#richard t bui

[friendly-neighbourhood-annoyance]

rip adam parrish you would’ve loved this

(bonus: campbell soup t shirts in the next aisle)

[somuch-4-stardust]

MY COPY HAHO VINYLS R HERE HAPPY HAPPY HAPPYHAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPYHAPPYHAPP!!!

[greylongg]

7 cool ways to style your Polo T-shirt

Put on a pair of well-fitting chinos or jeans and a polo t-shirt for men. A polo t-shirt offers adaptability and comfort whether you want to go for a casual or slightly dressier look. In this blog post, we'll look at seven hip and fashionable ways to dress down your polo t-shirt for various occasions and events. Let's start now!

1. Casual Chic:

Wear your polo t-shirt with a pair of well-fitting chinos or jeans. Complete the look with sneakers or loafers and accessorize with a watch or a bracelet.

2. Layered Sophistication:

For a more polished and layered ensemble, wear your polo t-shirt for men under a lightweight bomber jacket or a cardigan. This combination adds an extra oomph of style & sophistication to your outfit. Match it with tailored trousers or dark denim and finish with dress shoes or boots. 

3. Sporty Active Wear:

If you're aiming for an athletic and sporty look, team your Greylongg polo t-shirt online with athletic shorts or joggers. Opt for a moisture-wicking fabric for the polo t-shirt for added comfort during physical activities. Add athletic shoes and a hat to the look to finish it off as a dynamic and active look.

4. Preppy Elegance:

For a preppy and polished outfit, combine your polo t-shirt or tee shirts with tailored shorts or a pleated skirt. Tuck in the shirt and accessorize with a belt for a defined waistline. Choose boat shoes or loafers as footwear and add a straw hat or sunglasses to enhance the preppy charm.

5. Layered with a Blazer:

For a more formal or business-casual occasion, layer your polo t-shirt under a well-fitted blazer. Opt for a blazer in a complementary color or a classic navy or black. Pair it with trousers or chinos, and complete the look with leather dress shoes or brogues. This combination balances sophistication with a touch of relaxed elegance.

6. Statement Accessories:

Elevate your polo t-shirt outfit with statement accessories. Add a pop of color with a patterned scarf, a bold belt, or a stylish pocket square. Experiment with different textures and prints to make your outfit stand out and reflect your personal style.

7. Monochromatic Ensemble:

Create a sleek and modern look by opting for a monochromatic outfit. Choose a polo t-shirt in a single color and pair it with bottoms in a similar or complementing shade. This monochromatic approach creates a streamlined and put-together aesthetic. Complete the look with minimalist accessories and shoes in coordinating colors.

Conclusion:

Polo t-shirts are versatile wardrobe staples that can be styled in numerous ways to suit different occasions and personal preferences. From casual to sophisticated looks, these seven styling ideas offer inspiration for creating cool and stylish outfits with your polo t-shirts for mens. Experiment with these suggestions, mix and match, and embrace your own unique style with Richard Paadler t-shirts online at greylongg.com.

[steddiehyperfixation]

run away with me

@steddiebingo prompts: ocean + childhood friends (if like 16-19 counts as childhood, which i say it does !) | 2.6k words | T | mild cw for depression and alcohol as an unhealthy coping mechanism

Steve stares numbly out the office window, his view an ocean of concrete and the few sad, sparse trees that were planted in the median between this building’s parking lot and the neighboring one in a very weak attempt to give an illusion that anything natural or organic goes on here. As if there’s anything more than stiff, soulless buildings filled with stiff, soulless men in stiff, soulless suits who have dull conversations about money and more empathy for a credit card or an expensive car than for any human being. 

Every second is hours long, everything is so important and nothing matters at all, and everyone’s always in a rush but they never seem to go anywhere. It used to make his skin crawl, the slow monotony behind the urgent droning. He used to feel like he couldn’t breathe here, trapped at a desk and a computer, squirming under the constant presence of his boss and father, every eternal second oozing by and settling over him as if it had physical weight. He felt stuck and still, like a fly caught in amber, movements leaden and pointless as he sinks and suffocates slowly in a syrupy prison. But after a year of working here, Steve no longer cares. He’s sunk in deep enough that it’s all dulled out and he’s become just as detached and hollow as the rest of them. He tells himself it’s only temporary anyways.

The phone rings at his desk, dragging his attention away from the window and pulling him out of his stupor. 

“Richard Harrington’s office,” Steve answers mechanically. “This is his assistant, Steve. How may I help you?” 

It's a client, a long-time one who's been around for business meetings and dinners since he was a kid, and she coos over how mature and professional he sounds now. He gets that a lot, old clients and business partners of his dad’s calling or coming into the office and lavishing him with compliments on his role and responsibility. It’s funny; they never thought so highly of him before, but they sure do now. And despite it all, Steve can’t help but preen under the praise, feeling all grown up and just like a child. 

He lets this lady gush for a little while longer before he takes her message for Richard and hangs up the phone. That brief moment of emotion flickers out and the dullness returns. The day drags on. 

“Thank god it’s Friday, huh?” Tommy Hagan leans against the counter in the break room when Steve goes to get a coffee refill. “I had to file so many reports today, I’m about ready to kill myself.” 

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Steve mutters, punching the button to start the coffee machine.

“You’re still coming out with us tonight, right?” Tommy asks. “My cousin’s in town - you know, the one I told you about, the model. I think you two are really gonna get along.” He says it with this gross smirk, double meaning abundantly clear, and Steve rolls his eyes. 

“Dude, stop trying to pimp your cousin out to me, man. You talk her up so much I’m starting to think maybe you want her.”

“But you’ll be there, yeah?” 

“Yeah, I’ll be there,” Steve says. Of course he’ll be there. It’s routine. It’s all routine. They commiserate in the break room like a couple of wizened old world-weary businessmen on workdays and then party like teenagers on the weekend. Dulled out from the week, they buy back their missing emotion in the form of alcohol and drugs. A good buzz makes a decent substitute for a feeling, in a pinch. It’s just enough to survive on week after week. 

“Good.” Tommy grins, clapping Steve on the shoulder on his way out. 

Steve grabs his coffee and returns to his desk, to phone calls and faxes and data entry until the clock finally hits 5:00 and releases everyone into the illusion of freedom. He breathes an empty sigh of relief along with everyone else, shutting off the computer and shoving files back into folders, packing up to leave. “Tell your mother I’ll be working late tonight,” Richard tells him, and Steve nods. Nothing ever changes. 

It's quite a shock to the normal routine of things, then, when he pulls up to his driveway to find an extra car parked out front. Which wouldn't be unusual on its own - his mom sometimes has friends over on Fridays - except for the fact that this car is a total piece of shit, which rules out any friend of his parents, and there's a wild-haired man leaning against it. It's the sight of that old once familiar face that's so jarring to him, has him hitting the brakes too hard and parking jerkily.  

Steve gets out of his car and stares in disbelief. “Eddie Munson.” 

“So it's true.” Eddie looks him over, eyes carefully cataloguing Steve's stuffy business suit and tie. “You've gone corporate.” 

Steve swallows. His body seems to have forgotten how to breathe. “What the hell are you doing here?” 

“What the hell am I doing here? Man, what the hell are you doing here?” Eddie counters, pushing himself off the side of his car and walking closer, one arm swept out to gesture at everything around them: the big house, the rich neighborhood, the expensive car, Steve and the very town itself. “You were gonna get away from all this. You were gonna follow Robin to college and live by the ocean and teach middle school. Now I find out you’re back here living with your parents and working for your dad?” 

“Yeah, I tried- we tried,” Steve says, tensing at the judgement in Eddie’s tone. “We moved to the coast, made it work the best we could for a little while but it didn't last. Working minimum wage jobs just wasn't paying the rent and the money ran out and we both had to move back home. But this- this is just temporary.” 

“Temporary,” Eddie repeats, like he doesn’t believe him. “You’ve been here a year.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Robin says you guys hardly talk anymore.” 

Steve’s chest feels tight. “Yeah, um, we just sort of drifted apart.” He shrugs, doesn’t want to get into it. There’s not much more to say anyways - and that was the whole problem, really. Steve’s life had gotten so boring and mundane he didn’t have a whole lot to talk about anymore. His humor dried up, their conversations fell flat, and eventually Robin stopped reaching out. “It happens.” 

(You would know, he almost adds. After all, he and Eddie had drifted apart too, a lot longer ago.)

“Right…” Eddie frowns. Steve doesn’t like the way he’s looking at him, searching his face like he’s trying to see behind his eyes. He looks away. 

“Look, it’s nice to see you again, but I don’t have time to keep chatting right now. I have plans,” he says, short and dismissive. It’s a lie of course, or half of one; Steve has plenty of time before he’s supposed to meet up with Tommy, he just doesn’t want to stay in this conversation. “I’m grabbing a drink with a friend in a minute.” 

“‘A friend’,” Eddie continues to question him, either not taking the hint or blatantly ignoring it, “but not Robin?” 

Steve sighs. “A coworker,” he elaborates. “Tommy.” 

“Hagan?” Eddie scoffs, predictably incredulous and unsupportive. He shakes his head. “Jesus, man, what the fuck happened to you? This isn’t you, Steve, none of this is. I know you, and this is all wrong. You can’t seriously be happy like this.” 

“You don’t know me,” Steve snaps, defensive mostly because he knows Eddie’s right. 

Because Eddie does know him, better than just about anyone except maybe Robin. They were close once, years ago, the better part of their late teens filled with nights spent laying together on the roof of Eddie’s trailer under the stars, trading secrets in hushed voices, all their fears and hopes and dreams, sometimes passing a joint back and forth but other times high on nothing more than simply the other’s presence so close beside them, the brush of their hands and the press of their shoulders. It was a deep and intimate friendship, one that teetered on the edge of becoming something more but never got the chance to, because Eddie was the one who ran away first. By the time Steve made it to the ocean, Eddie had already crossed it and they fell out of touch.

So Eddie knows him, and he’s right, but he has no right to make such a claim after leaving Steve high and dry for years. He has no right to come all the way here just to shit on Steve’s life, no matter how correctly, after so long of not being a part of it.

“You knew me as a teenager,” Steve continues harshly, bitterly. “You knew me as a stupid, hopeful, naive kid. I’ve grown up since then, Eddie. That’s what the fuck happened to me. I grew up.” 

“No, you haven’t grown up,” Eddie sneers. “If anything, you’ve gone backwards. Look at you, it’s like you’re 16 all over again. All hail King Steve - popular pointless rich kid, partying with Tommy Hagan, desperate for approval from all the wrong people.” 

Steve clenches his jaw. “I think you should leave.” 

“It breaks my heart to see you like this, Stevie.” 

“Then don’t see me. Just go. Run away again, it’s what you’re best at.” 

Eddie doesn’t seem to have a comeback for that. He deflates, starts taking a few steps back. “Your Majesty,” he relents with a mocking bow that would’ve come across as derisive if he didn’t look so goddamn sad. He turns around and so does Steve, walking off in opposite directions. 

Steve feels almost dizzy, ill. There are too many emotions swirling beneath the numbness he’d gotten so used to, emotions so long forgotten he can no longer recognize them, can no longer remember how to feel them properly, and so they gather like nausea in his stomach instead. He can smell his mother’s cooking when he enters the house, but declines her offer to make him up a plate. His appetite is gone, and besides, skipping dinner just means he’ll get drunker faster later, which sounds like a pretty good deal to him. He can’t wait to drink away all thoughts of Eddie and their conversation. 

And that’s exactly what he does. He goes out and he gets drunk. Drunk enough to hook up with Tommy’s cousin; drunk enough to convince himself he’s not thinking of anybody else when he tangles his hands in her dark curly hair. 

It does give him a start the next morning though, when he wakes up to wild curls splayed out on the pillow beside him. He sits up with a jolt, his mind slow and hungover and his eyes still blurry with sleep and for a second he thinks-- But then he blinks, his eyes adjust, and that's clearly a woman in his bed. 

She stirs at his movement, lifting a hand to her forehead and groaning. Steve sympathizes. 

“Hell of a hangover, huh?” he says. 

“Yeah.” She glances over at him and smirks. “Totally worth it though,” she adds as she props herself up. “I had fun last night.” 

“Yeah, me too.” He can't remember her name. Tabitha or Tanya or something like that. 

“Well.” She stands, starts collecting her clothes off the floor and getting dressed. “I should get home.” She tosses her hair out of the jacket she's just shrugged on. “I’ll see you around, Steve.” 

“Yeah, see you around,” he echoes, watching her leave. 

Then she's gone, and Steve sags back against the headboard. His stomach is churning and not just from the hangover. Emotions again, ugly ones. He's just beginning to be able to recall what they are now. Guilt, shame. He should've remembered her name. He should've offered her a ride home. How long has it been since he's cared about these things? 

He closes his eyes, an attempt to disconnect for a second, but these feelings won't go away. So he sighs, drags himself out of bed, and tries to go about his day like normal, tries to ignore the fact that he can fucking feel again. 

He’s doing pretty well, same old routine, until night falls and the normalcy is broken by the sound of a rock bouncing off his bedroom window. Two more follow after he ignores the first one, so he grudgingly marches over and flings open his curtains to see what’s going on. He blinks at the sight before him, but his eyes aren’t playing tricks on him this time. Eddie Munson is outside throwing pebbles at his window. As if he hasn’t already done enough damage.

Steve huffs irritably, turning on his heel and storming downstairs to meet him. “Listen, if you’ve just come back to tell me more about how shit my life is, I don’t want to hear it-” 

“Run away with me,” Eddie says instead, and Steve stops short. 

“Are you crazy?” 

“Yeah.” Eddie grins, that wild grin of his that gave him the reputation of insane and reckless when they were younger, but the gleam in his eye falls short of manic. Nervous, excited, desperate, hopeful, maybe; but not crazy. He takes a step closer and speaks like he means it. “You were right, running away is what I’m best at. But I don’t want to run from you, not again, so come with me this time.” His hands reach out as if to touch him, but then change course, gesturing widely. “We can head towards the sea, or wherever you want. What do you say?” 

“I already tried that.” Steve shakes his head. “I told you, Robin and I already tried that and it didn’t work.” 

“So you’re just never gonna try again? Come on,” Eddie urges, “Robin can come too. Call her up, apologize for being a neglectful fucking friend, and let’s all get the hell out of here. Together.” 

“Together…” Steve repeats. The three of them, like it used to be. 

“Yeah.” Eddie’s smile is so full of confidence, full of hope. “I really think we can make it this time.” 

His brightness is contagious, seeping through the edges of Steve’s doubt. That, too, is like it used to be. A self-proclaimed cynic as a teenager, but Eddie had never once come across that way to Steve. To him, Eddie had only ever seemed an endless blaze of optimism. His hope was his defiance, his way of saying, This world sucks, but not to me; I refuse. Steve had forgotten just how inspiring that is.

He's divided now. Torn between Eddie's infectious energy, the hope and want that form an ache in his chest, and the part of his mind that's still clinging to its programming, the part that feels duty bound to remain responsible, practical. The good kid, the perfect worker, the devil on his shoulder masquerading as an angel. It has one more protest to make. “But I can’t just leave. My life is here, my job…” 

“This life is killing you. You know that as well as I do.” Eddie does touch him now, taking Steve’s face in both hands. “The light’s all gone from your pretty eyes. Please let me see if I can help you bring it back.” 

The warmth of Eddie’s hands on his face spreads through his entire body, and Steve’s choice is made. Maybe it’s crazy, maybe they’re just as doomed now as they were all those years ago, but Steve has been woken up from his numbness, made to remember emotion again, all the good and the bad, and he thinks maybe with Eddie he can start to relearn to feel a bit more of the good. “Okay,” he says finally. “I’ll pack a bag. I’ll call Robin.” 

Eddie grins brighter than ever then and kisses him, and Steve knows he’s made the right decision.

[knoxoverstreetluvr]

random head canons about the poets:

- - -

if you want more of these lmk :)

- - -

Neil Perry:

- Is blind and refuses to wear his glasses, unless he’s in Mr. Keating’s class.

- Enjoys cuddling with every poet. If you are a member of the Dead Poets Society, you are not safe from Neil.

- HAS to see Broadway performances each time they go into NYC.

- Ring wearer, even has one with a “T” on it.

- Coffee addict.

- He hates tying his shoes so Todd usually ends up tying them.

- Claims to want to buy a Tiger when he gets rich and famous.

Todd Anderson:

- Knits and bakes so there are sweet treats at meetings, and he also is the main contributor to Knox’s sweater collection.

- Collects wristwatches.

- Stargazes and knows all the constellations.

- Can’t swim, like at all.

- Picks the skin around his nails as a nervous habit.

- Very prone to getting sick, due to his weak immune system.

- Hozier’s number 1 fan.

Charlie Dalton:

- Sings Queen in the mirror whilst getting ready.

- Snores LOUD, but Knox is a heavy sleeper so it doesn’t matter.

- Plays soccer, and is Number 17.

- Marvel fein, his favorite superhero is Iron Man.

- Pranks people with Neil.

- Draws VERY well, and does portraits of the poets.

- BAND KID.

- Frequents detention.

Knox Overstreet:

- Can’t handle his alcohol and is a clingy drunk.

- Plays the guitar, which is another reason he bought Charlie one.

- HUGE music guy and collects vinyls, but he cannot sing for the life of him.

- Get antsy at night so he makes his rounds with sleeping in the other boy’s dorms/rooms, but can usually be found in Charlie’s.

- Has an inhaler.

- Number one Anderperry shipper.

- Not the best poet.

- RED CASHMERE SWEATER. (idk why but i’ve read so many fics that headcanon him having a very fancy red sweater that Charlie steals so yes.)

Steven Meeks:

- Makes a mean Shirley Temple.

- Still sleeps with a stuffed animal, it’s a giraffe named Gordie.

- Star Wars fan.

- Knows a bunch of languages and switches to one of them when he gets overcome with emotions.

- Can read people almost creepily well.

- Has a collection of buttons in a huge binder.

- Has horrible handwriting.

- Breaks his glasses at least once every 6 months.

Gerard Pitts:

- Had a pet turtle named Leo.

- Met Meeks at some sort of child math camp.

- Loves teenage mutant ninja turtles

- Carries a glasses wipe in his jacket pocket for Meeks and occasionally Neil.

- Neatest handwriting of the entire bunch so he’s the scribe.

- Star Trek fan.

- He’s actually very serious despite the rep he gets for being a silly guy.

Richard Cameron:

- Cannot actually write any poetry.

- Secretly reads romance novels.

- Has a green thumb.

- Surprisingly good at gaming.

- His mother made him take dance lessons as a child.

- Goes to sleep very early

- Harry Potter fan.

- SEVERE Mama’s boy.

[taytrashmouth]

Hey my pookie!! Please do prompt 19 with Chandler Bing.. Dankie 😁🫶

19. Person B is insecure about their scars, person A makes them feel better about this.

Of course, random stranger- 👀

I’m not great at the advice…

You had been friends with Monica and Phoebe for ages. And by extension Rachel, Ross, Joey and Chandler.

It had been pouring with rain in New York and Chandler and I were soaked through. We ran into his apartment.

I saw chandlers gaze rather fixated on my chest, I glanced down at my white button up work shirt it was clung to my bare skin and rather see-through.

I flushed red and glanced around grabbed his blazer from the counter and put it on.

“Sorry-“ he said looking around. I shook my head with a small smile, brushing it off.

I looked out the window. “You mind if I camp out the storm?” I asked

“Yeah- yeah of course.” He nodded. He looked me up and down. He smiled a little

“What?” I asked.

He shook his head. And I couldn’t help but smile. “It looks better on you.” He smiled nodding his head to the blazer. I blushed.

We talked a couple times but we were never as close as the other members in the group.

I was shivering from the wet clothes. “Do you wanna borrow something?” He asked tripping over his words a few times.

“I can just go get something of Monica’s-“ I say and he brushed it off. “She’s with Richard,” he said.

“I could-“ I started but he interrupted me. “It’s fine y/n really.” He said.

I smiled at him. “That would be nice.” I said and he went into his room closed the door and when he came back he had changed into pjs and handed me an old t-shirt and some blue plaid pajama pants.

“Thank you. Now I have my Halloween costume too.” I smirked, going into his room to change.

“Are you sure? I think there’s gonna be too many kids dressed up as awkward loser this year-“ he stopped his ramble when I walked out in his clothes. All a little big.

He stared “wow.” He let out.

“Not such a bad costume now is it?” I smirked.

“I should stop buying clothes, now that I’ve seen this they’ll look terrible on me forever.” He said.

My cheeks tinted pink. We were friends. He flirted with Monica and Rachel and phoebe too right?

“So what do you wanna do?” I asked

“We could-“ his eyes darted around the room.

Soon enough we were on the recliners facing each other. A little table in the middle. Trying to throw coins into the cup.

“Is this what you and Joey do all day?” I asked.

“Well n-“ he paused. “Yeah,”

I chuckled. I threw the last one in. I put my arms up and smiled. “I win!”

Chandler smiled at me. I sat back down. His face softened, and then turned into a frown.

I glanced around “what?”

He leaned forward and took my arm and pulled it towards himself. My face fell when I realised he was looking at my scars.

I pulled my arm away. I never wore t-shirts for this reason. With the rain and everything I just forgot. I wrapped my arms around my legs and looked away.

He was quiet for a long time. I sat there tears in my eyes.

“Hey-it’s okay.” He said softly.

“It’s not, it was a long time ago and I regret it. And god you were the last person I needed seeing this.” I wipe my face.

“What- what does that mean? I’m not gonna make some stupid joke about it-“ he said kneeling on the floor in front of me and turning my chin to look at him.

“That’s not it.” I said.

“Look y/n I know we’re not best buddies but I care about you and you can talk to me.” He put a hand on my cheek. “Why am I the last person-“

“Because I was stupid and thought you might actually like me- and now I’ve ruined it-“ I couldn’t help a tear rolling down my cheek.

Chandler froze. He used his thumb and wiped my cheek.

“I’m gonna go call a cab.” I say standing up and he scrambled to his feet.

“No y/n please don’t go! I’m sorry it’s just- you like me?” He asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?” I asked feeling insecure and pathetic.

“No no I don’t think you heard me you like me…” he smiled, poking at my sides. “You hear that I like you it’s no big deal but you, liking me.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “There it is!” He exclaimed. I rolled my eyes and it faded again.

I kept holding my arms trying to cover up now.

“You can talk to me about it when you’re ready, but just so you know…scars and everything you’re still like wayyy out of my league.” He exaggerated and I smiled.

“You really like me?” I asked softly.

“Really, really.” He squeezed his eyes shut. I smiled.

“Now can I kiss you? Because this whole soap opera, you in my clothes, and confessing your love, it has me a little antsy.” He spoke.

I nodded biting my bottom lip slightly. He leaned in and I pulled him the rest of the way by his shirt collar. Having to go on my toes. We kissed his hands in my hair and the small of my back.

We broke apart when the door opened and Joey stood there wide eyed. I flushed red. And he pointed at us.

“Joe! It’s Joey!” Chandler exclaimed

I stood frozen. Almost wanting to laugh. “Dude!” He exclaimed

I glanced at Chandler.

“It finally happened I’m so proud of you man!” Joey gave Chandler a hug.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “You told him you liked me?” I asked.

“Oh you have no idea, I mean you’re nice, but the talking blah blah blah!” Joey exclaimed wide eyed.

I laughed. Chandler was now blushing.

He nudged Joey “right sorry.” He cleared his throat and went into his room giggling.

I leaned my head on chandler’s chest laughing. “You’ve got a crush.” I teased lightly.

“Oh shut up,” he put a finger on my lips. I smiled.

“Make me.” I smirked and quickly his lips were on mine and I laughed as he kissed me passionately.

[vigilantesyth]

Think about if talia decided since Bruce adopted children they were her children now too. Ra loans everytime he has to update the family registry from Bruce's side.

So talia and dick hate each other. But when dick was in school and got sick, Bruce couldn't come, and alfred couldn't come at this point. talia was pregnant, like 6 months in ans in America, for some random craving. Dick had them call her. He wasn't sure the number he had for her was still working but it was.

Nurses:good after noon is this Richard Grayson Wayne's mother

Talia: ...yes...

Nurse: he is sick,we are asking you to pick him up since there are no other person available.

Talia: okay...

Talia shows up in her car and shocks Dick with her very pregnant belly and the two go to the hospital and them back to the manor were she took care of him until alfred came. Who convinced her to stay, until Bruce came and found out she was pregnant and tried to hide it from him. Before they started yelling at each other. Talia heard a cry and ran up to thr boys room and Dick looked he'd in the eyes and started sobbing. Bruce followed and the two cared for dick for a week.

.

With Barbara, talia used to spar alot, so when she lost her ability to use her legs talia, almost killed joker. She would have too but decided against it upon the girls wishes.

It was hard at first with she not wanting to do anything for days or not eating or sleeping. Burce didn't know what to do, the commissioner was in the same ball part. All they could do was support her and try to get her to do basic things. Even when she screamed at them for her having to use a wheel chair.

Talia came and sat down with her in a room and nobody knows what happened. They just know Barbara was crying in her arms when they went back in clinging to her clothes. Sometimes talia would walk with her and they didn't stop sparing no. After Barbara discovered she liked computers, they had spars by hacking each other nobody was going to give in even now thier are codes and viruses they are trying to de code every time they do they put a mark on a score board. Rules are

1. Not alowed to ask for outside help.

2. You must do the work with your own hands

3. Talk when it's too hard

4. Think about what would joker not do.

5.have fun.

.

Jason had always known he had Bruce and a mother he also knows his elder brother hates thier mother, loves her aswell but hates her. He knows he has another sibling because he's seen the baby that gets dropped off with gifts.

One day when alone at home with the baby, talia comes buy and sees him in the kitchen trying to make something to eat and fail.

Talia teaches him how to cook something simple and now the make meals together when ever she visits. Making dick come by more. One day he asked her

J:mom.

T:yes

J:dad and dick are fighting and I think it's because of me

T: ....why would you think that

J: I think it's because I'm robin

T:no dear, your dad is just bad at talking to people and your brother got it from him, he just hides it by being happy most of the time. When I first met him he was an angry boy and he still is.

Talia made and stayed for dinner forcing much to Alfred's joy Bruce and Dick to talk or so help her she would have them sleep in the dog house. While Bruce tried to argue she can't do that in his house. Dick knew better than to fight her because well she wad his mother. Talia slept in Bruce's room and he slept in a guest room and in the morning he got burnt food dick and Jason and alfred found this to be peak entertainment and if baby dami laughed nobody was upset this continues for 2 months then Bruce apologised. Bruce learned his wife could be more stubborn than him.

.

Cas shows up one day? Yea but talia immediately noticed when she walked in that there was a girl in the house. She went into the kitchen and looked at the ceiling.

T:girl get down and greet your little brother then call down the rest of who is here

Cass is shocked and did as told the boys rushed down the stairs when talia makes a mark on the black board to day she un did 4 viruses. Dick picked up baby damian and cas just watched like a cat how the daughter of ra blended so well within the world of the Wayne's. But didn't even try to go into the bat

When she and cass really bonded was when she had a nightmare, of her dad. She loves her dad. She understood why he did what he did but he also hurt her by doing it. She understood he loves her but it hurt so much in the end. She found herself sitting beside talia as she fed Damain.

T: I understand

C:[you wrong] she was still learning to sign

T:I do , my father isn't just like yours but they are similar.

C: [how?]

T:he does things that hurt me and damian I leave when it hurts my baby. He knows I leave because it will hurt my baby. I understand why he feels like he needs to do this, for the most part but it still hurts me. But it's hard to hate him when I love him too.

C:[...]

In the end Cassandra cried in talias side and talia ran her hand through her hair. Now w

Cassandra has a baba[Bruce] , a daddy, and a mama.

.

Tim was a surprise... talia had taken Damain into hiding in the aftermath of jasons death.not being able to let her son go she takes his body with an angry split with Bruce. It takes a few years until she came back there was a spoiler and a Robin.

Tim was injured at titans tower by Jason when talia showed up with a spoon in her hand and smcked the taller boy in the back of his head before scolding him in Arab for hurting his little brother.

She turned to Tim and sighed. "I'll see you at dinner. You will be at dinner."

She left no room for argument and Jason was pouting. Dick ws in the plane because she picked him up to watch his tolder brother while she wrongled her zombie son from hurting her Sleep deprived son.

T:"y-"

Talia :"I'm not asking I'm telling get your stuff and get in the plan before I hit you next"

Tim had never moved faster. He went into the plane and saw a baby in dicks lap and he looked at Tim and laughed

D:dami that's your older brother Tim say hi tim

Dami: hi Tim.

D:*squeals*

Tim flabbergasted sits down, Jason gets red in by his hair and the plan takes off. To Gotham.

D:"mom~¡!~¡! JASON HIT TIM AGAIN"

J:" you rat! Mom he's lying!!!!!!@!"

Tim:*confused boy blinking* "he...hit me"

J:"they are!!! Lying"

Talia:"If I hear anyone hitting anyone so help me god I'll turn this whole plane around!"

J:leans over to time with a glare and whispers "snitches get stitches"

Tim: I understand it now. "MAMA!"

Jason is yelled at for thr rest of the ride much to Tim's pleasure he grinned. Dick looked proud.

.

Her bonding with steph happened naturally, it didn't have an event it kinda just happened. They liked to watch t.v together and talia likes waffles surprising and steph didn't mind sharing.but now they have waffle day when ever talia gets to visit. (I'm lazy I've been wring this for 2 days I think I relapsing on bad eating habits)

.

Duke just needed a mom when he needed a mom. Someone to cry and talk to someone to hug him and tell him he's enough after all these years talia got pretty good at it too.

[runawaymun]

@mielwriting

re this post bc it's too long for me to fit in a normal tumblr reply:

I'd love to! (Most, but not all) western depictions of dragons envision them as monsters -- either good or evil. Many legends paint them as greedy and jealous. They live underneath mountains and hoard gold. They take princesses and lock them in a tower. A hero eventually comes to slay the beast. This is, of course, an overgeneralization because there are also a few tales in which they are wise and lend advice, and there are a few rare exceptions in modern tales where dragons are as intelligent as humans - or more intelligent than humans, but they are also just as often depicted as like...basically a really intelligent animal. They're a type of monster. Chiefly: they're aggressive, jealous, and possessive.

The western mind views lions as symbols of power and strength - "the king of beasts". We actually can see the direct dichotomy in the western mind between dragons and lions in Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, where the hero rescues a lion from a great serpent. The lion becomes his loyal companion, and is associated with knightly virtue. They're associated with kings and royalty (Richard the Lionheart, Robert III - the Lion of Saxony), and the word "lionize" means to give someone approval and treat them with great importance. In The Twelve Huntsmen, a lion appears as advisor to the king. In Aarne-Thompson-Uther's index, we see over and over again lions as a hero's helper or a protagonist in its own right.

So, by contrast, the Chinese dragon is one of the auspicious beasts. Historically, they were a symbol of the emperor. They represent prosperity, wisdom, and power, associated with rivers, the sky, and rain, and are benevolent, kind beasts who foster harmony. In fact, the disparity is so immense that in 2008, the Chinese government decided against using a dragon as the Olympic team's mascot because of how dragons are viewed in the west and opted for a more 'friendly' symbol instead.

This is why so many fanon depictions of Zhongli drive me crazy. He gets slapped with so many western dragon traits (jealous, possessive of his partner because oh that's just how dragons are, a general lack of emotional intelligence -- and the idea that he was a bloodthirsty maniac during the archon war before Guizhong 'tamed' him, loves to live beneath a mountain or deep underground). Granted, not all fics are like this, but most fics use at least one of these ideas even though they're in direct conflict with what the game presents to us. Rex Lapis, during and before the archon war, was a kind and benevolent ruler who -- when his people had no houses -- crafted houses for them out of pure gold. He "wished not for dominion", but couldn't stand by and watch people suffer. He doesn't like to fight, but he's good at it and he's strong, so he feels an inherent sense of duty to protect his people.

His character stories are quite clear that though he has never been poor himself, he understands what it means to be poor. He's empathetic, thoughtful, and generous to a fault. That's in his character short where, after hearing that the item was a family heirloom pawned out of necessity, he buys back that jewelry from the pawn shop vendor and quietly returns it to its owner with some living expenses on the side. Prior to faking his death, he personally ran Liyue alongside the Qixing, to the point that both Keqing and Ganyu have expressed how much more intense their workload has become now that he's not doing everything. He's warm, wise, kind, and treats his friends with great respect. So yeah it came as a shock to me and still really bothers me how poorly he is portrayed in a lot of fics -- as this emotionally unintelligent, oblivious, bad-at-feelings hunk. Especially when he's not even actually a dragon. He just chose to look part dragon, part qilin, in an effort to communicate his nature to his people with symbols they would understand.

Anyway I could talk about him for way too long, thank you for coming to my tedtalk. I just think that if English-speaking writers took a second to consider their own bias and look up some information about Chinese dragons, they'd write him very differently.

[open-sketchbook]

my girlfriend is asking for where she can find your written works, she really likes the one post you made about your mindstate wandering w/r/t making porn stories and she'd love to support you & read your stories

Sure!

I write my (public) fiction on the website Sufficient Velocity, a sci-fi forum. Most of them are in the form of 'quests', interactive stories; my day job is an independent tabletop roleplaying game designer, so the two things go hand in hand.

I unfortunately am both very busy and kind of a mess mentally, so fiction gets picked up and dropped a lot, and I write less than ever these days due to the shambles that my life has become.

For my quests, the stuff I'm proudest of is...

Castles of Steel, a longrunning (though currently on hiatus) story set in an alternate world much like our own, but with radically different gender politics. It's about the first woman in the navy of a country a lot like 1910s Imperial Japan, and more generally about how state power and imperialism entangles itself with and recoups social progress.

A Splinter in your Mind, a retelling of the Matrix with new characters and reimagined twists and worldbuilding. It makes the trans subtext into trans dommetext, and I feel its some of my cleverest writing.

Suffer Not, and especially its sequel The Witch Lives. Suffer Not is a Warhammer 40,000 fic about an Inquisitor who abuses her powers to actually make people's lives better, and is the story of her slowly realizing it is not enough. The Witch Lives takes place ten years later, following the grown up psyker the Inquisitor adopted, and focuses much more on faith, history, and the little people.

The Spider-Liv Trilogy started as a silly and honestly kind of bad extreme-divergence spiderman AU, but its sequel The Amazing Arachne is, I think, genuinely really good, because it's about what happens when a superhero gets hurt and then doesn't get better.

I've managed to properly publish two pieces of writing, as in you can get them in book form, and I'm still really proud of both.

Whispers from the Deep is an adaptation of the quest that defined the setting of my roleplaying game Flying Circus. It's about a young woman who steals a plane and runs away from her abuser with her boyfriend, and then has to take up life as an aerial mercenary in a 1920s-themed post-apocalyptic fantasy world. Also, she's a fish person and her village is a Cthulhu cult!

Lieutenant Fusilier in the Farthest Reaches is a pastiche of the Richard Sharpe books by Bernard Cornwell, moving the setting from the Napoleonic Wars to a bizarre future world where sentient, cheerfully productive robots were invented in the early 19th century and promptly took all the jobs, elevating all of humanity to the gentry and then to the stars. It's about a redcoated robot soldier who uses her immortality to save up and buy a commission in the Army of Great Britain and Beyond, a position normally occupied exclusively by humans, and then facing the fallout of her decision and the life choices leading to it as her first deployment spirals out of control. It's also, sorta, a parody of Star Trek; the Galactic Concert is a mechanized, Regency-themed Federation, and the back half of the book is basically about how the problems of a world cannot be solved by an away team of well-meaning people with stun pistols.

[formosusiniquis]

something green

inspired by @stevieweek day 2 prompt: cryptid | hospital, but this might not be enough stevie to qualify wc: 1.4k | T | cw: minor character death | tags: stobin hivemind

Their Robin part answers the phone when it rings.

They’re home, have been all week scouring the classifieds for a job that they think won’t be completely miserable. It’s been boring, but boring is a lot better than monsters and as the late-July humidity persists outside it’s at least a little bit better than anything else too.

“This is a call for Steve Harrington.”

They’ve not been that for a while.

“Speaking,” their Robin answers.

The voice on the other end of the line pauses, like it’s not sure it believes their Robin, but continues, “Your mother has asked we inform you that she’s currently receiving care at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Indianapolis. She’s been in an accident, I’m sorry to say I’m not sure how much time she has left.”

“Is my father there?”

“He has been informed.”

“But he wasn’t with my mother,” their Robin finishes.

“I have a note that says he told the staff member who called, ‘he would be down from Chicago when he was finished with work.’”

“Thank you,” they say, and their Stevie means it. “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

If the employee on the phone finds that strange they don’t have time to say it. Their Robin hangs up the phone with a finality that smacks of disagreement.

“Do we really need to go up to see Mother? Mom is making lasagna tonight and she never got drunk and told us that she thought about going to a special doctor when she learned she was pregnant with Richard’s baby.”

Mom’s lasagna is their favorite, but they’re more prone to regret now. “Call her and tell her we’ll be late. I’m sure she’ll save it for us.”

Mom always said that special occasions meant a dress, father said you don’t go to a business deal unless you’ve shined your shoes.

A hospital visit to see their dying mother, it’s hard to decide if any of those rules apply. But both parts of them are still in the boxers and the white undershirts they’d gone to bed in, so they make due with what they know and the pieces they’ve scrounged from the thrift store since the government check cleared.

They’re used to getting dirty looks when they go places. The perk of their Stevie part still looking beaten half-to-death is most people don’t bother with trying to finish the job. Their Robin finds a nurse who points to the private room Mother is being kept in.

It would be funny that even when she’s dying, Mother still demanded luxury, but then they’d have to admit their sense of humor has gotten a little fucked.

Their Stevie enters the room first, goes to the bed while their Robin stays closer to the door. They don’t need privacy from each other, but they know to others they’re something strange and off putting.

The hospital is one of the worst places they can imagine spending their final moments. The smell of antiseptic and bleach unable to bury the scent of death and bile, even in this room that only privilege can buy. Mother looks smaller than they can ever remember seeing her. Her face and chest a mottle of bruising, a strip of her blonde hair shaved away to make way for a wound the doctors have bandaged. Blood and something tinged yellow are already seeping through it. The machine beside her bed beeps, each one weaker than the last like even it is giving up.

One of their Steve hands brushes hers, gentle. Mindful of the IV going into the back of it. One of her french tips is missing, another broken in a jagged line. The hand reaching for hers is missing a nail too. She’d hate that.

“Mother,” they start. Her eyes are shut, not swollen shut like one of theirs, just closed. The spiderweb of veins is visible through the thin skin, and that’s worse. “Mother, I-”

Mother not Mom or Ma or Momma or Mommy.

It’s always been Mother for as long as they can remember. Mother and Father. It’s hard for them to wrap their mouth around now that they’ve got Mom at home with her lasagna. They’re crying, just a little. The salty sting of tears prick at their Robin eyes.

She’s not going to get better and she’s always going to be Mother. She won’t get to become something different to them, like them.

“Mother,” they try again. Maybe this time the right words will come out. In English or one of the others.

Her spiderweb eyes flutter. They open just a crack. Bloodshot and hazy. “Is that my baby?” Her words are slowed, slurred together.

“Mo-”

Even open all the way her eyes are glassy and unfocused. Her hand tilts up to catch theirs. “My baby.” 

“Morphine,” they remind themself from the other side of the room.

Mother’s eyes track to where the sound came from, and back to the part of them that’s holding her hand. “I always thought there would be two of you,” she says. “The way you’d kick.”

The machine beeps tick higher. Intracranial bleeding, traumatic internal injuries, thrown from the car, intoxicated. Those were the things the nurse had told one half while the other was headed into the room.

She probably isn’t even lucid.

“When they said it was just one, I was sure you’d be a girl.”

“I’m sorry,” they say. They look over at their other half, not for answers but for the comforting reminder that they’re there.

Mother’s hand shakes as she lifts it off the bed, even with theirs beneath it, supporting the weight. The beeps get faster, louder, crying at the effort she’s putting forward. Her fingers are even colder than normal as they brush their face.

“Don’t be sorry, both of you, just as beautiful as I knew you’d be. My twins, my babies.” Her breathing is too fast, too shallow, too much of everything.

But the smile on her face is peaceful.

“I wish I’d been more for you,” she says.

“No,” they choke out from beside the door, tears running faster.

“I couldn’t see it at first, you looked so much like your father; and I missed it. I missed it.” Each word sounds more like an exhale. Each one is harder to hear.

They surround her now, a half on either side of the bed. Their mother is dying.

“Green was always my favorite, you look so nice in it.” Green dress, green button down, emerald and forest.

“I love you.” They manage to say it, gasp it out through the hurt lodged in their throat. She needs to hear it.

The beeps are fast, then slow, she says. “Love you two.”

The beeps stop, the machine whines. A long, loud sound that demands all of the attention in the room. The commotion starts, nurses and doctors flooding in.

But they know death by this point. They slip from the room, walking until there’s a seating area just to the side of a desk of busy nurses. They sit side by side, trying to find the state of whole they only ever feel when sleeping. Thigh to thigh, hand in hand, it’s close enough.

Their mother is dead.

They sit. Mom is at home, lasagna in the warmer; but Mother is cooling on a bed down the hall.

An elevator chimes, a clipped conversation at the nurses stand too quiet to hear, then. “Steven, what in god’s name are you wearing?”

Their shoes are shined, they twitch left and then right on their Robin feet. The white Chuck Taylors had looked better with the dress, they had decided while getting ready.

“What are you hoping to accomplish,” Father continues, his question after all had never really been a question. Much like this one.

“You were too late, I’m sorry,” they say, hoping they manage to sound consoling.

“The only thing to be sorry about is that whoever hit you didn’t do as well as the fucking car did. Christ, I just hope no one important has seen you looking like this.”

Dad said their attempts at makeup were avant garde.

Two separate instincts war within them. The one that’s snarky and snappish and fights demodogs and soldiers versus the one that knows the danger of the wrong idea being shared by the wrong person.

Love you two. Her last words.

They stand, hand in hand, united physically as they are in every other way. They walk past him, sputtering and spitting with a rage no father should have for their child. It will take all four of their hands but they can move their things out of their room to the other in the house where Mom and Dad love everything they have become.

And they���ll grab something green from Mother.

[maisnamedmoon]

The Birds Of Gotham #1

This is part one of, well maybe a series, i dont know yet, i guess it depends on if people like it. So leave a comment if you want more parts!

POV: Me acting this whole thing out infront of my mirror and my cat watching me like, "What is wrong with her?".

Here is my AO3 again, all my fics will be postet there a few days before they are posted here.

"Never Been Bats, have we?"

“How dare you call me?” Nightwing spat out before he even fully materialized in the Zeta Tube.

“Nightwing, what are you talking about?” Superman, ever the boyscout, tried to diffuse the situation. His efforts were ignored, instead Nightwing, who was in sweatpants and a T-Shirt with leggings and a long-sleeved shirt underneath, instead of his suit, domino mask peeling off slightly at the edges, singled in on Batman.

“How dare you call me up here, when I was the one sitting on Steph’s bedside, rubbing her back, when she was coughing up blood the whole night?” The vigilante seemed close to ripping the bat’s head off, weren’t he in the middle of the Watchtower, surrounded by heroes.

“Everyone gets hurt on patrol at some point, get yourself together.” Batman finally turned from the computer to his former protege.

“Oh! That’s what you think I’m mad about? I know that everyone gets hurt at one point or another, that basically comes with the job! What I’m mad about is the fact that I shouldn’t be the one sitting next to your children the whole night, making sure they keep breathing! I should not be the one making sure my siblings don’t die, while you are up here or down in the cave, looking over case files!” Shocked gasps ran through the rows of heroes, partially because they didn't know Batman had other children and partially because, how could he?

“It should not be me who they call for help, when they are injured or sick in the middle of the night, simply because they know I will come and care for them, instead of telling them that they have to work in every situation and that it’s good training! They are children for fucks sake! They aren’t machines, that can be repaired when they are broken! That’s not how bodies work, not how human minds work, once they are broken, they will never be whole again! Just look at Jason, but when have you ever done that? When have you ever seen us as the fragile children we were, we are?”

“Nightw-”

“No! I should not be the one who reminds Tim to take his antibiotics! I should not be the one to always carry emergency Epipens with me, simply because you don’t even know that Duke is allergic to Peanuts! I bet you didn’t even notice that they changed their emergency contact in their files months ago!” Batman seemed to crumble with every word Nightwing said.

“Now if you’d excuse me, I have to go buy snacks for family game night” That seemed to be it, the big scary bat, in his black kevlar suit fell forward on his knees, not so big and scary any more.

“Yes! Game Night!” The young speedster sprinted forward towards Nightwing, “Can we get M&M’s?”

“Of course”, Nightwing looked down at Bart, his demeanour completely changed, lips curled in a smile, “You coming?”, he looked up at the Young Justice team hovering in the corner, knowing better than to stand in the way, when their leader starts yelling his disappointment at someone.

“As long as we don’t play Monopoly again” Superboy stepped up next to the duo, shoving Bart towards the Zeta Tube.

“Don’t worry, Monopoly has a lifetime ban, so does DKT. I actually don’t plan on anyone getting stabbed or shot tonight.” Bart opened his mouth to retort something, but Batman, who seemed to be in the condition to talk again, was faster.

“Richard” He whispered, looking pleadingly at his son, who’s smile dropped in an instant, expression turning so icy that Connor and Bart took a step back.

“Don’t you ‘Richard’ me.” Nightwing – Richard – walks until he stands in front of his father, coking his head like he was thinking about something, he crouches down so that he was face to face with a man that would probably even find a way to give blowjobs standing, just so he didn’t have to bow to anyone.

“You know, the others had a bet; What will happen first, me snapping or you ‘The Worlds Greatest Detective’ figuring out that slowly but surely, you have grown to be the only Bat Gotham has. But then again, we have never been Bats, have we? We have always been the Robins, tiny little, cute Robins. That’s the way you raised us, like birds, being shoved out the secure nest – fly or die. But we flew, we flew and we grew, out of the cute, little Robin persona, into something bigger, something more lethal, that you simply can’t control any more. Your cute little Robins grew into birds of prey, while you, the lonely little bat, grow old and weak in your cave. Do you know what happens when bats grow old, weak and lonely, their only friend justice and their moral code? They simply can’t hold themselves at the top any more and then they fall and shatter on the cave floor. With no one looking for them, because bats grow up in the safety of their cave, having everything served to them on a silver platter, while birds learn to either fly or die.”

Nighwing kept his voice cool and hard through his whole speech, not moving from his spot in front of Batman, the man in question looking close to tears by the end of it. Even the heroes of earth, it’s first line of defence, looked shocked, not sure if they should help Batman, make sure that Nightwing hasn’t turned evil or agree with what the young man said. So most of them are just standing there, looking confused and slightly shell shocked at the revelations.

Richard just stood back up and turned to his father once again, “Maybe bats shouldn’t be raising birds in a bird way, expecting them to turn out as bats.”, Nightwing turned back towards the Zeta Tube, ignoring the man kneeling on the floor in the middle of the Watchtower, just to stop next to Bart and Connor “Good talk, Bruce”.

With that he ruffles Bart’s hair, “Lets go get your M&M’s”, and the trio dematerializes back to earth.

[misskattylashes]

Just ruminating after @thelastshadowpuppies post about Alex’s t shirt and how Miles and Alex really are opposites....

Alex – wears clothes until they fall apart, seems to have things in his wardrobe that date back to 2009!

Miles – Mr Fast Fashion (I don’t mean in the Primark sense) always changing his style and buying countless new and vintage clothes.

Alex – has pretty much worked with the same group of people his entire career, not just the other Monkeys but people like Zackery Michael, Ben Chappell, James Ford and Richard Ayoade

Miles – has worked with tons of different people like Lana Del Rey, Jamie T, Imelda May, Corinne Bailey Rae, Jaded Hearts Club, Alex (obvs), Jack Savoretti, Yungblud...to name but a few

Alex – when not being ‘Alex Turner’ totally hides from public view. ‘recents’ with fans seem to have a vetting process because they often appear weeks after the event, and even his friends on social media are not allowed to post him (this does not include children’s drawings)

Miles – loves to be visible, sharing a lot of his life on social media, allowing his friends to post pics of him.

Alex – exudes sensual feminine energy and yet at the same time is masculine.

Miles – excudes sexual masculine energy and yet at the same time has a gentleness about him.

On the surface it’s hard to understand why they get on so well, but I guess they bring something to each other, professionally, working with Alex taught Miles how to sing in a softer voice, whle Miles taught Alex not everything has to be serious and to embrace his playful side.

Personally, there is still something of the outsider about both of them. Even today in 2024 as 38 year old men, they remind me of those boys at school people were a bit wary of – Alex because he was so quiet and yet seemed to watch everyone and would have sudden outbursts of strange behaviour, and Miles because he was hyper and never concentrated, and on the surface confident beyond his years, and other kids would find him intimidating. Alex would probably hero worship him because he was the sort of person he wished he could be....and Miles would love little Alex because he had the same weird interests and thoughts Miles did but was too insecure to admit and hid it with cockiness...

And there starts a whole Milex AU YA fic....lol

[anhed-nia]

R.O.T.O.R. -- AGAIN!

Even ripoffs can be beautiful.

I am writing about R.O.T.O.R., neither for the first time nor the last, because something new strikes me about this startling movie every time I see it. Its amazing premise, which amply rips off THE TERMINATOR and JUDGE DREDD (but not ROBOCOP, oddly, which began shooting after R.O.T.OR., also in Dallas) provides fertile ground for all sorts of useful interpretation. This time I was most struck by the fact that R.O.T.O.R. is all about jobs and going to work.

The story concerns "police scientist" Captain Coldyron (cold-iron) who has invented the Robotic Officer Tactical Operations Research/Reserve, a T-800 type of android made out of a "self-teaching alloy" that can kick anybody's ass. Coldyron resigns in a huff when his boss conspires with local politicians to rush the lawbot to market, and the project races forward dysfunctionally until R.O.T.O.R. inevitably busts lose and starts killing people for minor mischief. Coldyron hooks up with the robot's coauthor Dr. Steel (female bodybuilder Jayne Smith who is like something out of Crying Freeman, which I mean as the highest compliment) to hunt their creation down and destroy it.

Coldyron is played by Richard Gesswein, who was also created in a lab.

That might sound pretty action-packed, but in execution R.O.T.O.R. is heavily focused on the drudgery of daily life. Enormous amounts of time are spent walking through parking lots, traversing the atria of hotels, finding parking, being seated in restaurants, and most of all, spending hours and hours at work, making countless phone calls. You have never seen so many people on the phone in a movie in your entire life. There's work phones, home phones, payphones, and even CB radios. At times it feels as if you may never see more than one person on the same set again. On the phones, people say things to each other that have already been said earlier in the movie if not earlier in the same scene, if not earlier in the same monologue. In the scene where Coldyron learns that R.O.T.O.R. has gone rogue, he delivers this incredible screed during one of THREE calls that he makes in a row:

"Its last program was prime directive... Prime directive to our ROTOR unit is judge and execute. It stops felons, judges the crime, and executes sentence. Justice served, COD. You call the Senator and you tell him ROTOR walked through a busload of nuns to get to a jaywalker, with malice towards no one. It won't stop. It wasn't ready. Its brain functions are incomplete. It can't think twice, can't reason, can't change its prime directive. It's like a chainsaw set on frappe..."

It begins to feel as if he will never stop reiterating whatever he (and others) just said, and this is not the only such example.

Most of these calls, like all of the activity in the movie, are focused on jobs. Coldyron calls his girlfriend first thing in the morning to tell her that he is getting ready for work, and to ask her if she is also getting ready to go to work at her own job. He promises that "if you're a good girl and go to work" then he will grill steaks at her house later. When he goes out to buy charcoal for the reward steaks he stumbles upon two creeps robbing the store and trying to take a hostage--a woman who stops the crime with several karate kicks, to whom he says "Hey lady, you want a job?" Meanwhile at the police robot lab, a scientist slaves away while complaining about the impossible new R.O.T.O.R. deadline as the comic relief security bot whines, sighs, and says "One of these days I'm gonna quit this job!" (Later on he actually does) Once R.O.T.O.R. has escaped we meet the Linda Hamilton of this movie (Margaret Trigg), who is having a vicious fight in the car with her fiance because she wants to get a job; the fiance wants to forgo the "barbaric ritual" of the wedding and just be automatically married to a woman who will not embarrass him by getting a job. Finally he concedes, "Elope with me tonight and I'll help you get a job after the honeymoon," but it's too late for all that because he's speeding and about to get killed by R.O.T.O.R.

For extra job-related realism there is workplace harassment in the form of a guy who tries to fuck his colleague by describing ancient execution methods and who calls her a white supremacist for turning him down (he says he's Native American, she says he's not, I don't know the right answer because this is the actor's only credit--and actually he's uncredited for the role, though he is acknowledged for composing the movie's primitive synth soundtrack which I kind of enjoy). It's also worth mentioning that the comedy droid is a real robot with a job, according to iMDB (sadly there is not a wealth of info on this movie):

"Willard the Robot is played by APD2, a robot purchased in 1986 by the police department of the Town of Addison, a northern suburb of Dallas, for $17,750 (approximately $41,000 in 2018 dollars). APD2/Willard performed public relations duties and was tapped to lead the Christmas parade in Addison that year. His contributions to actual law enforcement and his subsequent whereabouts are unknown. "As quoted from 'theoldrobots' website; 'Officer Willi from 1985 - This 21st Century Robotics robot was operated by remote control, showed videos about public safety, and was used in teaching important safety topics such as stranger awareness, traffic safety, and much more..'"

Coldyron is actually a very good prototype of the modern tech mogul who has way too much time on his hands and whose existence is mainly composed of heroic fantasies about himself, whether he is molding the future face of law enforcement, or dicking around on his enormous ranch where he lamely practices his lasso technique on tree stumps before blowing them up with dynamite. At the office he demands "hydrogenated wheat germ and dessicated liver" which boosts his handball game, and I thought, jesus christ I think I've worked for this guy. Coldyron is *I think* the hero of this movie but I'm never sure how much you're really supposed to like him; when his girlfriend sends him out for charcoal so he can cook her reward steaks, he goes to a mini mart and just starts looking for trouble, harassing minorities and flashing his gun. It's like, this is the reason there are loitering laws, but naturally they don't apply when you're a rich cop.

Someone please make these stickers!

The best way to understand R.O.T.O.R. is through the knowledge that director and co-writer Cullen Blaine worked on a variety of popular cartoon shows during what they call "the dark age of animation". First of all, there are scenes in this movie whose aesthetic, humor, and internal logic only begin to make sense if you imagine them taking place in an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles--and actually much if not all of the dialog was dubbed by a whole other cast due to problems with getting the stars back for ADR, creating a whole other layer of literal cartoonishness. But the period in which Cullen Blaine created R.O.T.O.R. and designed many children's shows was dominated by what's called "limited animation" which I almost don't even have to describe. It's all in the name, the goal was to do things as cheaply as possible while turning out dozens of episodes per season. Part of the problem was, as with all things, Ronald Reagan, whose deregulation activities defanged measures to make sure children's programming was not just a steady stream of hard sell marketing. Under Reagan, the requirement for some portion of programs to be educational became so easy to meet and manipulate that animation studios were compelled to crank out zillions of Trojan horse toy ads with glib moral declarations tacked on. (I think I understand this correctly, I'm sure @bogleech has better material on the subject) Animators are a historically abused lot with a sad history of failed strikes, and I'm just extrapolating here, but I bet it's reasonable to guess that R.O.T.O.R. reflects the filmmaker's experiences in the grueling cartoon mines. The brutal sacrifice of quality to speed, the hostile work environments, and the endless, redundant calls and meetings, all smack of a script by someone who has had a very bad job.

"We've all got plenty of time to figure out what this means to each one of us," Coldyron sagely concludes at the end of his misadventure. Obviously I am still working on what it means to me, since this is the fourth or fifth time I've seen this movie and (at least?) the second time I'm writing about it. I will say that while the film I have just described sounds intolerably boring--I mean, a whole movie about rat race drudgery with the fewest and least convincing action sequences ever--but believe me, it is not boring. R.O.T.O.R. is constantly surprising and fascinating, with weirdly vivid imagery and pages and pages of the strangest dialog you will hear anywhere. Just watch the movie and let it shock you. You'll have plenty of time to figure out what it means to you later.

[theyellowhedgehog]

Switched at Birth

2024 Bingo Prompt : Switched at Birth & Royal Family/ Historical

Prince and peasant switched at birth

This Fic does not follow the proper age timeline. Popcorn age. Damian is the oldest, Dick and Tim are the youngest and same age. Jason is the second oldest same age as Stephenie. Other character age are same.

My bias is Tim, most of my story will be Tim-centric. hehe

tags : just them being brothers, no pairing, implied rape, implied homophobia

Word count : 4k

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Summary

The kingdom of Gotham has a benevolent king. The queen and the concubine bore two princes for the king. The queen bore a son, the king named his firstborn son, Damian Thomas Wayne, meaning to conquer.

The second prince was born 5 years after, from the concubine, the king named him, Richard John Wayne.

There was a secret. The secret that no one knew was, a day before the birth of Prince Richard, a son was born from the concubine's handmaid. She named him, Timothy. The handmaid, fearing her child will be name illegitimate kin to the king and would suffer. As a mother, she discreetly switched the two baby one quiet night. Both baby were both born chubby, black hair with beautiful blue eyes. No one noticed a difference. The only person who notice his mother switched his baby brother with the prince was Jason, the biological older brother of Tim.

Damian at the age of five adores his baby brother, Richard. The baby would babble whenever he saw him and grasped a hold of his hand.

Damian adores his brother.

Just like the season changed and time passed, the fake little prince grew up to be a proper one.

"Big brother!" tiny footsteps ran up to the older prince and squeezed him into a tight hug. Damian smiled at the small bean and pat his brother back.

Damian is now 12 and Tim is 8.

"Were you not suppose to be with Sir.Wilson?" Damian asked with an eyebrow raised. Tim pouted cutely and turned his body to sway, "Sir Wilson is too bossy. I'm only eight!"

Who is Damian to argure with that? He practically melt at the cute pout. "You can join me if you like." Damian practically saw Richard's eyes shone like the stars. "Let's go then!" and the eight years old led the way.

Not far from them were two boys. The older of the two was looking at the interaction of Damian and Fake Richard. He sighed in relief when he saw Damian treated Tim well. He came to attention when a small hand pull the hem of his shirt.

His fake brother, the real prince, stood there and smiled shyly at him and asked, "Older brother, why do you always look at them?"

Jason smiled guiltily and pat the real's prince head, "I was just looking at their clothes."

"Oh"

Damian and Richard were born from the legal wife of King Bruce, therefore they were treated well. However, for Jason and Tim who were born from a handmaid, a mistress, they were merely children of servants and were treated the same way. Jason sometimes wonder how his mother could live with the fact that the real prince is treated rudely, doesn't she fear the retribution if the truth were to come out?

"Let's go,T-..little brother." Jason has always avoided using Tim's name with the real prine. He couldn't get himself to call the real prince with a false name.

So, Jason came up with a clever way to address the real prince. He calls him Dick, which is a nickname for Richard. The real prince was confused but he accepted it, buying into Jason's buffoonery lies.

Jason didn't plan to reveal the secret, because his little brother is living a better life instead of being push around. Although he feels sorry for Richard, this is only way for his little brother to live well. That was the plan of course. However, Jason grew fond of his fake brother, Richard, and the guilt started to eat him alive.

Dick deserve to have a mother and father that loves him. Jason decided.

The truth has its own timing. As the child grew, doubt began to sow itself into the concubine's mind that Richard isn't her son. His eyes that did not resemble either parents. His features resembled that of a certain handmaid. The concubine cried that her real son was swap, to the king. T

he little fake prince's perfect world fall apart.

"Damian," The fake prince looked to his elder brother for protection.

The older brother that he used to adore now looked at him with a empty eyes, always busy trying to search of his real biological brother, Richard.

The once pampered little prince now dressed in rags and became a mere servant. Coincidently, on the same day, the real prince was found. The king, queen and the concubine rejoiced.

The handmaid that switched the child at birth was executed, but due to the pity King Bruce has for his kin and the little fake prince, he let them live but sent them away from the palace to a barren land.

The king's act of mercy may seem reasonable, however, to those of parentless and homeless children without any pillar of support, it was the same as an execution.

The little fake prince at the age of 15 fell from grace.

-

They lived in a very small hut. The ground is always muddy and they were living day by day with just enough to eat.

Jason striked the axe heavily. He exhaled as he collected the split woods and looked to a certain direction. Sitting in front house, on a stone slab, is his biological brother, Timothy.

"What are you doing?" Jason asked as he approached the boy.

The fake prince just glanced at Jason, "Waiting for Damian to come pick me up. Then I'll wake up from all this nightmares."

Jason sighed, "Look, Prince Damian won't be coming." He handed Tim an axe, "The faster you accept your fate the faster it put food on our table."

The axe dropped into the muddy ground with a splat when Tim didint' take it. "Why should I be doing this?" The young boy sneered. "I was born to be a prince."

Jason got mad--picked up the axe. "Well, now you are a prince no more. So start chopping these woods!"

The younger boy got angry, stood up and walked away, "Shut up!"

Jason shoulders slumped when his younger brother strut away. Ever since they were exiled, Tim has always act like an entitled brat. He was always bossy and always get angry at every action Jason did. It's always a wonder how all that anger fit into that small body.

It was already dark by the time Jason had finished chopping woods and delivered it for money. He bought back cold,dry and crusty bread. When he got home, the candles were not lit, meaning Tim has not gotten home yet.

Jason frowned, put his bread into his breast pocket and went out to look for his younger brother. His younger brother, as a 15 years old is more troublesome as Dick as his fake brother. Jason wondered if Dick is doing well. He must be right? After all, he is now back to his rightful place.

As Jason scoured the streets, he saw Tim under the church's candles. Beside him was a girl with blond hair. Both of them were laughing and talking until they noticed Jason.

Tim waved goodbye to the girl as she scrutter away, he then quickly put something into his shirt and walked past Jason.

The older boy grabbed his wrist, "What do you got there?"

Tim tried to pull back his hand, "It doesn't concern you." He sneered.

Faustrated Jason yanked him back to search for what he put in his shirt, Tim eyes widen in panic when Jason yanked up his shirt, "What are you doing! Let go!"

During the struggle, a pouch fell from Tim. Jason crouched down and picked up the pouch. It jiggles when he picked it up. Jason immediately knew, Tim couldn't have earned this much from doing odd jobs. Jason looked back to the church, then glared at Tim, "Did you seriously just stole from the church?"

Tim avoided his eyes, "So what? It's just a little money they won't notice."

Jason sneered, "So the mighty prince has fallen so low to be doing theft?"

"Fuck you!" Tim struggled harder, "If your mother hasn't switched me, I wouldn't have to do this!"

An insult to his mother was Jason's last straw, "She did it for your own good! She wanted what was best for you-!"

"Yeah!?" Tim shouted, his angry eyes brimmed with tears, "She fucking suck for ruining my life."

In a blink of an eye, Tim was on the ground with his hand on his cheek.

"Shut up. Don't you dare insult my mother, you imposter." Jason spat.

Tim stopped reacting at his word. The young boy slowly got up and was ready to walk away.

"Where do you think you are going?" Jason was still sensible enough to be a responsible older brother.

But Tim didn't answer. Jason took a hold of his wrist again.

"Dick-!" The air thicken, Jason realised his mistake, Tim also stopped. Jason saw Tim entirely shut down.

The younger boy composed himself and shrugged off Jason's hand. "Do not touch me again, next time."

Jason didn't had a chanced to apologise. Fuck, he messed up badly. He mistakenly called Tim, Dick.

The night ended with both of them not talking or apologising to each other.

The next sunrise, Jason woke up to sounds of their wooden door scraping open. There was only one room so both of them has to sleep and eat in that room. Jason immediately woke up to see Tim's back walking out the door.

"Where are you going?" Jason put on his shoes in a hurry and ran after Tim.

Tim stopped for a moment, "To work." he replied and walked out of the house.

Jason was about to grab Tim's hand when he stopped himself remembering yesterday, "Tim, I'm sorry for yesterday. I was angry." Jason apologized sincerely.

Tim didn't turn back to face his older brother, "Yeah, just don't call me his name again."

Tim didn't even stay to hear an agree 'okay' from Jason before he started walking leaving the older boy all alone.

Tim came back late today. Jason was home because the firewood didn't sell well today. Just when he was wondered how to get dinner on the table, he saw Tim put a basket on the table. The basket was full of eggs. Jason eyes widen thinking Tim probably stole again.

The younger brother also put a pouch, as it clank heavily against each other. Just when Jason was about to start accusing, Tim interrupted him.

"I went to the Kent Manor, they were looking for some workers to put up the fenses on some of their farm. I didn't steal any money," Tim looked at him dead in the eyes, "Jason."

Jason swallowed back his guilt for accussing his younger brother.

Tim sat opposite to him on their wobbly table, "They are also looking for a woodcutter. You will have a more stable income there."

Tim went to a makeshift table they call bed, "I'm tired."

-

On the other side of the two peasant brother, the real prince and his older brother are also having trouble.

"No!" Dick --Richard screamed at Damian. "I want Jason! He's my only brother!" He flipped the plate and ran back to his room.

Damian just sighed tiredly and glanced at Alfred Pennyworth for assistance. The old bulter just shook his head.

It has been a month since the real and the fake switched back. However, Richard is not adapting as one hoped. All day, he would scream for Jason. This week he decided to take a new approach and starved himself.

Damian massaged his forehead, "Why must father fool around, now his troubles are everywhere."

The eldest prince turned to Alfred, "Prepare the carriage. We will be going to the west."

The fake child and Jason were not unrelated at all. They were children bear from Father's folly. Therefore, they were not even considered illegitimate children of the king.

Because of his Father's foolishness, Damian made a decision. He will only have one wife.

It took 2 days to travel to the village Jason and his brother were exiled to. They arrived to the west before nightfall. Richard's face contoured into more horrified look and disgust when he saw the road all muddy and the people were basically living in slumps.

The carriage stopped in front of a run down hut. Damian glanced outside and frowned, "Is this it, Pennyworth?"

"According to the source, I suppose so, your highness." the butler replied and opened the door.

Once the carriage door opened the young prince practically leap out of the cart --shouting, "Jason!"

Jason was coming home from work at the Kent manor. He was tired, but during these two days, Jason and Tim's relationship become more stable. He came back to cook dinner when he saw an eye-catching carriage that screams WEALTHY.

Before he knew it he heard a very familiar voice yelling his name. A very familiar boy threw himself into his arm.

"...Dick?" Jason checked twice in surprise.

"Please don't leave me, big brother. I'll be good." Dick burrowed himself deeper into his big brother's arm.

Jason looked up to see Prince Damian and Alfred Pennyworth walking to them. He glances his surrouding to see other people starting to listen in.

"Let's talk inside," Jason gestured to them, "Forgive me, the house is a little inconvenient."

Damian looked around the single room house that his fake younger brother was supposed to be living. The room is filled with four people inside.

Dick was still hugging Jason, not minding the smell or the sweat.

Jason slowly approached the topic, "May I ask...why your highness have come..?" He didn't even dare sit down.

"Richard here wants to see you." Damian glanced at his biological younger brother. "He was starving himself. However, I do have some questions I want to ask you."

"Jason," Damian started as he looked around the condition of the house, "I need to talk to you about something. Richard please leave us for a moment." Dick pouted, but under Jason's persuasion, he obediently went outside.

Jason secretly glances at Damian and Alfred, "What would you like to talk about my prince?"

Damian spoke with a straight face lacking any emotion, "It was you wasn't it? Who revealed the truth."

Jason's spine shiver in fear as the prince finished speaking. He immediately fell to his knee, "Your highness, I-I didn't mean to keep it hidden, I-I-"

"What make you change your mind?" The prince spoke coldly. "15 years you have hidden the truth. Now your real brother is suffering."

"I..." Jason calm his racing heart just enough to collect his thoughts. He bow with his head touching the ground, "The young prince has became someone I held dear. I couldn't condone his suffering before now I could only give him what he deserved from the start."

"Then, what about your other brother?" Jason glanced up to see Damian pitiful eyes.

"I-" Jason was loss of words.

-

Dick went outside just in time to meet with Tim whom came back from work. Although they were the same age, Dick was clean and dressed with very expensive clothes while Tim was dirty and has been wearing this rag for 3 days.

Tim stopped when he saw Dick. He wondered which rich family carriage was in front of their home, turned out to be that of the palace.

Tim watched as Dick walked up to him and leveled him in the eyes, "So, you are the one that stole my birthright and my big brother."

"Birthright," Tim repeated.

Just because of that woman mistake, he was suffering it. Tim sneered mockingly, "I didn't stole your birthright, it was given to me, so, I just enjoyed it. Now that you have already gotten it back, why are you here?"

"I'm here to settle account with you. The one who committed the crime is you, not Jason. So, Jason will be going back with me!" the proud prince pointed with an accusing finger.

Tim chuckled in mockery, and said to the real prince, "You are not very bright are you?" Tim approached Dick till they are only inches apart, "If you are not quick-witted, Slade Wilson might just gobble you up."

Tim's grin terrifies Dick, " After all, he loves little boys."

Tim's hand approached Dick's crotch, "Tell me," he whispered it with malice, "Have he already touched you?"

The real prince immediately slapped the hand that groped his private and screamed, "Prevert!"

The scream immediately alerted the people in the house, and they came running out.

"Richard, what's wrong?"

Tim froze when he saw the brother he admired most came out.

Dick immediately ran behind the eldest prince and pointed at Tim, "He molested me, brother! He touched me! He's one of them," and spat from all his heart and soul, "Disgusting f***ot!"

Jason stepped in between them, "Wait a moment, there might be a misunderstanding." Tim just stood there without defending himself.

Seeing this, the eldest prince was furious, "Pennyworth, we are going back." as he held on his biological brother's arm--dragging him to the carriage, ignoring the younger one's yelling for Jason.

The carriage left without even staying for an hour. Jason turned to scold his brother but his anger disappeared when he saw Tim just longingly staring at the leaving carriage.

Damian came as Tim wished, but it wasn't to take him back.

Jason sighed, "Welp," he threw his arm up in defeat, "I think what you did just sealed our fate. Come on, let have our last meal or something." Jason try to add humor to the situation.

Tim didn't even spare him a glance. But Jason can see his hands are shaking as they balls into fists. When he saw there were nosy neighbors trying to listen in, he shooed them away.

Both brothers came back into the house, the only light source was a dimly lit candle.

Jason got to cooking of what left of the eggs, but he put down his wooden spoon in frustration because Tim was too quiet.

"Why aren't you angry?" The elder brother got angry instead. Tim just blankly looked at him, "..What?.."

Jason sat in front of the younger brother, "You always make trouble, screaming and shouting in front of me, but today when your beloved brother came, you didn't even say a peep!"

"Why didn't you defend yourself?!"

An emotion flashed across Tim's eyes, but he looked away "What's the use?"

Jason repeated, "What's the use of what?"

"What's the use of screaming and shouting when your screaming and shouting are no longer important?" Tim said dejectedly.

This made Jason shut up.

Tim chuckled in self-depreciation, "As you said, I am no longer a prince, My voice no longer has authority. No one is willing to listen."

Jason wanted Tim to realised this fact long since they moved here, but in this situation, Jason rather Tim kicking and screaming in anger.

"You are my brother." Jason grabbed the younger brother's arms and shook him, only to release of hold immediately after. "Your voice will always be heard by me."

Tim eyes teared up, "You are a liar."

Jason was confused, how did he ended up a liar?

Tim lay down facing away from his older brother, "I knew that you deliberately leaked the truth. Otherwise, moth- the concubine wouldn't have known."

"Did you ever think about me then?"

Jason didn't have the correct answer to reply.

-

On the carriage, on the way back, Damian merely ignore the brawling of his younger brother. He glanced at Alfred for help, but the butler merely shook his head.

"You promised that Jason would come back with us." Dick pointed an accusing finger at the eldest prince. "Liar!"

Damian balled his fist in control, "Richard," the hard and cold voice immediately stopped the whining of the younger prince.

"What happened?"

Dick sniffed and glared out the window, "He insulted me that I wasn't quite bright. He insulted a prince!" Dick angrily retold the tale.

Damian felt a throbbing between his brows, "Thus you accussed him of molesting you?"

"Of course, not!" Dick defended himself and crossed his arms in frustration. "He groped my privates and asked whether Slade or something has already touched me!"

The temperature dropped immediately when the name Slade was mentioned. The old butler's eyes widened in fear as of the eldest prince.

Damian repeated, "Slade? Richard, Did he really said Slade Wilson?"

Dick huffs in angry, "Yeah, he told me. I remembered."

Damian turned to the butler with fear in his eyes, "Pennyworth."

Alfred covered his mouth with his hand, "I didn't know, your highness."

"Fuck!" This was the first time Dick has heard the composed first prince swearing. Before he could asked any questions, Damian has already stopped the carriage.

He dismounted one of the horses from the carriage, and got on it.

"Pennyworth," He commanded the butler, "You better made sure that bastard is captured and alive until I made it back. With my authority and order, capture that fucker!"

"As order, your highness."

-

When Damian came back, it was already deep into the night. He banged on the barely working door.

"Timothy! Jason!"

The door was slowly opened by a sleepy Jason, he woke up immediately when he saw the prince was back, "Your highness?"

Damian barged in, "Where's Timothy?"

Jason pointed to the bed confused, "Tim's sleeping ther-"

There's no Tim. The bed is empty.

"Fuck!" Jason was scared shitless when he heard the always gentle prince swore.

Damian didn't wait for Jason as he strode out of the house. Only bad thoughts were swirling in his mind. The guilt and remorse were eating him away when he saw a dim light from under the willow tree from far out in the field. When he made it close enough, he could make out Tim's face barely under the dim light. The boy was not alone.

The eldest prince flinched when he saw two icy blue eyes glaring at him.

Tim's head was leaning on the shoulder of the girl as he burrowed more into her neck. When he felt the girl stiffen, he groggily woke up, "Steph?"

Tim turned enough to see, there's a man standing there in the field, with a torch in his hand. Tim immediately became vigilant. His hand reached for the knife in his pocket, he froze when he realised who the man was.

Both of them stayed caution as Damian approached them.

"Timothy," Damian called out of breath.

Tim put Stephanie behind him, shielding her, "What." He spat out. I wasn't a question, it was a threat to leave. Stephanie, herself, has armed herself with her rake.

"Timothy, I just want to talk."

"Why would you need to talk at night?" Stephanie scorned, with her bravery coming from not know that Damian is the kingdom's first prince.

"Why would a Mister like you need to talk to my lover?" the girl puffed out her chest to appear bigger. Tim was sweating bullet on the other hand. He yanked at her dress nervously, "Steph, stop."

"Lover?" Damian focused on the wrong thing instead of the dishonor to his title.

"No-, that's not-" The prince exhaled slowly, "I just want to talk to Timothy. Would the young lady please give us a moment?"

Stephanie was about to retaliate when she felt a tug on her dress. Tim gave her a look, and she rolled her eyes. She positioned her rake to Damian's neck ignoring Tim's nervous clanking of teeth. "You better not made my man sad."

Damian was left alone with Tim as they watched Stephanie went to another side of the willow tree.

"From lover to man, you have quiet the attraction to fierce woman." Damian jestered.

Tim did not play along, "Why are you here,... your highness?"

"Timothy," Damian paused, "Why did you not tell me about Slade?"

The elder prince continued, "Is that why you always ditch Wilson's class? When has this started?" His voice grew more concered as he asked more question.

"What's the use now?"Tim shrugged, "Although I regrets not being a real prince I appreciate that the truth came before Wilson's waiting time was over."

Tim mocked in an amused voice, "Although you better keep an eye on your littlest brother." Tim turned to taunt at his ex-brother, "He's a little slow to things."

"Tim," Damian dropped the formailty, "I will not let that bastard live."

Tim shrugged casually, "Why go through the trouble? I'm not an important person after all."

Tim flinced when he was pulled into a hug, "Wh-"

"I'm very sorry, little brother. I couldn't protect you enough." Damian apologized.

Tim eyes welled up with tears. Damn, how many times has he cried today, that's not manly at all.

"Why did you leave me, elder brother?" He hugged back his older brother, "I thought you hated me."

"I could never hate you even if I try, little brother. I will take you back. I will talk to father. I will make him change his mind. He won't admit it but he miss you too, little brother."

Is this the end of their suffering?

"What about me?" Stephanie interrupted from behind, "You can't just steal my husband from me."

Damian raised an amused brow, "Husband already? Aren't you guys progressing a little too fast?"

"Well, I have to when I found out my husband is going to be a prince."

Tim just deadpaned at his lover's joke, "Seriously, were you always a gold digger?"

Stephanie pecked at his cheek, "Of course not, hubby." She giggled, "Now that we kissed, my chastity has been taken by you. You must be responsible, Timothy!"

Tim chocked on his saliva, and whipped his head to his older brother, "We haven't done anything yet, elder brother!" He defended his chastity.

"Of course, Timothy. I believe you." Damian said in a teasing tone voice.

Stephanie pouted at Tim's defence to his chastity, "What? You don't want to marry me, husband?"

"Of course not!" Tim grinned at her, "Right, no take back. No matter how weird your husband turn out to be."

Damian interrupted the flirting couple, "Please stop. Although I want nieces and nephews in the future, I do not wish to babysit at the current moment. With this rate, Stephanie might become pregnant with just words, brother."

This make all three of them burst into laughter.

Jason came at the right moment, "Why are you guys laughing?"

Stephanie cheered when she saw him, "Brother-in-law!"

Jason choked on his words, "W-What?"

Thus the fake prince story ended with a happy wedding.

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How was it? Have you predicted the ending? 😏 I know the dialogue are not historically accurate. But I hope you enjoy it.

At first, I was gonna make Tim cinderella, but it ended into a bitter sweet text. HEHEHE

Another prompt down, another to go. Any bingo prompt you are looking forward to?

[whencyclopedia]

Mary Prince

Mary Prince (l. c. 1788 to c. 1833) was the first enslaved Black woman to publish an autobiography/slave narrative. Prince was illiterate but dictated her life story to the writer Susanna Strickland (l. 1803-1885), published in 1831 as The History of Mary Prince, which became a bestseller and garnered support for the abolitionist movement.

Prince was born a slave in Bermuda, taken to Antigua, and finally to England, where she left her master and found refuge in the Moravian Church (which opposed slavery). She was then taken under care by the abolitionist Thomas Pringle (l. 1789-1834), who was a friend of fellow abolitionist Susanna Strickland (better known by her married name, Susanna Moodie), who took down Prince's account.

Owing to the prevailing belief that Blacks were subhuman and incapable of writing, and because the work was put to paper by Strickland and edited by Pringle, it was dismissed by pro-slavery advocates as propaganda created by the Anti-Slavery Society. The details of her account, however, were corroborated by others who were acquainted with slavery as practiced in Bermuda and Antigua.

Even readers who knew nothing of daily life in those regions found Prince's story profoundly moving, and it went through three printings in its first year. England had outlawed the slave trade in 1807 but retained slavery, which was only ended by the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. How much influence Prince's autobiography had on Parliament passing that act is still debated, but judging by the work's popularity between 1831 and 1833, it quite likely played a significant role.

In her introduction to The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave, scholar Sara Salih writes:

Telling her life story gave Prince and her supporters the opportunity to demonstrate that, contrary to contemporary belief, 'Negroes' were not merely chattels, but humans who were seriously damaged by the brutal treatment they were forced to suffer at the hands of their white masters and mistresses.

(8)

Prince's death date is unknown, but the last public record of her in England is 1833. Today, she is recognized as a national hero of Bermuda, and Mary Prince Day is celebrated annually on 2 August.

Slave Life & Freedom in England

Prince was born a slave in Devonshire Parish, Bermuda, c. 1788. Her father was an enslaved sawyer held by one David Trimmingham, and her mother was a domestic slave held by a Charles Myners. She had two sisters and three brothers, all belonging to Myners, and when he died, they were sold away from their mother to Captain George Darrell, who presented Prince to his granddaughter, Betsey Williams, who, as Prince says, treated her kindly as a pet.

When she was 12 years old, she was sold to Captain John Ingham while her two sisters were sold to another slaveholder. Ingham and his wife Mary regularly beat their slaves, killing Prince's friend, Hetty, who died after an especially severe whipping. Prince ran away from Ingham and took refuge with her mother, who was now the property of one Richard Darrell. Her mother hid her in a cave, but because she could be executed for harboring a fugitive, her father intervened and brought her back to the Ingham plantation.

Ingham sent her to Grand Turk Island, where she was forced to work in the salt ponds, harvesting salt from the sea, and regularly standing in the water for 17-hour shifts, before she was bought by Robert Darrell and returned to Bermuda. Darrell put her to work on his farm before selling her to the merchant John Adams Wood Jr. in 1815.

Wood and his wife brought Prince to their farm in Antigua where she worked as a domestic. When the Woods were away on trips, Prince earned money selling coffee and yams and taking in washing, hoping to be able to buy her freedom. She also approached one Mr. Burchell, asking him to buy her, as the Woods were brutal masters who beat her often, but they refused to sell her and would not accept any amount she had made to purchase her freedom.

She joined the Moravian Church, where she began to learn to read, but to continue her studies, she would require a note from her master granting permission, which she knew he would not give, and so she never asked him. Soon after this, she met Daniel James, a free Black carpenter, and they were married in 1826. The Woods were outraged that she had married without their permission, and she was flogged with a horsewhip.

In 1828, the Woods took her with them to England, and she left their house one day, finding refuge at the Moravian Church in Hatton Garden, London. She was found there by Thomas Pringle, who hired her as a domestic and petitioned the Woods to free her, but they would not. Prince was only free as long as she remained in England, and so she could not return to Antigua and her husband without becoming enslaved again. Whether she ever saw Daniel James again is unknown, but unlikely.

In 1830, while working for Pringle, Prince dictated her autobiography to Susanna Strickland. It was Prince's idea to publish her life story as she hoped it would influence lawmakers to abolish slavery. The History of Mary Prince was published, along with another slave narrative, The Narrative of Louis Asa-Asa, A Captured African, as a pamphlet in 1831, going through three printings in its first year.

Two libel cases arose from the publication, the second one brought by Wood, and Prince testified at both. Wood won his suit in 1833, the same year the Slavery Abolition Act was passed by Parliament, and this is the last time Mary Prince appears in the historical record.

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⇒ Mary Prince

[pinenutpbj]

What is the “young love” clegan AU? 👀

Thank you for your interest in this post! 

It's just a concept I've been developing, loosely inspired by Richard Linklater's Before Trilogy. It follows Gale's and John's paths that intersect at different pivotal moments throughout their lives.

They first met on the Eurostar crossing the English Channel. Despite being strangers with separate destinations, they decide to disembark at London together. If you’d like a (lengthy) snippet:

The Fanta can Bucky pressed against his swollen nose had long since stopped sweating condensation. Gale shifted his weight from one foot to the other, contemplating whether to duck into the dimly lit pub behind them to ask for some ice. The neon sign above the door buzzed intermittently, casting their faces in alternating shadows and sickly red light.

They'd found themselves in this narrow Soho alleyway after abandoning their half-hearted pilgrimage to the London Eye. Neither could justify spending their dwindling funds on what Bucky had called "a glorified carnival ride for tourists." Gale had no real sense of Bucky's financial situation, only that his own wallet contained little more than lint and regret. The bitter irony wasn't lost on him—he'd saved for months, pinching pennies at his part-time job to buy a ticket to Europe, ostensibly to patch things up with Marge. Instead, they'd ended that relationship in a three-minute phone call from Charles de Gaulle airport. Now he faced the grim prospect of being stranded in Wyoming for another year, paying off this impulsive adventure. One bad decision compounding another.

"Don't bother," Bucky said, interrupting Gale's thoughts. He put the soda can away, revealing the purple-blue landscape blooming across his face. "I don't even feel a thing anymore."

It wasn't true. Gale just knew. Learned it the hard way.

"You think I'm trouble," Bucky said, more statement than question.

There was no way to define Bucky within the confines of a single word. Unpredictable. Magnetic. Addictive. Reckless. All applied, yet none captured the fullness of him. Gale couldn't shake the growing suspicion that Bucky might represent yet another catastrophic decision in his increasingly questionable judgment.

Gale reclined against the brick wall, failing to maintain their conversation. Bucky filled the silence, his squashed New York accent standing out sharply against the background of British voices filtering from the pub.

"Let me guess," Bucky continued, tilting his head. "You wish you'd done differently. That call, the train, me—all of it."

Someone pushed through the pub's back door, releasing a gust of stale, cigarette-laden air that rushed over them. Bucky sniffed, dabbing at his nose with the paper napkins from Greggs.

"If you could go back to six hours ago," he asked, "would you still get off the train with me, Buck?"

They'd spent the last hour wandering aimlessly, Bucky's white T-shirt ruined and Gale's conscience weighed by the knowledge that he could have prevented the whole fiasco if he'd just stuck to his original plan. And yet, despite everything, he realized there weren't really alternatives he could imagine choosing. 

Despite barely knowing this stranger with the quick smile and quicker fists, Gale would have said yes all over again.

"Why do you insist on calling me that?" he asked.

"Buck?" Bucky shrugged. "Oh, I don't think you'd care for the other nicknames I have for you." 

He grinned with his battered face. The skin around his left eye crinkled extra, as though attempting to wink but hampered by the swelling around his nasal bridge. There was dried blood crusted on his Cupid's bow. He looked ridiculously handsome, like a movie star after a particularly convincing fight scene.

"Not curious what nicknames I've got for you?"

Gale blinked, suddenly aware of the expectant silence stretching between them. Bucky was watching him intently, waiting for a response, his eyes reflecting the lights overhead. They looked indigo.

"No," Gale lied. "Keep your head forward. You're still bleeding."