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littleplantfreak · 1 year ago

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I can't go back to sleep until I write Umemiya pining after a girl who's busier than he is apparently so. I didn't really proofread sorry! :P

The first time he meets you, you literally fall into his arms. Not in the romantic way though, you're just running so fast that when you stumble, trying to skew your direction enough that you don't hurt him, he's fumbling to catch you. The box of books your trying to bring to the library donation box scatters and you're in the most awkward hold ever. "Sorry, really should've watched where I was going," you tell him, out of breath and sweaty. He tries to help you pick up the books but you wave his hand off, before saying a quick goodbye and heading off. He laughs about it later, remembering your hair completely disheveled from the fall and the way you went back to running to the library even though he's sure it's not going anywhere anytime soon.

He ends up asking more people about you, finding out more about you from them, than he's able to glean from his rare run-ins with you. You're as active in the community as he is, just in different ways. Walking a bunch of younger kids to school in the morning because they have to cross a busy street and the school hasn't been able to cover the crossing guard position just yet or helping run the fundraiser for a local shop's owner who's sick, your schedule is packed even when you don't plan for it to be.

Everyone can see him getting a stupidly goofy look on his face as he calls out a quick greeting seeing you on your way somewhere. The first time he sees you tired he's nervous immediately. It's totally normal, given how much you do, but the hunch in your shoulders and sluggish way you're eating the food at Pothos has his stomach turning. He's considering asking Hiragi for stomach medicine now. When you go to leave he's grabbing the fabric of your sleeve gently tugging, a little unsure if you'd be against him grabbing your hand. He's a gentle guy, but no one's seen him treat anyone that delicately before.

"I know you're busy, but could you make time for me?" He's asking, and you misunderstand his concern for you as him really needing help with something, shooting a text to the people you were supposed to meet. You agree and he leads you to the school rooftop, giving you a brief tour.

"What did you need help with again?" You ask, yawning into your hands.

"Ah..." He trails off because he didn't need help but he figures you must've thought that when he asked for your time. "Ya see this hammock over here? I'm trying to figure out if I need to get a new one! Could you try it out for me?" He figures trying to explain that he just wanted to spend time with you might go over your head, so making up an excuse is the best bet, not to mention he might be able to get you to rest.

You're not fazed in the slightest, having been asked weirder favors. "Yeah, it's not gonna fall over or anything, right?" It'd suck to lay down only to end up face first on concrete.

"No no! It's completely safe I promise!" And he's relieved when he finally sees you lie down. It's insanely comfortable too. You start melting into it, pretty sure at this point you're gonna be glued to it forever. "Comfy?" He smiles, knowing for a fact that it is.

"Mm," you mumbled a little out of it. If you don't get up soon you might just fall asleep.

"Think there's room for two? I heard checking that it can handle it's weight limit is important," He says nearly laughing at such an easily seen through excuse, knowing you're probably too tired to even register his logic. Patting the side, you scoot over a bit, waiting for him to lie down too. "O-oh no I was kidding-,"

"Umemiya," and the way you're saying his name, a little gruff from exhaustion has his hear pounding in his ears. You pat the side harder, punctuating your silent demand. It's a tight squeeze next to him, but not entirely uncomfortable, noting how big he actually is next to you. "Think you need a bigger one," you say practically in his neck due to your positions, setting his nerves on fire. Is it hot up here? He's sweating a little, feeling a flush climbing up his neck to his ears. You go quiet, and as he looks over you're fast asleep, starting to drool on his shoulder a bit, chest rising and falling softly.

He's the human equivalent of an exclamation point now, unable to actually move to get off unless he wants to wake you up, which is currently unthinkable. He's able to get his phone out though, and is texting Hiragi in incomprehensible strings of text all in caps, an excess of emojis flying into the chat. Thankfully, Hiragi's had years of experience translating what Ume's trying to say, and when he gets the gist he's thrilled. He hopes they stay up there all day, and his stomach eases reflexively at the though of his leader tied up and unable to cause any trouble. Umemiya gets a quick text back in acknowledgement saying Hiragi'll make sure no one comes up to the roof for the afternoon.

Eventually, after calming down his giddiness, he also end up passing out, getting the best, yet sweatiest sleep of his life. He also ends up with a nasty sunburn on his arm that fell into a patch of sunlight on the side of the hammock, but thinks it's very much worth it when you panic and start massaging aloe into it. Once you wake up, you realize his ply was to get you to rest all along and you're thankful for it asking if you could borrow his hammock again sometime. He's nearly tripping over himself trying to explain that you could come here every day and it wouldn't be a problem, in fact it'd be amazing if you did because he could show you how his garden is doing and introduce you to everyone and, and, and. He's got you giggling with the enthusiasm, before you shake your head saying once a week probably works better. "Maybe tuesdays?" you ask and he agrees, obviously please. "It's a date then." You say, grabbing your stuff before asking him to show you the way back to the front of the school.

He nearly has a heart attack at the word 'date' but for the rest of the week, he's so excited it's annoying, eventually a flustered Sakura yelling at Ume to "Shut up about your girlfriend" and he does. For about 1 minute.

#i woke up at 6 and needed to write this?? smh i should be sleeping its my day off #also we're getting a bigger hammock :T cant always be squashed together for hours if iget the pins and needles feeling in my leg its joever #umemiya hajime x reader #wind breaker #he only shut up cause he hadn't even though of asking her to be his girlfriend yet and the word just made him blue screen #emmmm if you see this we're making room for you on the hammock still despite the dangers #mari writes

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cryptocism · 2 months ago

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Like the answers, I got more of that’s ok? If not just ignore lol

1: what voices do you hear for Bart and Thad? Like for Bart, I hear kid Simba’s voice from Lion King

2: what’s Bart and thads favorite movies?

3: what’s their favorite type of genre?

4: what type of music do they listen to? For Thad I can imagine goth to heavy metal lol

oho!

1: ouff i've been asked this before but i don't really have a definitive answer sadly!! in a perfect world they'd both have the same voice but with very different cadence/timbre/vocal quality.

i think a good general vibe of what i picture for Bart is something like Rob Lowe as Sodapop in the Outsiders. he's got an earnestness i like, and i feel like Bart should have a southern accent considering he learned english in Alabama (altho the Outsiders is set in oklahoma but like i said, general vibe)

i havent found a voice that matches with how i picture Thad sadly :( although i still think Evan Rachel Wood's performance as Old Dolio in Kajillionare is closest. not in sound but the raspy gravelly quality and her flat affect.

2-3: ach.... really not sure for these ones... im pretty sure Bart canonically likes action/adventure movies but like a lot of his canon interests id say that falls under Nonspecific Teen Boy Demographic

but if you want my personal headcanons... im also not sure! havent thought about it much. i will say Bart doesn't really seem the type to sit through slow-paced dramas or meditative arthouse stuff, probably tending towards action and comedy. Thad on the other hand i could see getting WAY too pretentious about obscure films nobody has heard of

4: music!! im attached to the idea that Thad unironically enjoys almost every genre of music regardless of quality - both bc it is funny but also he has no frame of reference for whats cool or not! he finds stuff to like about everything. i think Bart probably hops genres in a similar way, but is less adventurous in his tastes lol

#asks #pin-crusher2000 #i want everybody to read Frequency with the knowledge that Bart and all his clones have southern accents the whole time ok #Bart learned english in alabama #Thad learned english from watching Bart #maybe jude and nathaniel have fainter accents because they speak more like CRAYDL #who i picture with a more "generic US accent'' like siri or other automated voices #and idk Six mightve consciously changed his accent just bc he likes to be special #but everybody else should talk like they learned english in alabama bc they did

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gerbiloftriumph · 28 days ago

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So, how old is King Graham, anyway? Speculation under the cut, with dev statements and other supporting details! (but it's all speculation.)

To begin, we need to decide how old Graham is in the knightly tournament. Lead concept artist Evan Cagle once had a Tumblr, and once answered fan questions, but it's since been deleted. With the power of Wayback, though....!

The relevant piece is here:

This is also how supported by files in the game itself are organized, by general age blocks.

(interestingly, Achaka isn't called by name in the game files, but simply called WellKnight.)

So, Graham is in his teens, for certain. Old enough to drive. One could argue he's 16, with that rodent license, as that's traditionally when kids learn to drive. But he's clearly planning on moving away from home, and he has been to school and graduated. "I started looking for knight jobs while I was still in the academy, but once I graduated all the opportunities had dried up."

I propose, therefore, that since he's clearly graduated, he's slightly older. My guess? 18. In America, at least, people tend to graduate high school at 18, maybe looking for colleges, and they're old enough to join the military (knighthood). Possibly 19 (I truly don’t think younger works for how old he Must be at minimum in ch2), but I'm going to stick to 18, personally. (Grachaka fans, enjoy!)

Also: "You don't like the taste of lanky teenager" doesn't preclude 18, let's go.

How long was he a knight for Daventry before he was king'd by Edward? That's very unclear. However, his model doesn't change much (I think his hair gets a little longer? or is that just his cowl), and his concept art doesn't change much (it's just a hat adjustment and that little bit of scruff that I love oh so much). So, he's probably not that much older between contestant and king.

We've got to do some speculation here, and I'm going to select 3 years as a royal knight of Daventry. That would give him time to grow as Edward's favorite and establish himself in the space, without necessarily changing too much facewise. Maybe it's less time based on how little he's physically changing at this point, but I need him to get into his 20s for chapter two for the concept art and model name, and Edward needs at least A Single reason to crown this kid, even if the guards do say that this tournament "could lead to the throne of Daventry itself!"

Therefore, I'm going to put him at 21 years old in the prologue.

21 is another milestone in America, where you can start drinking legally, so it feels right to me to put him here at a big change in his life, even if in Daventry he's almost certainly been enjoying that mead for a while now. ;)

He's crowned immediately upon his return to the castle with the mirror, so he's got to be king at 21.

HOWEVER. There's something coming up soon that requires him to be, at minimum, 22 years old at some point in this year, if not older. I'm very fond of character birthdays being the date the game came out. Therefore, Graham's birthday should be July 28th, as that's the day the reboot came out on PC (2015).

I'm also fond of the idea that each chapter takes place in a different season in Daventry, Ch1 obviously being Fall, Ch4 obviously being Winter, Ch3 seemingly Spring with those bright greens, which leaves Ch2 in Summer. Monsoon seasons are often in Summer, which lets the rain Graham experiences be a typical Daventrian summer. Perhaps, July?

I propose Graham turns 22 in his captivity. Prison birthday! Sorry, your majesty.

There's a specific reason he's got to be 22 here. It's the absolute youngest he can be, so it suits his concept art. Why?

Taylor Fey.

Bramble is pregnant, and while we're not sure how far along she is, we're going to say Taylor's due soon, because we need Graham to look like his teen self for concept art reasons, and we also need to get him into his 30s for his next mile marker in concept art and game model naming convention.

In chapter three, if you visit the Feys, you get this exchange:

Graham: "Where's Taylor?" Bramble: "He's at home. Probably cutting up our curtains again." Wente: "When I was that boy's age, I would roll dough for hours every day after school in me ma's shop. But not my boy. He doesn't have the stomach for hard work." Bramble: "Or the stomach for sweets. Can you imagine? An eight year-old, not liking sweets? It's not like frosting is an acquired taste."

Taylor will eventually move to Serenia, to become the tailor, haha.

But! The important thing! The conversation reveals that, in chapter 3, Taylor is eight years old. So, eight years have to pass between ch2 and 3, and Graham's got to be in his 30s.

Therefore, in the goblin prison, he needs to be 22 years old, at minimum. (also, sidebar of mostly irrelevance, if you go straight into a 4 year college after graduating high school at 18, you probably get your first real job at 22, mmm delicious imposter syndrome in your first real adult position, except you've got a kingdom on the line this time.)

So. In Chapter 3, he shall be, to me, exactly 30 years old. (he's probably going to turn 31 in a couple months, as I'm sure this chapter takes place in the spring, for how warm the days are and cold the nights are, as Graham complains about in the tower.)

That lets him hit all the markers he needs. Barely, sure, but it works so far.

Now, again, we need a liiiiiittle speculation. We need 18 years between Ch4 and the Ch4!Prologue, to account for Alexander. And Graham probably doesn't propose to Valanice right away again.

Now, the youngest he could be to make the ages and everything work is 32. But that's a remarkably fast dating, marriage, twin time turnaround. Neese might be into it, Vee probably wouldn't. So, we're going to age him a bit. So, he could be 32, but I think he'd rather be 34. That feels like they have time to court (properly this time), be engaged, prepare royal documentation and all the other things required, and then have twins.

(you could argue 33 too, or push it much older, 35 or 36 or more, if you wanted, so long as you don't push out of the 30s for the model name convention, but I'm going to settle here on 34, personally.)

The important part is that 18 years pass, for Alexander to grow as Gwydion and escape Manannan (if we want to be super pedantic, he's 17 and a bit, but whatever, this is fudging and speculation and I'm not carefully considering where Graham's birthday falls in the year either or I'd get confused).

So, he's about 52 years old now!

Fantastic. This is the last time we have Josh Keaton voicing our younger Graham, and then we leap ahead to Christopher Lloyd and our Huge Glorious Kingly Beard.

Chapter Five, thank you, finally. The devs give us an actual age.

Olfie: "Yeah, your skin does look fantastic for 86." Graham: "Well, that's a shame… I'm 77."

Thank you, thank you.

Now, we have one more age to hit. Bedridden modern Graham. We have a little cheat here, too. Not in the concept art, which just lists ?, but in the game models. He's in his 90s.

Alexander and Rosella are in their 50s in the modern day now, as their game models say. If my math is right, Alexander should be 43 in Ch5's adventuring portion. So I need to add at least 7 years to get the twins into their 50s in the modern sections.

I'm not great at math, and I'm juggling a lot here, so correct me if I'm wrong, but if my math is right, modern day Graham *should* be 84 at a minimum now. But his model says he's in his 90s.

But if we make Alexander 56 in the modern day, I think we can make Graham 90.

So, he's probably exactly 90, for the character model naming convention.

I dare not figure out how this fits in classic series--which isn't helped by Graham apparently having gray hair at a younger age probably due to that heart attack at the end of kq3.

So, there we have it. My personal bad math and staring at concept art and game files and trying to make guesses about my favorite king and his ages.

tl;dr:

Ch1 - 18 (graduated high school) Prologue - 21 (he needs to be in his 20s, this works) Ch2 - 22 ("happy birthday," sing the goblins, off-key) Ch3 - 30 (aaaalmost 31) Prologue 2: Electric Boogaloo - 34 (...maybe) Ch4 - 52 (depends on the ch4!prologue) Ch5 - 77 (huzzah, stated!) Modern Day - 90 (for the models' naming conventions)

But what do you think? Decent mathing? Totally wrong? Would rather take a stab at it yourself and get Gwendolyn and Gart's ages involved? Let me know~!

(edit: I was waiting for tea to steep, so I just hastily muttered my way through classic ages too, just because it's probably not that hard to line up, so...here's that:

#tin pointed out he’s 19 in the classic game’s hint guide so he could be 19

#I think he gets crowned at 19 then tho in the classics which…good luck dude

#I wonder where classics smoosh in there—it’s probably not that hard to be honest

#kq2 is just ch3

#kq3 and kq4 take place within days of each other when he’s 50something in ch4

#kq5 is probably a pretty quick turn around too#so if we say Graham is 52 in kq3 and 4

#let’s say he’s 53 or 54 at most in kq5

#and I think Alexander pines for a year so he’d be 55 or 56 in kq6

#alex probably marries cassima at 21 then

#and then maybe a year or two again for kq7 and rosella is probably 22 or 23

#I didn’t play kq8 hahaha

#mind if rosella is 56 and I think Gart is 16

#40’s probably fine for a boy—especially with a fairy husband#my interpretation of Gwen being 12 is trickier but maybe Cassima is younger

#or MAYBE it was a whole thing and everyone was very worried about her pregnancy

#imagine jollo and all the citizens trying to keep her safe and healthy and it being kinda scary)

#king's quest #king graham #kings quest #ch1 #ch2 #ch4 #ch3 #ch5 #i'm hesitant to post this too--maybe it should stay nebulous and shouldn't be pinned down into ages and dates and years #but they're purely headcanons you can do what you want royal guard number one is perpetually 50 after all #is this the sort of thing that would have started a fight in old fandom i know people were bickering over his age #i mean clearly--they sent an ask to a dev to clear up the drama #i bet this would have started a fight

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hailsatanacab · 1 year ago

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I'll ask after that secret number 8!

I only remembered secret number 8 because I saw your wip here! I'd started this one based on the same prompt, then lost said prompt and stopped working on it 😅

Instead of a snippet, I'm just dropping it all here - maybe that way I'll feel inspired to finish it?

———

It’s a full house for dinner tonight and, really, that should have tipped him off.

Bruce sits at the head of the table, smiling softly as he watches over everyone’s antics. Damian is regaling Dick with everything they saw at the zoo that day (Danny had been so happy to see Delilah the purpleback gorilla again, and her new little additions to the troupe, too!) and how well they are implementing the grant the Wayne Foundation had gifted them. Tim, Steph, Cass, and Duke are all engaged in a thumb-war tournament which Danny has no interest in participating in. It just wouldn’t be fair on them.

Danny loves that look. The one where Bruce’s eyes crinkle when he thinks none of the kids can see him. It oozes love and it makes Danny’s heart, his core, ache.

It’s been a little over a year since Alfred found him on the street and managed to wrangle him back to the manor to stay—even after the whole biting thing when he realised how rich they were.

A little over a year here and Danny’s starting to feel like family.

Starting to feel like he might, just maybe, like to make it official.

“Danny,” Bruce says, drawing everyone’s attention. Danny starts at his name, but Bruce’s voice is warm and calm, and his shoulders lose their tension almost immediately. “Danny, I have something I would like to tell you.”

“Uhhh…” is all Danny can croak out, eyes flicking back and forth between Bruce and the rest of them. Smooth. Looking good, Danny.

Except… they’re all happy. All smiles, all relaxed body language, all radiating calm and love and acceptance. Well, not Damian—his face is as thunderous as it always is—which at least means it’s nothing too out of the ordinary.

“Danny, first of all, I just want to impress upon you that this is in no way something you have to do. You are under no obligation to join us and, no matter what, you shall always be welcome with us in the manor.”

Wait, what? Danny squints at Bruce, trying to parse exactly what he’s saying… Is he—is this them asking to adopt him? Do they want to make it official, too?

It’s been a little over a year and of course Danny has imagined calling Bruce ‘Dad’. Of course he’s imagined being part of the family, of course he wants to make it official!

He can’t help the beaming grin or the bright and bubbling “Yes!” already waiting on his lips. All Bruce has to do is ask, all Danny needs to hear is—

“I’m Batman.”

The smile freezes on Danny’s face.

His lungs stop working, his heart stops working, he stops working, he just—

“And I’m Nightwing,” Dick smiles, breaking the awkward silence.

Danny’s eyes snap to him, and then down to Tim when he admits to being Red Robin. Duke is Signal, Steph is Spoiler. Damian begrudgingly tells him he’s Robin, but Danny can barely hear it over the ringing in his ears.

“I’m Black Bat.” Cass cocks her head, almost looking concerned. It always felt like she understood him the most. Whenever he was feeling low, too in his memories, or stewing after a nightmare, she was always there, ready to card her fingers through his hair and never mention his tears. It makes his heart ache to think of it now. “It’s okay, Danny.”

It’s meant to be reassuring, but how—how can it be okay? How?

Danny’s spent a little over a year with them. A little over a year with Batman.

Batman, who works with the Justice League, who works with…

A little over a year.

Just under 16 months since he escaped.

“Danny? Are you alright?” Bruce asks

Finally, his lungs kickstart and suck in a shuddering breath, only for everyone to drop their smiles.

Didn’t take them long, did it? Now that their ruse is up, there’s no kindness in their eyes, they’re just… cold, calculating. Evaluating.

“Why?” Danny gasps, his fingers tingling, his heart in his throat.

Just under 16 months since he—has he escaped? Or was this just another one of their experiments?

"I... I trusted you, why—" Danny chokes back a sob, gritting his teeth as his shoulders shake. Why? Why would they do this? "I was happy here, with you. I thought... Weren't you happy?"

"Danny..." Bruce is looking at him, eyes narrow and eyebrows pinched, in some cruel facsimile of confused concern and all Danny can think is how much of an actor he is. How well he can play the part of a doting father. How much he made him want that.

"I don't understand, why..."

"I'm sorry we didn't tell you before, I can imagine that it comes as a shock. We shouldn't have lied to you, Danny, but—"

"Stop it!" Danny slams his hands down on the table and pushes himself up on wobbly legs. Even standing, he feels so small. Smaller than Bruce, than all of his adopted siblings. They crowd above him when they all stand, too. "Just stop it! Why are you doing this, why are you still pretending? Stop it!"

It was easier, with Danny's biological parents. The knowledge that they'd do anything to get him on a lab table, to open him up and see what makes him tick, to rip him apart molecule by molecule, had always been there. He knew they hated ghosts. He knew they hated Phantom. He knew they hated him. It was easier because it was something he'd known all his life. When he died, when he became a ghost, he knew what to expect from them. It hurt, of course it did.

But it was easier than this.

"Danny, I'm going to need you to take a deep breath. You're having a panic attack and you need to breathe."

"Breathe?" Danny laughs, the sound harsh and choking, too high pitched in his hysteria. "You're joking, right? Or is this just more of the—the experiment?"

"Danny, please, we don't know what you're talking about, you—"

"You don't know? You're Batman! You work with the Justice League, you work with—" His words choke off as his stomach churns, bile rising in his throat. His whole body itches, screaming at him to leave, he can't go back, he can't, he can't, he can't!

Bruce takes a hesitant step forward and Danny scrambles back, his feet catching on the chair behind him and sending him careening to the floor. Where are the agents? Why aren't they swarming in, ready to apprehend him, strap him back on the table, carve him from the inside out.

"Please, Danny, calm down. We don't—"

Danny stops listening. His back hits the wall and he pulls his knees into his chest, his shoulders dipping down as he begins to sob. His heart throbs inside his throat, too painful to swallow around. Tears fall hot and heavy on his face.

Sure, he could run. He could phase out through the wall and he could be out of Gotham in a couple of hours. He's escaped the GIW once, he can do it again.

But that was before Batman knew who he was. Before he had the World's Greatest Detective on his tail.

Before he...

He really thought this would be different, you know?

He wanted to make it official.

"Why did... Why were you so nice to me? Why did you make me like you? I really—I really liked you. I-I thought we could be a family."

"Danny, we are a—"

"Don't lie to me!" Danny snaps, but the force of his anger leeches all the fight from him, and suddenly all that's left is a bone-weary tiredness. There’s a lump in his throat that hurts. There’s a line down his chest that burns. "I don't care. I don't care anymore, I don't. Just... don't make me go back there. Please."

Is it futile? He thought he knew how the GIW operated by now, the depths that they would go to achieve their results, but this... this was a whole new level of pain that Danny thought he had left behind him in Amity.

"We're not going to make you go anywhere, Danny, you're safe here, I promise."

"Safe? Safe? You must have—" he takes a deep breath, tries to stop the quivering of his voice. It’s all starting to make sense, now. "The reason you're telling me who you are is because you must have told them everything already. I know the Justice League—I know you're working with them, which means the ex-experiment is over now, and they're coming to take me back. And I can't go back."

"Danny—"

"I can’t!” Danny glares at Bruce with all the rage he can, fingernails digging into his skin. “I’m not going back!"

"That's right, you're not going back, Danny. I won't let that happen." Bruce crouches down in front of Danny, his hands open and raised as if he's trying to say he's not a threat. "I don't know who you're talking about, and I'm sorry about that, but I can promise you that you’re not going back there. We will keep you safe."

Danny pulls himself closer, tucks himself further into the wall, eyes flickering all across the room waiting for that tell-tale flash of white as the agents start to swarm.

He should take his chances now and run, he should go, he needs to go!

The rest of them, his brothers and sisters of a little over a year, are spread out, giving him and Bruce some space. The same concern colours all of their faces. Why are they still pretending?

Steph is chewing on her thumb.

Danny liked Steph and her brash confidence, her jokes. She's been promising to paint his nails for months now, they've just never found the time. He was going to go for green and black, or maybe a galaxy theme, depending on what she felt comfortable doing.

He likes them all.

"You were supposed to be my family." His mouth turns down at the corners and his voice shakes like a child. "You were supposed to—why? Why would you—I don't understand why you would make me like you..."

"This isn't an experiment, Danny," Bruce's voice is steady, soothing. "I promise."

"But you work with them and—"

"Who do I work with?"

"The Justice League."

"Yes, I do, but we—"

"And the Justice League works with them. The GIW." Danny trembles with the name, clutching tightly onto his hoodie. "I'm not going back there, Bruce."

Danny doesn't miss Bruce's look over his shoulder, nor Tim's nod in return. Tim turns slightly to the side to hide his movements, but Danny bets he has his phone in his hand, probably letting them know they can take him now. Guess this is it, then. They'll be here soon, and he'll be gone.

"Kill me."

"Danny? What do—"

"If you ever had any kindness for me, if you ever cared, kill me. Please, Bruce. I can't do it again."

"Danny..."

"End me now. Take my core out and break it, please, before they get here."

#dpxdc #dcxdp #dpxdc fanfic #wip game #thanks for the ask <3 and thanks for helping me remember this fic lol #also huge thanks for having the prompt linked because i have S O M A N Y prompt wips that i can't ever post because i've lost the post #didn't really know how to get danny to calm down #that's a lie #i have a few ideas of where this can go but no motivation for it - not against all the other wips #i'll keep at it and ig post to ao3 should it actually start looking alright #¯\_(ツ)_/¯#dudes did u kno u can pin shit to your clipboard on desktop because i fucking love that #also if you use the windows key + . there's like emojis and shit #(((φ(◎ロ◎;)φ)))#<- and kaomoji too!!!!!#anyway that's been fun facts and fanfic with me. ur welcome #oh shit my writing tag #hailsatanacrab🦀🦀writes #at some point 'oh shit my writing tag' will just become my writing tag #anyway thank you again for the ask #good night everyone!!!!!

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kiyomitakada · 22 days ago

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Hi this sounds really stupid sorry sorry in advance! I was wondering if you could explore the popular analysis of L=Light I see so strongly in the fandom.

I came out of the series not understanding what people saw that led them to believe L and Light are so so soooo similar. I get the surface-level parallels of both being intelligent and good at quick deductions. They definitely think alike (we see multiple times where they can catch what the other is saying without needing it verbalized), they also kinda share the whole 'motivated by boredom' aspect in the first half of the series(<- `I would say L moreso than Light, he is shown to be a bored adolescence in the beginning but he seems to clutch more to the preservation of his character after the initial few events, and then is caught up by the thrill of the game up until L dies. Boredom -> Morality -> Thrill) and perhaps the fact that they're both quick to anger (the fight in the headquarters -> but still L comes across as more level-headed, and the kick back appeared to be more of a requital than motivated by actual anger?) there is a really popular sentence in most meta and fics I've read that (paraphrased) says 'Light saw himself in L/ finally was able to connect to another" that confuses me.

HIIIIIIIIII this is such a fun ask oh my god thank you for the opportunity to talk about this. it does not sound stupid!!!! i think we (general) tend to take L and light parallelisms as granted and also exaggerate them a little because they're the two leads of death note who everyone knows about but the question of What Is Actually There is always a good one to ask!

i think this actually breaks down into two parts which are: 1. are they similar, 2. why are they motivated to think they are similar?

SO. first one first,

you have all the immediately obvious parallels down, they think super alike and they are bored as hell

tangent: i really really love this (short!) analysis on the type of boredom they share. light doesn't want entertainment the same way L does and L is as-far-as-we-know very satisfied in his position in the world before the start of the manga. but! they both like establishing superiority. they both like playing games. the thrill stage. i think L is as caught up in the game as light is — showing up in person just to throw light off despite the risk, inviting light to tennis, the other students talking about how they've spent two days hanging around only each other,

(granted this person clearly does not like them and is probably exaggerating)

near and mello in comparison are playing against each other instead of light, but near specifically tells aizawa that both of their motivation is to catch kira for L's sake. and of course L wants to catch kira too but he views it in a much more tunnel-vision sense. he literally talks to kira in his head

L solves a lot of cases! but this one in particular he has someone intellectually on his level and he has so much more fun that way.

ANYWAY. that's L's part of the thrill of the game you mentioned for light. onto the more fun similarities: this is my personal favorite. after ryuk tells light that he found 64 cameras in his room,

in japanese they even include special emphasis on the either. and light and ryuk haven't been talking about anyone else in their conversation before this.

that guy doesn't know where to stop (just like me).

i think this is the core of what makes them similar leaving intellectual mind games aside. it is the Ruthlessness. light will kill hundreds of thousands of people to prove that he is right, that he is justice (because he wants to be right). L will kill lind l tailor and put 64 cameras into a high school student's room and put misa amane in sensory deprivation torture for 50+ days, to prove that light is kira (because he wants light to be kira).

this isn't unique to the two of them by all means! misa sacrifices her friend and moves to tokyo and kills a bunch of news announcers and celebrities to find light! but light never acknowledges her as similar to him even when misa invokes it deliberately ["to defeat evil there must be sacrifices, right? that's what you've been doing"]. because. well. first of all the misogyny, and second of all because he's not playing against misa, misa is a wild card in what he conceives of as a battle solely between him and L.

and similarly mello says that he'll do whatever it takes to beat near, including killing half his organization to destabilize him and blowing himself up and so on. but light doesn't see any of this as a parallel and the narrative doesn't go out of its way to point it out the way it does for light and L:

(note: naomi says herself the reason she ended up telling light her entire theory is because he reminded her of L.) (this is probably because of the way light validates her [as L did in labb] and fills in the gaps in her logic [as L did in labb] but the point is that the narration has an Agenda)

okay so tied to the ruthlessness is the Justice thing. here is another (short!) meta which argues that L is the god of the old world vs. light as the god of the new world:

When L proclaims to be justice in his pissing contest with Kira, he doesn’t mean “justice is a concept that exists independent from humans and is clearly defined, I adhere to this concept”. He means the same thing Light does: “The definition of justice is man-made and I am the man making it.” The struggle between L and Kira is a power struggle - aside from being a criminal by legal definition, Kira is the first person to truly challenge L's status. It’s not a fight of right and wrong, it’s a fight over who gets to define 'right’.

after his morality crisis at the start light spends most of the first half convincing himself that he is Genuinely Right. so right in fact that he is justified to kill everyone else in his way because they're the evil ones for trying to stop kira, clearly. he kills naomi and raye without a care in the world!

L on the other hand is less readable because we don't spend as much time with him but i usually interpret him as knowing from the start that this isn't about justice at all. at the start he says things like "the good guys always win!" to motivate the task force but once they have a rapport, he acknowledges on multiple occasions that he's taking the morally worse route but it's worth it to him because he'll catch kira that way.

("i believe that your method is most correct" is insaaane coming from l lawliet)

the main difference between them is that L is perfectly aware that he's doing fucked up shit while first-arc light isn't. but second arc! after soichiro (moral center of death note) dies!

light: i think kira understands this—

and now we're back to the other iconic scene of a character staring out a window:

separated across an ocean and five years but there it is! they will do anything to get what they perceive as justice, even though they also know it's evil, including using their own selves/lives and everyone else's as tools for their ambitions.

…but it's also a game. and it's fun, isn't it?

aaaand yeah. i think that's probably the core of it. no other pair hits all of those points at the same time — notably near (as mentioned in that meta i linked before) rejects the entire traditional premise of justice. nobody can tell what is right or wrong, what is righteous or evil. even if there is a god… and i had his teachings before me, i would think it through… and decide if that was right or wrong myself. and this is also why near doesn't kill light, because near is genuine about believing it's not anyone's place to decide that, which is the exact thing that makes light think L is better than near (because L would have killed light 100%)

tangent: it is also very important to me that near beats c-kira by saying "you're nothing but a murderer." and then self-chastises "that wasn't very L-like" but it's what gets c-kira to stop.

why isn't it L-like — because L wouldn't look down at c-kira like that, because kira is L's opponent and they are equally matched and they are playing a game. but near sees the world with clearer eyes. c-kira isn't a rival. they're just another murderer.

okay so as to the second part of your question:

there is a really popular sentence in most meta and fics I've read that (paraphrased) says 'Light saw himself in L/ finally was able to connect to another" that confuses me.

sorry this bit is going to have fewer mangacaps because i can't recall the exact moments as well. BUT.

light is lonely. he spends class gazing out the window. he doesn't consider telling anyone about the death note, ever. he laughs and jokes with his friends and asks for new year's cards and then goes home and immediately sags against the door (and notices that there's something wrong with his doorknob). he doesn't tell anyone about how he kind of wants to kill everyone around him even pre-death note just because god, the world sucks so much. you get my point.

and then L comes along and is the first challenge light has basically ever had and. [gestures at above] the way he falls silent when naomi tells him he reminds her of L and then visibly pushes it aside to say, hey, why not join the task force? we just need your ID! that guy doesn't know where to stop, either (hey look it's pretty much canon that he sees himself in L even if he brushes the thought aside immediately). the way he brightens when L says he's doing well in the cafe:

the way he hesitates to kill L when rem can do it immediately and only smiles after misa sees his name and therefore light can decide when to kill him himself?

and all of this is still true whether or not you think light even likes L as a person! because he enjoys the challenge! which yeah we all knew that already BUT. the point is. he's lonely. L is the first person to provide a reprieve from his boredom. he has all the motivation in the world to want to see himself in L/connect to another, even in a world where they weren't alike at all.

and then L is just here like

thank you L

actually wait yes that's also a thing. the ego thing. they fucking HATE losing because it would damage their sense of pride! this is something that kiyomi also shares (which is why light also recognizes himself in kiyomi) but not any of the other main cast characters to the extent that they do — mello hates losing but it's because of his inferiority complex, it's different from L & light who are already on top of the world but feel threatened; near is overconfident but it's because near underestimates kira, not because of self-overestimation. light doing the entire yotsuba gambit because he's sure that he'll get the notebook back and win <--> L saying there's no way that yotsuba caught kira before he did. you understand

okay. okay. so. tl;dr

they are both seeking justice on their own terms while using methods that they know (L consciously, light subconsciously) are wrong but they think will lead to the Correct results for the world in time

rephrase: they are ruthless bastards

rephrase: they're childish and egotistical and they hate losing :)

as you mentioned: the intelligence, being able to see each other's thoughts, etc (this is also a thing for light and near; i can't remember the post but someone said "all death note geniuses share a brain" and i've never been able to unsee it)

but even in the case where all of that was untrue they'd probably still want to see themselves in each other anyway, light because he's lonely and L because this is the first fun case he has had in forever.

#we are the ones / who don't slow down at all / and there's nobody there / to catch us when we fall #<- should have just screenshotted that that's my entire point #light yagami #l lawliet #death note #asks #anon #okay im going to pin this for a second since i spent like three hours on it in a fugue state

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