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bigskydreaming · 5 years

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Dropping off another commission which means okay NOW I only have one to finish. This one is a throwback to that time I was talking Marvel/DC crossover ships, and I said okay but what about Dick/Wanda because yeah, like two of the only Rom heroes in anywhere being a thing would be pretty cool, but also like.

Batfam + Magnetfam holiday dinner gatherings.

Someone agreed, and asked for more along those lines and asked that I not worry about the crack potential but feel free to embrace it instead, citing that Batboys adopted by Zatanna AU I wrote as a tone they’d enjoyed. Their only other requests were they wanted to see if I could include Luna and Crystal in any ways, and that I give Stephanie some time in the spotlight. I warned them that my usual take on Stephanie is ADHD as hell, but that apparently was not a problem, so uh...hang on when it gets to Steph or be prepared for her to leave you in the dust. She doesn’t slow down for stragglers.

There were a ton of characters to juggle in this so not everyone gets the same degree of focus, but I did my best to work everyone relevant to the scenario in as best I could. Also, I don’t actually know where a couple of these particular takes came from - I’ve never ever written Lorna anything remotely like this in my life, but I kinda just let the crack do what it wanted to do. *Shrugs* I have no defense, only oops.

Anyway, without further ado, I give you 15K, yes you heard that right, 15K of crossover crack that puts the Batfamily and the Magnetfamily at the same dinner table, lights the match and then runs for cover.

************************

We enter unobtrusively through the dining room’s lone doorway. Our awkward approach is that of the mockumentary style; our hushed atmosphere is that of taking ourselves very seriously, because if we don’t, who will?

Said dining room’s doorway is perfectly situated so as to allow only one point of entrance and exit. Also: maximum drama while doing so. The architecture of Wayne Manor was designed with a clear set of priorities in mind. We invite you to picture the airs of Downtown Abbey, but as if skewing less towards the egalitarian passive aggressive stylings associated with British High Drama, and more towards the rather more direct passive aggressive stylings of American High Drama.

As an example...where a British soap opera might depict someone dramatically gasping “Why, I never!” and clutching symbolically at their heart in order to convey they’re mere insults away from having a myocardial infarction, an American soap opera might instead depict someone dramatically yelling “Bleep you!” and then vaulting across the table to punch someone in the face in order to convey they’re really quite angry and the only way to fully express that is by starting a feud that will last 72 episodes and only end when one of them is murdered and replaced by their evil twin.

That sort of thing.

We return to unobtrusively entering through the doorway whose very singular purpose in the narrative is as a conveyance that this is the House That Drama Built.

It should be added as an afterthought that only just occurred to us but is no less important because of its poor punctuality: the House That Drama Built also exists as a kind of metaphysical Drama vampire that cultivates an atmosphere of Drama whilst simultaneously feasting on the Drama it creates just to harvest as its crop of choice.

Quite nasty and shiver-inducing, to be sure, but let it serve as a good rule of thumb: Don’t trust centuries old rich people houses. There’s always something messed up about those places. Seriously. You know its true.

Proceeding onward, and despite having explicitly mapped out why its impossible to do so, we nevertheless manage to sidle into prime vantage points without being noticed. Look, we can do stuff like that because we’re magic, okay? Also fictional, and really just a tonal framing device introduced as a thin coat of varnish overlaying everything with the glistening sheen of crack fiction. Now shush and pretend we’re not here, which should be easy because we’re not.

The two family patriarchs, Erik Lehnsherr and Bruce Wayne, each sit at opposing heads of the excessively long dining room table that is almost certainly an indication one of Bruce’s direct ancestors felt a clear and urgent need to overcompensate for something.

Locked in an epic battle of wills that looks remarkably similar to the staring contest perfected by kindergartners everywhere, though that’s undoubtedly just a coincidence,the two titans of temperament face off in a face-off for the ages.

Both steel-faced and with backs so straight the sight would make any right angle weak in the knees, these bastions of brooding are equally infamous for their rigidity and refusal to bend, even when they probably should - because sometimes its a battle over the fate of the world and a fight for the very heart and soul of humanity, yes, absolutely true, but other times their children just asked if they could have pizza tonight instead of meatloaf and it really didn’t need to escalate that quickly, but oh well.

Heedless of the judgment of fictional narrators as well as every person to ever suggest to them that their sphincters might actually benefit from the occasional attempt to unclench, the Master of Magnetism is an irresistible force while channeling the unleashed totality of his willpower through his steady gaze, as fixed and unwavering as the North Star itself. At the same time, his counterpart is an equally immovable object while planted firm and steady in his convictions, the imposing edifice of his impassive expression not likely to be eroded by the mere disdain of another mortal. Not when the Man of Bats has stubbornly stared down gods.

Admittedly, the last one used the opportunity to blast him through time and space instead, but that’s the kind of risk one takes when matching an ageless deity ego for ego. It should not be viewed as an indication as to whom among these two mighty mortals might appear the victor when engaged in similar combat. Especially as neither is in possession of magic eye beams which technically should count as cheating, if you really think about it.

They match each other fractional eye squint for fractional eye squint. Both lost in the intensity of each other’s gaze in a way that regardless of tropes is less enemies to lovers and more enemies to psych, we’re still enemies and if our kids do tie the knot, I’m totally going to insist on hosting the wedding at my big-ass mansion and you can call that a power move if you want because it totally is, what about it?

In response to the challenge that’s conveyed with crystal clarity thanks to the power of crack, Erik’s own gaze narrows fractionally further as he reaches down with his mutant abilities until they chance upon a vein of iron miles deep. He then proceeds to push and pull on it in such a way as to make the earth shift beneath their feet.

He is not subtle about being the cause. That sort of thing isn’t really in his wheelhouse.

However, in the name of defending Erik from his children’s exasperated glares, it should be pointed out here that Bruce did in fact ask, what about it, and Erik did in his own fashion simply indicate what about it indeed.

Well. Sorta.

The initial clash of wills meeting wills subsides and assures both men that their opponent will be no easy pushover. With that, the concrete aspiring contenders retreat once more to their far sides. They proceed to keep eyes locked and faces solemn and still, neither taking their gaze off the other even while eating or responding to some conversation piece directed at them by another denizen of the dining room.

“This is quite the meal, Mr. Pennyworth. You are to be commended,” Erik says sincerely. His face is still as smooth as Lake Placid, with nary a Syfy Original killer crocodile lurking dangerously beneath the surface.

“Yes, truly some of your best work, Alfred, thank you,” Bruce adds completely deadpan, not to be outdone.

Eternally placing his professionalism above all else, Alfred waits until he’s out of the room and halfway to the kitchen before venting an exasperated exhalation of his own.

Of course, Wayne Manor does have excellent acoustics.

Elsewhere along the table’s lengths, Pietro and Damian also keep their stares deadlocked from across each other, never deviating throughout the entirety of their meal. Their detente, however, is more accurately termed an ‘arrogance-off,’ with each refusing to give way before a lesser opponent. If Pietro is remotely bothered that he’s deeply invested in establishing his superiority over a twelve year old, it doesn’t show.

Look, if he starts making allowances for age, where would it end? With him letting toddlers walk all over him simply because they managed not to blink first? Don’t be absurd.

On the other side of Pietro, Jason is gleefully lobbing conversational grenades down the length of the table. Seizing advantage of even the slightest lull, he packs every sparse moment of silence full of yet another philosophical hot take he’s strategically brainstormed to cause maximum conscience carnage.

Each carelessly uttered but carefully aimed moral dilemma-turned-mortar fire is tactically engineered towards setting each and every highly opinionated diner to warring over the higher ground. There are always holdouts of course, those who instead hunker deeper down in their trenches in an attempt to wait out the bombardment without engaging. Persistence has never been something Jay lacks, however, so even the few duds that fail to properly detonate only end up followed by a rapid-fire encore the first chance he has to reload.

Meanwhile, Lorna downs a glass of wine like its a shot of tequila and she’s a veteran of the collegiate drinking experience. Then again, she actually is, even if most tend to forget that. It doesn’t quite lend the same weight to her resume as actual freaking superhero, you’re welcome for the planet’s continued state of existence does, so she doesn’t tend to lead with it.

But that doesn’t mean that even this dubiously termed ‘skill’ lacks a time to shine. One does what one has to in order to make it through family gatherings when the family in question is hers, the mistress of magnetism maintains. Be sure to note both lower case m’s in the script of her full title, because sharing a powerset with her father doesn’t mean she actually has to indulge in silly shows of power with the sole purpose of establishing one’s right to self-brand with fully capitalized letters.

She finds such things exhaustively tedious, as dull as they are droll, and as much as she loves her father, she could really stand to see him embarrass himself less in public, with his ridiculous insistence on those farces.

In his defense, the enemies that flee in terror upon such displays, wetting themselves all the while...well, clearly they’re suitably impressed. But that doesn’t mean Lorna can’t still be embarrassed for him. Honestly, would it really kill him to act his actual age of....

Oh hell. She’s not nearly drunk enough yet to try and make sense of her father’s age.

Full disclosure, and also full awareness that her brother will never fail to bring up her own recorded instances of ridiculous grandstanding whenever its remotely relevant, and most other opportunities as well - yes, those happened, yes, she agrees they were ridiculous and necessary, but she also requests it be on the record that in all such instances she was either very young, very possessed, or very both.

Probably.

Look, the possessed thing happens often enough its not like even she can keep track of it. If she wants to squeeze a few perks out of that particular trend towards things that are obnoxious and unnecessary for five hundred, Alex, she’s damn well entitled.

And why, in the name of all the gods she hasn’t been teammates with and seen drunkenly stumbling around in their underwear at some point, is she picturing her ex Alex’s face when whimsically thinking of the Jeopardy host? Better question, why is she still not drunk enough to not give a shit if she does?

Ugh, if this leads to her having to admit Betsy was right and she’s begun indulging in her family’s tendency towards being excessive about anything and everything that keeps their minds off boringly pedestrian events like a break-up, well. That would really suck.

Mostly because Betsy is unbearable when she’s right about anything.

Driven to extreme measures by the fact that her thoughts are being rude and contentious and mean to her, Lorna trades introspection for the potential hazards of engaging directly with her dinner companions. Risky as that may be. They could be more unbearable than Betsy, for all she knows. And bad things tend to happen when she gives strangers the benefit of the doubt. She usually ends up disappointed, or bored.

Also, possessed.

Girding herself with jaded detachment, Lorna resigns herself to the mortifying ordeal of having to know other people - people who when taking into account her sister’s track record with such matters, could easily turn out to be serial killers or even worse, annoying robots.

Shuddering at the memory of the Pencil Sharpener That Walks Like A Man, she surveys the chaos she’d mistaken for white noise when still busy being her own entertainment. Its slightly livelier than she’d assumed it would be.

Lorna’s never lacked her father’s eye for tactical analysis and strategic scheming, to be clear. Its more that she’s absent his desire to see her molded into any kind of mini-me that could potentially carry on where he leaves off when he dies, as if no interruption has taken place.

But never mind her issues with her father, that she steadfastly refuses to refer to as Daddy issues. Coolly assessing the commotion around her, she decides the only role worth adopting here is that of the official fanner of flames. The only side worth taking is of course the only side ever worth taking: hers, obviously.

She wades in without any warning beyond a green-lipped smile that toes the line between bearing just enough menace to act as a threat, but never so much as to warn people to take sufficient precautions when facing her.

It’s been said that the difference between her and her father is that Magneto causes natural disasters.

Lorna is one.

Wasting no time before establishing herself as an enemy to all and a friend to none, as if she needs any, she sets up shop as a random sequencer with no allegiance or agenda other than making everyone regret insisting on her attendance.

She deftly diverts Jason’s verbal volleys off their intended course with dry, sardonic wit and she wields sly insinuations like a racket with which she redirects grenades of great ethical weight at whomever strikes her fancy. She is whimsy: watch her do whatever the hell she wants. Object, and catch hellfire.

Rather than take offense at her interference, Jason tips his head to her in appreciation of her craft. Like calls to like, after all. Lorna decides in a burst of decisiveness that she likes this one, at least.

She tilts her glass to him with a smirk and refills, topping off Kate Kane’s glass as well when the older woman holds hers out with a look that leapfrogs right over seduction and practically all the way to the morning after. She decides then and there that she likes this one as well. Two for two, look at that. And people say she’s anti-social. Distinctly recalling she’d taken a second look at Kate’s legs before sitting down, and adding in those eyelashes....

Well. Lorna’s never seriously considered taking another woman up on one of these looks before, but it wouldn’t wholly be accurate to claim she’s never thought of sending one to say...Ororo or Betsy a time or two herself.

Or even a little accurate, actually, but that is neither here nor there.

Lorna thinks, though, that if she were to take up this particular woman up on this particular offer on this particular night - there might at some point be explosions.

This is not a dealbreaker.

Look, she didn’t get her degree in geology because she held any particular interest in literally dull as dirt sandstone. Pyroclastic igneous rock formations, on the other hand...now that’s a different matter entirely. Fire pretty. Batwoman pretty.

Okay, she might be a little tipsy at this point. She looks at her wine glass accusingly; she shouldn’t have to find these things out on her own. It neither confirms nor denies.

Bitch.

Still further down the table, Dick's usual charming composure has been knocked out and left tied up in a coat closet somewhere. With the anthropomorphic embodiment of the emotion Frazzled then stepping in to take his place, and not at all very obviously acting out of sorts, if the amused but completely unhelpful smirks of his siblings are anything to go by.

The Dick-shaped entity seated in his place makes occasional token attempts to direct the flow of conversation like the maestro he’s usually known to be in such settings. In this particular setting and time, however, he mostly just manages to exist as a sentient display of the condition or state of being I Have Regrets.

His attention flits from one person to the next as he periodically tries to distract everybody from plotting the murders of everyone else at the table. Or covering up the murder of someone else, as committed by one of their family members. Or from plotting to frame someone else at the table for murder. Or from broadcasting that they’d absolutely get to the bottom of any frame job and prove their relative’s innocence and see the real culprit behind bars.

Also, he may or may not have to every so often stop and distract himself from plotting murders of his own.

Dick lands briefly on Jason every now and again with an “I know what you’re doing and would greatly appreciate it if you’d stop” glare.

Its met each time by his little brother’s “I have no idea what you’re talking about, this is just how I partake in family gatherings, isn’t that what you want or should I just go home” mask of blatantly transparent faux-innocence.

Jay’s expressions are practically close captioned, that’s how far he is from even attempting to bother with the whole thing.

Dick returns fire with a narrowing of the eyebrows that screams: “I’ll get you for this, and your little dog too.”

Jason’s lip only upticks at one corner, his otherwise studied indifference sending back his crystal clear response: “Bitch, I died. What’re you gonna to do, threaten to go a week without trying to ambush me with hugs?”

Dick’s jaw shifts like a tectonic plate movement, teeth grinding as he holds the glare. “You’re the worst.”

Jason beams and tilts his head, eyes drifting upwards in silent contemplation, as if to say, “Well, we all aspire to great heights in our own unique ways.”

“Allow me to congratulate you on your successful achievements then.” Dick’s now puckered expression fires barbs from a blowgun.

“If you really cared, you’d show me with a trophy. What’s a guy gotta do to get his brother to try and buy his love and affection,” said little brother lofts at him by way of an obnoxiously exaggerated batting of his eyelashes.

Next to Dick, Wanda has her elbow on the table, propping up her head in one hand as she lazily pokes at her food with her fork. She’s not even trying to hide how much she regrets every decision that led to this. She likes Dick, quite a lot, but clearly, neither of their families are fit for conjoined festivities. Lesson learned.

Duke is shoving dinner roll after dinner roll into his mouth, as if afraid to risk missing out on anything by attempting more focus-intensive food handling than that. His eyes are feverishly bright as they dart from one length of the table to the other and back again. This is the best day ever.

Tim and Cass are seated side by side and occasionally dip their heads together in hushed conversation. At other times they flick their fingers at each other in sign language just below the surface of the table.

Periodically, Tim will then wade into one conversation or another, never staying focused for long on any one single conversation partner before moving on.

If one were to view this whole....event...as an exercise in conversational warfare, one might be tempted to view Tim’s patterns of discussion as somewhat akin to guerilla warfare. Brief engagements not aimed at achieving any kind of victory so much as feeling out the oppositions’ defenses and tactics before withdrawing to form more firmed out plans based off the gathered intel.

Dick closes his eyes and sighs as he sees Tim and Cass dip their heads together again. Right after Cass’ eagle-eyed gaze spent a few moments lingering on the wake of Tim’s latest ‘tactical retreat,’ which was plenty of time for their sister to soak in a fair amount of everyone's reactions and responses.

Dick coughs into his hand. When Tim looks his way and meets Dick’s stern gaze with an inquiring eyebrow, Dick reaches a hand to the side of his head as if to smooth back a lock of hair. Instead he then signs with grimly dancing fingers, “Please tell me you and Cass aren’t using a holiday dinner together as a chance to develop contingency plans for taking down members of my girlfriend’s family.”

Tim cocks his head slightly and frowns. The only indication that his fingers are once again busy at work beneath the table is the slight ripple of movement along his upper arms. A few moments later, Dick’s phone vibrates with a notification. He slides it into his lap and reads Tim’s text.

“I’m sorry, I have no idea what you just said. I don’t speak ASL.”

Dick tilts his own head and fires an unimpressed look across the table. “Seriously?”

Cassandra pokes Tim in the side, sending him an inquiring look of her own. No doubt curious what he’d texted Dick to elicit such a response. Tim grins and answers her in swift, practiced gestures the little twerp makes no attempt to hide this time. Blatant ASL, just one of the several different sign languages they were all fluent in. Cass raises a hand to her face and hides her giggle behind the back of it, just as Tim finishes. Dick darts his sour face at her, texting her phone in turn.

“Et tu, Cass?”

She glances down at her own phone and then just shrugs at him, utterly unrepentant. Dick pinches the bridge of his nose. Okay then.

Pietro’s daughter Luna had long since retreated to one of the Wayne family dens to watch movies, citing a headache. No one doubted that the precocious young empath was just entirely uninterested in being in the vicinity of all their entangled and extremely loud emotions.

Her father had briefly attempted to impress upon her the importance of being present with the rest of them for at least some of the dinner. His daughter had simply met his token effort at imparting politeness protocols with a pointed look first at him and then at Damian, who was at most two years older than her.

Pietro had grimaced. In an ideal world, caving to her demands would not be easier than him just conducting himself like a mature adult for the duration of a single dinner gathering. But then, none of them came from an ideal world, and he suffered no illusions about being an ideal parent. And more importantly, in the grand scheme of things it was hardly like this was one of the really important battles, the ones that needed to be picked carefully.

That was his excuse and he was sticking to it. And thus Luna had been excused to entertain herself with the Waynes’ vast video library.

Wanda’s twin sons thus far seem content to keep themselves busy with their own back-and-forth in the private ‘twin language’ they’d crafted over the years - more due to cheating than the existence of some preternatural twin understanding of each other. Neither boy pretends to have a clue how the other’s mind works.

Essentially, Tommy just talks to his brother at full superspeed, while Billy has a spell in place that allows him to keep up and understand his twin no matter what speed his ramblings take. No one seems entirely sure what mechanism they have for Billy to speak back to Tommy in a way no one else ever picks up on, or even if such a mechanism exists at all. It's entirely possible that due to the nature of their dynamic, they’d never found creating one to be at all necessary.

That isn’t to suggest that Billy is a follower in temperament or by nature. Its more just that when dealing with Tommy, one either follows (or tries to play catch up slash does damage control) or else one waits until Tommy races off to do what he wants, for however long it takes for him to eventually figure out that nobody has followed or is even going to. Then finally racing back and submitting to following someone else’s lead, sulking all the while about how nobody ever listens to him about anything.

Basically, letting Tommy take the lead in the more low-stakes engagements is just being efficient, in Billy’s opinion. The alternative takes way too long and his twin is a pain to deal with when in a heightened state of Sulk.

However, as to just how low-stakes or not this dinner actually is, well, that seems to be a matter of some debate between the twins, and not something Billy himself has even settled his opinion on.

Frequent high-pitched squeaks occasionally sound out from their corner of the table, most too quick to even register for anyone other than their uncle Pietro, who currently is still preoccupied with his extended staring contest against his diminutive rival in all things pertaining to ego and attempted sovereignty

If anyone else were even to register their existence or frequency, the combination of squeaks and Tommy’s repeated glares at his brother might lead to the conclusion that Billy is repeatedly poking or jabbing his twin in order to rein Tommy in from leaping into some fray or another and escalating the already existing tension to biblical proportions. As is his wont.

And Billy, at least, is enjoying his meal.

Well, he’s trying to, anyway.

But the closer he gets to completely clearing his plate, the more frequent Billy’s longing glances in the direction Luna had vanished become. Clearly, the teen is debating the merits of faking some ailment of his own and following his cousin’s example all the way to blessed, blessed relief from the chore of being the only one capable of saying “Tommy no” and actually producing an end result that isn’t just an accelerated timetable.

It’s not hard to tell when Billy’s inner war of his self-preserving tendencies vs his self-sacrificing tendencies is ultimately decided with a final score of Sanity: 1, Pointless and Unappreciated Gestures of Nobility: 0.

The seventeen year old sighs loudly and slumps back against his chair, his entire demeanor broadcasting an aura of “I give up” on so many clear wavelengths, it interrupts every skirmish currently in progress and results in every adult at the table sending concerned looks towards the twins’ corner of it.

Billy’s crossed arms and the empty space his gaze is determinedly fixed on combine to clearly convey he has nothing to do with whatever has happened or is about to happen.

Leading to every scrap of attention thus trekking further down the table to his twin, where Tommy is beaming with the brightness of a thousand supergiant stars about to go supernova and make a mess that will span galaxies and last for ten thousand years.

His Aunt Lorna’s own penchant for pretty explosions and fireworks has nothing on his, other than seniority.

Tommy’s own family knows that gleam in his eyes well enough to be aware their own immediate reactions should be duck and cover. Unfortunately, the Waynes’ dining room affords few actual defensive positions, all of which are already occupied by members of the Family Batshit. Resigning themselves to the inevitable, the Family Maximumoff Damage brace for impact.

Not being familiar with the gleam in Tommy’s eyes themselves, but more than observant (and paranoid) enough to recognize the braced positions of the other family and adapt accordingly, the members of the Family Batshit are all quick to follow suit.

Wanda meanwhile takes the scant seconds before collision to close her eyes and try to recall why she ever wanted children so desperately she literally wished them into existence.

She’s got nothing.

Dick uses the same time to gulp and take a deep breath, frantically trying to fortify himself with everything he knows of Wanda’s more....mayhem-inclined child. Hopefully he can use that intel to prepare contingencies for whatever fallout may follow in the next few seconds.

Ever the optimist, that one.

Into a silence stretching longer than a speedster in the spotlight has ever before allowed silence to linger - with Tommy clearly savoring the focused attention and abundant awareness of his Impact™ and reputation - the silver-haired teen grins with teeth bright enough to ignite the ensuing firestorm all on their own. The fateful words he finally utters almost seem overkill. At least until he finishes saying them and everything else ceases to matter, because boom.

Ignition.

“Hey Dick, if you end up marrying our mom, does that mean we can call you Dad?”

The silence that follows that particular detonation is akin to the death-knell of the dinosaurs, in the moments immediately after a giant asteroid wiped out 80% of life on the planet.

Then: anarchy.

“How dare you!” Damian launches himself out of his seat with what would normally be described as a hiss, were it not uttered at a decibel closer to being an actual sonic boom.

Jason looks like he can’t decide if he wants to fall to the ground laughing or fall to the ground tucking and rolling. To avoid having to make a decision, he grabs his until now untouched wine and guzzles it like a man who just found the only oasis in a hundred mile wide desert.

Lorna uncorks another bottle of wine and raises the whole thing like she’s toasting existence itself, on her way out the mortal coil’s exit-marked door. Kate thrusts her glass in front of Lorna for another refill.

“I know many lesbians can and do have kids in any number of ways, but do you think its okay if I cite this as proof we’re the highest evolved life form and if I was meant to have kids of my own, God wouldn’t have given me such an obvious hint as to the opposite?”

Kate absently muses to Lorna under her breath and out of the corner of her mouth, both of them still fixed on viewing the various diners turned statue-still by the Medusa like turn of the table’s conversations.

“It feels like that’s one of those things people tell me I should keep in my head and just gets me in trouble when I decide to share it instead, but honestly, I can never tell.”

“You’re asking the wrong person,” Lorna whispers back. “I get possessed by this one psychic ghost enough that one of the few perks is I don’t have to worry about ticking people off anymore. Nowadays if I piss someone off, all I have to do is wait a couple of days and then say I was possessed again at the time. Then I just ask why the hell did nobody notice and dramatically make a lot of noise about that until everybody forgets what the hell they were even ticked at me for in the first place.”

“Ugh. Lucky bitch.”

Lorna shrugs with the faintest of smirks. “It’s all about just working with what you’ve got.”

Elsewhere at the table, Duke is frozen with his mouth still stuffed so full his cheeks are puffed out like a cartoon chipmunk’s. The only movements coming from his direction at all are the twin orbs that are his eyes, currently imitating tennis balls being rocketed back and forth across the court by pro players who never miss a swing.

Tim and Cass are clutching each others’ forearms, the closest either has come to displaying a panic reaction in literal years. In Cassandra’s case, more like in her entire lifetime.

But the title of ultimate attention draw is for the moment a dubious honor bestowed upon the Wayne patriarch himself.

Bruce leaps from his seat like an Olympic sprinter off the starting block, managing to catch up to his youngest before Damian plus Damian’s butter knife make it more than a foot towards Tommy. He snatches the twelve year old up by his waist, smoothly disarming his son and spinning around to plant himself between the boy and his target with the practiced and precise moves of the bedlam ballerina that he is.

“Umm,” Dick utters at last. His eyes fly wildly around the room as if seeking permission to land. They settle on making repeated loops of a race track that runs from Tommy’s smile of success to Damian’s enraged expression, and then to his own father’s attempt at a poker face: normally flawless, but now only warranting such acclaim if Bruce’s intention actually was to mimick the poker face of someone steadily ingesting lemons and nothing else throughout the course of a game.

Its not Dick’s finest work, obviously, but to be fair he’s also quite busy,trying to will himself through the floor. Possibly the Earth’s core while he’s at it. Results are still pending.

Meanwhile, unnoticed by the inhabitants of the dining room, Pietro’s ex Crystal has arrived as previously agreed, so she can pick up Luna and their daughter can spend the back half of the holiday with her mother and the latter’s teammates.

They were on their way to the dining room so Luna could say her goodbyes to her father, aunts, cousins and grandfather, when the current chaos had erupted.

Her own heroic impulses instinctively compelling her to charge in and attempt to help, Crystal’s tugged back by her daughter’s hand in hers. Knowing full well that Luna’s empathy-fueled instincts are superior to just about anyone else’s, Crystal halts and takes in the scene before them again, still with caution but with slightly less urgency.

“I suppose you have some idea what’s going on in there?”

Luna just smiles softly at her mother, as if shyly amused by the situation they’re witnessing.

“Did you hear how just when we were coming down the hall, Tommy said something about calling Wanda’s boyfriend ‘Dad’ if they get married?”

Crystal furrows her brow and nods; she hadn’t been paying that much attention, but one didn’t engage in superheroics (let alone marry and live with a hyper-active speedster) if one had poor situational awareness. Well one did, theoretically, but in such instances, one usually just died before gaining any kind of reputation or relevance.

“Well see, that set off Damian, Mr. Wayne’s youngest son and Dick’s baby brother - he was the one shouting ‘How dare you’ - “

“Don’t tell me this family has some kind of superiority complex about the twins or Wanda not being good enough for one of their own,” Crystal interrupted. The air around them crisped and heated even as a stray wind arose inside the manor and teased the ends of her hair into furious activity.

She and Pietro might not be together anymore, but her fondness for him and certain other members of his family hadn’t ceased to exist simply because their marriage no longer did. Wanda had been her friend for years before she and Pietro even began to date, and her twins were still Luna’s cousins. All of which made them still family as far as Crystal was concerned.

And she’d certainly put up with enough of her own family’s nonsense about nobody being good enough for one of them...more than she should have, to be honest, even if that was still ultimately the reason she’d cut ties with them and made her teammates her and her daughter’s true family. Crystal wasn’t about to stand idly by while strangers subjected her daughter’s cousins and aunt to more of that bullshit, even if they were hugely respected heroes of this universe’s Earth.

But Luna just shakes her head swiftly and decisively, and Crystal forces her metaphorical hackles to subside at her daughter’s apparent lack of concern.

“No, its nothing like that. Well, Damian’s kind of a brat sometimes, but it feels like he only acts out like that when he doesn’t have instincts about how to react to a given situation and he’s embarrassed about that. He had some kind of messed up childhood none of them like to talk about too much. But honestly, he feels more jealous right now than he does anything else. Aunt Wanda gave us all a rundown before we got here, about Dick’s family and things to not ask them about or bring up, and what kind of stuff they’d been told about us for similar reasons. Anyway, she told us Damian didn’t even live with their family until a few years ago, and when he first came to live with them there was a year when Mr. Wayne was missing and most of them thought he was dead....and so Dick was basically Damian’s first real kinda dad even before Mr. Wayne got a chance to be, and even though he’s been the one raising Damian ever since he got back, it sounded like there’s a lot of mixed feelings and confusion and tension between him, Mr. Wayne and Dick ever since.”

“And of course your cousin just couldn’t resist poking the elephant in the room, once he’d been made aware of its existence, if only to see what would happen,” Crystal sighs. That boy....

Not for the first time when around her ex’s family, she finds herself reminded to be grateful for the relationship she and her daughter share, mostly due to her daughter’s willingness to be understanding of others’ flaws, her own included. Crystal makes sure to will forth a wish for fortitude in Wanda’s direction while she’s at it. Couldn’t hurt.

And of course, speaking of Luna’s ability to be understanding....

“Tommy was just trying to have a little fun, he honestly didn’t mean any harm by it,” her daughter defends the cousin in question. “I know he didn’t really have any idea how much of a reaction he’d get, and just how deep and strongly they had about this. And I know it probably sounds like I’m just trying to make excuses for Tommy to keep him out of trouble, but maybe this is a good thing, that he made this happen? Because I can tell they definitely don’t talk a lot about these things or let them out in the open instead of trying to shove them down all the time. So Damian feels jealous, probably because he still has feelings of seeing Dick as a father that he feels he can’t act on because he doesn’t want to upset their actual dad or cause fights between them.”

"And I can feel Mr. Wayne feels jealous too, but of how Damian feels and the fact that he acted on what was so clearly jealousy to everyone else, but also he’s upset at himself, probably because he thinks its not right for him to feel jealous towards his own son and specifically because he and his brother have such a strong relationship and Dick did such a good job taking care of him when Mr. Wayne couldn’t. And then Dick feels guilty but also a little upset at himself as well, maybe because he knows he has nothing to feel guilty for? I’m not sure about that part, I haven’t totally gotten a feel for their usual emotional dynamics. But also he feels jealous too, and of Mr. Wayne, most likely because he gets to be Damian’s father and on some level Dick wishes that was still him occupying that role.”

“Maybe you should be explaining all of this to them instead of me,” Crystal concludes when her daughter finishes her run-through in a rush of hastily accelerated words. Luna is leaning to the side, as if trying to be subtle about craning to look around her at the drama on the other side.

“I will if they ask me to,” her daughter says, now sounding somewhat defensive of herself. “I don’t think they would have liked it much if I just tried to talk to them about all their feelings that they refuse to acknowledge or act upon, even just with each other in private.”

“Hmm,” Crystal just hums thoughtfully. Luna rushes to present the rest of her case, though Crystal still lacks a clear picture of just what the specific endgame is that her little schemer simply can’t resist trying to nudge things towards.

“Besides, like I said, maybe this was a good thing, Tommy got it out in the open where now they have to talk about it with each other, since its pretty undeniable to everyone. I mean everyone else in their family definitely feels kinda satisfied I think? No, vindicated. That’s it. I think they’ll be fine on their own. They all definitely love each other and if anything, the jealous feelings are all just from loving each other more than they feel they should or have a right to, because they don’t want to make one of their other family question whether they love them too. None of them have done anything bad or wants anything bad, they just need to talk it through.”

“Well that’s all good to hear, but it still sounds to me like there’s no real reason for us not to interrupt, and every possibility it might defuse some tension and give them all a little time to cool down before talking about things.” Crystal crosses her arms and looks down at Luna knowingly.

She might be the best daughter Crystal could have ever wished for, and light years more mature than anyone else her age, but she’s still only ten and every ten year old has room for more maturing.

Sure enough, her daughter squirms guiltily.

“I guess. But I still think its better to let things just happen on their own. You’re always telling me that my power isn’t permission to insert myself into the problems of everyone I meet. And that assuming otherwise can be bad for me too.”

“That’s true,” Crystal nods. All the same, her left eyebrow starts to climb. “However, another truth I’ve heard told to you by your father is if you ever feel guilty and are put on the spot for something, have two truths and a lie ready to explain yourself. And always lead with the lie.”

She loves Pietro still, she does, and she's at times even painfully aware of just how much she always will. But their vastly different ideas about parenting were just one of the reasons they hadn’t been able to make things work. She vividly recalls the time she’s referring to...and the argument she and her husband had immediately following it.

Pietro’s stance had always been that children were just little versions of who they’d grow up to be, and didn’t need to be taught dumbed down versions of the advice no one would a problem giving to the grown up versions of them.

“I see nothing inappropriate in teaching her that,” Pietro had said stubbornly at the time. “I do the same thing all the time and I’ve never attempted to pretend otherwise. In fact, I clearly remember explicitly describing that as my life philosophy on one of our earlier dates, and if I recall correctly, you laughed and called me a charming knave at the time. And I am of course remembering it correctly, as I have perfect recall listed among my numerous attributes.”

They never did reach an understanding about that particular bit of parenting. Probably because that argument had ended up seguing into the make-up sex that had kept them married far longer than they probably should have been.

Not that the latter detail is of any relevance at the moment. She coughs awkwardly.

In the here and now, their daughter continues to fidget beneath her mother’s now imperious gaze and newfound resolution to not allow her semi-fond nostalgia to cause her emotions to waver.

“Fine!” Luna groans at last, throwing up her hands in as explosive manner as the usually contemplative girl ever does anything. “I also don’t want to interrupt or go yet because I still have some of the popcorn Mr. Alfred made me and its really good and also if you had to have dinner with some of the most tense and repressed people on two different Earths, and feel everything they were trying to pretend they didn’t feel, you would want to at least get to enjoy the part where they finally stop doing that and get all dramatic and dumb. Are you happy now?”

“Ecstatic,” Crystal says primly, fighting a smile at her daughter’s rare display of immaturity before remembering who she was talking to and ceasing to bother with the pretense. Besides, its not like she doesn’t have a point.

“But I believe we’ve also talked about people not being your personal entertainment,” she adds. It just feels like the kind of moment where she's supposed to say something along those lines. Even half-heartedly.

“But is it really my fault if people are being entertaining through no fault of my own, and I just happen to be nearby and have every right to just stay put until being right where I am stops being entertaining?” Her daughter counters.

The glint in her eye and the wry smile that says she knows she’s scented a moment of weakness and has no shame about pouncing on it - those are wholly among Pietro’s contribution to their child, and not anything Crystal can truly fault him for, at the end of the day. He is who he is, and part of that is who their daughter is, just as much as she is part of Crystal. She sighs and relents.

“If one of the Waynes catches us treating their conflict like a reality show and feels the slightest upset about it, it is your responsibility to either justify yourself to them too, or acknowledge responsibility for their upset. Whichever it takes to reverse the negativity you contributed. Understood?”

"Promise,” Luna says, bobbing her head repeatedly as she holds forth her hands, unprompted, to demonstrate that she has no fingers crossed as she did so. A follow up that has been normalized for years, given that crossing fingers behind one’s back is another one of the bits of parental wisdom Pietro had imparted upon their precocious daughter when she was younger.

Crystal just sighs once more and shakes her head fondly as she steps to the side and provides an unobstructed view through the open doorway across the room.

Back in the dining room, heedless of having garnered spectators to their spectacle, as well as equally heedless of the passage of time, the room’s inhabitants exist in a state of suspended animation.

Everyone knows a reaction to what just happened is required. That the pregnant pause persisting since then demands a clear follow up to the blatant display of certain emotions from certain parties. All of whom are usually quite certain they’d rather witness the end of the world than see those specific feelings slip out into the open where anyone could see them and from that, draw certain conclusions.

Nobody is confused on that front. Not even their guests from an entirely separate universe.

But the unthinkable has happened nevertheless, and as it has been neither preceded nor succeeded by any hint of an apocalypse, there is no alternative. The naked display of previously avoided topics can not in any way be avoided at this point. What was done was done and now things have to be said or done as a result.

The problem lies in the fact that not a single person present has the faintest idea of what those specific things were. And thus no one seems interested in showing any initiative in ending the stalemate that has been forged from the uncommon uncertainty that was their only commonality.

The rise and fall of chests are the only movements betraying that the tableau they set exists in all three dimensions, rather as a static snapshot someone had taken in commemoration.

And even breathing seems done reluctantly.

If cosmic entities such as Uatu the Watcher were prone to hyperbole, as the only other witnesses to the unprecedented anomaly, they might narrate that for a time it seems as though two of the most powerful and influential families of two different universes are fated to spend the rest of eternity existing in this rare moment. This endless moment where some of the most reckless, impulsive, tactical, analytical, insightful and decisive heroes to ever exist on two separate Earths......are all equally stricken with indecision and uncertainty as to what course of action to take next.

Who could even imagine what kind of consequences that might result in, for two entirely different multiverses? What deviations from intricately plotted grand designs that could cause, what opportunities might be missed, from the most potentially fortunate events that otherwise might stem from these various heroes’ heroics?

How far might the ripple effects of this seemingly innocuous moment in space and time reach? How many worlds might rise and fall, universes live and die, all because this one singular family, this comparatively tiny collection of dissonant souls who regardless of their frequent discord still manage to come together in harmony often enough to chart the course of cosmic events....

These unlikely conductors who at separate times are both the voices of the people, and the music of the spheres themselves? Their choices often doing more to directly affect various celestial bodies than the choices of entire civilizations added up across countless millennia?

Regardless of the degree of potential calamity, that remains a fate both universes will be spared their discovery of. For in this hour of need, where some of the prime movers and shakers of worlds sit motionless whilst hardly daring to breathe, all mutually frozen in their seats, all seemingly powerless to act or speak until someone releases them from this spell that has been cast upon the room and all within it....

Well, unto this unlikely conundrum, there arises an unlikely hero.

Not the hero anyone present deserves, perhaps, but certainly the hero they need.

And so it is that with great daring - and dare we say, even panache - a voice rings out loud and clear. One overflowing with bountiful mirth and a zest and zeal for life. Not to mention one brimming with reckless disregard for any potential consequences, even those not very dissimilar to the kind that have in years past made even the hardiest villains quail in fear...

And all at the same time, all undeniable, all contributing to the sudden spasm that erupts along the fault line that is Bruce Wayne’s entire face - that treacherous, forbidding chasm that exists at the edges of the two tectonic masses that are on one side his disapproval, and on the other side, the muscles that control his expressions...

Into that momentous stillness lands the only response truly appropriate, given the root cause of all of this.

“Awkwaaaaaaard,” Stephanie Brown sings out, half standing out of her chair to stretch across the table in front of Wanda and Duke in order to retrieve the gravy boat. She returns to her seated position and proceeds to slather her mashed potatoes with its contents, blithely paying no attention to the fact that all other faces in the room have swiveled to face her with stunned disbelief. “Seriously, I haven’t felt this uncomfortable since I farted in front of Superman.”

“When did you even get here?” Bruce frowns at her, exasperated enough that Damian is able to use his distraction to slip free of him and slink back to his own seat.

No one else has ever managed to achieve the depths of distraction Stephanie and Stephanie alone can push the usually unflappable Bat to. Or is it heights, and the joys of alliteration might need to be sacrificed upon the altar of accuracy? Whatever.

She pretty much considers it her superpower, though. She's still working out how to weaponize it for use on other targets. Or even better, how to capitalize on it for use when living Whilst Reluctantly Capitalist. Currently, she’s testing market research along the veins of blackmailing Bruce into paying her a monthly allowance in exchange for her keeping her levels of Intentionally Irritating him to below a Level Four on a ten point scale. Its her own custom model in the fashion of the ‘rate the pain with a number from one to ten’ scale, but she’s taken the liberty of specifically tailoring it to Bruce’s condition of Suffering Stephanie the Supreme’s Presence. She's pretty sure she’d ultimately settled on the title: “How much is my chewing gum while I’m supposed to be being sneaky causing you actual physical pain?”

There’s an itty bitty chance she actually picked something totally else on account of how she’d been super drunk at the time and she’s crap at reading her own handwriting so deciphering the notes she’d made while especially inspired were like....seventy percent guesswork.

But close enough, anyway, and also like, shut up and stuff. Wait. But is that really considered blackmail, technically speaking, or is it more like bribery? Not that it really makes a difference, but she does prefer being as precise as possible when listing her crimes slash achievements. It’s like. The principle. Or maybe the aesthetic? Whatever.

Really, though, this is just her and the Big Guy’s thing. Its just what they do. Their dynamo depiction of a duo doing things after their first take on being a Dynamic Duo detonated so disastrously. Yeah, she could never bear to part with her precious alliteration merely for the sake of precision. Its important to have clear priorities after all, and if it for whatever reason that probably will involve fifth dimensional imps, like, some nefarious ne’er-do-well demands she make a choice between alliteration and precision, well, she’s as of right now making an official ruling on which darling she’d kill first.

Sorry, precision, but you just haven’t done for me lately what alliteration has brought me in joy and also usefulness.

“Wait, my bad,” she realizes suddenly, on account of how everyone is staring at her when all she’s doing currently is stuffing her face like a pro. And as hype as she is on her ability to make anything she does look like a Feat™, she’s pretty sure she doesn’t make it look that good. “What was the question again?”

Bruce faces her fully, arms crossed in an attempt to restore himself and his dominion to some semblance of its usual order, his face schooled back in his usual Mona Lisa smile aka stone cold impassivity. Which nobody here was buying, for the record. Big faker.

“How long have you been here?” Asks Stone Cold Steve Austin, wait no, the Stone Cold Steve Faker. Faker Austin? Ugh, this is gonna bug her.

Also, nobody here is buying his voice as being Forbidding right now so much as just Deeply Embarrassed Because I Had Feelings And They Distracted Me. Honestly, she should start keeping a tally. For what, she’s not sure, but you never know what might come in handy some day. There’s a whole TV show about hoarders to back her up on that supposition. See? Science, suckers.

“I dunno. Since way before dinner even started though. Dude, I’m literally on my thirds.”

As if making a show of evidence, Steph shovels more meat in her mouth. She’s not entirely sure what they're even having, like it could be veal or lamb or turkey for all she knows - look, she never got around to mastering “How To Solve the Mystery of Mystery Meat” or whatever. She’d been busy learning how to tell the difference in blood spatters, because like, meat may be murder sometimes but murder is always murder and thus takes priority. Soooorry.

Point is, who knows what the fuck kind of meat it is, but its damn good and just further proof that Alfred is probably secretly God in disguise or maybe just a lower case g kinda one, but whichever, he and his culinary arts are definitely proof she’s too weak to ever walk the Way of the Vegan.

She finishes chewing fully before continuing. Because she’s a proper lady, obvy.

“And way to make with the Rudeness, B. I know I can pull off pretty much any look, but Fly On The Wall is not one of them. How dare you come for my self-esteem like this. I’ll sue you and get all your billions and use them to make a swimming pool of gold coins all Scrooge McDuck style, because its like, the one thing you could never and thus the perfect way to establish my dominance and stuff.”

“Has she seriously been here this whole time?” One of Dick’s girlfriend’s twin kids stage-whispers from the other length of the table. “How did we not notice before? Not exactly flying under the radar there.”

“I’m a goddamn social chameleon, that’s how, Cloud.” Stephanie jabs another meat-laden forkful in his direction for emphasis, on its way to her food hole. Ugh, bliss. “Also, I would be like, a kick-ass spy. But nobody ever gives me the spy jobs because everyone’s always like, you can’t be quiet or still or even serious for longer than five minutes, Stephanie, and I’m always like, umm, just because I choose not to doesn’t mean I can’t, but do they ever listen? Of course not.”

The kid wrinkles his nose at her. “Why did you call me Cloud?”

“Isn’t that the name of the Final Fantasy guy whose hair you ripped off?”

“Is it? I don’t know, I’ve never played. And maybe he ripped me off, you don’t know,” Not-Cloud says, looking suddenly intrigued, though who knows by which part.

Stephanie swivels towards Tim for confirmation. He looks back, vaguely irritated.

“Why does everyone always look at me for stuff like that? I have no idea. When exactly would I have time to be a gamer in the first place? And for the record, back when I had actual hobbies, I used to skateboard.”

“Jeez, sorry, Tony Hawk. I didn’t recogize you cuz I was too busy giving you mad props for that sick wicked half pipe ollie oopsie.” Steph rolls her eyes. Then she cocks her head to scrutinize him more fully and maybe give him a serious answer. She settles for flapping a hand at him vaguely as she says, “And you just have like, a certain Quality about you or whatever. I don’t know what it is.”

“She doesn’t even live here,” Bruce says, almost plaintively. Y’know. If he were someone who does anything plaintively ever.

“She’s our guest,” Cass says, almost primly. Y’know. If she were someone who does anything primly ever. “You’re being rude.”

Steph plasters on her most injured expression, the better to make like Exhibit A when Cass sweeps an arm towards her for demonstration.

Also though, oh shit, oh shit, look whose internal monologue stumble-stepped into a motif. She’s Emily Dickenson-ing this place up tonight. Finally, someone bringing a little class into the House of Ass. You’re welcome, all the ghosts of Bruce’s equally gloomy ancestors who definitely haunt this place on the regular.

“Yeah, Alfred has always impressed upon us that there are certain protocols for how we’re supposed to treat guests in our home, Bruce,” Tim adds in a tone that was equal parts thoughtful musing and suppressed merriment.

He slides a smirk down the table to Steph. His own irritation of 7.5 seconds prior has completely evaporated into the ether, because that’s just how they roll. Look at them, making with the maturity like they’re just a couple of motherfucking bosses. She’s seriously so impressed with the both of them on their own behalves.

“If I were a betting man,” Tim continues nonchalantly, “I’d put down money that hanging on to guest privileges is one of the main reasons she turned down that adoption offer we all pretend we don’t know B’s definitely given her at some point.”

“Or maybe that’s just what you tell yourself, being the one whose dating history with Steph makes adopted siblinghood seem weird and icky and stuff,” Duke suggests from further down the table. He smirks, lounging in a way that looks lazy and careless to those uninitiated in the sacred Bat arts of being anal about everything at all times, like literally even when just looking at things. Because B-Man’s secret superpower is how to make anything boring, even things that are literally just using your eyes.

Though in defense of B but also like, the years of their lives they’ve all committed to obsessively training themselves according to his fucking anal doctrines anyway, like a bunch of absolute suckers, there is an upside to all that anal retention. Such as how people who make healthy but boring life choices would look at Duke right now and be like oh shit, that kid’s about two seconds from falling asleep like he’s a cat and that’s a super inconvenient place for him to fall asleep, which everyone knows is basically the same thing as Kitty Nirvana.

But meanwhile, the other teen still clearly shows all the checked boxes that spell out hey this dude could be ready to kick your ass in 2.5 seconds, like just give him a reason punk, he’s ready to go. Or at least, that’s how he registers to those of them with Bat-supersenses that aren’t actually super but really just the end result of lots of boring training exercises that honestly don’t sound anywhere near as cool so just let them have this.

Point is she totally lost track of her point, but then Duke follows up with an accusing pointer finger aimed at Tim, one appropriately dramatic and just like, making her so gosh darn proud of the latest castaway to wash ashore on their weird ass little Island Of Misfit Toys. Kids. They grow up so fast.

“Of course you wanna distract everyone from how you’re a Sister Depriver,” Duke intones, putting some super thematic bass into his boom. That right there, that little something extra...that’s how you make fucking art. Hot damn. “And as a result, poor Cass has to bear the weight of being the only girl in the Wayne clan all by herself. For shame, Timothy.”

“Yeah, Timothy,” Cass echoes smugly. “For shame.”

Tim shoots betrayed eyes at her, but its his own fault for forgetting the Cardinal Rule Of Cass: her allegiances are fickle and prone to shifting in the direction of greatest potential drama. Cass loves drama. Lives for it. Something about how refreshing it is to be able to immerse herself in the movements of people who are actively trying to speak or act in contradiction to what their body really wants to say, instead of just being lying douchebags who necessitate caution when they do anything similar.

The rest of them are split 50/50 as to whether that’s true and heartwrenching, or whether its well-played Cass bullshit aimed at distracting them from what a gossip-loving drama queen she really is.

“Whatever,” Jason says dismissively as he chimes in. He swipes the last few exchanges out of the way like they’re open apps he’s not using at the moment and he’s all uh, you can go now, losers. “The real issue here is that obviously the Old Man has never figured out how to interact with a teenager or young adult he hasn’t adopted or can’t adopt. Middle D over there is proof that even B’s vaunted no meta rule isn’t really a dealbreaker, so betcha the real reason Dickie and Tim’s Titan friends never come over is because their parentals are worried about B trying to snatch them up too. And since B adopts, fosters or otherwise absorbs via osmosis every other kid or teen he comes across, there’s never been a control group for him to practice his non-adoption-intending behavior on other kids. And no practice means no way of being perfect at that, and we all know how not being perfect at something makes B cranky as fuck.”

Duke takes a beat to contort his face into a Rubik’s Cube of half-formed and hastily discarded expressions. Most likely trying to work through whether Middle D counts as a weird-ass endearment for this particular family, or something he’s gonna be endlessly annoyed by if it happens to catch on. Its a process, especially considering it has to be filtered through the Jason to English dictionary first.

Finally he just shrugs in a lazy non-reaction that in Batspeak manages to count as a challenge. Basically a ‘try and guess what I decided if you can, chump.’

Jason’s face morphs Terminator style. The later ones, not the Governator model. He ends up displaying a mash-up: the smirk of inevitable victory meets the narrowed eyebrows of intent focus as bestowed upon a worthy foe.

Then the whole piece makes like an Etch-a-Sketch and is wiped completely away before being replaced with an annoyed jaw clench.

“Jay’s theory game is strong,” is the route Duke ends up taking though. “And here we thought the reason Bruce always says no about Superboy coming over is to prevent him from being a Brother Defiler. But all along it was just the insidious work of a Brother Depriver, with Superman himself being the culprit who told B hands off, this one’s mine. It all makes sense now! Superboy even fits the standard issue black hair and blue eyed, in store model.”

He tips his head towards the older boy in a gesture of appreciation for Jay’s detective work and connect the dots high score. Jason scowls back. By the standards of the Family Batshit, he’s clearly been caught off guard. With him so readily taking up the implied but not outright stated challenge teased by the younger boy, he’d completely failed to prepare for the compliments Duke then followed up with instead.

His siblings hide snickers behind faked coughs and gratuitous napkin usage. He’s netted himself an undeniable loss, according to the intricate rules and traditions of their family - ironically, many of which had been laid down by Jason himself when first established back in the misty years of yore. That mysterious, little spoken of era of legend and mystery, one that is nevertheless oft whispered of in hushed rumors and hearsay. The time before time, better known to the Bats and Birds as The Age of The First Two Robins.

If it had just been the family present, it might have been a different matter, but the presence of others changed things. Cuz see, in the eyes of anyone who isn’t a member of their observation obsessed and perpetually paranoid family, the relatively minute exchange between the two boys no doubt looked like Jason had been needlessly aggressive while the younger boy was just trying to pay him a compliment.

In a nutshell, Duke goaded Jason with what seemed like a challenge but didn’t technically count, so Jason’s attempt at responding to Duke’s not-challenge actually counted as the first actual sign of aggression, which Duke neatly side-stepped by already being in the process of paying Jay a compliment between the time Jay actually launched his challenge but before it actually landed.

Ergo, Duke wins.

Look, if its hard to follow, that’s probably for the best. They’re all pretty sure stuff like that isn’t supposed to make as much sense as it does to them.

Jason huffs but then finally heaves a sigh and tosses a tight-lipped and grudging but genuine nod of acknowledgment down the table to Duke. Despite himself, he can’t help but be a little impressed by the kid, having already picked up on even the more minute ins and outs of their family’s complicated interactions. But then, of course the younger boy is as precocious as the rest of them. Their family could single-handedly keep the nature vs nurture debate going for centuries.

Duke beams back before licking the tip of a finger and painting a single stroke in the air in front of him. A clear declaration that this round of the Batkids’ never-ending game goes to him. Jason rolls his eyes but can’t exactly begrudge him his endzone dance. Its not like he’s known for being graceful and gracious in victory either.

Come to think of it, none of them are. Huh. That explains a lot, probably.

Its at this moment that Dick finally regains enough composure to make his presence felt again.

Its understandable, really, the others acknowledge via conspiratorial looks of sibling solidarity that bounce their way rapidly across the table by way of their patented younger sibling network.

Anyone would have trouble juggling the combined stressors of introducing the girlfriend’s family, mediating their own eternal family mayhem, and on top of all that, seeing shoved into the spotlight his ‘shh, we don’t talk about that, what are you, new,” tendencies towards acting parentally protective and possessive of Damian, even with (and at times especially with) Bruce himself.

Not to mention the occasional clashes over the parenting strategy, or lack thereof, that Bruce still manages at times to bumble like the perfect dope that he is. Because if anyone has super strong feelings about Bruce’s parenting and no patience whatsoever for watching their father repeatedly fail to learn from his mistakes, well. That’s all Dick’s territory.

So with all of that kept firmly in mind like the efficient little multi-taskers they all know how to be (when they feel like it), they’re all poised to lend Dick a certain amount of leeway in how much amusement they enjoy at his expense today.

In all fairness to them, its not like he makes it easy. They had perhaps overestimated just how well Dick was juggling the various stressors in play today. After all, you can take the acrobat out of the circus, but that doesn’t mean jack shit about whether or not he can juggle because that’s an entirely different skillset, duh.

Hindsight’s not just sometimes a bitch. Its sometimes quite bitchy as well. Ugh, their subconscious minds could be such brats, honestly.

Look, the point is, even as they all patiently watch their eldest brother struggle his way back to a state of coherency and and managing to be present in the actual present, they’re still expecting him to pop out the other side with something at least approaching poise.

Instead, they get an encore.

“Umm,” Dick utters at last.

Tim buries his face in his hands. Duke tilts his head back and mutters prayers to some higher power. Cass closes her eyes and shakes her head slowly and sorrowfully. Lorna reaches across the table with her wine bottle and refreshes her sister’s glass. Wanda looks like she needs it.

Damian sits with arms crossed over his chest and scowl firmly directed at the table top, Judging Everything. Then again, that is still his default setting and pretty much what he’s been doing all night anyway. Say whatever else you want to about the kid, Steph reflects, but when he commits to a theme, hoo boy.

Jason, meanwhile, has thrown himself bodily at his brother, clamping a hand over the older man’s mouth and stage-whispering with exaggerated emphasis: “Careful! You could set off the exact same chain of events and we’ll all end up trapped in an eternal time loop we can never break free of! I mean, its practically a guarantee, if you combine my knack for being in the worst place at the worst possible time, Tim’s shitty spleen-phobic luck, Cass’ destined to someday prove ironically prophetic name, and your own lightning rod-esque ability to attract cosmic-level catastrophes to you like you’re catnip and they’re really just a cute little furball named Fluffy McWhiskerson.”

“Must you always insist on going the extra mile when being ridiculous, Todd?” Damian cuts in testily. Also, cuttingly.

“Shut the fuck up. It’s my coping mechanism for being part of a family that goes that extra ridiculous mile every damn day.”

“And people wonder what possible reasons I could have for not wanting to be adopted into this family and instead hanging onto a golden parachute option?”

Steph wonders aloud (and loudly) as she maneuvers the side of her fork around her plate like its a zamboni hard at work on an ice rink. Really, she just refuses to let a single scrape of Alfred’s home-made mashed potatoes go to waste. She’s not some heathen.

“You. You seem pretty smart.” That loaded statement and the finger pointed in her direction come courtesy of the Final Fantasy kid whose name may or may not be Cloud but probably isn’t, which is a shame, because Cloud is a pretty kick-ass name in Steph’s estimation. Not that anyone asks. Typical.

Also, where did they end up landing on the subject of what his name should be? Or is? Whatever? Was there a flowchart passed out at some point and she just missed it while busy being fabulous, or was this an actual oversight on B’s part and thus something they should all bring up as often as possible from now until the end of time?

No doubt spurred by a desire to be absent from whatever follows his twin’s newest train of thought, Billy raises his hand half-heartedly. No one bothers to point out the absurdity of raising his hand like he’s in school. He just seems like its a thing with him. He has that certain Quality, Steph decides.

“Can I be excused?”

Nobody seems sure who he’s asking, so its probably okay that nobody responds to grant permission. Besides, suffering through the awkwardness and drama like the rest of them is probably like, good for building character or something.

After about half a minute, Billy nods to himself as if that’s about what he’d expected. He lowers his hand again and uses it to prop up his head as he slumps over the table and idly sketches patterns atop the antique oak surface.

“I’m a galaxy-brain level intellect, you little Silver Whatever-the-Adorable-Baby version of a Fox is called,” Steph declares at last, jabbing her finger right back at the apparent Greater of Twin Evils. Y’know. To see how much he likes it. But also just because its fun to make like a drama queen in a place like Wayne Manor. Ambiance really is everything. “I even took my SATs and correctly informed the moderator that I was in fact there for the SATs and hadn’t gotten them mixed up with my ACTs.”

“Hmm,” the twerp says then, not at all appearing to be taught a lesson by her dramatic finger pointing reversal. He sweeps his eyes over her, assessing. Given that she hasn’t decided yet if she even likes the little twerp, let alone what he’s trying to assess and also if she even gives a shit on account of she might not even like the little twerp, Stephanie splits the difference and settles for combining bitch face with her best “How you like me now,” pose. Let him make of it what he will. ‘Snot like she knows what she’s going for there.

Also, its probably rendered slightly less effective due to her forgetting to factor in that she’s sitting and not standing, but whatever, she commits like a champ. Also, she’s still at most 60/40 on the liking of the twerp, so who even cares, honestly.

“I used to be able to count on my own smarts,” Platinum Punk says, seemingly settled on an opinion at last. “But I naively gambled that away in the name of wishing upon a star for family or what the frick ever, and I forgot to set wish parameters for ‘and also please let them all not be completely nuts.’”

“Watch the ableism please, sweetheart,” Wanda says with a long-suffering sigh.

“Sorry, Mom,” he says with an eye roll that nevertheless seems to somehow satisfy her. “But see? I’ll get a lecture about my language, but I skip school with my friends to fight giant robots in Times Square and she doesn’t bat an eye. My family’s priorities are not like your Earth’s priorities.”

“Or my Earth’s priorities,” he adds as an afterthought. “Or any Earth’s, probably. Maybe not some really weird and out there Earth, but they don’t count, probably.”

“Well I don’t like it, certainly, but I don’t want to be a hypocrite,” Wanda says defensively. “When I was your age, I was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list for being a mutant terrorist. All things considered, I have relatively few objections about how you and your brother spend your time.”

Several members of the Family Batshit direct eyes that are ever so slightly on the wide side. She meets them with an unapologetic shrug.

“I had a complicated childhood. I got over it.”

Lorna snorts into her wineglass. Wanda shoots her sister an annoyed glare, but still amends her statement.

“Mostly, anyway.”

Lorna smirks and waves her glass in some attempt at a meaningful gesture. Who knows what its actually meant to be. She seems to accept the amendment, at least.

“Please excuse our dear little sis her porcine displays of condescension,” Pietro interjects in silky smooth tones that do nothing to hide the sharp edges thinly veiled underneath. “She didn’t grow up with us and our dear, doting daddy, yet has never lacked for opinions on what superior choices she would have made in our positions. The fact that she’s still made plenty terrible choices of her own, is apparently quite irrelevant.”

His green-haired sister opens her eyes artfully wide and projects feigned innocence. “None of those were my fault. I was possessed a lot by a very evil psychic. Who, if you recall, actually called herself Malice. The evil was right there in her name. Advertised. I was innocent. She was evil.”

Pietro swirls his own wineglass, unimpressed. The other set of siblings have clearly been down this road a time or two themselves.

“I was primarily referring to your romantic history with a Summers. And not even the competent or aesthetically pleasing one, at that,” he drawls.

“She also had terrible taste.”

“Anyway, not to tear focus away from discussion of my dear auntie’s romantic selection process, as she and Uncle Pietro both lack the shame gene and they absolutely can and will traumatize all present via a thorough analysis of each other’s past partners in the most bizarre game of sexual chicken you will ever have the misfortune to witness...”

“Bold of him to make that claim when he’s never seen Dick and Jason do the exact same thing for the exact same reasons,” Tim mutters. Cass and Duke both nod. Jason glares, but seems stuck at the ‘come up with actual proof that he’s actually wrong’ stage of the rebuttal process. Dick has by now returned to the land of the living, but seems to have along the way decided discretion is the better part of valor as best guess is he’s currently preoccupied weighing the pros and cons of potential escape routes.

“Hey, Shiny Pokemon version of Sonic the Hedgehog,” Stephanie snaps her fingers and hopskips the focus back on the speedster in question. She waves her hand at the rest of the sound and fury occupying the table with them, as if to express just how much it all signifies nothing. “Just get to the point already and leave out anything else that these vile miscreants could possibly hijack and turn into tangents. You’ll never make it through a conversation in this house otherwise. Everyone here is expertly trained and practiced in the art of derailing the most obstinate and tunnel-visioned man in history from reaching his point whenever that point is deemed destined to make our day end poorly.”

“Some of us just happen to be better at that than others,” Jason says with smug confidence, twirling his butter knife lazily.

“Ironic, coming from the one trick pony,” Tim says dryly. Jason leans forward and raises his knife-wielding hand and Tim quickly raises his hands in a defensive gesture that’s clearly not meant to indicate he sees an actual threat, more just aimed at beating his brother to the punch with the rest of his punchline. “Sorry, I miscounted. I mean the one and a half trick pony.”

Steph clears her throat pointedly and looks back at Platinum Ken Doll. He just sighs in full gloom and slumps down in eerie symmetry with his twin. He definitely is the superior practitioner of the Sulk.

“Never mind,” he says melodramatically. “It wasn’t even a big deal anyway, just stuff I was trying to be like, snarky about or whatever, but the moment’s passed and it’s just kinda dumb and pointless without feeling like, natural or whatever.”

“Probably,” Stephanie agrees unsympathetically, because hey, when you’re right, you’re right. She doesn’t believe in coddling the youths, especially not the ones who are realistically only two years younger than herself at the most. “But you’ve managed to pique my interest enough that not knowing what you were going to say is randomly gonna bug me at 2 am or something obnoxious like that. Also, you started to praise my intellect and I don’t let things like that go unfinished. It sets a bad precedent. Now c’mon. Speak up. Praise me. Enunciate, so Damian can’t pretend he doesn’t hear you just because he’s trying to set the table on fire with just the searing intensity of his disdain.”

Damian responds with a gesture that he definitely didn’t learn from Dick, but on second thought, he probably did.

“That’s the spirit,” she said. “Keep on keeping on, slugger. If anyone can develop the ability to cause spontaneous combustion with nothing but willpower and spite, its Angst in the key of D Minor himself. I believe in you, kiddo!”

If she weren’t actually being full of shit about that, she might be in trouble from the glare Damian follows that with. Ashes to ashes and all that good stuff. But as rage-vision still refuses to make an appearance, the baby of the family in age and irony only retreats to the support of his high-backed chair.

Looking more adorable than he’d hopefully ever comprehend, lest he attempt to weaponize that as an addition to his armory, he slouches down and mutters something that makes Jason’s eyebrows climb his skull like they’re trying to set a speed record for making it all the way to the top.

It’d been in one of the languages that Damian knew and that her own circle of languages learned share no overlap with, but she mentally repeats it sound for sound in her head until she locks it in. Anything that can make Jason look that impressed is worth knowing, and translating something phonetically from an unknown language is nothing Google can’t handle.

And by Google she meant Tim, but that’s what ex-boyfriends are for, right? She’s fairly certain she saw that on a T-shirt somewhere, which is basically the same thing as true.

Anyway. Back to the praises that are supposed to be being sung, and yet weirdly, she still hears no singing. Steph boomerangs her focus back down the table to Smugness in Silver, and oozes impatience and expectations out her pores at him like emotions are contagious and she’s a cooties hotspot.

Fumbling from a clear unease with this particular kind of spotlight, and also how it’d admittedly been a weird fucking night for everyone concerned, the younger teen at last manages to self-consciously eke out: “Look, I said it was dumb now. I seriously was just gonna make a joke about you being too smart to get sucked into a weird ass family with endless drama without having an escape clause, and I was just gonna be like, teach me your ways or y’know. Whatever.”

“Wait!” Stephanie stops him right there with a palm outstretched in the universal sign for hold the fucking fuck the fuck up. She leans towards him, and in a voice pitched low and even but vibrating with barely leashed intensity, she asks him the only question that could possibly matter now:

“Was that last bit actually part of the joke you were going to make? The thing you were trying to say from the get go, not just something you said right now because you got confidence diarrhea and stopped using the words good?”

“Uh, yeah?” He says warily.

Stephanie slaps both her hands on the table’s surface, loudly enough to make most everyone jump a little in their seats, and forcefully enough to rattle some dishware and make her inner monologue hiss oww and yell at her for unnecessary roughness. She ignores herself, on account of having much more important things to deal with.

Launching herself to her feet, she leans into her palms where they press down on the table, giving herself a little bit of Loom to go with the gravity she forces onto her face. Glee is waging a valiant effort at retaking the lost ground, but she’s always insisted that she has excellent self-control, dagnabbit, and Stephanie Brown is many, many things, but she’s no liar.

Well, except for the times she is. But there are always reasons or like, extenuating circumstances for those.

Usually.

“I accept the honor and responsibility of being your Family Drama Sensei, and I shall teach you everything I know and also some stuff I make up just to fuck with you, because I’m not like Other Mentors. I demand and expect some giggles to go with the shits, or what’s even the point, y’know? First lesson: that was rhetorical! I say y’know a lot and when I actually expect an answer I’ll also be like omg hurry up, I aged 84 years waiting for you to say something already. Got it?”

The Twin That Could Have Probably Starred In Twilight blinks dazedly at her. He then turns to look at the rest of the table.

“Is she serious?”

“Deadly,” Steph intones, before one of these naysayers could nay on her say and potentially undercut her authority with her new minion. Uh, she means, like, henchkid. Sorry, sidekick. Shit. Crap - protege! That was what she has, a protege! Hah!

“For real?” He asks, doubtfully. She frowns. Is she stuttering?

“So real I make reality look fake,” she assures him gravely. He blinks some more. He does that a lot, she notes, like a Good Mentor who notices stuff about her mentee.

“Okay, see, because that wasn’t really what I was going for?” He says cautiously.

She rolls her eyes. C’mon kid, she doesn’t bite, except for like, sexy stuff and eww no, he’s like twelve. Well sixteen probably, but that’s basically the same thing as twelve. Also they had a lot of work to do on the spine-having thing because this sorta bit right here is totally gonna make her look bad in front of all the other mentors, if it doesn’t exit stage right, like post haste. And what not.

She doesn’t say any of that that out loud though. She’s not sure they’re there yet.

“Like, I was aiming more for just....a...I don’t know, a hah-hah?”

He leans back slightly, adding a little distance as he looks at her like she’s part of the craziness he needs help surviving instead of his sensei in all things suited to surviving the craziness. Ugh, she has so much work to do with this one. Its a good thing she’s always been pretty sure she’d make an excellent mentor, so like, qualifications. She has them. Obvy.

“La la la, I can’t hear you but also no take-backsies. You’re part of a legacy now. Or lineage. Or whatever the word is that’s not actually about dog family trees. Look, the point is by virtue of being my first ever protege and also the first protege of anyone who isn’t Dick or Babs who both don’t even count anyway because Reasons, you are now part of the grand tradition that is being a Bats and Birds person...partner...sidekick...thingie. Look, we don’t have the terminology all worked out yet. Like I said this is basically new territory except for Dick and Babs who don’t count and also Bruce, but he mostly communicates via grunts and scowls anyway, rendering most terminology moot.”

“What’s happening right now?” Her protege asks to no one in particular. Ugh. Unacceptable. She’s taking twenty points from House Twilight whenever she finishes reading those damn books and figures out just how that whole thing works.

“Okay, so the big takeaway from your first lesson here, because fuck that being cryptic noise, mentors who are always like ‘you have to figure out what you’re supposed to be learning here and then also learn it’ like, ugh, no. The worst, seriously.”

Look, occasionally detours are probably inevitable, but the important part is that she remain strong when doggy-paddling determinedly towards her point, because good mentors can handle occasional detours and don’t treat them like Kryptonite that’s gonna kill them all when they’re literally just sparring in the Cave, like, perspective, have some, y’know?

And also they don’t need to stop every couple hours into training so they can have temper tantrums because their kids are like, no dad, we can’t hang out today because that’s a thing that kinda happens when little kid people turn into bigger people people, like oh noes, gasp, horror. And then they have to go stomp around and make that everyone else’s problem because no matter how much they insist they’re loners, they actually really suck at being alone. Even though you’d think that mastering that particular skill would logically come first before you get around to training to say shit like “I am the Night, my dude,” with a straight face.

Its faintly occurring to her that she might actually have unresolved issues about Bruce and her brief apprentice-ship thingie with him. And also maybe its not super awesome conclusion and also the follow-up to all that bit of bother, all of which gargled a fair amount of donkey balls.

Ugh. Epiphanies are such losers. Literally who asked.

“Ahem. Anyway. Big takeaway. Teachable moment. Right. So yeah, first big thing is commitment. You start something, you see it through, got it? In this family and otherwise vaguely affiliated network of mentors and mentees, we don’t do take-backsies, okay? Its a matter of pride. Principle. Also, maybe brain damage. Like I said, this all really started with Dick, and he does get hit and shot in the head a whole lot, so admittedly, the rest of us do have some. Y’know. Questions. Now you sit there and absorb all that for a second. Like a sponge. See yourself as a sponge. Be the sponge. Good sponge.”

Wisdom having been successfully imparted, Steph nods in satisfaction and then spins to take in the rest of the room, hands planted on her hips Wonder Woman style, because power poses are totally gonna be lesson two.

Her eyes find their way to Bruce easily enough, which makes sense seeing as how his scowl takes up half the room. Any room. Okay, at this point she's willing to jot that whole might have issues thing down as okay so maybe she definitely has unresolved issues with Bruce. So what? She also has a protege, albeit one who probably does need some more convincing to fully be on board, but the point remains that like. Whatever. Suck her entire ass.

“Well,” she declares loftily, as if she’s not just talking directly to the B-Man. Plausible deniability, yo. Just because she’s willing to admit to herself that she maybe definitely has issues to still sort through, that doesn’t mean she has to like. Go around admitting that to other people. She’s not some kind of heathen. “I trust that we’ll all remember where we were when it was undeniably revealed that I, Stephanie Brown, do in fact have Wisdom and Experiences to share with the youths of tomorrow. As that is a thing that just happened. Lo!”

“I have witnesses,” Steph declares with the dial set all the way to Peak Drama, because look, if you can’t lean into the drama in Wayne Freaking Manor, life is empty and meaningless and that’s gonna be her supervillain origin story, probably. She throws out an arm towards the rest of the table, encompassing the dual rows of expressions that could best be described as bemused - if she were being generous and also lying out her freaking ass.

Still, she stands firm in the silence that follows her ringing proclamation, allowing not the slightest hint of self-consciousness slip free of her self control, because she’d literally just made a big deal about how it was all about committing, and Stephanie Brown might be many things, but a hypocrite is not one of them.

Well, other than - nope. Not doing that again. Upon reflection and careful examination of what really matters, accuracy also can be invited to suck the proverbial it.

Besides, there’s too much at stake for her to allow any weakness to betray her now. This is a momentous moment. Clash of the Stubbornness kinda stuff. She’s facing down Punky Brucester himself, and on his own turf of all places. Things like principles....and...and being right, all hang in the balance.

And yes, Stephanie is well aware that she has left even Peak Drama in the dust aeons ago, and they’re deep in uncharted waters now, with like, here there be dragons, lurking dramatically. So what if she’s being ridiculous? She maintains that he had started it, she’s like 99% she is being not at all irrational and unreasonable about that, and by God, she will have her vindication or she will have....whatever the tail end of that cliche goes like. Unless its death, because she kinda sorta already did that, and as far as she’s concerned it counted, and either way, she’s way over it and not looking for reruns.

All the while, Bruce stares her down with his face doing that resting I’m Judging You Face thing that nobody can be that oblivious to walking around with all the time, no matter what they may claim in liar-esque fashion.

Though, for all her various unresolved issues with him or whatever, she can admit to herself that the man is a goddamn master of conveying a bitch could care less. She’d sat on gargoyles that had served more face than Mr. I Could Be Listening To You Right Now or I Could Actually Be Thinking Boring Rich Asshole Stuff Like Whats Up With the Stock Market Today, LOL You’ll Never Know.

She upgrades her ‘Think About Issues’ notification to a maybe consider talking to someone about some of this stuff level.

When Bruce’s carefully placid facade finally breaks, then, it doesn’t break so much as it freaking shatters. Further evidence of this definitely being her superpower, which means time to move on to asking like, ugh why such an obnoxiously specific superpower, tho.

“She doesn’t even live here!” Bruce thunders again. Or some synonym that still means loud and forceful but also being desperate and totes whining. The Big Guy turns to face his children imploringly. He throws an arm in Steph’s direction for accusatory emphasis. Y’know. All dramatic like.

Oh shit. Maybe she did pick up some things from him after all.

Ugh. Okay, never mind, its definitely epiphanies that are gonna be her supervillain origin story. Seriously.

Fuck those guys.

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dontcallmecarrie · 5 years

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I am being (fandom/shipping) nosy, & you're in full rights to shut me down.... Question(s): Do you have any OTP's/ preferred pairings, for any and/all fandoms you're in? On the other hand, are you more the type to be focused on a topic and stuff romance in a basement? (I'd be a hypocrite to judge.) Or are you a mix of both depending on whatever? Not intending to start anything. Best wishes to you! Hope you are well!

For your first question: yes and no.

I don’t have OTPs in the sense of ‘I only ship these two characters together, and don’t ship them with anyone else’. The way I ship is ‘I think these two have good chemistry in this AU and have a lot of fun exploring that dynamic’, which is how I have several AUs with Steve/Tony [The Inception-y Fic I Refuse To Write Right Now, Whisper of Every Waking Hour, plus a few shatterpoints], Stephen/Tony [By Myself But Not Alone’s sure leaning that way, at least], and the list goes on.

but really at the end of the day, it can be summed up as Tony/Happiness because the MCU really put him through the wringer and I am forever bitter about it

…well, with one exception: I only ship Howard Stark with Maria Carbonell, but that’s mostly because I have

way

too much fun messing around with a blank slate of a character.

Outside of the MCU, I’ve got a few ships I have a preference for— but you’ll see a few trends.

Apart from Blurred Lines, I haven’t really delved into writing for Doctor Who. Partly because I am nowhere near caught up, and partly because my favorite character is Martha Jones and that…kinda speaks for itself, really. I’m not a fan of Martha Jones/Mickey Smith, though, because seeing Martha once again get left with Rose’s ex kinda left a bad taste in my mouth. [An entire universe’s array of characters to choose from, engaged with someone who legit died trying to protect her in another timeline, and she gets paired off with Rose’s ex-boyfriend? Really? Where the hell did that even come from?!]

Suffice it is to say, I ship Martha Jones/Happiness as well.

It’s why I’ve been struggling to keep spinoff AUs from forming for Blurred Lines, because Martha/Sherlock and Martha/Tom Milligan are both very appealing options [Tom’d accidentally fill in part of Mary Morstan’s role even as I ignore the rest of season three onwards. It’d be great]. Not to mention the idea of a queerplatonic OT3 where Sherlock and Moriarty [a saner one than in canon, at least] give Martha grey hair and everyone else migraines. Or, in an even crackier AU, Martha Jones/Sebastian Moran, feat. a lot of exasperated looks and explosions with surprisingly little collateral damage [no one wants to piss off or disappoint Martha. No one] and Sherlock and Moriarty’s horror at the unholy alliance that is Martha’s and Anthea’s friendship.

…anyway. Onto the next fandom!

I’ve only written for the sequel trilogy of Star Wars, so I’ll lead with that. Finn/Poe Dameron is not a hard OTP for me, but getting there because their dynamic was something I loved from the first time I saw it in the cinema. I will say that I have a hard NOTP for this fandom, though: while I am a huge fan of ship and let ship [fandom old, here. If I don’t like it, time to hit the back button and find something I enjoy reading rather than leave hate in some poor author’s inbox], I think the apocalypse will roll around before I write Rey and Kylo Ren romantically.

In the Darth Calamity AU, Ben’s going to be a big brother/mentor figure for her as well as Finn. They’re going to be close, don’t get me wrong— but…um. I highly doubt it’ll ever come up, but in my AU at least, Ben’s going to kinda take after his family, as far as romance goes. His type is, much like Han Solo’s and Anakin’s “she takes no shit, hates fascism, and is damn good with a blaster”. Specifically, Ben’s first meeting with Rose Tico involves a broken nose during a bar fight swarming with First Order supporters, and it’s going to be love at first right hook.

Beyond that…I cannot count how many fandoms I’ve lurked in. Or lurked and left an anonymous comment for [I was rather shy when I was younger]. To sum up: if it’s well-written, odds are I’ll enjoy it. If I were to list ships, I’d have a pool noodle armada.

As for the latter part of your ask…it depends. Mostly on how well-written it is, how natural said relationship feels, but there’s other stuff at play too. Some writers can pull off romance and a chaotic plot, and more power to them for being able to manage it.

Me being a bit of a perfectionist [aka why the next chapter of TWiFFON is still in the air, despite my graduation date now being a month away], I have very high standards for myself when it comes to writing. Add to that my being ace with a 99% likelihood of being aro, and I’m hyper paranoid about writing non-platonic relationships come across. [I use romcoms to get an idea, and play by ear. Hopefully it doesn’t feel forced or clunky. *fingers crossed*]

For me, I hate how repetitive this sounds, but it really, really depends. TWiFFON has no pairings beyond some ‘squint and huh, was I low-key shipping Happy and Pepper when I wrote this section or not?’ moments. Then again, TWiFFON is a passive-aggressive spitefic and the frame of mind I’m in when I write for it isn’t exactly conductive to shipping.

Sometimes, I’ll be writing and the ship just kinda…appears.

Exhibit A: when I started hammering out By Myself But Not Alone, I was actually leaning towards Steve/Tony before I continued writing for it and just went ‘huh I guess this AU’s Stephen/Tony now’.

#I got an ask!#behind the scenes #thinking aloud #ships #about me #kinda

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veiljumpernyssa · 5 years

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could you just... like... answer all of those questions at once? I can't pick one but I wanna know all the things

Oh God okay

[[MORE]]

1. When did you start playing?

Oh a long time ago...over a year ago I’d say? The main 3 were only up to uhhhh the Hermit book I think. I remember I stopped playing after that gross fetishy Asra CG came out.

2. What got you into the game?

The beautiful art and the tarot theme. This was before I knew what I know fdjhksd

3. Who was your first route?

Julian!

4. Who is your favourite route?

Honestly Muriel is shaping up to be my favourite so far. Before that, I loved Asra’s route.

5. Who is your least favourite?

So far, Portia’s. Don’t get me wrong - it’s nothing to do with Portia herself. It just feels a little stagnant and flat.

(I bet you expected me to say Lucio, didn’t you? Well, you’re wrong).

6. Who do you play in Heart Hunter?

Chibi Chandra!

7. Who is your favourite to chase in Heart Hunter?

Portia or Muriel!

8. Who of the not playable LIs do you wish you could romance?

The baker. Selasi route when?

9. Opinion on Asra?

Asra is often mischaracterised imo and held to an unfair standard that a lot of the other characters aren’t. I’ve seen many of these arguments and I’m tired.

Asra is not jealous, possessive, creepy, manipulative or shady. Not once does he act possessive towards the MC in any of the routes including his own (a possible exception could be made for the Reversed Ending, but what do you expect? That’s after the MC literally enables that behaviour).

Being sad or cautioning the MC against Julian is not being jealous or possessive. The way he talks about Julian it’s pretty obvious he felt more for the man than he realises, even if he doesn’t understand that himself.

Asra keeps secrets from the MC because canonically trying to remember too much too fast harms the MC. This has been established. In his route, he literally tells you that he hates keeping secrets from you. He takes you into his own personal gateway - an expression of trust and a willingness to open up to you. Does he do these things in the other routes? No, but that’s because you’re not spending that time with him.

I also see people angsting about how sad Asra is going to be when you tell him about Lucio in his route. Lucio harmed his parents and has been cruel to Asra so like idk what you expect. The MC doesn’t know this of course, but you do!

I think we also forget that Asra took a considerable amount of time and effort to rehabilitate the MC, care for them and reteach them basic tasks as well as magic.

Is Asra a perfect person? Of course not. He’s probably overly cautious, he can be a little distant and he reacts badly when in a crisis (see the deal he made with the Devil). He’s not always brave and not always strong, but why should we expect him to be? He’s a human being and he’s bound to have faults, but he has a generous nature and is remarkably well-adjusted considering the trauma of his childhood (don’t tell me that suddenly losing your parents is not traumatic).

10. Opinion on Julian?

I once said that Julian is likely hypersexual and I still maintain that. (For those of you who don’t know, being hypersexual is like..a tendency to engage in compulsive or self-harming sexual behaviour, sometimes as a result of trauma). I think Julian craves affection and associates sexual interest or sexual contact with his worth as a person. I don’t think he does it deliberately or to be manipulative, but because he has a definite self-esteem problem. I honestly see him as bipolar like me.

I think the way the fandom treats him as this dumbass uwu subby boy is kind of annoying. A lot of people I feel erase his bisexuality either by just ignoring it or by making homophobic jokes where the punchline is ‘ha ha he likes dick like you do!!!!’ like no shit, he’s BISEXUAL. But he’s also hard-working, brave, clever, pleasant and good-natured, and once he starts to really come into his own, he’s cheerful and optimistic. He has so many more good qualities than just ‘submissive and kinky’.

11. Opinion on Lucio?

This may surprise y’all but I actually don’t hate Lucio that much. I love to hate him as a villain.

I think he, like all of us, is a product of his environment. He grew up in a clan with a strong martial culture; his clan were warlike and frequently made war on his neighbours. We’re all influenced by our upbringing and I don’t think he’s an exception. I draw the line at saying he ‘just didn’t know right from wrong’ though. He’s not a baby.

But the differences between Lucio and the other LIs like Portia, Asra, Muriel etc is that Lucio’s life and his fate and the hardships he’s faced are almost entirely due to his own choices. It was he who decided on the eve of his eighteenth birthday to kill his parents. He sought out Vlagnagog with the intention of making a deal. He chose to continue to make deals. He knew he carried the plague and he chose to carry it across the continent including into Vesuvia, causing the deaths of thousands. He murdered and blackmailed his way across the continent. He wouldn’t have even needed to bargain for a new body if he hadn’t caught the plague that he brought into Vesuvia himself after making a deal etc.

Do I think he is a sort of cackling, villainous cliche or unrepentantly evil? No. I think he’s a person who has made deliberate choices that he is facing the consequences for and IMO it’s important that he face those consequences. I do think his main issue is entitlement and a profound lack of self-esteem (I don’t think he really believes any of the stuff he actually says about himself or other people; even Lucio’s not delusional).

I mean that’s about as generous and objective a take on Lucio as I can give you. I’ve made my feelings clear on him, but I don’t want to give the impression that I don’t actually understand him as a character, hopefully the above will prove I do haha.

12. Opinion on Muriel?

Out of all the LIs I think I relate most strongly to Muriel because of a few reasons: trauma, touch-starved, lonely and wants to connect but afraid of getting hurt (physically or emotionally).

Now that I’ve gotten personal, I really hate the way Muriel is treated by the fandom. He’s either called bland or boring, or he’s treated like he’s an animal, called feral and animalistic. He’s none of those things.

Muriel has a big complex about being alone. He was literally given away by his parents and left in Vesuvia on his own, to fend for himself on the streets. Being abandoned by his parents and not knowing why, not remembering is traumatic enough, but because of his size he’s often characterised as aggressive and strong when he’s always been gentle. Later in his life, Muriel was forced to fight and kill people against his will. I don’t think a lot of people get just how traumatic that is; not only being forced into doing Lucio’s bidding, but being forced to violently take someone’s life. I don’t blame him for leaving to live at his hut and resist connecting to anyone. It’s common for traumatized people to withdraw and isolate themselves, because the thought of getting hurt again is more frightening than being alone. But everyone needs human contact, and I think Muriel struggles a lot between wanting connection and contact (physical or emotional), between not wanting to get hurt again, to not feeling like he’s worth the effort. That struggle is something very close to my heart and that’s why I’m attached to him.

13. Opinion on Nadia?

Nadia has the biggest youngest sister complex and it’s almost amusing because I, too, have the same complex (even though I’m actually the older sibling!). Nadia, like me, feels like she’s always been compared unfavourably to her older sisters, and has felt like she has to work harder to prove she’s their equal.

It’s probably because she’s a Cancer like me. We have dual natures sometimes; the caretaker and the ringleader, who feel like we have to take it all on ourselves to get the job properly done, but who have moments where our self-doubt takes over.

I do find some aspects of Nadia’s route to be sort of odd, where it’s mentioned that the people of Vesuvia find her to be a tyrant. There’s literally no evidence to suggest that, so the only reasoning I can find next is she’s a woc. But race doesn’t matter in Vesuvia apparently so...what else could be the reason? Not to mention she’s been asleep for the past three years, so the people haven’t even seen the Countess in that time.

I feel like we didn’t really get to understand a lot about Nadia even from her route-why did she fall asleep? What on Earth did she see in Lucio? Why did she let him do all those bad things in Vesuvia before he died? (My initial thought was Cancers can be sloth-like and passive, so that could be why).

14. Opinion on Portia?

Of all the LIs I feel like it’s Portia I know the least about despite having probably the most appearances. Sure, she’s quirky and fun and cheerful, and that’s cute, but...what does she want? What does she fear? How does she feel about her brother being on trial?

I’m hoping we get to expand more of her personality in her route. I know her patron Arcana is the Star, so her route will likely be about learning to have faith in other people, but who knows.

15. What is your favourite Arcana card?

Justice. The Empress is a close runner-up.

16. Have you bought any of the official merch?

No, I refuse to give a single cent to Nix Hydra. (I really want those Tarot cards though hhh)

17. What is your favourite CG?

The one where Asra is sitting in the gondola. Squishy cheeks :3c

18. How many Arcana themed blogs do you have?

Three! This one, then I run an Ask Muriel blog at @ask-muriel-inanna and an Ask Asra blog at @ask-asra-and-faust

19. Do you draw any Arcana art? What is your favourite image you have drawn?

The cover I just did for my Arcana comic! I cant link but it's in #arcana comic and #my art

20. Self insert or apprentice insert?

Both are valid, but I have an apprentice OC.

21. Do you have an apprentice?

Yes I do! Their name is Daya

22. If there is one thing that could be made with the Arcana theme on it, what would it be and why?

Idk what this means I big dumb

23. What is your favourite ship?

Outside of the LI x MC ships I really do like Asriel and Portia/Nadia (but only if Portia isn’t her servant anymore).

24. What is your least favourite ship?

Muriel x Lucio, Asra x Lucio or Julian x Lucio. None of them would even consider ever touching Lucio with a ten foot pole and y’all know this.

25. On your first play through, what direction was your ending for the LIs?

Upright babey!!!!!

#the arcana game #anonymous #asks

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smallnico · 5 years

Note

Does Sofiya like a specific kind of tea aside from just sugary? What's her family like? Why does Dom (presumably) like tropical print shirts? What are Lani's top five countries she would be banned from if she got to choose which ones? What's Chris's favourite sport if any and why? What got Candace into baking? Is she competitive at the bake sale? What are Erol's opinions on sci-fi as a genre? Would Leandro star in a musical and if so what kind? What does he think about musicals in general?

sofiya’s favourite kind of tea is milk tea, but when she drinks other kinds, she adds a lot of sugar and milk. she doesn’t really have a preference aside from preferring less caffeine, as she has a low bitter tolerance and is paranoid about setting off psychotic symptoms. i, personally, know that you need a lot more caffeine than anyone should reasonably digest in order to cause said symptoms, but sofiya does not, or at the very least, she’s so worried about it she refuses to even chance it.

how her family is depends on which family you’re asking about! her current family consists of the theatre dads -- her biological father miko and her not-yet-legal-unmarried-stepfather theo -- and her two honorary siblings -- theo’s estranged-but-reconnected daughter grace, and beau, a former student of his who he got legal custody of a few years back due to Circumstances. they’re a weird family, the members of which adopted one another into their lives at some point and just ran with it. they have a surprisingly natural and healthy family dynamic, all things considered, with the exception of grace, who is newer and less on board with the whole situation (she really only considers their house a temporary place to stay, though she warms up quickly to beau and miko). sofiya really likes grace and frequently tries to engage her and persuade her to be less mean and intimidating. it doesn’t really work. sofi’s one of a few characters in the group who wasn’t born in canada! she and her dad are russian-ukrainian, with her dad having lived and worked in russia most of his life, and having moved to ukraine after sofiya was born in order to live with her and her mother. sofiya’s dad and mom were in a tumultuous relationship from the start, and it only got worse after sofiya was born, since she was kind of an accident. she remembers her mom being cold, bitter, and deeply unhappy, when she wasn’t having spells of paranoia and intense emotional outbursts. miko and sofiya’s mom split on good terms when she was ten, then he took custody of sofiya and they moved to canada.

dom does like horrible loud shirts, yes. there are a few reasons for this, but none of them are very compelling: he’s gay, he likes thrifting, he likes that vibrant energy, and they make him feel better about himself. he has about a half dozen equally questionable fashion choices in his wardrobe, and a handful of quieter clothes he wears when he really needs to do laundry.

honestly, the only reason lani hasn’t made this list is because she’s allergic to planning ahead. her chaos is the sort that comes from impulse rather than conscious thought and self-awareness. i think it takes a lot to be banned from a whole country, but i also believe lani’s the kind of presence to somehow manage to do it by a colossal series of spontaneous mistakes. she has been suspended from school before, and she has been kicked off the bus on at least three separate occasions. if she had to choose a country to be banned from it’d be australia, because she’d think it’d be hilarious to be banned from a country that used to be where the british shipped criminals.

chris used to play rugby in high school. she initially got into it on a whim, but really committed to it after it became the thing to finally persuade her dad to say no to her -- see, she really wants to rebel and used to act out a lot more than she does now that she’s a bit more mature, but it’s hard to rebel against your parents when they spoil you unconditionally. her main sport is now kickboxing, for purposes of self-defense and good cardio, but she’s still a fan of rugby and women’s soccer in particular. she refuses to watch men’s soccer because she vocally thinks it’s overrated.

baking is candace’s go-to de-stressing activity. she’s a fundamentally high-strung person, so this means she got really, really good at it. for a long time baking was the Thing She Did For Herself, though it eventually got folded into the miasma of taking care of her younger siblings while her mom worked full time and late into the night. she’s kind of a duty elemental, though she hates being passively obligated to take care of people more than she hates anything in the world, except when people bring premade store-bought goods to bake sales. (”it’s lazy, it’s lying, and it’s disgusting”, she says. “some of us got up at five in the morning to make sure their homemade cinnamon bread rose and got into the oven in time to be warm for this, you animals.”) she loves her siblings, but literally the second they got old enough to take care of themselves, she left for university and resolved to never have kids of her own. she now truly bakes for herself, though she usually ends up bringing stuff in to the theatre and to parties, because baking a tray of delicious hazelnut chocolate cookies is absolutely no good if you can’t share them with the people you really want to be friends with. she does stay hyper-vigilant of everyone’s dietary needs out of habit.

erol really enjoys it, but only a certain kind of it. they see science fiction as a genre that should be fundamentally humanist, it should say something about human nature, rather than just being fantasy in space or “hey look at this cool robot”. they’ll get snitty and correct you if you say star wars is science fiction (”it’s space opera, it’s a whole and fundamentally different genre!”) but they’ll accept that star wars exists. erol’s more of a star trek kind of person for sure, but their real love of the genre is classic science fiction, your isaac asimovs and your phillip k dicks and your ursula leguins. overall their taste in literature skews toward either “shit you’ve never heard of” (which if i’m being honest, when i write erol, i just make up on the spot) or “classics that you’re allowed to be a snob about”. they haven’t read a piece of genuine young adult literature since they were 13 and read twilight. they refused to admit they enjoyed it for years, and now they’ll defend its place in the literary canon, past the point where any reasonable person would cave to the popular insistence that it’s just a book for teens that blew up and that’s Fine.

leandro fucking loves musicals and would kill to star in a big one. he’s actually a good singer and performer, too, so it’s not a far-fetched dream for him, though round river doesn’t put muscials on very often. they’re more expensive than non-musical stage shows to make good quality, and not all of the cast members can actually sing, so whenever they put on a musical, they have to bring in... the choir.(horror chord) leandro and erol are on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to the sorts of shows they prefer, with erol preferring thinky highbrow stuff, and leandro being completely swept up in spectacle and drama and performance. he’d make a great phantom, according to himself. in the two musicals round river’s put on while he’s been around, he was billy flynn in chicago, and kenickie in grease. when i did my little heathers fancast (which is outdated, sofiya can’t sing and neither can lani), i set leandro to play jd.

thanks for asking! :>

#smallnioc #janetofficial #the askbox

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mistwraiths · 2 years

Text

3 stars

Crier's War is a good book, easy to read and fall into, but ultimately it left me wanting more.

I liked how unique the world was and the history that is littered through the book in snippets of pages. It's a really cool concept about the Automae and how they rebelled and what they require, etc. I was honestly looking forward to more focus on the Automae but really nothing super cool or tough really happened around them. Ayla was able to literally eavesdrop on these Automae who can apparently HEAR organs working and shit?? Crier who is an Automae is supposed to be stronger than ten humans but can't pull herself up??? Ayla and Storme have a full blown conversation that is if overheard would absolutely questionable within the palace and despite Storme reminding her that they can hear and be quiet, nothing happens. Why have these super scary automae have these advantages if nothing comes about it?

Everything that happens in this book is mostly so convenient you can't really suspend belief. It just never felt like there was any real suspense or tension or even actual hard work. Not even an entire day passes and somehow Ayla finds out where Kinok's quarters, who she doesn't serve, are and gets in them? I also think it was a weird choice to write that Ayla uses the handkerchief to touch things when she bled on it and then Nessa's punished for it when she leaves it there in the room. Did Nessa have it monogrammed or something like???? Also, the coded messages were literally so obvious. She used her PERSONAL seal and despite using code names and random spaces to highlight people, Crier didn't even attempt to pretend like she was talking about anything or anyone else. And them believing she was innocent? Just silly!

This book is also pretty predictable. I called most of the "twists" long before they showed up.

Despite the romance being kind of an insta-slow burn ish, I actually enjoyed it. I thought it was done fairly well and while I'm not a fan of how fast they are obsessed with each other, there's plenty of yearning that I enjoyed. I did really like Ayla. I loved her anger. Crier actually was sadly a dull character for me. I wanted more but she was so naive, so gullible, and nearly so passive that I honestly didn't care much about her, especially when I knew the twist was going to be that she was not Flawed.

Honestly, I would have been more interested in the Automae's gaining independence or the first Automae in general. Hell, Queen Junn was super interesting too. There's a LOT of interesting bits here but Crier and the plot of this book is just okay. Kinok wanting to build cities only for Automae and leave the humans out of them is kind of interesting because like... would that allow humans to have more freedom and maybe govern themselves, and like would the cost really matter if Automae really doesn't require human stuff? What's going to happen with that Nightshade business? Like is Rosi going to snap? Why did Kinok even allow Crier to talk to Junn if he had failed to court and win her over before he made his attempt? Is Hesod's bring him in plan to curb Kinok actually what he's doing or is he stupid? And why have an heir if you're not going to include them in things??? The humans are mad at Automae for rebelling and taking over and treating humans like shit, but the Automae were the human nobles pets too once upon a time too so it feels circular.

Anyways, overall I enjoyed the book but didn't really love it. It's still an engaging read! It was really nice not to have to read a book with no homophobia in it!

#nina varela #crier's war #steph's book review #steph reads #book review

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nyxelestia · 6 years

Text

Video essays about writing, organized by topic.

Exactly what it says on the tin. Below the cut is my behemoth list of 52 YouTube videos about writing craft and storytelling, organized by topic, with a brief take away/summary for each one. The topics are:

Theme and Story

Showing Instead of Telling

Character

Empathizing With Characters

Character Development

Character Introduction

Development of Antagonists

Weight of Cinema's Case Study: Avatar

Plot and Craft

Writing Craft and Plot Tools

Plot Structure

How to Create Something Unique From Something Familiar

Setting and Worldbuilding

MCU as a Worldbuilding Case Study

Magic Systems

(Original, unorganized video playlist.)

If you are a writer of any kind - fanfic, published, indie, or otherwise - or if you know someone who is, please reblog! ♥

Video essays about writing, organized by topic.

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Video Essays on Theme and Story

How Marvel Created a Phenomenon - Black Panther

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbcBunGhfc8

How to have your character reflect your themes - both the competing ideas within a story, but also how their relationships with the protagonist can reflect the protagonist's central/inner conflict.

What Writers Should Learn From Wonder Woman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-QhdzQo66o

Emotional self-awareness in and of a story. A criticism of the overuse of "bathos" (sudden tone switch for comedy), and not undercutting your story's own drama with it. Doesn't actually talk about Wonder Woman much until the end, mostly talks about Marvel before then. Every scene builds up to an emotion, and that is how you create drama and sincerity without it becoming "cheesy".

Black Panther Fixes Marvel's Most Common Flaws

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anndNbRjOeE

The usage of nuance and rejection of bathos and simplicity to create a story that "moving, meaningful, and masterfully told". The villain is a character who is capable of self-evaluation and change, and who believes they are the hero (and whose backstory is 90% stereotypical hero plot). This creates a challenge for the viewer, which engages them and makes these characters memorable.

What Writers Should Learn From The Legend Of Korra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiGQGmnMt0I

How the story has the protagonist learn from the antagonist - the Hegelian Dialectic: there's an idea, there's its opposite, and the tension between them transforms the original idea into a better form of itself.

What Writers Should Learn From The Lord Of The Rings

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrAT0cD4pvA

The difference between "plot" and "story", and what this means for writers. tl;dr - The plot is 'the stuff that happens' while the story is 'what that stuff is actually about'. The story is what your plot means. The story and plot will have two different climaxes, and try to keep them together, but distinct.

Get Out — A New Perspective in Horror

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJLHsXw-LFI

How to use a new perspective to retell an old story, and how to use a universal experience to bridge the viewer/reader to the character's more unique experience i.e. The suburban neighborhood is the perpetrator of the horror instead of the victim of it; how horror's typical isolation is established in ways only possible because of the main character's race; and how to use the audience's own preconceptions against them.

What Writers Should Learn From Batman Begins

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-PfEE5kveE

This case study of Batman Begins demonstrates four corner opposition - having two characters represent partial disagreements with the protagonist, along with a third one to represent total opposition, disagreement, or "mirror" of the protagonist. This conflict between the characters' values explore the fundamental question, theme, and moral of your story.

Video Essays on Showing Instead of Telling

Black Panther's Director Ryan Coogler Breaks Down a Fight Scene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNHc2PxY8lY

A breakdown on both the symbolism in a notable fight scene in Black Panther, as well as how the characters developments and backgrounds were reflected in their action (i.e. the traditionalist fighting with the Wakandan spear vs the innovator grabbing any weapon nearby).

What Writers Should Learn From Mad Max: Fury Road

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u6DwJOs604

Dissects visual story-telling in Fury Road, and gives a lot of advice in how to use action and non-verbal narrative to show the story. Really good for anyone struggling with "show, don't tell". tl;dr - To paraphrase: "This series is not conversations interrupted by action, but action that operates as conversation/argument."

Rogue One vs. The Force Awakens — The Fault in Our Star Wars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsIQa7sH5_Y

Analyzing two recent Star Wars movies (Rogue One vs The Force Awakens) to learn about great protagonists and getting viewers/readers invested in their story: showing vs. telling, active protagonists, and meaningful consequences.

Independence Day — What Makes it So Great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gu8GQOJhdA

A general video about what makes Independence Day so compelling and memorable. In particular, I think writers can learn a lot about connecting characters and action, how to introduce characters (in ways that pay off in their plot), and how to use empathy and consequence ("be mean to your characters") to convey the stakes of the plot.

Wall-e : How to Tell a Story Visually - Pixar Video Essay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQA8S59HAnk

Case study of a movie where the main characters are unable to speak, which forces the movie to show almost everything. The things these characters do for their "daily life" or when they (think they) are alone, what they pay attention to/care about, and the choices they make, all demonstrate who they are to the reader - without ever saying a word.

Video Essays on Character

Hayao Miyazaki - The Essence of Humanity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52raDbtNpa4

How Miyazaki used empathy and realism to build such well-rounded, beloved, and memorable characters. Regardless of culture, the characters' goals are obvious and universal - though what they want and what they need are two distinct things. Commonality: the characters are not just paragons for audiences to aspire to be, but flawed individuals who audiences aspire with to be better versions of themselves. The protagonist growing > the protagonist winning.

Spider-Man: Homecoming vs. Spider-Man 2 - Passivity and Choice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOYfG9Oluwo

Analyzing two Spider-Man movies to show why one interpretation is more engaging and memorable than the other. Homecoming's Peter drives the conflict - most of plot events happen because of choices Peter made, and the bulk of the story is about him dealing with the fallout of his own choices. SM2's Peter mostly just finds himself in the middle of plot events he had no previous part in. Homecoming's Peter happens to the plot; SM2's plot happens to Peter.

Empathizing With Characters

Avatar: The Last Airbender — How To Write A Compelling Backstory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOJmhq-ve2Y

Exactly what it says on the tin, how to write a great, compelling backstory for your characters. tl;dr - A trauma that the protagonist blames themself for - due to a flaw, counter-desire, or "ghost" which they must overcome in the story.

What Writers Should Learn From Game of Thrones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rhMu6FFJPw

How to use empathy, loss, and relativity to get your readers to care about your characters. tl;dr - Give your characters a permanent disadvantage to overcome, have them lose something they value, or play them off other characters.

Telling a Story from the Inside Out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulm7bcB2xvY

General advice for establishing a good story, but also a lot of good stuff about developing a good character (and character flaws). tl;dr - If your character has an annoying trait/personality, have it be their 'solution' to an underlying vulnerability, to make the audience still root for them and relate to them. The character starts out with a want, but their journey is the process of them getting with what they need.

Character Development

Wonder Woman: Earning Your Moment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BixIf_hBn-c

The "heroic moment" is the moment in which the protagonist grapples with an internal struggle, and makes a choice which they could not have made before, and which goes on to define who they are from thereon after. What separates a hero from everyone is often them taking action no one else can take, but the most powerful hero moments are ones which inspire or affect the characters around them, creating a sense of involvement.

The Last Jedi and the 7 Basic Questions of Narrative Drama

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE7SkcoyVAI

A character arc has seven parts, components, or questions: What does the character want? What do they need? What is their internal conflict? What is their conflict with the world? What is their conflict with other characters? How do they change? And how does this change impact the world around them?

The Last Jedi — Forcing Change

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYN2Lp9oHMk

A case study of Finn and Kylo Ren's character arcs in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. At their core, a character's ending is defined by contrast against where they began, and their conflicts drive and demonstrate their transition. Finn's starting point was not in the final cut of the movie, and his transition is largely "told" to us through dialogue exchanges. Kylo Ren starts with a clearly established internal conflict, his interactions with multiple other characters show that conflict.

Character Introduction

Civil War v Justice League: Dawn of Character Development (Video Essay)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVEatk78mQQ

Case study of two superhero movies' mechanism of introducing new, similar characters in similar contexts, and how those movies developed these characters. The question should not be on how these superheroes are superheroes, but why.

Stranger Things: How to Introduce a Character

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldizPDmm9eI

The usage of "character bounce" - minor conflict between the characters - to demonstrate core character traits, and give the viewer a "snapshot" of who that character is and their daily life. This creates the foundation upon which the plot builds.

Development of Antagonists

The Dark Knight — Creating the Ultimate Antagonist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFUKeD3FJm8

Guide on creating a great antagonist for your protagonist. tl;dr - A great villain is good at attacking the protagonist's greatest weakness, forcing them into character-revealing decisions, and competing with them for the same goal.

Why Black Panther Has Marvel’s Best Villain Ever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqkThUecFxQ

How the villain and the hero fundamentally want the same thing. But their different starting points (pain vs empathy) and their methods of pursuing that goal is what makes one a villain and the other a hero. It also covers how to have a villain be a mirror to the hero without it just being lazy character or power development.

The Two Types of Disney Villains

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtRArdcYWQ8

Analysis of the two main types of Disney villains - Outcast vs Tyrant - and how they reflect the heroes' arcs in their movies. The Outcast Villain exists on the fringes of an ethical world, they seek power by corrupting that world, and the heroes' arcs usually surround them needing to embrace their responsibilities. The Tyrant Villain exists at the top of an unethical world, symbolizing systemic corruption, and the hero's story surrounds embracing their individuality to rebel against the tyrannical villain with their authentic selves.

Weight of Cinema's Case Study: Avatar

Avatar: the Last Airbender - The Delicacy of Character (1/4)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_UQ5RI38Qc

On how the series crafted each character, and showed us their stories, using Sokka as a case study. tl;dr - The three most important components to a character are Personality, Motivation, and Development - and all of there were introduced in not just Sokka's first line, but the first line of dialogue spoken in the entire show.

Avatar: The Last Airbender - Visual Storytelling (2/4)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4Bgv_ChCd0

While in theory it's about visual story-telling, in practice it's about symbolism and how Zuko's story is told via (visual) symbols. tl;dr - Zuko's scar represents his inner conflict on many levels, and the mask represents his real persona (much like how 'Batman' is the real persona while 'Bruce Wayne' is the mask).

Avatar: The Last Airbender - Development Through Relationship (3/4)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcYIiCf108Y

How the characters' developments are shown through relationships. There's a reason almost every character is introduced in the company of another character - and the character who isn't, Toph, has a story that starts from a point of isolationism, and her growth is in forming relationships with her friends to develop. tl;dr - "As her relationships grow, she grows.

Video Essays on Plot and Craft

Intertextuality in Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJrv_pSHbHs

Goes over how to straddle episodic story-telling with long-form narrative, and how to make a long, on-going story more approachable for new viewers. tl;dr - The introduction catches up on the series-wide story, the first scene uses layers of story-telling to establish the context for this episode a new viewer needs, while still providing 'pay-off' for long-time viewers.

Harry Potter: How J.K. Rowling Writes Mystery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_Y0NFHNhgg

A really great video on how to write mystery, even if mystery isn't necessarily the "point" of your story or it's not a mystery story. tl;dr - Use your description to misdirect from the clues, but make sure all the clues are there for readers to put together beforehand - or to find again upon reread.

Game of Thrones — How to Evoke Emotion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgZXDeGjf84

Also exactly what it says on the tin. How to "toy with the audience's expectations" to create value transitions that evoke emotion.

On Writing: final battles - Avatar l Lord of the Rings l Star Wars l Pirates)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdBImRy-ido

Probably the most most relevant to the most of us. A good way to structure "final battles", from the plot to how to incorporate your character development into the plot via the final conflict, and the importance of self-revelation resolving the final conflict.

On Writing: the first chapter [ Logan l Avatar l Fault in our Stars l 1984 ]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUJOtTAJHXk

Using a mini three-act structure to establish the world and character. Introducing a problem (to set up the world), showing the character solving it (to set up their personality), and explore its resolution. Opening lines set the tone of the story,

Writing Craft and Plot Tools

Food in Film | How Cooking Makes us Human

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uK9cx3M9_w

Cooking is arguably the one thing which differentiates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. It is a civilizing force (and absence of it can be used as a symbol of dehumanization). Food norms can go a long way to establishing culture (and breaking those norms can be another tool to convey conflict). Eating meals together is also an arena of social interaction, and food is a tremendously versatile symbol in story-telling, worldbuilding, and character establishment.

On Writing: the chosen one - Avatar l Supernatural l Harry Potter l The Hunger Games

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VPX5AafADM

How to write a "chose one" narrative (story that depends on a single protagonist to resolve the central conflict). It talks about secondary characters, destiny quests, and interweaving character development and narrative structure. tl;dr - Only use it if it's necessary, and the destiny should underly the story, not support or overtake it.

On Writing: how to foreshadow [Stranger Things l LotR l Harry Potter l Game of Thrones]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwpcdm87irA

This video gives several tactics for how to effectively foreshadow in your book. The best ways to do so are to introduce an object, symbol, or character in a position of contrast, or to use those to mirror something that will happen later on in the story. Foreshadowing is a great way to create intrigue for a reader, to tie together seemingly disparate story elements or changes in tone, and creates satisfying pay-offs that can 'reward' a reader for staying with the story.

How To Write Plot Twists (Spoilers)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmlwZlyhf8I

(Lots of spoilers!) Video about how to write good plot twists. Discussion of "anagnorisis" ("a revelation"). tl;dr - Reveal that what you thought are two things, are actually one - especially after making sure to previously establish these two things as different and distinct.

How MacGuffins Can Ruin Movies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cih9kj6ZPdg

How to use MacGuffins in your story, and 5 tactics to avoid letting a MacGuffin ruin your story. tl;dr - "The MacGuffin is the object the characters care about, but the audience don't." Keep its role in the story limited and downplayed.

Plot Structure

Death Note: How To Write Binge-Worthy Television

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvOIQbHx2Xc

Talking about story beats and "the fundamentals of pacing, and how the writers of the show keep our eyes glued to the screen." tl;dr - Every scene or story beat should change something.

The Avengers — Defining an Act

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j56WPBaiPYQ

Using the Avengers to showcase and talk about story structure. In particular, this one shows how different "act structures" can be applied to the same movie/how different act structures are manifested in the movie.

Hidden Figures — The Power of Subplots

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLXwzj59mnM

How to use subplots with the main plot of the story, to support and enhance that story. tl;dr - The subplots should resonate the same theme as the central plot/story. While distilled/shortened, the plots of the subplots still have the same fundamental components as the main story.

The Social Network — Sorkin, Structure, and Collaboration

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IAGH6k17nw

Usage of dialogue and misunderstanding to develop character and plot (without the dialogue just being narration/expo dump), and how to use non-linear storytelling to build the drama and reframe the story (i.e. instead of "what will happen" it asks "how will it happen").

How to Create Something Unique From Something Familiar

Stranger Things And Intertextuality

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwTpsw-ufDA

How to use context or pre-existing culture without letting them overtake your story, and how to create something unique while in the context or shadow of other stories. tl;dr - Use your references to frame your characters, theme, and story - but don't let your references to shape them. And if you are writing parody/pastiche, use references and tropes to misdirect or present a mystery/question to your reader/viewer.

When Harry Met Sally — Breaking Genre Conventions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR2pLUHBgGM

How a writer can something familiar and give it a unique spin, and how comparison of characters reveals their deeper natures. It examines how When Harry Met Sally subverts the viewers' expectations and turns genre conventions on their heads. It also examines how character comparisons worked in the movie - how the characters compare to their past selves, and to each other.

Treasure Planet - Disney's Biggest Mistake

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9sycdSkngA

First half of that video is a great description of Treasure Planet's greatest strengths, in terms of establishing the character, how to adapt an old story for new sensibilities and improve it, and how an adventure film packs such an emotional punch. (The second half - from ~18 min onward - is not relevant for writers, though still interesting.)

Video Essays on Setting and Worldbuilding

The Immersive Realism of Studio Ghibli

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6Q6y4-qKac

Very animation oriented, but it delves into the usage of detail for vibrant and immersive setting. It focuses on the usage of movement to make the world feel real.

MCU as a Worldbuilding Case Study

How to Make a Shared Universe - Movies with Mikey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJFoNcsbIaE

How to use multiple, differing stories to create a rich and vibrant universe/world. Make sure to match the story and stakes to the scale of the immediate contex. No matter what that scale is, anchor the story to the characters. Every new story expands "outward"/starts with the established universe, but then builds on it. Your chararacters should develop, but that doesn't mean changing the core of who they are.

MARVEL STUDIOS: Duality in Storytelling | Video Essay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKXxiiEbiCA

Expands upon the process of how to use multiple smaller stories or pieces of a story to build a rich and vibrant world. One story has different sides: from different experiences of the same event, to various consequences, to the characters' perspectives of each other. tl;dr - "Every installment shows part of the story, but none ever show the whole thing."

How Marvel Studios Perfected the Cinematic Universe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un7UA1tkTSo

Every individual installment/story needs to stand on its own and tell a self-contained story. If you get too caught up in the future story/bigger story, you'll end up neglecting your current story, and you'll never end up getting to the bigger story anyway. You have to pour at least as much love into the individual stories as the big story - if not even more.

Magic Systems

tl;dr - Hard Magic is part of the plot, Soft Magic is part of the setting.

1.) Ability of magic system to resolve the conflict is directly proportional to how well the reader understands it.

2.) Limitations are more important than powers.

3.) Expand on what you already have before you write something new.

On Writing: hard magic systems in fantasy [ Avatar l Fullmetal Alchemist l Mistborn ]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMJQb5bGu_g

Author's ability to resolve conflict with magic is proportional to how well reader understands it. Hard magic is a defined tool, with internal consistency and predictability. Unpredictable outcomes are the result of misunderstanding of the user. It's defined by its limitations, weaknesses, and costs (and thus its narrative purpose is in how the reader overcomes them).

On Writing: soft magic systems in fantasy [ Tolkien l Game of Thrones l Harry Potter ]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVrnfniQiS8

Biggest delineation between Hard and Soft is (un)predictability. Unpredictability can enrich a narrative, but cannot solve it without it being contrived. Soft magic can facilitate a (re)solution, but not be one on its own. Because there is no defined limitation, weakness, or cost, the reader cannot define why or how it is challenging - and thus there are no stakes to overcoming it. Soft magic is great for style and style diversity.

On Writing: magic systems and storytelling [ Avatar TLA/LOK bending analysis ]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fUKBrkDsOw

Case study looking to Avatar on how to integrate magic into your story in a meaningful way (and also the Avatar world's pitfalls). Ask yourself "What happens when...?" - and explore the answer. How does magic change the world, and what unique challenges do your characters face that they wouldn't face in any other world or context?

#writing #on writing #writing resource #writing resources

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momazvz · 4 years

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Doodle maker

Tried of braking your piggy banks and emptying your pockets to pay all your profit away to some stranger? just so they can take up to a month to come up with a 60 second advertisement video that most likely wasent anything like you imagine your dream business being advertised? and then sell it to you for an outrageous price.

Or are you waisting hours of your valuable time on experience equipment struggling with difficult instructions and codes that still dont provide you with meany options and opportunitys to bring the customized unique style you envisioned your niche being show cased to the world in.

you worked hard to build and create your business form the bottom up you shouldn't half to put yourself through all that frustration just for a 90 second video that mostly dident completely capture the gist of what you wanted to say.

so STOP WAISTING TIME AND MONEY.

do your self a favor stop dealing with ad sales and frustrating expensive equipment. stop pulling all those gray hairs (the stress of this pandemic has caused) out of your head stressing over how you are going to bring in more business and keep the income that helps your family thrive comeing in.

because in this review i will tell you.

in this review i will provide you information on.

•what doodle maker dose.

•how it could help you

•who this tool would benefit and how

•how this tool can help you through this pandemic

•how to use doodle maker

then i will provide you with the link ware you can perches this software program and set up your personalized affordable plan.

• what is doodle maker and what dose it do?

doodle maker is a futuristic artificial intelligence technology software program that can convert any text or text-to-speech into a customized cartoon doodle video . Intelligently programmed to be quick and easy to use. this doodle maker video software makes it easy to make trendy doodle videos that will cetch the eye of your specific targeted audience and keep them glued to the screen.

Also about 72% of people have photographic memories this means most people will understand what you are selling or trying to advertise if you give them a visual perspective and what better way to do that then with a creative doodle maker video customized to the exact way YOU want YOUR advertisement to play out.

All you have to do is click, doodle, and profit!

In turn you will have a high impact from a customized doodle video to promote your business with in 3 simple steps you can capture your specific vewiers attention and improve your online traffic and click rates and drastically amplify your impact on your targeted audience and drive sale rates sky high with animated doodle videos that will cetch the engagement of your potential customers.

Doodle maker provides you with detailed directions on thare simple to use doodle video maker 3 step software program.

doodle videos are 3 times more likely to be shared and can increase you referral rates for your offers by 32%.

with doodle maker you can cose from a blackboard background, a whiteboard background and a clear background.

doodle marker also provides you with up to 160 different unique accents and voices you can choose from in over 60 different languages!

you can even create and use your own voice over, with your own voice.

They have finally made it easier to get in touch with the future of video creation.

doodle video maker software program also provides you with

▪colour doodle video's

▪A I photo background remover

▪make unlimited video's

▪full HD 1080P videos

▪royalty- free music library

▪sell video's to clients

▪300 ready-made templates

▪text-to-speech in 60 different languages

▪1-click language translation

▪millions of doodle assets

▪ photo to sketch converter

▪drag and drop video editor

•how doodle MAKER can help you?

Doodle maker will help you bring in passive income by helping you promote your product or service with a creative doodle cartoon video, doodle videos are whats in style with everything being online doodle videos are easily shared and posited to all kinds of different social media sites, Google , YouTube or you can even record it and show it for a presentation or send it in an email, or txt and instead of putting your vewiers through a long boring slide show or makeing them half to read through a written advertisement. Intrigue thare interest with an entertaining doodle video.

Create your own little cartoon to get your point across to your vewiers get doodle maker and improve your business to bring people in with your fun creative doodle videos and watch your income grow and your business progress. You will help the world see you and what you can do with doodle maker.

•Who would this tool benefit and how?

Doodle video's can be used for more then just advertisement.

Teachers you could use doodle videos to get your students engaged in what ever subject you are teaching them with a creative entertaining cartoon that you can customize to your students specific needs. You can create a cartoon of the Revolutionary War to teach your students history or send them a doodle video of you teaching math class...times have changed, also everything is online including school and some students are having trouble adjusting to not being in a classroom. Help them visualize the class room with doodle videos. They will have fun shareing your doodle videos with thare class mates .

Everyone learns diffrently, so reach out to your student's in the unique way you know they learn best.

Add a since of humor and make a funny educational cartoon that will catch thare attention and keep them interested.

This would be a great way to improve your test results and hopefully get yourself closer to that raise, and closer to your students.

Become the fun teacher everyone loves to learn from despite the fact that you can't be thare in the classroom doing fun activities to help them learn.

This pandemic is fighting agenced you! Take advantage of this futuristic tool and fight back! With doodle maker!

You could also find this tool useful if you work at a corporate office use it to create an entertaining presentation to show case to your boss in the conference room be the alsome guy or girl that relived the tension in that boring conference room by geting your point across with a fun unique doodle video bring your presentation to life and become the star of the office by bring a smile to the stressed out faces of the big scary conference room. Make them all anticipate your next presentation with excitement. They will be scratching at the door to see your next doodle video on your next big brilliant idea.

Need to make a presentation to present to Tokyo or a foreign country, but you only know English? No problem doodle maker comes with its own built in language translator and offers up to 60 different languages you can use to create your doodle video, in any language so nothing will stand in your way of broad casting your big brilliant ideas to the world.

Alot of big corporations and franchise companies and businesses use doodle maker to create thare advertisements and they love it mostly because of thare free deals on commercial rights.

So get with the flow of the future and broadcast your ideas, services, or products to the world with doodle videos!

Even counselors like crisis counselors therapists and skill builders could find this tool useful, because of this pandemic counselors and therapist have not been able to be there for thare clients that have mental disabilities thats making it difficult to get them selves up in the morning and do what they need to do in fear that everything will go wrong because to them everything always go's wrong, so here's a therapeutic idea to help motivate them to get up and go through with their to do list with out having to go out and risk catching covid. You could use doodle maker to make a doodle video of them getting out of bed and doing what ever it is they do to wake up and get things done that they need to do. You can personlize it to make the doodle star of your video look like them and show them a cartoon of them selves getting stuff done and feeling accomplished at the end of the doodle video when they did what they where supposed to do and everything went well in the video, this would encourage them to wake up and go through out the day like in the video. You can show them the good out come of getting out of bed and getting stuff done.

Go the extra mile for your clients and show them that you care with a creative doodle video and help motivate them by starting thare day out with a positive out look on how the day could go.

Maybe you just wonna see ware your over active imagination could take you in life. with this pandemic we are stuck inside watching the same boring cartoons over and over again while the kids lose interest, because they have already seen all the episode of what used to be their favorite show, also it was your ticket to some peace and quiet. They are going to begin looking for other ways to intertane them selves while this pandemic has them cupped up in the house. Witch will most likely involve driving you crazy as if being trapped in the house isent already driving you crazy enof.

so do the world a favor and save the parents of America from insanity, and put your imagination to the test who knows you could save the future with your doodle video cartoon.

With doodle maker videos you can create your own cartoon and sell it to the highest bidder. Unlike other expensive equipment doodle make has really good deals and sales on commercial rights making it easy and affordable to start a carear with doodle maker videos. All you half to do is click, doodle, and profit.

• How can this tool help you through this pandemic?

Sadly this pandemic has knocked alot of us down, also alot of people have lost thare jobs or business. You need new creative ways to bring in new costumers to replace the ones that you lost do to the rath of covid fight back with doodle videos. You will be able to create doodle videos for an advertisement in any language that way you can communicate your ideas or thoughts too the hole world. You will be able to post your doodle video anywhere online, and patent it with your personal logo.

Online is the safest way to do thing's now days you can make your online business become the next big thing with doodle videos.

Keep the income coming in so you can provide for your family in spite of this pandemic knocking your business down to rock bottom. You can use doodle maker to climb your way back to the top again fight back with doodle videos!

During this pandemic everything is safer if its online, online businesses are booming right now.

Doodle maker videos not only makes it easier and way more affordable, but its also a fun creative way to figure out how you can work from home and stay safe.

Can't think of a way to work your particular job from home try affiliate marketing, thats what im doing. 😊

•how to use doodle maker?

Unlike other expensive equipment you dont need any tech skills to create your own personalized affordable doodle video. Now to bring your career to life online from home in a matter of minutes. You can create a creative doodle video on doodle maker in 3 simple steps simply Click, Doodle, and Profit.

You can even sell your videos on doodle maker for more profit in your pocket, and maybe your video could help others in the same way it helped you. Who knows you could become famous off of your doodle video.

Doodle maker provides you with 300+ different templates you can customize and add too. You could even add your own background from your photo gallery and create your own voice over with your own voice, or choice from 1 of the 160 different voice overs and accents that doodle maker provides you with. Then you can easily sell your customized cartoon doodle video on doodle maker for 300$ to 500$ each.

After you click on this link and get your package all you have to do is start making videos.

• First you will want to click on NEW PRODUCT FROM TEMPLATE.

Then you will be able to choose from a whiteboard, blackboard or glassboard. ( I would recommend the Whiteboard or glassboard).

At this point you will also be asked to chose from several different female and male doodle hands. Now (These are the hands that will be drawing your doodle videos, icons, and text that you add to your video). You will be given the opportunity to change these features at anytime if you change your mind.

You will also be given the opportunity to search different templates in the search bar at the top of the page, after you type in some kind of keyword of your business service you proved, the subject you are teaching, or the products you are advertising with doodle maker, it will find all the best templates for your specific needs. You can even use your own if you already have one. Also (you may be able to find a tutorial video on youtube on how to go about that)...

• The next step you will need to do is create and organize your "slides" or " scenes" that will combined together to make your doodle video.

You will be allowed to add scenes to make your video longer or you can even remove scenes to make your video shorter.

You can do this by simply clicking the plus + symbol in the corner, infront of the numbers of available slides. This will add aother scene to your video. Now if you click the little red trash can icon in the right hand corner this will delete the sence from your video. You can add up to 20 different scenes to combine them together and make your own personalized doodle video in any language of your choice.

• The next step is to add your script. You can add words you want to be written somewhere in one of your slides or you can use doodle audio to create a voice over, and have a cartoon doodle character of your choosing narrate your doodle video in up to 160 different voices and accents and over 60 different languages, or you can even use your own voice.

Under your template you will see a box where you can type what ever you want your video to say.

If you click on the edit text button above the box where you will text your skript in the right hand corner you will be able to edit and add to your text at anytime.

You can customize your doodle video by taking keywords and finding images and icons to add to your doodle video that will express your niche.

Once you have made your changes simply click rebuild scene and your changes will be automatically interpreted into your scene, also you can do this with each individual scene.

• Next you will want to check out doodle makers voice over options. You have 3 options. You can use a TTS voice over (witch would be 1 out of 160 different voice and accents doodle maker provides you with).

The other option is to upload a voice over from your media, ( witch means you could upload a song to play in the background of your doodle video or you could use a voice over from an existing video that you have downloaded).

You could even record your own voice, and create your own voice over to make it more personal . I would suggest this mostly to teachers using this tool.

Now to do this just simply go to the voice options on the far right hand side of the screen. Now if you choice to use a doodle voice over you will select the TTS voice over option.

Then you will be asked to choice from doodle makers wide selection of different voices and accents for example English/ Australian, English/British.... and over 160 more different ascents. You can also try out what doodle maker calls there premium voices. These voices are the more professional voices. Now (i would recommend this to the people trying to put together a strong advertisement or presentation for the conference room.)

You will also be able to choice between several different male and female voices.

This voice will be the narrator of your doodle maker video. Meaning whatever voice and accents you chose is how it will sound when the voice of your choosing narrator reads the text you put in your script box, also you can edit at any time.

You will also be able to take advantage of one of doodle makers unique qualities and choose the speed of the voice that is speaking, this makes it vary easy to get your video to be perfectly insync with your voice over or music you have playing in the background.

To do this simply click on TTS speed and you will be allowed to choose how fast you would like your voice over to speak.

Doodle maker also makes it easy to upload voice overs you have saved onto your computer with thare simple 1-click and drag system. Simply go to the upload option under voice over options, click and drag your download into the upload box provided.

You will also so have the option to record your own voice over. To do this you will need to select the record option under voice over options. Once you are ready to record your voice just simply hit the record button (the microphone icon).

This will flash with a red outline, this is to indicate when you are recording.

• Next you will want to customize your video further. If you scroll down directly under the voice options box you will see a box with all the different tools doodle maker offers you to assist you in creating and personalizing the perfect doodle video.

If you click on the language icon you will be provided with over 30+ languages you can choose from, now this tool will translate anything you text into your script box, in to any language of your choosing. This will be the language that your voiceover voice you chose earlier, will be speaking in your video. However ( I would mostly recommend this particulate tool to the teachers out they're teaching foreign languages).

Be sure to click the auto translate option located directly under where you selected your language for your text to be automatically translated into the language of your choosing. This will insure that any changes you make from this point on will be automatically translated in your script and interpreted into your video correctly.

To make changes to your skript simply go to the box below that specific slide and click edit text to make what ever changes you would like to make and click the save text button on the left hand corner.

Under your script box thair will be another box (if you chose to use a foreign language in your video), that will have your script rewritten in what ever language you chose your video to be narrated in. Then you simply click update video and your text will be automatically translated and interpreted in to your voice over, so that you can easily speak to your vewiers in what ever language you want.

•The next unique tool doodle maker provides you with is there advanced technology library, right besides the language tool you will see a folder icon labeled library.

This tool will assist you in finding icons and images for your particular niche. This is also where you will be able to upload and add your own images.

If you click on the icon finder you will be given the option to search keywords in your niche and doodle maker will doodle you several different icons images or scenes you can interpret into each individual "slide" or "scene ". To create and complete your own personalized doodle video. You can even upload your own images, and doodlemaker will make it easy to resize and crop any icons or images as needed and you will be able to click and drag them to anywhere you want them on the screen.

To upload your own image simply click upload image and select an image of your choosing from your gallery or upload one from Google. You will be able to freely move, place, and resize this image or icon with just a simple click of the mousse.

The next tool you will find good use for is the T icon this is the text tool. Here you will be allowed to interpret any kind of text you want to appear on the screen in that scene. You will also be allowed to change the font and font size with this tool.

To see an example of what your text will look like in the font and size you choses simply hit the preview button.

Then just hit insert scene button, and just like that it will be inserted into a scene in your doodle video. You will be allowed to click and drag it to ware ever you want it to appear on the screen.

• The next tool on doodle maker is the hand icon labeled hands.

This is ware you will choose from several different male and female hands. This will be the hand that will appear in your video drawing and wrighting your doodle video.

• Under that you will find a music icon labeled soundtracks. This is where doodle maker provides several different soundtracks that you can choose from to play in the background of your doodle video.

After you review and update your soundtrack doodle maker will automatically update to play the music of your choosing in the background of your doodle video.

• The next tool doodle maker provides you with is the background tool. With this tool you will be allowed to change the background of your video, also you can chose your own image uploaded from your computer or you can choose from a blackboard, whiteboard, or glassboard background . However the glassboard background will effect the direction the doodle hand is facing.

▪Blackboard is where the hole background on your canvase is black. keep in mind when you chose this option all of your text icons and images will be automatically switched from black to white this is so that they can be seen agents the black background.

▪Whiteboard background is ware the background is completely white. this makes it easier to see any text or images in your doodle video.

▪Glassboard background is basically when everything is drawn in the opposite direction.

▪Customized color background is where doodle maker will allow you to chose and customise your own background color chosen from various different shades and colors from doodle makers color wheel.

▪Image background unlike most softwares doodle maker provides you with the unique opportunity to add an uploaded image to the background of your doodle video, ( I personally cant wait to try this out).

• The next tool is vary important, (your logo). Brand your video with your logo. This is a faded or darkened icon usely hidden in the bottom corner of alot of professional advertisment videos. Now with doodle maker you can do the same thing with your doodle video brand it with your personalized icon, image, signature brand name, or the name of your business....

To do this you will need to go to the watermark tool. Where you will be allowed to upload your own personal logo, with just a simple click and drag. You will be able to show this logo in the corner of every slide you will also be able to resize it and move it to where ever you want it to appear on the screen in your doodle video. You can even customize it to fade in and out of whatever scenes you want it to appear in through out your customized and now branded with your personal logo, doodle video.

You will be able to use this tool to control the opacity of your logo this will make it easy to control the darkness and boldness of your logo in each slide, or you can also make it more transparent by simply lessening the opacity .

This watermark will automatically appear in the corner of every slide with the same transparency you selected.

• And the final tool doodle maker provides you with is settings. This is where you will be able to change the name of your doodle video. This will help you in keeping all your different videos and projects organized, when you end up having so much fun making your first video you will find that you love doodle maker and want to make more and more doodle videos to add to your collection. You even possibly use your videos to create passive income for your family.

You will want to use the settings tool to rename your projects so that you can keep all your amazing ideas organized. This will also make it easier to sell videos on doodle maker.

Dont quit your job and just give up because life throws us a pandemic that has us trapped at home. Fight back, find a way to work from home, online, with doodle maker . Keep your vewiers glued to the screen with your doodle video's and keep that passive income coming in!

https://jvz1.com/c/1772767/357045

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