#i keep writing random scenes for it

[xysidhequeen]

tit's monch monday

Rules: Reveal the titles of the documents in your wip folder and tag as many people as there are documents. Let others ask questions about the ones that interest them and post snippets or explain the contents as you see fit!

Tagged by @frxiir. Thanks buddy.

I don't have a wip folder so I'll just go by all my recent wips.

-Equilibrium Chapter 4/3/2/1

-Equilibrium TeamSpeak scene.(this is a typo as it's supposed to be Teamup but the typo amused me)

-Equilibrium Gun Simp Scene

-DPxDC outline two feral cats pretending to be boys

-Red Knight 16

-The Monster They Made

@britcision @artzysyam @welcome-tothe-mystery-shack I don't really have more to tag that I'm confident won't be upset by me tagging them. Anyone I did tag is not expected to continue this trend 💚

[micamicster]

Super Rich Kids

Close my eyes and feel the crash...

I wrote this one on post-its on a trans-continental flight after my phone (where i was re-reading the raven cycle) died. 0/10 plane experience would not recommend but I did manage to entertain myself! And now hopefully you as well!

When Ronan pulled into Monmouth Manufacturing he knew Gansey wouldn’t be there. Adam Parrish was, though, sitting on the steps in the golden afternoon light, bike dumped to the side in dying grass. He didn’t so much as flicker an eyelid when Ronan bootlegged the BMW into an approximation of parking on the far side of the lot, which was fine because that’s how he would have parked the car anyway, whether or not Adam was here.

Ronan was pretty sure that Gansey had arranged a shift system with the other boys, to prevent Ronan from being unaccompanied on the rare occasions of his own absence. The idea of a babysitter should have rankled Ronan, but Adam did not seem particularly invested in his role. Small favors.

As he got out of the car he gave Adam his customary once-over, as brief as it was habitual. You could notice a lot in a single glance, if you were Ronan, glancing at Adam.

Adam was wearing long sleeves (his father? Or just because it was October?) and his faded camo pants, the ones Ronan said made him look like a jingoistic meathead. They had recently acquired a tear in one knee. Not in the stylish, deliberate manner in which Ronan’s own jeans were shredded, but awkwardly, in an L-shape, where they had caught on some jagged edge and given way before even careful Adam had noticed and unhooked himself. The tear gaped open at times, like it was doing now, revealing Adam’s knobby left knee and, worse, a triangle of his brown thigh.

Ronan looked away.

Ronan never allowed himself, even in dreams, to trespass beyond the carefully demarcated boundaries of Adam’s clothes. And Adam was usually helpful in the maintenance of this boundary. Unlike Gansey, who could be found working on his model Henrietta in boxers at all hours of the night, or wandering to and from the shower in a towel, absent-mindedly forgetting his clothes in bathroom or bedroom. Unlike the boys Ronan played tennis with, who stripped down casually in the locker room after practice. Unlike even Ronan himself, who’d never met a shirt he couldn’t rip the sleeves off; Adam was always fully covered.

This summer, foolishly, Ronan had imagined that this might change. Now that the hideous secrets Adam protected with his long sleeves were no longer his alone. But by now he knew what kept those sleeves in place, something that Adam had already understood: that knowing and seeing are two very different things.

For example: this. Ronan knew that Adam, like most people who walked around on earth under their own power, possessed thighs. Two of them, attached in the normal way to other body parts, such as knees and hips. To know this was one thing.

Now that he’d seen it, he couldn’t stop seeing it. The way his knee bent, and the muscle above shifted as Adam made room on the steps for him. Ronan was looking away, out at the familiar, grounding, skid marks on the concrete of Monmouth’s lot, but he could picture in their place with deadly accuracy the hinge of Adam’s knee, the tanned skin of his thigh, scattered with golden-brown hair. He could dream about pressing his face against it.

He picked up a rock and hurled it. It glanced off the side of the soulless suburban and fell anticlimactically into the grass dying by the rear tire. It didn’t help.

Adam shifted next to him, subtly.

“What?” said Ronan. “Impressed?”

“Surprised, more like. I thought you were supposed to be the tennis star.”

“You think you can do better?” Ronan pried another hunk of gravel or concrete out of the dirt and tossed it in his left hand, tauntingly.

“I know I can.”

“But?”

“But,” said Adam, with some hint of exasperation coloring his voice, “I’m not going to sit here chunking rocks at Gansey’s car to prove it. My ego’s not that fragile.” His accent slipped out on chunkin’, not as if Ronan had pissed him off enough to forget to hide it, but as if it was a word he’d never used any other way.

Ronan threw his rock again. This was, if anything, a worse throw than before, and it skittered harmlessly across the suburban’s roof.

Adam made a small but contemptuous noise.

“Don’t give me that shit, man. You know he hates this fucking car.”

“That was for your shitty aim.”

“Come on then.” Ronan hefted another piece of gravel. “Ten points if you knock out his taillight.”

“It costs a hundred and five dollars to replace a taillight on that make and model. Plus tax.”

Ronan’s brief cheer was collapsing again. “I’ll pay you a hundred bucks to bust Dick’s lights.”

Adam blinked slowly, his dusty eyelashes obscuring the contempt in his eyes for a brief moment. “I’ll leave.” (He wouldn’t).

Ronan dropped the rock. Next to him Adam sighed. Abruptly, he put out his hand. “Telephone pole. Six feet from the top.”

Ronan swept back up the rock and dropped it into his hand. Their fingers did not touch. His heart thudded.

Adam tossed the rock once, testing its weight while his gaze, cool and assessing, remained on the telephone pole. It was a splintered, tilting thing, shamed by his attentions. In one smooth, economical movement, he rose to his feet and let the rock fly. His leg went forward, knee jutting out of his clothes, his back curved, and his arm swept around in an arc, fingers scraping at the blue October sky. Ronan didn’t need to turn his head to know if the rock hit—he could see it in the brief hard satisfaction on Adam’s face.

Adam turned back to him, one eyebrow cocked.

“You’re going to have to do better than that if you want to earn that hundred,”

Adam shrugged. The gesture was disinterested, but there was a quirk to his mouth that contradicted it. “I know nothing blew up, but…”

Ronan already had another rock in his hand. “West corner lightbulb. It breaks or it doesn’t count.” Adam rolled his eyes, but turned agreeably to watch Ronan miss.

“Would you like to get your tennis racket?”

“Eat me,” said Ronan. (Maybe).

They traded shots back and forth for a while, calling increasingly specific and complex plays.

“Bullshit. Bullshit.”

“Get the government to pay for some glasses, Parrish, and then come back and try to tell me that wasn’t a fucking bullseye—”

“It wasn’t even close! You—”

“You calling me a liar?” Ronan loomed, and Adam, as usual, was unimpressed.

“Just because you don’t lie doesn’t make you right all the time! Like when you said that quote on Tuesday was Seneca. It doesn’t stop being Martial just because you’ve got a child’s sense of morality—”

“See, right there.” Ronan pointed triumphantly at an invisible scuff mark on the doorsill, marking where his handful of gravel had made impact.

Adam gave it a skeptical glance. His face was faintly flushed from exertion in the cold air, but his eyes were as cool and considering as ever. “What we need,” he said, “is a knife.”

Ronan was not allowed knives.

~

“Are you trying to stab each other in the feet? Why are your shoes off! It’s October!”

“Equal playing field.” Ronan wiggled his toes against the cold asphalt. “Parrish’s shitty knife is no match for my boots.” Over Gansey’s head, Ronan tried to catch Adam’s eye, to share a ‘can you believe him’ sort of look. Adam’s embarrassment over being caught acting irresponsibly meant Ronan could expect the look to be rebuffed, but he couldn’t help himself from trying it anyway.

Adam was bent over, eyes hidden. He carefully dusted off his socked feet one at a time before sliding them back into his shoes, as though the socks or sneakers could look any worse. A little parking lot crud might improve their appearance, actually.

Next to him, Gansey was still fussing. Without the pressure release valve of eye contact with someone who knew Gansey was overreacting, Ronan snapped, “Come off it, man, I’m not going to slit my throat while Parrish watches. He can’t afford that caliber of snuff film.”

Gansey’s concern transformed into revulsion, but underneath it he looked hurt, which was far far worse.

Adam straightened up. “We were just using it to mark where we hit. Honestly, we could have done it tossing a sharpie, but neither of us had one.” He sounded conciliatory, which pissed Ronan off. But Gansey was letting it go, returning the knife to Adam with an apologetic smile. Sorry for the fuss. Sorry for Ronan. Ronan’s bare feet were cold against the asphalt.

“Well? Are you going to throw or not, Parrish?” he said belligerently.

Adam rolled his eyes, but obligingly stooped for gravel and let one fly at Ronan’s open bedroom window, a shot he made easily.

Gansey whistled. “You’ve got quite the arm on you. How come you’re not on the Algionby baseball team?”

Adam shifted his feet, awkwardly.

“Please,” scoffed Ronan, “he’s not a team player.”

Gansey did not let it go. “Bet you’d have a better fastball than both our pitchers.”

There was a pause, during which Adam’s face clearly showed all of the thoughts he was trying to corral into a polite response to Gansey’s unconsidered enthusiasm. Ronan got there first. “Yeah, Parrish, why not hitch your wagon to the star of organized sports, like every other rags to riches wannabe?”

“Ronan!” said Gansey, Ronan’s offensiveness registering where his own had not.

“Hitch my wagon to a star?” Adam was unruffled. “I thought quoting Transcendentalists could get you excommunicated.”

“Who said I know it’s Emerson. It’s a sourceless idiom to those of us who aren’t sad little nerds.”

Adam smirked. The smirk said, I never said Emerson. His words said, “Gansey’s damning me with faint praise. No one’s going pro out of an Algionby sport team. Even tennis.”

“Ouch,” said Ronan, cheerfully. “Hit me where it really hurts. My school pride.”

~

Now that Gansey had arrived, his plans for the day took precedence over noble pastimes such as flipping pocketknives at each other’s feet. His plans involved comparing readings from various instruments and then placing said various instruments in various new locations, all of which were equally arbitrary (to Ronan’s eyes) and inaccessible. Gansey’s plans involved him waiting by the car to monitor the readings while people hiked with antennae to the outermost reaches of the signal. People, in this instance, being Ronan and Adam, Noah having mysteriously and silently fucked off, as he so often did when a job required carrying anything.

Ronan put his head down and trudged. It was brambly here, and slightly damp, and he was beginning to work up the kind of counter-intuitive sweat that appears from working in the cold, the kind that makes you colder later.

As the person leading the hike, custom would dictate that he should catch and hold the long clinging arms of the brambles for the following hiker. This presented a dilemma. Ronan compromised, and set about stomping the multiflora into the ground as he walked. Scarlet hips burst under his feet, invasive and beautiful, spreading their millions of seeds across the damp earth. Noxious weeds.

“It’s too unreliable,” said Adam, into the silence. “Sports. It all depends on… your physical condition.”

“And your condition is shit.”

There was Adam’s ironic smile. “Yes. So.” He shrugged. There was the part they weren’t saying, which was that his physical condition could always get worse. Unexpectedly.

“My dad hates baseball.” Ronan heard himself make the slip—hates and not hated—and a spark of fury burned through him, brief and inconsequential.

“My dad loves it.”

They marched on in silence.

Adam swore as a bramble Ronan had beaten down sprang up again, catching him right across the tear, where his skin was exposed. He bent to unhook it from the camo with deft, deliberate hands. “What?” he said, like he could feel Ronan’s eyes.

Ronan looked away. “Why not the military?” He kicked purposelessly at the bramble and heard Adam sigh. “And don’t tell me you never thought about it. Test scores like yours out in hicksville high school, you must have had recruiters hopping all over you like fleas.”

“Would you believe I had a moral objection?” Adam’s smile was self-deprecating. Ronan studied it.

“No.”

Adam shrugged. It, too, was self-deprecating.

“I think you had a superiority objection. You think you’re too smart for that shit.”

Adam blinked at him. “Do you think I’m wrong?”

Ronan snorted. “Hell no. You can do better than getting blown up in a desert for the United States government.”

The smile, when it came, was small and stunning. “Damned by faint praise again.”

[juustozzi]

soccer club shenanigans! also, don't mind the alt uniforms, these were drawn while I was writing and while they're not exactly fic art they share the vibe

[shadow-pixelle]

Help the snippet grew legs

I did more snippet. I actually did more snippet checks nearly two weeks ago now, but then things went to pot a bit and I didn't post. Because I am a living disaster.

But yeah the last DCxDP snippet I wrote has grown legs. In fact it has grown so much legs that I know where it starts as well as where it goes from the last snippet onwards for a while.

I don't know how we got from the start to here, but that's not my problem right now.

This however is not the start. This follows up directly from this post from a month ago.

--

Jason had been on edge since getting back to Gotham. The sort of on edge that made him want to go patrolling Crime Alley, just to make sure everything was alright. Which was ridiculous, because he’d only been gone for a week, and more importantly he was exhausted and patrolling when he was this tired was asking for trouble.

Mostly, he just wanted to go home and sleep, but he needed to head to the Cave to check on some information regarding this case, just to make sure it was closed and stayed closed, so he turned his bike to go and do that first. At the very least it would be quiet there, since it was just late enough in the night that all the Bats would be swarming out on their own patrols.

So of course Babs patched herself into his comms not two minutes after returning.

“Hood.”

“Hey, O.” He said, because he couldn’t really be mad at her for any length of time. And it wasn’t like it was her fault he was on edge right now. “What’s up?”

“Are you heading to the Cave?”

“Yeeesss...?” Jason frowned slightly, leaning forward. “Why, is something wrong?”

“No, just need to warn you, we’ve got visitors.”

Jason jerked in surprise, then swore as he regained control of his bike. He pulled to a stop so that Babs wouldn’t lambast him about it, before replying. “Visitors?”

“Red Robin made some friends while you were gone.” She told him, with an odd tone in her voice. “They’re doing something involving the Lazarus Pits.”

Jason went cold. “They’re- what?”

“The Pits.” She repeated. “They- Hood, we don’t know anything about them. But Red Robin says they’re trustworthy, and yes we checked for mind control and things. There’s nothing. But they know more about the Pits than anyone we’ve ever met.”

Jason laughed, strangled. “What, really?”

“Really. I think they might know more than Ra’s does.” Babs sounded nervous, he realised with another cold flush, and he started his bike again and pushed off.

“That’s not suspicious at all.”

“No, it isn’t.” Babs sighed. “But Red trusts them, for some reason, enough to bring them to the Cave for whatever project they’re working on. The others are there too, he’s not alone, and we’re keeping an eye on things, but…”

“Yeah.” Jason knew. They were Bats, paranoia was in their nature. The fact that none of the Bats that had come into contact with these unknowns seemed bothered at all was… intensely concerning. “You want me to take a look or avoid it?”

“...You can come by, if you want. I’m watching remotely in case we need a League alert or something, but…”

“I hear you.” He sighed. “Who’re we dealing with?”

“They all look to be about mid-twenties. The main guy calls himself Phantom. The other two defer to him on just about everything, so he’s definitely the boss. No real description, he’s not human and only sometimes has a human shape. Fairly middling height and frail-looking when they do, white hair and glowing green eyes. Most the time he’s wearing a sort of hazmat suit of some kind, but that shifts sometimes. When he’s not human it’s pretty much impossible to describe him, but I guess the best way to put it is that he looks like space.” Babs immediately filled in.

“The other two seem to be some kind of subordinates. The man goes by Duulaman, he seems to be a mix of tech guy and magic. Phantom also seems to know his way around technology pretty well, hardware while Duulaman does software. His magic is Egyptian themed for the most part, and seems linked to his technological ability otherwise. Fairly tall, dark skin and blue eyes with a green shimmer, black hair. He wears glasses but I’m not convinced that they’re actually necessary rather than being some kind of device for either his magic or technology. Also, we can’t hack him.”

“What, at all?”

“Admittedly I’ve not tried too hard, I don’t want to make them hostile if they’re not going to be, but I think he uses his magic to amplify what his technology does. Just what little I’ve seen is incredible.”

“Huh.” Also concerning, but in a different way. Though if Babs wasn’t trying too hard then it might just be that Duulaman’s tech seemed harder to deal with than it is. “And the third?”

“A woman, Caucasian with black hair and mostly violet eyes. Little bit of a green shine there, too. She’s the tallest of the lot of them, pretty thin but not as frail-looking as Phantom. Not sure of much more about her, she doesn’t seem to have the same sort of technological abilities as the other two and she’s mostly been standing to the side like a guard or acting as an extra pair of hands whenever either of the males need something. Name seems to be Belladonna, but both males have been giving her a few different plant-related nicknames, so I’m not certain which one’s real.”

“Great.” He sighed again. “Don’t suppose there’s any way to get an idea of that?”

“Not likely. Other possible names are Nightshade, Overgrowth, Foxglove, Yew, and Daffodil.”

“Daffodil?” That didn’t quite fit the theme, though the fact that the woman had a theme of poisonous plants was concerning. Then again, neither did Overgrowth.

“Daffodils are poisonous, apparently.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah.”

Babs went quiet for a while after that, letting Jason drive, and only spoke up again when he reached the entrance to the Cave.

“Be careful, Hood.”

“Always am, O.” He replied, slightly nervous despite himself. A part of him wanted to just run back to Crime Alley and go to bed, not deal with whatever disaster Tim had apparently brought into the family trying to study fucking Lazarus Pits, somehow. He just… didn’t want to deal with this.

But he had to, because if there was any chance the other Bats were under some kind of subtle mind control, they needed someone outside to go and take a look, and with Jason knowing about it ahead of time, there’d at least be a chance for Babs to call in the League if she saw a change.

The Cave was surprisingly quiet when he entered, though in a way Jason wasn’t surprised. The place was practically made to amplify certain sounds, and his bike roaring in was definitely one of them. Plus there was the fact that there were three unknowns in the Cave, so no-one was going to be talking about anything private or secret. Still, it was disconcerting to enter the Cave when it was so quiet, with none of the others calling out a greeting and no sounds of sparring on the mats. It just felt wrong, and Jason felt a chill run down his spine even as he stopped his bike and headed further in.

The chill only got worse when he saw the group. Most of the Bats were just hovering around the Cave, doing nothing in particular and obviously only there to keep an eye on the unknowns. Red Robin was the only one over by the workbench that had obviously been hurriedly pulled together from about four other smaller workbenches, leaning over it with his back to Hood. One of the strangers was with him, and Hood could suddenly understand why Oracle had said Phantom was difficult to describe. For the most part, he definitely looked like Oracle had said, a black hazmat-like outfit and white hair. Given the way he was leaning over the table next to Red Robin, it was hard to see much of him, but he did look fairly frail.

Except when Hood blinked, the man suddenly looked… well. Not human. At all. He could see what she meant by looking like space, because he just… cracked. Like a swirling void full of stars.

Then Hood blinked again, and he was back to normal, and all three strangers were straightening. The woman, maybe-Belladonna, looked up first from where she was hovering- not literally, unlike Phantom, who Hood now realised was literally floating at Red Robin’s side- behind Duulaman, met Hood’s eyes despite the helmet, and paled sharply. Duulaman looked up next, and both their eyes flashed a bright green- a toxic green, one only a few shades off being very familiar- before both swore sharply.

That was when Phantom turned around.

Hood froze. Not just from the sudden chill, fear biting down his spine in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time, but from the look. Something about Phantom seemed familiar, in a dangerous way. Floating slightly in the air, white hair waving like it was caught in an invisible breeze, and eyes shining a just as brilliant green as the other two but solid rather than mixed into their apparently-original colours. The being- because he wasn’t a human, no matter what he looked like most of the time and no matter what the other Bats thought, that wasn’t a meta or even an alien, he was something else- stared at him, a hazy mist of breath clouding in front of him, eyes wide.

There was a crackle of something like electricity and machinery starting, and Phantom disappeared. Hood suddenly felt like he could breathe again.

“Oh Ancients.” Duulaman murmured, looking pale. He was still staring at Hood, as was Belladonna, both of them looking horrified.

“Phantom?” Belladonna called, eyes darting upwards for a moment before returning to stare at Hood.

Slightly uncomfortable with the attention now, Hood looked up.

The Cave roof had been replaced with a starry sky. Based on… everything else about this situation, that was probably Phantom.

The electrical sound came again, somehow sounding apologetic and Hood had no idea how a noise like that could sound like that, and Duulaman sighed. “English, Phantom. Or at least something living, please.”

“Sorry.” The mass of space on the roof said, with an undertone of electricity and ice. “Just… Ancients.”

Belladonna laughed, a small, horrified sound. “You’ve got that right.”

“What happened to you?” Duulaman asked, and out of the corner of his eye Hood saw the rest of the Bats stiffen.

His focus was on the mass on the roof, though, which slowly crept down- like some demented dripping tap of space, Hood thought hysterically- to settle between Duulaman and Belladonna in a mind-twistingly strange blob.

The shape shimmered, and Phantom’s human form appeared, the space-blob folding away like it had never been there. He looked at Hood again, then winced and deliberately turned his head to focus on Duulaman as he leaned into his side. Light flickered again, and then-

Phantom shifted.

White hair swapped to black, the strange hazmat suit disappeared in favour of jeans and a long sleeved shirt- which looked immensely out of place compared to his… partners? Underlings? Outfits; Belladonna had a dramatic black dress lined with vines and pale flowers, and Duulaman leaned into the Egyptian theme with an outfit like a pharaoh. Compared to them, Phantom looked incredibly normal. Like a regular guy in his mid-twenties.

He looked over at Hood again, eyes now blue with only a faint green shine, and Hood shivered. No matter that he looked normal, something about the being still screamed unnatural.

“Phantom?” Both his partners asked, sounding surprised.

“Sorry.” He said, in a raspy voice. “It’s- easier, this way. Kidnapping isn’t exactly a good idea right now.”

“Kidnapping?!” Several of the Bats chorused, and Hood saw Batman stiffen ready to lunge.

Hood just couldn’t stop staring.

He was aware, faintly, of the conversation going on around him. More than aware, really; he was a Bat by training, he didn’t just… tune out of important conversations. Everything that was being said was being catalogued for later, held in the back of his head for evaluation once he had time. But at the same time, it was just… difficult. As much as he was aware of the conversation, he wasn’t really listening. A part of him just… couldn’t stop watching the three. Even as Phantom very deliberately looked away from Jason, almost like he couldn’t bare to look at him. As Duulaman put his hand on Phantom’s shoulder and Belladonna leaned into his side like they were anchoring him, while neither of them looked his way for more than brief glances that every time warped their faces into grimaces.

He was fully aware that the other Bats were interrogating the three. Something they really should have done long before this, before they brought them to the Cave because they were doing something with Lazarus Pits and knew too much about them. And he was well aware that none of them were making getting the information difficult. They talked easily, like none of it was a secret- and maybe it wasn’t. These Infinite Realms, these ghosts, everything about the Ancients and the halfas that Phantom apparently was, maybe none of it was a secret. Or maybe it was just that none of them cared, because-

Phantom looked him in the eyes for the first time since the start of this whole thing.

“Pariah Dark was a monster, and even he would consider what was done to you unforgivable.”

Jason jolted, pulling away from that horrible chill and the feeling that there was something incredible in front of him- something horrifying, something nightmarish and awful. And he listened, really listened, as Phantom laid out as best as he could what it felt like to look at him. It felt like drowning, almost, and somewhere in the back of his mind past the crystal haze of shock it felt like he was screaming. Jason just listened and stared as the three of them laid out how things felt to them- how he felt to them, and wasn’t that just hilarious, that there was something so deeply wrong with him that even these strange beings, these half-dead and partly dead people, were able to look at him and know immediately that something is wrong here.

He wondered a little if it was like the uncanny valley. If looking at him made these people, who were apparently ghosts or at least close to it, unnerved because there was something wrong here, something not quite correct for what it should be.

Of course he would be fucked up. He was already well aware that the Pit had done terrible things to him. What was one more?

Phantom glanced at him only once more, then focused on Batman.

“So,” he said, in a firm voice obviously used to being obeyed. “I’d quite like to know who did that to him. Because my next step is going to be to call the council, get war declared on them, and then erase them.”

Neither Belladonna or Duulaman objected. In fact they seemed like they agreed, or possibly they just didn’t intend to contradict the person that was their leader.

Jason wasn’t sure. He was still too busy being shocked, lost in a hazy daze of… something. He couldn’t have spoken even if he wanted too, and all he could do was stare at Bruce as well, waiting to see what was next.

Batman didn’t speak.

He wasn’t sure he was surprised.

The silence stretched, reaching a minute, two. Phantom continued to stare at Batman, who stared back, a firm line in what Jason could see of his mouth. No-one else moved.

Jason took a shuddering breath, and a step back. It was more of a stumble, really, and it broke the holding pattern the rest of the room was in. Eyes snapped to him.

The three- ghosts? Realms beings? Whatever they were- looked directly at him with only a slight wince. Phantom tensed slightly, like he wanted to spring, and both Duulaman and Belladonna did the same in response, hands grasping at their leader as if to keep him in place.

Jason took another trembling breath, and bolted.

Someone- Dick, he thought, but he couldn’t quite tell over the shuddering sounds of his own breaths and heartbeats- shouted after him, but Jason didn’t stop. He just ran, going straight for his bike and leaving.

The chill lingered in the back of his chest the entire time. Jason couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so cold.

He hadn’t even realised he’d been warm, until he saw Phantom. Now there was just the chill, slowly seeping into his bones. He wasn’t even sure that was Phantom’s fault, though.

After all, Bruce had been silent.

Why would Dad tell them who hurt him? It wasn’t like Jason was his son, or anything. It wasn’t like it was only the League, like it was only the Joker, like it wouldn’t deal with so many of their problems without them needing to do anything.

He somehow wasn’t surprised.

So Jason ran.

[acourtofthought]

Lucien found he couldn't stand for things to continue on the way they were a moment longer. "Is this what I have to look forward to for this entire journey?" he said, his voice sounding louder than normal as it cut through the quiet that had been their companion for the entire morning.

Elain lifted her chin, still refusing to turn his way. "I hardly know what you're going on about over there."

"Your silence. Your refusal to look my way or answer more than a single syllable when I speak to you."

She stopped mid stride, finally looking at him for the first time that day while throwing her hands in the air in exasperation. "Maybe I'm shy! Maybe I'm not good at conversation! Is it possible for you to consider that before assuming it has anything to do with you, Oh Great Important One?"

Lucien smirked, turning her way and crossing his arms over his chest. "Ah yes, that must be it. I was surely mistaken last evening as I watched my wife charm every single person she spoke at length with during the celebration after our vows."

Her eyes narrowed then widened, suddenly looking far too innocent. "One could hardly blame me. When one finds themselves in the midst of such stimulating and interesting conversation with intellectuals, it's impossible not to join in".

"Oh, of course," he nodded his assent. "Now it makes perfect sense that anything I have to say could never be quite as captivating as Tarquins cousin thrice removed explaining how after centuries he's finally come up with the most ingenious way to keep his goats from getting too cold.

"It was clever!" Elain shot back, hands clenching into fists at her side, "he deserved to be acknowledged for the time and effort he put into his invention!"

"He lives in SUMMER!" Lucien shouted, his fire beginning to bubble just under the surface of his skin, "his goats have never been cold a single day in their entire damn lives!"

[bearenjoyers]

sorry im just thinking about bcs but like. why not add a few smaller scenes of gus interacting with his own men? why does it seem like, in comparison, mike is almost immediately elevated to a higher status than those two in bcs purely because we actually get to see him having normal conversations with gus? like i understand they might not keep the plot moving as well because of the fact obviously if victor is currently doing something it’s because gus told him to etc. but for the most part all of the smaller interactions gus does have with those two ends up being in a somewhat high stress situation where it feels very tense between everyone. and it’s just like damn! is it always like that?? why do those two even care that much about their jobs if their boss is a bit of a dick? etc. i think even an additional scene or two with those guys (either alone or the both of them) talking with gus in a more normal situation could’ve both added a bit more depth into how gus treats his employees (we got a lot with how he treats lyle and co., but not a whole lot with the illegal side of things), how comfortable vic and tyrus feel around him in a calmer setting, and exactly why they both feel the need to be as loyal as they are to the guy.

and also on the other side of this i don't think it'd hurt to maybe elaborate on their pay just a bit..? i'm not saying to randomly put a number out into the atmosphere but i just mean some smaller things like. do they buy nicer things for themselves? what's their housing situation? what's their car situation? are the escalade / yukon their own vehicles or does gus just use those two for business situations? do they use them when they're doing their own stuff off the clock or do they have their own cars? etc. that can also help with understanding their motivations a bit. don't get me wrong i don't think they should be visibly rich or something because that's not what gus would want but just smaller things! cause it's easy to write their loyalty off as Well they probably get paid super well, which i'm sure is true, but if they don't show a single hint of that then what's the point. even something as simple as giving tyrus a nice watch, or maybe victor having a nicer looking gun, etc. something small like that. because as it stands right now the average 41 year old viewer who watched the show once only knows and will only ever know victor and tyrus as those two guys in the background who do random stuff for gus with no clear motivation. just the personification of "On it boss (salute emoji)". and to be honest this is true for a whole lot of fans who do watch the show multiple times and enjoy thinking about it more in depth, because on screen we barely have anything about the two.

and to be clear i'm not trying to say we should have an episode just for them or something like no i understand they're side characters. i understand we don't need all that. and i understand this is also primarily Jimmy's show. but it's not like these two are on the same level as like, arlo or paige and kevin etc. these guys have been around since brba. victor was literally introduced in the same episode gus was. and they are a huge part of gus's story, especially in brba. s4 wouldn't have been what it was without victor and tyrus. and in bcs, ignacio's situation wouldn't have been the same if it weren't for victor and tyrus as well. and i just personally believe that if their goal with gus in bcs was to go back and elaborate on how everything came to be and show what he was like a few years younger, they could've dragged victor and tyrus into that. and i think his character would've benefited from taking that extra step with those two.

[lunar-years]

I've finally reached 40k words in royjamiekeeley friends with benefits james tartt sr. angst fic!! 🎉 the last ~10k were honestly a beast to get through with a lot of stagnation and writer's block but I've done it!!! unfortunately, I have NOT been good with writing this one chronologically and everything is sort of a mishmash of disjointed scenes right now that I'm just hoping and praying will make some sort of sense once I rearrange them, so I'm struggling to gauge how much more I actually have to write and what gaps need to be filled in...However, I think we're getting (somewhat) close to the end now!! I'm estimating the fic is going to be 50-55k in the end and I will almost certainly be separating it into chapters :) Next step I think is that i'm going to pause on writing for a moment and focus on rereading what i've got so far and editing it all into the correct order to make sure I've actually got the story I think I've got <3

[angeart]

fun fact: if you ever want me to stop making any hmtb progress whatsoever, especially if the current wip scene involves mumbo in any way? just talk to me about SL mumbo. i promise i won't be able to write any mumbo scenes afterwards.

[kangaracha]

wips list for the end of march

nevermore (145/300k, edit complete)

queenmaker (16 chapters written)

FNF (8/10k)

leave part 2

what the water brought (25/50k)

boxer!minho? dlc? something

sick fic (handed to keeps, godspeed)

the gone and the gathered ch 3&4

valleys (complete rewrite)

tgbyb ch 5

tsotl end part 1

darling don't wake up x4

goldmine goldmine (landmine) (6/40k)

soul is yours to keep/zelda fic

draculas

the finished things list! raise a glass!

leave part 1

lyre lyre

[zmediaoutlet]

this follows 'a vessel'

Sam cleans up. The wasted, half-used spell components go into the burn box. The turned-over chair picked up, and the shattered glass swept. The angel banishment sigil comes off the wall in the library pretty easily with borax and he drops the sponge in the bucket of swirled-red dirty water and could vomit. One last sweep and he finds two red drops, drying dark in the center of his research table. He takes a deep breath, chemical and stinging-clean. The spot comes off easily, too. There are a lot of good tricks they’ve learned for cleaning up blood.

The shower room’s empty. He strips the stolen sailor uniform and leaves it in a pile in the corner. The water comes down hot and he gives himself the space of twenty even breaths, in and out, to stand there and think nothing at all. Steam in his lungs. The pressure like needles at the back of his neck, only safe because it’s just water. When that’s done he washes his hair and soaps his body and gets the red rime out from under his fingernails, and when that’s done, when he’s toweling off in the bright quiet, it’s not—better isn’t the word. But the base he’s operating from isn’t as awful. That counts for something.

When he opens his bedroom door Deanna’s sitting on the edge of his mattress. “Thought you’d decided to run off to the navy,” she says.

She’s in what counts for her as full pajamas: those washed-to-death blue flannel pants, a black shirt of Sam’s she stole years ago. She has to roll the sleeves back over her wrists. There’s a glass of whiskey in her hand but it isn’t empty, and she didn’t bring the bottle for refills. She runs one thumb over the rim of the crystal and smiles very briefly at Sam’s face and then looks down at her hands.

Sam wishes he’d brought something with him to the shower. If it were another day she’d be making a crack about his towel. He sits beside her, carefully, and for lack of a glass he folds his hands between his knees. The bunker air cool on his shoulders.

A sigh. She stretches her legs out, toes pointed. Mostly unpainted these days, small and neat. Her hand turns over on her thigh and she seems to be looking at her palm, and then she sets her curled fist on Sam’s thigh instead. The smallest weight through the terrycloth.

“The sub went down?” she says. Sam nods and she nods, too, slower. “You try to save it?”

Delphine’s hands reaching into the case for the Hand of God. Red lights strobing all around and her eyes steady on Sam’s, sure, while a wildfire of grace roared through the dark ocean. “I think it didn’t make a difference whether I was there or not,” Sam says. He turns his head and Deanna’s biting her lip. The pressure in his chest feels like it’ll put him on the floor. “I wish I’d been here.”

Her eyes close. “I don’t know if that would’ve made a difference, either.”

Not said cruelly and it’s probably true. Some dumb male instinct claws at the underside of his heart, anyway.

The lump of wood is inert, now. He’ll wrap it in cloth and put it in a spelled cedar case in the archives and mark it down in the ledgers. Even if it ended up being pointless, except inasmuch as it made a mask fall to the floor.

He takes a deep breath, lets it out. Says, “Can I ask?”

Her toes scrunch against the concrete, then relax. Her fist still on his thigh, her eyes still closed. Face smooth and serene except for the bruise coming up on her cheek. From what exactly Sam doesn’t know; he’s been imagining it for the past two hours.

“Are you hurt?” he says, in the quiet. “More than…” Her head tips down and he licks his lips even though his mouth feels dry. “I just—I know he—when he—”

Her hand grips his thigh through the towel. “Sammy,” she says, interrupting, and he cuts off the stupid stumbling, his face hot. “Hey.”

“Sorry,” he says, and she shakes her head, and then shakes his leg gently, too. A weird deep pulse of what he’s got plenty of experience to recognize as shame goes through him as a wave, from the pit of his stomach to his chest to the hair on the back of his neck, and then he breathes it out and just feels cold. He takes her hand in one of his and she lets him, their fingers lacing together on top of his leg. Her fingers are cold, too.

“It’s not like it’s the first time,” she says, after a few seconds.

Almost like she’s trying to make him feel better. There are a lot of things he thinks to say but he’s got a lot of practice not saying things, especially when they’re all jostling for first place. She’s walking around and talking and not dead. There have been worse times. He knows there are others he doesn’t know about and probably never will. But this—he knows this one. His first and only. Not the worst thing that’s ever happened to him, not even the worst by those particular hands, but nothing he’d ever wanted to share with his sister. Thought they’d been spared this one thing.

“If it helps,” she says, when he’s been quiet too long, “it wasn’t—about me. He was screwing with Cas and he wanted to hurt you. Just collateral damage.”

“How would that help,” Sam says, before he can stop himself, and Deanna sighs and says, “I don’t know, Sam,” and pulls at their linked hands but Sam doesn’t let her go, instinct making his fingers tighten. He feels like an ass immediately but Deanna doesn’t tug away. Instead her body turns in, toward his. Her weight tipping and her temple coming down to his bare shoulder. She’s warm, her knee bumping his. Their hands vaguely sweaty now, together. He tucks her hair back behind her ear, thick and barely-damp from her own shower, and her face turns in toward his chest, her lips against his skin although she doesn’t kiss.

All the things he wishes hadn’t happened in their lives make a list that’d be near uncountable. This is pretty near the top. If wishes were horses—but they never have been, and never will. He runs his thumb over hers, careful where the nail tore. “What do you want me to do?” he says.

“Nothing,” she says. Then she takes a deep quick breath, almost like she got hit, and pulls her hand out of his and sits up and drags her fingers over her eyes, pressing hard into the sockets like it hurts. Then drops her hands, and looks out into the dim of the room, and presses her lips together very tightly in a white severe line, and then—blows out, slow, her shoulders sinking as she does, and then turns her head and looks at him in this way that’s just—tired, but only like at the end of a long day, when they’ve been through the wringer and a lot’s gone wrong but they’re still here, together, and despite everything the sun’s going to come up anyway.

“Put on some boxers,” Deanna says. One corner of her mouth turns up. “Exhibitionist. Then I want to sleep. I want you here. And you’re not allowed to bitch about cold toes.”

Sam truly doesn’t know how she does it. “Wouldn’t have to if you’d just wear socks,” he manages.

Her nose wrinkles. “Just accept your role as the human radiator, okay,” she says, and then drains her whiskey in one swallow and puts the empty glass on the bedside table. She turns back the blankets and climbs in while Sam obediently goes to his chest of drawers, and finds clean boxer-briefs, and Deanna watches him with her head propped on her fist while he drops the towel, tugs on underwear, goes to the sink and drinks a cupful of cold water and then refills the cup and brings it to her. She drinks it down, and he puts the empty next to the whiskey tumbler, and then he climbs in and pulls up the blankets and she folds herself in against his chest, her head under his chin and her arm around his waist and her toes freezing, always, against his skin. Reliable as gravity.

He presses his lips against the top of her head. Her breath shudders, once, and then she squirms in closer and lays still. His back’s to the door and he knows he won’t sleep but that doesn’t matter. It’s like that night, all those years ago, before they went to Detroit. His arm around his sister and his mind full of the devil. Knowing that he’d do anything to stop him from hurting her; knowing that to stop that was almost impossible; knowing that even if it were impossible, with the last ounce of strength he had he’d still try. What else is there to do.

[dolichomorph]

manifesting a new bee!chloe in season 6 🕯️🙏🕯️

[james-preble]

being super neurotypical with working on my rewrite planning right now

[inklore]

when i drop a bunch of drabbles over the next few days no one complain about me spammin their feed because i’m on a writing roll 😤

[annoying--moth]

Out of place lines my beloved

[kneworder]

i have all these draft documents of half finished fics full of lines i love but that are so fundamentally flawed i can't figure out how to finish them and can't kill my darlings mercilessly enough to get past the roadblocks so i just reread them over and over and think damn this is kinda fire. wish it was anywhere near shareable.

[the-redcrate]

Help. My brain is eaten up by Steddie.

I mean, I don't want help stopping. I just want someone else to drown in the quicksand with me.

Let me pull you down with me.