#glittering night

[shiningdesignersreflections]

Chapter 3: Glittering Night

Narrated by Luming.

Narrator: I follow the lane in the memory into the lush green grove, past the faux rocks, until I see the newly built lotus pond.

Narrator: The lotuses have just been planted and have yet to blossom. I see a few koi carp leaping out of the water... yet see no sign of goldfish.

Luming: Where did it go...

Narrator: The koi carp swarm around me with bubbles coming out of their mouths.

Koi: Purr, purr...

Choose "...?"

You: What are they saying?

Luming: They said someone came this morning and took the goldfish to the festival's market.

Narrator: When I walk into the lantern festival, lights of all colors shine so brightly in the night that I have to squint my eyes.

Narrator: Pavilions are strung together by chains of lanterns, turning the night into day.

Narrator: Tourists here move as slowly as the passing clouds in the sky, and I stand out as the only one snaking past them.

Narrator: The fish lantern flickers in my hand and seems to guide me as I walk.

Narrator: It leads me to a small stall in the corner with another fish lantern hanging at its front.

Narrator: This should be it, but I can't find the goldfish when the tank has all these fish of different colors swimming in it.

Luming: Sir, was there a goldfish here?

Vendor: You came in a little too late. Someone just bought the last goldfish I had.

Narrator: The stall keeper points into the crowd behind me at a little girl on the shoulders of her father.

Narrator: Through the dense flock of people, I could just make out a small, transparent bag in her hand... in which a goldfish flails about in the water.

Narrator: I spring toward the tiny speck of gold in the sea of people, worried that at any second it would be swallowed by the waves of light.

Narrator: The distance seems much longer than it is. I almost lose sight of it many times when dyed fabric fluttering in the breeze blocks my line of vision.

Luming: My antlers keep getting tangled up with the light strings.

Narrator: I keep apologizing to all the stallholders as I run after my target.

Luming: Hold on!

Narrator: Then I hear the little girl talking to her dad when I've just about caught up to them.

Little Girl: Dada, the goldfish you gave me is beautiful! Let's buy it a beautiful tank.

Narrator: I'm suddenly at a loss for words.

Narrator: How can I tell them...

Narrator: I bump into the girl and her dad when someone accidentally walks into me from behind.

Luming: Ah...

Narrator: The dad and the girl - wearing a red padded jacket - turn around to look at me with confused expressions.

Narrator: Seeing the bubbles coming out of the goldfish, I know I need to do something, or else...

Luming: Hey, that goldfish you're holding...

Narrator: Sizing me up with her innocent eyes, she sees the lantern in my hand... which shines brighter than ever now that the goldfish is right around.

Narrator: This seems to have caught the girl's attention.

Little Girl: Your lantern looks beautiful!

Narrator: The girl seems to really admire the lantern and keeps looking back and forth between the goldfish and me. Then, she raises the bag in her hand.

Little Girl: Do you like my goldfish? Can I have your fish lantern in exchange for my goldfish?

Narrator: When I nod my head, the girl lets out a beautiful smile.

Narrator: I look down at the lantern in my hand. It's shining through the night like a little sun.

Luming: Here you go.

Narrator: I give the lantern to the girl in exchange for the goldfish. The goldfish rubs against my hand through the bag as the girl and her father bid me farewell.

Luming: Let's go see your friend.

Narrator: I look up to watch the light from my fish lantern dwindling in the distance.

Narrator: When it has completely disappeared, I seem to see the Lantern of Wishes turning into shimmering stardust.

Narrator: A Lantern of Wishes turns into stardust whenever the wish is fulfilled.

Narrator: And that's how I know the goldfish's wish is about to be fulfilled.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 4

[fairytaleprincessart]

[heartnosekid]

🌓 mimikyu 🪡

with no people or hands for anon!

🪡-🌓-🪡 / 🌓-🪡-🌓 / 🪡-🌓-🪡

[newyorkthegoldenage]

The city at night, 1955.

Photo: Elliott Erwitt via Christie's

[cottoncandystims]

💜/💜/💜|💜|💜/💜/💜

Starry night and lavender sunset stimboard for anon!

[yoan-le-grall]

[selestial-skies]

Midnight Moonlight

Get Prints here

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 333

I once more believe Battinson Batman needs to be given a child. Or multiple. Multiple children. I am also once more rotating Ghosts Have Wings Au. 

So Batman, still early in his whole vigilante career ends up busting a shipment, nothing too surprising there. Pretty usual honestly. Except for what was in one of the crates already open. Because it looks like some sort of gemstones but… perfectly spherical. Strange. Suspicious. 

But it’s also late, er, early in the morning, and the GCPD is notoriously corrupt, so like, he’s not going to just leave the weird gemstones, each about the size of a plum or so. (Dear Gotham he’s apparently hungry, and might inwardly vow to never let anyone realize what his tired mind decided to use as measurement) 

So he, unknowingly spurred on by more than just a slight bit of ecto contamination, takes the strange spheres back home. Just puts them in his pockets and heads back to the manor that they moved back into after the whole Riddler mess. (He even found a cool cave! With a bunch of terrifying bats, but they made a glass separator! For safety!) 

But in Bruce’s defense of forgetting about them, he’s more than a little tired and hungry and just wants to sleep for a bit, y’know? So maybe he forgets about the gems as he falls asleep in the chair in the cave (Alfred was not pleased!) until he starts digging around for them. Erm. Did they fall out somewhere?? There’s no holes in his belt pockets… 

And maybe these sort of things shouldn’t slip his mind, the spheres had felt Weird with a capital W, but he gets forced to a circus and there’s an… accident. So maybe he pushed it away as not important because there’s now an angry grieving eight-year old living with him and he’s panickedly reading any and all sort of parenting books he can get a hold of because he has no clue what he’s doing. 

Yeah, maybe his back is itching like crazy no matter what he tries, and maybe he threw up the other day, but it’s fine. This is fine. 

….

Oh dear Gotham those are feathers, this is not fine- ALFREEED!

[mfkayaa]

🌙💜🪄

[janasojka]

the glitter I borrowed from my daughter, NIGHT flowers.

[thereweredragonshere]

Be real Httyd1 Toothless would’ve bullied the light fury

[fairytaleprincessart]

[neon-glowing-rainbow-stims]

⭐✮★ ~ Midnight Teal ~ ★✮⭐ (simplynailogical)

(Credit if you use!) (ko-fi)

[kizzer55555]

Ultimate Escape Room

Sam, Danny, and Tucker are bored. Nothing seems to be a challenge anymore. Summer vacation is coming up but they can’t agree on anything . Themepark? What’s a better roller coaster than Jack driving? Scary movie? I’m sorry, nothing beats Fright Knight’s nightmare realm. Bungie jumping? Danny can fly. Then Tucker, who’s been typing on his computer, asks “what about an escape room?”. The others are about to shut the idea down because seriously? Easy. But Tucker just grins and shows them his computer screen.

“Ever heard of Arkham?”

Danny and Sam lean over to read the description and all three turn to each other and grin. 

Now, what’s the fastest way to get into Arkham?

…

So the chaos trio do ✨something✨ that gets them locked up in Arkham and then try to escape and they keep. You know, normal stuff for Arkham inmates. Except this trio? Keep. Getting. Out. Of. Their. Cells. So they are just passing by locked up rogues and waving at them as an army of prison guards chase after them. Sure they could get out the easy way (Aka powers) but no, this is a challenge so they have the normal rules of an escape room. Aka, you can’t break anything and an extra rule where if a guard catches you, then you can’t fight back (also, no one can get hurt). (They make fake identities and everything). So they need to go through the whole process. Figure out how to unlock cuffs. Could be learning to pick a lock with a spoon/stick/long nails. Then find the keys. Possibly having to crawl through vents to get in the warden’s office. Or making deals with prison inmates. Like, I’ll get this for you if you give me that (however they extract a promise that the rogue can’t kill anyone with whatever they help them with.) So they are in prison literally doing errands like find freeze’s weapons in exchange for him telling them the passcode to the gate or something. Or getting Waylon some meat from the cafeteria and he’ll break the lock on this movable vault that has materials to make smoke bombs they can use to distract the front guards. 

These kids are just going wild and it gets to the point where Arkham has to call the bats (like no Waylon, we won’t escape with you, we have to do it without breaking any walls!) So literally the only reason they are not escaping is because they want to do it ‘right’. But they are also aiding other rogues in their escape (at least certain ones. They aren’t helping joker no matter what he offers)

It’s driving the bats mad. They have vigilantes stationed in each hall, in multiple monitor rooms.

They aren’t even using anything clever to block the cameras. They’re using mirrors. Mirrors! Where did they even get so many handheld mirrors! 

They are running circles around the bats. The escaped rogues literally aren’t doing anything yet because they want to see how the three hellions will escape the entire bat clan. They have bets going. So there is a temporary truce.

Just imagine the conversations/interrogations the bats will have with trio, trying to figure out their master plan - because surely there's something more going on than three chaos young adults playing a game, right?

They trio each have a different story. And they are so passionate/convincing actors that no one knows which story is real. At least one of them told a sob story with legitimate tears.

Danny: (all mysterious) You shall never know our master plan….until it is too late. And just casually dropping hints that there is something greater or that the bats are playing right into their hands. Even using ridiculous scenarios like yesss the ketchup explosion in the cafeteria….We are one step further….Mwa ha ha! (Rubs his hands together)

Sam: (absolutely distraught with literal tears running down her face and ruining her mascara.) There is a terrible organization holding their parents hostage. They had been framed and forced to be in Arkham. If they don’t do exactly as they are told, their loved ones are in danger! Should we stay? Should we escape and help them!? No one will believe us and what if we make things worse? We don’t know what to do!

Tucker: (takes a long slurp of a smoothie. Where he got one? No one knows). Yeah we were bored and had nothing better to do than mess with you guys. (Sluuuuurp).

The bats are trying to figure it out. Is the black haired guy telling the truth and the other two are just manipulating them? Is it the girl and the others are only following the plot of the organization? IS THE BARET KID RIGHT AND THEY’RE JUST MESSING WITH US!? WHICH STORY IS IT!?

Under normal circumstances, Sam wouldn’t give a sob story because It’s not really her vibe. But Sam has the opportunity to pull one over on a bat. Do you honestly think she won’t take a chance to mess with them? Also, Dick is the one who is interrogating Sam.

He’s crying too by the end of the story.

Poor guy, Sam will play his heart like a fiddle. 

Also, their fake identities are Jordan for Danny. Mortica for Sam (or Macey for short) and Phineas for Tucker. The fact that they are using fake identities is the only thing they all agree on in the interview. But the bats find nothing on them and the identities are so realistic they wonder if they are even fake at all. If the three are faking fake IDs to throw them off their tail from looking deeper. Apparently their ‘parents’ having a missing persons report.

Damian is interrogating Danny. It’s just so easy to rile him up and get under his skin. It’s absolute drama in that interrogation room. 

Danny: ah yessss. Master plan.

Damian: you shall never succeed! Justice shall prevail evil scum!

And Duke is interrogating Tucker. He just…has no idea how to respond to this. He wasn’t trained for this response. Hostile, yes. Mysterious, yes. Scared, yes. Civilian, yes. Even Flirtatious! YES! But not…this. What does he do? should he take out his note cards?

Also, I’m adding a mix of home alone elements to this. They have to get past the bats somehow and it can’t be lethal. Poor Jason and Steph who are patrolling the halls fall victim to most of this.

At one point, both of them are tied up together and hanging from the ceiling. While the trio just casually walk by under them. 

It’s dental floss. Really strong dental floss.

Then the bats start taking sides. 

Jason? once he hears Sam's story, he's immediately willing to help her. He and Dick are searching for that missing person's report almost religiously.

Tim believes Danny's story. part of it is because it makes the most sense, and the other part is that he's slightly biased from becoming an evil megalomaniac in every timeline he's seen so he's subconsciously trying to stop that from happening here.

Cass believes Tucker because come on, it's Cass.

Steph is siding with Tim because her father was cluemaster so same reasons.

Bruce is trying to fact check all of them and is failing desperately.

Sam added some ‘clues’ in her interrogation and basically threw the GIW under the bus as the organization. So the bats do find a shady organization but so far no missing persons so the other bats still don’t know if what Sam is saying is true or not while Dick takes this as absolute proof and Jason feels like it doesn’t matter if she’s telling the truth at this point. It’s a corrupt organization. So he’ll still blow it up.

I think in this AU, the GIW isn’t a threat and more of an annoyance so Sam just plays them up as even worse. Like, she doesn’t say anything untrue just makes it sound worse out of context. Oh yeah, they opened fire on this random kid. (Gregory when they thought he was phantom) Oh yes, they have destroyed Danny’s house at one point. (The prank war with Vlad) Yes, the have an unhealthy obsession with dissecting people. (Even though they are too incompetent to actually catch anyone).

So again, they don’t know if Sam is telling the truth of the organization or they just used this random organization to draw their attention away from the three’s plans (as Danny implied). Possibly an enemy organization or a competitor.

I know everyone makes the GIW a big threat but I decided to change it up. They aren’t a threat but still get obliterated by a pissed off Red Hood and Nightwing.

And that’s  another reason why Sam gives the sob story. Danny and Tucker are great but they wouldn’t actually sick a crime lord on the GIW. Sam? Absolutely would. She does not care what happens to them. They tore up her garden one time with a stray shot. She wants revenge. And sure, she didn’t actually know what would happen to them after the bats find out but she still doesn’t care.

And through all of this, the rogues are sitting back and eating popcorn while Joker screams bloody murder from his cell. 

[silvaris]

The Milky Way by Ilkka Hämäläinen

[elendsessor]

happy anniversary to the series that’s cursed me for years