#it doesn’t work that way

[godsg111rl]

And I think that a lot of people pleasing comes with the underlying thought that by somehow pleasing others, one could finally reach a state of being pleased w self.

[darlingmoppy]

Every time my band directors get mad at us for not having the energy and subsequently getting mad at us when we get pitted against each other as sections and gather energy to wiN I just think about how competition between individuals is motivating and if they just did that more often they could have the results the want rather than expect us to bring that energy every day every rep every minute of rehearsal which is exhausting

[yujateaandpi]

Thought Fiddlestan was a purely comedic ship for a while but now I get it, I see the light. It’s about a man who nurtures and cares for others to the point of heartbreak meeting a man who doesn’t remember what it’s like for anyone to care about him. It’s about them being warm together around the absence of someone they both love. It’s about Fiddleford’s innate domesticity comforting a man whose deepest desire was to come home. It’s about falling in love with the same face again but in a new context that heals your past trauma. It’s about Stan’s unbridled affection finally validating someone who desperately needed the recognition. It’s also about very funny old man yaoi.

[startuxi0]

What if Angel found him, after his punishment?

fuck any of you who let me spend this fucking long on this OH MY GOD

[bookalicent]

yeah so this was insane

[mmelolabelle]

Armand is someone who has been has been trained (in brothels, by Marius, and by 500+ years worth of life experience) to adapt himself to what the people around him want. Throughout seasons 1-2, different people get very different versions of Armand, depending on who they are and who’s retelling the story at the time.

It’s the primary way Armand protects himself, whether he’s a teenage sex slave or the oldest, strongest person in the room. It’s how he controls people. Fundamentally, it’s the only way Armand knows to make people love him (an approximation of love at least). Worse, it’s the only way Armand knows how to love — by twisting and contorting himself into whatever form he thinks his current obsession wants or needs him to be. He even does it to his victims for crying out loud.

And then here’s Daniel, who is constantly seeking authenticity and truth. Who’s bullshit detector is never “off”. Who cannot tolerate any kind of masquerade, manipulation or lie – no matter how kind or well intentioned. Not out of any moral or ethical objection, but because Daniel simply cannot leave things well enough alone once something attracts his attention. He has to know. He has to see where it goes and how it ends.

“It’s my job, I’m built this way”

“It’s in your nature, Mr Molloy. Couldn’t get out the door without lobbing one more bomb.”

Daniel knew something was off about “Rashid” from the beginning, so he began to pick the situation in Dubai apart until Armand revealed himself. And then he kept going until he completely destroyed the narrative Armand had spent 77 years constructing.

Daniel deliberately and systematically pulled “Armand, Amadeo, Arun” apart and laid him bare with nothing but but a laptop, some free time, a near-suicidal disregard for his own personal safety and a mouth that just wouldn’t quit.

There’s power in being seen, in being known, ugly parts and all. What would it feel like, to be completely exposed like that for the first time in centuries?

So yeah it makes sense to me that Armand, who puts on all these acts and artifices to draw people in, but which only serve to ensure they’re kept at a distance, would turn his big sad orange eyes on the person who blew them all to smithereens and be all “…I wanna do this forever, actually.”

[bluerosefox]

Gray and Graysons

One of the Bats has a secret. Something they never told to the others.

They were so very young but they have memories of a sibling, so small and tiny. They remember the burst of warmth they had in their heart when they held the tiny baby for just a moment.

But they weren’t allowed to keep them, their family couldn’t raise them. Money was tight, just enough for three but not for four, despite their shows always bringing in a crowd it was getting harder and harder for the world to be wowed by them in the new age and their sibling was too small and tiny and needed to be cared in a single place than for them to be on the road. Their lifestyle was not good for his tiny sibling apparently.

They had to watch as their parents gave his sibling away to people in suits, them promising to give his baby brother to a loving family when they find a ‘home’ for him. He watched his parents try to be strong only for his mother to break down once the car left down the road, his father holding her and apologizing, the rest of the circus troupe all silently coming over to give the heartbroken family condolences.

Richard ‘Dick’ Grayson had tears running down his face when he last saw his baby brother.

A brother he got to name before he had to be given away.

Daniel ‘Danny’ Grayson.

-x-x-

Dick never told the others. If anyone dug deep into his past they might find his brother’s birth records maybe, if someone got around to digitizing the paperwork for him but given the fact he was placed in the US childcare systems just a few days after his birth and the fact that Dick was still pretty young they most likely believed he didn’t remember his baby brother now. Not after so many years.

But they were wrong, Dick remembers. And he kept the secret close to his heart and memories.

And the only physical evidence he had was a single picture of him holding his brother, a smile on his tiny face towards their father who had taken the photo of them together. When he had lost his parents, lost most of the things that connected him to them, to his past in the circus that had been his whole life, had been taken from him in Gotham’s ruthless childcare system, he held on tight to the picture in secret. Hid it away from anyone trying to rip it from him, hid it from Bruce when the man took him in days later, hid it from Alfred despite how gentle the butler was towards him. He couldn’t, wouldn’t risk losing his photo at the time, he hadn’t trusted anyone and by the time he did he didn’t have the heart to reveal it.

So yes, the existence of his baby brother Danny was his most guarded and best kept secret.

So that’s why Dick, as Nightwing, nearly died from a heart attack when leaving a Justice League meeting he spotted a familiar face among one of the new engineers working in the Watchtower.

It was like seeing a young version of himself. Only, Dick could see that the young man was more than a copy of him, so much more than a clone. He held many traces of John Grayson but also had a bit more of Mary Grayson than Dick did. Small details that Dick foggely remembers taking note when he had held his baby brother.

“Hey, hurry up with that report Gray!” Shouted the head engineer from down the hall, his hand beckoning the young adult to come over.

“Coming! And boss, I told you Danny is fine!” Danny shouted back before hurriedly leaving a stunned Nightwing.

[kagoutiss]

pelican town, ‘72

[fmayyy]

Some more human Al’s

Not a deer yet but definitely a party animal 🤙

[fisherrprince]

Instead of writing a fanfic like a normal person this oneshot turned into two separate, contextless things,

[melonisopod]

Lifetime Stew is so much darker in hindsight.

Sinclair and Don Quixote both get it, and it’s specifically *Lust*, not *Gluttony*, despite being food-themed. (Although Gluttony in Limbus terms is basically Greed, and Lust very broadly refers to “desire” for things that aren’t material).

So, Lifetime Stew is based on the fable of Stone Soup, wherein a man managed to feed his whole village by bringing each together with a different ingredient, to make a soup that would last forever. He just kept telling each person in the town square, “All it needs is one more ingredient,” and everyone just kept adding to it. Is the gist of it.

Sinclair and Don have voice lines that more or less imply the same thing - the Abnormality (Basilisoup) just wants everyone to try its delicious soup! Cute, silly concept, right?

So what do Sinclair and Don Quixote have in common?

(SPOILERS beyond this point! You’ve been warned)

In Canto 3, Sinclair recalls that once his mother, father, and sister all received full-body prosthetics, they no longer had a need to eat. The table was set and food was placed only for him. It’s one of the things he found so especially heartbreaking, that he was the only one left in his family who could still eat food. It’s such a core memory that it’s plastered on the window-wall of his cell for his base E.G.O., four roboticized humans sitting at the table, with no food present.

He desperately misses getting to share meals with his family.

And in La ManchaLand, the Bloodfiends have been starved of blood for the past 200 years, barely sustaining themselves on hemobars that don’t satisfy them. They can *live* without subsisting on human blood, but they’re utterly miserable doing so. The only one of the First Kindred’s clan who escaped such a fate was of course, Sancho, though she’d long forgotten she is a Bloodfiend, Faust says she still craves blood. She’d been in effect, the only Bloodfiend allowed to sate her cravings, while the rest of her kin starved. Being the only Bloodfiend able to escape their fate was so traumatic for Sancho that she wanted to forget everything about herself.

In other words, Basilisoup/Lifetime Stew is about “the joy of sharing a meal with family,” something both Sinclair and Don Quixote desperately wish for.

KIM JIHOON WHEN I FUCKING GET YOU

[daily-dyllan]

.

[starry-songs-canvas]

Fenton-Proved Kryptonite!

Sorry for the lack of prompt last week, been sick.

——————————————————

Lex Luthor had sent a representative for LexCorp, instead of coming to Vlad Masters himself.

Rude, but smart.

But this imbecile can’t seem to hold a simple business conversation! (No ghostly interference needed) Starring at his most recent attempt of a bust of his dear Madeline, (a good improvement from his previous endeavor, but even Vlad will admit it’s… slight imperfections. If only he could capture her essence as well as he does her idiot husband! At least those give him some stress relief.)

“I apologize for boring you, however I do happen to believe these major details are rather important.” Vlad growls.

“I- I apologize sir, but if I may ask, where did you get so much kryptonite?!” The representative chokes out.

Tl:DR, Vlad’s machines make kryptonite as a byproduct, which he then ice sculpts into Jack Fentons head. Imagine this, if you will.

[pirateprincessjess]

What if I try to change my legal name and the name is already taken? Are they gonna make me put numbers at the end? I don't wanna be Jessica May42069

[badasscoffeemug]

time to put these words away until you understand what they mean and how to use them. like what are you even trying to say here.

[greenglowinspooks]

(DCxDP) The obligations of a rogue versus those of a parent (Pt. 4)

—

Tw: descriptions of body horror, Dr. Crane has PTSD and Does Not Realize, Crane has an actual panic attack and just doesn’t care, the Riddler makes one (1) sex joke about Batman

Will be crossposted to AO3 eventually

(Pt. 1 here) (Prev here) - (Pt. 5 here)

(Masterlist here)

—

Dr. Jonathan Crane is in his lab, the acrid scent of chemicals filling the air, and his hands are shaking.

Danny’s health, for the first week that he had him, had been steadily improving at an extremely quick rate. However, his healing had begun to stagnate. Danny said that it was because his body had run out of ectoplasm, and that while there was a lot of ambient ectoplasm in Gotham, he needed a stronger type in order to heal.

And so, that led Dr. Crane here.

He had stolen the research notes from the Penguin years ago regarding his experimentation on him.

(He quite vividly remembers the sound of bone creaking and groaning as it twisted, lengthened. The squelching of shifting tendons and muscles, the strange fabric-like tightening of skin. The feeling of going from man to monster, of losing all claim to his humanity.)

Danny had called him Liminal, part ghost. He had said that he was transformed by, among other things, a kind of synthetic ectoplasm.

Danny needed ectoplasm.

Crane had the research notes. He had every ingredient necessary. And yet, attempt after attempt failed.

The chemical smell burns his nose. His hands tremble.

Dr. Crane is not afraid.

He doesn’t feel fear anymore. He’s tried to, many, many times, but nothing has worked. And yet, his hands are shaking still.

(The horrifying sensation of vertebrae pop-pop-popping along his spine, growing and lengthening. The unbearable itching beneath his skin as toxin glands begin to form. The feeling of his teeth sharpening and elongating, of his skull growing, of his vision changing and brightening. The awful stench of chemicals. The awful stench of ectoplasm.)

Jonathan takes careful note of his shaking hands, his blurring vision, his accelerated heart-rate and shallow breathing.

(Human hands. Human vision. Human heart and lungs and organs.)

He takes note of them, but he does not let that distract him from the task at hand. Danny is not a chemist, but Jonathan is.

The boy knows enough about chemistry in theory, but he won’t go anywhere near Crane’s equipment. He seems to have some sort of intense fear of laboratory settings, probably developed during his stay with the GiW, and Crane is willing to respect that, if only because he cannot afford to lose him.

As such, Crane is the only one qualified to do this. And, unfortunately, if he isn’t successful the boy may very well die.

He heats the chemicals to precisely the right temperatures, adding each one to its correct container.

Dr. Crane thinks of the Scarebeast, that creature born of cruelty and greed and a sense of superiority. That creature which he tries to ignore is a part of him, that can never be removed. A damage which cannot be undone.

He pours the contents of a small beaker into a larger flask, watching the liquids swirl together. The stench in the air is becoming closer and closer to the one burned into his memory.

Crane’s whole body is wracked with unpleasant sensations. It’s truly unfortunate, he thinks, that despite his mind’s lack of fear, his body still reacts so harshly.

Jonathan’s eyes wander, eventually settling on a purple and green card sitting innocently on the corner of the table.

Right.

Even if they wiped out the GiW tomorrow, and even if Danny could survive without ectoplasm, he would still be in danger.

Crane has to get him back to good health. It’s the only way he can be sure that the boy can defend himself properly.

The solution in the flask begins to foam, and Jonathan does not hesitate as he adds the final ingredient. He pours the mixture into a new container, capping it and placing it into a freezer set to -40 degrees.

Hopefully this time he got the timing right.

Jonathan tries to relax, the ventilation in the room slowly but surely clearing the familiar smell from the air.

He thinks of the letter.

Surely, he thinks, that man can come up with some better material for his jokes. Or, at least something new.

Same old threats, same old attempted poisoning.

Aiming his threats at Danny, though, that was new. New and utterly unacceptable.

Scarecrow did what he had to.

He doubted that his solution would last forever, of course, as with that man it never did. As such, he would prepare both himself and Danny for the inevitable moment that his choices came back to bite them.

However, for the moment, they were safe. Danny could rest and recover, and Jonathan could figure out a plan to minimize possible damages.

Jonathan is no longer shaking.

He’s exhausted. This is his fifth attempt today, and each one leaves an unfortunate strain on his mind and body.

With a sigh, he settles himself into his seat at a nearby desk, opening up his computer and logging his most recent attempt. He still has to wait for it to chill to know if it was successful, but he can always update the logs later.

Once he’s done, he stretches, joints popping loudly as he walks to the freezer.

When he sees the results of his tireless work, the ghost of a smile flits across his face.

Success.

Jonathan picks up the jug of ectoplasm and leaves the lab, which is in all actuality the basement of the new apartment that he moved himself and Danny into after receiving the note. The scrappy old woman who was his landlord had told him that as long as he paid her five hundred dollars up front, she would let him set up in the basement without any questions or cop calls.

And so, the most expensive apartment in the Narrows was his.

At least, he thought, the distance between the basement and the apartment was short enough that Danny didn’t have to sit in while he was doing his labwork.

Jonathan knew that he didn’t exactly have a strong grasp on the concept of ‘lab safety,’ proven by his built-up immunity to almost every toxic chemical he’d ever encountered, and he doubted that Danny should be around such an environment.

He was back to the apartment quickly, not bothering to hide the self-satisfied smile on his face. Danny is sitting in his armchair, trying to read one of his books. Danny looks up, ready to greet him, when he sees the jug in his hands and pauses.

“Is that..?”

“Synthetic ectoplasm,” Jonathan says proudly, “I found the Penguin’s research notes and decided to recreate it, since you said that you needed it to heal properly. I’m not sure if it’ll work the same as what you usually have, but I hope it’s helpful all the same.”

Danny is standing, now, and looking at Jonathan with a strange look in his eyes. He looks, Jon thinks, like he’s about to cry.

Then Danny is rushing forward and wrapping his arms around Jonathan, his scrawny form shaking.

Jonathan is, for a moment, horrified. Did he do something wrong somehow? Why is this child, who’s so afraid of touch, hugging him?

And then he hears Danny’s voice, and he knows that it was all worth it.

“Thank you,” he’s mumbling, over and over, “thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you so much.”

“Of course,” Jonathan says softly, because what else can he say?

The boy cries in his arms for a while, and Jonathan briefly wonders what his life must have been like before, if a person like him can be seen as a comforting figure.

Then, Danny pours himself a small glass of the synthetic ectoplasm, putting the rest into the small fridge which had come with the apartment, and he settles back down, sitting in the armchair once again.

Jonathan sits opposite of him, and they chat with one another as Danny drinks.

Danny talks to him about the stars and tells him about different spaceships, and Jonathan makes sure to pay attention and ask the boy questions.

He doesn’t miss the way that Danny lights up every time he asks him something about his interests. He’s so passionate, so smart, a trait that he seldom sees outside of his fellow rogues, and Jonathan wants to encourage that.

It’s…nice. Peaceful, almost.

And then the front door flies open, because Jonathan isn’t allowed to have nice things.

“Jon,” a familiar voice rings out, “what the hell?!”

Danny is frozen in place, clearly terrified.

Jonathan heaves a sigh, turning to face the nuisance who’s entered his apartment.

“Eddie,” he drawls, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Edward’s face is red with anger as he invades Jonathan’s apartment.

“Oh, I don’t know! Maybe it’s the fact that you sent a bunch of rogues a cryptic message and then dropped off the face of the earth for two weeks! I was worried, Jon!”

Jonathan hums in acknowledgement.

“I didn’t think it was that cryptic,” he says, picking up a book in order to pointedly ignore the Riddler.

“Oh, of course you didn’t, you straw-stuffed hickory dickory dickhead. I swear, you’re always—” he pauses, finally having noticed Danny sitting opposite of Jonathan, “—who is this?”

“My apprentice,” Jonathan replies, dreading the upcoming headache he was no doubt going to develop from Edward’s company, “he’s helping me hunt down the GiW. His name is Danny.”

Edward gasps dramatically.

“You—an apprentice?! And you’re letting him sit in the old man chair?! You don’t even let me sit in the old man chair,” he wails, draping himself over the headrest of the couch with a flourish, “Jonathan, I thought I knew you!”

“Edward,” Jonathan says, “get out of my apartment.”

“Oh my goodness, this is incredible. You’re becoming the bat!”

“I am not becoming the bat, Eddie, now get out.”

Edward has a shit-eating grin on his face as he waltzes over to Danny. Danny, who seemed terrified when he first appeared, is now looking at him with obvious amusement written all over his face.

“I mean, look at him! The hair, the eyes, the scrappy build. If you put him in one of those traffic light vigilante costumes, he could easily pass as a Robin!”

“I’m not doing this with you today, Eddie.”

“Riddle me this, Jon: I am a treasure hidden inside of a chest. You can break me, or steal me, or give me a rest. I can flutter, or pound, or attack, or drop, but if you don’t have me, you’re certainly fucked. What am I?”

Jonathan pauses for a moment before he groans, dropping his head into his hands.

“Eddie.”

Danny sits still, a confused look on his face as he repeats the riddle silently. Then, his face lights up in delight.

“A heart!”

“Jon, I like this one,” Edward says with a smile, ruffling Danny’s hair, “you are correct! A heart, something that I wasn’t aware that our dear Jonathan had!”

“Eddie, stop.”

“No, no,” Edward says, “I was worried about you, you deserve this. I mean, you even missed girls night! You never miss girls night!”

“Girls night?” Danny asks, absolutely delighted.

“Oh, of course,” Edward says, sprawling over on the couch, dangerously close to just laying in Jonathan’s lap, “we have it once a week. I’m invited because of Selina and Jon’s invited because Harley likes him.”

“And what does girls night entail, exactly?”

“Eddie,” Jonathan groans, “please.”

“Well,” Edward hums, “we usually paint our nails, or watch a movie, or gossip about the other rogues, and occasionally, we tell each other about any ‘encounters’ we have with Batman,” he says, raising his eyebrows up and down.

Danny’s jaw drops.

“Edward, shut up,” Jonathan says, an irritated tone in his voice that wasn’t there before.

“No way,” Danny says, “I thought that Batman, like, hated you guys or something. You mean he actually..?”

“Oh, the Bat is much like a bottle of liquor or a cheap cigarette, in that he was made to be passed around.”

Danny chokes on air.

“Edward Nygma,” Jonathan hisses, getting out of his seat and looming over the man, “get the hell out.”

Edward pales.

“Leaving, leaving!” Edward says, dashing away from Jonathan. He pauses, turning to flash Danny a quick smile.

“Remember Danny, I’m your favorite uncle! Not any of the other rogues, me!”

With that, he leaves, the room falling completely silent.

And, as per usual, that silence does not last.

“You full-named him?” Danny asks gleefully, “and it worked?”

Jonathan just sighs, sitting down on the couch and rubbing at his temples.

“Please, don’t take anything Eddie says seriously. He’s a moron.”

“Dr. Crane, please let me come to girls night with you,” Danny pleads, his eyes sparkling, “I promise I won’t embarrass you.”

Jonathan groans.

“Of course you won’t, Eddie will do it for you.”

“Come on, please?”

“I think we’re a bit busy with the GiW at the moment,” Jonathan snaps. He pauses as he notices the crestfallen expression on Danny’s face.

This boy is going to be the death of him.

“Perhaps, though, when all that is taken care of…”

Danny cheers, grinning wildly, and Jonathan is not at all relieved to see him happy again. Certainly not.

The rest of the day is relatively normal.

Danny works on trying to get information from the GiW database while Crane refines his his fear toxin, both preparing for a raid on the GiW base they located in Gotham.

It was only a temporary base, nothing of note, but there was a chance of discovering more bases through it, and that wasn’t something either of them were willing to give up.

Still, something like this would take time. Rushing would only lead to failure.

…

Late in the night, long after Danny is fast asleep in his room, Jonathan pauses.

The GiW are not the only threat out there. They aren’t the only threat to him or to Danny. Perhaps it could be helpful to reach out to someone with greater resources than himself.

He sends a quick message to Red Hood.

Hopefully, he thinks, everything will go smoothly.

—