#i just want to study them all in a lab

[minecraftbookshelf]

Every time there is any kind of traffic life duo/trio/shipping/grouping poll I'm just sitting over here like "why are we pitting all these bad bitch dumpster fires against each other?" why can't we just study them all under a microscope?

[castleofravens]

the tragedy of the vackers and how inevitably they will mess up their kids for life. you can’t be a vacker without meeting high standards, you can’t be a vacker without thinking about your every mood, tone, expression.

the very idea of being a vacker is incompatible with a truly stable, normal, and happy childhood, the very idea of being a vacker is incompatible with a childhood.

and you can’t blame your parents, can you? they were given the same lessons, internalized the same ideals, they don’t know any better and how are they supposed to do much without the tools to succeed in parenting? they love you and while you think they would love you no matter what, would they like you? would they treat you the same if you tainted their name, dishonored the family, disappointed them? and don’t you owe it to them, in a way? owe them perfection, a gilded image that reflects on the vackers as a whole, and how would your father’s parents, hell, how would all the generations before you, react if you were the one to bring shame and ruination to the family, if you were the one to let the great vacker name fall? your duty is to your family and their image, first and foremost. get detentions, fail a test, slouch, speak with an off tone, grow too emotional, be messy? those all reflect on your family. and you don’t want to disappoint them, do you? you are gripped by this deep sense of fear, of dread, whenever you get dragged into a detention by your best friend, when you realize that as the youngest of three you have perhaps the most pressure to manifest a special ability, when you realize you have two siblings and are therefore… replaceable, expendable, forgettable

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[infernaltenor]

been losing my mind reading hsr posts online again so you get a jade analysis 👍

yes i KNOW evil woman. we're not going down that path rn. i know shes morally dubious and all shades of suspicious and works for the fucking ipc. i KNOW.

i'm here because i believe she has been misattributed like crazy.

a) the aventurine relationship. we already know this one. any good analysis on them will tell you clearly that aventurine made both the bet and the deal. what happens after is between two adults. (and yes, i'll give points that jade is a manipulative bastard, but so is aventurine. he works for the same fucking company. they do the same assignments.) anyway, i'm not really in the mood to rehash jade and aventurine's misinterpreted relationship beyond this: aventurine made the choice to make a deal with jade and start working for the ipc. in fact he wanted to meet with diamond, but didn't, which is a fascinating little tidbit. i digress. it's easy to say "jade manipulated aventurine into working as a stoneheart" but reanalyzing the scene will make it clear that she distinctly both didn't manipulate him (into that, anyway), and made a direct deal with his gamble. honestly, they both have similar strategies. hey, i wonder if this will come up later 🤔

b) the topaz relationship. i'm sorry, but there is absolutely no way jade singlehandedly made sure topaz didn't see any atrocities committed by the ipc in her entire life. are you fucking insane? topaz grew up on an ipc controlled planet, likely surrounded by ipc propaganda the whole time. along with this, topaz has nine other colleagues in the stonehearts (eight if you don't count jade) and more than likely hundreds or thousands of coworkers. this cannot fall solely on jade's shoulders as to why topaz doesn't fucking know the scope of the ipc. this falls onto "topaz grew up on a planet controlled by them, and more importantly, a planet surviving by the ipc." you can even contrast this with aventurine, who grew up on a planet with ipc agents; but unlike topaz, aventurine's planet had a vastly different result, including the massacre of his people. both of these are facts that have very little to do with jade. her having introduced and directly hired topaz and aventurine into the stonehearts is a different fucking issue, don't go confusing them. you will not survive the winter. i will kill you. ok. that wasn't necessary. i apologize.

c) so why is jade the way that she is? well, i'm delving into theory territory here but i have two main strands. one, all of the stonehearts have similar stories, something i cannot confirm without more of them, but i am of the opinion that all of them distinctly are "something that they don't want to be." two, i think i know who jade was before she was jade. ok let's get into this.

the stonehearts being "something that they don't want to be." well, this is obvious with aventurine, as he is actively working for the ipc. there's a lot to be attributed with his self destruct personality and tendency to gamble everything ever, but i'm really not an aventurine fan so i'm not here to overanalyze him. plus, i'm confident it's been said before (side note: if you're interested in a decent aventurine analysis that looks at misinformation, i found this one pretty good). topaz is another pretty obvious idea, seen as everyone is confident she doesn't know the scope of the ipc's atrocities. i cannot fact check this but i vaguely remember her introductory event, so i'll concede that point. topaz distinctly doesn't know what she's getting into, meaning that i'm characterizing her as "a good person, naive, hasn't had her world shattered" or something along those lines. and now you ask the question: but tenor, what about jade? she CAN'T be like that, haven't you seen her manipulate the shit out of people?

well. now i give you who i think jade WAS. in jade's character stories, there's a jewelry merchant from a failing system who goes to the bonajade exchange. interestingly, jade isn't mentioned at all in her first character story, as it focuses on the merchant. even stranger, the deal ends with the jewelry merchant being contractually obligated to work for the ipc, for life (this section ends with "give your everything to the ipc" <- paraphrased, but still). essentially, for the hope that her system will be saved, the merchant gives her everything. the second story is where jade shows up. i believe the original owner of the bonajade exchange would have been diamond. i also believe that jade didn't originally have the snake. as jade only shows up in her second character story, it's my opinion that jade is that jewelry merchant. her system is, incidentally, destroyed, as it hadn't survived, something that is also mentioned in her character stories. this wouldn't matter if it didn't have something to do with her. another trait that i feel doesn't line up with popular interpretations is, well, her lightcone. "yet hope is priceless," being the name and the image/description describes her (implied) common visits/donations to an orphanage. she is actively making sure the orphanage stays afloat. jade distinctly makes deals with adults and, more importantly, gives them directly what the owe, yet doesn't discourage them from making deals with her. i believe she doesn't expand this to children, especially not the ones she's fucking donating to the orphanage for. more so, jade's lightcone name, "yet hope is priceless," makes no fucking sense with her character, someone who typically puts a price on everything. the only way it makes sense is if she had hope at one point or another. if she was the jewelry merchant, bargaining to save her home (this also lines up, imo, with jade's heavy focus on jewelry motifs. i believe she has that because she used to sell it; which would also make sense why she has "a planet" as a bracelet, though i'm of the opinion that that's a metaphor).

ok so how does that connect with the first point. weeeeeeeell, if we're going off of "jade is the jewelry merchant, and the jewelry merchant made a deal to work for the ipc to save her home system," this is very distinctly a deal that didn't work. i do think that jade inherited the bonajade exchange and the snake from someone else. i also think that jade originally had hopes similar to say, aventurine or topaz, when she joined. jade, in my opinion, is a character who joined originally to help people ("yet hope is priceless"), yet lost herself in her work, culminating in the manipulative bastard we see now. i don't think this end point was where she wanted to be. given the fact that, if this is true, all three stonehearts we've seen in game occupy similar stories, i wouldn't be surprised if this pattern keeps up. it's literally the classic "live long enough to see yourself become the villain." topaz and aventurine get so victimized in analyses that people do not take the time to compare them with jade, and yet all three are more similar than people want to admit.

ok well, that was a lot of theory writing. to tell you the truth, i think this is way more interesting than simply writing jade off as "completely evil woman," which i'm not sorry about. she's an interesting character! it's just that she owns her employment to the ipc in a vastly different way to topaz and aventurine, meaning that she's easier to look at as distinctly evil. not to mention, her theming being very "snake in the garden of eden." but i digress. this was a lot more than what i intended to write LMAO if you read this far i'm kissing you on the mouth or whatever.

[a-shadowedvales]

when jane's powers return in season four (and because they were regained by her confronting and accepting her past, rather than being retraumatised with it!) they're stronger than they ever were. when she starts getting a handle back on them, she very quickly comes to realise not only have they affected her, but her mother, too. one of the biggest losses that came about with her losing them was the fact that she could no longer visit terry in the void; while there was no real communication there, it did allow jane to sit with her, and gain a little more connection than she could in the real world. when she first visits the void after their return, it takes her three hours to find terry, something that is both unexpected and incredibly worrying. but when she does, it's something of a miracle. jane's increased strength and control over the void actually wakes terry up from her catatonic state, but only in the void. there's no way to help her mother physically, but she does do so (unbeknownst to her) mentally. terry is reborn in jane's newfound control over the vale of shadows; she becomes the woman she once was, and while her body remains frozen in a "good dream", her mind connected to jane's own allows her some freedom. jane is able to speak to her mother in the void, is able to be held by her, and while it's still unfair and jane cannot stay in there forever, it's something. this only lasts for about eight months, as each visit slowly begins deteriorating terry's physical and mental state, and jane's health begins declining after spending hours upon hours in the void each and every day.

when jane finds out these visits are actually killing her mother on the outside, she deems to stop, but terry expresses the importance of them being able to speak, that she'd prefer to die on the outside, if it meant she could have just a few months with her daughter like this. terry and jane's connection was always so strong, which ultimately led to terry "waking up" in the void, but even jane's newfound strength cannot save her from the harsh realities. each visit nearing the end of those eight months, terry fades more and more, becomes weaker in the void, and her real body eventually gives up. jane's in the void when her mother eventually passes on, and physically feels their connection weaken, like some part of her suddenly becomes lost in the shadows, a part she'll never find again. jane falls into a depressive state for weeks after her mother's death, given she's technically lost her a second time, but soon comes to realise she was lucky to have even shared those eight months together. it was better than nothing at all. there is a proper burial and funeral, (and when jane dies, she's buried next to her mother) which allows jane some sense of closure. she never fully recovers from losing terry, nor from the fact that she never had a proper relationship with her, but she does eventually find some peace with it all.

[shadowedvales]

jane has a very warped, toxic relationship with the void, which stems particularly from her time with her friends, in the early days, opposed to her time in hawkins lab. she expects punishment in the lab for noncompliance, which is why she does everything papa asks of her, in fear for what may happen if she refuses. she soon comes to believe that her only use in the party is to find will, or they'll “send her back to pennhurst or wherever she comes from.” it’s a different kind of punishment, but the pressure to comply is the same. jane gets her first taste of freedom in season one, but still spends it imprisoned and in a role where so much of her is demanded physically and mentally. the scene especially in episode seven, when they're all around joyce's dining table, talking about her like she's a machine, proves this tenfold. at this point, she is off in the bathroom, looking at herself in the mirror, crying because she can't help these people. a twelve year old girl who has never been outside in her life, crying because she's letting these strangers down… and they're doing absolutely nothing to help her along with it. to make her feel secure and safe.

mike: but she's drained. dustin: like a bad battery. joyce: well, how do we make her better? mike: we don't. we just have to wait and try again. nancy: well, how long?!

it's all well and good when joyce tells her that she's right there for her when jane enters the void, tells her she is brave. but they are all, for the most part, willing to sacrifice her, her feelings, her safety, to get will back. they don't know the void, and while jane is physically there with them, they have no idea what it could do to her. i understand joyce is his mum, of course she'll stop at nothing until will is returned, but it doesn't justify the way jane is treated and spoken about like she isn't even there. joyce should be on her hands and knees thanking jane for traumatising herself to find her son. and hopper literally selling her out to the hawkins lab people, putting her back in brenner's custody don't even get me startedddd. like she isn't a little girl, like she matters less than will does. she is basically treated like a metal detector for the better part of the season. [like a dog. like a makeshift girlfriend. she's placed into so many different roles and uses by these people, and is never given a chance to determine what she may want.] i understand that no time could really be wasted in terms of finding will, but if even one of them had asked her how she felt, if she needed to take a break, it would have made all the difference. she would have pushed herself regardless, but at least it would have shown that not only will mattered.

but no one did ask. and it leaves jane feeling like it's okay to sacrifice herself to the void; it leaves her treating the void like it's less dangerous, less unknown than it really is. they are her friends, she loves these people, so if they say it’s fine for her to do this, then she believes it, and never stops believing it. this ties in so nicely to the debate between max and mike regarding her powers in season three: mike thinking jane should limit herself to keep safe, and max arguing that it's up to jane, that she knows her own limits. where in reality, she doesn't know any limits, because she was never taught to have them. [i don't specifically blame the boy's in this instance, because they were just kids in season one, but joyce and hopper, even nancy and jonathan, could've stepped up.] if anyone told her back then, when she was even more impressionable than she is now, that if she was scared, if she didn't want to do it, she didn't have to. she still would have, of course, but then and there it would have instilled the fact that she had choices. so when mike proclaims that it's not good for her to be in there for that long, jane thinks nothing of it, because she should have been told these things three years prior. it leaves her using the void like it's no big deal, never taking a minute to consider how it could be affecting her body and mind.

[autumn-applepie]

University ever pushes you so low you have to go buy a couple of beers? /srs/neg

I'm gonna vent in the tags for a moment humor me for once /gen

[remma-demma]

My lab partners in physics are literally useless I feel insane. I asked if either of them wanted to stay after class to work on it so I didn’t have to do it all myself and one said she just got a puppy the day before (fine, if that’s true I guess) and the other said … “suuure” and then kept going out of the classroom to call someone and he left halfway through class in a rush. I 100% believe he called his mom and was like “you gotta pick me up NOW”

[radioactive-worm-on-string]

All I’m saying is that it’s tragic how very intelligent students are forced to drop out and made feel stupid because some professors feel the need to make their courses so intense that one needs to study 50-60 hours a week, while they just need rest to function, but would have no problem understanding the material if they just had to study 40 hours a week, the actual fucking guidelines for what full-time studies should be.

[orcelito]

I went and did my exam (very thoroughly), got home and sorted out my finances + ordered groceries (bc I finally have some fucking money to buy them with), & then planned to write a bit and then do some chores. But then I just conked out lmao

It's been... a rough few days. I probably needed the rest.

[ibyul]

.

[arolesbianism]

What if instead of posting abt the random card au characters that are actually from the medias I made the au for I just post more abt the ocs that don't matter at all and that no one cares abt. Anyways currently thinking abt the magic user that started the bond that An is a part of. Little autism creature that goes ehehehehheheeheeheeheeeeheheheheeehee

[superiorsturgeon]

out of curiosity, why do you like sturgeons so much?

A chance to info dump about my favorite fish…?!

I grew up in the Great Lakes area of North America, where fishing is pretty popular but everyone knows that fish populations aren’t anything like “the good old days” when people took out huge numbers of fish while messing up their spawning sites. I got pretty into fishing when I found out that I could catch bluegill in the surrounding farm ponds, and once in a while my family took me to an isolated fishing cabin for vacation, but for years I never encountered a wild fish bigger than a kilogram or two.

BUT THEN…

I found out about sturgeon! They were HUGE fish that had once lived in the rivers and lakes all around my home, and better yet, fish almost exactly like modern sturgeon had existed all the way back in the Cretaceous period alongside the dinosaurs, and they STILL EXIST TODAY!!! The fact that small numbers of these huge dinosaur fish still existed made them seem almost like a real-life lake monster/cryptid, except that we had proof of their existence!

Furthermore, there’s just nothing else like them. Sturgeon get big. Like, REALLY big. The record for the largest sturgeon was almost 11 meters/24 feet long, which is colossal for freshwater animals. They have armor plates of bone running down their sides, and at the same time they don’t have bony skeletons. They also have a crazy mouth structure, which allows them to actually pop their jaws out like a tube and suck up food. And on top of all of this, the adults are absolute tanks. I’ve seen skin nearly 8mm thick, and it’s so tough that people make leather out of it, and they occasionally lose fins or even entire gill plates and just keep on swimming! (I found out about that last one when I tried to wrestle a big female out of a river and my hand went straight into her gills. She didn’t seem that bothered by it!)

For a long time I filed sturgeon along with Alligator Gar, Giant Mekong catfish, and Yangtze paddlefish as a semi-legendary fish that may still exist, but I was never going to see except possibly in an aquarium, until I enrolled in graduate school. For those unfamiliar with grad school in the US, it typically involves both high-level classes as well as an independent research project the student designs and carries out with help from an experienced professor. When my mentor asked what kind of thing I wanted to study, I tossed out “sturgeon” as one such possibility, expecting to hear that I would probably have to limit myself to more common/accessible species.

I was blown away when she said “Actually, I think I know a guy…”

For the next several years, I got to ride along collecting wild adult sturgeon, gathering eggs, and raising the baby fish in a lab and in a hatchery. I was holding something that I had thought of as a semi-mythical lake/river monster in my own hands! I got to see a river choked with giants as big as 2 meters long, and I got to hold a 5-centimeters mottled baby whose armored scutes were still sharp and possessed the little arrowhead shape and big black pectoral fins that remind me of Mickey Mouse ears! In the video below you can even see a little heartbeat! (Don’t worry, this little guy was returned to the tank soon after to recover from his anesthesia!)

Sadly, I didn’t find anything super groundbreaking in my research, but my experience DID land me a job working in sturgeon aquaculture! If you’ve ever had caviar that wasn’t poached, it probably came from a sturgeon farm, and if you want to see a lot of big fish up close, this is a good place to do it! I probably personally handled more individual sturgeon than there are wild fish in several sturgeon species. In addition, while the wild broodstock I mentioned above might reach 2 meters and over 50kg, the sturgeon I dealt with at the farm would easily double that, and there were a LOT of them! I got to see sturgeon behavior that had never been recorded in field guides, and even a few crazy one-in-a-million mutations like the infamous “ghost” sturgeon!

I even got the opportunity to cook my own sturgeon meat (Yeah, I basically turned into the Touden siblings from Dungeon Meshi except for sturgeon instead of RPG monsters). I got pretty good at making smoked sturgeon, but the meat is also good on the grill or baked, and people have been cooking them in various ways for centuries.

My favorite part of the job was physically wrestling the big fish! Sturgeon are easier to grab than other fish with the right know-how, but a human-sized fish often has its own plans for the day and won’t always cooperate. I was pretty good at moving the adults by the time I left that job, but it was still a wild rodeo every time!

Even more exciting was how we spawned each new generation of sturgeon. In the wild, they form massive spawning runs in big rivers that in the past would be enough to tip small boats, but in a lab or farm we have to use other means. I’ll spare you the details, but I am one of a small number of people who have surgically extracted eggs from a live sturgeon and sutured them back up to swim another day.

The tldr of this essay is that sturgeon are a big, crazy-unique fish that have been around a long time, and I’ve spent a lot of my career handling and working with them. There’s just nothing like them for a fish nerd and they’re damn cool!

(Clip art not mine, I think @sturgeonposting drew or shared it!)

[queen0fm0nsterz]

Reblogging this again i cannot stop starring at it. They make me want to eat bricks with cement as condiment

the girls (New)

[monstersflashlight]

Lizard brain (Day 4/8 of 10k followers event)

Lizard-man x fem!reader || dub-con (heavy), hemi-peens, double penetration, (light) choking, (accidental) exhibitionism

You found yourself trapped between a flat rock and a big lizard-man. And all because all your questionable choices and love for non-human specimens.

You were warned not to get too close to the specimens, you were warned more than once. But you didn’t listen. Because, above all, you were a little bit stupid when the situation implied monsters. A little bit more than stupid if you asked any of the other workers at the facility. Specially the big lizard-people monsters at the lab you researched.

His big body was surrounding you, hot and big and scary. You knew he was sentient but also didn’t know how much he knew about you. The specimens interacted between them, but never with the humans. You all made sure they didn’t. You made sure it was all about studying them in their (recreated) natural habitat. But he kept smelling you and making a sound similar to purring.

You felt the heat of his breathing against your back, his hot breath over your lab coat as he inspected you, more intrigued than dangerous, but that didn’t make you less nervous. The spike of fear inside of you made him growl, a low sound that made your adrenaline run high and your heartbeat skyrocket. You realized he could not only hear every intake of breath you took, but also he could smell every tiny change in your mood. That meant he probably could smell the start of arousal pooling down in your lower abdomen.

“Can- Can you understand me?” You asked, confused about his reaction to your presence. You knew he was intelligent, but not really how much he could comprehend.

To your shook, he answered. “Yesssss.” The long sound of his forked tongue against your ear made you shiver.

“Are you going to release me?” You asked, a hint of amusement in your voice.

He chuckled in that serpent-like manner that made butterflies flutter inside your stomach. “No,” was his short answer.

“Why not?” You asked, involuntarily pushing back against his exploring hands. You were conflicted about it, but your body had no doubt that you wanted everything and anything he offered you.

“Mate,” he growled. You whined at the sound, so hot. Your heartbeat was loud in your ears as he groped your body. Some part of your brain registered the word he just said, but you couldn’t process it as he rubbed your hips, your tummy...

“I’m not lizard,” you tried to say, but he wasn’t worried about that.

He started taking your clothes off and you didn’t fight him, your mind occupied thinking about all the stuff that just discovered. He could talk. You were his mate. He was probably going to fuck you against that rock… And you were fine about it. You were more than fine, you were anticipating whatever he was going to do. Craving it. The fear was easily replaced with arousal as he touched your body.

“I can ssssssmell your arousal, your wetnessssss… Mate,” he growled. His claws massaging your breasts over and over, the scales felt amazing against your hard nipples. “Mine. Claim.” He pushed your body against the rock more insistently, and you felt his hardness against your lower back. He pushed you over the rock, positioning your ass and pussy in the perfect position for him to rub against your heated center.

And that’s how you found yourself trapped between a flat rock and a big lizard-man. His hemipenis rubbing against your ass as he grinded his hips against you. It was exhilarating and maddening all the same. Your brain was swimming between the need to be fucked and the confusion of him talking. Of him wanting you. Of being… his mate. You knew it was rare for them to find a mate, and now humans could also be mates? Made no sense but at the same time… You weren’t complaining. His big body against your back was a reminder of how much you thought about it, how much you always desired to know if it was even possible… And apparently it was.

But then you remembered. You remembered the mating videos of the lizard-people. You remembered he had hemipenis and not only that, but the lower one was huge. It was too big, there was no way…

Your thoughts were lost when you felt something drip into your pussy as he pressed against your entrance. “What? What is that?” It was like a cool balm against your heated center.

“Ssssssh, little mate, it will fit. My seed will make it fit.” As he said that you felt your muscles relaxing, his precum like a balm against your stretching muscles as he pushed inside little by little.

Your mind was running a thousand times per minute. “How is that possible?” You asked in a broken moan as he pressed a bit further.

“I’ve adapted to your needs. I will make it good for you.” His words made no sense to you, as a researcher you had a thousand other questions, but as a participant… You couldn’t focus on any thought apart from his lower dick entering you. “Such a good pussssssssy,” the rolled S only made you get wetter, something about it, about his otherness making you hotter and hotter. You were almost dripping, and his magical precum was only adding to it, making you relaxed and pliant as he slowly entered you.

When he was fully inside, he started to breathe hard over your head, you could hear his tail thrashing behind him. His claws were grabbing your hips almost painfully, but it was so good. The soft scales of his dick were making it hard for you to think as he pulled back and in in a short thrust. It was insanely good, better than any human, better than any toy.

“Are you ready, mate? Are you going to be a good little mate?” He asked as you nodded frantically. His big hand found your neck and he pushed you back, arching your back and starting fucking into you. You screamed, but the hand around your throat constricted in the exact moment, making your head dizzy. He was choking you, and you were enjoying it. A part of your brain wanted to fight the pleasure, but it was rapidly shut down by the immense pleasure he was giving you.

He fucked you like a piston, his dick hitting deep inside and making you lose your mind over and over. His smaller dick was pressing against your asshole insistently, and he wasn’t doing anything about it, but with every thrust inside your pussy, it hit your rim and made you shiver. You wanted it. You wanted it inside of you.

“Mo- More,” you told him as he thrusted deep once again.

He made a confused sound, and you reached behind you to guide his small cock to your asshole. His precum started doing it’s thing and you felt it loosen as you cried out. He growled deep behind you, stopping his movements and making you whimper.

He grunted when his tip slipped inside without any effort. “Are you sure?” He asked, his voice tender and worried.

“Yes. Yes. Yes,” you chanted, more than ready to be claimed in every way possible.

“My perfect mate…” He whispered as he thrusted both dicks inside at the same time.

You screamed and your eyes rolled back into your head, the pleasure so high and so intense you didn’t know if you wanted him to continue or to stop all together. The overwhelming sensation made you lose track of time and space, you were floating into oblivion. It was the best experience of your life and the pleasure felt like it was going to break you into a million pieces.

The combination of both dicks plus his hand against your neck was too much, too hard, too fast. You broke down into the most intense orgasm you’ve ever felt, and the contractions of your muscles pulled him along with you. You felt him filling your holes over and over, twitching intensely as he came.

When he pulled out, you felt your holes twitching at the same time a mechanical voice said from the speakers: “You did well, researcher, very interesting data was recorded.”

Shit, you forgot there were people watching and probably saw you get fucked within an inch of your life. All your coworkers just watched you getting double creampied by a giant lizard-man. Great.

Part 2 here.

[terrestrialnoob]

Damian had never seen another person his age before.

“Wow, you're good at that.”

Damian froze in his practice and looked over at the boy. It was after his lesson, his instructor had other students to teach, and Damian had his own private training area. Well, it was supposed to be private. “Who are you?”

“Danny, what's your name?”

Damian glared at the boy. Who doesn't know who he is? “I am Damian Al-Ghoul, grandson of the Demon's Head, son of the Bat, heir to the League of Assassins.”

“Wow, that's a lot... Can I just call you Damian?”

“Servants call me Master. How did you get here?”

Danny shrugged, “I was just looking around.”

“Just looking around...”

“Yeah, my parents are in the science lab down in the bottom basement with the weird lake and I was helping them, but then I got board and Jazz said I wasn't allowed to leave the lab, but when I asked Dad, he said I could do what I want as long as I don't get in trouble.”

“Oh, the idiot scientists.” Damian remembered how his mother had described the new scientists hired to study the Lazarus Pools. A pair of geniuses when it came to the scientific study of magic but idiots in all other fields. Surely only idiots would bring their children to live with the League of Assassins.

“What do you mean? If you're a scientist you can't be an idiot?”

Damian huffed at the boy. “You can be smart at one thing and dumb at others. Like you could be good at reading but bad at numbers.”

“Oh, I guess that makes sense. But I'm pretty good at reading and numbers.” Danny then smiled brightly, “It looks like you're really good at swording though.”

“It's called swordplay. And yes, I am good at it. Better at it at my age than many who are older.”

“Can you show me how to do it?”

Damian contemplated for a moment, “As long as you don't get in the way of my practice, I don't see why not.”

Danny cheered as he ran up to where Damian was standing, but Damian pointed to the side of the training area, “There should be a spare sword over there you can use.”

Danny nodded and ran to get it then ran back.

Damian wasn't sure if he'd like showing Danny how to use a sword, but he liked how Danny followed all his instructions. It was different than how the servants followed his orders, but Damian couldn't place why. It became common place, for Danny to show up after Damian's lessons and Damian would show him what he'd learned. It actually made learning new things easier because Damian had to figure out how exactly something worked in order to show Danny how to do it. Not only that, but when they practiced the moves on each other, Danny would change them and make it harder to beat him. Damian did win every time, but Danny wasn't half bad.