Bruce, for the record, is absolutely stoked when Jason brings Roy around.
Because this now means that he is a grandpa. He is so ready to be a grandpa. Let him be a grandpa. Please please please please-
(finally, he gets to just give things to someone. anything they want. (finally, he gets to give Jason so much money and things and Jason can't say no because they are for Lian too))
The thing is, now he is in a very deep and serious rivalry with Oliver, who will not be replaced as the number one grandpa. Absolutely not. So now they are waging war on each other for Lian's affections.
It's messy and it's bloody.
One day, during a JLA meeting, Green Arrow notices something peeking from underneath Batman's suit. It's colorful, so it stands starkly against the dark suit. It looks very familiar.
Green Arrow looks down on his hands. At the friendship bracelet Lian had made for him. He looks back up at Batman and the very familiar colorful thing he has on him.
"What is that?" He asks.
Batman turns to look at him. He follows Green Arrow's gaze, and looks at the colorful thing on him, and then at the bracelet on Green Arrow's wrist.
"What is that?" Batman asks, nodding at the bracelet.
"I asked you first."
"I asked you second."
Green Arrow glares at Batman.
"It's a friendship bracelet my granddaughter made for me", he says.
Batman glares at Green Arrow.
"And this is a friendship bracelet my granddaughter made for me", he says.
They glare at each other. The meeting room has become several degrees colder. No one dares to utter a word.
Then they both pull out their phones and make a call.
"Jason-"
"Roy-"
Jason and Roy, in their bed, both realising that their dad's are calling them at the same time: fuck whatever it is, we're going back to sleep
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So that last post by Alesis Newman, the one that was locked by "BetterTheNew", was dated January 3 2018. Eight months before her previous post.
The police files on Dr Samuel Webber were dated April 3 2009. Eight months before the date in his journal.
Dr Samuel Webber murdered his ex and then was turned into a tree. We don't know what happened to Alesis Newman's ex before she turned herself into some kind of coral creature, but she was taking bereavement leave at the end. Out of death, something is trying to be born. Or reborn...
...Oh yeah, and let's not even go near this other (lonely, eye-encrusted) rabbithole, let alone down it:
Norris read Dr. Webber's case, about a man who murdered his lover rather than lose her and then was trapped alone in a walled garden, in denial about what he had done and eternally haunted by her voice, with only a small piece of himself remaining aware and perpetually terrified but unable to voice its fear. Cool! Yeah. That's definitely... that's definitely not significant or deeply upsetting in any way.
But Chester... Chester read Alesis Newman's case, about a woman who intentionally destroyed herself in the wake of a lover whom she saw as trying to change her into the person he wanted her to be--and replaced herself with something new and inhuman. Something that has her eyes.
And by post 13, using her paralysis computer, Alesis is writing with her eyes. So is that actually her writing? If it's not, when in that sequence of posts did it stop being her? What does "no longer her" actually mean in this context? Certainly, she's becoming something that the Alesis of eight months earlier, the Alesis of the immediately-deleted fourteenth post, would no longer identify with--if some part of her still existed.
Cool. Yeah. That's definitely not significant... or deeply upsetting... in any way.
OK but I said let's not go down that rabbithole, so let's forget I just said any of that and go back to talking about the post dates, yeah?
Yeah.
So, sometimes some of these cases have some interesting correspondences with TMA statements, so there might be something there. Alesis started that thread, opening up to everyone about her journey to creating a better her, on June 20, 2018. I wonder if there were any TMA statements dated June of 2018?
Case #0181206 (June 12, 2018)
Statement of unknown bystander regarding an encounter with The Archivist.
...Oh.
Okay, well, that's... interesting, but not necessarily meaningful. Let's try this: the last date in her transformation/replacement, the last point where maybe there was still something left of the original "her," was September 3, 2018. Anything interesting happen in TMA in September of 2018?
Case #0182509-A (September 25, 2018)
Original recording of events leading to the disappearances of Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood, Alice Tonner and Peter Lukas.
...Ah. Ha. Um. Well, that could also be an interesting coincidence. What about that deleted 14th post that was somehow eight months earlier, back in January? The one with an Alesis who still tried to cry out against the thing she was becoming?
There's nothing in January, but... oh... right.
Case #0170908 (August 7, 2017 )
Statement of Elias Bouchard, regarding the dreams of Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, currently unresponsive.
...
Case #0181502 (February 15, 2018)
Statement of Oliver Banks, regarding his dreams and trying to run away. Statement given directly to Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, currently unresponsive.
...January of 2018, Jonathan Sims was in a coma. September of 2018, the Archivist received the final mark that would enable Jonah's ritual.
January through September of 2018 in the world of Protocol, something was trying to be born into a physical form, replacing Alesis Newman.
Cool, I say through gritted teeth. Yeah. That's definitely not significant, or deeply upsetting, in. any. way.
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Between sending out Spearmaster and Rivulet together and their return with Moon, Seven Red Suns takes to brooding. There's so much riding on the slim chance that she's even still alive--the chance that Pebbles could still be out there, for example, unconsumed by his rot--that it drives them spare thinking about it.
It's not a surprise, then, that No Significant Harassment sticks to them like a burr. Despite any annoyances, Sig's presence is...well, it's comforting.
They're both the same kind of worriers at heart, even if the nuances within flow along different currents.
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