has a higher endurance than the other vault inhabitants.

that’s it for now. next ones will be autumn and (finally) ezra. and then vault 105 will be complete!

[inkforhumanhands]

For the fic ask game!

✿ did anything major change when you started writing "All According to Keikaku" to when you finished?

▵ pick a fic and I’ll tell you my favorite line: You Would Never Call Me Baby

✄ what’s your editing process? for podfics

<3

✿ did anything major change when you started writing "All According to Keikaku" to when you finished?

Okay, so the biggest thing that changed is that it was never supposed to be a fic at all 😂 The idea was spawned because I had bamf for a Secret Satan giftee and because we talk all the time I had to divert her attention and make her think I was, if it couldn't be ruled out that I wasn't writing for her, at least writing an entirely different premise so she'd still be surprised. The fic I actually did gift her was A Murder of Crows. But she liked the All According to Keikaku idea so much that when the Murderdock zine was in its planning stages she pushed me into making it a reality. As far as smaller changes, I briefly considered having Otomo and Foggy not actually be fake dating but having him protecting Foggy from something and Matt misinterpreting it, but then I figured that would be less fun. Otherwise it didn't change very much once it all started coming together!

▵ pick a fic and I’ll tell you my favorite line: You Would Never Call Me Baby

I've been asked this question about this fic a few times now and I've given a few different answers 😂 (I'm glad people like it; I poured my heart and soul into writing it lol) This one is still one of my favorites: Yet there was something to be said for mucking up a clean canvas if you were the dirt. But looking over it again right now I'm actually really proud of the dialogue in a lot of places too, like for instance here: “It’s one thing to say no, even if the way you went about it was a little bit rude, if I’m being honest here,” Foggy continued with vitriol. “Your best friend says he likes you. It’s surprising. I get it. But it’s another thing entirely to say I’m not allowed to like you. Because what? Being bisexual is gross?”

✄ what’s your editing process? for podfics

It's pretty simple honestly because I don't have much in the ways of skills here. I record (using Audacity and my laptop mic) the whole fic or chapter in one long take. (This includes lots of mistakes and repeated lines). Then afterward I go in and first cut out all the mistakes (the longest part of the editing process). After that's done I do noise filtering and slow down the audio just a bit because I read a little too fast. I give it a listen to make sure everything is there and there isn't any lingering weirdness, then I export assuming everything is there. If I have to rerecord and insert something I do that, but I've started to try and make sure I get this step done before the noise filtering to make the audio quality more even.