#red head has a thought

[chysgoda]

Alexandria, the 9th - 12th Calamities, and Ancient Messes

So I’ve seen a couple of comments on time travel between Alexandria and the source since Alexandria is very obviously prepared for a lightning calamity, but I don’t think it’s the one that happened in the past.

The meta structure of the world really likes repeated numbers and rhyming themes. We have the Source and thirteen reflections/shards (pick your favorite terminology) so that means we have thirteen rejoinings to get through before the world is back to its former aetheric density.

We see that number pop up again in Myths of the Realm where we have the Twelve plus the Watcher. Venat/Hydaelyn explicitly created the Twelve to maintain aetheric balance on the source with the Watcher acting as a combination Mission Control, hard drive back up, and prison warden. What would happen that would need GODS to shore up the balance? Massive amounts of specifically aspected aether crash landing on the source during a calamity.

So we have two gods for each element (plus the Watcher) and thus far one calamity for each element (plus a Bahamut).

I don’t think Alexandria was the shard that was rejoined during the second calamity. I think it’s a shard that was supposed to be the 9th - 12th rejoinings as the second calamity of lightning, and second elemental helpings for all of the remaining rejoinings.

What I think is being set up (and has been hinted at obtusely before) is that the Sundering and the Rejoinings were extremely messy and nothing really happened in as straightforward a way as any of the previous narrators of the story (the Ascians and Venat/Hydaelyn) wanted to admit. Elidibus and Emet-Selch give information that directly contradicts. (Ardbert saying that light and dark weren’t evenly distributed through the shards, presumably information obtained from Elidibus vs Emet-Selch describing the sundering as a clean and equal division) Venat/Hydaelyn doesn’t actually say anything about the nature of the Sundering itself or the makeup of the shards. We do get to see Lahabrea effectively sunder himself in Pandaemonium, and if the look of his glyph is anything to go by that was NOT a crisp clean division.

On top of that we have whatever remnant of Azem shenanigans are going on. But also the people of the source and shards aren’t dumb and do have agency. Y’shtola describes the gate to Living Memory as “neatly hemmed” , something that the Ascians or mages from the Source were never able to achieve. There’s a whole population of lalafel that looked at the encroaching ice and went NOPE and fucked off to a completely different shard. (I will cling to the mental image of one of Lahabrea’s interns going to check on things in the south seas and losing a whole ass country)

So tl;dr none of the ancients knew what they were doing and we get to clean up their messes.

[happyunbday2u]

Hey ya'll seen that one movie about this one kid

who finds something that should be considered dangerous and

untamable

only for them to become friends with it

then get attacked so because of their bond it attacks to protect

and then by the end of the movie their friendship is saved and now everyone knows the truth about the creature who is actually really nice

Yeah im talking about Lilo and Stitch!

[xysidhequeen]

The King and his Red Knight

DPxDC crossover fic

Part 1

Really sorry to everyone who suffered through the fact that I didn't know about the existence of readmore. I can't fix the thread now but the individual posts are better? Sorry I have like a very rough idea of how this site works 😭

Check the: The King and his Red Knight tag to find all the parts

"Go here, Danny. Go then, Danny. Go to a random cemetery in the middle of the night for no reason, Danny." A voice grumbled, accompanied by the sound of sneakers rhythmically tapping stone.

Danny Fenton, currently Phantom, sat on a gravestone, his white hair a beacon in the dark night. There were no stars in the sky for him to gaze upon, their light hidden behind swaths of smog and neon lights playing off the gray clouds.

Clockwork had dumped him here, with no explanation for why. Not that he ever really explained much when he sent Danny off on his tasks. He supposed he should be grateful, at least he was in the same when rather than being transported a thousand years into the past.

"Wait here King Phantom. You will understand in time." Danny mimicked his mentor's voice as he let himself float off the grave he'd been dumped on after Clockwork shoved him out of a portal. His body floated higher until he could flip around, his legs crossing. He sat upside down, his chin in his palm as he glared petulantly at the assembled gravestones surrounding him, his toxic green eyes glowing.

"So far all I've seen is a concerning amount of ecotplasm for a city without a ghost portal and some blob ghosts! How long am I supposed to wait here?" Danny asked the air, and the aforementioned blob ghosts who were hanging off his body, soaking in the ambient ecotoplasm he radiated at all times now.

Neither provided him with an answer to his question and Danny let out a frustrated groan as he lowered his still flipped body to look once more on the gravestone he'd been tasked with waiting on.

Jason Todd, the name read. The dates, too close together, made something in Danny squeeze painfully. He'd been young, barely older than Danny when he stepped into the portal. Only for this teenager there had been no ectoplasm to bind to his dying body and repair the damage of death and force him back into a semblance of life.

"Who were you and why did Clockwork send me to you?" Danny asked the gravestone, one clawed finger tracing the words before he pulled back with a sigh when the gravestone gave him no explanation. The dead didn't always speak, not even to their king.

Turning his body Danny looked over the rest of the cemetery. It was empty, as most usually were this time of night, of the living. There were a few shades wandering around, circling closer to him, drawn by his presence. No full ghosts though, but oddly enough there rarely were in cemeteries. This was where the dead came to rest. To remember, if they wanted to. Cemeteries were sacred spaces to the dead, much as a temple or a church would be for the living who were religious. Ghosts who still clung to life, to their obsessions, did not frequent cemeteries, did not dare trespass and disturb those who had already found their peace.

Danny himself was an oddity. He had never shied from cemeteries, enjoying the peace he found in them, the guarantee of safety offered. And perhaps, he mourned that he himself would never have a gravestone for the living to place their flowers and their tears at. Who would make a grave for someone who was both alive and dead? There would never be a body to bury for him. His human half would continue to live on so long as his ghost core remained and could fuel it.

Maybe that was why he found peace in cemeteries, for all his whining that Clockwork had dumped him here. Cemeteries were for the living and the dead, one of the only places both existed in harmony naturally. For someone who was as much dead as he was alive such a place held a certain degree of belonging for him.

Danny straightened out in the air, letting his body lie above the grave as he folded his arms behind his head and looked up at the covered sky. He complained and whined about this task, but he was secretly glad that Clockwork had given him something to do. Even if it was just 'hang out in a random cemetary'.

Ever since he'd graduated high-school, revealed himself to his parents and discovered how deep prejudice and hate could run, and he'd run away to the Infinite Realms for sanctuary while his friends moved forward with their lives, he'd felt unmoored. A ghost with no haunt. Bored was too light a word for the gaping emptiness he felt in his chest, for the loneliness clawing at him. Clockwork, Wulf, Pandora they could help chip at the ache inside of him but not banish it. Not now that his family, his friends, were spread so far apart and so distant from him.

Not that he resented their choices, their distance, in fact he'd fought for them to do just that, to get out of Amity Park, to go to college, to become more than overworked teen superheroes. Still he missed them, even if he could visit them whenever he wanted. It was becoming clear as time moved forward that the world they belonged to and the one he did were two different things.

Danny Fenton couldn't go to college when his parents had declared him dead. Danny Fenton didn't exist as far as the government was concerned. Danny Phantom couldn't return to Amity when those same parents were waiting to capture him and tear him apart 'molecule by molecule'. Danny Phantom couldn't go back when the GIW were crawling over the town like ants.

So neither Danny Fenton or Danny Phantom returned to Amity after that day. And he made sure they couldnt follow him when he ensured the portal that took his life to function never opened again. He didn't need the portal any longer to get in and out of the Infinite Realms, and it was safer for the ghosts, his subjects, if the temptation of the Fenton portal was gone.

The world of the living was not yet ready to accept that the dead didn't always stay dead. And Danny would keep his people safe until they were.

Danny jolted from his lazing state of reverie when a pulse of emotion rocked through him, the strength of it stealing his breath if he had any to take.

Fear/Trapped/Dark/Fear/Help/HELP pounded into him and Danny frantically flipped around, head swiveling, poisonous green eyes wide as he triedf to locate the source. The emotions, the plea for help, burned his core, his Obsession screamed at him.

Help/SomeonePlease/Dark/Trapped/CANTBREATHE/HELP another wave of messages, of emotions pushed themselves at Danny and this time underneath the onslaught he could hear a rhythmic thudding. Danny looked down, horror filling him when he realized the thudding was coming from under the ground. From the grave he'd been hovering over for an hour now.

Danny flew down, sending back a wave of I'mHere/HelpIsComing/I'mComing to the boy trapped in his own coffin, feeling the intense wave of relief and hope sent back before he dived into the earth as if it wasn't there. Danny paused for a moment when he passed the thick wooden coffin, seeing a boy in the dark with wide, panicked blue eyes and fingers tipped with shredded nails and fresh blood.

"Hey, I'm going to get you out of here, okay?" Danny told the boy, keeping his voice gentle, soft. The boy jolted, fixating on the only source of light, Danny's growing green eyes. Danny hoped his smile came off as calming instead of 'freaky AF' as Tucker liked to call it. He grabbed the boy, Jason, as carefully as he could and then let his intangibility wash over the terrified teen as he lifted them both out of the coffin.

When they emerged from the coffin and the ground Danny set the teen down, leaning him against the gravestone, his own gravestone, and pulled back a bit. The boy was gasping in air as if the fetid, polluted air was the sweetest thing he'd ever tasted.

Danny tilted his head as he watched the boy ground himself. Now that the emotions were leveling out and his Obsession was purring in contentment rather than growling in a frenzy, Danny could feel something off about the boy.

Disregarding the fact that he'd just come back from the dead, of course. But that wasn't the oddest thing Danny had seen in his afterlife. No the boy felt... not like a normal, living human. Not even like an Amity Park resident, who all felt more than slightly liminal. No this boy, this Jason Todd, felt closer to liminal than even Jazz, Tucker or Sam, who were three of the most liminal humans Danny had ever been around.

Jason felt almost...like a ghost. But not. Danny could feel the tickle in his throat that proceeded his ghost sense but the tell-tale mist never emerged. It was as if Jason was...like him. But Danny couldn't sense a core either. Even halfas had cores.

"Who are you?" Jason spoke, breaking Danny from his thoughts and examination. Jason was looking at him with a mix of gratitude and suspicion. Which, fair. Danny had just pulled him from his own coffin and there were so many questions that could stem from all of this, disregarding all the weirdness that was just Danny himself.

"I'm Danny, Danny Phantom. Or just Phantom. I go by either. And you're Jason, right?" Danny asked, smiling at the teen and oops, yeah that was definitely his scary smile based on the slight flinch there. It wasn't his fault his teeth were too sharp now and his lips split a bit too wide.

"How did you know that?" Jason asked, blue eyes narrowing. Danny nodded at the gravestone the boy was leaning against with a raised brow. Jason turned and almost toppled over from the movement. Danny frowned as the boy caught himself on his gravestone. His skin was still pale, too pale, and as Danny watched Jason swayed again.

"Shit. You're fading. You didn't form a core and your body isn't stabilizing." Danny cursed, moving towards the boy who scrambled back, only to be stopped by his grave.

"What the hell are you doing?" Jason asked, hands fisting as he tried to rise only to fall back to the ground when his legs refused to hold his weight.

"Saving your life. The dead aren't supposed to come back. There's always a price to pay, a balance that is struck. Currently, as you are, if I don't get enough ectoplasm in you to form your core, you'll fade and turn into a brain-dead husk." Danny told Jason, tone stern and no nonsense as he grabbed him. Jason made an effort to break free, but it was weak, and even at full strength, he wouldn’t have been able to break Danny's hold. Few in this realm could.

If they had the time, Danny would've approached this situation in a far different manner, but this close he could hear Jason's heartbeat, a weak flutter in his chest, skipping beats as it tried to fuel a body that was past saving. Jason didn't have the time for Danny to approach this gently and kindly, to coax trust out of the teen like he would a feral cat.

Jason had minutes left before his ectoplasm starved body consumed itself trying to make a core and failed because while wherever they were had more ambient ectoplasm than most places, it was far from enough to sustain the birth of a halfa. Maybe if Jason had stayed dead for another year, he'd have naturally formed a core and risen as a proper ghost. But that wasn't what happened, somehow he'd gathered enough to fix his body of whatever wounds or illness had put him in that coffin to begin with and come back to 'life' but without a core to sustain his body he'd be dead, again, in minutes. And Danny was not about to watch while a teenager, another teenager, died.

"How do I know I can trust you?" Jason hissed as Danny pushed his arms down and laid his clawed hands on Jason's chest.

"You don't. But you don't have another choice." Danny said with a shrug. "Now are you going to let me save your life or not?" Danny asked, not moving his hands. He'd save Jason either way but this would be easier if Jason worked with him.

"Fine." Jason spat and Danny smirked as his hands began to glow a toxic green that matched his eyes.

Ectoplasm pooled out of his hands and rushed into Jason, filling him until the boy glowed bright enough to rival the neon lights of the city around them. The green light flared around him like an aura, slowly shrinking but getting impossibly brighter as the glow centralized around his chest until a small glowing ball of green, like a trapped star, blazed from his chest.

Jason gasped, back arching as Danny pulled his hands away and the light vanished under Jason's skin. For a moment Jason's blue eyes burned green and his hair flashed snow white before returning to black, with one single lock of unearthly white left above his forehead. Jason collapsed back against his grave, chest heaving. Danny watched, eyes full of a sad understanding.

"What the fuck was that?" Jason panted out.

"Welcome to the world of the half alive, half dead." Danny said with a smile. "Want to get a burger and talk about it?" He asked, standing up and dusting off his hands.

"Make it a chili dog and you've got a deal."

~~~~~

Fixed some typos added some lines

Maybe I'll continue this AU. Maybe not. This scene was in my head for days and I wanted to share

[lilisettean]

Midnight Surveillance | Sylus/Reader Ramblings

About: So about Sylus and his little crow. Sylus watches you through his crow and monitors your every move through it yes... So... Here's a quick Sylus NSFW ramble...

Pairing: Sylus/Reader

Warnings: Stalking, mentioned somno. 18+ only please! Enjoy :)

Edit: Edited the formatting and some touch ups. :) Sorry for disappearing for months >< Got really discouraged when devs said they won't update mainline for a while a few months back.

Whenever he had time, or felt like it, he watched you through the eyes of his crow. Something about watching you going through your day, doing the most mundane tasks, puts him at ease.

You knew his crow was there, somewhere, watching you. You knew you should never let your guard down, even at home. And yet, sometimes you simply forgot...

Sylus merely arched his eyebrow when he saw you through your bedroom window, sleeping in your underwear. You were too tired to remember to draw the curtains perhaps, or else he wouldn't have seen you sleeping in such a... compromising state.

If he was a better man, he would've turned away, called you to tell you about your mishap, and continued with whatever he was doing. But he was not.

You were sleeping on your side, the gentle moonlight highlighted your face as you breathed through your parted lips. Sylus traced your form with his gaze, making note of the simple underwear you wore. It was nothing special, yet the sight of you like this sparked fire in his blood.

Every time you forget to draw the curtains before bedtime, you unknowingly fanned the flames the coursed through his veins, nurtured his desire to see more of you in this state.

Sometimes you would fall asleep in a flimsy towel, flopping onto your bed immediately after a shower. Sylus would watch the gentle rise and fall of your chest, his eyes always drifting to the clumsily tucked in hem of your towel.

At times he would dream about being there, watching you sleep. sometimes they were innocent dreams; with him carefully tucking you in before wrapping an arm around your waist, pulling you in deep into his embrace before falling asleep as well. And others.. well..

He would dream about pulling your panties to the side, dipping a finger between your folds and prod your clit as he watched your breath hitch. He also dreamt about bunching your towel up to your waist, slotting himself between your buttcheeks and slowly rutting against you while you slept peacefully, unaware of how hard he was for you.

His growing obsession with you all came to a head when one night, instead of catching you asleep without drawing the curtains again, he caught you in an even more... compromising position.

Through the dim moonlight, Sylus caught you lying on your bare stomach, touching yourself. He couldn't see your face as you were burrowing your face into your pillow, but he knew you were moaning, with how your hips perked up every so often.

Sylus was not a good man, that he knew about himself. So why be a gentleman and turn away, when the person of his midnight fantasies presents themselves to him on a silver platter?

Sylus put down all the things he was working on and dismissed everyone around him. Once alone, he made quick work of his pants, undoing it and palmed over his hardened cock.

Following the rhythm you set, he stroked himself as he watched you twitch with pleasure. He pictured himself being there with you, imagining he was prodding your clit when he ran a thumb over his leaking tip.

What he wouldn't give to have you bent over his desk at that moment. Especially when you lifted your hips even more, as though begging for someone- no not someone, him, and better only him- to join in.

Sylus snarled at the thought of you asking anyone else but him to satisfy you. He watched men vie for your attention; your neighbour, your painter friend, your childhood friends... they all wanted your eyes on them. You were so friendly to all of them... but him.

Your stubborn defiance of him, paired with his desire to take back what has been always his, fed his obsession with you. What was it that the other men in your life had, that he, the leader of the feared Onychinus, didn't?

He would never voice that out however. Instead, he would draw you in, bit by bit. He would lure you into his hold... and capture your heart and mind before you even had the chance to realize.

But those plans were for later. For now, he would make a mental note to install better listening devices onto his little crow, and enjoy the tempting sight before him.

[batfambyval]

okay. So.

Serious Red Robin theory coming.

Tim wasn’t put in the Lazarus Pit. But. That doesn’t mean they didn’t use it on him. The pit’s healing properties have been shown to work in small portions. Like, the healing is proportional to the amount of lw used.

The cave with the pit isn’t exactly a sterile environment. So either the pit was needed or it was an attempt to put Tim off balance, a psychological weapon. Though the White Ghost’s reaction to the assumption seems to dispute that. If the pit’s healing is proportional to the amount used it makes sense that the psychological effects are to, along with the duration of those side effects.

Ra’s had serious reasons to use the pit on Tim, between the additional room for emotional manipulation and Tim’s life threatening injury which wasn’t immediately treated and was in fact exacerbated like, a lot… yeah. Tim lost a lot of blood. He lost was stabbed in the organ that filters blood: meaning all your blood passes through your spleen. He was bleeding out, he should have died, he dragged himself and another person to a car, drove said car back to the city, and got them both up to the penthouse. Recovering from that would take a long time, he shouldn’t have survived at all. But he healed quickly and well, it isn’t an issue, it happened and it was over. I know we as a fandom like to have fun with Tim’s missing spleen and what that means but… canon didn’t and looking back I feel like there was a lot pointing at the pit being used in a much more insidious was, not just in the logistics of Tim’s recovery.

Ra’s was insanely trusting of Tim. Not just in his ability to do what he wanted but in his belief that Tim would ultimately come around to his way of thinking. Now, I can obviously see that Tim was in a very vulnerable position and if Bruce hadn’t actually been alive Ra’s could definitely have succeeded. But it feels like more than that, especially with Tim’s ensuing behavior. A lot of his time with the league is glossed over or seen from Tam’s perspective, but Tim was acting different. It’s easy to attribute this to the objectively terrible situation and the year he’s had, but his behavior isn’t the same as it was at the beginning of the run either. And the difference in behavior fades. As Red Robin Tim is more ruthless and pragmatic, mostly due to necessity. Even stealing from a museum and fighting for it makes him incredibly uncomfortable. He still did it. But he was still acting like Tim, making jokes and doing his best to diffuse the situation and keep everyone alive. After the surgery his focus gets even more single minded. He barely puts up a fight about leading the league. Of course partly for Tam, and he tried to keep killing to a minimum but cmon. He was leading the league of ASSASSINS. There were assassinations happening. People died when he blew all the league bases and he barely registered that beyond thinking that the council of spiders probably made it out, implying part of him knew death was a possibility and he didn’t care. But he didn’t think about the moral implications of that in a way that was very reminiscent of Jason’s selective morality. If he had stopped to think about it he wouldn’t have done it, but he was focused to much on beating Ra’s, on not compromising, that the complexity of the situation didn’t sink in. The obvious effects of his actions, the possible deaths and injuries of anyone inside a league stronghold wasn’t acknowledged while the underlying message sent to his opponent was the only thing he could think about. Just like when Jason attacked Tim at Titans Tower to send a message to Bruce despite his hardline stance against hurting kids.

So. The League did use the pit on Tim, just a little. Maybe two tablespoons in the wound to accelerate recovery and weaken his morals a bit. It would certainly make a lot of sense. And the writer did change when Tim came back to Gotham so it’s entirely possible that it was meant to be touched on later but was discarded.

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

Jason is terrified. Some kind of Lazarus Pit demon crawled out of one and its been messing with him ever since. It liked to watch him on patrol, its glowing eyes peering through the darkness. He didn't know why the others never seemed to see it despite it being right there.

He thought about asking Duke to patrol with him but seeing as he's a daytime hero theres no way he's going to agree without an explanation.

Quite frankly he doesn't have one.

He came back to his apartment to find another 'gift', this time is was a bouquet of white lilies, commonly used in funerals and associated with mourning and death. Theres no way this wasn't a threat. All the 'gifts' he had been receiving were like this. The worst part is that Jason had no idea how the Pit Demon knew which safe house he would be going to each night.

On the other side of the city Phantom was celebrating. The guy he's had a massive crush on since he first landed in this dimension had finally acknowledged him! He waved back at him and Phantom was ecstatic! Danny knew Red Hood was a halfa like him, but seemed to refuse to use his ghost half. Maybe he was just afraid of it?

Whatever the reason it was unhealthy.

Aka: Jason is terrified of Danny and thinks he's out to kill him. Danny is actually just swooning over Jason and all the gifts are death related because of puns

[kacievvbbbb]

The gag is Zoro and Shanks aren’t that different. Zoro is also completely reckless with his body less so now but I have no doubt that even now if he needed to cut off any part of his body to win, to save his crew he would do it without hesitation just like shanks.

And the thing is Mihawk would still fight him as long as Zoro can pick up a sword Mihawk would still fight him and relish in it.

Zoro loses an eye, Mihawk still trains him.

And Shanks…..Shanks loses his mind a little bit

[allthegothihopgirls]

i think it would have been funny if tim, after discovering his bisexuality and thinking that was the 'unique feature' he brought to his iteration of robin, mentioned this to the rest of batfam, only to find out they've all been some degree of queer this whole time.

[birddcandle]

pov your name is pathoslair

for @lunarcrown and @aquaquadrant ‘s Hels To Pay AU!!

[undercoverossifrage]

This started out as perspective practice but just evolved from there. I haven’t made too much fan art as of late but I turned on the Httyd audiobooks in a dull moment and David Tennant’s lovely accent has brought me back. Plus, you know, drawing my favorite outcasts is always so fun! Also, here’s a reoccurring question: What the heck does it mean when Windwalker is described as “Shaggy”? Is he furry? Is it just a general disheveled vibe? None of the actual book illustrations appear fuzzy, but it’s a common descriptor. Also, does he have tattered wings or feathered? An argument could be made for both I think.

[chysgoda]

Pro Tip

When wearing a boned support garment socks and shoes go on first

[liquidstar]

ok alien stage fans dont hate me for what im about to say im just throwing the IDEA out there okay. but just listen

you know how we have these two promo images of ivan and till?

("observation" and "decision" by vivinos)

paralleling their young selves and their current selves. young ivan sits with till and happily watches him sing, older ivan stares more seriously at till as they're about to enter the contest, having just made some sort of decision (we don't know what exactly that means yet. to lose? to not compete? to tie? to... win? given his convo with sua that might be the "nicer" option in his mind)

and now the promo art for round 6 dropped, "cure"

its OBVIOUSLY playing on paralleling these shots again. this time it seems to be after till got punished and is asleep or unconscious (or maybe he just has his eyes closed, but i dont think hes awake- he's not the type to be so chill about the face touching)

what if... its also meant to parallel a "future" shot? just like the previous two?

if till ends up dying this round (SAD!) we could end up seeing the second half of it. with ivan's hand on till's corpse. but this is pure conjecture, not super likely. im just saying is all.

[trashdragon4]

Having incredibly Jason Todd flavoured thoughts in regard to Toi Dericottes poem “Speculations About “I””

I read this poem in class the other day and immediately thought ab my boy Jay. So i finally sat down today and messily vomited the below words into a document, please enjoy.

Heres the poem link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/90292/speculations-about-i (in case u want to read it normally, as it is a banger of a poem)

Ok, so I feel like this is post death, early resurrection. This is Jason borderline catatonic, wandering the streets of Gotham having just dug himself from his grave, begging for the only safety he’s ever really known. This is Jason in the hospital, desperate for a comfort he’s unaware he ever had (Bruce, his dad, he's sorry, he's sorry, he's sorry).

This is post Lazurus pit, with the league, with Talia. Jason is hardly more conscious than before, but sometimes he feels things now, the adrenaline of a fight, the hot sharp pain of a blade, he’s something closer to alive. But he’s a mere observer in his own body, and he hardly ever observes (he doesn’t want to see the carnage).

He’s gaining control now, battling the Lazurus pit, gaining consciousness as well. He doesn’t know where he ends and it begins, and he’s not sure if cares, if he should care.

Who is he now? What does he remember? He clings to those fragments, however painful they are and are becoming, because they are all he has left of himself, of Bruce, of Robin. In a way they are still shaping him, they are the tools Talia wields to carve him into what she needs him to become.

The Lazurus pit, it stifles what remains of him, pushes it deep down, he lets it, helps it even. It’s easier this way. Now all he has is the anger, and the stories he’s been told, they fuel it.

A memory, his childhood, he found himself, in his first life, in the grime of crime alley. He grew up in the filth and abuse and neglect and he loved it despite it all because it was familiar, a comfort, he loves it still. He hides this piece of himself amongst the scattered fragments of his mind.

Sometimes he wonders if he should’ve stayed dead. He thinks that maybe it would be better if he hadn’t clawed his way up from the dirt, if he had crumpled up like so many others on Gotham’s streets, if Talia hadn’t found him. He’s here now though and through the poison he lets her feed him he plots. Memory and musings will do him no good, so he will let them fall away.

The prodigal son returns. Except not really, he’s back in the physical sense and he’s trying, trying so hard to do what no one else will. He will be the saviour to all those his Father couldn’t (wouldn’t) save. He’s building a new safer home from the ground up, brick by brick. He’s in control for the first time in years and then he’s standing on that rooftop facing Bruce His Dad Batman with a gun in his hand and a countdown on his wrist and he didn’t see the batarang coming but it slices through his throat and he can’t breathe.

He is not the Jason of his memories, not the little bird who thought Robin was magic. He is the cage that little birds get trapped in.

Internal conflict, the fragments of himself are locked in opposition, he does not know who to trust, what to do, how to move forward.

He has broken the one unbreakable rule he was raised with, over and over and over, and he will do it again. It wasn’t that he wanted to kill, he wanted someone to protect him. No one did. He will protect himself now, protect everyone that needs protection. And so he clips the little birds wings.

This is all he is, no matter the justification. His survival is not one to be celebrated, and as far as he’s aware it hasn’t been. He is life at the cost of life.

He has failed everyone he has ever cared for, broken every promise to them that he made. Bruce, His Mother (both of them), Alfred, Dick, Babs, everyone. He never cared enough to promise himself anything.

[pocketgalaxies]

C3E37: marisha + nonverbals

[loguetowns]

blood red.

cw. mentions of blood/wounds, swearing.

fangs bared and flaring tempers. animosity in every look, an intensity that bubbles from just being in the same room. hate burns red, but then again, so does love. after all, isn't hate still an emotion of passion?

king is annoyed. he's pissed off, irritated – maybe even angry.

he drums his fingers against the fabric of the armchair. there’s a rip in his shirt, his hair is a mess, and – worst of all – his helmet is broken. he pushes his hair out of his face, irked that he can’t tie it up.

the bane of his existence walks in with a first aid kit. he sighs, loudly and obnoxiously, and you glare at him as you sit down.

“don’t make this any more difficult than it has to be.”

“who’s the one that made it difficult in the first place?”

without missing a beat, you simply state, "that would be you."

you carry on, unwrapping bandages, as king merely gapes at you. ever since kaidou placed you under his supervision, you have been nothing but disrespectful, disobedient and disruptive to what should have been an otherwise simple job.

"i'm not the one who tried to climb out a 10-story window," he hisses. "i should've let you fall straight into those thorns."

"no one asked you to help," you reply coolly.

the absolute gall of you.

"believe me, i don't care if you die," he squirms in his seat, biting back the sting of his cuts. "but kaidou wants you alive."

"as if i care what kaidou wants," you mutter as you cut away at his shirt. when he pulls away, you hold down his arm. "stop moving."

the idea of some brat ordering him around makes his blood boil, and if it weren't for the fact that he'd likely start bleeding again, king would love nothing more than to put you in your place.

"i'm not the problem," you continue, ignoring his death glare. "you're the one that's been hissy this whole time. you must be nothing special if your only responsibility is babysitting."

at the attack on his pride, his last thread of patience snaps. "you annoying brat! can't you just fucking cooperate?"

"fuck you!" you finally crack, a fierce anger taking over. "you want people to cooperate then maybe don't lock them up!"

"i wouldn't have to lock you up if you weren't such a pain in the ass!"

"i wouldn't be a pain in the ass if you weren't being an ass to begin with!" you grab his arm. "now fucking hold still!"

you slap disinfectant on king's bloody gash, and he howls at the sting. "that hurts, dammit!"

he glowers at you, seething at the pain. you tell yourself that he deserves it, but – to your annoyance – you can't bring yourself to relish in his suffering. unfortunately, you're not nearly as heartless as king is.

there's a twinge of guilt as you take in his dirty clothes and blood-stained skin.

he wouldn't be in this mess if he didn't rush to catch you.

to king's surprise, you don't make any sort of retort or taunt at his outburst. instead, you press your lips into a thin line and start wrapping his cut in silence. you apply the bandage firmly, but gently, and it doesn't go unnoticed by king.

too angry and proud to say anything else, king merely looks away as you finish dressing his injuries.

"don't move," you deadpan when you're done. "raising your arms will only open the wound."

"fine," he grits. he shakes the hair out of his face, growling in irritation when it don't move the way he wants it to.

you watch as he sighs in resignation, and that stupid voice inside you tells you to do the right thing. you curse your guilty conscience.

"here, let me help."

you stand behind king, carefully gathering his loose curls together. the air is thick with awkwardness as your gentle hands betray the hostility that you're both used to. you start tying his ponytail and take a deep breath.

"thank you," you say in a voice barely above a whisper. "for saving me."

king stills, at a crossroads for how he wants to handle this. it takes this small admission of your gratitude to make him stop and realize the gravity of the situation.

he did help you.

king – one of the all-stars of the beast pirates, right-hand-man to kaidou – showed you mercy when he had no reason to.

and you – captive of the beast pirates, prisoner against your wishes – showed him a grace that he doesn't really deserve by tending to his injuries when you had no reason to.

still staring at the wall, he mutters,

"you're welcome."

like it or not, the two of you are stuck here together – and maybe with some time and a little bit of kindness, you could learn to like it.

part of my (ongoing) character + colour series!

[kacievvbbbb]

I know this isn’t a particularly common characterization of them (at least not what I’ve seen) but I personally think of the two;

Shanks rarely gets restless, he’s the one more content to just bask in a moment, it may not be in silence but he’s comfortable just doing nothing with his crew. As long as there’s alcohol, a hammock and the people he loves, Shanks is straight.

Contrary to that Mihawk is always itching to do something, entertain himself in some way. If he’s not dueling/training, he’s gardening if it’s not that then he’s cooking or he’s reading and if nothing else will do then he naps. but he’s always trying to occupy his time with something.

I think a lot of people don’t notice it because it’s not the jittery hyperactivity that people associate with it. But Mihawk is restless, endlessly so. He’s in a never ending fight with his boredom but it’s all internal.(except when he decides to make it someone else’s problem ala Don Krieg)

Mihawk’s the type of dude to implode instead of explode so it makes sense that things like restlessness don’t really show themselves in an outwardly physical way. Instead it’s more of an internal pressure and incessant need to stave off boredom. But because of his preference for being alone and the fact that the activities he chooses aren’t ones usually associated with restlessness. It goes unnoticed.

Except by Shanks who’s always going out of his way to make the life of a pretty little birdie a litte more interesting.