#god these fics are all so fucking good

[whinlatter]

reading | listening | writing | summer '23

sulking in bed with tonsillitis - never had it before, thought i was built different, crushed to discover i am, in fact, built the same (sickly). so thought was overdue a share of some of the fics i have loved that i've read these past few months (even though my TBR remains colossal), as well as some tune/travel updates, a lil writing check in, and a lil sneak peek of chapter eight of Beasts because the ex boyfriends are back, baby!!!

Reading

Bookbinding by @saintsenara (Myrtle/Tom Riddle, AU, 35k, multi-chapter, completed)

look. this is how it's going to go. i'm going to say myrtle/tom riddle AU, you're going to say 'are you right in the head you're a canon compliant girlie kindly get a grip on yourself'. but then you're going to click the link, and read it, and then you'll be chuckling and filled with boundless delight and want to read this stonkingly well-written properly funny rich magical little fic all over again as soon as you've finished and you'll have me to thank for it. it's a rom-com, people. dare you not to be enchanted. their ship name is literally tyrtle? the tag is 'she said: I can fix him! and she's right'. (and then you're going to read this hinny one, also by @saintsenara as a gift to me as a delectable chaser and lose your mind!)

everything i am is yours by @brightlybound (Hinny, AU, 4k, oneshot)

remember when i was like, AUs, not my bag! and then i read a load of AUs and realised i was talking out of my arse? weird. anyway, here is a lovely little hinny AU that i've gone back to a bunch because it's just really beautifully written and deeply charming and actually does something a lot of muggle AUs don't always do, which is play with harry's characterisation ever so deftly to say, hey, harry is harry, but if nothing bad had happened to him and james and lily lived, he'd be a little bit different, wouldn't he? this harry is our harry, but he's just that bit more confident, that bit more capable of digging an active flirt out of his back pocket. and that makes me happy!

The Last Something That Meant Anything by anonymous (Percy POV, Percy/Audrey and Percy/Oliver, short multichapter, 21k, completed)

i have a lot of percy thoughts these days. fanon percy, steeped in weasley bashing, doesn't do very much for me, so i really loved this belter of a percy character study that considers him both within and apart from his family in a way that attends to his trauma and inner life, but also shows the truth: he's not doing well, he does fuck up with a big moral lapse, and then he has work to do - interesting, deep, personal work - to make it right. please check the tags with this one, as it does contain reference to SA, but really do recommend a read if you feel able.

haunted mansion by @bronzeagepizzeria (Sirius-POV, 1.5k, oneshot)

this brilliant short fic really left me with so many sirius feelings: it just gets the claustrophobia and the grief of sirius' last year alive exactly right, and it just has these fabulous cameos that have detonated a thousand deep sirius thought bombs in my head forever. l o v e d it

perpendicular by akissinacrisis (Hinny, AU, 4.5k, oneshot)

harry/ginny AU, where harry goes to stonewall high and meets ginny at a party. it's so tender and beautiful and stiff and sad and understated, and it's really stayed with me. also it does what all good hinny fics must do (have them chatting. just talking, hanging out, shooting the shit together. they just love to chat, those two lil magnets snapping to each other).

empire builders by she-crow (Prongsfoot, possibly canon-compliant but technically AU I guess, 25k oneshot)

i read this laid out beside a lake and needed at least four more days of lying by a lake to think about it. it's a) one of the most beautiful fics i've ever read b) rip your heart out and staple it heart-wrenching and good and c) some of the best sirius and james characterisations i've read that really serves as a manifesto for playing around with marauders multiships to really different characters in such different lights. the other beauty of it is that it could be canon-compliant? like it could be read as a fabulous doomed tragic love affair between two boys completely infatuated with each other and not sure where to put it. and i think that's kind of gorgeous. so yeah uhh big fan

Notes from the Ravenclaw Bulletin Board by lostrobin (Gen, 11k, completed)

this is a fic told through (very funny) little notes on the ravenclaw bulletin board. been thinking a lot about different house dynamics atm and this a) made me laugh out loud and b) really think, you know who is really sound? those ravenclaw kids. love those bookworms. the crookshanks and fred and george cameos really make this, too. you'll zip through it and you'll giggle. there's nothing more to it!

Listening (while out and about)

i listened to things like this:

pink light by muna (saw em live, lost my mind!) | space invader by the national (anthemic) | mountain by the joy (they're too good) | the greater wings (album) by julie byrne (literally stunning) | gorilla by lil simz (best beanie man sample of all time?)

Writing

other than this birthday microfic for mr potter, a bit of tinkering and dawdling with other misc projects that i pick up and put down over and over again, and my usual meta nonsense, i've just been writing Beasts! put four chapters out since last check-in, and am hard at work on chapter eight, which has some of my favourite scenes in the fic so far. we're gearing up for some chapters away from the castle (writing the winter break chapters in august. what am i like!) and some scenes i've been sat on for ages and some others that i'm having so so so much fun writing. i'm a michael corner stan now? who knew?

She lugs the trunk off the bus at the final stop and traipses around the warren of streets in Soho for a while, looking for the address written on the piece of parchment clutched in her hand. Finally, she finds the building, battered door with the doorbell hanging half off, and stands awkwardly in the street, catching her breath, until the machine crackles and a familiar deep voice says: ‘Hello?’ 'Hi, it’s me.’ She clears her throat. ‘It’s Ginny, I mean.’  ‘Oh, hi. Come on up.’  The hallway has an unmistakably damp, squat-like feel about it. Loud laughter spills out of the flat on the first floor, and a group of uni students, squabbling amicably among themselves, parade past her on the second floor staircase as she rings the doorbell and loiters in the corridor, feeling hopelessly out of place. ‘Your hair’s so nice!’ one girl with thick black boots and a face full of piercings says admiringly as she passes by, just as the door to the flat swings open.  ‘Oh, good, you found it. I wasn’t sure you’d be able to.’ ‘Why wouldn’t I be able to?’ Michael rolls his eyes. ‘You know, Ginny, seen as it's Christmas, maybe we could try not to argue before you’ve even set foot in my flat.'

okay, one more 🕺

THE BOYS OF 12 GRIMMAULD PLACE INVITE YOU TO  THE NEW YEAR’S PARTY OF THE CENTURY Eight til late, BYOB because we’re skint THE THEME: ‘MUGGLE MAGIC’ (BRING OUT THE MUGGLE IN YOU -  BECAUSE MUGGLES ARE MAGIC, TOO!)

[euripidestrousers]

I think one of my absolute FAVOURITE wolfstar tropes is Sirius doing things that are unintentionally attractive and seductive and Remus desperately trying not to react.

Sirius flexing as a joke - Remus raising his book to hide his flushed face

Sirius shouting at the top of his lungs, cheering for James on the Quidditch pitch. His voice has gotten remarkably low in seventh year. Queue Remus having a coughing fit, not taking his eyes off the game.

Sirius leans over Remus' shoulder to point out the potions ingredient he missed. Remus tries to twitch away and bumps his cauldron, spilling shrinking solution everywhere and now everyone is yelling and he's horribly flustered

Sirius "give me a leg up" Black meets Remus "Oh God his crotch is in my face, stay calm" Lupin

[tangledinink]

I'm Sorry, Teenage Mutant What Now? Donatello Ref Sheet!

Yayyy, now he has a proper, actual reference sheet! Also reflects a few tweaks I've made to his design since the first original pass at it. Rest of the gang forthcoming.

(also, just for fun, donnie w/o his twists--)

[midnightdemonhunter]

But don't worry. By then, he wants to.

(@romanromulus :D )

[caeslxys]

Something I think is extremely interesting thematically when it comes to connecting what Downfall and the ideas it tackled to the overarching narrative of campaign three is that the things Downfall made a point to showcase of Aeor—Cassida, Hallis, the visual of an aeormaton proposing to her partner, the specific and intentional decision to shed light on a far from insignificant amount of the population being civilians or refugees—is that it plays in perfect parallel across from what is happening (and, really, has been happening) to the ruidusborn on Exandria in present.

Bear with me for a moment. Aeor is ultimately a city that was collectively punished for the decisions of its leadership. We could (and, judging by the amount of discourse around this particular topic already, probably will) argue about what the Gods’ motivation for all of this was—whether it be that they could not, in the end, bear to kill their siblings or that they were terrified at the prospect of mortality—for me it is a very healthy dose of both—but for this I am much more interested in the latter. They were scared. That, really, is the driving force behind both this arc and their role in c3 as a whole.

Why I point this out is: It is far more interesting to me, especially as we go back to Bells Hells this week, to dissect the Gods and their decisions not purely on sympathetic motivation alone but as beings in the highest seat of power in the highest social class in Exandria.

So, having established that the Gods (in relation to mortals) are more a higher social class than anything we could compare to our real life understanding of divinity and that Aeor was eviscerated largely because of their fear—what is the difference between those innocents in Aeor caught in the trappings of their autocratic government leadership and a divine war on the ground, and those of the ruidusborn being manipulated both by Ludinus and by the very thing that inspired such visceral fear in the Gods to start with. I would argue very little.

I think of Cassida, doing what she genuinely thought was right and good and would save people, her son, and the object of her worship—and how that did not matter enough to any of them to spare her because of the fear they held at the very concept of mortality. I think of Liliana and Imogen, one of which we know begged for the gods to help her or send her a sign for years on years, and how every single one of their largest struggles could have been avoided had the gods loved them, their supposed children, as much as they feared what they could be. I think of how the thing that did save Imogen, in the end, was a woman who herself existed in direct defiance of the gods will. I think of that young boy, sixteen years old, that Laudna exalted on Ruidus.

I think it’s completely fair to judge Aeor’s overall society as deeply corrupt—it was!—but its leadership and police force are not a reflection of every one of its citizens. Similarly, it is fair to judge the Ruby Vanguard as corrupt—it is!—but its multiple heads of leadership and even the god-eater further are not a reflection of every one of its members.

Notably, and what I think the Hells will latch onto, this did not matter to the Gods. It did not matter that Cassida was trying to help. She was still too much of a risk. Will it matter, what Imogen does? Will it matter, if that young boy is in the blast radius when they decide to take no further chances?

I’ve seen a lot of people say that the Hells will side with the gods and I don’t think I agree. Especially as Imogen has been scolded and villainized over and over for daring to try and save her mother—who herself has been seen by some as an irredeemable evil in spite of her drive being the exact same—her family—but when it’s the Gods it’s justified? When it’s the Gods, it’s sympathetic? Too sympathetic to criticize further than “they’re family”?

I obviously do not think the Gods should die or be eaten or what have you, and I certainly don’t agree with Ludinus (though I find him much more compelling than just a variation of hubris wizard), but when talking about the Gods in Aeor and in present it isn’t really at all about their motivation or their family. It can’t be. Too many people, including our active protagonists, lives have been effected for it to be as cut and dry as “they’re family”. These are your children. They are your family, too.

[cyclogenesis]

Body Count. Logan/Wade, post-Deadpool & Wolverine, Explicit. 11,660 words.

In which the title refers to the number of sexual partners a person has had, despite what you might think. With digressions into wanton domesticity, temporary vampirism as an excuse for Logan to have the comics-accurate little kitty fangs (sorry), New York City apartment hunting, canon-typical intimations that Logan is Wade’s little pet Wolverine, photo ops on a dead Celestial, genuine and deep romantic feelings (sorry again), and what happens when you have an unlimited budget for cameos because this is a work of fanfiction and not a multi-million dollar movie.

Read it on AO3!

[sigsfigs]

jane of all trades

@professorfcknmoriarty

[desceros]

Mr. LEON (think late 30's/early 40's) reuniting with his spouse after a long time away. It's sweet, it's silly, it's followed by absolutely nasty half-clothed, sweaty sex.

me, asks for rise leo prompts, instantly regrets it also i'm not saying this is a tactical!leo fic, but i'm also... not NOT saying it leonardo/reader, EXPLICIT, female reader, 2.6k; leo comes back and wants to smell like home again. filthy nasty smut, soft doki dokis, lame married people jokes, one (1) defiled couch

It’s been so long since you’ve seen him, you don’t think twice when you see the rustle of your curtains. Not when you’ve finally, finally trained your stupid heart into not thundering out of your chest when you see it, thinking he’s back when it’s just the breeze. Today, you hardly even glance at them as you continue watering your plants, unbothered, humming, unsuspecting.

It’s so, so typical of him to wait until now to come home.

“Boo!” 

Your scream fills the apartment as you flail, pulse rocketing to the atmosphere in panic when you’re very suddenly not alone. Hands catch you mid-flinch, and it takes you a second to realize that your assailant is, in fact, perfectly safe and didn’t deserve the mighty swing of your watering can. 

Except actually, yes he did, this little asshole—!

“Leo!” you wail, letting him gather you close and press him to his plastron. Your hands clutch at the edge of his keratin, face burrowing in his throat. “You fucking asshole, you scared the shit out of me!”

“Sorry, sweetheart. Couldn’t resist,” he says, his laughter still rolling at the crown of your head as one hand spreads into your lower back to press you close and the other cups your nape. “You just looked so cute, y’know? My adorable little wifey, wearing my shirt and humming in our living room.”

“Stop talking,” you mutter sulkily, wrapping your arms around his neck and swallowing the tears you feel burning at your eyes as happiness swells in your chest like a mighty wave. He always makes fun of you for crying when he comes home, and you’re already a little miffed. 

Your ire dies as you feel him nuzzling behind your ear with his beak, his lungs expanding as he inhales your scent. He’d confessed to you once, a few years into your marriage, that this was his favorite part of coming home; more than the sex, more than the home-cooked meals, more than sleeping in the same bed two nights in a row. He caresses the line of your throat with his beak, stitching your natural perfume back into place in his mind, sinking into you because it’s not the walls around you that he calls home.

“…Missed you,” he murmurs, making you sigh as he brushes lovesick kisses to your shoulder. 

“You were gone too long this time,” you tell him, lowering one arm to press a palm to his plastron when you feel his lips seeking more skin, letting him pull the neckline of his shirt away from your clavicle. “Thought you were the breeze, coming in.” 

His mouth curves into something filthy at the dip of your throat, his hands finding your hips and giving them a squeeze. “Yeah? Funny. I plan on coming in something, all right.”

You laugh way too hard, a little mortified that after all these years you still find this clown funny at the lamest lines. Worse still is how he watches you do it, his face going stupid with naked fondness like making you laugh is the best thing he’s done all day.

“You are such an unfunny loser, oh my god,” you say, pressing your forehead to his. 

“And yet you’re still laughing,” he says, his smile widening when you roll your eyes. 

“I’ve been stockholmed,” you tell him, reaching up your hands to cup his beak and pull him into a kiss. 

Leo has always been good with his mouth, in every way, all the years you’ve known him. His kisses are no exception; seconds into it you’re purring, the sweet friction of his mouth against yours warming you from the inside, parting on a soft sigh when a hand grips your nape and tilts you just so. 

“I wanna fucking eat you alive,” he mumbles against your mouth, his tongue sliding against yours once, twice, three times before he sinks his teeth into your lower lip and tugs. You tremble, and you know he feels it as his hands go a little tighter. “Missed you.” 

Your fingers find the tails of his mask, tangling in them and using them to pull his face away, just a little. He growls, but you ignore him easily. “Don’t you want to take a shower, baby? Get comfy while I cook you something to eat? You smell like work.”

“I know,” he says, his other hand sliding down to the cloth shorts that are barely visible beneath the hem of his shirt, his fingers gliding up the back to cup the curve of your ass. “And I wanna smell like you, now.”

…He gets like this, sometimes, when he comes home. Touchy. Possessive. You’ve always wondered if it has to do with how he doesn’t smell himself on you when he’s been gone, or if it’s because you start wearing his clothes like he’ll feel it wherever he is. The longer the separation, the worse he gets. 

The worse he gets, the better it is.

“Yeah? You wanna smell like me?” you echo as you trail your touch along the red crescents prettying his face, playing into his turtle-brain, feeling your eyelids close as his fingers flutter on your skin. Oh, he wants it bad. “What do I smell like, handsome? I smell good?” 

“So fucking good,” he groans, his huge hand releasing your nape to grip your jaw, pulling you into a kiss that’s wet and deep. It feels good, claws a mangled moan from your chest that has him mirroring the sound himself. He pulls his head back, pressing his thumb to the corner of your mouth and sliding it under your lower lip where you feel the slick mess of his kiss. “…Open,” he says, making your lip pucker under his touch. 

You obey, watching his pupils dilate as they lock onto your mouth, then your tongue when you let it press against the pad of his thumb where he’s holding you open.

“Shit. You’re so hot,” he says, a wounded rumble that makes your lips curl into a coquettish smile before you wrap them around his thumb, sucking and lathing it with your tongue, pressing your teeth in and closing your eyes when you hear him moan. 

“Not gonna smell much like me by staring at my mouth,” you tell him when you let him go, your hooded eyes meeting his as you smile.

“Fuck, I missed you,” he wheezes, and with three steps he’s got you splayed on your couch, the weight of him pinning you to the cushions while his mouth fucking devours you. All you can do is hold on, one hand tangling in his mask tails and the other clutching as his carapace, crushed and absolutely thrilled about it.

When he breaks the kiss to grip his hands in your shorts, pulling them down, you laugh, drawing his hungry gaze even as he doesn’t stop disrobing you. 

“What?” he asks, mouth going just a little crooked in a smile of his own as you shake your head, staring at him adoringly. 

“Just love you,” you tell him, shifting your legs to help him out a bit and biting down on a grin when you can finally spread them and slink your knees to either side of his hips. You slip one of your arms over your head to grip one of the throw pillows, your other trailing down your throat to entice.  “C’mon, pretty boy. Let me see you drop.”

Leo maintains the stare as he straightens his spine, his hands going to his belt buckle to slide it out of place with a metal clink. The button is quick to follow, and when he unzips and slides his pants down just enough for his cloaca to glisten in the afternoon sunlight, you press your fingers to your mouth, tongue instinctively seeking contact. 

“God, look at you,” you whine, your thighs rising to cup his hips and squeeze. “I wanna lick you. Come up here?”

He shakes his head, sliding two of his fingers into your open mouth and pressing on your tongue. “Later, baby. If you want a show, you’ve got, like, thirty seconds for it.” 

Moaning, you soak his fingers with your spit, watching with hazy eyes as he brings them to his cloaca and slides in to the knuckle. He’s always rougher with himself than you are with him, even though he’s told you again and again he prefers it when you’re the one fingering him. 

He makes pretty little gasping moans as he fingers himself hard, his arm flexing and drawing your hungry gaze. He’s gotten so god damned big over the years, making you feel small every time he does something that highlights the difference. It feels good, makes you feel kept, protected. So long as Leonardo Hamato draws breath, no harm will ever come to you, a promise he has the strength to keep.

“Fuck, fuck,” he grunts, eyes squeezing shut as the slick sounds of his fingers pumping in and out of himself get wetter. It’s a familiar sound that makes you ache, craving the thick cock you know is about to slide out like it’s air. 

“You’re so fucking pretty, Leo,” you babble in praise, knowing he likes to hear it, that you like telling him. “Handsome as fuck. God, I can’t believe you’re mine, that you let me see you like this—”

“Shit,” he hisses, pulling his fingers out of you and pressing his cloaca to your cunt, his wet fingers gripping at your hips as he rubs your slick against his. “You can’t talk like that, baby, I’m gonna—”

He cuts himself off on a low groan, his hips rolling against yours and his tail pressing hard between your thighs to garner the friction. It feels so good, so fucking good, your skin burning hot with each messy glide of him against you. Your head rolls, fingers gripping in the pillow behind your head and back arching to try and writhe closer. 

“Leo,” you keen, breath heaving when he releases his death grip on the back of the couch to plant his hand by your head, his back arching over you and blocking everything else out. 

“Don’t come, don’t you dare come,” he hisses, lips curled into a bit of a snarl. “Not until I’m inside, understand?” 

Eyes wet, you nod, choking back the shimmer on your skin that builds as he keeps rubbing cruelly. With one particularly good roll of his hip, you snatch a hand to his bicep, trembling. “Stop, stop—!”

He pauses, letting you claw away from the brink to obey. Sucking in a long breath, you open your eyes and see that he’s staring at you like he’s gone mad. 

“Okay?” he asks, voice fucked out, and you nod, whining when he resumes rubbing his cloaca against you, your eyes falling shut and head lolling to the side as you start the burning process all over again. 

“Feels so good, Leo,” you breathe, skin glowing when you feel him duck in close and glide his tongue up the side of your neck. You’re soaked all over with sweat and slick, every muscle in your body trembling from taut desire that’s just shy of too-much, leaving you delirious and stupid.

With a hitched breath, Leo reaches between you, fingers preparing you for the familiar penetration you want more than anything else. With a hiss, his body goes taut, his cock dropping and sliding inside like his katana into its sheath; like you were made for him, perfectly molded, expertly designed. 

“God, fuck,” he wheezes, his forearms framing your face as he leans down and captures your mouth in a kiss that breaks on a low moan. He pumps his hips against yours slowly, shaking with each breath that has him bottoming out where he belongs. “You feel so—I missed you.” 

Floating with pleasure, you cup his nape, wrapping your legs around him as best as you can to pull him deeper, needing to feel him in your throat. Your hands find the back of his head, sliding easily on his rough, sweat-slick skin, seeking his kiss and finding it. “Oh, Leo, love you, love you so much.”

He marries his mouth to yours as he fucks in in in, feeling a bit like he never pulls out for how full he leaves you. Every neuron in your body stands at attention, taking note of his weight crushing you, the smell of his salty skin, the taste of his tongue as it curls against your own. 

“Look at me, look at me when you come, pretty girl,” he chokes, because he knows your body better than you do and can tell you’re close before you feel it. You open your eyes and meet his, untying his blue mask and letting it slide to your chest right as you feel your orgasm rising. 

“Leo, gonna come,” you whimper, watching as he nods, one hand finding your cheek, his thumb tracing under your eyes where they’re wet. 

“Let go, sweetheart. Let me feel it.” 

Like you do with everything else, you obey and come. It’s a long, wrenching thing, the pleasure washing over you like waves of a mighty ocean as he keeps moving, prolonging it, intensifying it. On and on it goes, your body awash with ecstasy and Leo, always Leo, there to hold you and let you fall. 

“Please,” you gasp, clenching at his carapace, begging him to meet you here in the glow. “Leo, please—” 

His hand drops down to your throat, fingers ever so slightly curling around as his hips thrust a little harder, the wet sounds of your hips meeting loud in your ears now that you’re listening for it. It’s filthy, his mouth hanging open and eyes going wild as they gaze at you like you’re the best thing he’s ever seen. 

With a wounded sound he comes, his forehead dropping to your shoulder and hand going a little too-tight on your throat as he fills you over and over again, each hot thread coating and claiming in equal measure. You let one hand grip the back of his wrist where he’s choking you, crushing him in harder as he groans and presses into you even further as he finishes, watching as the edges of your vision go a little hazy before he releases you and lets you suck in a gasp of air. 

After a few moments of catching your breath, he picks up his head, his beak wrinkling a bit as he stretches his leg out with a hiss. “Gah, fuck, we’re getting too old for couch fucking. Made a fucking mess.”

“Never too old for couch fucking,” you rasp, causing his eyes to fall to where there’s a mark on your throat in the shape of his hand. He licks his lips, and you feel his cock give an interested twitch. “Oh? You gonna make good on that?”

“Too old for back-to-back marathon fucking,” he pouts, though he does arch his hips once in a good sport try that makes your skin light up a bit. “Gimme like, fifteen. I’ll eat you out while we wait, then we can do something about it.” 

You raise an imperious eyebrow. “Fifteen minutes of you eating me out? You? Leonardo Hamato? Only fifteen? I can’t believe an imposter of my husband is here when I was so sure it was him.”

He grins, a boyish thing that makes him look younger and captures your heart all over again. “…Yeah, okay. Let’s be ambitious and say half an hour.”

You settle into the couch, waiting for his cock to retreat back into his cloaca and spending the meantime trailing your fingers along the back of his nape, sighing out in delight. 

“…I missed you, too,” you tell him, watching as his face smooths out and every concern flies away like a butterfly startled by the breeze because he loves you so, so much and you know it. Then, realizing you hadn’t said it yet, “…Welcome home, Leo.”

“Yeah,” he echoes, bending down and nuzzling his beak against your temple, inhaling deeply with a smile. “I’m home.”

[necrotic-nephilim]

what are your favourite batcest ships and why?

AAA i love this question so much. i'm going to limit myself to a top five, because otherwise, i'd just end up listing all of them. the true joy of batcest is they're all so good for such different reasons and there are so many unique dynamics you can explore.

JayTim - it's funny bc, before i started this blog, i don't know if i would've put these two losers as my number one. but because i've done so much deep diving into their dynamic and i write them the most, i think it'd be a disservice for them to be anything *but* number one. their canon dynamic is just. so fun to play with. i truly love all of their interactions, particularly pre-Flashpoint. the concepts of Tim holding such contempt for Jason while Jason is weirdly obsessed with Tim. i'm a fan of Hannibal and Killing Eve and well. if this isn't a Hannigram-coded ship idk *what* is. i like ships where love and hate co-exist and there's no real "happily ever after", just fucked up co-existing, where they crawl back to each other like a bad habit and really, this ship is that so perfectly. the themes of jealousy in the Robin mantle. Tim wearing Jason's Red Robin suit to punish himself. i will likely never shut up about them. even in the New-52, there's such a substance to them, though the dynamic is wildly different. they will always be so weirdly dependent on each other's existence. i love them.

BruDick - you can't outdo the doer, i fear. i think i like BruDick mostly for the history of it, yk. there's genuinely *so much* queer history seeped into the homoeroticism of Batman and Robin, these two have been a symbol for queer people for decades. but the ship itself has so many dynamics i love. problematic age gap, "are we family or lovers", "i can't be in a room alone with you without getting into a screaming match but if you called i drop everything for you". all of it. i especially favor 80s/90s BruDick when they were in their divorce era just because it's so messy. Dick has canonically said he would die for Bruce, even during their arguments. no matter what, these two will always be single-mindedly devoted to each other. there will be other Robins, but none of them will compare to Dick Grayson, for Bruce. it's a unique and complicated bond that has endless layers to peel back. they always crawl back to each other bc no one else will match their level of intensity.

DamiTim - years and years ago, when i was a teen trying to people-please with how i existed in fandom, i used to insist i didn't like batcest and found it icky and gross. but there was one DamiTim fic that was my exception. that fic was my fucking roman empire. i reread it like once a year even though it's not completed and likely never will be i do not care. so now that i've killed the morality police in my head and i let myself ship what i actually want to ship, this ship holds a top place in my heart just bc of that fic alone. but in general i do fucking love their dynamic. similar to JayTim there's just so much mutual hatred in these two that has endless potential. Damian's insistence to not see Tim as a Wayne and as a legitimate brother/heir to Bruce is something you can play a lot if you give Damian an angry, fucked up crush on Tim he doesn't want to admit to. they have so many reasons to dislike each other, so to try to get them to slowly fall in love is a fun challenge. they either have a long complicated forgiveness arc and end up a happy married couple or they are the couple that tries to kill each other once a week. no in-between.

JeanTim - there's like. one person here on tumblr who goes as hard for this ship as i do and truly god bless them bc they feed me. Jean-Paul is too underrated in the batcest scene. once i reread Knightfall, i will have to help popular this tag on ao3. i enjoy both a very fucked up version of this ship during the peak of the Knightfall arc, where Jean-Paul is deep in his murder Batman era and Tim is trying to stop him to no real avail, but i *also* think there's so much you can do with the ship afterwards, where Jean-Paul is trying to make up for what he's done and be a better person and better hero. they're the peak Batman/Robin ship, to me. they truly care about each other, but have a very complicated/bloody history and i just. man i love it so dearly. i've been meaning to write a fic where Jean-Paul goes to Tim post the Sword of Azrael (2022) arc to properly discuss and apologize for all his actions in Knightfall for his personal healing and they end up fucking. it could be sweet and cute or kinky fun bc what is the joy of a character with that much Catholic guilt if you don't give them a weird religious kink.

BruCarrie - The Dark Knight Returns got me into comics and i will defend it till the day i die. Carrie Kelley can be pried from my cold dead hands. i just really love these two? Carrie took one look at that cranky old bastard and decided she was his problem. and Bruce is at a stage where he should be very averse to the idea of having a Robin, he knows it's a bad idea. but he just. accepts her anyway. idk how to explain their dynamic other than she plunks herself in his lap and stitches up his wounds while telling him he's an idiot and he lets her even if he's grumbling about it. they have the biggest age gap of any Batman/Robin ship and for that, they should get like. a dead dove gold star no matter how rare the pair is.

also honorable mention goes to BruTim, because *god* do i love the concept of Tim offering himself up to Bruce as Robin in every way, knowing that there are likely sexual/romantic implications to being Robin. it's one of my favorite flavors of batcest to exist. i don't view them as a "happily ever after" ship, because Bruce will always go back home to Dick, but it's a fun lil dead dove moment.

[acoraxia]

read the nicest goddamn fic and it’s part of a SERIES and there’s only 3 PARTS AND IT HASN’T BEEN TOUCHED SINCE 2020

this is what i get for being 5’2ft

[quirkle2]

he's such a fuckin nerd

[dukeofthomas]

I need people to realize how horrible 'stalking/constant surveillance/breaking into each other's homes is how the Batfamily show love' is. Like i really need someone to just acknowledge how horrific saying this bullshit is.

Like even fics where they're shown as happy and healthy and with good ties, you've always got this thing where none of them have privacy or any boundaries with each other. Which is directly antithetical to actually having good relationships. And this invasion via hacking and stalking and breaking into homes is portrayed as a positive, good thing; it's just how they show love and care to each other, after all. But for some reason I just personally don't find stalking, lack of privacy or boundaries, and emotional manipulation funny, endearing, or healthy, and just end up disgusted at the attempt to sweep it all under the rug.

[sparemintss]

YOU KNOW WHAT'S CRAZY TO ME????? BEN -FUCKING- WILLBOND WROTE A TRAGIC LITTLE WWII CO WHO JUST SO HAPPENED TO BE GAY AS FUCK AND WE ALL COLLECTIVELY CRIED ABOUT HIM. MAN FUCK U /aff

AND HE JUST SO HAPPENS TO BE ONBOARD WITH THE FANDOM TOO WITH PSC LIKE.... I HATE YALL /pos

HOW DARE YOU WRITE A WWII CAPTAIN WHO IS IN LOVE WITH HIS LIEUTENANT TURNED MAJOR. HOW DARE Y O U .

HOW DARE THE LIEUTENANT TURNED MAJOR TECHNICALLY RECIPROCATED THAT LOVE WITH GLANCES AND SECRECY IN FIRST NAME CALLING.

[clegfly]

“Of course you have an Other Brother,” he says, waving off her denial as he opens some nearby cabinets. “Who else would I be if I wasn’t?”

Small WIP sketch of the Other Brother from IDKSomethingClever99’s fic “Mari in the Pink Palace”!!! OMORI and Coraline are my two biggest interests ever so this fic was like winning the lottery for me. Not to mention how good it is… please go read it ragh

[enlighten3d]

(this is literally just an appreciation post for the watcher trope because its one of my favourite things of all time.)

listen ik the whole watcher thing gets quite a bit of hate in this fandom for being so overused, but personally i love it. i love it so much. just because of how versatile it is. i mean, just scroll through the watcher grian tag on ao3, and youll see hundreds of different interpretations of the same beings!

some have wings, some are humanoid, some are decidedly not, some are really fucking evil, some are just misunderstood, some actually do good, some are literal gods, some are just a group of people, some are like a cult, some are just random mysterious fuckers, some are just the explanation for anything weird, some are engaged in gang warfare with the listeners, etc etc etc ETC !!!!! so many different things, so many different narratives, based off one thing!!!

i have like four unfinished watcher!grian fics in my gdocs right now. i will probably not finish all of them. but sometimes i just think about how even between those four fics, the interpretations are so DIFFERENT. so, so, different. but its all from the same thing! the same vague concept from an 6-7 year old smp!! isnt that fucking amazing? what we, the fandom have done with it, and how far weve bent it, and just.

the whole watcher thing is one of my favourite bits of ANY fandom i have ever seen. the sheer creativity of fandom really does surprise me sometimes.

[h-doodles]

truly not sorry but once again thinking abt miranda/mc/mia in RL. i need them SO bad. like, 2 of the most morally unsound persons (Mia & Miranda) + their little meow meow. Knowing both are so possessive and destructive (TO OTHERS) when they love and instead of running, fully embracing the chaos of it. Loving them despite their delusions of grandeur, the crimes, the secrets, and the deaths (+ undeaths) caused (or ordered!) by their hands. Acknowledging this is fucked up but you can't help it. Lovingly bitching abt their fights but fully done and gone to do anything else but to soothe and continue loving them, because after all those years of waiting and doing and redoing everything to be perfect was worth it for this.

also did i mention being their little meow meow. sorry Miranda, MC was the original gremlin in the relationship and Mia being the fucked up feral racoon she is now is not solely by her doing, MC was and IS the enabler in both relationships that it bled over sm and OUGHJJJJJHHHHhhhh im being so emo abt three (3) women being utter menaces frfr