#outside of time

[writethestory365]

If you’re living by faith, you will never have to wait for the timing to be right.

- Tyler Perry

[santmat]

Hawkwind - Outside of Time

[remembertheplunge]

The place that non time and time meet is what we call understanding

From the book “Climates of the Mind”  page 137 by Carolyn Kleefeld. (1979)

"Unshared

Degraded in dusty spider laces

Faded books hide unshared faces

Hearts imprinted on unread pages

Die, waiting on shelves for ages"

______________________________________________________

My margin note response to the above dated 7/13/1991

She (Carolyn Kleefeld) doesn’t understand. Nothing is wasted. The book’s time will come when the conscious mind intersects with it. I don’t believe that the books lie dead. 

No.

Like  the patient seed, they exist outside of time. When consciousness is poured over them, they grow to flourish. Book and consciousness must meet at the right time or the plant won’t grow.

The book sat patiently outside of time. The conscious existed inside time. It grew to meet book time. The place that non time and time meet is what we call understanding.

End of margin note

[cynicism-and-idealism]

I'm wistful this morning.

Replaying memories of lazy mornings with you, outside of time.

Full of warmth. Warm colors. Warm light. Warm bodies.

Slow, quiet, soft.

Steeped in careful intention, without expectation, without urgency, without need.

Lost in the gentle immersion of You, of Me, of Us.

[kensatou]

MONKEY MAN (2024)

[hipstergecko]

Okay okay, hear me out.

What if transdimensional telephone? Or even an anachronistic telephone? 😏

NOO I ALREADY HAVE A FIC IM WORKING ON HOW DARE YOU

I like the idea of a young Robin talking to a Danny that is 10 years removed from his time/dimension.

Ough the possibilities. Good shipping material too. But I digress.

The whole story would be about these two boys developing a friendship across dimensions/time via stupid magical rotary phone. And when one of the other faces peril, they find a way to jump to the other. I'm thinking Danny being in the past (read first superhero AU) and remembering the time and date of the danger to Dick and being there to save him/the JL.

Maybe something like this?

—

"Ah! S-sorry! Wrong number!"

Danny blinked at the receiver. People didn't often call the house anymore. Not even telemarketers! People can only last so long in front of one of his parents anti-ghost speeches. It was strange that someone actually bothered to call, even if it was a wrong number.

He put the phone back on the wall and shrugged. Not his problem. Just as he turns away, the phone rings again.

Huh.

Danny let it ring for a moment, then picked it up. "Hello, Fenton residence. May I ask who's calling?"

"Oh! Uh... Hello."

Danny frowned, the voice sounded young. His age or younger even. "Hello. Uh, can I help you or...?"

The phone buzzed with the dial tone. They hung up again.

Danny looked at the phone, confused. That was weird. Wasn't a ghost caller. His parents ghost proofed the phone lines long ago. Maybe it was a first time prank caller. Which wasn't uncommon, but still strange after all this time. The Fenton prank buster tm was still fully operational after all.

This time as soon as he put the phone back on the receiver, it rang again.

"Hey, who is this? Prank calls aren't as funny if you don't do the joke right away." Danny answered, irritated.

"P-prank? I'm not calling to prank!" The voice sounded indignant. "I'm trying to call Br-my dad!"

"Well you keep calling me so..." Danny cleared his throat. In a deeper voice, he continued. "Hello son! I'm so glad you called! Your mother has dinner in the oven and it's reanimating! You might even say that the turkey has gone fowl!"

There was a moment of silence.

Then, quietly over the gentle static of his parent's landline, he heard gentle snickering.

"Well dad, if the turkey's gone rogue, then isn't that simply poultry in motion?"

Danny chuckled. "Your sense of humor is im-peck-able."

"Sir, that pun was ill-eagle."

"Oh toucan play at this game."

---

Dick snuck through the halls of the Justice League base. With any luck, nobody would catch him. Bruce was currently engrossed in a meeting about a new inductee to the Justice League. He should be safe for at least 45 minutes.

He made his way to the artifacts room. He was sure not to touch anything as he crept through the piles of magical items.

Straight to one toxic green rotary phone.

He grinned, picking up the phone and spinning any set of number he could think of. This time he did his birthday.

"Thiiiiiiis is the Fenton residence. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?"

Dick pinched his nose. "Ah yes, this is Chuck from accounting. Do you have the fourth quarter sales report yet?"

There was a giggle from the other side before an equally nasally voice came through.

"Oh heeeeey Chuck. This is Caaaaarl. I'm sorry to break it to you, but the sales report has been scrapped. See, the guy compiling it was afraid of the number 4 and had to throw it out."

"Why?"

"Cause he was one real odd guy."

"So you're saying he couldn't even?"

Giggles on either side of the line filled the room.

Dick grinned. "So how're you doing Danny?"

---

"Welcome to Fenton airlines, this is your captain speaking."

"Hey Danny."

Danny quickly sobered. Dick always had some sort of lead in or one liner. This didn't bode well. "Hey Dick. What's up? Is everything okay?"

"It's... things aren't great right now with me and Bru-my dad. I'm not going to be able to call for awhile. I just wanted to let you know."

"Oh." Danny felt himself slump a bit. He'd really come to enjoy the occasional pun battle and chit chat with the guy he'd come to know as Dick. "Okay. Uh... Thanks for the heads up."

"Yeah."

"Listen Dick, I know we really don't know each other and... I know I sound like a creep, but if you need any help, just give me a call, okay?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. Why was he hesitating about this? Just because his parents didn't give him or his sister the attention they wanted, didn't mean he couldn't extend his help to someone else. Even if that someone else was a complete stranger.

"Uh... I don't think..."

"And I know I don't know where you live and I have no idea about you life and all that but like, dude, you're fun to talk to. I don't get to just, talk much anymore. About dumb stuff like puns and junk." He knew he was rambling, but he didn't stop. "I know I'm just some stranger, but I've been through some stuff and know how it feels to have someone to rant to. And I know being at odds with parents sucks and I've been there and if you need someone to just talk at about stuff... Well..." He finally trailed off.

There was a pause.

"... Thanks Danny." The voice over the phone sounded fond. Like he was smiling even though he was going through it. "I'll try to remember that."

"Sweet. I mean you have my number."

"I actually don't."

"What?" Danny frowned. "Then how do you keep calling me?"

"On a Magic green rotary phone."

"I'm sorry, on a whaaa-hang on. Does it have a dude with salt and pepper hair and a cheesy grin on the back?"

There was another pause.

"Yes."

"Woooooow." Danny rocked back on his heels. "I thought that thing was lost to time and space. Nice!"

"Okay now I have questions."

"Well, how much time do you have?"

--- ☎️ ---

"So, your dad built a portal to an interdimensional realm for science in your basement, rebuilt an old rotary phone to try to speak to the dead, but tripped and tossed it into the void of infinite dimensions and somehow it turned up here."

"That about sums it up."

Dick could feel a headache coming on. "That sounds incredibly dumb."

"Dude, that isn't even the half of it. I don't know which dimension you're in or even when you are! I thought that thing was gone for good."

"You know this begs more questions than it answers."

Dick was startled out of his thoughts as he heard the door to the artifacts room open. Zatanna's voice echoed through the room as she spoke with a man, Constantine?

"I have to go." He whispered into the phone. "I'll call back when I can."

"Okay! Take care of yourself Dick."

"You too Danny."

And the line went dead.

---

It had been years since the phone rang. And so much had happened since he last spoke to Dick. Pariah Dark, Vortex, Undergrowth, coming clean to his parents, that huge mess with the GIW, something about a meteor, his alternate version evil self getting a redemption arc, and the interdimensional war.

Frankly he hadn't even thought about the phone in a long time. At one point he considered setting up a voicemail, but never got around to it.

It never rang nowadays anyway. He'd tried quite a few times to call Dick back, but no one ever picked up. It would just ring endlessly.

Eventually he stopped trying to call.

Danny flopped heavily down on his parent's old sofa, groaning as he let the cushions take his weight. He hadn't been home in months. Things in the infinite realms had really taken off with this whole king thing. His entire life (afterlife?) was filled to the brim with fights, political meetings, and fixing temporal displacements.

Whoever said that the dead were peaceful should've been shot.

He was just about to close his eyes for a well deserved nap when he startled upright. A familiar ringing sound filled the air.

Someone was calling the house phone.

He scrambled to the wall where the old phone hung. It was even more beat up than it had been years ago. The phone had made it through several invasions and countless explosions. Was it luck? Maybe.

Danny snatched the phone from it's cradle.

"Hello?"

There was a pause.

"Danny?"

The voice was deeper than he remembered. But that made sense. They had both grown up.

But just to be sure...

"How do you spot a nosy pepper?"

He paused. This joke was golden.

"Because it gets jalepeño business."

Dick replies without missing a beat.

"Well that's just un-bell-ievable."

Danny let out a breath of relief and felt a smile stretch his face. "Dude! It is you! Your voice sounds so different!" He laughed. "How've you been?"

"Awful." There was a short pause. "But enough about me, cayenne ask you a question?"

"No poblano! What's up?"

"So, you know a lot about the infinite realms, right?"

"Yeeeeah?"

"And how it connects all of time at different points?"

"Uh-huh?"

"How do you find someone lost in the time stream?"

Danny felt his whole body twitch.

"Okay, now I have questions."

---

The watchtower had fallen.

The great satellite that served for the JL's base of operations had crashed to the earth. Countless lives were lost. Those some of those aboard the watchtower, some beneath it.

The great creature roared in triumph. This ungodly being that defied the mind and spat on reality could not be defeated by mortals. Anyone with eyes could be blinded by the mind warping horror.

It was Eldritch.

And it was destroying the world.

Dick rushed through the wreckage. Searching frantically for... There!

He raced towards a panel, heaving it off of the dark clad form beneath it.

"Bruce! Bruce get up!" Dick hefted the broken man's arm over his shoulder. "We have to get you out of here!" He tapped his com. "Oracle! The watchtower is down! Can you hear me?"

Nothing but static.

"Richard..." Batman's head lolled to the side. "Dick. I'm..."

"Shut up shut up you aren't going to die here!" Dick grunted, pulling the man along.

"I'm sorry son."

"We can't..." Bruce murmured. A concussion, no, severe head trauma. "... S'magic."

"Shut up damnit!" Dick couldn't let himself cry. They would both be killed. But he couldn't stop the tears that rolled down his cheeks regardless of his will to stop them. "We're gonna get out of this! We have to!"

Dick swore again. He looked around frantically. He saw members of the JL all doing their best to get those trapped under debris free. Those not helping the injured were mounting another attack against the being.

Which would, like before, be ultimately useless.

Dick didn't know what to do.

"Where is the JLD? Can't they do anything about this?"

"Const-antine.... Lookin' for... Help." Bruce slurred. "Magical artifact of... sum' kind."

Okay okay. Dick could do that. He could work with that. He led batman to one of the hastily made medical stations and ran back out into the chaos and debris. A fire had started and heroes were clearing the area.

Dick darted through the wreckage, trying to remember where the magical artifacts room had been.

It took an hour of searching before he happened upon it. Completely on accident after almost tripping over a broken steel beam.

One toxic green rotary phone.

Dick snatched it up and ran.

--- ☎️ ---

The phone rang.

"Danny please... please pick up."

It rang again.

"Please please please." Dick pleaded, sitting at Bruce's side while the monster raged. His head was bowed and he held the phone like a lifeline. How it hasn't been destroyed was beyond him. How it still worked without power was a mystery as well.

But at this moment it didn't matter all that much.

It rang again.

"... Please. Please pick up..." Dick gave a weak laugh. "I'm close to giving up the ghost here Danny."

It rang again.

"The again, it won't be so bad. At least I'll get to keep my ghoulish figure."

It rang again.

"I might cry though. It'll ruin my ma-scare-a."

It rang again.

Dick let his head fall and hit the cot his father was resting on. This was a long shot. He knew it. Danny might not be able to do anything at all. Maybe he was just some guy he had called on a whim. A friend connected across dimensions.

He still wanted to call him though.

It rang again.

Dick heaved a shuddering sigh. "At least I'll have great hair." He couldn't help a snicker. "On account of my scare-spray."

There was a click.

"This is your friendly neighborhood ghostbuster, how may I exorcise you today?"

"Danny." Dick's relief was palpable. "Thank God."

"Hey Dick. What's up?"

"I need a favor." Dick heard something massive something crash into the ground not 2 blocks away. "A big favor."

"When and where."

Suddenly the enormity and ridiculousness of the situation caught up to Dick. He started laughing.

"I don't even know if you can do anything about it! It's crazy! A giant Eldritch horror broke into our dimension and is going to destroy everything!"

"Dick..."

"Like I know things had gotten bad before, but this..." His laughter had a tinge of hysteria to it. "None of us know what to do! And we're supposed to be superheroes! It's crazy! It's insane!"

"Dick! Calm down! Where and when are you?!"

"And what's even more crazy is the fact that I decided to call you up in the middle of a warzone! On a freaking rotary phone!! Who does that?! Crazy people do that!"

"Hey, why did the chicken cross the road?"

Dick stopped. The non sequitur was so out of left field that it pulled him out of the spiral.

"Wh-what?"

"To get you to tell him the time! Tell me the time!"

"Uuuugh... 2:45?"

"And the date!"

"2023?"

"You're 10 years ahead of me?! Nope doesn't matter! Where are you right now?!"

"Just outside of Gotham city. New Jersey."

"Okay. I'll be there. I promise."

There was a sudden chill. Like an arctic breeze that swept through the air. A horrible ripping sound tore through the noise of chaos.

Dick had the good sense to step outside the medical tent to look up at the sky. A glowing toxic green portal split the sky like a horrible scar. A figure came through it.

It was too far away to see, so high that it floated at eye (???) level with the creature laying waste to the world. It leveled a toxic green blast at the horror.

Dick gasped, watching as the figure began attacking the Eldritch being with vigour. Watching as it deftly evaded attacks and made the thing howl with pain and fury.

Dick watched, speechless as the small figure nearly single handedly dropped the Eldritch creature to it's knees. An enormous rift filled with a swirling green void ripped itself into the sky just beyond the entity. And with a massive green shield, the figure shoved the horrible creature into it.

It screamed and screeched and howled, but couldn't fight the shield forcing it into the rift. It tumbled inside like an ungainly sack of squishy marbles. The rift snapped shut behind it.

And then Danny spoke up.

And there was silence. Beautiful beautiful silence.

"Sounds like I handled your problem spook-tacularly." His voice was smug. "Please remember to thank your waiter. Talk to you later Dick! I'll see you in 10 years."

And he hung up.

Dick barely heard him.

A light smattering of applause heralded the descent of the figure. A man bigger in size than even Superman, wearing a fur ruffed cloak made of the darkness of space peppered with stars and a crown wreathed in green flame. His hair was a shock of white the floated in a nonexistent breeze and his eyes burned with green light. His armor was black and white, emblazoned with a stylized P on the breastplate.

He drifted lower and lower, eyes scanning the debris and various people here and there. His glowing eyes finally fell across Dick, who had been standing slack jawed outside the medical tent holding a neon green rotary phone, and he smiled.

His teeth were sharp.

He descended slowly to the ground and walked forward. His smile only growing as Dick took a nervous step back and hugged the phone to his chest. The man finally stopped after coming face to face with Dick. If you could call it that. He towered over the vigilante.

A tense moment of silence passed.

Then the man cleared his throat.

"Did you ask if his refrigerator was running?"

"Wha-"

"Because that's a classic. Prank call 101." The man grinned. "Or just just pretend that you're their dad."

The phone fell from Dick's nerveless hands.

"DANNY??!"

---

Well that was fun! I definitely didn't hours of precious sleep writing this. 👻☎️

Short DPXDC Prompts #997

Young Dick Grayson is wandering in the JL headquarters in the artifacts room. He’s been just looking around, occasionally reading placards that Zatanna or Dr. Fate have added on the items used and its history.

He pauses when he comes across an old green rotary phone. Next to the phone is a small placard. It reads “never pick this up.”

He knows he shouldn’t touch it. He’s in a room full of magical artifacts. There’s no way this won’t come back to bite him. But his curiosity overwhelms him.

He picks up the phone and dials a random number.

It rings.

And rings.

And rings.

And- “Hello! Fenton speaking! Who am I speaking to?”

Someone answered. —

Danny doesn’t know why this unknown number rang the house phone but ngl, he’s a bit curious. (Nomatter what number you choose, it always goes to the Fentons landline

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

bumblebees first day out of sublevel 50

[frownyalfred]

thinking about the expert masseuse Alfred hired for the family that is paid a small fortune annually to provide massage services and ignore so, so many things. No questions, no remarks, just quality service and an ironclad NDA that, if broken, would probably topple said masseuse’s entire family line.

Things Alfred is paying them to ignore, in no specific order:

Bruce’s spinal hardware courtesy of Bane :)

weird amounts of muscle on everyone, even the kids (despite them allegedly not working physical jobs)

scars

FRESH scars

the fact that every joint in Bruce’s body clicks when moved/manipulated at the tender age of 42

Olympic athlete level physiques

rotator cuff injuries across the whole family

scars that are definitely from bullets and/or acid splashes

old signs of what looks like torture (Bruce)

Dick’s entire left arm is basically screws and plates (he “fell really bad” once)

every single family member takes deep tissue massage with max pressure with 0 complaints

calluses

no really, the weirdest fucking calluses

[howifeltabouthim]

The were in dream time now, the timeless time of adventures, which had a different texture from ordinary time.

Lev Grossman, from The Bright Sword

[autovive-industries]

[captain-mozzarella]

I headcanon that all of Yoda's finest teacups were made by younglings

In fact most masters of the order's finest teacups were made during crèche crafting time when the kids were learning pottery.

[yoggybloggy]

[apollos-olives]

before october 7th this blog was a meme page btw.

[batsyheere]

Tim froze. "Huh?"

"I mean, you're definitely cute. But I don't feel comfortable with strangers? And I don't want there to be any misunderstandings."

Danny Nightingale looked flustered, nervous, and far too pretty with his cheeks flushing red under the glow of the nearby lamp fixtures. Tim wondered when his brain would finally come back online. Right now it was far too interested in putting everything else on the backburner.

On one hand, he had been trying to get information out of Danny on his connection to Vlad Masters- a connection that had seemed more tenuous with each passing minute of the evening. On the other, Tim could admit it had sounded a bit like he was inviting Danny for something more.

And if he was honest with himself, it was only mostly unintentional.

"It's not even you, I just get attached really easily and don't want something casual. Sorry."

Tim hadn't even realized boundary setting could be so attractive.

"No. Yeah, that's- fine." Smooth. The Drake-Wayne charm at its finest. Tim could hear Jason snickering on the comms.

[just-french-me-up]

sometimes i start feeling bad about spending time on my hobbies, thinking about how inconsequential they are and wondering if i'm wasting my time

but then

but then i find out about goddamn Monthoux building an entire fucking CLAY AND CEMENT CITADEL IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FOREST?????? FOR FUN??? JUST??? LIVING HIS BEST LIFE BUILDING WHAT IS ESSENTIALLY MINAS TIRITH FOR ANTS????

just???? GET A LOAD OF THAT GUY????

he is so precious to me, may the monthoux spirit bless you with endless passion for your inconsequential hobbies! Be the main enjoyer of your art! Do it because it fills you with joy!

[monteruu]

feeling displaced

[image id: digital illustration of john egbert from homestuck. he is standing partially behind a floating panel with large yellow and blue clouds and a bright sun with the words "Thanks for Playing" floating in the sky being slightly cut off. john's windsock hood is seen trailing off in the white background behind him and draped partially over the panel next to him. he has no expression as he stares at the camera. end image id.]