#at least I’m pretty sure Star Trek is where that is from

[catwouthats]

I haven’t read much of LOSH, but from what I have read and seen, it seems like Querl Dox is in love with a lot of his teammates. In his own autistic way.

[acowardinmordor]

You Left Me, You Miss Me - Five

Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four - Part Five

Continuing immediately from part Four. And I hear your screaming, and enjoy it, but I am pretty sure that I'm not going the direction you expect me to.

------

“Huh?”

“I asked them to,” Eddie repeated, quieter.

It didn’t make more sense the second time.  His kids were stubborn. They were obnoxious, and someone asking them to do, or not do something had never once changed anything. Steve spent the last few years asking them not to leave crumbs in his car, and to call before coming over, and to please, just once, let him choose the movie on a movie night. Plus the part where everyone asked them not to put themselves in danger when monsters crawled out of the ground. 

Threats didn’t work on them, law enforcement didn’t work on them, like hell was something as delicate as asking going to do a damn thing. 

“Yeah, no, I heard you, but I don’t get it. So you, what? You sat them down and asked them to ice me out? And they said ‘sure why not!’ Man, even if you asked them to, they’re still the ones that did it. Shit, you’ve never liked me. There’s no way that you didn’t tell the boys to stop hanging out with me last year during your game meetings before everything happened.” Eddie shrank further into the seat, so Steve added, “So, it’s not your fault, but I guess I forgive you if that makes you feel better.”

Eddie gnawed on the inside of his cheek, wincing at what felt like every other word.

“Shit, Steve, it’s -- Shit,” he cursed as he sloshed some of his coffee over the brim. His eyes were clenched shut, and he was curled in on himself. “I didn’t sit them down and tell them to stop talking to you. That -- no way that would work. You’re right. They wouldn’t just -- Like I said, they’re crazy about you. It’s more, it’s all of the, I told them about how ever since -- shit. Look, it doesn’t matter why or how I did it, just trust me, I’m the reason. It’s my fault, and I fucked up, and I didn’t mean it to make -- but you left, and it’s killing them, and so you gotta forgive them, at least talk to them, cause its not their fault.”

“Yeah,” Steve stalled, “still don’t get why you think this is on you, dude.”

“At the beginning it -- shit, no. Doesn’t matter. Jesus Christ, Munson, don’t make this about that. Okay. I asked them not to invite you if I was around, cause I wasn’t -- I didn’t want to see you, and then I made sure they were always around me because -- because I wanted them to. And then I, you know, kept poking at them about it when they’d bring it up, reminding them that you don’t like D&D and that you wouldn’t want to watch the new Star Trek movie, and when they said anything I just kept telling them that -- Shit, just believe me. I’m the one that made them do this, it’s my fault, it’s not them.”

Okay, so Eddie was pushier since Spring Break than he was before it. Or the kids listened to him more. Or they were trying to take care of him. So Eddie was the prompt for them cutting him out of everything. Fine.

Still didn’t make it the guy’s fault. 

Steve got close with Robin after she found out about the Upside Down. But he didn’t get close to Jonathan. Dustin became, for a while at least, his brother. Steve would die for Mike, but they didn’t hang out if it wasn’t a group thing. All of them were tied together, and any one of them could make a call, and everyone would come to help, but that didn’t make them all automatically into friends. 

God, Eddie looked like he was on the edge of a breakdown in a booth in a diner. 

“Look, it’s,” Steve spun his coffee cup, “you’re real close with the guys in your club right? The ones in your band?”

Eddie went tense, then nodded awkwardly.

“You’re close because of that stuff, though. Not just cause you had some classes together or were next to each other on a bus. You got pushed together for some random reason, but  that happened with a lot of people. But you had shared interests, right? You like that game, and you got bullied at school and you like the same loud screaming music. So you got to know each other, and you had a bunch in common, and so you guys are friends. You’re close, so even though you graduated, and you don’t have class and lunch together anymore, you’re still friends.

“Christ, Steve, no,” he protested. 

Steve ignored that and kept going.

“I never had that with the kids, or any of them. Shit. Never had that with Nance either, but I didn’t know it back then.” His inner Robin glared, and he stayed on topic. “It wasn’t as simple as sharing some classes, there were monsters and all that, but that’s what kept me and them around each other. No more monsters now, so.”

His stomach twisted, like it always did if he got too close to thinking about this. 

He only barely managed to talk about this with Robin, because when it was Robin he was honest, and when he was honest, really honest, he ended the night quiet and hurting and picking apart the past year trying to find what he could have done differently. Shoving all of that back into the dark of his mind, he conjured up a casual shrug and a smile. 

“I get that they’re probably freaking out right now, but they’ll get over it. Give it another month or two and it’ll be fine. Start one of your campaign -- your big story things and distract them if they’re bugging you about it.” 

He wiped up the coffee Eddie spilled on instinct, and shoved the napkin in his now empty cup. 

Time to get home and get a nap before he went to the stockroom that night. He wouldn’t see Robin until he picked her up for work, but they were scheduled alone, so he could talk all of this through then. Trying to pretend this day didn’t happen would last all of eight seconds of contact with his best friend. Maybe she could make sense of how he was feeling. 

“Wait, stop, you can’t leave yet.”

“Munson, I’ve been here since before dawn, I wanna leave.”

“I know, and I’m sorry, but you have to talk to them. They miss you.”

“They didn’t six weeks ago, did they? Or for the holidays? Or for the months before that, huh?” Steve finally snapped, then took a breath. “Sorry. Answer’s still no.”

He bussed their cups and the creamer to the pass through and grabbed his coat and gloves. Steam rose off Hopper’s truck where he had the engine running to keep warm. They exchanged a single nod before Steve turned towards the road to walk home. 

“Steve!” 

It wasn’t a shock to hear, but Steve had hoped that Eddie wouldn’t follow. 

“Okay, I get that you’re not going to just forgive them, and that you don’t want to talk to them, but--”

“No. I don’t. And I know you think this is your fault, and I’m telling you it’s not, and I told you, I’m not mad at you about this. We weren’t friends. I’m not mad at you for not wanting me around or whatever. That’s fine. And? They’ll get over it, and everyone can just move on with their lives with the people they actually like.”

Steve’s stupid voice betrayed him, cracking, and he cut off the rest of what he might have said. Anger was the fastest way to shut down weakness, and it was easy for him to sink into it.  

Eddie had his hands in his hair, clutching at it near his temples, looking borderline hysterical. 

“Would you at least listen if they talked?”

“They don’t have my phone number, and if you tell them where I live, I’ll send Mrs Buckley after you. And Hopper.”

“You could call them.”

“No.”

It wasn’t about who placed the call. If he heard them, if they said a fraction of what he wanted to hear, he’d cave, immediately and entirely, and then both the real life Robin, and the mini Robin in his brain would give him hell. 

“Steve come on, something, anything. Letters? If they write letters?”

“I’m not giving them my address, and Hopper already asked about mailing stuff through him instead. No.”

It was cold and he was tired. Just about the only person in the party that he didn’t care had abandoned him was trying to pull Steve back into the vat of slow simmering pain he was still climbing out of. 

“Look, Eddie --”

“I’ll drive them. The letters. You don’t even have to answer, or read them. Let me tell them that I can bring you letters, and I’ll drive them up here. If you do want to answer I’ll wait and then drive whatever it is back. As many times as you want.”

“Come on, man.”

“I won’t even -- I don’t have to know where you live, or your number, anything. I can come here. To the diner. Won’t even come inside, just drop them off and wait. You won’t have to talk to me, or see me. Just, come on. Even if you never forgive them, or answer them, let them have this. Even if you don’t read what they say, let them think they got to apologize.”

The wind shifted, and Steve tucked his chin into his coat to wait it out. 

Eddie was shivering two steps away, gloveless hands shoved under his arms, hair tangling into more of a mess than usual. 

“That’s a stupid idea, Munson,” he said when the gust stopped, “If they know that you know where I am, and you don’t tell them, they’re going to hate you. They’d drive you insane trying to get you to tell them, and they’d be horrible the whole time. They already ditched me for you, so, don’t make them hate you too.”

“They already hate me.” The response was immediate and defeated.

“Dude, they don’t.”

“They do. They figured it out a few weeks ago. That I was the reason. Just cause you don’t get it doesn’t mean they don’t. This is my fault. They already hate me. They won’t even talk to me long enough to yell. They act like I don’t exist.”

“Christ, Munson, is that why you’re up here, freezing your ass off in a parking lot and bitching at me? So you can get them to like you by getting me to talk to them?”

Eddie flinched. Didn’t say anything for a minute as he shivered with wide eyes. Then, without any of the dramatics the guy was known for, “Please, Steve. Even if you throw them out right after. Let them write to you, and let me tell them the truth when I say you got them. I think they can survive if they don’t hear back. They’ll blame me, but that’s fine, they should. The silence is what’s killing them. They need to say how -- they need to believe that you heard how sorry they are.”

It was so fucking cold it was making Steve’s eyes water. That was the only reason for it. The cold front that came in overnight.

“I’m not gonna promise to read them,” he caved.

The tension collapsed out of Eddie, and he slumped forward, hiding his face in his hands. 

“I work here in the mornings Monday through Wednesday every week. You should drop them off then. M’not saying I’ll read them, or write anything back, but if they want to write, fine.” 

Eddie nodded over and over, hiding behind his hands, and whisper-mumbling something that Steve couldn’t catch. He was shaking again. The kind of full body wracking that meant the cold was sinking deep.

“Christ, go get in Hop’s truck before your fingers freeze off or something.” 

Without waiting for a response, or checking that he listened, Steve turned and kept walking. Another gust of wind tore through him, loud enough that he wouldn’t have heard another call of his name. It was a good thing that John messed up the big combo that morning, and Steve had eaten it during the lull after breakfast. He wasn’t going to manage anything else until tomorrow at the earliest. 

That was assuming Robin didn’t kill him on the spot for his stupid, stupid decision. 

Ten steps down the road, and he already regretted it. Even if he didn’t read anything, even if they never sent anything, the choice would sit like a rock in his gut; a new ache, a new bruise, and Steve was dumb enough that he’d keep poking at it. 

---

I'm sad that this is two chapters without Robin. That's some kind of a crime. Can guarantee that Robin has Strong Opinions about this when she talks to Steve that night.

I don't do tag lists or regular updates, and I have no shame about that.

>>>>>Part Six

[bubblergoespop]

My Top Geordi Quotes

geordi come home i swear i’ll treat you better

“Oh. Cute. Hot. There’s a difference. There is a difference, but they’re both. How are they both? That’s not fair, you can’t be both!”

“It’s our bedroom, it’s our bed.”

“Smiling. Pretty smile. Don’t smile at me, that’s not fair.”

“My cutie.”

“It’s not a nickname it’s my full name, yes, it’s from Star Trek, yes, my parents were total nerds hahaha I like the show too, yes, I’m also a total nerd.”

“Nervous? Ya think? That’s a bit of an understatement, hot stranger. “

“Their face goes all soft when they smile.”

“Is this flirting? This feels like mental warfare. It’s kinda hot though.”

“That’s cool. That’s great. That feels good. I like this and I’m having a good time and uhhhh they want my number—”

“Just focus. Just run. Running’s fun, right? Run back to your car. Fast. Very fast. So I can have a panic attack in the comfort of my own home.”

“Have a good day, what am I, a drive thru employee?!”

“I don’t wanna hook up. Well… I mean—“

“Thanks. Oh my god, they kiss me and I say thanks?“

“Fuck they look cute. I love when you look at me like that. That little half smile. Like you can see right through me.”

“I don’t actually know how to play poker. But I sure know how to strip—“

“I’m not normal people. I’m a panicking mess.”

“You give good kisses. Except for that time where you sneezed in the middle of one.”

“I’m dating a crazy person. Oh my god they’re like those people who think they’re really vampires.”

“How did I not know they believe shit like this? They seem so normal!”

“Say… fucking… uh… ‘you asked for it, a whole video devoted to the Rainbow Sponge’!”

“I mean the two of us? Cuddling? Keeping each other warm? It’s scandalous! What’ll the neighbours think? I mean I’m pretty sure I saw your knees the other day, I mean we’re already gonna bring shame to our families at this rate. Oh and fucking on the couch yesterday probably isn’t helping our case either.”

“They come out as a Telepath and my fucking rat brain says ‘oh we don’t get to play video games?’”

“Shut up—! Call me out on it.”

“What are words? Don’t know them never met them. What am I saying? “

“Safe.”

“This is a bad idea�� This is a really good idea.”

“I don’t have a chance to refine my thoughts into beautiful prose, you just get monkey-brain going—‘You? Me? We fuck now?’”

“We’re gonna fuck— Yes thank you hindbrain. The evolved parts are trying to be at least vaguely romantic— [moan] Nevermind.”

“Why does that song always get stuck in my head?! God, it’s like a soundtrack to my insanity.”

“But it’s more than that. It’s you. It’s you in here with me. Sharing everything. No walls. I don’t have to have walls with you. I’m safe with you. Finally safe.”

“I love you. I’m glad your smile is back.”

“Hell is real and it’s here in this brain.”

“You make this all feel safe. And honest. I didn’t know it could feel like that again. Until I met you.”

“I can’t fix this, but I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I got you. And I’ll hold you as long as you need.”

“Don’t smirk at me like that! But do, cause it’s cute. Rude. But cute.”

“Yeah, I’m all weeetttttt unnhhhh”

“Oh my god. You are a nightmare. My favorite nightmare. “

“Why haven’t we done this before—? Do not encourage them!”

“It’s really fucking hot. It’s also really fucking dangerous! Which is kinda hot… Oh my god why do I like this. “

“Touch me. I don’t care where we are, just touch me, fuck, please.”

“I see how much you struggle with this, and I want you to have peace from all that.”

“I want you to heal.”

“I love you. I loved you then and I love you now. You are worth work and effort.”

“Drinking this really bad bad coffee. [his laugh here brings tears to my eyes] That felt good.”

[chongoblog]

Weird question, I know, but do you have any recommendations for getting into roguelikes? Or at least roguelites?

Great question! As far as the genre of roguelike/lite goes, there’s a pretty wide berth. I think it depends on what kind of experience you’re looking for.

I was gonna give a breakdown of lite vs like, but honestly I’m just gonna go down the list

Hades/Hades 2: Very good if you want to experience a story, tight gameplay, and be pretty sure that you’ll make your way to the end eventually without ragequitting. A lot of its charm comes in it being easier and focusing more on progressing story than Just Being A Wall like some of the other games on this list. Probably the best entry point to roguelikes in this whole list.

Spelunky/Spelunky 2: Remember when I mentioned a wall to throw yourself at? I haven’t played nearly as much Spelunky 2, but I can tell you that I have SOOOOO much time in the first Spelunky (hell I had a lot of time in it back when it was freeware. Now THAT was an exciting time). It’s very very difficult and unforgiving. But it’s a blast once you figure out the tricks.

Slay the Spire: THE deckbuilder roguelike. A ton of roguelikes nowadays have deckbuilder elements and I feel like a lot of it comes from this game. Can’t recommend it enough. If you’re looking for other deckbuilder roguelikes, you can try Monster Train or Balatro (warning this one is crack if you like Number Go Up)

FTL Faster Than Light: You know Star Trek? Imagine if you were a ship captain and you were in control of all the ship functions and crew members. And also everything wanted you dead. And uh oh half your crew is dead. Oh god the O2 chamber is on fire. Another one of those “Throw Yourself At A Wall” type games. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever completed a run myself, but it’s a wonderful experience every time I pick it up

Skul: Definitely one of my favorites in recent memory. A fun action platformer where you get to be a lil skeleton dude, what more could you ask for? Very similar to Dead Cells, which I’ve also played, but I think I like Skul a good bit better (DC is very good though!!!)

Dicey Dungeons: Made by the same guy who did VVVVVV, Dicey Dungeons is a very fun take on the genre, basing it around dice, and allowing for a lot of creative playstyles around the mechanic.

Binding of Isaac: I feel like this one needs no introduction, but in case it does, BoI takes most of its inspiration from the original Legend of Zelda. I have a few issues with it myself which is why I don’t play it nearly as much as I used to (mostly due to it having soooooooo much stuff that trying to remember everything is a hassle, kinda like my issue with TF2 unfortunately) but it’s beloved for a reason so it might just end up being up your alley

Other games I know about but haven’t played much of, so I can’t say much are Streets of Rogue, Risk of Rain 2, Rogue Legacy (I did play a lot back in the day but never got far), Noita, Into the Breach, Darkest Dungeon, and Crypt of the Necrodancer

If anyone else has any recommendations or if you second any of these recs, feel free to put em in the replies

[dccomicsimagines]

Hello There - Jon Kent x Reader

Requested by Anon -  hello! i love your works, you are an excelent writer :D! Can i request an one shot were batsis (from fitting in) and jon fall in love? she highkey deserves a fairy tale romance and i think bruce and damian reactions would be very funny haha

Requested by Anon -  I know you basically just finished one big Jon x reader, but do you think could please make another fic or headcannon with him? It could about anything you choose. 👉🏼👈🏼 (P.S. - it's been said already but I'll say it again; WILIF is m a s t e r p i e c e ✨)

Author’s Note - This took me a year to write. Happy Holidays!

***

You bit your lip as you left your biology lab and headed outside to the sprawling campus of Metropolis University. The air was crisp and fresh as it always was late autumn. It was warmer in Metropolis than it was in Gotham. You theorized it was because the sun shined more here. 

Your phone beeped. Your next class wasn’t for another hour and you planned to use this time to finish your paper for Medieval Literature. A sigh escaped you. You pulled out your phone, looking at it as you walked. 

‘Are you coming home this weekend?’ You held back an eye roll. Your father couldn’t leave you alone, could he?

‘No, I have plans here. I’ll be back in a month for winter break.’ You looked up to avoid walking into a group of women exiting the library. A smile pulled at your lips. You could show him your medieval lit paper then. Your plan was to write how Beowulf's preoccupation with glory led to the current glorification of superheroes. The look on Bruce’s face would be priceless.

It took him a long time to answer to the point where you were expecting a call from him. However, you only got another text. ‘Be safe.’

You snorted, smiling. That was as close to I love you that Bruce Wayne got. ‘Love you, Dad.’

Just as you hit send, you ran straight into what felt like a brick wall and toppled back to land hard on your butt. The jolt went straight through your bones painfully. You grunted. “I’m so sorry,” a male voice said. A hand appeared in your vision. You eyed it.

“No, I’m sorry. I was texting and walking.” You took the hand after a moment and got to your feet. Your butt hurt a lot. It was going to bruise. You finally looked at the man you ran into. Your breath vaporized from your lungs. 

He had the prettiest blue eyes with rich black hair. His smile was big, head tilted like a curious puppy. You couldn’t stop yourself from smiling back at him. “Are you hurt?” He kept your hand a second too long. You felt your face burn. 

“No, I’ll be fine.” You pulled your hand away and brushed off your clothes. He looked familiar for some reason. “Have we met before?”

It was his turn to blush as he flicked his head to get the hair out of his eyes. “We’re in the Physics of Star Trek class together.” You bit your lip. Right, that class you took because Tim saw it when you were picking classes and begged you to take it for him. At least it counted as a general course and to be honest, it was pretty cool.

“Oh, you were the one who tried to argue that Superman’s laser eyes were basically the same concept as Star Trek’s phasers.” You shook your head. “Who would have thought that would cause a debate that took the entire class period?”

“I know, right?” He grinned brightly, shifting on his feet. “Well, I was about to get some food from the cafeteria? Would you like to join me?” 

You thought about the work you were going to do, but then you remembered how you promised Alfred that you would try to enjoy yourself. “Sure,” you said, turning to walk beside him. “What was your name again? I’m (Y/N) (Y/L/N).” Luckily, Bruce let you enroll under your mother’s name to keep you safe from the dangers that came with the Wayne name.

“I’m Jon Kent.” He held the door to the cafeteria for you. “It’s nice to meet you, (Y/N) (Y/L/N).” 

You laughed, heading inside with Jon right behind you.

***

The next day in the Star Trek class, you found Jon sitting next to you with that same dopey, puppy grin on his face. Your heart fluttered when his arm brushed against yours by accident as he raised his hand to start another controversial debate. Jon got a kick out of it. You felt it was some kind of inside joke for him. Maybe he’d explain it to you some day.

After class, Jon walked out with you. “So that was my last class for today. What about you?” he asked, looking at you with his full attention. 

“Oh, well it’s the last class for me too.” You smiled when you saw his eyes sparkle at your words.

“Great!” He blushed when he realized he was shouting. His voice softened. “Would you like to go downtown with me? It’s student night at the movie theater. Five dollar tickets.” He chuckled nervously. “The new Transformers movie came out or if you wanted to see something else, I’m game.”

You eyed him, feeling lighter than air. Why did this feel so surreal? Like you were in a movie and this was a classic romance. “Sure.” Your heart skipped a beat when he practically exploded with energy. 

“Awesome!” He hopped over a crack in the sidewalk. You swore he floated for a second before he landed. 

“I want to drop my stuff off first, so I’ll meet you outside Gnanatti Hall in a half an hour?” You turned away from him, headed toward your dorm. 

“Yeah! I’ll see you there.” Jon waved happily at you. You waved back, blushing when you saw people were watching you two. A girl laughed with her friends that Jon was like a lovesick puppy. You felt a wave of doubt flow through you. Could Jon like you like that? You shrugged, deciding not to focus on that right now. 

***

Your roommate lounged on their bed, watching you primp yourself in the mirror. “You have a date or something?” 

“Maybe? I don’t know.” You shrugged, finishing the last touches on your makeup. It did feel like a date, didn’t it? “I just want to look good anyway in case.”

“Well, if you need the room, just text me. I can go hang out with Taylor in her room, but just don’t be all night,” your roommate said, getting up to grab their laptop. 

You wrinkled your nose. “I don’t think it will come to that.” Your heart sank about the idea of being so loose. Besides, you didn’t think Jon was just trying to get into your pants anyway. “But thanks.”

“Sure.” Your roommate opened their laptop and started working on homework. You gathered your purse and phone. “Call me if you need an out.”

“Thanks.” You waved at them and headed out. To think, your dad almost insisted on paying for a private room, but you wanted to have the full experience. Alfred agreed with you. Bruce couldn’t do anything after that. 

You glanced at your phone as you headed down the stairs to see a text from Damian. It was a photo of Titus. You sent him a heart back and told him to give him a pet for you. Damian always reached out with Titus as an excuse as if he couldn’t handle missing you himself.

Jon was outside the dorm, bouncing from foot to foot. He grinned when he saw you, nervous energy bouncing off him. You waved and went to meet him. “You look beautiful,” he said, eyes going from your feet to your face several times. 

“Thanks.” Your cheeks burned. “You don’t look bad yourself.” Jon blushed and offered you his arm. “Are we walking or taking the bus?”

“I was thinking we could walk. It’s a nice day.” Jon led you down the sidewalk and off campus. You relaxed, letting yourself enjoy.

***

“So I didn’t think you’d be an ice cream person?” Jon teased as he handed you a cone. You smiled, accepting it.

“Who isn’t an ice cream person?” You took a lick, savoring the taste. It reminded you of the rare times your dad would pick you up from school. He always took you out for ice cream after you swore not to tell Alfred. 

Jon hummed, taking his own cone. “Lactose intolerant people.” He chuckled, holding the door to the ice cream shop for you. You stepped out into the cold night air. The person inside the shop thought you both were strange for getting ice cream on a chilly night, but Jon was so excited. You couldn’t say no. “My mother doesn’t like it because it’s too cold.” 

“Really?” You laughed. “To be honest, my...” You had to think about what to call Alfred. Butler came with it’s own impressions. You didn’t want Jon to know. “Grandfather doesn’t like ice cream either, but he always keeps some around for everyone else.” 

“So you have a grandfather?” Jon nudged your side. “Did he raise you?”

You raised an eyebrow at him. The two of you walked slowly back toward campus. “Somewhat. My dad was there too, but my grandfather was the one who was always there.” You smiled, making a note to yourself to call Alfred. “What about you?” You side eyed him with a playful smirk. 

“Well, I have a mom and a dad.” He didn’t meet your eye. You caught the slight downturn of his lips. He was holding back something. “I’m not close to my mom’s dad, but I know my dad’s mom pretty well.” 

You wrinkled your nose slightly, sensing his discomfort. “I never asked what your major was.” 

Jon accepted the subject change with a smile. Funny, was Jon hiding his family like you were hiding yours? “Oh, I’m undecided right now. I have a lot of interests.” He nudged your arm and licked his ice cream. “What about you?”

“I’m majoring in business,” you said, smiling at him before taking a lick of your ice cream. “But I might just switch my major over to classics and minor in something else. I want to do something that interests me instead of what will make me a career.” You bit your lip. Of course, you were set for life simply because of your father. You knew it was a privilege. 

“Classics?” Jon blinked. “Wow, that makes a lot of sense.” 

You elbowed his side. “What is that supposed to mean?” You narrowed your eyes at him while he smirked.

“I just meant I noticed you were carrying a textbook of Greek lit when we met, so now it makes sense.” Jon took a lick of his ice cream. “I kinda thought you were an Amazon or something.” 

You snorted. “Just because I study Greek lit doesn’t mean I’m an Amazon. Are you an alien just because you are in the Star Trek class?” You laughed when Jon choked.

“No.” He chuckled nervously, stumbling over a crack in the sidewalk. You grabbed his arm to steady him. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Sorry if I hit a nerve there.” A flash of guilt filled you. You wondered why he seemed so taken back by your comment? 

“No, you’re fine.” Jon looked at you. “You just took me by surprise, I guess.” He smiled. “By that logic, would the whole class be Aliens including you?” 

“I suppose.” You laughed, finishing your ice cream as you both reached campus. “We should bring that up in class next time.”

Jon laughed hard. You liked the sound of his laugh. It was so open and free. You and Jon kept walking past your dorm hall and doing loops around campus, not wanting the night to end.

***

Weeks past, you and Jon were inseparable. You did your homework together, went to movies, had lunch and dinner together and a billion other things. If this was what falling in love was, you enjoyed it. 

Two days before you were going home for winter break, you and Jon were at the Metropolis Mall. It was a huge place and you had to take two buses to make it there. The entire mall was blaring Christmas music and decorated to the nines. Jon was bouncing on his toes like an eager child. You were glad that you had already gotten his gift. He was too excited to not notice if you picked up something for him here. 

“So where should we go first?” Jon asked, reaching to take your hand. You smiled at how warm his hand was in yours. It had gotten colder in Metropolis the last few weeks, but Jon was always warm. You don’t know how he did it. 

“I don’t know. I need something for Cass, my sister.” You bit your lip. Jon squeezed your hand, pulling you along toward the Cinnabon. “What about you? I mean, besides Cinnabon for yourself?” 

“Cinnabon for you too,” Jon chuckled, getting in line. “We need food before we walk around this place anyway.” He squeezed your hand again. “I need to get something for my mom and dad.”

You hummed, distracted by three kids running by. They were clearly high on sugar as their parents chased after them. “This is so strange. We never went to malls when I was growing up.”

“Well, you did live in Gotham. Do they even have one?” Jon teased, letting go of your hand to slid his arm around your waist. 

“They do. We just never went.” You avoid telling him how Alfred thought it was an indecent place and refused to allow you to go there. The first time you went was when you were sixteen with friends. So far, you avoided mentioning you were from the Wayne family. Cass was the only name you dared to voice. 

“We came every year. My mom loves the decorations.” Jon blushed slightly. “Plus we always went holiday shopping for my dad together.”

You smiled, leaning your head against Jon’s shoulder. “That sounds nice. My family didn’t really have any traditions except for Christmas dinner and presents afterwards.” 

“That’s kinda sad.” Jon rubbed your back. You got to the front of the line and Jon ordered for both of you. It’s amazing how well he knew you in such a short amount of time. Then again, you knew him quite well too, which is why you slipped the clerk your credit card before he could give his.��“Hey, I got this.”

“Nah, my treat.” You winked up at him, taking the card back once it was processed. “Besides, you need to save your money for nice things for your parents.” 

The two of you got your drinks and cinnamon rolls and sat down at one of the tables. “Are you sure you have to go back to Gotham?” Jon asked, frowning slightly. 

“Yeah, I promised my family. They’re even coming to pick me up.” You blushed as you tried to take a bite of the cinnamon roll, but it was too big. Jon just went into his, getting frosting on his nose. You laughed, reaching over to wipe it off with your finger. 

“So I’ll get to meet them?” Jon asked once he swallowed, smiling when you licked the frosting off your finger. You froze.

“Maybe not.” You bit your lip. “I’d rather they not know about you yet. Keep you to myself.” Your heart sank when you saw his face fall. “Not that I’m trying to hide you or something, it’s just my family is overbearing. I want us to be just us until we add them in. Don’t want to scare you off.” You laughed, smoothing it over.

The sparkle came back to Jon’s eye. “Really?” He took another big bite of his cinnamon roll. “You’re just going to have to go for it, (Y/N).” He nodded to your roll.

You sighed, picking it up and taking a big bite. Frosting got all over your chin and nose, but the taste was worth the mess. Jon reached over to wipe frosting off your face with his finger, copying what you did to him. It made you laugh. Your laughter triggered his too and soon the people around you stared wondering what you two were laughing about.

***

It took several walks around the mall for Jon to find a present for his parents. You finally convinced him to get one of those engraved glass figures. He gave the man a photo of the two of them, and you had to wait an hour for it to be processed. 

Meanwhile, you looked for a present for Cass. She was the hardest to shop for. Jon gave his opinion and eventually found you a super soft sweater that you knew Cass would love. 

“So we got another half an hour until the glass thing is done.” Jon put his hands in his pockets. He held his elbow out, so you could hook your arm in his. “What should we do?”

“I don’t know.” You laughed, leaning against his arm. “We could...” You frowned when Jon suddenly stopped, tilting his head to the side as if he was listening to something. “You okay?” 

“Yeah.” He smiled, pulling away from you. “I just need to use the bathroom real quick.” He blushed and ran back the way you came. You watched him go. It was very odd. He never did something like that before except for the time you maybe got him too excited. 

You walked over to a coffee place and ordered yourself and Jon a coffee. You heard the girls’ behind the counter talking about a bank robbery stopped by the young sexy Superman. They must be talking about Conner. You met him once at the manor when he stopped by for Tim. He was very cute and knew he was. Actually, you were sure he was probably the only non-family hero you met. Dad always made sure you were kept out of the way of his night work.

“Hey, I’m back,” Jon said suddenly, appearing behind you. He was out of breath, hair disheveled. 

“You didn’t have to run back so fast.” You reached up to adjust his hair. Jon blushed slightly, eyes widening. “I got us coffee.” 

“Cool.” He smiled sheepishly, picking up the order once they called your name. He handed you your cup. “Thanks babe.”

You raised an eyebrow at the new nickname before you decided you liked it. “Now what should we do?” You hooked your arm with his and led him away. 

“I think we should check out that arcade.” Jon pointed across the way to the brightly lit arcade. “Let’s see what we can do.”

“Alright, but I’ll warn you. I’m pretty good at these.” You nudged his side, laughing when he looked at you in surprise.

“Really? Oh please, I’d like to see that.” He smirked. The two of you wandered inside. You kicked his butt at every single game you played.

***

“(Y/N)!” You jerked awake only to see your disgruntled roommate hovering over you. “Your boyfriend is here. Can you tell him to only come at decent hours next time?” They went back to their bed. 

“Sorry.” You yawned, sitting up to glance at your clock. It was six in the morning. You were supposed to get up in an hour to pack and meet Alfred at eight in the parking lot. Climbing out of bed, you slipped on a pair of slippers and shuffled out of your dorm room to find Jon standing nervously in the hallway. He was fully dressed for the day. Probably doing his morning jog that he told you he did every morning. “What’s up?”

“Hey.” Jon looked you up and down, smiling at your pajamas before taking your hand and guiding you down to the lounge. It was empty at this hour. “I wanted to see you before you left.” 

“Jon, we said goodbye last night.” You squeezed his hand, taking a seat on the couch. He sat down right beside you. His thigh brushed against yours. You yawned again, noticing he was wearing the sweatpants you got him. 

“I know, but I had to give you my present.” You blinked at him.

“You gave me a lovely bath bomb set, Jon. I can’t wait to use it when I get home.” Leaning over, you kissed his cheek. “You don’t need to get me anything else.” 

Jon shook his head. “No, I needed to get you something more meaningful. I talked to one of my friends last night. He told me I was an idiot to give the girl I love bath bombs.” He blushed so red that his face rivaled the poinsettia in the corner of the room. 

Your jaw dropped. “Love?” Your mouth went dry, heart spasming. “You love me?”

Jon nodded. “I do.” He smiled shyly, taking your hand in his. “I couldn’t let you go without telling you.” 

“I’m coming back, you know.” You laughed nervously. “But I love you too, Jon.” You met his eye, seeing the joy sparkling in his eyes. Slowly, you leaned over to seal a kiss to his lips. Jon melted into you, his arms wrapping around you to pull you against his chest. He was so warm. 

Jon started laughing. You giggled along with him, pulling away to gather yourself. Your lips tingled from the pressure. “I wanted to give you this,” Jon said, swallowing back his laughter as he pulled a jewelry box out of his pocket.

“You didn’t have to.” He placed the box in your hand.

“Open it.” Those puppy dog eyes were on full power and you opened the box. Inside was a golden necklace with a tiny star pendant. 

A big smile pulled onto your lips as you took it out, noting the tiny designs etched in the star. “Wow.” You took a deep breath. “Can you put it on me?” You turned, handing Jon the necklace. 

“Of course.” Jon chuckled. His fingers feather-light on the back of your neck. “I’m glad you like it.” He kissed the back of your neck once he closed the clasp. “I wanted something you could remember me by while you’re at home.”

“It’s not like you won’t be able to call or text me.” You turned to face him, touching the necklace. It made your skin tingle when he gave you that puppy dog grin. “It’s only three weeks. I’m coming back a week before everyone else to set up my internship at the Metropolis Library Archives.” 

Jon leaned forward and stole another kiss. “You’re so smart and beautiful. I can’t believe I met you sometimes.” 

You smiled into the kiss, pulling away when you caught the time on the wall clock. “I have to get ready to leave.” It hurt to stand up, knowing you wouldn’t see him for three weeks. “But we’ll text.” 

“We can even zoom call too.” He got up, frowning slightly. “I love you.” 

“I love you.” You took a step toward him. Jon wrapped his arms around your waist. You pressed against him as you slowly kissed him one last time.

***

It surprised you when you got a text from Dick telling you he’d meet you in the parking lot. You went out with your bags, slightly confused. Alfred said he was going to pick you up. Worry nibbled it’s way inside you. Was Dad hurt? Was someone dead? You hated your family sometimes. It was very much like them to not tell you something like that until you had to find out.

Dick leaned against the car with his arms crossed, looking around the campus with interest. You noticed two women were eyeing him, checking him out from afar. You had to hold back the eye roll. 

He perked up when he saw you. “Hey kiddo.” He opened his arms for you. You reluctantly gave him a hug. “It’s been too long.”

“Who’s hurt?” you asked. You felt him wince in your arms. 

“Why does someone need to be hurt?” Dick pulled away and took your bags to put in the trunk. You noticed he must have borrowed one of Bruce’s cars. It was the Porsche. Dick basically had a claim over that one. 

“Because Alfred was going to come pick me up, and the only reason for Alfred to not be here is if he’s needed elsewhere.” You frowned, narrowing your eyes at him when he closed the trunk and allowed you to see him again. He bit his lip, running a hand through his hair.

“Okay, you caught me.” He held up his hands. “Bruce may have taken a bad fall during a recent ski trip.” Your eyes widened. That was code for broken bones or more. You swallowed hard.

“Is he okay?” You asked, a lump forming in your throat. Dick gestured for you to get into the car. You did and he quickly joined you.

Dick turned on the car, turning up the heat. “He had a bad fall when he was chasing Firefly the other day. Broken leg, concussion, and some internal bleeding. He’s fine now though, just has to recover. Alfred needed to stay home to make sure he actually rests.” Dick patted your hand. “Don’t worry, kiddo.”

You felt tears burn in your eyes, but you blinked them away. Dick’s hand squeezed yours. “Why can’t you guys tell me these things?” 

“We didn’t want to worry you during finals.” Dick leaned over to kiss your temple. “Bruce asked us not to.”

“Jerk.” You crossed your arms. Keeping your gaze forward, you thought about Jon and felt the weight of the necklace around your neck. You suddenly felt better. “Well, I guess I appreciate that.” 

“I did disagree with him, but he didn’t listen.” Dick pulled into traffic. His hand stayed on yours. “How was school?” He grinned, switching subjects. “I heard you changed your major.”

You shrugged your shoulders. “Yeah, I finally decided to do it.” You sighed. “School is fun. The people are nice.” 

Dick hummed, glancing at you as he got onto the freeway. “I’m glad you’re doing what makes you happy.” He squeezed your hand. “Now tell me everything.”

You began to tell Dick things, but avoided mentioning Jon. He was your secret for now. The last thing you wanted was your family to find out about him. 

***

Jon floated above the city, depressed. He laid out on his back, looking up at the sky with his cape floating below him. His fingers itched to grab his phone to text you, but he stopped himself. “Give her a chance to get home,” he mumbled to himself. “Don’t want to be clingy.”

He heard an burglary alarm in the south side. Flipping around, he zoomed to that end of town and flew right into the jewelry store to grab both robbers and bring them outside. Then he grabbed some chains from the back of a nearby pickup and tied them to the light post. Both robbers blinked in confusion before swearing at him. Jon just smiled at them and flew away. 

He did several more good deeds before sitting on top of the Daily Planet. Closing his eyes, he focused on the sound of your heartbeat. Your heartbeat was unique. He remembered when he first heard it in class with you. Then he was lucky enough to actually meet you. 

“Jonathan Kent, what are you doing?” Lois Lane said, coming out of the Planet’s roof door. “Aren’t you supposed to be studying for your last final?” She pulled her jacket tighter around her. Jon got to his feet, blushing. 

“I wanted to take a break.” He smiled sheepishly. It’s not like Lois knew what he was doing. He made sure to keep you his secret. The last thing he needed was the famous Lois Lane and Clark Kent to scare you off. 

Lois hummed, narrowing her eyes at her son. “Right.” She reached to adjust the cape on his shoulders. “Well, Damian stopped by and told us we’re invited to the Manor for Christmas. With his injuries, the family wanted more people around to keep Bruce occupied.”

“Oh yeah, he told me about that when we met up the other night,” Jon said, remembering Damian mentioning that before he told him off for only giving you bath bombs. Lois narrowed her eyes. “It wasn’t long. There was just a concern with Kid Amazo or I guess Man Amazo now?” He chuckled. 

“Well as long as you pass your finals.” Lois crossed her arms, smiling at her son. “I haven’t seen you in a while. You missed all our family dinners.” 

Jon blushed and glanced over his shoulder. He spent those days with you. “Sorry, Mom. I’ll be there this week.”

“Of course.” She reached up to brush a strand of hair off his forehead. “Now you better go study before the world explodes again or something.” 

“Yes, Mom.” Jon kissed her cheek. He floated up into the air. “Tell Dad I said hi and that I’ll see him at dinner this week.” 

“Tell him yourself.” Lois waved as Jon flew off into the city. He headed back to Metropolis U, wishing you were there to study with him. Maybe he could text you now? You had to be home by now, right?

***

“Wow, Dad. You’re in bed. I thought you never used it,” you teased, stepping into his bedroom with a big smile of relief. Dick said he was okay, but you couldn’t relax until you saw him with your own eyes. 

Bruce grunted, setting his paper down. He was sat up against the pillows with his cast covered leg propped up. “Har, har.” A hint of a smile pulled on his lips as you came over to him and sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m glad you’re home.”

“Merry Christmas, Dad.” You kissed his cheek and took his hand. It was rougher than it used to be. More nicks and calluses. 

“How was school?” He squeezed your hand, studying you with that vigilant gaze you used to hate when you were younger. Now you enjoyed it. It was the way he showed he cared. However, his eyes lingered on your necklace and suddenly you changed your mind about that. 

“Good. Aced all my classes and changed my major officially. I’ll go for classics with a minor in linguistics instead.” You shrugged your shoulders as you reached up to hide the necklace in your shirt. 

Bruce hummed. “Good, I want you to do what you want.” He squeezed your hand again before wrapping his arm around your shoulders and pulling you into his side. “I’m proud of you.” 

Your heart warmed. “Thanks Dad.” You eyed his cast. “How long will you be out?” 

“Six weeks.” He frowned. “But the boys and Cass have it covered. No need to worry.” He rubbed your shoulder. “Now do you have that paper you wanted me to read?”

You smirked, pulling it up on your phone. “Yeah, I do. Aced it, and it sealed my internship with the Metropolis Library Archives too.” You handed him your phone. Bruce started reading, snorting at the title. All you did was pray Jon didn’t text you while Bruce was looking at your phone.

***

Days later, Jon was laying on his bed in his parents’ apartment. His phone was in his hands. You were about to call him. It took a while to schedule a time. You said your family was nosy. Then again, so was Jon’s, but luckily Clark just left for the watchtower. Out of range. 

Your ringtone echoed in his room. He grinned, answering it. “Hey beautiful,” he whispered when he heard his mother turn on the shower. He relaxed, knowing he was in the clear.

“Hey yourself, handsome.” You laughed. Jon’s heart ached at the sound of your voice. “How are you?” 

“Good. Just finished family dinner. Now I’m in my room.” Jon stretched his legs, eyeing the old Overwatch poster on his wall. “At my parents’ place.”

“I figured.” You sighed. He heard you moving around on your end. “Well, home has been interesting for me.” 

“Really, why?” Jon put an arm behind his head. 

“My family is a little crazy.” A dog barked in the background. “Okay, Titus. Come on in.” A door opened and closed. “Sorry, my dog wants to be in my room with me. He gets attached.” 

Jon smirked. “Titus huh? Can I see him?” 

“Maybe when we zoom call tomorrow? I’m not presentable.” You coughed. “I have to go with my brother to a party and I’m getting dressed.” 

“Ooo,” Jon bit his lip, daring to ask the question. “Can you send me a picture of what you’re wearing?”

You hummed. He heard you brushing your hair. “I can, it’s a nicer party. My dad can’t go, so I didn’t want my brother to go alone.” You laughed. “You can’t make fun of what I’m wearing though.” 

“Never.” Jon imagined what you could be wearing. He had to shake his head to stop the dirty thoughts. “Whatever you wear is beautiful.” 

You laughed again. Jon couldn’t get enough of the sound. “You charmer.” You sighed softly. “Promise you won’t laugh or make a joke?”

“I promise with all my heart.” Jon pulled the phone away from his ear when it buzzed with a text from you. His breath caught in his throat. You were drop dead gorgeous. Jon’s mouth went dry. He coughed hard. “Woah, babe. You’re stunning.” 

“Thanks.” Your voice sounded faint “At least you won’t have to worry. My brother will keep people away from me.” 

“Thank goodness.” Jon sighed in relief, zooming in on the photo to look at your face. You were blushing. “I was worried I’d have competition.” 

“Like any of them would stand a chance.” You blew a kiss into the phone when a voice echoed in the background. Jon swore he heard a familiar ‘TT’ in the background. He shook his head, must be imagining things. You didn’t have anything to do with Damian Wayne. “I got to go. Let’s zoom call tonight, okay?” 

“Okay.” Jon grinned as he saw you were wearing his necklace too. “I love you.”

“Love you too.” You hung up the phone quickly just as another voice spoke up. Jon set his phone down and relaxed. He eventually fell asleep, dreaming of you in that beautiful outfit. 

***

“TT, what is with the necklace?” Damian demanded as he handed you a drink. The two of you were at the Wayne Foundation Christmas Fundraiser. Since Bruce was out, you and Damian were forced to attend in his absence. 

“What?” You blinked, taking the drink before glancing down at Jon’s necklace. It matched your outfit. You hoped he wouldn’t notice anything about it. 

“The star?” Damian nodded toward it as he sipped his drink. “It’s cheap.”

You wrinkled your nose, grabbing your necklace in your fist. “It’s not cheap. I happen to like it.” You let go of the necklace and flicked his nose. Damian narrowed his eyes dangerously at you. “Knock it off.” 

A few businessmen approached. You and Damian dropped your conversation. Damian mumbled under his breath, but you talking over him. Soon the men moved on, leaving you and Damian alone again. 

“You smile more than you used to.” Damian crossed his arms, rolling his shoulders in his nice Armani tux. “It’s disturbing.” He took a drink of the champagne, wrinkling his nose at the taste. 

“Just because you rarely smile doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t.” You rolled your eyes, watching the people start to dance not so far away. It was only a matter of time before someone came over to ask for a dance. “I’m enjoying school, Damian. Nothing else.”

Damian hummed. He tensed when he saw Bambi King striding over with her eyes on Damian as if he was a delicious piece of steak. You smirked at him, panic brightening his eyes. “Dance with me now.” He grabbed your hand and dropped his drink on a waiter’s tray. 

“Okay, okay.” You laughed, stumbling after him. “You don’t want to be devoured tonight, huh?”

Damian spun you in his arms and started to waltz. “Stop it or I’ll call Zeke what’shisname over.” 

You just laughed, dancing with your brother. “How about two more dances and we ditch this place?”

“Excellent.” He spun you around and brought you back to him. “We showed our faces.”

“Alfred will just be happy we stayed this long.” You winked at Damian, catching the sparkle in his eye. He was enjoying himself, even if he wouldn’t admit it.

***

You walked into the kitchen in your pajamas, yawning and giving everyone a lazy wave. It was Christmas Eve morning and the entire family was home. Most were already eating at the table. You stopped to kiss Alfred’s cheek as he flipped pancakes on the stove. “Thanks for breakfast, Alfred.”

“You’re welcome, Miss (Y/N).” Alfred nodded for you to go eat. You went to Bruce next and maneuvered around his elevated foot to kiss his cheek too. 

Bruce hummed, watching you as you took your seat next to Tim and across from Damian. Tim eyed you carefully. “What?” You asked Tim after he didn’t look away.

“You are the last to breakfast.” Tim looked around the table before looking back at you. Dick, Barbara, and Cass were chatting among themselves at the other end of the table, but Jason and Damian had their full attention on you. Bruce just went back to his paper, but you knew he was listening. 

You shrugged, helping yourself to pancakes and eggs. “I was up late.”

“Talking to someone,” Jason mumbled, smirking when you glared at him. “I heard you giggling when I came in last night.” You and Jon finally got to zoom call each other. It left you giddy, missing him so bad that it hurt.

“I was talking to one of my friends from school.” You kept your head down, knowing you were blushing. “I didn’t know that was a crime.”

Damian snorted. “Is that the person who gave you that cheap necklace?” 

Your hand shielded the necklace as if to protect it from his words. “Why are you so obsessed with my necklace? I bought it myself if you must know.” You took a bite of your pancake, suddenly losing your appetite. It was like you were reliving your high school years where your brothers tried to involve themselves in your social life. 

“Boys, leave (Y/N) alone,” Bruce said, folding up the paper to take a sip of his coffee. “Your sister is an adult and can talk to whoever she wants.”

“Thank you, Dad.” You smiled smugly at your brothers. Jon was still your secret, but you vowed to be more careful. Last thing you need was your brothers tracking down Jon to give him the ‘shovel talk’.

Tim hummed, poking at his food. “How did that Star Trek class go?” he asked after a moment. You laughed and easily fell into a conversation about the class. 

“Hey Bruce,” Dick said as he got up to get another pitcher of orange juice from Alfred. “Are the Kents coming to Christmas dinner?”

You almost choked on your pancake. Kents? “Yes, they are coming,” Bruce said as he poured more coffee into his cup. 

“TT, at least it will be somewhat enjoyable with Jon here.” Damian narrowed his eyes at Tim. “Even if we have to tolerate the clone.” Tim glared back at him, but didn’t reply. 

Meanwhile, you forced yourself to swallow your food. Your brain rushed at hundred miles per hour. Kents? Jon? Jon Kent? Could there be that many Kents? That many Jon Kents? The blood drained out of your face. You quickly took a sip of your drink to hide it, but Bruce noticed, frowning slightly as he watched you.

“The Kents are always well mannered. Perhaps some of it can rub off,” Alfred said pointedly as he added another plate of pancakes to the table. 

“We’re not that bad, Al.” Dick chuckled. Jason was looking at you too, eyebrow raised in concern. 

“Maybe Cass, (Y/N), and I aren’t, but you boys...” Barbara said, rolling her eyes.

You finished your glass and carefully set it down. Your hand was shaking so bad that it clattered against your plate. “(Y/N), are you alright?” Bruce whispered as Damian and Tim started arguing.

You licked your lips. “Are the Kents from Metropolis?”

Bruce raised his eyebrows. A hint of a smirk pulled at his lips. “They’re the Supers, sweetheart. Superman, Superboys, Lois Lane.”

“Superboys? Like more than one?” Your eyes widened. Suddenly flashes of Jon quickly leaving you with excuses of bathroom runs only to come back completely disheveled. How sometimes he seemed to almost float. The look on his face when you joked he must be an alien for being in the Star Trek class. You could be wrong, hoped you were.

Bruce chuckled softly. “Yes, Conner was the first and still is full time, Jon is the second, part time due to college.” Bruce took a sip of his coffee. His eyes studied you as the world’s greatest detective only could. “Jon goes to your school.”

Your stomach dropped to your feet. “Oh no.” You pressed your hand over your mouth and jumped out of your chair. The chair clattered to the ground as you ran out of the room to the nearest bathroom. 

Slamming the door behind you and locking it, you slid down to the floor. Your chest tightened. 

“How the fuck did I happen to meet Superboy and fall in love with him? Oh my god, I’m going to die. Jon’s going to die.” You pulled your knees into your chest. “How could I be so dumb? Why didn’t I pay more attention to other heroes?”

You touched your necklace, clutching the star so tightly that it embedded into your palm. 

A soft knock on the door made you flinch. “(Y/N), are you okay?” Cass asked softly. You reached up to open the door and motioned for Cass to come inside. She slipped in and quickly closed the door behind her. 

“Cass, I’m screwed,” you whispered softly, grabbing her hand and pulling her to the floor with you. You tensed when you heard the boys outside, loudly eavesdropping.

She blinked in confusion. Cass clicked her tongue, settling down beside you. “Why? You’re not pregnant.” 

“Of course you would know that.” You groaned and rested your forehead on your knees. “Damn it. I was so happy, but now I’m screwed because I’m so stupid and I didn’t even realize who he was.”

Cass hummed. She wrapped an arm around your shoulders. “You are dating someone?” You sighed, nodding your head. It was nice she could read you so well. You didn’t have to say anything. “The family won’t approve?”

“No.” You swallowed hard. A lump hard in your throat. “And they are going to find out so much sooner than I wanted.”

You watched her frown in thought before her eyes lit up. “Oh no.”

“Yes.” Tears filled your eyes. “It’s going to be so bad.” A sob slipped out of you. You pressed your hand against your mouth to silence it. 

Cass rubbed your back, kissing your temple. “We will get through this, but first you have to call Jon. He needs to know that you know and if he doesn’t know about you, then you need to tell him.”

“But then what? He’s going to be here tomorrow. I don’t know if I can act like I don’t know him.” You bit your lip hard to stop another sob. 

“No, but we can get allies.” Cass smirked. You looked at her confused, but she just hummed and pulled you into a tight hug. “Trust me.”

***

The kids at the children’s hospital laughed and waved as both Jon and Clark flew away. Jon had a permanent smile on his face. This was one of his favorite part of the holidays, being able to visit hospitals and children’s homes on Christmas Eve. It made their Christmas. His heart felt warm.

“Having a good time, son?” Clark asked once Jon and him were far above the city.

“Yeah, I love doing this sort of thing.” Jon wished you were here. He knew you would love this as much as he did. Closing his eyes, he listened for your heartbeat. It was still in Gotham and faster than normal.

“What’s wrong?” Clark asked, tilting his head to listen too. 

Jon swallowed hard, opening his eyes. “Nothing.” Maybe you were working out? Or just having some fun? He shouldn’t be worried. 

Clark hummed, studying Jon. “We should head home. Your mother probably has some cookies made already.”

Jon licked his lips. “Can’t wait.” Clark flew toward home, but Jon stopped when his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, almost dropping it when he saw it was you. Clark paused, watching Jon curiously. Jon smiled sheepishly before putting the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

“Hi.” You sounded off. Jon’s stomach dropped slightly. “I don’t know how to say this.” 

“Babe, are you breaking up with me?” Jon chuckled humorlessly. Clark flew a little closer, pretending that he wasn’t eavesdropping. Jon couldn’t find it in himself to care. 

“No, but it might be easier,” you muttered almost under your breath. That was like a knife in Jon’s heart. He felt so confused. “Jon, do you know who I am?”

Jon blinked, flinching slightly. Clark tensed at the sight. “(Y/N) (Y/L/N), what’s going on?” Jon said. Clark’s eyes widened at the sound of your name. Jon frowned at Clark, wondering if Clark knew your name for some reason. Could have been from the internship you scored? Would Clark know about that?

You sighed. Jon heard someone talk to you. “Yeah, he doesn’t have a clue either. I’m not the only dumb one,” you said to them, voice fainter as if you covered the speaker of your phone. Jon clenched his hand around his phone. It took all he had not to just fly to you and demand answers. “Jon, do you really not know who my family is? Like at all?” you asked him again. 

“Your family doesn’t matter to me. I love you, damn it,” Jon snapped, blushing when his father face palmed. Why did he feel like he was missing something?

Something almost like a sob came from you. Jon tensed at the sound. “Jonathan Kent, my father is Bruce Wayne.” 

Time stopped. The blood drained out of Jon’s face. His phone slipped out of his hand. “Oh my god.”

The next thing Jon knew, he was sitting on a rooftop with his father talking to you on the phone. Jon tried to wet his mouth, pushing aside all the images of Damian and Bruce murdering him for dating their (Y/N). Damian mentioned you once or twice, but Jon never met you or even seen a photo of you before.

Jon watched his father blankly. He felt numb. How could he have been so dumb? All the signs were there. You even looked a bit like Damian when he thought about it. 

“I’m on board with your plan and I’ll update Jon once he recovers from the shock.” Clark chuckled, watching Jon with a teasing expression. “And it’s nice to finally meet you, (Y/N). Your father always spoke highly of you.”

Jon stumbled to his feet, reaching for the phone. Clark shook his head before hanging up the phone. “Jon, my sweet boy.” Clark pulled Jon into a hug. “I love you so much, but you get into so much trouble.”

“Are you saying that because I’m going to die tomorrow?” Jon mumbled, resting his chin on Clark’s shoulder. “I really love her, Dad.”

“I know.” Clark pulled back to look him in the eye. “We got a plan. You’re not going to start World War Three when Damian and Bruce whip out the kryptonite. (Y/N) is just as smart as her father bragged all these years.”

“Of course, she’s smart. She’s amazing.”  Jon grinned, thinking about you. “I can’t believe I was so dumb. I should have known.”

Clark chuckled, ruffling Jon’s hair. Jon groaned at the touch. “To be fair, I don’t think (Y/N) knew about you either.”

Jon sighed, taking his phone back and shoving it in his pocket. “So, do I get to know more about this plan?”

“We can discuss it when we get home.” Clark floated up into the sky. “I can’t wait to tell your mother.” He flew toward home.

“Hey!” Jon flew after him, but Clark just flew faster. “That’s not nice! At least let me tell her! Dad!” 

***

Later that day, you and Cass slowly recruited Barbara and Steph. Barbara was on board with little convincing, giving you a big hug. Steph on the other hand...luckily she was spending Christmas Eve with her mom.

“You’re dating Superboy?! Oh my god, oh my god. Damian’s going to freak! Can I be there when he finds out? Oh, please, please, please,” Steph shouted through the phone. You, Cass, and Barbara were in your bedroom, strategizing. 

“I mean you’ll be here tomorrow since your mom is working Christmas Day, so you’ll witness,” you said dully. Your heart pounded like a sledgehammer just thinking about it. Even with allies, you weren’t sure how it would go. You kept seeing Jon’s death, Damian losing his only friend all because of you. 

Cass clicked her tongue. She held her hand out for the phone. You handed it over before covering your face with your hands. Cass talked quietly with Steph. Barbara rubbed your back, giving you a sympathetic smile. 

“It’s okay.” Barbara whispered in your ear. “It’s all going to be okay.”

“How do you know that?” You looked up at her, tears burning your eyes. 

Barbara smiled. “When they see how happy you and Jon are, they’ll have to accept it. Damian loves you both. He wants you to both be happy. Bruce wants you to be happy.”

You groaned, flopping down on the bed. “I don’t know.” You grabbed your pillow and pressed your face into it. Barbara patted your knee. You always had a close relationship with her. She was the one who told you about the internship at the Metropolis Library Archives and the first one you told about getting it.

“You do know. Now stop moping, we got a plan to form.” Barbara pulled the pillow from your face. Cass hung up the phone and set it on your bedside table. “We need to get some of the boys in on this.” Barbara crossed her arms. 

Cass clicked her tongue again before leaving the room suddenly. You and Barbara shared a look. “I don’t know. The boys never keep things quiet,” you said after a moment. 

“True, but the more allies the better in this case.” Barbara smiled. “We’ll have to bring in Alfred for sure.” 

“I’ll tell him later. Alone.” You blushed. Alfred might have been your confidant when you were younger, but the idea of telling him about Jon...it made you wince. Alfred wouldn’t judge you though. 

Cass reentered the room with Jason and Tim behind her. Tim looked confused, sipping a cup of coffee while Jason seemed slightly concerned at the sight of you. You realized you still looked like a mess from all the tears you shed earlier. 

“Okay, what’s going on?” Tim asked sharply. Cass closed and locked the door behind them. Jason sat next to you on the bed, eyeing you carefully.

“We need you to be understanding and willing to support (Y/N),” Barbara said, glaring at Tim then Jason. “No matter what.”

“Don’t tell me you’re pregnant.” Tim ran a hand through his hair. “Because I don’t want to be anywhere near the manor when you tell Bruce.”

“I’m not pregnant. Why does everyone think that?” You blushed, wiping your eyes with your sleeve. 

Jason cleared his throat. “Well, that’s the running theory downstairs.”

Barbara rolled her eyes. “You’re all idiots.”

Cass held up a hand, silencing the room. “(Y/N), tell them.”

You hugged the pillow to your chest. Your blood turned to ice. If you felt this bad telling Tim and Jason, how was it going to be with Damian and Bruce. 

“We won’t judge you, (Y/N). We’re worried about you,” Jason said, putting a hand on your shoulder and squeezing gently.

“Honest. We’re here for you, even if you’re being a little overemotional,” Tim added, sipping his coffee. Cass punched his arm. Tim yelped in response.

You took a deep breath. “I’m dating Jon Kent.”

Silence followed. You glanced between Jason and Tim. Both were froze, eyes wide. Barbara smirked at the sight while Cass just rolled her eyes.

Finally, a chuckle escaped from Jason before spilling into full out laughter. He rolled off the bed, holding his stomach as if it would burst from the laughter alone. Tim slowly blinked and downed the rest of his coffee in one go.

“It’s not funny.” You nudged Jason’s side with your toe. 

“But it is.” Jason choked, still laughing. Barbara sighed, reaching down to pinch Jason’s ear. He yowled in pain as she drag him up and onto the bed. “Ouch, okay. Not funny.”

“How? Why?” Tim asked, setting his cup down before sitting on the other side of you. 

“I didn’t know it was him. We met at school, and fell in love.” You touched your necklace. Both of your brothers watching the movement. “It wasn’t until this morning when you all mentioned Superboy was Jon Kent that it hit me.”

Jason chuckled, holding up his hands when Barbara threatened his ear again. “So Bruce and Damian don’t know yet?”

“No, but we need you with us and to go with our plan.” Cass straightened, glaring at Tim and Jason. “For (Y/N).”

Tim sighed. “I’m always on your side...but I get to bring Kon in on this.” He smirked, nudging your side. 

“Kon already knows. We already informed Clark and Lois. They promised to tell him,” you said, smiling at Tim’s surprise. You turned to Jason. “Jay?”

Jason rolled his shoulders. “Well, I guess I can help, but I reserve the right to give Jon the shovel talk.”

You groaned while the others laughed. “Please no.” 

“Nope, I got to hold over my big brother rights.” Jason held up his hands. “Right, Tim?”

Tim shrugged. “I don’t care as much, but sure.”

You laid back on your bed, slapping a hand over your eyes as everyone laughed. It felt better, knowing that if you got through telling Jason and Tim, the rest will be not as challenging. At least you hoped.

***

When Jon landed outside of Wayne Manor on Christmas Day, he closed his eyes and found your heartbeat. Your heart was music to his ears. He grinned, running a hand through his messy hair to get it back to normal.

“He’s love sick already,” Kon chuckled, bumping Jon in the back as he jogged ahead to knock on the front door. Jon glared at him. 

“You’re not going to fool anyone for long,” Lois said, reaching up to fix Jon’s hair again. Jon groaned, gently pushing Lois’ hands away. 

“I’m not that bad, Mom.” Jon crossed his arms as the front door opened to reveal Damian Wayne himself. 

“TT, Kents.” He stepped aside let them in. “Father is in the den.”

“Thank you, Damian.” Clark and Lois headed toward the den, knowing the way. Kon was jogging up the stairs. Jon stayed next to Damian. 

Damian eyed Jon carefully. Jon swallowed hard, biting his lip. “So how are things?” Jon asked. Damian raised an eyebrow in response. Jon blushed. Lois was right, Jon wasn’t going to keep it a secret for long. He listened for you again. You were in the kitchen. It sounded like you were peeling potatoes.

“Good.” Damian stalked toward the den. Titus ran out of the kitchen, tongue wagging, tail thumbing as he jumped on Jon. Jon laughed, petting him. Damian pursed his lips. “Titus, down.”

Titus obeyed. “It’s okay. He’s a good boy.” Jon laughed when he heard your laugh from the kitchen. Everything in him wanted to go see you, but it would ruin the plan. 

Damian hummed and stalked off toward the den. Jon followed with Titus beside him. Bruce was in his armchair, his cast resting on a stool. The Kents were on the couch. The conversation was light. Bruce was even smiling slightly. Jon let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad?

“TT, Father, are you comfortable?” Damian went to Bruce and stood beside him. He folded his arms, glaring slightly. Jon blinked. Maybe Damian knew something was up? He swallowed hard and took a seat next to Clark. Jon’s stomach flip flopped. He felt like a bomb was ticking down in the room and he had to sit and wait for it.

After a few minutes of just the parents talking, Steph, Cass, Tim, Kon, and Jason walked into the room all together. They were all smiling oddly. Steph gave Jon a big wink. Jon flinched and blushed when he saw Damian’s frown at the sight. 

“Hey Mr. Lane,” Steph teased, taking a seat on the floor by the Christmas tree. “Mrs. Lane.”

Clark just hummed. Lois kissed his cheek. Cass joined Steph by the tree. Tim, Kon, and Jason sat on the other couch. Jason put his feet up and smirked over at Jon. Jon narrowed his eyes. He hoped they wouldn’t give it away. Damian was watching his siblings with suspicion already.

“Merry Christmas, everyone,” Alfred said. He stepped into the room with a tray of appetizers, coffee, and hot chocolate. Clark got up to help. 

“Aww, you must be (Y/N),” Lois said suddenly. Jon jumped to his feet, spun to find you behind Alfred with another tray. His heart fluttered as you smiled. You were wearing a red sweater that looked amazing on you. 

He shot forward to take the tray from you. “Let me help.” 

“Thank you.” Your eyes sparkled. Jon lost himself in them until someone cleared their throat. Your eyes widened along with Jon’s as you both turned to look at the rest of the family. Damian and Bruce were frowning while everyone else just smiled knowingly. 

“We’re dead,” you said under your breath, biting your lip as Damian tensed. Jon saw Damian connecting the dots. 

“Trust in the plan,” Jon whispered back. He walked over to set the tray on the coffee table. 

You stayed by the door. Jon took his seat again. Lois patted his knee and leaned closer. “You blew it, sweetheart,” she whispered. Jon swallowed hard.

Dick came in with a third tray with Barbara right behind him. He stopped when he saw you huddled by the door, Damian and Bruce’s stony expressions and everyone else’s knowing looks. “What’s going on?” Dick asked. Barbara hushed him.

Damian looked from Jon to you several times. Jon kept his eyes on you. He hated the scared look in your eye. Slowly, Jon stood back up. The room went silent as Jon walked back to you. 

“Let’s just do it. He’s going to figure it out in a sec anyway.” Jon took your hand. Your lips trembled, squeezing his hand like he was your lifeline. He kissed the back of your hand. He heard a few ‘aww’s and ‘ooo’s behind him.

“No...my sister?!” Damian snapped. Jon stepped slightly in front of you to take the hit of a hot coffee cup against his chest. It shattered. Jon felt the heat from the coffee soaking into his clothes. “You mean all this time?! That harlot you were talking about constantly was my sister?!”

Jon bit his lip. “Well, yeah, but to be fair, I didn’t know she was your sister.” He held up his hands as Damian grabbed another cup. Alfred clicked his tongue and took the cup from Damian’s grasp. The others were watching like it was the finale of their favorite series. Your entire body shook, pressing yourself against Jon’s back. 

“How didn’t you know?! Her name is (Y/N)?! You have seen her pictures?!” Damian stomped toward Jon. Luckily, Clark stepped into his path.

“Calm down, Damian. I can vouch that neither of them knew who each other were until yesterday,” Clark said, putting his hands on Damian’s shoulders.

“You’ve seen pictures of me?” you said to Jon, peeking over his shoulder. 

“I must have.” He bit his lip, racking his brain. Maybe? Then again, you were probably too beautiful in person that a photo wouldn’t have done you justice. He looked at Bruce. Bruce’s expression hadn’t changed. 

“Damian, I love her,” Jon said when Damian jerked away from Clark. Jon’s eyes flickered to Bruce. “Like a lot.”

You stepped out from behind Jon. “And I love him.” Slowly you walked past Damian and went to Bruce’s side. “You’re not mad, are you, Dad?”

Bruce looked at you. Jon swore he saw Bruce’s lips twitch. A lump formed in Jon’s throat. “Damian, relax. I understand this is a shock, but keep your head,” Bruce said, focusing on Damian before turning back to you. “As long as you’re happy and he treats you well, I will be fine.”

Damian crossed his arms, huffing before storming out of the room with Titus behind him. Jon watched him go and sighed. He knew Damian would need to cool off before he could patch things up. 

“Wait a minute? Did everyone know, but me?” Dick asked the room after he saw no one else was startled by the news.

“Sorry, Dickhead, but you can’t keep a secret,” Jason said, laughing when Dick pressed his hand against his heart like he had been shot. The tension eased in the room, everyone laughing and teasing. Everyone began to drink and eat. Alfred slipped out of the room and came back with a broom and dustpan to clean the glass on the floor.

Jon knelt down to hold the dustpan for him. “Thank you, Mr. Kent,” Alfred said. 

You appeared at Jon’s side. “We should change your shirt. It’s going to stain,” you said. Jon looked down. He grinned, having forgotten about it. 

“Probably.” He let you take his hand. Alfred raised an eyebrow as you both slipped out of the room. “You know this probably isn’t a good idea for us to go off by ourselves.”

“We’ll be fine.” You smirked at him, leading him upstairs and toward a bedroom he had never really noticed before. It was across from Damian’s. Jon felt so dumb. There was a sign with your name on the door. How could he not have noticed?

Your room was clean and was very much you. Jon hummed, stopping to look at the photos on your wall. Most were of the family, but there were a few with people he didn’t know. He wondered if you had a photo of him to put up now that the secret was out.

“Here.” You came from your closet with a shirt. “This is one of Dick’s old shirts that he gave me. I usually sleep in it, but...well, it’s clean.” You handed him the shirt. A slight blush came to your cheeks. “I’ll put your shirt to soak in my sink. We should be able to get the stain out if we act now.”

Jon took off his shirt, smirking when he caught you staring. “Thank, babe.”

You snorted, shaking your head. “I missed you.” You stepped forward and placed a kiss on his lips. Jon melted, drinking in your scent, the softness of your lips against his. Your hands rested on his chest. The warmth of your hands made him shiver.

“I missed you too.” Jon smiled, pulling away when he heard several heavy footsteps on the stairs. He heard them stop by Damian’s room to collect him. “I think your brothers are coming to give me the shovel talk.”

You groaned, rolling your eyes as you took his soiled shirt. He slipped on the clean shirt, loving that it smelled like the laundry detergent you always used. “I can’t stop them. I promised Jason and Tim that they could if we had their support.”

Jon bit his lip, listening to some chuckles from your brothers. “I’ll see you at dinner. Don’t worry.”

“I’m not.” You kissed his lips again just as your brothers knocked on your door. “They know I love you, so they wouldn’t kill you.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that.” Jon hugged you tight before letting you go. You sighed and opened your door. Jason looked gleeful, Tim seemed bored, Dick was worried, while Damian had a particular devious look about him. “So, I know you want to talk to me,” Jon said, sending you a wink. You frowned slightly. “But you’ll have to catch me first.” Jon ran toward your window, opening it smoothly and flying out. 

Over the shouts of your brothers, Jon heard you laughing. It was best sound he had ever heard and one he wanted to hear for all the Christmases to come.

[tartsinarat]

Ngl was thinking about this whilst drawing some toh au stuff while watching doctor who in the background but I really feel like Pip would really be into the toh version of doctor who.

no idea what it would be called tho in the owl house but Pip’s into it for obvious reasons of sci-fi but also occasionally randomly fantasy?? show, which has chaotic mess of lore that makes no sense whatsoever (I say this with extreme love tho) and has a main character who’s a mad genius and criminal who stole a time machine and ran away to explore the universe and time which I feel meshes very well into what Pip would enjoy

Like I don’t see him enjoying space frontier as it’s pretty much Star Trek and that show has an really optimistic grand view of the future, it focus mostly on the good of people as a whole and that anything can be achieved if people work together and put their minds to it, I can see why Hunter and Gus would enjoy it which I find really sweet and adorable

On the other hand Doctor who has a very complex but pessimistic view on people/the universe, it mainly focuses on the crazy situations that a lonely alien on who’s constantly running away but desperately trying their best at all times to either atone for what they did in the past or to help people across time and space which I think Pip would find more interesting and relatable.

He’d also probably think that all the historical stuff in doctor who is real and that Britain is just constantly getting invaded by aliens.

Funniest thing though about him discovering Doctor who is Pip finally learning what a British person is, and that he’s got a British accent himself as I’m pretty sure there’s literally no one on the boiling isles other than Belos and Pip have that accent so he wondered where it’s from.

Pip also enjoys this show even more because time travel is a concept in toh, soooooooo the guy is just itching to figure out how to make a real Tardis, the only thing stoping him is that he’s in the human realm and in the demon realm the titan themselves was like “nope not even risking it” and decided to never allow him to be able to find a time pool again (he was apart of the events of elsewhere and elsewhen along side Luz and Lilith… it was awkward between him and Philip to say the least but it was more on Pips part because he was like” holy shit is he an older me?? Or my great great- something?? grandad what is going on???” So he didn’t know how to react to that and neither did Luz who was like yep they’re related, and Philip was like “what a strange hooded kid, I didn’t know that demons could mimic accents and appearances so well, I should be stay wary of that abomination and slay it when I have the time”. Oh yeah Pip does almost get killed but Lilith springs into action and does the badass punch to stop Philip. Ngl I’ll have to draw this as a comic at some point because it’s interesting to imagine/draw)

As well I had some ideas of him in thanks to them dressed up in a nerdy doctor cosplay which I found fun but idk if that’ll end up being what I draw him as for his Halloween costume, all three were picked because they all had similar Pip personality wise and I feel like he would relate most to these three in particular;

Like Pip, 10 is pretty much a wild card personality wise depending on the situation he can either be a sad destructive arrogant bastard with a slight god complex who takes matters into his own hands because he believes that he’ll make the right decision without thinking about the consequences or be a lonely silly guy who rambles a lot and is always running around and just wants to have fun.

1 is a grumpy trickster that has strong opinions about right and wrong, he also appears rude or uncaring but actually cares a lot and is the guy who ran away and stole a fucking time machine. He and 14 (14 is basically a mature 10 but I was tempted to go with him instead of 10 but he doesn’t have the ego problem so 10 it was lmao) fought a god like being that’s from another dimension thats obsessed with playing games.

4 is a bit of an odd ball though, he’s the weirdest doctor out of the bunch. He’s pretty silly, but at times he’s shifts into being quite callous and broody but still has a heart of gold. As well as 4 seems to struggle a lot in acting human as he’s pretty distant, aloof and alien at points, he even emphasises a lot throughout his run how he’s not human. Which I feel Pip would find extremely relatable as well as enjoying 4’s adventurist spirit and his extreme hatred of authority.

I think 4 is Pips favourite so he’d most likely cosplay as him during thanks to them.

Omg almost completely forgot to mention but I didn’t add his scar on purpose, he’s used illusion magic to remove it to make the cosplay more accurate and because his curse at that point is showing more physically on his body at this point in season 3 (he goopy 😔) and I can imagine it’s hard to explain to people in public why you a rotting infected looking green scar across your face and an even worse looking arm that’s weirdly proportioned to your body.

[salvadordante]

I finished the first two books in Remembrance of Earth’s Past this month and I’m working through the third, and I tried watching the Netflix adaptation this last weekend and I just…

I understand it’s an adaptation that has to be suited to western audiences but even so, why the fuck did they get rid of my guy Wang and give his story to like three different people?

Maybe I’d feel differently if I finished the show but I don’t know if I have it in me to watch the oddly stiff acting of girlboss nanotech lady anymore. I mean it really feels like a Netflix show (derogatory) so I probably should have came into it with different expectations, and I’m sure the actress was just going with the direction she was given, but it just really stood out how cardboardy it was, especially when I think most of the other characters were goodish, at least from what I saw.

But where is my man Wang?? Where is he?

Also I don’t hate Benedict Wong as Shi but they made his character less charming and more hardened, I guess. Not that he wasn’t in the book, but he was often the only levity in the scenes he was in. In the show the levity seems to have gone to another made-up-character who I’m not sure I see the point of.

On the bright side, both actresses who played Ye Wenjie were excellent, just truly stellar performances from what I saw. I may be biased because I love Rosalind Chao (she played Keiko in Star Trek TNG and DS9) but the scenes with Ye were my favorites, mostly because they stayed pretty true to the original story.

Overall, the only thing the first two episodes of the netflix adaptation made me want to do is try out the Chinese adaptation from 2023.

I may end up finished the show or not, but I thought I’d scream my thoughts into the void for the 7 other Tumblr users who like three body.

[cog5]

Last Call at the South Keep

The South Keep was originally completed in May 2023, as part of #dungeon23. The combined area has now been added to the PDF, along with an accompanying set of 20 random happenings. 

This is also the first time in months that I’ve revisited editing of the mega-dungeon as a whole, rather than focusing on daily room keys. As part of that, I’m adding overlapping prompts and encounters to hook players from one major area to the next. This is a lot easier now that each room is complete and I know the bounds of the entire mega-dungeon. 

I’ve also played with the formatting a bit, added a few quality of life changes to the layout. Fixed lots of embarrassing typos, and undoubtedly added new ones that will be even more embarrassing! I have a bad habit of adding and removing nouns and adjectives that result in an “an” somewhere that should be an “a”, or vice-versa. All that to say: Edits continue. 

For areas that do not yet exist in the PDF, or pages that may shift, I’ve left placeholders, referenced as “##”. These will be filled in as new areas are added. I’m not sure if it’s more preferable to get updates monthly, or if people would rather get areas in larger batches, two or three at a time? Either way, I’m working towards having all 12 areas compiled, edited and added to the PDF by the end of the summer in 2024.

Back to the South Keep. This post will include some behind-the-scenes thoughts that will make more sense if you’ve read through the area at least once, but I’ll try to include some context regardless.

The layout of the South Keep is probably the least interesting to me, it ended up pretty boxy, the “pages” really stick out here. But the encounters ended up being some of the most bizarre and entertaining keys I’ve written, so that redeems it for me. Some of the mega-dungeon’s narrative gets fleshed out here, too. There’s a lot going on. 

This segment of the adventure is a bit of a refuge for adventurers, a place to take a breather. Not to say the South Keep is a cakewalk, but my focus was to lean into weird encounters, rather than fatal combat scenarios. As a matter of pacing, the Gatehouse and Factory that surround the South Keep are much more dangerous, and it’s likely players have just passed through one of those areas to get here. 

From the south entrance, the narrative builds on how The King has been dethroned. In the entry hall, there is a statue of the monarch with their head missing. This continues the theme presented earlier in the Gatehouse garden, where it’s shown that members of the royal court had turned on The King.

From the west entrance, things are a little more random. There’s a “disturbed” spot on the floor. At the very least, it shows how the keep is decaying, where a sinkhole might appear. This place is old. Another more interesting option establishes the presence of a Clerical Beast who roams the South Keep. This creature was inspired by the administrative offices, found further in, and may show up as a random happening. This area may also be the first sighting of Nanomachines, which play a larger role later in the mega-dungeon. 

The concept of the players spending a lifetime as a nano-proxy was a riff on the old Star Trek TNG episode “The Inner Light”, where Picard is rendered unconscious for a few minutes, but experiences an entire lifetime on an alien world. Or maybe that “Hard Time” episode of Deep Space Nine, where O’Brian is falsely convicted for a crime, and as punishment he is implanted with memories of being imprisoned for several years. Some kind of mash-up along those lines. I resisted adding a flute or a sympathetic doctor.

The major factions in this area are the Office Automatons and the staff and patrons of Dillo’s Bar. There’s a chance that neither of these groups ever interact, but I’ve set up a lot of dominoes here. Add the players to the mix and something is going to topple. 

The Office Automatons as non-player characters don’t garner a lot of sympathy, but do flesh out the administrative nature of mega-dungeon. I think it’s more likely that players will gravitate to Dillo’s side of the keep where they can take on quests to delve deeper into the dungeon.

The ultimate showdown between the Office Automatons and Dillo’s Bar is if the second “Order of Business” event is triggered. This is where The Spire’s Administration has decided to send in guards to shut down Dillo’s by force, creating a standoff for the players to get wrapped up in.

An aside: Speaking of random things, I don’t know why nested random tables appeal to me so much, but I love writing them. Burying elaborate events behind improbable chance just feels good. A 1-in-100 chance of a good time makes it a great time. It’s probably near the same part of the brain where rolling a crit lives.

And then there’s the theater. The main stage area sets up more of the narrative for the dungeon itself. Establishing the undead Queen who will show up later in the Monastery, establishing how the Tetric Necromancer thinks highly of himself, as the rightful ruler of The Spire. More King bashing. Elements of propaganda through technology, etc. That all fits fine. 

What didn’t fit in the theater was the addition of Guilfoyle’s Ghost. But I ain’t mad. I sort of fell in love with the concept as I was writing it, a thespian ghost whose play is slowly eating the real world. Then I ran out of space to really do it justice (trying to keep each area contained on one page). I hope it’s a concept that a game group can take and expand on. It’s a bad situation that’s easy to stumble on, and could easily end a run if players are unable to resolve things. I especially liked it because it’s high-stakes but doesn’t inherently involve fighting. It’s more like a trap you can reason with. And that’s pretty cool. A concept worth exploring further in the future.

Before I wrote the theater, I wrote the gallery. I basically wanted a “weird event” generator. The paintings on the walls come alive and create a situation for the players to navigate. Resolving the situation grants them some kind of item as a reward. A bit of a slot machine, I suppose. A lot of the painting descriptions are based off of dreams I’ve had, visuals that have stuck with me over the years. Have fun with them.

I don’t have a lot to say about the Recess of Finance. Depressed bank machines just seemed amusing to me. 

And lastly, the Morning room, a chill place to rest. I think it would be nice to end a session there, have the party sleep, and when they wake up their wounds are mended. With the side effect of being covered in geometric tattoos, caused by the magical healing properties of the stained glass windows.

I’m going to sleep now, too. See you in the next area!

[timottea]

where yn is a famous singer and one day practicing songs on the piano with timothée they end up having relations and very hot moments. Thankk uuu

hey hey!! i love the piano idea so much and i can only hope you're still around to read, i hope you like it 💗

cw: allusions to sex and oral, minor cuts and scrapes from painful high heels

the piano

steady and assuring, timothée leads you straight from the ceremony into a fast car outside the venue, opening your door, sliding in after you and immediately prying the heels from your feet.

“honey, what are you doing?” you furrow your eyebrows as his fingers deftly unfasten the straps. his tongue is between his teeth as he concentrates; those green eyes glance up at you through dark lashes at your bewildered voice.

“what do you think i’m doing, sweetness?” he says it so kindly as he gathers the shoes and puts them beside him, you almost tear up in the backseat. timothée rests your aching feet in his lap, cold fingers smoothing over your delicate skin and soothing the scratches along your heels and ankles.

you hiss softly at the contact. he places a kiss to your shin, whispering an apology into your skin.

“but what about the party?” you worry.

“forget the party,” timothée insists. “i can see you’re in pain, honey, you have a terrible poker face.”

caught, you thread a hand through his hair, stroking through each curl carefully.

“i love you,” is all you can muster, your heart swelling with affection. he really knows you, inside and out, and so you clambour closer to him in the backseat, your lips finding his as you pour blinding emotion into the kiss. hungry for him, your lips dance along his profile, sucking purple and red along the subtle scruff of his jaw.

“fuck, babe,” timothée groans when you tangle a hand in his shirt, keeping him close.

arriving at the hotel with your lips attached to his neck, timothée sees no reason to break the contact.

he simply lifts you out of the car.

“i can walk, baby!” you shriek, attempting to wriggle out of his hold and giggling when he tightens his grip around your waist.

“no way,” he bites his lip; stubborn as a mule. “the least i can do is carry you when i’m the reason your feet are all cut up.”

“i’m sorry, are you stella mccartney?” you laugh, “i don’t recall you designing my heels tonight.”

timothée laughs, a joyous sound that has you pressing kisses to every inch of skin you can reach.

“i’m the reason we were even out in the first place,” he says, immediately flushing red. “not – not that i’m trying to brag or anythi—”

“suuuure, you big movie star,” you snicker, kissing the red of his ears affectionately as he places you on your feet in the hotel lobby.

you glare at the heels where they dangle from timothée’s fingers, plotting their demise as they swing by their flimsy straps, taunting you as they sparkle.

“never again,” you murmur into his shoulder, hands wrapped around his bicep as he slowly guides you through the ornate lobby. “timmy, this floor is fucking freezing!”

timothée’s lower lip juts out in sympathy, looking down at your poor bare feet against the cold tiles. “i’m pretty sure i know a way to warm you up.”

you look up at him, registering the scintillating lust in his green eyes as he twirls your heels in one hand. heat rushes up your neck to your cheeks and pools in your stomach, making you dizzy.

“take me upstairs,” you murmur, nails digging into his jacket as you drag him past several empty antechambers in pursuit of the elevator.

he chuckles, kissing your head as he holds the final door for you. you pass through it, stumbling to a stop when you see the predicament ahead: an out-of-service elevator; a trek up five flights of stairs. timothée bumps into you at your sudden halt, eyebrows furrowed until he also notes the tape across the elevator doors.

“damn it,” he curses, breath hot against your ear. you squirm, leaning back against him only to feel something against your ass.

“gorgeous, can’t you wait?” you tease, one hand reaching back to palm over his groin.

“shit, yn, if you don’t stop…” timothée whines impatiently, hands around your waist as he pulls you impossibly closer, aching for more.

spinning in his arms, you grin up at him, your crazy hand now tracing the seam of his zipper and driving him an inch away from insanity.

timothée’s head falls back and you study the mesmerizing column of his throat, the sudden urge to paint it with a bruising kiss making you shiver.

he lifts your chin, lips slamming against yours.

stupidly, irrationally, and rather impressively without breaking the kiss, you stab at the broken elevator call button, because if you stand here for one more second without timothée’s lips and hands and face and—

“c’mere,” timothée gasps, pulling you suddenly from the elevator and into a deserted room.

in the dim light, beside a shiny black piano, he’s on you again, all clashing teeth and bitten lips. his body is on fire as you moan into his mouth, the sound ricocheting beautifully around the room. when his tongue finds that spot on your neck, his dark curls tickling your jaw, you’ve no choice but to cling to his shoulders as your knees buckle.

“god, timothée,” you purr, putty in his hands as he makes your pleasure sing, holding you fast against the piano.

scratching down his back, you’re appalled to find his jacket is still on. “off – get off!”

startled, timothée rips himself from you, a gaping chasm where his body was once flush against yours. he stumbles, one hand flying down to the ivory keys to steady himself in a harsh cacophony.

“you okay? what’s wrong?” he rushes out, voice deep. he clears his throat, irises blown wide as he scans your face for the problem.

“your jacket— get it off!” you growl, and timmy would be lying if his dick didn’t jump at your authority. you claw it off him, tossing it aside and pulling him closer by his shirt, which, seconds later, joins his jacket on the floor.

timothée laughs against your mouth, roaming hands sweeping up your sides and scrabbling at the zip of your dress. he tugs it sharply, a sudden tearing echoing through the room.

wide eyed, you pull back to meet his, amusement flitting over his features.

“it’s not funny!” you giggle, one hand holding your dress together. “i started tonight in a full outfit and now i’m practically naked.”

timothée wiggles his eyebrows and you want to kiss that boyish smile right off.

“i’m sure stella won’t mind,” he grins cheekily, his hands parting the slit in your dress. “you’re giving her tons of exposure.”

you feel his smirk against your lips as you kiss him, pushing your chest against his. he lifts you onto the top of the piano and you shiver against the cold wood, his strong hands running up the goosebumps on your thighs as he kicks the stool out of his way.

your feet grace the keys, tapping out a lithe melody to harmonize against your moans as timothée sinks himself lower, licking his lips as your pitch rises.

“okay, darling, let’s warm you up, sing for me,” he murmurs, his voice like velvet as he spreads your legs out an octave or two.

[ashflamethewaffleangel]

I've been browsing the WoJ website, as one does, and realized just how excited Mr. Author seems to write Mirror Mirror Marcone, and now I'm very excited for that book too.

Do you have any theories about how that will go? Will Marcone be a good guy? 👀 Omg what if he went from the army to law enforcement. Imagine what that man could do in SI. ⚰️

YOU HONOR ME WITH THIS QUESTION HOLY SHIT (so very genuine; you are my beloved Dresden Files mutual) but bear with me because this is gonna be a long post. I have toooo many thoughts. God I'm sorry. /jov

BUT GOD. YOU HAVE HIT THE QUESTION I REPEATEDLY THEORIZE WITH MY PARTNERS. OUUUGH. There are SO many ways this could go I am gonna be SO very real and I love every single one of them bc it keeps my brain shoomvin'!

But considering WOJ has mentioned that this particular universe is ours but gone to shit MUCH quicker due to one of Harry's earlier decisions "Mirror universe Harry is different by one choice. One. And everything else just follows after that." WHICH MEANS. WHICH MEANS EVERYTHING STAYS THE SAME. UP TO THAT CHOICE. (I can't remember how early, so it could be a pre-books decision, or it could be a in-canon alternate decision) so Marcone depending on how early in the canon it is, I see a couple different options!!

NOW OBVIOUUUSLY. There are an ABSURDDDD Number of choices Harry coulda done EXTREEEEMELY DIFFERENT!!!! However. one that comes to mind-- at least if he's talking early series!! and from the sounds of it, he is, because he says everything goes to shit a lot fucking faster than our timeline-- is in Fool Moon.

Marcone gives Harry a choice in the Fool Moon garage; sign on and become an employee of his, or die by the people he's trying to protect Harry from. Marcone ALSO gives Harry the choice to stay off the case in Book 1.

What if Harry chose EITHER of these options? What if he stayed off the Victor Sells case? The entire series spiraled from there--- THAT'S THE REASON MARCONE CAME TO HIM FOR HELP IN BOOK 2!!! MARCONE, UPON NOT BEING ABLE TO GET HARRY'S HELP, RESORTED TO FBI AGENTS WHO BETRAY HIM AND TRIED TO FEED HIM TO A LOUP-GAROU. AND THEY WOULD'VE GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT IF IT WEREN'T FOR EVERYONE ELSE (including Harry) STUCK IN THE PIT BELOW WITH HIM.

Now Jim has said he's very excited to write Marcone; so I imagine he's not fucking dead but. What if this series of events leads him to Nicodemus instead of Monoc? What if he becomes a knight of the Denarius THAT FUCKIN EARLY so he could better protect Chicago?; ESPCIALLY SINCE HARRY HASN'T KINDA LED HIM THROUGH TRIAL BY FIRE AND SAVED HIS ASS ON MULTIPLE OCCASIONS (as does Marcone vice versa).

But if Fool Moon has the changing point, then we've got a different route; Harry working for Marcone. That now begs the question of-- Would that have made everything gone to shit that much faster??????? Maybe !! As a consultant for Marcone? And telling him all the BULLSHIT that the White Council does? That the Red Court is doing? In his city?? Our evil Harry might be Marcone's enforcer-- as Mister Jimothy mentions, "If [Harry] was Lawful Evil I’m pretty sure he’d be Marcone’s enforcer."

Or might have been, at one point, in this particular universe. Either way, a very DELIGHTFUL choice of thought, but probably not where Mister Butcher is gonna take it.

Option 2; Marcone is FBI/Special Investigations -- LAW ENFORCEMENT TIME BABYYYYY!!! LAWFUL EVIL MAN STILL ON HIS LAWFUL ACT BUT THIS TIME IN THE MORE LITERAL SENSE! (/very jovial) I see this one happening if it's a complete Star Trek Mirror Mirror moment; he's still a powerhouse, he's still an ice-cold mf, but he's more of a deadly serious Fox Mulder, especially if the same event took place that made Marcone-- well-- Marcone! I'd see him being the same type of character, but more on the ground this time around; like he was in White Knight type beat; manpower and in-the-know folks taking down monsters to protect the citizens. Maybe he'll be giving our Harry a helping hand!! Especially if Harry is being framed for, you know, MURDER, as it's being told to us. Maybe we'll be having a soul-gaze, and because (I PRESUME) this universe's duo has already shared a soul-gaze it's a "Oh. Yeah no you're not lying. What. The fuck. Okay." OR, he's one of our main obstacles! BOTH ! AND!!!! Considering that Mister Butcher mentioned that we'll maybe be seeing something related to Marcone's capital n Name in this book... Definitely a possibility.

Option 3; He's literally just a guy! -- Less likely of the options? Yes. Still an interesting thought experiment? Also yes! This is ALSO based on this specific WOJ;

Q: I read the short story from Marcone’s point of view, “Even Hand,” and I noticed that John Marcone is not his real name. Is that going to be significant? Sure is if somebody tries to cast a spell at him using the name “John Marcone”! That’ll be a big deal. But we’ll have to see how that works out. Actually, the character that’s really interesting is the Mirror Mirror universe Marcone, and we’ll get to him in a few books.

Maybe! He's not John Marcone! Or, more accurately, he's the Marcone we see in Helen Beckitt's vision! Maybe he's still that charming motorcyclist who works for the mob! Probably VERY aware of word on the streets about Harry, and in Mirror Mirror, we'll see him go "huh. what the fuck." about our Harry! because THAT'S not the guy everyone dreads! This is a fucking goober! Powerful goober-- but tall, lanky ass, goober! Built his own paranet perhaps, due to the fact that Harry is not a "good" man in this universe.

I very honestly don't know, there's so many variations of these, ever so slight changes, and I am CHOMPING on my theorizing bit.

[darsynia]

Present Imperfect | Ch. 1: Day One

TONY STARK MASTERLIST | STORY MASTERLIST | NEXT

Summary: After losing Pepper to Extremis, Tony decides to get the shrapnel (and thus his arc reactor) removed-- but he wakes up as President of the United States.

Tony's heart surgery is the last thing he remembers, a worst-case amnesia scenario that leaves the country with a leader who doesn't remember the last year of office, the election, or his marriage to the First Lady, Natasha Romanoff Stark. The country is two days into a national tragedy that's still unfolding, a biological attack on Washington, D.C. that has Tony and his key advisors underground as they coordinate the response-- but nothing about his situation feels right. Is Tony a national leader, a hero poised to save the country with a beautiful and beloved former colleague by his side? Or is he a billionaire superhero in need of rescue? Length/Warnings: 4,311 words // None this chapter

Note: Inspired by a Star Trek: TNG episode about long-term amnesia called Future Imperfect; Tony spends the story unraveling the truth about not just his own situation, but how he relates to someone he's known for years. This story has intrigue, twists, romance, and humor. It is at its heart a tale about two friends who don't truly see each other until that relationship is tested in various ways.

Excerpt:

“You’re not real,” he responds confidently. “I’m probably in a recovery room somewhere, and this--” Tony taps against the metal housing of his arc, under his sleep tee. “--isn’t going to be there when I wake up.”

Nat grabs the bedpost, her expression grave. “Cut it out, Tony.”

“That’s what the surgeons did, yes. No more shrapnel for me.”

The landline phone at his bedside table rings, and before Tony can pick it up to see what his narcotic-fuzzed mind will conjure up, Natasha’s already there. She picks it up and drops the receiver in a single motion.

“The surgery to remove the shrapnel failed five years ago. Are you saying--” she breaks off. Tony’s never seen her like this, casual, fond, half-naked under a fuzzy robe.  

“I’d like to wake up now, is what I’m saying.” He slides his legs over to get up, but Nat doesn’t move away, which is odd. The worried affection on her face is odd, too. “Come on, President of the United States? I’d never be that stupid. National Security Advisor, maybe. All the credit, none of the bullshit accountability.” He stands up to mess with dream!Natasha, but she doesn’t move away. They’re right up against each other, enough that he can smell the spicy sweetness of her shampoo. Fuck, he misses incidentals like that. “We’d need more than five years of build-up for you to be willing to wake up in bed next to me, don’t you think?” Tony says harshly. He actually doesn’t know if that’s true, but he expects her reaction will be pretty revelatory.

Prologue, Christmas Day, 2013:

“Tony, I can’t regulate.”

He can’t let himself understand what she means, at least not before he clears his head. They’re crouched precariously on the ledge below where Pepper had nearly fallen, and he’s sure his ankle is broken. Tony doesn’t know which suit pushed the two of them over here after he’d jumped to catch her, but there’s no way to ask JARVIS. His earpiece fell into the flames below.

“Tony?”

“Give me a minute,” he says, his mind racing. “I gotta tell the suits you’re not a target.”

“I am a target. And Killian’s coming. Tony, promise me--” Pepper says, making a face and looking down, her eyes welling with tears. There’s a finality to her tone that he utterly rejects. Why didn’t he build a comm into his arc?

“It seems like your valiant rescue has warmed the lady’s heart, Stark!” Killian taunts, from across the twisted debris and open space.

He’s right; Pepper has started to glow slightly, her expression turning resolute. 

“I almost figured this out drunk, Pep. Hold on just a couple more hours, okay?” He holds up his hands palm out as if he can stop her with just his will alone, shouting the words to remind their tormentor that Tony has info he needs.

“You don’t have that kind of time!” Killian jeers. He rears his head back and a jet of actual fire projects from his mouth, heating the metal gangway behind them, cutting off any escape.

“Do the suits know to catch you without the earpiece?” Pepper whispers.

Every cell in his body is stubborn iron. “I’m not leaving you.”

“How do you like the hot seat?” Killian asks, as Tony and Pepper scramble toward the edge to escape the heated metal.

“You’ll have comms, once I call one over with this,” she whispers, touching her chest as the eerie bright orange under her skin grows brighter.

“But, you said you couldn’t reg— Pep, Honey, don’t!” He can’t breathe; dread has displaced the air in his lungs. 

Aldrich Killian leaps over, causing the structure to sag with an awful metallic groan. “This is better than live theater! No, no, do go on,” he exhorts, holding his arms wide.

“I love you,” Pepper whispers to Tony fiercely. “Take care of yourself? The company? I need to know you’ll let yourself be happy again.” 

“Shut it down, Pepper. We’ll find another way!” 

All of his suits are fighting elsewhere, too far to risk the jump. Shit.

Pepper’s come to that same conclusion. “This is taking too long. JARVIS, WE NEED YOU!” she screams, standing up.

Killian tsks. “Not sure you want to do that, Potts.”

“No, NO. Get down!” Tony begs desperately. She doesn’t know JARVIS is targeting the Extremis heat signatures-- but that’s just it: Extremis. If he can push her off, she’ll survive. He’ll be able to jump after her, if the approaching light he can see in the distance is what he thinks it is. Mark 42’s whole purpose is to stop him from the fatal fall he dreams about every night.

“Stay back, you arrogant jerk!” Pepper cries out, thrusting out her hand toward Killian. “We just want to live!” she adds, and the obvious lie shoots adrenaline through Tony’s body. He’s burning up-- the metal underneath him is searing, and Pepper’s gone so hot that her pants are burning off of her. His ankle has stopped hurting, probably because of the shock, so Tony forces himself to his feet, bracing himself for her outrage when he pulls them both out into thin air.

“You ready?” he says, directing his words toward Killian, but Pep should know they’re about her.

“As I’ll ever be,” she answers sweetly, still facing their enemy. With a quick look over her shoulder, Pepper says, “Forgive me,” and throws a red-hot hand toward each of them. Her palm strikes his chest hard just above his reactor, launching Tony off of the edge.

The pain from the immediate burn is nothing compared to how much it hurts to watch Pepper sink her other hand into Killian’s chest, pulling out his heart and reducing it to ash in seconds. She’s fighting Tony’s battle for him, and he can do nothing but watch, as he falls. The surface of the water is rapidly approaching, so he plugs his nose, hitting the water right before the heated flare of explosion shoves him deeper. A second later, the familiar comfort of an Iron Man suit encloses his body. Tony shuts his eyes, his soul and body aflame, adrift.

He knows what the explosion was. Pepper’s gone. 

Day One

A gentle hand on his shoulder wakes him up.

“Mr. President? I’m sorry, sir. I let you sleep as long as I could.”

Tony opens his eyes. He’s hearing things, probably thanks to the anesthesia or whatever pain meds they’ve put him on, because his chest doesn’t hurt at all. He scrubs a hand over his face and rolls onto his back.

A strange woman is standing there with an apologetic look on her face.

He jumps back in surprise, scooting up to a seated position and pulling up the sheet in an exaggerated action of pretend modesty. Tony looks at the stranger in a business skirt set standing beside the bed. “Weird outfit for a nurse. I’ll hand it to SHIELD on the level of hospital bed luxury, though.”

“Tony?”

The voice is Natasha’s, and she’s buried in the blankets beside him like she belongs there. As he watches in stunned confusion, she lifts up, blankets falling away from her barely-there nightgown as she reaches a concerned hand toward his forehead. Tony doesn’t move away, even though his instincts tell him to. It’s been so long since anyone touched him. In the months since losing Pepper, he’d lived a monk-like existence, acting more like a recluse widower than his old carefree self.

“Forgive me Mrs. Stark, but the security briefing is in ten minutes, and--”

“It’s fine, Cora, thank you. Tell them he’ll be ten minutes late, will you?” Natasha says briskly. Tony tries to pay attention in the midst of all this confusion because there’s a lot of skin on display here, but, security briefing? Mrs. Stark?? “You can blame it on me, if you like,” she’s saying now. Her tone is loving, playful, and he actually relaxes. It’s obviously a dream. His attention-starved mind has finally lost it. The real Natasha Romanoff will kick his ass if she ever finds out this is what he dreamed about post heart surgery.

Tony folds his arms behind his head and watches as ‘Cora’ picks her way across the small, dark room and opens the door. The hallway beyond looks just as he’d have expected, utilitarian and soulless, logical for a medical facility in the heart of SHIELD. Does that mean he’s hallucinating instead?

“Okay, were you playing dumb to punish Cora for waking you up? I know you’re sick of being stuck down here,” Natasha says, getting up and putting on a robe that hides everything fun about Tony’s bizarre dreamallucination.

“You’re not real,” he responds confidently. “I’m probably in a recovery room somewhere, and this--” Tony taps against the metal housing of his arc, under his sleep tee. “--isn’t going to be there when I wake up.”

Nat grabs the bedpost, her expression grave. “Cut it out, Tony.”

“That’s what the surgeons did, yes. No more shrapnel for me.”

The landline phone at his bedside table rings, and before Tony can pick it up to see what his narcotic-fuzzed mind will conjure up, Natasha’s already there. She picks it up and drops the receiver in a single motion.

“The surgery to remove the shrapnel failed five years ago. Are you saying--” she breaks off. Tony’s never seen her like this, casual, fond, half-naked under a fuzzy robe.  

“I’d like to wake up now, is what I’m saying.” He slides his legs over to get up, but Nat doesn’t move away, which is odd. The worried affection on her face is odd, too. “Come on, President of the United States? I’d never be that stupid. National Security Advisor, maybe. All the credit, none of the bullshit accountability.” He stands up to mess with dream!Natasha, but she doesn’t move away. They’re right up against each other, enough that he can smell the spicy sweetness of her shampoo. Fuck, he misses incidentals like that. “We’d need more than five years of build-up for you to be willing to wake up in bed next to me, don’t you think?” Tony says harshly. He actually doesn’t know if that’s true, but he expects her reaction will be pretty revelatory.

“Don’t sell yourself short, babe,” she says, arching up to press a brief but luscious kiss to his lips. He doesn’t have time to react further, because she sidesteps over to a wardrobe, pulling out a suit and matching shirt. “Hot rod red for the tie? Or are you going to wear the yellow one again and bitch about not getting to see the sun?”

“The latter, obviously,” he says. This… doesn’t feel unfamiliar. “Uh, can we go back to the five years thing? I know this is a dream and you’re just as likely to sprout tentacles as anything else, but--”

Natasha's expression of vulnerability is back. “Get dressed? I think this-- how about I call Rhodey. If it is what I think it is…”

He starts undressing in front of her, but it occurs to him that out of all of the Avengers, Nat can keep her composure through just about anything. So much for trying shock value to jumpstart her out of whatever farce this is.

She’s standing there holding out his shirt, and he needs to put underwear on. “Turn around?”

Her face crumples for a split second, but Natasha blinks and nods, laying the shirt down on the bed. “One sec.” She makes her way past him, holding her hand in a fist as if preventing herself from reaching for him on the way, which is interesting. Lifting the phone, she asks for Rhodey rather than dialing anything.

There’s a tap on the door, accompanied by the words, “Ten minutes,” but Tony’s distracted by the fact that there’s a cover over his arc reactor. He walks the few steps to the narrow mirror atop a small dresser, noting that the cover is fitted, even beautiful, with a circular design not unlike his first model etched in relief on the metal.

“Put this on,” Natasha says as she comes up behind him with his shirt.

“Undershirt?” he objects, but she shakes her head.

“No time. We need you out of the security briefing with no more than five minutes overtime if you want to talk to Rhodes.”

“I thought I was the President! Shouldn’t I get to do what I want?” he teases, knowing full well this is not at all the case.

Her response is sobering (and more confirmation of the unreality of his situation). “There’s a reason why we’re in a tiny room with no windows, Tony. Do me a favor and try not to look surprised at anything you hear at this thing? If you do, play it off, and we’ll get you caught up after.”

He allows himself to be led through the process of dressing, impressed by her competency in using the brief moments in between to put together a killer outfit of her own. Tony’s slipping on his dress shoes when the door flies open with no knock, and the woman from before (Karen? Cara? The jury’s out) comes in. She leads Tony out into the cramped hallway, where two obvious Secret Service agents wait on either side of the door.

“Mechanic’s moving,” one of them says quietly into his wrist.

Tony’s so pleased they’ve chosen that over ‘Superhero’ or ‘Merchant of Death’ that he doesn’t take note of the path across the complex at all.

The security briefing doesn’t run long, which is good, because Tony has to employ every single ounce of acting ability he has not to react with incredulity. He has to repeatedly quash the urge to stand up, throw down the bullshit documentation, and yell that he wants out of the simulation. The problem is, if they really are facing a coordinated biological attack from both foreign and domestic enemies, having a President who seems to have lost his mind in the thick of the response would be absolutely horrific.

Tony crumples the summary briefing page in his hand as he waits in the ‘Bunker Oval’ to speak with Rhodey over a secure connection. The final line on the damned thing is still fucking with him.

The last body has been removed from the White House, so decontamination procedures will be underway by noon.

The landline phone he’s seated beside rings, and Tony lifts the receiver, wishing Nat was in the room to make forbidding faces at him again.

“Hello?”

“Tony! Natasha sent me the keyword, so I’ll skip to that in a minute,” Rhodey says. “But first: how is she, how are you? No one’s sick down there, right? They won’t tell us anything, but D.C. is shut down. Checkpoints to leave, the whole--”

Ordinarily he’d love to hear the difference between what he’d just been told and what’s really happening, but Tony’s on a strict timetable. He interrupts with: “Yeah, I got an update on that just now. I’m set to call the family members of those lost in the White House now that they’ve recovered them all. D.C.’s under quarantine.”

“Seems like a great time to lose all your memory and a shitty time to lead the country!” Rhodey says. Then, his tone sobers. “Tony, for what it’s worth: I’m sorry. What can you remember?”

“I went in for the surgery. I figured if it killed me, it’d be a better look in the obit than the past four months of articles about the Iron Hermit. Woke up the leader of the free world, but… what a world.” He sighs. “My Catholic grandmother would call this purgatory.”

Rhodes whistles under his breath. “You know, right around your wedding to Natasha, we talked about whether you should try to trigger this, set it off and fall in love all over again, so you could schedule it instead of living in fear. You said you didn’t want want to risk losing her.”

Tony realizes belatedly that everything he’s saying is probably being recorded, both in this office and on the line. The resulting sense of responsibility is almost crushing, so he does what he always does when that happens, and sloughs it off. His PR team was great back when he was ‘just’ a billionaire. Now, good PR for him is probably a matter of national security.

“What the hell did Killian do to me, Rhodey?”

“He didn’t. The water did. Some brain-loving organism that went dormant while you were wallowing, right up until the surgery triggered it. Your vitals went haywire. When they got you stabilized, the team decided it was too dangerous to take out the shrapnel. Stress of the surgery, that kind of thing.”

“You’re telling me I never tried to do anything about it? And neither did any of you?”

“We thought you were in the clear!” Rhodes sounds defensive. “Hell, Tony, you ran for President! If that stress wasn’t gonna do it, what would?”

“WWIII, I guess,” Tony says quietly, looking around the room. The recessed lights above two landscape paintings are doing their best window impression alongside the wood paneling, but no shrunken replica of Oval Office furniture in a room with a vaguely curved wall can hide where he really is. “Something inside me wants to reject all of this, Rhodey. They’re saying almost a hundred people are dead, from various locations all around the city!”

“I hear you. Two and a half days in and I’m still in denial,” his friend says. “At least this memory shit got you on the phone. I was worried.”

Tony can’t sit still anymore, but he’s used to JARVIS or a cell phone. It feels very 1990’s teen movie to have to grab the handset to start pacing around.

“You should be here. I don’t know any of these people.”

“I’ve got problems of my own, Tony.”

“What’s more important than supporting your President!” Bitchy and facetious, his favorite way to goad.

 “That’s right, you don’t remember. I turned down all of your appointments, so you punished me by making me the Secretary of the Air Force. Gotta run, Mr. President. I’ll see if they’ll let me deliver the briefing tomorrow.” 

There’s something alarming about how comfortable Rhodey is with the idea that they’ll still need the bunker by this time the next day, but Tony doesn’t get the chance to object before the man he trusts most in the world hangs up.

He needs to think, and he’d kill for a computer and access to JARVIS right now, so Tony keeps the receiver in his hand so they don’t realize the call is over. Whoever they have babysitting him is too smart for that, though, because there’s a knock before a minute passes. 

“Yeah,” he says, already weary.

“Excuse me, Mr. President.” It’s Cora, someone he’s started to dread the sight of for no better reason than she always has an onerous task for him. He nods, and she steps in and closes the door. In a low voice that Tony identifies as discreet, she says, “Sir, I’ve taken the liberty of having the speechwriters come up with some language for the phone calls this afternoon, with the families of the victims? I understand that you are a good public speaker, and you’ve done well with condolences in the past--”

Tony raises his hand and nods, failing in his battle to stop himself from pinching the bridge of his nose. “I get it. Thank you. Have them copy over the text in those files with something else, something very boring, would you?” He holds his hand out for the folder.

Cora hands it over, brows furrowed.

“Erasing it would be against Presidential records law,” he says, clenching his jaw hard when he opens the folder. The list of names is long. “Writing something else over it is just a reasonable mistake made in a time of crisis.” Tony looks up, forces a charming smile. “You-- we worked with these people. We owe that to their families.”

“Yes, Sir.” Her eyes are wet. “Your next meeting is in seventeen minutes. I can come back two minutes before?”

“Good.” She’s almost through the door before Tony realizes that he needs Natasha to help him with the personal touches the scripts have left room for. “Shit. Find Nat for me, will you?”

The figure at the doorway freezes, and it takes him too long to realize why. He lifts up the folder. “The First Lady. Sorry, these…”

Cora bobs a nod that’s almost a curtsey, and leaves.

His next meeting is awful, all bad news. Lunch isn’t much of a highlight, though they have nailed his smoothies to a degree he’s almost jealous over. Despite his repeated requests to speak with Natasha, the hour he’s scheduled to call fifteen families with Presidential condolences looms without a First Lady in sight.

Finally, when Cora reports that there are twenty three minutes until he’ll be connected with the first family on the list, Tony snatches her cell phone out of her pocket and holds it up so it’ll unlock with her shocked expression.

“Wha--”

He sidesteps her half-hearted attempt to retrieve it, opening up the contacts. Once he finds the one designated First Lady, he taps to call her.

When it connects, Tony speaks up right away, still half-certain this is all some sort of elaborate ruse, an April Fool’s joke funded by the Avengers’ overflow slush fund or something. He knows just how to derail them. 

“I resent that there are no kisses scheduled. I feel like they’ve been removed from the schedule, and I demand they be reinstated, starting in…” he looks at his watch, noting that it’s not the prototype he’d been designing with an emergency gauntlet and EMP pulse built-in. He’ll have to look more closely later. “Two minutes.”

With that, Tony ends the call, tossing the phone at a flabbergasted Cora, who nearly drops it. “That’ll be all, Jeeves.”

Tony paces as he waits, having foregone reading most of the platitudes in favor of speaking the names aloud using the special pronunciation cues so he can mark down the ones he's struggling to get right. Even if this is a fever dream, he doesn’t want to fuck with people’s worst memories just because he’s lost a chunk of his own.

The door flies open without preamble, leaving everyone in the desk-filled ante-chamber the chance to see the supposed First Lady of the United States stalk into her husband’s private room, grab him by his ugly yellow tie, and plant a brief but rough kiss on his lips.

“You realize I was on the phone with the Australian PM, right? Coordinating the MOM response?” she demands, letting go of him so she can shove the door shut.

Tony blinks at her. He’d been sure she wouldn’t kiss him at all, but figured if there was some kind of set up, he would at least get to enjoy a ‘dedicated to the bit’ kiss before telling her the gig was up. What Natasha did instead was more confusing, but so was his body’s reaction to it.

No time for that right now, though.

“Marmite Only, Mate?” he guesses, before snagging the folder with the names he needs to ask about.

“Multinational Organizatio--” Nat breaks off, frowning at him. “Right, never mind. What did you need, Cora told me ten minutes.”

“I’d take that as a challenge, but these people don’t seem to want to knock, so…” he dangles. Tony’s fifty percent sure this is all bullshit, and it’s worth it to him to chip away at everything that’s going on, just in case it is. He hands her the folder. “Whether this is real or not, it’s not worth risking giving these families trauma to make a point. Will you help me do this right?”

Nat’s brows furrow for a split second, but she doesn’t look guilty, just surprised. “Of course,” she says, dragging over a chair. Pointing to the Presidential chair of comfy overkill, she adds, “Sit.”

His lips twitching with amusement, Tony settles into the desk chair. Her aggressive affection is endearing enough as it is, but her ability to shift into professional-mode is impressive. Natasha goes over the correct pronunciations with him, adding a mentionable personal detail about each lost staff member as she does so, finishing just in time for the first call.

Though he’s struggling with finding the entire situation credible, the condolence calls are persuasive; these people are more than just names on a list, and the grief in the voices of their families sound so real that he falters in his task once or twice.

Each time, Natasha Roma-- Natasha Stark is right there beside him, silently supporting him in his task by squeezing his hand so hard he’s more worried about broken fingers than broken platitudes.

His schedule is solid right up until 11 PM. Tony gets into the ‘Presidential Suite’ at 11:05 to find Natasha asleep in a fire-haired huddle on ‘her’ side of the bed. Tony had been hoping to speak to her in quiet, hopefully un-recorded whispers, but he opts for a quick shower, instead.

The bathroom is laughably small, and the light in there is strangely dim for being in a bunker without access to natural light. The first thing he does is spend time examining the cage of metal around his arc, but it’s just too dark and cramped to get a good view of the thing. It’s obviously not designed to come off, meaning it's either a weak link in whatever treachery is going on, or there’s some security risk to the glow or resonance it gives off.

Tony supposes that if your world leader action figure comes complete with enough volatile substance for a dirty bomb, that’s probably reason enough to make it hard to access.

He gives up after his third yawn, stripping naked and stepping in. The water gets hot pretty quickly, and the towels are high quality, so that’s something. Tony doesn’t bother to be thorough, enjoying instead the feeling of the hot water and privacy. 

When he starts drying off, he sees that his left inner elbow looks strange and feels tender to the fingertip. What’s more, when he drags his fingernails over the area, they come away with flesh-colored gunk underneath.

Tony grips the sink with both hands, suddenly wide awake. He runs the water, grabbing a wad of toilet paper instead of the tan washcloth he’d been given. The first swipe shows a vague peach color, and after he tosses that in the toilet and lathers up the area, the wet TP is smudged with what has to be skin-colored makeup.

On close examination, the area underneath is lightly bruised.

Tony flushes the second wad, his heart pounding. He dresses in a t-shirt and sweatpants, glad for the darkness in the bedroom that hides the part of his arm he's scrubbed raw. They’d put in an IV before administering the anesthetic, of course, but though he lies there in the dark for a long time thinking about it, Tony can’t remember where it had been located.

He decides to continue pushing buttons, but keep his discovery to himself. One thing is certain: he’s in danger, whether it’s from external lies or falsehoods from his own mind.

Next chapter...

[insanitybl00m]

Tales From Under The Wisteria Tree

Chapter Two - A Kind Stranger

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Missa didn’t want to wake up, he wanted to stay snuggled asleep with Chayanne. As he blinked into consciousness he realized that “Chayanne” was just his bag. He was all alone.

So he got up, ignored the growl of his stomach and started his trek through the woods.

He didn’t notice the crow soaring above him, he was too hungry. But when he finally got into the small town he instantly noticed the crow.

“Hello Cuervito!” The crow cawed. “Do you know where I can find any food around here?” Another caw. Missa reached into his bag and pulled out a small bag of sunflower seeds. He poured a few in his hand. “Do you want any?” The crow looked down upon the human. Missa smiled as the crow seemed to consider it. He flew down and ate the seeds. “Can I pet you little Cuervo?” Missa took his other hand and raised it a few inches from the crows head. Slowly Missa lowered his hand to the crow. Within seconds the crow was cooing, nuzzling into Missa’s hand. He let out a laugh, at least the wildlife here was friendly. “I better try to find a pub or something Cuervo, it was lovely to meet you though!” The crow flew away.

Missa searched, and searched. The town seemed abandoned. Just his luck, when suddenly he saw a person walking ahead on the path. “Hello!” The figure looked behind them. “Hello.” “I’m looking for a place to stay the night, maybe get some food; do you know anywhere?” “I do, I’m going there in fact. Would you like to go with me?” Just Missa’s luck! “I’d love to!”

The pair walked to the other end of the town, through a clearing Missa didn’t even see before. “That side of town is haunted, everyone moved over here when there were fae sightings.” The man sighed. “Everyone else thinks that stuff is just bogus though, created by the town elders to scare us. What about you?” “What about me? what?” “What do you think of the fae?” “Well I’m not going to just give out my name to any stranger I meet, that’s for sure.” “Finally, someone else knows their lore!” “I’d rather follow the rules then get my life taken by them.” “Cheers to that. Anyway Here’s the pub, let me buy you a drink!” Missa smiled. “Thanks!” The two stepped into the small pub.

“Two— what do you want mate?” “Do you guys have any coffee, I’m not much of a drinker.” The bartender nodded. “Two of those then!” The man Missa followed ushered him to a table in the corner.

“Thanks, sorry it’s not a typical drink.” “Nah, typical is overrated.” The man flashed Missa a smile. “Besides, I’m not in the mood to get drunk right now.” “Oh, why not? I mean— Sorry— I just assumed that since you were going to a pub—““It’s fine mate, typically I come here and just watch people, they do the funniest things while drunk. But also I don’t exactly want to drink right now because I’m spending my time with you, pretty boy.” Missa’s face flushed. “Huh?” The man took off his hood that was masking his face. Blonde hair fell to about his shoulders. “Fuck, ignore me typically the hair tie stays in.” He pulled his hair back into a small little ponytail. Missa stared at the man, he had gotten so used to just talking and he didn’t even bother to really take a good look at him.

He had blonde hair and greenish eyes. His ears were almost pointed, and a few stray hairs that weren’t pulled into the ponytail framed his face. “So what are you doing in this little town?” He said, pulling Missa out of almost a trance. “Oh— uh— I’m on a quest!” “Oh?” “Yeah I need to save my son.” “You have a son?” “Yep, his name is—“ “Shh— don’t speak that out loud, you never know who’s listening.” Shit. He was outside of the kingdom, Fae could be anywhere. He silently thanked the stars that he had such a nice person watching over him. “Right, anyway my son is six, I got in trouble with my king and he said I needed to complete an impossible quest in order to spare both me and my son’s life.” The man sighed. “That sounds like hell.” “I’ll do anything for him, even if that means giving that self righteous ass…” he paused, just stating you were trying to find immortality could be as dangerous as just yelling out for the Fae. “…What he wants.” “You’re brave.” “More like stupid, I knew I shouldn’t have stood up against the king! He’s the heart of the kingdom, of course people were going to betray me if he handed them gold.” “Then those people didn’t believe in the cause.” Missa smiled at the man. “Thank you.” “Two coffees.” The bartender said, placing down two small glasses of coffee. “Thanks mate.” He handed over a handful of coins.

“So where’s your quest taking you?” “Oh. Well, all over I guess. I’ve got a few places I need to check. And one place I really don’t want to check.” “Oh?” “I’ve got to go to the west and see if I can find some dragon scales, east for pixie dust, and south for the lyrics of a siren song.” “And if that doesn’t work?” “Then I have to meet up with the king of another realm.” The man's eyes widened. “Surely you don’t mean him–” “Yeah, I do. Better to be indebted to a magical being than to get my son killed.” Missa was trying to avoid mentioning Fae. They always seemed to pop up whenever you discussed them. “You really love him, huh?” “I promised him I’d be back. And I intend to do everything in my power to uphold that promise.” The man smiled. “I’d like to help you.” “Huh?” “You clearly don’t know your way around, not to be rude or anything. You need someone to make sure the Fae don’t get you. I’m bored, been looking for a reason to go on an adventure anyway. This seems like a good cause.” “I don’t know what to say, Thank you!” “Well in that case–” The man yawned. “Come back to my place tonight eh? You look like you could use a proper night of rest.” Missa sputtered “Like– like to–” “To sleep.” He clarified. “Good to know your type though.” The man winked as he stood up and gathered up Missa’s bag. Missa was sure his face was neon as the man pulled him away from the pub.

“My house is a little secluded in the woods. Don’t worry, nothing will hurt you here.” The man’s house was secluded. Surrounded by wildlife of all kinds, flora and fauna. You name it, it was probably growing in the man’s garden or nearby.

The man shut the door behind Missa. “Sorry I didn’t clean up before I left.” The man was referring to a table dedicated to horticulture. Soil and plants were strewn around. “That’s ok.” “Good. I’m glad. My spare room is over there.” He pointed to a door on the left side of a hallway. “End of the hall is the bathroom and across from your room is mine.” “Thank you…” “Philza.” The man said. “My name is Philza.” “Missa.” Philza smiled and a shock ran through Missa. What the hell was that? Philza was right, he must really be tired if now he’s imagining things.

“Well good night Philza.” “Good night Missa.” The words danced through Missa’s brain. The way Philza spoke his name like it was the most precious thing in the– Stop. Stop that. He was not falling for the first guy he met outside of the castle walls. He needed to save his son. Then he could think about feelings after that. He pulled a blanket onto him and tried to sleep.

[episodicnostalgia]

Star Trek: The Next Generation, 113 (Jan. 23, 1988) - “Angel One”

Written by: Patrick Barry Directed by: Michael Rhodes

The Breakdown

The Enterprise picks up on a distress signal from a freighter called ‘The Odin’ that went missing a few years back, so they decide to check out the nearest M-Class planet (ie, capable of sustaining life) to see if the survivors made it that far.  It turns out they did, but the problem is the survivors all happened to be men, and the planet they landed on is run by a matriarchal oligarchy that objectifies the males, and believes they should accept their place as slutty-play-things-without-rights.  Naturally the Odin survivors (being enlightened federation folk) take issue with this on-the-nose-metaphor, and go public with their opinions, resulting in a social justice movement (which we are told about but never actually see). 

Beata (The ‘Elected-one’ aka the ruler), agrees to let the Odin survivors go, since that would silence the dissenters, but not before getting Riker to spend the night with her, which he’s all-too-happy to oblige (she may be a misandrist, but Riker will not pass up on some perfectly good… diplomatic relations).  While Riker flounces around in a pretty little get up (all an essential part of the diplomacy), Tasha and Deanna talk to the survivors who refuse to leave since they have families now.  Their unwillingness to leave results in a death sentence, to which Riker is like, “Fuck this, lets just beam everyone out of here”.  Unfortunately the Enterprise is having it's own issues.

Back on the ship, a nasty virus has broken out, which has incapacitated most of the crew  (There’s also some stuff about Romulans, but none of that really amounts to anything) Anyways, since beaming everyone to the Ship is out of the question, and the executions are imminent, Riker makes a nice little speech to Beata about how “evolving world views are necessary for any civilization and maybe don’t be so mean to your men?” Somehow that works, and Beata decides to stay the executions on the condition that the survivors-and-their-families all go far away to a less pleasant continent (where they’ll be too busy surviving to worry about human rights). She reasons that if she can’t stop change at least she can slow it to a crawl, and everyone is like “Yay, what a progressive sentiment.” The end.

The Verdict

I’m not sure sure where to start with this episode, but I guess I’d have to say that the script just seems clueless. We’re shown a sexist matriarchy that is seemingly meant to mimic our own patriarchy, but it’s so broad that it fails to capture any nuance whatsoever. It’s also pretty telling that the feminine coded men of Angel One are all written as vapid, jealous, emotional, and devoid of any real agency; not unlike most of the women characters from this season so far. It’s well known that the women cast struggled with how their characters were portrayed, especially during the earlier seasons. I don’t know if ‘Angel One’ was one of the offending episodes, but it certainly throws its weight towards confirming the pattern.

1 star (out of 5)

Stray observations

Remember folks. It’s okay to hook up with a brazenly sexist dictator if they’re hot.

Tasha thinks Riker looks sexy in his skimpy-frilly-outfit and states it outright. Now I’m not one for kink shaming, but that’s not a very professional thing to say to your commanding officer.

Geordie gets to sit in the Captains chair. Nice.

Season-one-Worf is kind of adorable, like a pitbull. He’s big and strong looking, but just a teddy bear deep down. His scenes with Geordie on the bridge are so wholesome.

The prime directive sure is confusing. I thought the rule was that any pre-warp society is off limits, but Angel One is said to be equivalent to our mid-to-late 20th century. Apparently, the federation made contact with them 60 years ago, and that was okay because it didn’t involve a starship? I feel like the Prime Directive must have been a concept the writers were still figuring out. Then again, the Federation does seem to have some fairly arbitrary rules.

[unhumanrights]

Spell Trek brainstorms

Okay, so I thought it would be a good time to start brainstorming Spell Trek in earnest, since I’m giving my T’Lyn/Mariner/Tendi fic chapter a few days to marinate (probably pick it up tomorrow, actually). I decided to live-blog my thoughts and just go through the entire process here because why not. It will be messy, but fun. Plus, people could leave feedback if they wished. Maybe I’ll change my mind later, but for now, you all will witness the process. Might leave some questions unanswered, but I can at least go through possibilities. Let’s go!

In case you haven’t seen me talk about it before, and in case the naming wasn’t too obvious, Spell Trek is my fantasy conversion of Star Trek. While I’m a fan of some sci-fi (obviously), I am personally a fantasist, so I thought this would be a good way for me to write slightly bigger stories than I could if I stuck to the canon universe. My knowledge of science is not extensive. Magic, I can do.

I guess the best place to start is with the big stuff and work my way down. So, what’s the cosmology of this setting? Obviously, the original Trek is in space. Should I basically just keep it space, but magic? Planets, nebula, black holes? Maybe it would be analogous to space, but modified. Actually, if you’ve ever heard of Spelljammer, that’s a possible way to do it. I don’t know much about the setting, but I skimmed the Wikipedia article for it, and it’s kind of what I’m talking about. Might have to do more research into it.

Perhaps instead of traveling through space, it’s all interplanar travel? Each species could come from a different dimensional plane instead of planet. Might be some kind of “space” between planes that the ships would travel through, which is where the actual space stuff would occur and would allow for actual travel instead of just blinking from plane to plane. Almost the same as the previous paragraph, I guess, just…worded differently. Planets, planes, same diff. Yeah, it’s pretty much the same concept. Magic space.

It COULD all take place on one world, and each species is a different race and nation. Kind of limits the scope, though, unless I introduce some ways to expand it, like the Underdark, parallel planes, etc. Still would have a physical limit. Unless…it didn’t? Okay, THIS is new to my brain. When I’ve thought about the possible setting before, I’ve usually thought about the previous two paragraphs, really sticking as close as possible to outer space. I briefly imagined it as one world before, but dismissed it due to limited space, and therefore lacking in terms of exploration. But what if…the landscape just had no known limit? One unending (as far as anyone knows) physical landmass/watermass? Could still have ships, but they would be airships instead. Warp could still work, as the landscape is basically infinite. Exploration is still doable. It being a flat world instead of 3D space, that would make travel slightly different, but that’s not important. Actually, maybe the travel could still be 3D? Could have underground species, perhaps landmasses in the sky, too. Or maybe…what if there are multiple physical planes stacked on top of one another? A big lasagna of reality. Cosmology is fun to play around with, huh?

Well, this brainstorming session has given me some things to think about. To summarize, it seems like I have two options for the overall setting (with some sub-options thrown in):

Basically outer space, but magic instead of science (like Spelljammer).

Replace the infinite space with infinite landmass and watermass (and possibly multiple layers).

Not sure which I prefer. I like the latter because it’s the shiny new idea I just came up with, and I wouldn’t have to worry about astrophysics or anything like that, but I guess I could always fudge it all if it’s magic anyway.

Is anyone reading this? If you want to give an opinion, you can. Oh hey, I can do a poll! I love you, Tumblr. So just take the poll. Well, you can reply or reblog/tag too, if you want, but if the poll is easier for you, by all means.

Okay, bye now.

[talenlee]

Pride Month 2024!

It’s the introduction of another theme month, and this time around it’s the month of Corporations Conspicuously Caring About Queer People, and people showing their ass about how good or bad they are about publically presenting information about types of queerness. I’m sure I’ve said something aphobic on a June, but also, my hand has been stabbed, you know I’m from inside the city and I’m not doing these things out of a desire to support the structure and you know, watching, listening, learning and growing, apology video on my Patreon. Joking aside, point is, you know what kind of person I am and why I might say ‘faggotry.’

Anyway, time to talk about what to expect in Pride Month and what it means. And I need to do it without just pointing directly to the article I wrote on this from last year that I honestly think is kind of perfect for summarising my feelings about why we need Pride Month and why I do Pride Month content in Pride Month.

I think I’ve softened a lot on ‘queer media’ in the month. Not as that implies – I’m not about to act like Fire Emblem or Persona series games are games to talk about in this period in the way to promote them. I know that ‘Queer Media’ was an umbrella opened up over things that were in many cases actively awful about and to queer readings, and that used to drive me nuts. I’d put out the call like ‘hey, does anyone know media with this [trait]’ and despite media of that trait existing I’d get someone popping up to talk to me about something horrendously not an answer to the problem and then someone else well-meaning would take this as a conversation about that thing and not about my initial question and suddenly I was dealing with people babbling about something that was actively irritating me.

Originally I had some pretty stringent views on queer media. It was something in the vein that the work needed to explicitly have at least one queer character who was specifically and correctly defined by the narrative, rather than it being impressions and vibes. The idea I think I had was something to the effect of trying to forward media created for queer purposes rather than just relying on fan media to build up the queerness around it.

This particular position softened, of all things, because of Star Trek: Deep Space 9. And make no mistake: I don’t actually think that highly of the bulk of a series about a religious motivated dad leading a specialist religious movement where the whole story farts out at the end. It’s the 90s, it’s a Star Trek, they’re all a bit rough and ropy, whatever. But for a time there I kinda had a negative view of the Garak/Bashir relationship that was treated as a element of the show’s queer representation. And like, that was interesting but it was also very much not text – we get to see Garak even establish a relationship with… a really creepy young lady, but whatever whatever that’s not important.

The point is that I thought that that was basically something like fanon. It seemed a kind of compromise, and I think I didn’t need that kind of compromise was acceptable. I wanted to platform queer media and that meant indulging in smaller and more indie work in an attempt to platform people.

Low key, this was a way in which I acted as if the creator of a work is a person who even exists, and that’s just not true.

And then we got to see interviews, now, decades later, with the actors – both of them – who played those characters, who made it very, very clear: Garak is trying to get Bashir into bed. This relationship is not straight. It has that tension, it’s not a thing we’re imagining, it’s a thing they tried to put into the story. And sure, they are, at this point, the same as fans, but they’re fans who had the choice to actually influence the making of the work. By discarding Deep Space 9 from ‘Queer Media’ because it’s not Queer enough I’m creating the impression that queer creators don’t get to be included because they might have been filtering their work through other lenses. It reminds me of Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette, where again, they said in response to the request for lesbian content, ‘I was on stage the whole time.’

Plus, I mean, most of the media I make, the books and the games and the TTRPG stuff, that’s all queer content but you’ll find surprisingly few directions of who sucks or fucks what or does not ever suck or fuck. One Stone doesn’t have a seriously straight character in the entire dialogue and I’ve written about how Cobrin’Seil is a world where ‘queer identities’ don’t even come up because the idea of queerness you exist with is a modern construct and if nobody wrote a book about how it was messed up in the modernist era, then there might be a wholly different set of values about that. The main way stuff I make ‘is queer’ is as a byproduct of me being the one who made it, which is to say I’ve gotten my queer cooties all over things, and if that’s the case then I kinda gotta be a little more giving to the work that is even aggressively heterosexual because it’s still art by queer artists working within constraints that were ultimately, not ideal.

Anyway, point is that that means that I was willing to approach the Pride Month media with a slightly wider arm, to grab in stuff that may have more of these transient properties, more work that’s made to highlight someone who is or has that queer element, someone bringing something to the forefront that isn’t necessarily as nakedly, tangibly obvious as like, the gag at the end of Paranorman. I got to watch a bunch of youths watch The Matrix for the first time last month and it was a trip watching as people who grew up in the world it shaped who had no idea how freaking queer it was.

The bricks the flower breaks to bloom are part of why and how it blossoms.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[sshbpodcast]

Wake me when Season 1 of Enterprise gets interesting

by Ames

Season one of Enterprise just seemed to fly by, and thank goodness because we’re not finding it all that great, to be honest. Too much of it feels like more of the same stories that previous Treks have already told way better, but with less likable characters, less nuanced writing, and so much sexual objectification that we feel ill just watching it sometimes.

Sure, it’s still probably better than season one of TNG, which had more objectively BAD episodes, but it’s surprising to your hosts here at A Star to Steer Her By just how boring this show is so far. We’ve noted a bunch of times over in our podcast coverage that there never seems to be any stakes because every opportunity for some character (main, side, guest, even background) to get killed, they never do. So grab your phase pistol and see what we had to wade through to get here in our usual bottom and top episodes from the season below and also in this week’s podcast chat (jump to 56:26 for season discussion). Cap’n.

[images © CBS/Paramount]

Bottom Three Episodes

There was a lot to dislike this season and I’m pretty sure we covered most of this season’s dreck in our typically varied responses here. Good work, “Cold Front,” you managed to squeak through somehow despite that terrible airlock scene.

“The Andorian Incident”: Ames If you’ve been following along with our podcast coverage, you’re probably as tired of me hating on Archer as I am of Archer hating on Vulcans, and this is where that sour taste really transpired. It’s a whole episode of our captain going lightyears out of his way to ruin some Vulcans’ day and then patting himself on the back for being justified about being so racist.

“Silent Enemy”: Chris Talk about uneven. What was almost an intriguing suspense episode about the crew being wholly unprepared for the kinds of enemies you find in space is thoroughly undercut by a mismatched B plot that, while cute, is distracting as hell, and by some really laughable alien design. At least Reed gets some pineapple cake.

“Fight or Flight”: Jake Poor Sluggo, we hardly knew thee. Boy, does this show start off with characters it’s just hard to care about. We’ve got Hoshi being pathetic in an “overcoming your fears” plotline so predictable I could have called every beat. And Archer simultaneously being indecisive and whining about his decisions at the same time. And then the metaphor with releasing the slug doesn’t even mesh!

“Fortunate Son”: Jake While it’s unfortunate how little Mayweather gets to do, I can’t say I feel that bad about it considering that everything he does get to do in this episode is annoying as hell. We’d love to see more about his upbringing as a boomer and the culture clash therein, but this episode botches it hard by making all the Fortunate crew assholes!

“Broken Bow”: Caitlin, Chris The whole series really gets off on the wrong foot with a premiere that is simultaneously too little and too much all at once. Between the Klingons, the Suliban, the Vulcans, the flashback scenes with Archer’s dad, the weird time room with the Humanoid Figure, AND introducing us to the whole crew, there are too many things happening, but absolutely none of them are interesting!

“Dear Doctor”: Ames, Caitlin All season long, we’ve been struggling with what we think of the Phlox character, and it mostly boils down to us finding him offputting. So of course the most Phlox-centric episode is in our bottoms list. Certainly helping matters is the fact that both Phlox AND the writers don’t understand evolution at all and use that as an excuse to genocide a people. Oops.

“Fusion”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris, Jake But the one that gets votes from all your SSHB hosts is the episode that sexually exploits the token hot character, as always. Hang on, that doesn’t narrow it down. It’s the one with the mind rapist Vulcan who takes advantage of T’Pol, entirely muddying whatever message about Vulcans this whole season was trying to make. Turns out they’re ALL just monsters, but in different ways, except for one you’ll see in our top episodes.

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Top Three Episodes

It’s hard to call these “top” episodes of anything, as you’ll see we all pretty much agreed on two episodes this season that were genuinely enjoyable, and each of us frankly struggled to think of a third that we could see giving any accolades to...

“Acquisition”: Chris Listen, we don’t like it any more than you do, but there weren’t enough decent episodes this season and Chris had to include this retread of much better episodes. But you know what: the Ferengi hit us right in the fanservice spot, the veteran alumni are all pros, and aside from all the oomox, it was at least entertaining.

“Oasis”: Jake Back when we were covering season 2 of DS9, Jake put “Shadowplay” on his tops list, so it’s only fitting that he essentially do it again with this carbon copy of an episode. I guess there’s nothing wrong with doing the same idea twice when it’s a good one like this. It’s even got Rene Auberjonois! What’s not to like?

“Fallen Hero”: Caitlin One more “I know that face!” episode coaxing an emotional reaction out of us, which is almost certainly exactly what the show wanted to achieve. In this case, we have to give Fionnula Flanagan some credit for bringing some much needed nuance to the Vulcans, who badly needed it this season.

“Vox Sola”: Ames The final one-off episode that we scraped up to include on this list. And no, it’s not perfect by any stretch, but I have to give it some credit for giving us a truly alien alien, which I’m always a fan of watching our crew interact with. And T’Pol and Sato got to have some scenes together, which is a nice character pairing!

“Shockwave, Part I”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris, Jake Thank goodness for this season finale. Without it, I have no idea how deep into the bench we’d have to dig for other Top Episodes. But I have to hand it to this finale: this was the first time I felt like there were stakes and consequences. And what a cliffhanger! Say what you will about the Temporal Cold War, but seeing a ravaged 31st century scene sure makes things interesting.

“Shuttlepod One”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris, Jake But the one episode I can say we all legitimately liked this season was one of the great bottle episodes of Trek. Proving yet again that less is more, this little character piece leans on the acting chops of Connor Trineer and Dominic Keating, whose chemistry together is lovely to watch. Just super solid all around.

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Pass the pecan pie, the rocky road ice cream, and the pineapple cake; we’re on for dessert! We’re hoping season two shapes up better overall than this one, so find out with us as we watch along in our podcast coverage over on SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcasts, bounce a message off of Echo One on Facebook and Twitter, and get me a spoon!