#fault accidents

[scribblestatic]

So, you know how lanolin smells really nice to cats?

Well, Narinder is super standoffish after he's indoctrinated, but as time goes on, he finally starts putting some of his barriers down.

He sleeps in his own hut for a while, but he can't sleep well. He's not used to sleep. The Lamb only does it because "it's comforting" or something, but he hasn't done it in so long. So really, he's just been awake the whole time and increasingly cranky about it.

So Lamb, seeing him struggle to stay awake while working in the garden, pulls him over to their hut to talk out why he's not sleeping.

But Narinder starts dozing off within moments. Because Lamb's hut smells like them. Smells like their wool. Smells like lanolin.

And it's got him slumped on Lamb's couch, third eyelid partway over his squinted eyes, pupils blown wide as he purrs and sinks his claws into their cushions.

When he wakes up several hours later, he doesn't know what the hell happened.

Lamb simply smiles and sends him back home with a new blanket, made from a recent sheer.

Narinder calls the blanket gross.

He yowls like he's going to cause Armageddon if it goes missing.

[phoenixcatch7]

Dp x dc twin au where Danny and Damian were in fact conjoined/siamese twins, but the most dangerous type - one head, two bodies.

Their early removal from talia being because their shape would not have allowed for natural birth, they were written off but talia begged for the chance to send them off in the lazarus pit.

By some bizarre miracle, before she turned to leave, two small bodies bobbed to the surface - identical in every way, except for the eyes. The previous blue eyes now split in two, one left, one right, and the new eyes, pit created, a bright green.

She took her child, her two children, and together, they survived.

Being removed prematurely, their early years were tough, but soon they blossomed into promising heirs for the league. In sync with every step, the closest of brothers, the league was certain the old fairy tale of twins being telepathic had been granted by the pit that separated them, the remnants of being born as one mind, one brain, one skull.

But then Danny had to flee, and leave his other half behind. Stretched by distance for the first time, the bond grew thin and stretched, and Damian grieved his brother as dead. When he started being sent on public missions, he hid his distinctive heterochromia, choosing the green in memory of the pit that had given him and his brother life.

Danny, hiding his pit aura in the ocean's worth that was Amity park, took to blue, the colour that he and Damian were born with.

Damian moves to Gotham, and continues to mourn his brother as dead, right until one day when he is twelve, when he learns what the death of your other half truly feels like.

-

Their reunion is a thing of family legend. Violence runs hot in both bloodlines, ghosts are highly emotional and prone to fighting a the drop of a hat for bonding, playing, testing, every reason under the green sun. Their training and play often consisted of friendly spars, competitive spars, furious spars, venting spars. Both have been exposed to unhealthy amounts of ecto since before their birth.

There is a long, long minute of staring, before they rip themselves away and lunge at each other like wolves.

The bat family are horrified by their brutally efficient youngest suddenly barreling towards a clone (?) and trying to claw his throat open with his bare hands while openly sobbing.

It ends with them wrapped around each other crying into the others shoulder as their minds finally meet again and relax from the painful stretch for the first time in years.

But nobody else has any idea what to do.

[astarionancuntnin]

yooo they turned the nerd emoji into a real thing

gale + text posts (part 2)

[deserthusbands]

cody, finally done with the finishing touches on his armour: do you think different paints have different tastes?

obi-wan, not looking up from his work: they do.

cody: ...why did you say that with such certainty?

[daily-odile]

odile in hsr outfits my beloved (ref below)

[lleclerc]

iceman + his concern for maverick post-hop 31

[tashiduncandonaldson]

and if i say that tashi’s injury was truly a freak accident that would’ve happened regardless of the dorm room fight, and neither art nor patrick is to blame for it, what then?

[mayapapaya33]

I feel like all of the "Ludinus is Right the Gods are bad" brigade are conveniently forgetting the dude who released Asmodeus and started off the Calamity was a mortal who fucked up big time trying to ascend like the Matron. Vespin Chloras is to blame for the Calamity kicking off. Not the Prime Deities. The Betrayers were sealed away, and he staged a prison break. That's a mortal failing. Not the God's fault.

Sure, their slug fest destroyed giant swathes of the world, but they wouldn't BE fighting if he hadn't done that. The fight was done, they were sealed. The Primes are fighting with the Betrayers over their desire to kill all the mortals. That's their disagreement. "Us" being alive. Everyone saying "oh clearly the Gods just don't care because of X, Y, and Z" are just flat out not paying attention. If they didn't care, everyone would already be dead, and the family would be back together. Why would they be fighting each other if they didn't care?

(Also, Luda is a big hypocrite, when the Gods destroy a city, one that threatened their very existence, they're monsters, but when he does it for much less good reasons imho it's totally fine/ a necessary evil... ok, sure dude).

[its-hai-time]

Me: I don't understand people who project their experiences onto fictional characters, the beauty is that they're *not* you

Also me after one incredibly minor fender bender: I have to write Klavier Gavin getting into a car accident or I will explod

[pricetagged]

sacrum

It's not denial, and it's not grief. How can it be when you're not dead? Or: Simon visits your tomb. It wouldn't be the first time he got grave dirt under his fingernails.

2.7k words. GN reader.

Warnings: death; grief; unhealthy coping methods; denial; mild gore and horror; references to ghost's past (being buried alive); implied character death; unhealthy thoughts; grave digging (simon literally tries to dig you up).; unedited.

Look after yourselves please. Read the tags and skip if necessary 💖

_____________

He is overwhelmed with the smell of rot.

That sickly, sweet scent of decay. Vegetation and plant matter transmuting into sticky, pulpy mulch, life rendered into dirt. It's the white lilies that bother him specifically. They're resting there, creamy white petals blooming open and speckled with dustings of heady, brown pollen. It's like looking at his own pale, wan face dusted with pockmarks and freckles, a grotesque mirror image. Beauty and rage. He looks at them and they look back, open and pretty and sweet where he is not.

And they reek. In this place of dirt, in this place of twigs and soil and peaty, earthy humus how did they spray their perfume? An altogether too syrupy, cloying bouquet that stagnates around you, settles at his feat like dense, soupy fog.

He knew that you hated them - funeral flowers, you called them- and he scoffs, toeing at one of the drooping, lurid white petals until it wilts underfoot. Lachrymose, it seems to weep great fat droplets of dew or oil or whatever it is that cries out wet with a wave of pungent redolence. You hated them, and it's so fucking stupid that they're here now because you aren't dead.

He'd nearly bitten Johnny's head off when he asked about your favourite flowers, the sergeant's voice pitched low and thick like he'd half-swallowed the words before they'd even come out. 'Dinnae want to get her something she wouldnae like, but my ma always said that carnations were fittin' for-' the rest of the words seemed to whither, choked like weeds under the weight of his glare. He wasn't quite sure what he said next, only remembering the stricken, glassy look in Soaps eyes and then the weight of his Captain's hand on his shoulder hauling him out for some air. He'd shrugged that off, too. Roughly. Circled around to face him like a dog in a pit. His teeth ached, itched to bite, clamp down and shake and tear, but even mad dogs know not to bite the hand that feeds them. Instead, he'd bristled, hackles raised high as he shoulder-checked Gaz on his way back inside.

Heard them whisper, too, as he passed, hushed and soft like they were all too aware of his pricked ears and quivering, hungry jaw. Mandated compassionate leave, numbers for bereavement counsellors. Denial. Grief. It's a load of shit.

Holding back the words feels like throwing grit on the fire; it's a battle, suppressing the heat and the rage but feeling it pop and spark and simmer beneath the surface. It's not denial and it's not grief. How can it be when you're not dead? He'd crumpled the order of service program, all crisp white parchment and serif-fonted verses. He'd held it so tightly in his shaking hand that it tore and cracked, card-type rendered to clay under his heavy fingerprints. He held it like that, thought about ripping or tossing it but your face looked back at him from the front page.

Smiling. Beautiful. Flat.

True, it wasn't you, but how could he ever damage something made in your image?

It was that pamphlet that led him here, now. He hadn't attended the service, hadn't wanted anything to do with that absolute farce. Had ignored the phone calls, the knocks on the door. You were not dead, and he was not alive. True to his callsign, he existed in some hazy, temporal space. Sustained on rollie cigarettes and tepid tea. It gave his hands something to do, thumbing at filters and glossy, thin paper in lieu of something worse. In lieu of his darker vices. In lieu of disappearing altogether into The Ghost. Faceless form. Nameless, too. But even smoke and shadows move, and he found himself turned Orpheus, drifting past the souls and shades of the departed until-

Until he's face-to-face with those lilies and that little patch of moss on the corner of your grave. Just a little speck of green against black marble. Typical of you, to bring life into desolate spaces. For you to furnish something soft and verdant where others see only hard, cold, dark. You'd burrowed deep into his driftwood body, a little seed that cared not for his splinters and hollowness. He'd been shaped, fractured, by salt and pressure. Twisted into some gnarled, dead branch but maybe that was the beauty of it. Maybe that was a portent, a sign, that he could be useful to you. That you could climb on, cling on and let him pull you up. That you were nestled inside, marrow deep in the mulchy, spongey hollows of his bones. Not hard enough or weathered enough by yourself. No sun-bleached, ossein outer shell of your own.

No matter.

The soil was strangely warm, piled high, and packed tight above where you lay. He dug his hands in, scarred, meaty paws chasing the warmth that surely was coming from you. It was wrong, actually, to say that it was strange. Anywhere that housed you would be warm. He was. His lungs were burning, squeezing at him, oxygen burning like bourbon as it whistled down his throat and smouldered in his belly. His face was cold, though, mouth and nose numb and something wet leaking and pooling down at his chin where he's tugged down his mask. Confusion titled his head, eyes closed towards the sky, neck arched in the closest he'd come to prayer in years. It wasn't raining, but something was dripping down his face.

He'd knelt like this before, put loved ones into the earth and stood stoic under the pitiful gazes and awkward, pinched smiles of acquaintances and strangers. Unbidden, the words from Tommy's - god, Tommy, Joseph, Beth - funeral echoed through his mind. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable.

He'd done it.

Walked in shadow steps across the Mexican border leaking blood and viscera, yes, but undead. It is raised in glory, it is sown in weakness. He'd clawed his way out once. Dragged his weak, struggling body to the surface to draw gasping, ash-tainted breaths and haunt the earth again. He'd help you do the same. You need him to.

Soft thing. You needed him to help you claw at the rich, grave dirt above your body, great scooping handfuls until his hands were stained with it. It was keeping you down there all compressed and boxed in, and he just knows you'd hate it. Hate being from him, hate being alone and in the dark listening only to the writhing of worms and the footfalls from above. You'd always cry a little when he was deployed, resigned and beautiful as you sniffled your farewells. Not goodbyes, superstition or hope preventing you from ever uttering words so final. So severe.

It's not goodbye if I'll see you later!

He swatted hard at his ear, his temples, fingers puppeted by paroxysm as the rich, peaty marl below him turned to dust and loam. Just for a second. Just for a whisper, the air he was breathing was thin and acrid and tasted like sand. He squeezed his eyes shut, screwed so tight that phosphenes danced behind the lids. One breath. Another. He could feel the soil caking and cracking on his skin, smell the heady, peaty turf and he was back.

The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. There was no Vernon here. No Manuel Roba, no Zaragoza Cartel. Just you, the dirt, and the foolish reaper that thought it could keep you from him.

After all those years grave dirt lingered beneath his fingers. It slotted in, filled in the groves of his knuckles and nailbeds like the tide returning to rockpools and crags along the shore. His body was made for this, forged by this, hewn from rock and dirt and left to shamble in the shape of a man. It's why he was numb to it, why stones crumbled to pumice dust as he clawed ever deeper. It was easy to ignore the jagged little pits of sediment that dug under his nails, stabbing until he dripped red from the quick. Watering your grave, he gave an offering of blood, sweat, and tears. You must have accepted this tribute, been satisfied in this champion for your soul because he felt something tugging at his chest. Deep, behind muscle and fat and gristle his heart sped up. Pounding so hard it nearly hit his ribs. He could feel it, see it when he closed his eyes. His red string connected to yours, all twisted and threadbare and fraying where it bored down into the earth, but still there. Still vibrant and raw and red.

And so close.

It was different digging down. When he'd first been reborn, he'd had company. There was him, and a lump of festering meat. A sack of bones moldering beside him in the casket. Dead and useless. Until it wasn't. Until he'd nearly passed out twice, arm shaking and stomach seizing as he raised his broken fingers to what used to be its face. There was no air, just lungs heavy with copper and carbon. He'd been hysterically lucid, thankful that that sick fucks had at least broken his nose before they tossed him in the pit. Probably severed his olfactory nerves but it was a blessing, really, not to smell the putrid, festering thing that was oozing over his fingers as he scratched and gouged until he hit bone. He had enough of his senses to kick at the boards above him, contorting around the hollow spots in the hope that the pressure of the dirt wouldn't do him in. Not killed by fucking soil, not when the bastards who wanted him dead had already tried and failed with greater means.

Digging up was like drowning. Like being dragged away by a current, water pressing and squeezing at your head until your ears popped and your eyes bulged.

It was fighting the urge to breathe, body struggling and kicking so hard against a nature that didn't care. Cruelty from indifference. Lactic acid burning and cramping through muscles that you couldn’t stop moving. Stop moving and you're dead for real. Digging up was rage and hope, something fiery and heavy pulsing under the skin. He remembered some poem he had to memorise back at the state comprehensive. Hope is the thing with feathers. He was shit at English, never cared for it. But he remembered that because it was so bloody trite. He'd told the teacher, first time he'd ever volunteered an answer in her class, and she screwed her nose up at him. Sent him out for cheek. Only it wasn’t cheek. Hope was the worm wriggling around in his guts. The stupid parasite that fed off his fear and made him wonder if he could be purged of it. Those same maggots writhed in his guts, wriggling and squirming as he kicked and pulled up. And up. And up.

Digging down, though. Digging down was harder. He wasn't getting dragged down by the current; no, he was sloshing great bucketfuls of water behind him, wondering why the ocean wasn't yet drained. It was frustrating, endless. Some kind of wank Greek tragedy where he'd been cursed to repeat the same task, over and over again. To have what he wanted, just out of reach, the finishing line set and reset at someone else's whim. Tantalus, Orpheus, Prometheus. He knew what they'd done to offend the Gods, but what about him? What bargain had Shepard and Price struck to have him back? To have him stalk and hunt under their flags, their causes. Would you disappear forever, trapped in the caves of the underworld if he tried to look at you one last time?

His body wasn’t his anymore, hadn't been for a while. Not since Mexico, and maybe even before that. He was more ghoul than man then. Some kind of shambling hellhound they set loose and tasked to kill. But his body wasn't theirs either, not anymore. He'd folded you inside himself so carefully. Made a home for his heart and yours in the cradle of his ribs until he wasn't sure where yours began and his ended. He gave his body in service to you. His heart, his mind, the gristle of his ugly mug - all those chunks of meat were yours. What use was he, then, if he couldn't protect you?

Six-foot-something and 200lbs of weapon rendered flesh, and you're damned bloody right he'd use it to reach you.

Except, something was broken. Salt stung at his eyes; whether perspiration or tears he wasn't entirely sure. Because there were tears, he could admit that now. He could admit that to the magpies watching him from the cracked, weather-worn tombstones littered around. He could admit that in the thick silence - heh, quiet as the grave - settling eerily as dusk fell like a blanket.

'Fuck.'

Regret punched him in the liver, bent and stooped him under his face was buried in the upturned earth below his hands. The first word he'd said to you since his last mission and it was 'fuck'. He didn't even say it properly, just gasped it out as he crumpled in on himself like wet tissue. Voice all damp and cracking like even that one word didn't want to come out. Soul of a poet, him.

You knew he wasn't a man of many words, though. You'd forgive him.

He was tired now. Exertion drank from him, stripped him down to his crypt-cold bones. He didn't think ghosts got tired, but here he was shaking and kneeling in the hollow of your grave like a starving mutt. Pawing and pawing at you until his nails cracked and his fingers bled. It was sapping out of him, now, candle in his chest flickering lower as he got closer and closer to where you were waiting for him. His face was wet, the wind stinging at bitter trails that swelled over his pallid cheeks. Blinking sluggishly, he licked at his cracked lips. Apprehension lingered there, danced along the seam for a second.

Whatever he finds down there, whatever state you are in he will join. You will rise together or rot together, there is no other way this can go.

His breaths catch in his ribs, jumping too quickly past his diaphragm but not quite strong enough to breach. Instead, they flutter downwards. Or something does, something sets his fingers to shake as they brush against polished wood slick with condensation. It's so cold, you must be so fucking cold in there. It sounds hollow, too, knock reverberating like a church bell from where his clumsy, swollen knuckles bump across the lid.

A person cannot enter the realm of the dead more than once. Not while they're alive. So this is it.

And he's so tired, thoughts turning sluggish and foggy as he folds his body over yours. There's just that panel of wood separating you now. The closest you've been to each other in weeks. Christ, he's given so much of himself already. So much, from such a young age. He's not sure he could even go on without giving, without a mission. But he swore to you, swore just before he left that this was the last one. Told you that he'd speak to Price, ask for family leave or an active service break or something so that you and he -

so that -

so-

Fuck, he couldn't quite catch the thought before it slipped away. Couldn't quite get his eyes to open, either. Just feathery lashes fluttering against his cheekbones until he gave in. Until he let them drift shut.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to fall asleep here. Just you and him, together. He could picture it; your head must be somewhere just below his. You'd probably tucked a hand under your cheek, angled slightly to the right so that he could reach out and touch you from his left. His hand slid across the slick, dirt speckled board, tapping out the syllables of your name with his fingertips. Curled around each other, forever, in the cold, dark earth.

________________

Sorry, I hurt our boy 😢 Not really confident in doing Simon's PoV - I always write from reader's perspective but, uhh, not really possible here. Just had to get the idea out bc it's been rolling around in here, gathering dust. Maybe it's been done before? Idk.

Some biblical, wuthering heights, and Greek myth references. And no shade to emily dickinson; that's ghost's opinion, not mine!

Knight ghost part ii will be out this week (finally lol, yay). Then some of the other stuff I've banged on about.

[cherrypicked-pearls]

[starry-bi-sky]

Clone^2 danny headcanons and/or facts that i wanted to expand on but didn't have the motivation or inspiration to write a ficlet about. Ultimately most of these are ideas that already exist in canon clone^2 but are only now being expanded on/explored/stated specifically.

Because I'm procrasinating cfau and passively thinking about clone danny and damian again.

1 - As he's liminal, Danny generates his own ectoplasm. He generates it at a slower rate than the casual ghost but faster than the average liminal. It's what gives him an ecto-signature and results in him triggering his parents' weapons and ecto-sensors.

The ectoplasm he generates actually has a use, and he tends to burn through his supply while he's fighting because of all the physical energy he spends + the use of his scary eyes requires (albeit really minor amounts of) ectoplasm to use. It also has health benefits, as using his ectoplasm keeps his heartbeat steady and lessens the risk of his arrhythmia flaring up due to all of his physical activity and adrenaline.

It does happen occasionally that he uses up more ectoplasm than he can replace, and this has the expected negative effects on his health as all that adrenaline and stress catches up to his heart without a buffer to mitigate it. He carries a canteen full of diluted ectoplasm with him in order to give his system the boost it needs in order to stabilize itself, which he can usually tell when he needs due to excessive fatigue/chest pains/dizziness/other arrhythmia symptoms he gets that means he's low on ectoplasm.

2 - Danny's arrhythmia is a form of bradycardia (which is a slower heartbeat) -- what type? Unspecified / Unknown thanks to it being ectoplasmic in nature.

3 - In that same breath, Danny also has to burn that ectoplasm off in some form or another because if he doesn't it builds up and causes him the same issues as if he was too low. It also causes him to become more emotionally volatile, restless, irritable, overstimulated, etc, which the stress of that then makes his heart condition worsen. If too much ectoplasm builds up, it'll cause a physical electrical shock/shortage. This is rare however, and usually is the equivalent of giving someone a painful static shock. At best it makes the lights flicker or technology fritz out for a few seconds.

While it doesn't have much effect on the physical world, it does expend a good chunk of ectoplasm. Think like dumping out a heavy bucket of water that you've been carrying for a while, or getting into a hot shower after being outside in the cold for hours. It's emotionally draining but very relieving.

4 - Danny can replenish ectoplasm or generate ectoplasm faster by resting, eating, consuming other ectoplasm (fastest), fulfilling his interests / doing things that makes him happy, or by being exposed to high amounts of ectoplasm in the area. He can also rapidly generate it by being in a volatile emotional state, but that drains ectoplasm almost as quickly, and runs the risk of causing flare ups in his arrhythmia.

5 - this is actually canon to the au but I figured it wouldn't hurt to expand more on it / clarify / confirm, but Danny post-Damian has chronic pain in his hands from the nerve damage he sustained. He has daily physical therapy exercises he's supposed to do that he does in the mornings/evenings and whenever his hands hurt/feel stiff. He wears compression gloves in his day-to-day life and gets Sam and Tucker's help to brainstorm ideas about how to make compression gloves for Phantom that can include his knuckledusters. His grip and hand strength is weakened.

He has bad hand days where his hands hurt more than usual. This can happen at random, but is more common after he's overused/strained his hands either the day before or earlier in the day. His fingers stiffen up for similar reasons, and he gets tremors. It's happened before where (for example) he's braiding his hair and unbraiding it, only to need someone else to finish the braid because his fingers stiffened up and don't want to work like he wants them to.

Massages, heat, pressure, etc. helps soothe the pain, and since Danny's a fidgety person his friends and family can usually tell when he has a flare up because any hand movements he was doing prior ceased/slowed suddenly, or he starts massaging his hands / stretching out his fingers.

Damian very stubbornly insists on massaging his hands for him when this happens, he has a lot of intense guilt for being the reason for Danny's chronic pain so he wants to alleviate it in anyway he can.

6 - Danny has what I like to call "Bruce-isms", a word I came up with just now that means he has Bruce Wayne mannerisms that come from the fact that he's still Bruce's clone. A Nature vs. Nurture thing. His Bruce-isms include the Bruce Grunts Of Ambiguous Tonal Meaning ("hm", "hrm", "hn"), his workaholism, his paranoia (on a milder scale), etc. They're small, relatively non-defining things that are quirks but don't make up his personality.

He's got what Sam and Tucker like to call "Bruce Wayne Moments" which are essentially Bruce-isms but only ones that Danny and his friends are aware of considering they only know Bruce as Brucie Wayne and not Batman. "Bruce Wayne Moments" include Danny being clumsy, doing something air-headed, being oblivious, etc. It's not a common joke among the three of them since Tucker and Sam know that Danny's still pr sensitive to the whole clone thing. So they only bring it up when he's done something stupid but hilarious.

7 - while clone^2 focuses more on Danny and Damian's relationship and Danny helping Damian develop his identity beyond just "Damian Wayne's Clone", Danny still suffers from his own identity crises. He sometimes gets jealous of Ellie and Damian for being "lucky" that they always knew they were clones, rather than finding out later in life.

He's aware that this is not fair to think and that Damian and Ellie both have their own struggles as clones, but he can't help it sometimes.

He tries not to think about it too much, but when things get too quiet or when he's not busy, Danny can't help but wonder how much of himself is things he's learned on his own and come from him, and how much of it comes from being Bruce Wayne's clone. He has to stop and count how many things are unique about him specifically when he starts to emotionally spiral. It's not rational, but it's not supposed to be.

As a result Danny kinda, hm, clings to his identity as the Phantom, just a little bit? He thinks it's one of the few things that he has autonomous control over as "Danny Fenton", rather than it being a result of him being Bruce Wayne's clone. Because Bruce Wayne isn't a vigilante! Right? Right?

Consequently this becomes one of the reasons that Damian keeps mum about Bruce Wayne's identity. The original reasons were because Danny asked not to know much about the LoA beyond what Damian already told him, and Batman was technically "apart" of the LoA, and secondly because he just didn't want Danny to get involved with Batman and co and Danny knowing about Bruce Wayne's identity could potentially cause that.

But as time goes on Damian kinda notices like, just how being a clone is affecting Danny even if he hides it from Damian pretty well. He can't really comprehend what it was like for Danny to grow up thinking he was normal like everyone else only to find out he was a clone, but he does see the hurt it's causing his brother. And he does notice that Danny was holding onto being Phantom quite a bit, and figured that if he found out Bruce Wayne was also a vigilante, it would hurt him beyond belief.

8 - So Danny's creation has been kept relatively,,, mmm,,, vague? considering I've been struggling for a time how I could plausibly have his creation happen without Bruce finding out about it immediately. And my conclusion is that around the time Danny was created, Bruce met up with the Fenton parents again for some reason or another -- checking out their tech under the guise of wanting to catch up with them.

And I can imagine that, due to being close friends in college, the Fentons literally just outright told him, "Hey we wanna 'nother kid but don't want to go through the risk of pregnancy again, so we're gonna make a clone of one of us instead"

and in true Bruce fashion, he mentally went "wow i should learn Everything And Anything About This Thing Specifically. Just In Case." and outwardly went "woah cool! ahaha how does it work"

and since the Fentons consider Bruce a close friend and are also incapable of Not Talking About Science, turned and went "OH WE CAN SHOW YOU" and showed Bruce their entire cloning process up to and including how they (safely) extracted the DNA they were gonna use. of which they already had. they were gonna just extract Jack's DNA a second time as an example, but it was Bruce who said "hey you should try me instead" in order to gauge how exactly safe this was and if there were any symptoms he would need to recognize in cloning.

so with his consent they did, and then showed him how they were going to use the DNA to make a clone without actually going through the process. Without prompting from Bruce, the Fentons went "we're gonna throw your DNA away though since we don't want this lying around and because we have no use for it" and visibly showed him that they were disposing it.

Bruce came to the conclusion that the Fentons weren't planning anything nefarious, they just really wanted another kid, and (reluctantly) left afterwards. The mixup comes when Maddie, surprisingly, misplaces the cartridge with Jack's DNA in it and while they could have always gotten another sample, it was better and safer to just try and find the original before that.

Jack finds Bruce's in their disposable. In his excitement, he forgets that it was Bruce's DNA, and manages to get it out safely. Maddie wasn't looking when he found it, and in her excitement also forgot to ask where Jack found it. They used that cartridge instead.

When they found out they used the wrong DNA, Danny was already about year old and while Jack and Maddie are morally dubious, they're only morally dubious towards ghosts. Danny was their beloved human baby, they would never do anything to him.

That being said, they were still horrified when they found out, and really, they genuinely did consider reaching out to Bruce to tell him. They thought it was something he deserved to know since it was his DNA that got used instead, and they felt awfully guilty after he trusted them enough to let them draw DNA from him. The only reason they hadn't is because, at the time, Bruce had been really busy with something in his public life and they didn't want to bother him during such a stressful time.

So they were going to wait, and in Fenton-like fashion, forgot to tell him. When the subject came up again sometime later, they assumed they already told Bruce and went about their day.

[the1312daysofchristmas]

hi my name is dils, im a black multiply neurodivergent and mentally ill disabled butch lesbian from the caribbean island of st lucia. i dont want to really sing a sad song for my supper and divulge all the reasons why im asking but my family and i need help right now so id appreciate some assistance.

paypal @ dilsdoes or dilsdoes(@)gmail(.)com (parentheses to avoid spam)

i dont have venmo or cashapp because im not american sorry

you can also buy something from my shop or sub to my ko-fi if you'd like something in return or like my work. in the future i plan on offering animated pixel art favicons and allowing ko-fi subscribers to suggest, sponsor or commission them, and also pixel art wallpapers for phones and pc. ko-fi subscribers will also be able to suggest what i do for those too.

[the-warmest-machine]

Can you imagine the imposter syndrome Rook feels as a leader of convenience?

We see glimpses of it, but because Rook compartmentalizes it, it makes us see how the companions see Rook: tall, unshakeable, and unbothered. But in between the cracks, look deep enough and you see Rook’s turmoil. Here are some ruminating thoughts about it:

Rook feels imposter syndrome in twinges, after the first Fade dream with Solas. This is their mess to clean. Nothing makes them equipped for the job other than they have to step up and make the best of a shit show. As you discuss the next steps with Harding and Neve, you notice them both look to you. You were, after all, Varric’s second in command. Did Varric see this coming? Is this what he trained you for? The position feels like decay, enjoy encumbered by guilt. It shouldn’t have happened this way. But you’re here now, and you’re making calls. You just wish it felt right.

In fleeting moments, the unease returns, but sometimes it’s Big. The next Big moment Rook feels inadequate is when, for the first time, the core team is gathered around the Lighthouse table. For a second, you’re brought back to when Harding and Neve looked to you. This time, it’s also Bellara, Lucanis, Davrin, Taash and Emmerich. Rook would dig their fingertips into the chair’s wood, if they weren’t surrounded by observant company. Instead, Rook twists their toes as anxiety threatens to seize them. The choices they make and the orders they give—are they really the best course of action? Are they decisions a successful leader would make? Can they tell you’re in over your head and have no idea what you’re doing? The thoughts rise and are quashed, but they nonetheless still exist. Where Rook is clumsy, they compensate in precise motor control—for the “important” occasions, anyway. A determined face and authoritative tone masks the fear clutching their heart. They take a deep mental breath, box the worry away, and get to business.

Once Elgar’nan is slain and Solas is bound to the Veil, Rook and the remaining team stand in the dawning light. Survivors rise from the rubble and cheer them on. Rook has a smile on their face, hands on their hips in accomplishment… but in their head, they’re wondering if they actually belong there. If they deserve the cheers and exaltation. Their gut twists with unease because they know the beginning of this started with them. Varric would say, “You did well, kid,” and disapprove of Rook’s festering thoughts. In his honor, Rook again sets aside the ick. But still, it was there.

[chaoticas-hell]

Neil: what a nice day

Neil:

Neil: anyways wanna hear about how my father tried to kill me?

[motleyfam]

So like, 3 days ago I got an email from my car insurance company like “Congrats! You’re such a safe driver—as proven by having gone X many years without filing a single claim on your policy—that you now qualify for XYZ special program exclusively available for our safest drivers! 😃”

….And then yesterday I hit a deer 🫠