#not my monkeys not my circus

[noes-pillow]

Does anyone else get a sick sense of satisfaction from people getting tricked into the vnc fandom bc they believe the story is complete since Jun essentially already told us the ending through Noé even though we don't actually have the full ending yet... no? Just me?

[the-shy-artisan]

Literally just watched a spider run into the office.

Nope, not dealing with it.

[gophergal]

I'm gonna go ahead and say that just because I come up with a stupid ship name for something does not mean I like it in the slightest. Y'all need to know that before I drop the ship name chart

[ancient-healer]

[tangerinequeen19]

.

[w1ckermandesigns]

(via "Funny Quote Monkey Circus Life Humor Parenthood Moms Dads" Poster for Sale by w1ckerman)

[olli-online]

regaining a semblance of control lmao we r so back

[suretkerim]

A cover for this amazing fic by @brekitten as my contribution this Invisobang :D

[confessedlyfannish]

Writing Prompt #13

"So?" Red Hood asks, arms crossed. "Was I right?"

"Yes," Phantom says, deepening his voice, "this is one of mine."

"One of your what?" Robin growls. Nightwing's hand on his shoulder is the only thing keeping him from invading Phantom's personal space, which, please, continue to do so Mr. Nightwing, Sir.

Phantom would take a deep calming breath if a) he wasn't trying to appear as otherworldly as possible which means no human breathing and b) if that wouldn't so obviously telegraph how uncomfortable he is in the Batcave surrounded by the entire Batfamily.

Next to him Red Hood shifts in slight discomfort. His ties to the spectral realm mean he's picking up on Danny's unease even if he can't fully translate the feeling. Which is good. Danny needs to maintain what little control he has over this situation.

"There's a gh-spirit in my...realm," Phantom says, letting himself drift gently to the other side of Batman's medical table which just coincidentally puts more distance between him and the the rest of the clan staring him down. Black Bat leans forward and he violently suppresses a flinch. "They're known as Nocturne. They wield power over dreams. Their signature is all over this."

And Danny means that literally. Their ecto-signature couldn't be more apparent if they'd written it in sharpie across Batman's suit. This is what Jason—Red Hood, because Danny couldn't have been dealing with a simple civilian case of ecto-contamination, nooo, he's got to have connections to the superheroes Danny has spent the better part of his afterlife avoiding—managed to pick up on, even being the low level entity that he is.

At which point he'd called Phantom in, even though Danny had spent the better part of two weeks trying to intimidate the guy into never contacting him, Ruler of the Spirit Realm (lightning crash!), again, but here is his calling card just in case (thunder and creaking noises!!), but again, you should never use it unless things are very serious, OoOoOoOo~~~

Damn it. It's been like 10 days.

"So how do we fix it, Your, uh, Ghostliness?" Nightwing says, ducking his head in a sort of half-assed supplication when Phantom turns to him. Nightwing glances at Jason for affirmation who shrugs out of the corner of Danny's eye.

"Phantom is fine," Danny says, waving his hand and letting his upper lip curl in an expression of distaste. "Remember, it's like you're Vlad when Dad offers him a glass of eight dollar wine!" Jazz's voice reminds him. Robin growls lowly, likely meaning he's nailing it. He looks away dismissively ("Honestly, it's like you're Vlad, anytime, ever." Sam notes dryly) and thanks god he doesn't have a heart in this form because it would be beating so loud right now.

Beside him, Jason scratches compulsively at the back of his neck. Huh, his anxiety is manifesting physically as an itch. Good to know.

"You can't fix it," Phantom says. "I can."

"At what cost?" Red Robin asks. "Red Hood mentioned you'd want something in return?"

Frick. His other contingency to keep Jason from ever contacting him again. Phantom had lightly hinted his taste du jour was, uh, souls.

Something Red Hood has apparently let slip, because now Robin shakes off Nightwing's hand, puffs out his chest and declares "I will trade myself for my father's safe awakening, Spirit!"

The other members burst into denials which almost covers up Danny floating sharply back and saying "What? No!!!"

Key word: almost.

Danny coughs as they stare at him.

"That is to say, I have no desire for a child," he puts a bit of snarl into it, showing fang. The mood in the room plummets drastically as Nightwing gently grabs Robin by the arm and pulls him back to his side.

"We see," he says. He steps forward more assertively, placing himself in front of the others, all of which are now eying him warily. "Then, is there a gender you prefer?"

It takes a second to click in Danny's head and then he swings his head wildly away from his audience to hide his reaction, nausea and embarrassment turning his face bright green. "Fika Kristo," he mutters in Esperanto as quietly as he possibly can, pinching the bridge of his nose.

He gives himself a moment to settle and game plan before turning back around. "I have no desire for any of you, and it matters not. In this instance, a deal need not be struck. Nocturne is my subject, and they have done this without my permission." Danny blinks, eyes widening. "Not—not! that I would give them permission to do such a thing. In the first place. Ahem."

"Okay...so you'll do this for free?" Jason asks. "Seems like a bad business practice since you also fixed me up for nothing—"

"What he means to say, Your Majesty, Phantom, is thank you!" Signal says in a rush as Nightwing starts, "Wait, Hood, what do you mean—"

"Enough!" Phantom says loudly (nearby bats take off and Jason's itch migrates to his forearms) "I have little time," read: he has a test tomorrow and he's only one-third of the way through the study guide "And I grow tired of this...dilly-dally." Frick! Is that an old-timey word?

"Of course. Thank you again, Phantom." Nightwing says stiffly, eyes still narrowed in Hood's direction.

"Wait, sorry, Phantom, Majesty, I'm Spoiler by the way," the purple-caped vigilante Danny already knew was Spoiler says. "How do we keep this from happening again? To any of us? Is there a way to defeat this Nocturne?"

"Moreover, why Batman?" Red Robin asks. "Why would a spirit from another dimension want him asleep?"

Phantom sighs. "Nocturne was trying to send a message. To me. Through you," he says, nodding at Red Hood. "They...how do I put this. They like attention. Being the spirit of uh, dreaming, they don't receive that attention. And you were in my realms for quite some time. And they wanted...attention."

The lackluster explanation sits for a moment before "They were jealous? Of me?" Red Hood asks skeptically.

"It's more complicated than that. Your...physiology," Danny puts it as delicately as possible, watching regretfully when Red Hood still stiffens at the mention, "Is particular. You gather attention in our realm. And having my attention is...special. But not!" He says to the group at large, a touch panicked, "Romantic!"

Jesus, he's never gonna hear the end of this from the others.

"Anyway, I will ensure it does not happen again."

"By paying them attention," Spoiler says under her breath, wiggling her eyebrows at Black Bat, Red Robin shooting them both a glare. Nightwing ignores them in favor of staring at Red Hood and Phantom. Danny is unsure what Red Hood has disclosed about how he knows Danny, but now he feels confident the answer is close to nothing.

Before Nightwing can ask whatever uncomfortable thing he's about to ask, Phantom disappears. Invisibly, he hovers over Batman's sleeping body and silently apologizes for the intrusion before intangibly slipping into Batman's REM realm and finding the man...oh...

Probably thirty minutes later he reappears to the group, who all perk up at the sight of him. Their eyes bounce from him to Batman; who does not move, to the monitor; which shows no change in his brain activity.

"I'm going to need your help," Danny says to Jason, getting to the point.

"Why? What can I do?"

"It's easier if you come with me," Danny says, grabbing his arm.

"Come with—"

Danny wastes no time in turning them both invisible and flying them into Batman's mind.

"What the—" Red Hood twists and turns, taking in the hallways of the manor. From afar, they can hear the tinkling of a piano. "You, I had your word—"

"This isn't where you think it is," Danny says hurriedly. "We're in your—Batman's dream." He walks quickly down the hallway, towards the music. Jason follows.

"What?"

"The way to break a dream spell is to wake the dreamer. You can't do that externally so you do it internally. Usually you wake the dreamer by turning the dream into the nightmare, scaring them awake."

The hallway stretches on longer than realistic, the dream attempting to divert them. But it can't outrun Danny. His power seeps into the halls, ice creeping along the paneling and freezing the way behind them.

"Batman, however, is hard to scare."

"So you want me to do it."

"What? No." Phantom shoots him a confused look. "Why would I—Ahem, The other way is to convince the dreamer they are dreaming. They break the dream themselves."

"Alright..." Jason says slowly, now keeping pace with him. His breath forms a cloud as he speaks. "And you think I'm the person to do it? I'm not the one he listens to you know, that's more Nightwing's schtick, or hell, anyone other than me."

"This isn't just Batman's dream, Jason," he says. Hood's eyes narrow at his real name, but now the truth is necessary. "This is The Dream. The perfect life. Everything he could ever want."

They're approaching an opening on the right side of the corridor. A bright light emanates from it, alongside the noise of stumbling piano keys and laughter, deep and male and unrecognizable. The Dream.

"Thomas Wayne," Jason breathes. "You want me to convince Bruce it's worth walking away from the center of his universe? It'd be easier if I put a bullet in their chests."

Danny stops abruptly before the doorway, turning to face Jason.

"You know, I fixed you," he says, head cocked. "Those feelings you felt, you shouldn't be feeling them anymore."

"I...I don't."

"Then why do you act like it?" He lets himself drift up, reaching beyond their planes of existence and extending a metaphysical hand to Jason's spirit. It shivers away. "You don't have to hide behind what was."

"I'm not hiding! And I don't have to explain myself to you!" He tries to move forward but Danny puts a hand out and he cannot move past it. He growls in frustration.

"I'm grateful to you, but with or without the Pits I'm fucked up. This is just who I am. This is just what he made me."

"You've never asked why I look like this. But did you know my form is malleable?" Phantom says, letting his legs shift into a tail, letting two eyes become three. "What I believe is what I am."

And then he takes several steps back, putting the doorway between them. "From here on out, the Pits can't tell you how to think or feel. Your decisions are wholly your own. Starting with this one."

Jason stares at the doorway, then Danny.

"I won't make you," Danny says simply. "And if you desire, I will retrieve Nightwing instead."

Jason scratches at his arms, grits his teeth, and stomps through. The light resolves into the sitting room, massive windows letting in sunlight so bright it streaks yellow-white across the room. Bruce sits on the maroon versailles couch next to Cassandra, who sits cross legged, excitedly watching Alfred pour her a cup of tea. To their right, in the open space, Damian barks instructions at Tim on handling a katana. Stephanie and Duke sit on the ground besides the coffee table, homework sheets sprawled across the surface, suffering their way through a calculus problem.

Bruce, smiling softly, looks across the room to where the atrocious playing is coming from. Red Hood follows his gaze.

Sitting at the piano, trying to play while Dick distracts him with a pair of chopsticks, is Jason. He puts a hand on Dick's face and shoves, both of them hitting the wrong keys.

"Get—away—dumbass!"

"No, see, it's a duet! Jay!"

"That's not why it's named—" and Jason Todd-Wayne tips his white-tipped head back and laughs.

[jojolightningfingers]

i truly truly will never stop being tickled by how law's braincell count just plummets into the negatives whenever he's around luffy and kid SPECIFICALLY at the same time. like if it's one or the other he copes more or less just fine. kid's a shit-starter but he's predictable and easy (and fun) to rile up. luffy runs on baffling logic but he's fundamentally easy to get along with so long as you maintain your zen and understand that he usually doesn't MEAN to get under anybody's skin. separately they aggravate law in different ways. but when they're together kid's penchant for starting dickswinging contests (or inability to not take the bait of one) collides with luffy unhesitatingly answering with a one-up that no sane person would conceive of and what the hell is law supposed to do against THAT fuckin wombo combo. get left behind and called a bitch for it? not goddamn LIKELY!!

[spacedace]

DPxDC snippet/prompt:

-

“John.”

Zantanna’s voice had that cadence to it. Faintly strangled. Forcibly calm. Her rising blood pressure and rapidly approaching limit for his special brand of excitement evident in every single letter of his name.

Felt like old times.

“Z.” He said, smoke curling out of his mouth and billowing towards the dreary grey sky above. The one nice thing about Gotham, it had the same gloomy dark ambience of ol’ London town. “Long time no see. How’s show biz been treating you?”

He saw the faintest of twitches at the corner of her eye. Could almost hear her counting to ten in her head. He smiled at her winningly, leaning back against the damp bricks of the alleyway as he waited. More smoke drifted upward from beside him in time with a bored sigh. Patience was running out on all sides it seemed.

“That’s a child.”

“Sharp as ever.” He said, taking another drag. He nudged the child in question beside him gently with his elbow, glancing down with a sly grin. “See this is why the Justice League pay her the big bucks. Nothing gets past our Zantanna Zatara.”

He got a cloud of smoke blown directly in his face for that, little shit.

“John.”

“Z.”

“Why do you have a child? Why is the child smoking?”

“Long story.” He said with a wave of his hand.

“I learned it from watching him.” The kid said, with the same cadence as that old American commercial. All dramatic and overwrought emotion. The gremlin swooned against John's side in an imitation of collapse, hand holding the lit bifter coming up to their forhead to really sell the melodrama. He nudged his ghostly companion off, grinning at Zantanna’s slipping patience as he did.

“Don’t worry about it. Kid's fine.”

“A child wandering around with you in a dark ally in Gotham smoking cigarettes is fine?”

“I mean, I’m already dead. And short. It’s not like smoking is gonna be able to do any worse to me.”

[linkedin-offficial]

kitty colony au anybody?

[cephalopodsquad]

the smackdown roster right now:

[paradimeart]

For you divorce baby Au: Jetstorm and Jetfire. It's a comedy film in my mind, I can just imagine the chaos two (flying?/hovering?) baby orbs can chaos in elite guard headquarters, driving everyone nuts, dodging all the hands trying to grab them, the go to baby sitter who can keep up is Blurr.

ps. all your au's and art are amazing

i HAVE thought about the jettwins in a proto-orb scenario though its a lil different than what uve described

they cant fly until they get limbs and little baby thrusters but they sure can use their other powers. also the part about blurr i drew something stupid and then remembered rise of safeguard actually takes place during season 2. have it anyway

[yesokayiknow]

i think the fact that it didn't snow at the end of that ep means that a part of ruby was like honestly fuck em

[w1ckermandesigns]

(via "Funny Quote Monkey Circus Life Humor Parenthood Moms Dads" Essential T-Shirt for Sale by w1ckerman)