#its less than three weeks

[general-ysines]

19 days. I'm going to die. THEY CANT MAKE ME WAIT THIS LONG

[starry-bi-sky]

Clone^2 - Separation Strikes

"Why do I have to go?" Damian asks, surly and accent-thick, it sounds more like a demand and a whine at the same time. Sitting on the kitchen table with his arms crossed, in a green t-shirt that Danny bought him at a whim when he was at a thrift shop, and black shorts, he's never looked more like a kid. There's a little backpack leaning against the table leg, Damian begrudgingly picked it out when they went shopping.

His English has grown in leaps and bounds since Danny found him -- er, or more accurately; since Damian was spat out in front of him. -- and very little did they have to use the translator on Danny's phone these days.

Which meant one thing: Damian can start attending school comfortably now. And 'go' was the Amity Smiles Child Care Center. Danny and Jazz went as kids until they were twelve, and Mom and Dad actually managed to convince the center director to let Damian enroll for the summer.

And it was summer; Damian starts today.

"Because," Danny says, trying and failing to hide the smile pulling on his face, his heart warm and soft, and also laughing at Damian's expense; "being cooped up in the house all day isn't good for you, and you're starting school in the Fall. And, in Jazz's words: you need to have interactions with other kids your age for the benefit of your social development. And besides, it's only for the morning."

Damian's nose scrunches up, and his eyes roll so violently that for a moment, Danny thinks about joking that he'll get his eyes stuck like that. He holds his tongue; his little brother already looks like he's five seconds away from committing an act of violence.

"I don't need social interaction." Damian sneers, his cheek in his hand; a neverend pool of pride. "I am--"

"The Blood of the Demon Heir, better than everyone else." Danny cuts off, waving his hand in dismissive circles, his voice mockingly deep. Damian's brown skin darkens in embarrassment, and he scowls at Danny. "I know, bud. But Jazz is right, -- don't tell her I said that, -- you should be around kids your age."

Especially when he starts First Grade in the Fall. Honestly -- Danny was a little nervous to send him to the center. Damian's long since cut the habit of trying to kill or otherwise maim people, his palms ache-burn with gentle reminder, but his tongue was as sharp and as cutting as his sword. He still struggles with trying to quell it when he's upset. Vicious child-weapon that he once was, and will never be again.

Danny knows that it comes from a place of fear and defense, that Damian lashes out because that's what he's been taught. That at the end of the day, he doesn't really mean what he says, and he's learning to express himself better. But the other kids don't know that, and kids can be unforgiving and cruel.

Danny just...

His slow beating heart sighs, melancholy settles behind his lungs.

He doesn't want Damian to be outcasted. He doesn't want him to be alone.

Not like he was.

Damian sneers again, but says nothing, his shoulders crawling up to hide his ears like a turtle receding into his shell. Danny watches him silently, leaning against the kitchen counter with his own arms crossed. The clock hanging on the wall ticks in their ears -- it's almost time to go.

He watches Damian, careful, and so he sees it when his little brother's stone-shell pride and petulance shudders, and cracks. The darkened furrow of Damian's brows weakens, and for a moment, slants back.

Ah, Danny thinks, his own shoulders slumping. Epiphany washes over him, and his sad-heart soothes in warm understanding. So that's what it is.

His head tilts, and his hair spills over his shoulders, messy and fluffy, tickling his neck. Some of his bangs fall into his face. "Hal 'ant easabiatan ya habibi?" He asks, voice low and soft. Just as Damian's English has improved, so has Danny's Arabic. He still stumbles over himself some days, and Damian says his accent is trash, but they can have whole conversations now in Damian's mothertongue.

(Danny was incredibly proud of himself for it.)

Damian's face darkens, his blush spreading across the rest of his face, and he ducks his head down. Grown-out curls, black-brown and springy, falls over his eyes. "La!" He yells, loud and indignant, and not at all convincingly. "La 'asheur bialtawaturi!"

He was nervous. Danny can see it now, in the hunch of his shoulders and the tightness of his face, and faintly, he can feel it too. In the ecto-rich air of the Fentonworks House, it thrums, barely-there, like a hummingbird behind his lungs.

Danny can't stop the little, fond smile that forces itself across his lips and upticks the corner of his mouth. "It's okay to be nervous, little brother." He says, he sounds like Jazz when he says that. He doesn't think she'll mind him borrowing the nickname.

He pushes himself off the counter, and Damian refuses to look at him, hiding behind his hair and in his shoulders. It takes three long strides for him to reach the table, and Danny turns, plants his hands on the ledge, and hoists himself up. Right next to Damian.

Damian leans into him easily when Danny's arm wraps around his shoulders and tucks him close to his heart. He can feel his ear against his ribs. Danny hunches over him, resting his chin on Damian's head. "It's so okay to be nervous, actually. I was nervous, Jazz was nervous." He tells him, scratching the blunt edge of his nails across his scalp. "Everyone gets nervous."

"'Ana last aljumiea." Damian mumbles, as small and feeble as he was the night on the OPS Center balcony, realizing that his mom and the League weren't coming for him. Realizing that he was replaceable.

Danny's half-working heart squeezes; in grief, in rage, and his faucet eyes sting. He breathes in carefully, and presses his nose into Damian's hair in a loving faux-kiss. "You're right, you're not everyone." He says, steady and strong, because if he's not a pillar for his family, who else is he?

He can feel Damian's eyes flick up to him, and Danny smiles into his black-brown curls. Tilts his head to squish his cheek against him instead, hand dropping to thumb below Damian's lashes. "You're Damian Fenton," Because the adoption went through a few weeks ago, and he's still riding that high, "You're my baby brother. O' Artist Extraordinaire, Kickass with a Sword, Vegetarian and Wonderful Co-Ghost Hunter."

Damian tries to stifle a smile, and fails. Score! Triumph gathers in Danny's gut, his smile grows wider. He squeezes Damian tight, and only releases him so he can look him in the eyes. "And if anyone gives you a hard time at school, and I mean anyone--"

Danny has bad memories of the teachers looking the other way when the other kids were bullying him, all because he was a Fenton.

And Danny, bleeding heart, bleeding hands, loves his family more than he will ever love himself, will never let Damian experience the same injustice. Not if he can help it.

His eyes narrow, and the buzzy-film of ectoplasm covers his eyes, making them glow, "--You tell me. And as your awesome great big brother-and-technically-dad-but-only-biologically, I will handle it."

Damian, wonderfully made, full of light, his little brother Damian, giggles weakly at him. A sound that's worth it's weight in gold. The scary eyes dissipate, and Danny matches the sound with a cock-eyed, impish grin, dragging Damian into a soul-crushing, too-tight hug. The kind that only annoying older brothers can give. "Got it?"

That gets a proper, if short, laugh out of Damian. He wriggles in Danny's arms, trying to break free. But Danny does calisthenics, his arms are as big as Damian's head, so it doesn't work. "Understood, now, daeni 'adhhab ya 'akhi!"

Danny laughs, loud and bright, and loosens his hold just a smidge, only so he can adjust his grip and hop off the table with Damian still in arm.

"Never!" He crows, hoisting Damian slightly. One eye flick at the clock, and in one quick move, he secures Damian under one arm like a football, and hooks his foot under the strap of his backpack. Kicking it up, he tosses it into the air and catches it with his free hand, and slings it over his shoulder. "Now, to the car, my boy! Before we're late and Mom and Dad get charged."

Damian groans, childish and dramatic and long, but his face is all squished up with a wide grin and glee. Danny can taste his joy beneath his tongue.

"And, if my little pep talk didn't encourage you," He says, reaching the door to the garage, flipping Damian up onto his hip instead. "If you have a good day today, I'll make you bal mithai when you get back."

Like all kids at the promise of sweets, Damian's eyes widen and glitter. Danny loves seeing Damian be a kid, it's his favorite thing in the world. "I will!"

[surreal-duck]

live drama adaptations part 2 (prev)

cast reveal and girls movie night 🔥

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

More MDZS and Hollow Knight! The cool bugs I found in my backyard have started to unionize.

Part 1 - Part 3

[druidshollow]

ugly baby rivers is gonna be in my brain forever

its not his fault..... newborns are just ugly

(i did some rambling in the tags if u wanna look at it lol)

[im14andivebeen14foramonth]

yall I'm officially on the train to nyc oh my god I'm going to go crazy

[dawnthefluffyduck]

Dess from the Deltarune comic Looking Glasses by @ferronickel, I loved her design at first sight so here's the promised fanart; check out the original comic! It's very much worth the read :D

[aran-morinorea]

I’m crazy about a major diplomatic incident. Also, I hope you are doing ok! Sleep studies usually aren’t fun

This took a Hot Minute due to. It Is Finals Week but here you go!

“Just disappearing like that, I have some words for him.”

Celebrimbor turns as he steps onto a landing with a single little door. His face, looking down at Elrond, is flat and uncompromising. “I realize that he probably deserves worse than words from you, but our uncle has had several months of very fragile recovery and I won’t have his health, physical or otherwise, relapse. Are you a danger to him?”

[scribbling-dragon]

i do believe. if anything will do me in it shall be. chemistry. terrible beast that it is

[yiptsu]

here's a snippet of prayer of the stars chapter three whilst I fix it up.. it should be uploaded relatively soon and then I can focus on uploading everything to ao3 :3

[cinnabargirl]

I'm this 👌close to finishing my thesis

[the-kipsabian]

i was having a pretty good day and then i was made to look at school applying stuff again since its that time of the year and now i have heightened anxiety and i want to curl up and cry :)

[guinevereslancelot]

ridiculous that there isn't a treatment for gluten intolerance that doesn't require giving up gluten. what if i love bread and noodles

[caruliaa]

losing something you once had feels so much worse iv learned then realising youll never get something you never had

[danidoesathing]

im so tired. bones so sore and im so so sleepy

[thepandalion]

as someone who wrote and published both the actual process of writing is pretty similar, the main differences come in the way of like. publishing.

like sure you get editors who are professionals with degrees if you publish as a book but also like. the size and weight and color of pages. needing a cover design and blurbs for the back of it etc. a lot of publishing houses will take care of it for you (yknow. for more money) but if you know what you're doing you can do most of the actual work on your own?

then again I'm not a "professional" writer, of the genre that work for their publications and get paid regular wages to put words in a page - which is where a lot of bad writing happens, because you can't rush art. that's another reason why fanfics can be "better" than their professional counterparts - if I write a fanfic, and I get stuck mid-writing, I'm not gonna be fired for it (same for when you write and publish independently. I wrote exactly one book and it was mostly poetry and I didn't even do any marketing because that's actually one of the most expensive parts of publishing a book, at least so far as the local publishing scene is concerned)

like. it's a bit like video games, in the sense where you have indie developers change everyone's lives forever, or you can have a triple-a company make a game and it's popular enough to be sold on the Platform of the media (game stores&steam for games, much like bookstores or audiobooks or whatever with writing) but then everyone can agree it's nowhere near the level of dedication you get coding a product of art and love and passion by yourself

and games also have "editors"- both literal people on boards for the big game companies and like.. playtesters. people who make sure your game is a game. books have that too (I'm in a class that teaches editing books this semester and I lowkey hate it but also I happen to be really good at it which might and might not have to do with volunteering to beta read for my friends any time they write fanfic). and.. yeah. beta-read fanfic is a bit of that too. it's "why does he do that?" and "oh this is a good line" and "I think you need punctuation here but I could be wrong, what did you plan for this to mean, exactly?"

like. I write both books and fanfics and also like.. I use actual literary techniques I use in my book writing when I write fanfiction too- I have a character in a fanfic who is a siren, and I plan to have two different "routes" for the fic. in one of them, he speaks, thereby dooming his shipmates. in the other, any time he would have dialogue, I go around it with "he claimed we cannot do that" and the like, rather than direct quoting of the character, and in that universe everyone survives. that's something I learned in a professional writing class and I use it in fanfiction and I'm pretty sure that unless I specifically mention, in the notes of that fic, that that was an intentional artistic choice, nobody would notice. but that's fine, because I write this for my own benefit.

also, kinda lost the point I wanted to make with that example running a bit long, but like. as a person who both writes and edits, both of whom I do on both professional and fanfic levels, the difference is really not about that at all?

(I sit in class and argue about what word describes baby talking an adult, while the original chapter we're translating is in a language neither me nor the other student know, but I definitely side with our teacher who thinks explaining what you mean in a third language does nothing for editing a translation. that's a class about professional editing for translated literary works. the teacher occasionally remarks that my way of thinking and explaining reminds him a lot of the near-mythological editor he used to work with, and I think about how that might be because literary-editing is something I learned from my dad, who is also a professional editor, and who has also met your near-mythological editor before.

I also, at other times, sit my beloved friend on a call and we talk about fanfics they write and I don't notice until after the call ends that the way I talk when we have those fanfic-editing sessions is more similar to my dad with the independent authors he edits and publishes books with, rather than how I sound just talking fandom with my friends)

I’d like everyone to see this

{Credit to amalasrosa on Twitter}