#i guess technically this particular part is a Justice League fic

[lex-munro]

[Suicide Squad] Nimrod

Once, a powerful ruler tried to build a tower to the heavens…

self-indulgent batjokes-flavored SS/BvS/JL, installment 17.5.  a standalone fragment set immediately after Princess part 17.

this piece is rated PG-13 for brief violence and discussion of a jailbreak; the Princess series as a whole is for mature audiences.  It is edifying, but not completely necessary, to have read the Dark Nights: Metal event.

BAR.

Nimrod 

It’s a taunt.

Waller is absolutely daring him to run headlong into her trap.

He’s been putting his hand in the lion’s mouth, and now she wants him angry and overconfident enough to put his head in.

To an extent, he’s falling for it.  He watches the video again and again, getting angrier every time he sees the moment Joker gets upset.  The fist in his hair changes the entire line of his body, broadcasting tension and violence as he manipulates the cheap handcuffs.  Boot to the knee, fist to the nose.  Bullet through the window.  Flag through the door.  Floor lamp to the head.  Joker drops down with a knife just as the camera drone retreats.

Bruce knows he didn’t kill that man—he wouldn’t.  He promised.  But there are a lot of things a knife can do besides killing outright, and it’s possible Joker was upset enough to ignore the knowledge that Bruce would still be disappointed if he inflicted a fatal wound and walked away.

Bruce is also self-aware enough to acknowledge that some of his anger is coming from the frustration of other people touching what’s his.  It’s a character flaw he’s had since at least the death of his parents; more than one therapist has suggested it’s part of a need for control, related at least in part to a savior complex.  If he can’t even keep people from touching Joker, he can’t protect the man.  Couldn’t protect him from the situation that led to his fall at Ace Chemical, couldn’t protect him from Jason and their subsequent mutual wrath, couldn’t protect him from Waller.

And if she manages to get him killed…

Bruce has no idea what kind of creature he could become.

He’s left failsafes, of course—taught Dick and Tim and Alfred what to do, put automated protocols in place, left instructions for the League in case they need to take him out.  He hopes he’s imagined himself as much more dangerous than he truly is, so that they’re properly prepared.  He almost killed Clark once…maybe he would be an even more terrifying monster.  In Bruce’s nightmares, Clark only wanted to wreak vengeance, and only on a single world; in desperation, Bruce might take his wrath out on many worlds, seeking one where he could regain what he’d lost, destroying everything in his wake and laughing over the corpses of whole universes…

He shakes the thought away.

He has to get Joker back now, regardless of the state of Arkham, regardless of ‘Warden’ Strange and Dr. Crane.  He’ll need at least one accomplice, and he can’t depend on Flag to pull it off alone—not in the heart of a prison built for extraordinary prisoners.  He can’t ask something so morally ambiguous of Barry or Clark.  Arthur could be helpful, in the middle of the bayou.  Victor.  Diana.  He briefly considers dragging Zatanna or Shayera into it, but assumes neither would be willing to help rescue the Joker, of all people.  Constantine might be willing to lend a hand, if he’s sober; he spends a considerable amount of time at Joker’s club, after all.

The computer beeps.

No.  Arthur’s in Malaysia and Constantine is in Poland.  Not enough time.  Joker’s mistreatment might be enough to sway Victor into helping, but he won’t be at his best in a fairly confined killbox surrounded by guards firing from cover…

High heels on stone.

“Bruce?” Diana calls.  “If you keep skipping dinner, you’re going to hurt Alfred’s feelings.  Even Barry was here tonight.  Tim said you were down here obsessing over something.”

“He’s not a hundred percent wrong,” Bruce admits.  “Was Lois here?  Did she manage to get that interview with Hugo Strange?”

“Friday morning, apparently.  They’ve offered her a tour of Arkham Island.  They’re going to tell her all about their revolutionary new therapy that they hope to use on the criminally insane nationwide.”

“Because that’s not a disturbing thing to say at all,” Bruce grumbles, pulling up more schematics and blueprints.  The only way in and out without a small army (or a lot of casualties) is from the air.

Diana steps closer.  “You have files on all of us?” she asks with a note of displeasure.

“Yes, I have files on all of us,” Bruce replies.  “Myself included.  Every observation and conversation on Barry’s abilities, which may theoretically give him the power to travel through time or between alternate universes.  Every suspected Themysciran spy and her potential provenance.  Every known type of kryptonite and its effects on Kryptonian biology.  Every case I’ve ever taken on, and everyone who’s interacted with the Batman.”

“And files on your nemeses as well?”

“My files on Lex Luthor are particularly extensive.”

She’s quiet for a moment.  “Barry says he’s evil—this Joker of yours.  A madman.”

Bruce feels his face go hot with the immediate rush of anger, then cold with calm.  “That’s an oversimplification.  Joker is indisputably unwell, but with the appropriate guidance and motivation, his more violent urges can be controlled.”  He glances at her.  “His feelings are real.  Our feelings are real.”

“Doesn’t look like much,” she says mildly, indicating the latest Arkham intake pictures.

“He’s smart as hell, and tenacious.  Moral imperatives are meaningless to him, but he has his own boundaries and priorities.  He pushes me, challenges me.  In his own words, he makes me spectacular.”

“Kal-el said you don’t believe in killing…yet you romance a murderer?”

“You don’t have to understand us.”

She nods with what he thinks is approval.  “Can I see his file?”

Bruce feels his cheeks warm—surely the file will reveal the extent of their mutual obsession…  But so be it.  Let it all hang out, so to speak.  “Of course.  You and Clark have full access to dossiers on the computer.”  With just a few clicks, he expands the full file.  Case folders line up across the screen, auxiliary to the collection of Arkham and Blackgate records, the original Ace Chemical incident, property files on the Jokers Wild club.

Her eyebrows rise.  “Prolific,” she remarks.

After a moment, Bruce pulls up the old file on Jack as well.

She’s a fast reader, apparently, because just a few seconds later she says, “Oh, Bruce,” in a tone of mild parental exasperation.

“As you can see, we’ve actually been together a year and a half longer than he can remember.  There’s something about knowing him as two vastly different people…my brain wouldn’t let me leave it alone.  So.”

“I understand,” she says, and he believes her.  A woman of her age, with the things she must have seen and lived through…no doubt she has obsessions of her own, like Captain Trevor.  She nudges into his space to click open the most recent case file.

Everything he has on Joker’s time with ARGUS, including the taunting videos Waller has been sending under the guise of ‘keeping him informed.’

“He’s been particularly unhinged since he parted ways with Harley Quinn,” Bruce says.  “I asked him to seek treatment, which I’ve discovered did not go well.  Apparently, his therapist at Arkham didn’t believe him about our relationship and was trying to convince him it was a delusion.  Then she drastically changed his medication.  He was ripe for the picking when Waller got her claws on him.”

“You want to get him away from her.  Doesn’t she coordinate the Justice Society?”

“She also runs Belle Reve Incarceration Facility, a prison for meta-human criminals where she stores all her favorite expendable toys.  She sends them on dangerous wetworks missions in exchange for ten years off their sentences for each success, with the understanding that they could very likely be killed, and that she could end them herself if they misbehave in the field.  Let them out like rabid dogs, shoot them if they bite the wrong hand.”  He forces himself to unclench his fists.  “She stole him right out from under me, and he could’ve been dead by the time I found out.”

Diana turns her head sharply.  “Is she using him to extort you?”

“Almost definitely.  She’s framing it like she’s doing him a favor, letting him work off his sentence and letting him have supervised visits with me…but she means it as a trap.  I just don’t know when she plans to spring it, or how to get out of it.”

“She’s with the government, so she still has to operate within some rules…”

Bruce nods.  “Which is why she isn’t trying to use my family as leverage.  But he’s just psychotic criminal scum, so she can do what she wants.”

“Do you have a plan?”

He pulls up the aerial view of the prison and tells her what he has in mind.

Afterward, she gestures to the open courtyard where they’ll be dropping in.  “Kal-el could—”

“Clark would not—and cannot—break into a prison to steal an inmate.”

“One who was being tormented and sent to his possible death on a regular basis?  I think he would.”

“And I’m telling you he can’t, because that place is still run by the government and they already watch him like circling vultures.  One toe out of line would send them running to LexCorp, potentially even setting the man himself free on yet another technicality, to make them weapons that can kill Clark.  He is a living, breathing natural disaster under the wrong circumstances, and I intend to prevent those circumstances for as long as possible.”

After several seconds of silence, Diana puts a hand on his shoulder.  “Just the two of us, then.  Let’s go.”

“I may have to stay behind in order to get him out—don’t let the League come after me.  Especially Barry:  he’s starting to take too many risks.”

She hides a smile.

“What?”

“I just think it’s funny that you treat Barry like a child, but not Victor.  You do know Barry is two years older?”

He ignores her.  “The number one priority is taking away Waller’s leverage, so if she gets me, she can only get me.”

“In that case, we’re taking my jet instead of yours.”

He frowns.  “You have a jet?  I don’t remember ever seeing—”

“I know.” 

.End.

[aeligsido]

🌗 💕 🌍 🎤 for the ask <3 <3

THANK U SO MUCH FOR THE ASK!

🌗 fluff or angst?

why it is always fluff or angst but never hurt/comfort????? i want my hurt/comfort guys that's all i ask,

(angst)

💕 favorite ship to write?

iorhfui honestly i don't think I have a favorite ship to write?? like, in general i like writing ship and i find them all interesting to write odifh it depends how much i like this particular ship i guess????

🌍fave type of au to write?

uuuuuh... any au? no but really, they all can be interesting as long as i have the ideas to go with it odfih

BUT in general i like modern au/no capes au (depending on the fandom), i also like fantasy au veeery much. I recently discovered my love for some fairy tales au (wait, not so recently actually now that i think about that)... like all of that is so much fun to write. AND!!! the worldbuilding!!! i love the worldbuilding!!

so, yeah. i'm staying with these one!

... except if canon divergence works..... i do like writing about it....

🎤fave line in a fic you wrote?

oh seriously i had to go find a fic and a line odufhu

SINCE IT'S LIKE THAT HERE I'LL PUT MORE THAN ONE

“So,” said Ashley, swallowing hardly on her breath. “You have two moms, and a dad. It's nice.” Not what she expected, but not unheard of.

“Five,” corrected Lian.

“... Five?”

“Yes. Five dads.”

I just really like this one bc it's very funny to me. It's from one of my WIP called "titans' babies vs the world", and in this one you have Lian talking about her parents lmao. Talking about that, here's Bobby talking about their parents as well:

“Yeah. The one who was with dad before, the dad who's Mar'i's dad dad and kind of mom's twin – or, well, they tell everyone they are even if they aren't really, I don't know, it's complicated – and now mom is with mom and they love each other very much. Like dad love mom and mom but in another way, you know?”

If it's extra confusing, it's the point LMAO. I just love these kids so much.

Stephanie flourishes on the road, cheeks reds from the wind and smiling, hands calloused under the work, her bag still light on her hips. This curse is turning into a blessing, even if she doesn’t say it out loud, even if she barely allow herself the thought.

But, for the first time since her mother’s death and what she feels is forever, Stephanie is truly happy.

This one is from another WIP!! A Fairy Tale AU with Steph as the main character :D idk, i just really like the way it flows, maybe it's just me lmao

Dick led the way toward the gardens, keeping Kori’s hand in his. The moon reflected on Kori’s hair in a bright, eerie way. He loved it.

It wasn’t too warm outside despite the summer night; a light breeze was creeping around and chilling the air in a pleasant way. The stars were shining.

Dick still had a ring in his pocket.

listen i'm a romantic at heart... i just really like this part. AND YES it's also for another one of my WIP. Well technically not WIP since it's finished but on its way to be betaed lmao

The last time Tim had seen him was years ago, when Jason was still Robin and Tim a stalker following the Batman and his allies. In his death, he somehow managed to grow up to be tall and bulky, towering close to Bruce’s height - and weight. All in all, Jason was terrifying, extremely competent, and there was no way for Tim to beat him in a fight.

After all, Tim knew that fighting wasn’t his strong suit, despite - or in spite - of all the training he had been put through. But, well, everyone said he had one thing for himself, and it was his brain. Or making wonderful plans on the spot, just like Kon told him two hours ago during their tag game. (That they won, for the record.)

Now was the perfect time to discover if Tim Drake could outsmart Jason Todd.

i just love it because it screams that Tim is about to do something very stupid lmao. AND!! this one is actually from a published fic, aka Checkmate :fingerguns:

“Because you’re Robin.” [...] “And Robin was me. My family colors. My name. I created it to honor my family - and by putting on this costume, you became a part of my family. You became mine, Jase. Not Bruce’s. Not anyone else’s. And you still are, will always be. Robins are a family, and Bruce has no say in that.”

Jason - Jason’s heart was breaking and healing at the same time, full of tiny shards of glass and soft bandages.

[...]

Jason never realized the consequences of being Robin, but this - being part of Dick’s family - was probably the best of all. It was worth it - worth everything else.

listen i'm extremely emotional about Jason and Dick and especially this fic. Anyway, it's from A Nest of Love and Robins, this one is posted too!

Wally missed it, sometimes. Missed the thrill of being Kid Flash, of being a Titan, of fighting and having movie nights with his best friends. When he looked at Bart, at Conner, at Cassie, at Cissie, at Tim – Wally wondered whose legacy they're carrying on. Of course, people automatically thought it was the Justice League's ; but Wally watched them and remembered and thought, 'Maybe they got it from us, maybe they're our legacy'. And that was a weird thought – because the Titans had never been about having a legacy or being one, but always been about being a group of friends and becoming a family in between two punches and a slice of pizza.

this one make me emotional too. I honestly don't have anything better to say, i just... really love the whole things. It comes from Watch Your Past!

Okay now last one but i'm really in love with this whole fic and yes i know i'm the one who wrote it and????

But- It was nice, too, in it's own way. They grew up together, faced death and life together. They knew each other so much they couldn't really hide anything, and sometimes it felt like they were an extension of his own soul.

He had thought, once upon a time, that maybe he was a tiny bit in love with his best friends. He loved them more than anything, after all; that didn't really change, he just added more people to this category. Their children. His siblings.

It hadn't been true, though – not entirely. Because if his interest in them wasn't romantic, it didn't mean he couldn't be in love with them. There are a lot of ways to be in love with people. Maybe it was just another one.

It didn't really matter, in the end, as long as they could stay together – in this life and the next.

[...]

They laughed, loud and clear – like all those years ago in Titans Tower or in the middle of a fight or standing proud against their enemies, mentors, whoever would try to go against them. They laughed, freely and with not a care for the world around them, like they still owned it after all these years. They laughed like they were young and innocent, ancient and tired, alive and free.

They laughed, loud and clear, in the same heartbeat and soul.

[...]

(Maybe they were all a little tiny bit in love, in the end.)

idk it's kind of poetic and full of feelz for me, so, yeah. It's from the fic home is where the heart settle, about the Fab Five!

AND THAT'S IT. Thanks again for the ask, ask list here!

[beatrice-otter]

An Open Letter to AO3 Regarding Fandom Tagging Changes

ETA: Checking the archive this morning, I found that the Wonder Woman (2017) tag no longer redirects to DCEU, but takes you directly to Wonder Woman (2017).  Also, someone said that even last night, you could (from the DCEU page) click on the "Fandoms" list on the sidebar and filter to just Wonder Woman (2017), but I don't know if that worked last night when the tags were merged, because in my poking around in disbelief, I forgot the 'filter by fandom' option on the sidebar.  I am writing another message to support thanking them for fixing the issue.

ETA 2: @melannen checked with the DCEU taggers and confirmed that redirecting the Wonder Woman (2017) tag was a mistake and not part of an overarching plan for DCEU or any other megafandom.  Somebody clicked the wrong button, I guess, and they fixed it as soon as they figured out it had happened.  Thank you to all the people working hard at tag wrangling and support to keep the archive going, and fix problems like this.

My original letter is below the read-more.

This is what I just sent off to AO3's Support. Hi!  First, before I get started, I want you to know that I have loved AO3 since its beginning.  I know how huge an endeavor it is, and how much work goes on behind the scenes (all of it on a volunteer basis), and I am grateful for it.  I also understand that there are situations where there is no good answer to a problem because of either technical issues behind the scenes or conflicting needs/wants of users, and I actively try to be charitable in how I interpret the decisions the archive makes, for the reasons stated above.  I know that large fandom trees were straining your servers, and you needed to find a solution. The flexibility of the tagging structure on AO3 is about 90% of the reason I love the archive.  And by that I mean, the ability to use tags to find EXACTLY what I want to read, instead of slogging through hundreds (or thousands, in some fandoms) of fics I am not interested, is THE MAJOR THING AO3 has always (until now) done better than any other fic archive or website.  My main frustrations with the archive have been when tags aren't granular enough--when I want them to be more specific than they are.  For example, when I wish that character tags were filtered by whether someone was a major or minor character in the story, or when I'm trying to find fic specifically about X-Men: Days of Future Past and get redirected to all XMFC fic.  And I don't think I'm alone in this.   So any change to make them less granular, even when it might make the back end run smoother, is a big problem for me. In particular, your that solution to current tagging woes (merging sub-fandom tags into one over-arching fandom tag) has broken the archive for me in some of my fandoms, and (if it is rolled out across other fandoms in the same way) will break all of those fandoms for me, rendering the archive virtually useless for doing anything other than reading fic I have already bookmarked. As a first step, merging the individual movies of the Star Wars Original Trilogy together into one tag is a pretty good decision, and I was actually surprised that it hadn't been done already.  It works because the three movies of that trilogy tell one unified story with pretty much the same characters.  There may be people who love one movie in it and hate the others, but I've never met any; and the fandom has not historically split along intra-trilogy lines.  There are very few people who, when they click on "Return of the Jedi" and get all OT fics, are going to be seriously upset or discommoded by it (and many who would actually PREFER to get all fics in that trilogy).  So when I saw the tumblr post saying you were going to do that, I went, "oh, yeah, good idea, that makes sense," and went about my day.  I assumed that other instances of merging things would be similarly merging things that were already a unified fannish category with little individual distinction and went on about my business. Then I found out that all of the DCEU movies have been merged together into one fandom.  That, my friends, is  WHOLE DIFFERENT BALL OF WAX.  Unlike the three movies of the OT, there are NO characters that are shared between all DCEU movies.  There are no overarching plot threads between them all.  There are MAJOR differences in plot, characters, theme, and many other points, between these movies.  It is quite possible to love one movie, and hate, loathe, and despise another.  There are LARGE swathes of the fandom that don't overlap.  There are many people, like me, who love one movie, like another, and actively try to avoid other movies in that megafandom.  This is quite common for megafandoms.  Every megafandom I'm familiar with--Star Wars, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, MCU, Stargate, DCEU, Star Trek--is too varied for people to like all of it equally; you end up with a handful of people who genuinely like the whole thing and most people who focus on parts of it.  Except now, there's no way to separate out the stuff you ACTUALLY want to see from all the OTHER mass of stuff in the megafandom.  And while that's not that big a deal in a small fandom where there isn't much fic to sort through anyway, it's a pretty BIG problem in a megafandom with is, you know, MEGA, with lots of fic. For example, I LOVE Wonder Woman (2017), am only occasionally interested in in the DCEU Superman and Justice League movies, and am only willing to read Suicide Squad fic if it's a Harley Quinn story that's mostly comics canon with a few Suicide Squad details.  With the old way the archive was organized, this was not a problem.  I could regularly look through the Wonder Woman (2017) tag for new fic, dip into Superman and Justice League on the rare occasions that I was in the mood for Batfleck and Cavilman, and pretty much never have to deal with anything Suicide Squad.  Now, I click on Wonder Woman (2017), and instead of getting pages of exactly what I want, I get the entire DCEU.  On that first page of 20 fics, there are currently only four that I would even be interested in considering reading.  Your tag change has dropped my rate of finding interesting things from 100% to 20%.  That is an 80% reduction in my ease of finding fic.  An 80% reduction in how useful your tagging system is. Let me repeat that: your new tagging system has decreased the usefulness of this archive by 80%. We're not talking, "oh, a small reduction in user satisfaction for a HUGE gain in back-end functionality."  I don't know how much easier this makes things on the back-end for you, but it is a FRICKING HUGE reduction in foundational ease-of-use for the entire site.  This is not a minor change.  This makes the most basic function of the site--finding fic to read--80% harder.  The only scenario in which I would view this as a workable solution--not a good solution, mind you, but one that I could accept--is if it was literally a choice between this and closing the archive. Let's talk about what my use of the archive would have to look like going forward if this change is maintained and expanded, so you can see what I mean.  Up until this change, if I wanted Wonder Woman fic, I clicked on the tag and got it!  Now I can't do that.  So my options are: 1) slogging through the entire DCEU, 80% of which I don't want.  This is the only way to be sure I see every Wonder Woman fic I actually want.   Problem: it will take me at least 80% longer to find stuff I ACTUALLY want.  So, I would be less likely to look for new fic, and more likely to just go re-read old favorites, because it's so much quicker to do.   As a reader and a writer, this is a problem for me, because I do want to read new fic, and I want other people to be able to find MY new fic. 2) putting together a long string of boolean search terms, probably based on characters.  So, for example, I couldn't just search for "Diana (Wonder Woman)" because she appears in too much Justice League and Batman Vs. Superman fic (which I very seldom want to read).  Searching for her would be better than just DCEU, because I wouldn't get Suicide Squad, but it would still be a ton of slogging through fics I don't want.  I could search for "Diana (Wonder Woman)" and use the "Search within results" box to exclude Justice League and Batman and Superman.   But that would miss any fics about Etta Candy or Steve Trevor or Hippolyta or any other Amazon in which Diana didn't appear.  So, then, maybe use boolean search terms for Diana OR Steve OR Etta OR Hippolyta, and eliminating Justice League and Batman and Superman.  Except that would still miss any fic that is, say, general worldbuilding for Themyscira, that doesn't have Diana or Hippolyta in it.  And I love worldbuilding, but not everybody tags for it.  Do I have to build up a boolean search string for EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER IN THE MOVIE in the hopes of catching everything?  How many boolean terms can I use at once?  Or do I need to run several separate searches, which would mean sorting through a lot of these fics multiple times, as they would pop up under multiple search strings?  I would STILL probably end up missing things that I would be interested in, and it would take A SHIT-TON of extra effort on my part.  Far more effort, for less reward.  And, again, as both a reader who wants to find new fic and as a writer who wants other people to be able to find MY fic when I write it, everything about this is terrible. 3. Use AO3 Savior to do some of the filtering for me.  I don't know, blacklisting some tags would probably cut down on the number of boolean terms to rack up, but then I would have to go in and un-blacklist things on the rare occasions I actually wanted to read Batfleck fic.  But this would become of less and less utility as people stopped tagging for individual movies and just tagged everything with the current canonical metatag for DCEU.  Also: there is only one site I know if in which browser extensions are required to make the site useable, and that is tumblr which is a shambling hellscape of a site.  Is that AO3's new goal?  To become as user-hating as tumblr?  Because while I appreciate how hard you guys work, that's what this change feels like. Now, I know you may be reading all this and going, "well, yeah, Wonder Woman fic is a problem, but you won't even notice the changes in most fandoms!" Let me present to you a list of the fandoms I have read the most of over the last year: Star Wars (but only some parts of that fandom, and not others) Star Trek (but only some parts of that fandom, and not others) MCU (but only some parts of that fandom, and not others) Wonder Woman (but not the rest of the DCEU) DC Comics (but only some parts of that fandom, and not others) Rivers of London And much as I love Rivers of London, I've spent a LOT more time reading fic in those other fandoms, because there's simply so much more of it, even when you only count the small pieces of each megafandom I'm interested in. What this means is that if you keep this tagging change and roll it out to other megafandoms, you will SERIOUSLY AND FUNDAMENTALLY BREAK how I use the archive.  And given a) how many other people on this archive are in megafandoms and b) how large a percentage of the people in megafandoms only read fic in one corner of that megafandom ... you are seriously and fundamentally breaking the websites functionality for a very large percentage of your userbase. At one fell swoop, you turn AO3 from an archive I love and support (including financially) to an archive I hope is replaced (soon) with something better, because it's a pain in the ass pretty much every time I try to use it.  Please, please, please, find some other way to fix the problem.  If you need money for more servers, or to hire a professional coder to do some serious backend changes to make things workable with the old tagging structure, I'd be fine with that and I would contribute to any fundraiser you did.  Your current choice is not a solution, it's a nightmare.

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