#nighttime activities

[mouse-prince-of-the-rats]

Water tastes better at night 😌

[taurus-spacecraft]

babe go to sleep you been lookibg for bowies photos from japan for 2 h

[thevoidstaredback]

How To Balance Your Daytime and Nighttime Activities So That You Don't Burn Yourself Out More Than You Already Have

It had been a long few minutes since he'd opened the door and there were a lot of questions running through Dick's head. Most pressing of which was how this kid seems to have information he should not have.

"How did you..?" he asked, but the words wouldn't leave completely. There's so much he wants to know, so much he wants to ask.

"How do I what?" Danny tilted his head like the child he seems to be is.

"How do you know?" Dick knows he sounds weak. There's no hiding that, but there are a lot of implications in what the kid has said so far and none of it is painting a very happy picture for him.

"Oh!" Danny had the audacity to smile, "You want to know how I know you moonlight as a vigilante!" And of course he knows. Dick knows he knows, but he'd held a little bit of hope that the child Danny was mistaken. Danny's smile softened a bit as he explained, "Your hair and voice match up in both jobs almost perfectly. Not to mention your build and how you hold yourself. There's also the matter of your overall vibes, but that's not something living beings can normally pick up on." Excuse him? "Well, not living humans, at least, so no worries on that end!"

"Excuse me?" Dick was fairly sure his heart just stopped beating for a moment there.

"Anyway, I was a hero back home for a while, too. I know what it's like to have to walk the tightrope between maintaining a civilian cover and a hero persona. I know how it feels to have to keep secrets from everyone because anyone who knows will be in danger." he rambled, Though, admittedly, our circumstances are quite different. I was working as a hero all hours of the day as well as going to school. You only have to worry about properly balancing between day and night jobs. Either way, me having more to bounce between just makes me al the more qualified to help you!"

Oh. Oh he did not like that. He didn't like a single thing that just came out of the kid's mouth. Because that's what he is, a kid. "Are you...Are you alright?"

"Not in the slightest," Danny admitted with an even smaller smile. Then, it brightened, not quite to a grin, but to something similar, "But I'm here to make sure you are."

He gets points for being honest, but Dick felt his heart shatter. He knew for a fact that he'd never worked with this kid before. He also knew that the Justice League didn't know about him. If they did, he would've been picked up and dropped with either the Young Justice team or the Titans.

Dick wasn't going to ask why he became a hero because that's not his place. It's more of a 'third mission with the team' kind of questions, anyway. Most of the heroes didn't have many options when they took up the mantle. Asking what Danny can do is a more appropriate question, but he wasn't going to ask that, either.

"Now that that's out of the way," Danny turned a few pages from the table of contents to another one that was topped with 'Why Sleep Scheduling Is Important' in the blue glitter pen that Dick was starting to suspect he favored. "You're not getting enough sleep. Following you around - no one's been able to find me for a while, so don't worry about that - for the last two weeks has given me some really worrisome information on you."

Dick was worrying. He was worrying a lot and even more questions were coming to the forefront of his mind.

"Your dayjob is as an officer on the Bludhaven Police Force, or BPD for short." He was looking over the page he'd turned to very aptly and Dick realized that the kid had notes written on him. "The average hours per week for police across the country is forty hours. Gotham and Bludhaven are the exceptions. As a member of the BPD, you work a solid two days and two hours. Six nights a week, you work as Nightwing from eight in the evening to three in the morning. The last day, you take off, which is good. No deserable pattern, so good on you for that. Regardless, that's seven hour nights and ten hour days, with one day off and one day on call as an officer. Seven hours are now left in your day for personal time, eating, and sleeping. That's not a healthy way to live."

Oh, god, the kid had honest to god notes on him! What the hell!

Danny didn't even skip a beat as he pulled Dick's attention back to him and his binder. "I've drawn up a schedule for you to follow." The back of the page had a meticulously drawn schedule, complete with blocks of time to eat, sleep, work both jobs, travel, personal time, and still have a bit extra left over. It was titled 'Ideal End Result' in green marker. "Drastic changes right away will only affect you negatively, so we're starting off smaller." The next page over had another schedule titled 'Where To Begin'. "I've only pulled one hour from your Nightwing hours because I know important that time is to you and the city. I am, however, going to be having you submit an appeal to your boss to cut back your hours from fifty a week to forty a week. That way, you'll only be working eight hours a day and not ten. You'll still be on call for one day, and you'll have that last day off. Altogether, you'll be going be going from working seventeen hours a day to fourteen hours a day. Nine in the morning to five in the afternoon, and eight in the evening to two in the morning. Not including breaks at work or travel time. It opens up a few more hours for you to sleep!"

"You really think the chief is going to pull back my hours?" Dick raised an eyebrow in question.

"He will if he knows what's good for him."

"You know I can arrest you for that threat, right?"

"Yeah, but you won't." And, damn it, he's right.

Although, there was now another thing he had to know. "How to you plan on enforcing this schedule of yours?"

Danny seemed to have been waiting for this. He got a gleam in his eye as he pulled a black folder from his bag, not breaking eye contact with Dick. He placed it on the table and pushed it across. "Congratulations, it's a boy."

Part 1 Part 3

[lauraliansol]

How dark it is and the yearnings set in.

[littleprincerianne]

Can you makes a dark blue sleepy themed mood/Stimboard? Ty! ^w^

hewwo ! (⁠ ⁠ꈍ⁠ᴗ⁠ꈍ⁠) here ya go !

Sleepy Blue Board !

[what-have-i-unleashed]

a little something before bed :]

so some time before killer leaves the gang, when cross has only been in it for a short while (couple weeks maybe). killer sneaks into cross' room (the doors in the palace are never locked) and sits on the bed next to cross' sleeping form (cross is wide awake the moment he hears killer enters and killer knows it but pretends to not know anyway). and killer starts to talk. about his plans. his future. his... regrets.

basically cross is the first one to know that killer is going to defect. he doesn't tell nightmare or anyone else of course. and near the end of the one-sided conversation, killer drops the bomb.

"dusty... he's a bit of a loner, you know. always so broody. always a recluse. when i'm gone..." killer trails off, and cross strains to listen, anticipating. "when i'm gone, take care of him for me, okay?"

[kenobion]

Andrew Garfield on The Late Late Show with James Corden

[tanoraqui]

I love post-Thangorodrim whump & hurt/comfort as much as, maybe more than the next girl, but sometimes I DO want to physically shake many fanfiction writers—especially modern au writers, for some reason—and remind them that the CANONICAL effect of Maedhros’s captivity and torment upon his psyche was,

…the orcs fled before his face, for since his torment upon Thangorodrim his spirit burned like a white fire within, and he was as one that returns from the dead. Thus the great fortress upon the Hill of Himring could not be taken…

Maedhros isn’t anxious and traumatized, he is FULL OF RESPLENDENT AND VERY EFFECTIVELY VIOLENT WRATH and traumatized

[samyelbanette]

From Mirko’s Instagram story. July 5th, 2024.

[wickerwax]

Stars Out (Haunted armour Bad Ending)

Quinlan grumbled under his breath as he scooped another armful of ‘padds to reshelve. Helping out in the Archives wasn’t the worst punishment but oh, Force, was it tedious, and all for a harmless little prank! Almost none of the Masters had been caught up in the laundry mishap, which usually meant some level of lenience as then they could freely laugh at the Knights, and the Initiates had really enjoyed their sugar-fueled colouring quest, and Tholme had absolutely been laughing on the inside, Quin knew it. And anyway, boring tasks just gave him more time to plan more dramatic messes, so the joke would be on them eventually. He would have to bring out the heavy blasters next time – he would need to source glitter.

“Ahem.”

He froze and checked his shields, but they were in place so he must have been making faces. Quin turned to Master Nu. She had on her least amused face. Which was still better than any of the actively disappointed ones. Quinlan had a scale.

“Are you having trouble with your task, Padawan Vos?” she asked, looking at the unsteady pile he was clutching. “You may borrow one of the small trolleys, if you would like.”

It had the cadence of a recommendation he should take. He didn’t think he ought to refuse despite the usual contrary urge rising in him, so he nodded and thanked her when she pointed out where the nearest free one was tucked away. He escaped with an awkward bow and scuttled to the trolley, doing his best to tip the ‘padds in gently while he could still feel Master Nu’s attention on him.

He knew Tholme wasn’t actually worried about the pranking, and Quinlan had a very deliberate image to maintain so it was more likely that his Master was simply hoping he would find something to research that would keep his mind busy during their current off-time. Or he was being pranked back in a very staid, stereotypical Jedi Master sort of way, which actually was sort of diabolical because Quin could hardly say that without his agemates looking at him like he was insane and his Master doing that blink-and-miss-it smirk he did only when no one else was looking – oh stars, he was being trained by an evil genius.

This was reinforced when he picked up the next datapadd to shelve and found himself holding a copy of “Spiritual Intimacy and You: A Guide to Exploring the Unseeable With the Untouchable”, which was either nonsense or absolutely something he wanted to get the checking history of, directly below which was “Worms. Do You Have Them?” and “A Treatise on Alderaanian Alpine Flora and Their Adaptations Against Cell Wall Damage in the Upper Climes”.

Actually he wanted to know nothing and no one.

*

It took so long to reshelve all the day’s ‘padds. He was going to be dreaming about classification numbers for weeks from all of the walking back and forth, hunting.

He had abandoned the trolley once he’d gotten down to the last five or so, and now he was on the last one, only it wasn’t from a popular up-front section. No, he was well into the shelves, deep into the more esoteric sections, past several different sets of little seating areas with their own displayed artifacts, and rapidly approaching another with no luck.

Groaning as he reached another useless, cosy nook, he stopped and glared down at “Amorous Armory” which, first? Awful. Terrible name. It had a cultural tag he didn’t recognise, and since the title didn’t specify, that was absolutely no use either. He couldn’t quite tell if it was fictional or instructional, and wasn’t sure which would be worse. (Would an instructional come with diagrams? How literal was the amorous? Why armory instead of armour? How comprehensive was this? No. No, he didn’t want to think about it.)

The current reading area had a few little clusters of cosy seating, and one upright display stand – but, to his surprise, this one was not transparisteeled in.

It was, notably and regrettably, given the situation, a suit of armour.

Frowning, he stepped closer. It was sort of pretty, he guessed, with the white and gold colour scheme with touches of brilliant blue, but mostly it looked cool. He didn’t feel any inclination to get horny at it though.

It was standing, or well, he guessed, “standing”, proud and tall (though actually, it was only as tall as he was and that was because of the stand), with the gauntlet-bits tucked against the forearm whatevers like a lot of Jedi would do to hide their hands in their sleeves. Whatever material the tabards and hood and whatnot were, they didn’t seem to have deteriorated terribly, and he found himself squinting at the way the metal pieces were segmented. There were a lot of segments and scaling, and generally adaptations for range of movement (he thought).

The mask – or perhaps whatever was holding the hood up? - was tilted slightly, giving it a sort of quizzical air despite the blankness of the molding. He leaned in slightly, peering at the gold detailing at sort of reminded him of the current Guard masks, and caught a flash of that bright blue through the eye holes.

Without really thinking about it, he reached out to touch the mask.

It was cool under his fingertips –

and then he was sprinting through blasterfire, his blue ‘sabre spinning bolts away, choking on the smell of battle with his filters overwhelmed and shunting that away to focus on the red-bladed foe racing to meet him through the smoke – he was laughing in a much younger Room of a Thousand Fountains with his mask in his belt and green things growing and jubilant all around – he was drowning on his own lungs and desperately pushing that aside to try and save the children – he was alive but everything was ashes and sand and heat that burned well before it warmed – his master was dying and he wasn’t going to make it – his blue blade was locked with a red one and the children were behind him so he would not fall, he could not-

Quinlan’s knees hit the floor and the last thing he knew before he blacked out was a very careful voice saying, Hello there? And then, much more panicked, No! Star’s sake, how far are the healing halls from this Forceforsaken nest?

*

Waking sucked. The flashes he’d seen upon touching the armour seemed blurry and distant – like they’d been a billion years ago, which jolted him into opening his eyes.

Luckily, it seemed like he hadn’t been out for long, maybe not even multiple minutes, since he was in the middle of being hauled up into a carry. Quin squawked and flailed and a voice he didn’t recognise was cursing and his stomach swooped as he fell-but-didn’t. He found himself hauled firmly against a metal chest as the armoured being balanced with one knee down and said waspishly, “Are you quite finished?”

“Finished?” Quin croaked, staring up into the faceplate of the display armour. “Mate, I think I’m dead.”

The mask tilted sideways but, unlike when it was on the stand, this tilt somehow communicated deep disdain. “A joke in very poor taste, padawan.”

Quinlan gaped at it. And then slapped at a gauntlet, which sparked grief-love, and scrambled to his feet, staggering at the blood rush. He ignored the headache sharpening a particularly rusty blade on his left eye socket. The armour let its gauntlets rest on its raised knee but otherwise remained in place, mask lifting to follow him. It seemed expectant.

Jokes on it, Quin had nothing useful for this situation. Hey, Master Nu, one of your display pieces has a prissy accent and no sense of humour – yeah, just up and started talking – no, no, of course I didn’t do anything!

Time to be less than useful then.

“That’s the name of my sex holovid.”

Ooh, maybe that was too not-useful.

The armour rocked back slightly. It slowly regained its...boots, he supposed. He needed to know more armour terms, this was the worst.

“Well,” it said, thoughtful, “I suppose they can’t all be winners. My condolences to your partner. Or partners.”

“Oi!”Quin snapped, feeling his face heat terribly, “My partners have no complaints, thank you! I was making a joke, I suppose you haven’t heard of those.”

“This may come as a dreadful shock, my dear, but not only have I heard of them, I have made them. Recently, even.” It sighed, surprisingly audible, and the shoulder bits slumped. “I- Are we in the Temple?”

The situation suddenly reasserted itself. Manners did not. “How are you even moving? Who are you? Are you secretly a droid installed in the armour?” Why had a tiny little touch made it move? Surely he wasn’t the first person to touch it – Jedi typically weren’t that cautious, not when it probably wasn’t a darkside trap, and gravity was a suggestion. And anyone could be down here poking at things! Like him! ...unless it was a darkside trap. Quin backed up a few steps.

The armour didn’t move but it did seem. Sadder.

“I am Senior Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi, of the-” it paused, broke off entirely. Shuddered slightly. “Or...I suppose I may have been Knighted at – at the end. I don’t entirely remember.”

It waved a hand as if dispelling mist, and he caught that blue gleam through the eye holes again. “I don’t know how long I’ve been...gone. But I suspect the time span is significant. If only because-”It “looked” about. “-the Archives appear to have grown immensely.”

*

Quinlan was dreaming.

He was in some sort of very basic watercraft, with a wooden pole loosely held in one hand, propped against his thigh. The sun poured down until he felt like he was baking in the very best way, and the river lapped against the hull of the boat gently.

It felt like meditation to sprawl there, sunbathed and idle, all the galaxy far away with any worries. The water gleamed brilliant and blue and sparkling. He pillowed his head on a strong shoulder and let his eyes close.

There was no hurry, no rush.

The boat rocked, and Quinlan slept.

*

Obi-Wan, the weird moving armour, had been convinced to keep his new walking status on the downlow once Quin had realised how uncomfortable it was talking about itself -and realised how much help it could be in pranking. It almost seemed relieved, honestly.

He found himself slipping into the Archives nearly daily. The armour – Obi-Wan – who eventually muttered something about being a man, death aside – always perked up when Quin appeared. He started getting good at reading the various small shifts in body language that the armour managed to emote, managed to open himself up to that faint, fuzzy Force presence enough to get an idea of Obi-Wan’s moods.

Although, often he didn’t really need to, Obi-Wan was fantastic at talking.

“I cannot believe none of you wear anything armoured at all. It simply isn’t tenable – how are any of you surviving?”

“Well, the Temple Guard has armour-”

“But they guard the Temple, yes? What of you that must needs travel the galaxy? Unprotected?”

“We have the Force, Obi.”

“Obi-Wan. And the Force is a wonderful ally – but that does not mean you cannot help it along with a well-smithed cuirass!”

Obi-Wan’s gauntlets were in motion at lot when he was speaking, and he gestured widely enough to knock his armour stand. They both lunged to stabilise it before it could crash and cause a noise that Master Nu wouldn’t be able to ignore. (She was already suspicious of Quinlan’s far more regular visits, although he’d managed to avoid seeing her at all today.)

“Be mindful of your surroundings, padawan.” Quin snarked as they settled the stand back in place.

“But Quinlan, my dear, you’re such an effective distraction.” The mask angled coquettishly at him and made to rest his chin on his gauntlet in the manner of tooka-eyed ingenues everywhere. It should not have been effective. (It was.) He didn’t even really have eyes. (The blue gleam winked at him, bright and flashing.)

He wasn’t phased by a set of armour and a ghost flirting with him. Ridiculous. It was all a joke anyway – he could literally feel Obi-Wan’s amusement. (It was a nice voice though. Quin wasn’t stupid.)

(He should really mention the haunted armour to someone. Probably. Quin was maybe a little stupid, very occasionally. It was fine – Obi-Wan wasn’t hurting anyone.)

*

Quinlan was dreaming, again.

The boat rocked. The sun lay warm over his skin. There was the perfect amount of breeze, brushing coolness past just when the sun was on the verge of too-warm, and nudging the boat into that gentle rock and sway... rock and sway... the quiet susurrus of the water lapping against wood made his eyes hard to open.

An arm settled around his shoulders as the next cool swirl of air wound past and he snuggled into a warm body. The sun seemed a little lower, a little less intense, and made the warmth next to him that much more inviting.

“All is well, darling, all is well.” a familiar voice murmured. “You deserve some peace and quiet yet.”

He cracked an eye and saw a tumble of bright copper blazing against pale skin, saw the curling smile of the young man he was tucked up against, saw that the brilliant blue flash of the water had taken up residence in his eyes.

The rest of the galaxy was so far away. It was just the two of them in the boat, on the river, water lapping.

The boat rocked, and Quinlan slept.

*

Quinlan lounged in his favourite nook-seat, despite it being extraordinarily unsuited for such things, being a high-sided sort of scoop. “Look, Obi, just because you made a wild guess about numbers that turned out to be correct, doesn’t mean-”

“Obi-Wan, and a wild guess? Quinlan, don’t insult me, my education is centuries old and yet it was sufficient for the math here.” Obi-Wan was sprawled across the floor, back pressed to another of the nook-seats. “It just goes to show that unarmoured-”

“Oh- no, no, no! You can’t claim armour is the sole reason, you single-minded-”

“I have to be single-minded, it’s rather all I have left of me-”

“Don't-! Don’t fucking tilt your head at me like that – you can’t keep playing the dead card to win arguments!”

“My dear Quin, if you’re losing arguments you need to improve your tactics, not blame the other player.”

“There’s tons of other reasons the Order is so much smaller, you karking metal menace.” Quinlan jabbed a finger at his friend. “I’m gonna prove it. You’ll have to eat your words.”

“Oh?” Obi-Wan purred, “Do you promise?”

Quinlan snarled and threw “Amorous Armory”(still unshelved, in the process of making a permanent home jammed between the side and seat of a chair) at the gleaming painted mask. The armour caught the ‘padd and wheezed a laugh. “I’m getting mixed signals here, are you annoyed or should I be worried about this text and your intentions?”

Grappling a suit of armour was for sure not a version of hand to hand that he was practised in but he was improving quickly. His notice-me-nots were also bloody stellar by now. They had to be for their constant bickering to avoid notice. It was a good workout.

He didn’t lose but he was pretty sure Obi-Wan let him win.

*

Quinlan was dreaming, again.

How many times had he dreamed this?

The sun was slowly shifting lower, the sky starting to turn vibrant oranges and pinks at the horizon. He basked still in the fading rays, tucked in his gently swaying craft. The water shimmered and hushed against the wood.

Obi-Wan shifted beside him, running his fingers gently through Quinlan’s hair so that he couldn’t help but sigh into the crook of his neck and press close. “Feels nice.”

He could hear Obi-Wan smiling. “I’m glad, Quin. You should always feel nice.”

Quinlan nuzzled at his throat, sleepily pleased with the sudden bob of it. “Can’t always. But here. With you.”

Fingers tightened slightly in his hair, then resumed the stroking. “Here, yes. We’ll watch the sun go down together.”

For a moment, the air was clammy and frigid. The water was slushy with frost.

Quin shuddered and started to lift his head but Obi-Wan turned his face and pressed a soft kiss to his forehead – and the sun glowed warm, warm, warm. It was always warm here, always just right. The breeze was never too chilly, never too strong.

Obi-Wan drew away and Quin stopped him with a hand on his jaw. Nudged him back down.

The galaxy didn’t even exist here. Obi-Wan’s mouth was so warm and soft and Quinlan rolled into him, trading kisses and nuzzles. The light tinted orange and he didn’t notice, too caught up in the push-pull of exploring this new privilege. He tucked his hands along his shoulders, and grinned up at smiling blue eyes, and let Obi-Wan kiss him quiet and drowsy.

The boat rocked, and Quinlan slept.

*

The Temple seemed quieter now that Obi-Wan had made his hypothesis and Quin’s researching had -very unfortunately – backed up at least the numbers. Or maybe there were just a lot of missions happening at the moment. It seemed like a lot of classes had been cancelled too – or maybe he was timing it right to miss the padawan horde at switchover. He didn’t have very many in his courseload right now and it was all electives anyway since he would be Knighted soon.

He couldn’t quite remember if he’d seen Master Tholme yesterday or the day before. His Master didn’t need to check in on him every day at this stage, of course. It probably hadn’t been that long.

He hurried down to the Archives. The couple of Knights he did pass seemed tense and their Force signatures were coiled around them protectively. He did not envy them for whatever mission they’d picked up.

When he reached their nook, Obi-Wan was already sitting on the floor. His legs were splayed out and he had a hand resting on his abdomen like he was too exhausted to move. He lolled his head back to look at Quinlan and Quin found his hands fluttering anxiously. After that first - unpleasant – wake-up, he’d made sure to keep his gloves on. But the lethargic way the armour was regarding him made him want to pull his gloves off and check for whatever had him so floppy.

He managed to stop himself, as Obi-Wan fluttered his fingers at him in a wave, and the dim Force presence coiled inside lit up pleased to see him.

“Napping on the job, I see.” he tossed out instead.

“Mmm.” The sound was low and satisfied, and something tensed low in his gut.

“You look like an overfed tooka.” Obi-Wan was mad on dignity, except when he wasn’t, and Quinlan had a number of sticks to try poking with. This one earned him a rumbling sort of chuckle, and a languid come-here gesture.

Quinlan frowned at him, but strolled forwards and flopped onto the floor beside his hip. “Happy?”

“Incandescently.” Obi-Wan murmured, pulling himself slightly more upright. “You are such a wonder to me, Quin.”

His faceplate was very close. He felt that tension curl tighter, felt his pulse jump. “I am wondrous, it’s true. Possibly the eight wonder of the galaxy, really.”

“Hmm.” Now Obi-Wan sounded considering. “I could make an argument for that, yes.”

He tried to swallow and his throat clicked. Dry. Obi-Wan raised the hand from his stomach and gently ran the backs of his knuckles down Quin’s cheek. He leaned into the coolness of the metal without thinking.

“Could you, darling?” the armour said, painfully gentle. “Could you make that argument? How brilliant you are, but all tucked away, hiding in the shadows. Spending all this time down here with me, and I’ve nothing to offer but dusty old stories, when you’re perfect.”

“No,” he croaked, wrapping his hand around Obi-Wan’s, glove to metal. He hardly knew what he was saying, so keyed up by proximity that he could smell the sharpness of metal and ozone. “No, you’re – You make everything better. You understand. You’re helping. I’m going to do all this research and figure out the problems and save the Order.”

He ducked his head closer and pressed his forehead to the mask. The cold was hardly a shock. Blue glowed through his eye holes and Quinlan closed his eyes against the brilliance, against the cool red undertone of a light somewhere throwing strange shadows.

His other gauntlet curled around the back of his neck, holding them together. “I believe you, Quin. You’re doing so well, and you’re so close on the trail. I know it.”

The faith in his voice, the touch of his hands, the low buzz of his Force presence, it all made Quinlan dizzy. “You’ll help me research?”

“Of course.” his voice was so low. “Of course, I will. Anything for you, darling.”

*

Quinlan is dreaming. He feels like he’s been dreaming for awhile now. Has he always dreamed this?

The boat rocks. The water laps. The sun is burning orange on the very edge of the horizon.

Darkness is creeping across the sky, and the stars have yet to show their faces.

He clings to Obi-Wan as the wind kicks up, and the other man wraps him up close, pressing kisses to his cheeks, his forehead, his nose, his eyelids. “Stay with me, dearest. It’s not too long now.”

“What’s happening?” he begs like a child, hands fisted in Obi-Wan’s tunic – and that’s not right, he shouldn’t be barehanded. “Where did the sun go?”

The river surface is choppy now, reflecting red light from the sky. The shadows darken.

There are no stars.

“I’m sorry, darling, really I am.” Obi-Wan cups his face in warm hands and tips his chin up. His eyes are soft, soft, soft, the blue glimmering. Red light plays over his face. “Or, whoever I was would be very sorry, I’m sure.”

Quinlan’s heart is beating much too fast, and he’s dreaming, he’s dreaming, he’s waiting for Obi-Wan’s face to melt into something horrible. The man just looks beautiful and sad and Quin can’t quite seem to force his hands to unwrap from his shirt. “Obi-Wan- What-”

When Obi-Wan tugs gently at his face, he goes. He lets him kiss him, claws frantic at him when he pulls back. “What does this mean?” he demands, and his voice cracks. He sounds desperate.

He is desperate.

“Obi-Wan would have loved you.” the man whispers against his mouth. It feels deliberate. It feels like a wound. “But I’m afraid I only wear his face.”

The boat rocks wildly in the bloody sunset.

Quinlan wakes.

*

He runs through the empty halls.

He cannot feel his master through their bond, cannot feel his crechmates, cannot feel other Force presences at all.

Just one. Dim and fuzzy and flickering weakly several levels down, where he’s visited. Constantly.

The lights flicker and for a moment everything is cast in red, his shadow thrown huge and violent against the wall beside him. It’s so quiet. It’s too quiet.

Quinlan is sick, sick, sick.

He doesn’t stop running.

*

The Archives are just as empty of life as everywhere else. There are dropped datapadds in several places and, horrifyingly, some of them are dusty. How long has he been- How long -

He finds a cart overturned and he knows that he came past here yesterday and didn’t see it. He wishes that gave him any kind of hope. He doesn’t know when he last ate or drank because he’s shaking too much to make sense for this level of activity running and he can’t be sure – he can’t remember the last time he spoke to anyone else. Master Nu had given him a look as he slipped by – how long ago was that?

How long has the Temple been too-quiet?

*

Obi-Wan – the armour – is sitting in Quinlan’s favourite chair.

Quin skids to a halt, shaking, panting, stabbing a finger at him while words refuse to come. The head tilts, curious.

Quinlan curls his hands into fists, synthleather creaking. “What have you done?”

“What have I done?” the armour sounds amused. It gestures playfully at itself like, who, me?“What have you done, my dear? My precious eighth wonder of the galaxy, single-handedly opening the door to destroying his Order, and not even a token effort to close the thing, let alone anything effective. You were perfect, Quinlan.”

He stumbles back a step, mouth opening and nothing coming out.

The armour stands and swaggers forward. “Now, to be fair to you, that psychometry of yours does leave you terribly vulnerable, my darling. It would be dreadfully remiss of me not to give you that, and haven’t I been good to you, Quin?” It croons at him and he staggers backwards, slams into a shelf.

It steps into his space and he can feel the wrongness now, warping around that fraying presence that was so pleased to see him. He can smell the rot.

“Haven’t I, Quin?” it says, and that blue gleam is nearly all bloody now. “Don’t you want to be good back for me, Quinlan?”

He bares his teeth. There are no lights left here, only him, only the mud under this thing’s carapace, and he doesn’t even have his ‘sabre -isn’t, actually, sure where that is, hasn’t seen it in days – but he’s Quinlan fucking Vos. Even stupid and deceived, he’s not going down with a fight.

A gauntlet touches his cheek, and Quinlan braces himself and slams his fist up into the armour’s jaw.

He’s hoping to knock it back, enough to slip out sideways.

What he does is knock the mask off.

It does snarl and back off slightly, but he doesn’t move to escape, too shocked by the space revealed – by the kyber weakly glowing in a circle of bleeding runes at the back of the neckguard. Protected by so little. Force, he’s so karking stupid.

The armour’s laugh is so much worse with the faceplate gone.

“You’re too late, Quinlan Vos.” It rasps at him. “Your Order is gone and soon forgotten and you are the cause .”

And it makes him hollow because it’s right, and he has no excuses. He is drowning in emptiness where there should be light. “I can still try and take you out.”

“Revenge is not the Jedi way, padawan.” it sneers, and spreads its arms wide. “Batter yourself to death all you desire.”

Quin lunges.

He bruises his knuckles on the cuirass to make it laugh, then shoves his hand into the maw of it and rips the kyber free with everything he has. Blue flashes.

It screams, the armour screams, he screams.

It bubbles corrosive black ooze all over his glove as he throws himself away, as the armour crackles with red light and comes apart in a shrieking wind, as he trips over ‘padds tumbling everywhere from broken shelves, as it burns-

it burns, it burns, it burns-

He drops the thing and rips his glove off, strips away skin and flesh with it, catches a glimpse of white amidst the red and his throat is raw, it burns-

He grips his wrist with his good hand and weeps with the pain, blind with it and shaking apart like the armour did – he thinks it did – he might be dreaming still except for how much this hurts.

He finds himself folded in half on the stone floor, choking on tears and snot and dust. He can’t make himself look at his hand, or the mess that used to be a glove. He can see scattered chunks of white and gold and -

He bows his head. His eyes stream and he can’t seem to stop. There’s a blue haze over his eyes, flickering and fragile, and he gulps for air and shakes his head to try and clear his vision. He can’t use his hands. He can’t use his hands.

The kyber has rolled free and is lying in front of him. The ooze is all gone, busy eating through what he can’t think about. It is only very faintly blue, and not at all red. He can see the cracks in it.

He slumps further, and his forehead makes contact.

That pale colour blooms.

Obi-Wan kneels with him. He looks almost like he did in the dreams – more lines around the eyes, the scruffy beginnings of a beard. I am so sorry.

Quin wheezes at him.

The ghost smiles. It is very, very sad. It makes Quinlan’s teeth ache, and he’s kind of already at a premium for pain.

A translucent hand reaches tentatively forward, and when Quin doesn’t do anything more than stare glassily at him, settles over his hands.

He’s not looking. He can’t look.

I am sorry for what was done to you and yours. I am sorry for being used to do it.

He can’t.

Be strong, Quinlan. The Force is with you. They are with you.

He can’t look and the pain is easing and his fingers are spasming and it hurts but less but different and he - When he forces himself to glance down, the white of bone and tendon are no longer visible – he’s just clutching a hand at a normal level of horrifically mangled. He’s too afraid to try and bend it.

I promise.

He hears the tiny chime of the kyber as it cracks completely. It echoes. The Archives are cavernous empty.

I promise you.

Obi-Wan vanishes.

[ratatatastic]

im sorry everytime i remember the cup ceremony ekky just looks the most... gorgeous adult actor hired to play highschooler so we put him in this preppy ass fit because this is a academy melodrama so hes gonna be really hot but also that is a wholeass man we are supposed to believe is 17 in the narrative

that is a face id see on my tv at primetime for a telenovela thats been dubbed over 3 times in a game of language telephone at 9pm that i only tune in for to see his face at first but then eventually after 5 episodes the plot gets so terribly cheesy but im invested now and i go oh my god what will Serkan do this episode is he finally gonna confess to Leyla i need to KNOW

[thevoidstaredback]

How To Balance Your Daytime and Nighttime Activities So That You Don't Burn Yourself Out More Than You Already Have

Danny was waiting when Dick came home. "Welcome home, Dick."

He runned the back of his neck nervously, slipping the window closed behind him. "Hey, Danny."

There was a long moment of silence, Dick standing in front of the closed window and Danny sitting on the couch. Danny took a sip of the tea he was holding before setting the mug down on the coffee table with a click. "So," he leveled a small glare at the vigilante, "you gonna apologise to Tim?"

"Who?" Dick blinked.

"The kid you yelled at and then left standing in your apartment as you went out as Nightwing for exactly two hours, fifteen minutes, and twenty-two seconds longer than your new schedule allows."

He cringed back. "Listen, kid-"

"No, you're listening to me, so shut up and sit down." He did, dropping right to the floor. "I don't know what the hell happened between you and Batman, but you don't get to take it out on the people around you, especially not the kid that just trying to help."

"Dan-"

"What did I just say?" He sighed. "Look. I get it. You're grieving, both you and Batman are, but that doesn't excuse your behavior. It doesn't excuse Batman's behavior, either, so don't think that's what I'm saying."

Dick carefully pulled his domino mask off. "What do you want me to do?"

"Several things." Danny stood and walked into the bathroom, coming back a few seconds later with Dick's first aid kit. "First, though, you're gonna let me patch you up. Then, you're gonna use my phone and apologise to Tim. After that, you eat and go to bed; You have work in a few hours."

Knowing he wasn't going to be getting out of this, Dick started to take his suit off. He slipped his arms out of the sleeves and let Danny treat the bruises on his arms and hands. Not much damage that night. He'd only encountered a few petty crimes so it had been quiet.

Without another word shared between them, Danny left to put the first aid kit away before making a quick snack for Dick while he went to change. It'd only been about a week, but they'd fallen into an easy routine.

Dick was quick to change and eat, falling asleep nearly ten minutes after he laid down.

***

Danny made sure Dick was asleep before he left the apartment as Phantom. He'd learned, during his two weeks of not-stalking, that a some criminals hung back until Nightwing had turned in before they came out to play. Phantom was going out for an extra two hours each night to remedy this. Though, he made sure no one ever spotted him before or after he knocked people out. Invisibility was hand like that.

Sure, he didn't have all that much experience as a vigilante, but he'd been traveling for four weeks before stopping. The first lesson he learned was that he needed to learn fast. He was wasn't a genius like the rest of his family, but he picked up on things really fast. Fighting had been one of those things. Though, the lessons from his mom when he was a kid also helped a lot.

Staying invisible was easy, so was intangibility and flight. The three together made stealth easier than if he didn't have them. Though, he did make sure to practice his stealth without them, too. Being caught unawares or without his powers would be disastrous and he was going to do everything he could to mitigate the risk.

Blockbuster, Phantom had learned, was the reason Dick had stayed in Bludhaven. He was also the ringleader of the organised crime in the city. Apparently, he's the second of the Blockbuster name? The giant of a man had his hands everywhere; The Bludhaven Police, as well as the underbellies of New York, Metropolis, and Gotham. With eyes and ears everywhere, not a lot got passed him, which is likely why Nightwing was having trouble getting the crime rates down. So, Danny Phantom was going to help.

He'd heard the name Oracle from both Nightwing and Blockbuster's goons, so Phantom assumed whoever that was was on his side. Unluckily, though, they were now a target. He just needed to get a hold of them without letting them find him.

Phantom had heard the information from several goons since he'd started going out, but he didn't know if Nightwing knew or not. Though, he didn't know how to pass on the information. How could he tell Dick what he knows without letting slip that he'd been going out? Dick would call him a hypocrite and would fall back into his passively suicidal schedule. Danny's not a hypocrite! He just runs on a separate schedule. A schedule that Dick might not like, but one that works for Danny.

The intel Phantom was working with tonight was about some of Dick's coworkers. He knew the corruption in the Bludhaven and Gotham City Police Departments ran thick and deep, so he wasn't really surprised to find out that Detective Soames and Chief Redhorn ran with the less than pleasant people that made their homes and bases in Bludhaven.

Dick knew this, too, which is why he became an officer in the first place.

According to the goons Phantom had spied on, Detective Soames was involved in a drug ring that was doing deliveries tonight. It was timed to be after Nightwing had turned in for the night so that he wouldn't be able to bust it. It was a smart move on the ringleader's part, to have his goons out only after Nightwing was done for the night.

That was the next thing he was going to have to work on with Nightwing. He couldn't have a discernible pattern without someone with him to cover. Honestly, Batman should know better, too. Maybe he'll pass it on to Tim?

While on the road, Danny had learned that his powers were still developing. One of which was a kind of sixth sense. It worked somewhere between hearing and a spider's ability to feel vibrations in the air and webs. He didn't know is reach on it yet, but he was able to cover half of Bludhaven from where the ability currently sat, so he was going to work with that limit for now.

The warehouse he was staking out was where he'd heard goons talk about for nearly a week. They had been careless, assuming that there was no one out to catch them, but it worked in Phantom's favor. It was mostly empty, save for a few homeless squatters looking for some shelter, and was otherwise undisturbed.

Phantom didn't believe it for a second.

He was also going to laugh in Tim's face if the goons in Bludhaven were smarter than the goons in Gotham.

Right on time, just as the clock turned over into the Witching Hour, the homeless people sheltered in the warehouse stood up and met in the center of the building. Together, and armed, they waited for exactly five minutes. Then, the back doors to the building opened and Detective Soames walsted in.

"Gentlemen," the detective greeted with a sneer, "Lady. Do you have what I came here for?"

"Do we look like idiots?" the lady of the group scoffed, "Of course we have it."

"Well, I don't see it," Soames frowned, "Where is it?"

The dirty blond to the woman's right was the next to speak. "Hidden in the walls."

Soames' frown deepened into a scowl. "The hell is it in there for?"

The only other person of the group, a brown haired man, said, "There's rumors goin' 'round about a Spook. Comes out when Nightwing turns in."

Well, well, well. Looks like Phantom's gaining a reputation.

"You believe in ghost stories now?" Detective Soames sneered, "Get my delivery, now."

The three scuttled off the the wall just under where Phantom was hiding in the rafters. He timed ten minutes before they walked back upto Soames with two bricks of cocaine each.

"You're short."

"This is the agreed upon amount." the lady argued.

Soames' expression twisted into something cruel. "Did I forget to tell you? Tsk. Shame." In a quick and fluid movement, he whipped a pistol from his inner pocket and shot the woman and then the blond. He picked up the bricks, tucking them under his arm before taking the last two from the brunet. "I cannot build an empire without a few casualties, right?"

The man gulped, eyeing the gun. "Y-yes, sir."

Soames hummed. "The sands of Egypt were dyed red with blood. The roads of Rome are the same." He turned away from the man. "Twelve bricks in two weeks. You'll have a location shortly."

Phantom watched the detective leave with a frown. So that was the deal, huh? He didn't know too much about Bludhaven's criminals yet, but he was fairly certain that a man like Blockbuster won't like someone trying this shit under his nose.

He was quick to leave the warehouse after that, doing a quick loop of the city - focused mostly on Sin Central and The Spine - before flying back to Dick's apartment. He wrote down everything from the night, complete with drawings of everyone of note that he saw. He'd pass it to Nightwing as soon as he needed to. For now, though, it remained his cases alone.

Part 8 Part 10

[lauraliansol]

There's 30 seconds of talk about using a Ouija board. There's no screaming or any overbearing stings from the score. It's just people living their lives, handling relationships. It's a million little pieces building to something awful.

[very-strange-indeed]

Moodboard: Elmax Week Day 2: Sleepovers & Nighttime Activities

[milkweedman]

Genuinely spending 2 hours a day just prepping the fiber, RIP

To be fair at least a third of that time is pushing the executive function button so I can start the next nest. They're unfortunately one of those activities that has enough steps that each one feels like it's own separate thing, so I have to Start Task each damn time. So there's a 5-10 minute cooldown between them.

Got 9 nests, I think (on top), middle is some fleece that's already had a lot of locks picked out so it's kind of jumbled, bottom is combing waste.

[dicksmasher]

Nighttime Girl activities:

Look over to make sure boyfriends asleep, then pull out a big long booger and examine it under cracked iphone flash light

Fart

I dont know any more, not a girl, sorry