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silverwhittlingknife · 3 years ago

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i had kind of thought that if dick had actually been killed in infinite crisis, that he probably would’ve been resurrected in blackest night/brightest day. maybe that’s just wishful thinking, but at least that way we would get some good ol batfam angst eventually followed up by a resurrection-gone-right. plus imagine bruce coming back from being lost in time to find that dick’s alive…

OH MY GOD zombie!Dick coming back from the dead and then Tim has to destroy him 😭 in the middle of the awful year where everybody's dead 😭

ooh but a resurrection-gone-right is interesting. Bruce dies at the start of the story when everything's going to hell, but then when he comes back at the end of the story Dick's back and everything has been fixed. There's something nice about the arc of that.

other brainstorming on Dick dying and possible fallout

@upswings look what you've done you've awakened the sadists in all of us

Jason and Tim fighting over Nightwing -- OW. You know, I would really like to imagine this with a happy ending, where ... like, Jason comes to understand Tim better, or vice versa, but also my first instinct is some kind of one-shot that ends in tragedy?

If it's Jason POV: Jason is generally sympathetic through the whole thing but his own grievances take more and more control of him and it ultimately builds to him killing Tim and striding away while his my-villain-turn-is-now-complete music plays, Dr. Horrible-style. Bonus points if the fic makes you think that it's gonna have a happy ending and then it doesn't.

If it's Tim POV: Trickier! But basically the tonal equivalent for Tim, except Tim wouldn't/physically can't kill Jason, so instead it would have to be a Boomerang-esque setup where ... hmmm ... Tim coolly sets Jason up to get imprisoned, or sacrifices him to save someone else, or something like that? I feel like "sacrifices Jason to save someone else" is a more plausible moral compromise for Tim, since this is Tim's "desperately try to resurrect everybody" stage. So maybe you shift genre a bit to make it more fantasy, and invent some kind of reason whereby Tim needs a human sacrifice to bring Conner back, and he knows he shouldn't at the beginning of the story but by the end of it he's convinced himself Jason is an acceptable sacrifice. *ominous doom music*

Does Tim take on the Dick Grayson legacy of putting everything on his shoulders to fix??? Does Tim “Gotham needs a Batman” Drake take on the cowl even though he fundamentally does not want it and does not think he can do it and hates the idea and is afraid he might go evil?? HOW does a Batman!Tim and Robin!Damian AU work because I think it goes absolutely TERRIBLE. (h/t @bitimdrake)

Bruce dying shortly thereafter leaving just Tim and just Damian and if Tim still leaves maybe that would switch the narrative from “drake can leave and stay gone idc” to “drake leaving is an act of betrayal to the family” (h/t @theflopwonder)

Then what happens to Damian when Bruce dies???? [...] now it would just be Alfred and Tim... if Tim is even still living there, he might not be if there’s a chance Bruce wouldn’t adopt him in this timeline and he runs away to Bludhaven or the Titans or something. So. Just Alfred, unless Cass stays this time. .....Actually. Cass might be the one to step up if Tim leaves. (h/t @forestlingincorporated)

okay i am really intrigued by this hypothetical AU where Dick is dead and we get a Tim-and-Damian teamup after Bruce dies

i don't have a coherent pitch but here is some brainstorming

so one option is obviously Batman!Tim and Robin!Damian, which would be great in a oh-god-they're-so-young-and-this-is-so-sad way, a la BatDamian and Robin!Steph

BUT ALSO CONSIDER:

Tim and Damian TOGETHER on Tim's Ra's-al-Ghul-inflected Brucequest

Tim has a fight with uhhhh Steph (?) or Cass (?) about his resurrection plan and storms off, still Robin; but Damian overhears and makes his own Robin costume and ambushes him in Madrid; what the hell, says Tim; I will bring Father back not you, says Damian.

(meanwhile the Batgirls are in Gotham fighting Pyg)

Robin!Tim and Robin!Damian team up and travel around the world looking for clues, and Tim does not care about Damian, okay, he doesn't, he doesn't even like Damian, but they're sleeping in hotel rooms together and sharing meals and so forth and they're with each other 24-7 and Damian will not leave and if he gets hurt then obviously Tim has to bandage him and they still Officially Hate Each Other but sheer proximity means enforced closeness because they can, like, hear each other's nightmares and so forth --

-- and Ra's is then trying to tempt somebody, but hmmmm I feel like this need to be a single-POV fic, so EITHER Tim's POV OR Damian's POV, not both. So whoever's POV it is has to be the person that's getting tempted to betray the other one, e.g. if it's Tim, then Ra's is determined to get Tim to betray Damian, and if it's Damian, Ra's wants him to betray Tim.

So for convenience's sake, let's say it's Tim POV. So maybe Ra's is mostly focused on Tim, and keeps contacting Tim, and he's dismissive of Damian and/or doesn't realize that Damian is with Tim -

(okay so in canon the body-snatching threat for Damian disappears post-Resurrection, because now Ra's has a new body, but if you wanted, maybe unknown to Tim the reason why Damian keeps hiding every time Ra's calls or talks to Tim or leaves a mysterious clue is because Ra's still wants to body-snatch him and/or kill him??)

but anyway I kinda like the idea of doing something where Tim's getting a similar recruitment-pitch to the League of Assassins -- here have this passport, we rented a hotel room for you, look these people have showed up to help out, etc. etc. So Tim's getting fêted and Damian's getting ..... actually never mind, I feel like this would be more fun if Damian can be actually interacting instead of hiding, so Damian's just kinda getting ignored, or at least that's what it looks like, but Damian's extra-tense.

So at first Tim's feeling kinda petty and smug because Damian talks a good game constantly about how special he is, but now that they're interacting with the actual League it's obvious that he was full of it, right? And yes, this is a petty feeling to be indulging when they have a Big Serious Quest to bring everybody back to life, but it's still kind of a guilty pleasure.

And something something things happen and THEN

Ra's gets Tim alone and Damian's out sulking in the anteroom or whatever, and Ra's is offering Tim exactly what he needs to bring everybody back there's just one tiny codicil

which is that Tim needs to get Damian to do something

(why does Ra's need Damian to do the thing willingly? I don't know, because magic)

and whatever the thing is sounds harmless, but of course this is Ra's, and Tim's got this creepy feeling, because of course as careless as Ra's is acting it can't actually be that simple,

(and of course it's not)

and then hmmmm

i think to make this satisfying Tim has to actually fall for the temptation initially, and then later realize it was wrong and have to run to help Damian

WAIT WAIT I KNOW

What if -- okay I haven't worked this out -- but what if Ra's and Tim made the deal near the beginning of the Brucequest, back when Tim didn't care about Damian at all (plus when Tim was under the impression that this was just a family squabble rather than any kind of actual danger to Damian), and that deal is the basis on which Ra's has been helping,

and then Ra's decides to take advantage of the deal right before the key moment when Tim's going to pull off his resurrection

so now Damian's been kidnapped or tricked or taken on the Night of the Full Moon or whatever

and Tim has to decide between going through with the resurrection plans or saving Damian, and obviously he has to realize that he has to save Damian

and then when he gets there, Damian's horrified because WHAT ABOUT THE RESURRECTION, and it turns out Damian knew about the deal the whole time but he's okay with it because he's sacrificing himself to bring his father back to life

so now Tim has his big REALIZATION and he's all "no Bruce wouldn't want that" and the two of them fight Ra's

and then they go back to Gotham and fight crime together <3

#extremely good ideas / extremely bad ideas #batfamily trashfire <3

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themandylion · 3 years ago

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97 & 41 jaytim

Oh wow, this ended up long. /o\

97 (Time Travel) + 41 (First Kiss) + JayTim

He's boosting tires in the Bowery when the thugs find him. Crowd him up against a wall and threaten him with bodily harm for horning in on their territory, even though this part of the city is a free-for-all, with no one reigning supreme. There's three of them to his one, all of them full-grown men with bulging muscles and nasty tempers and Jason knows he's in his final moments, that there's no way he's escaping this. Still, that doesn't mean he's going to go down without a fight. He squares his shoulders, plants his feet, raises the tire iron in his hand, and—

Between one blink and the next, the back-most thug is on the ground, groaning and clutching his crotch. There's a blur of red, and then the next one's down on his knees, the crowbar he was gripping half a block away and the hand that was holding it pinned to the wall by a slim, sharp-edged disk.

Silver flashes through the night, and the final guy collapses in a heap, just sprawled out on the pavement like he's not even human anymore, just a pile of discard clothes over something lumpy and unmoving. Someone lands on his back, light and nimble and impossibly tall. "You okay there, kid?" the new person asks, crouching down so he's at Jason's level and smiling.

"…Batman?" He's only ever seen the Bat from a distance before, but he's heard about the cape and cowl, and this guy has both.

The guy shakes his head. "Nope, not him. I'm his partner, though."

"Robin wears green," Jason feels compelled to point out, because he's definitely seen Robin before, though always on the TV, when the Teen Titans are fighting really scary bad guys elsewhere in the world.

This time, a shadow seems to pass over the man's face, sad and unhappy. "I'm a different kind of Robin. Red Robin. I'm pretty new, it's not surprising you haven't heard of me." He leans back on his heels and glances around at the thugs, frowning. "I've got to tie these guys up and leave them somewhere the GCPD will find them. Do you think you can get home on your own?"

Jason gulps, staring up at him, at the way all that tight leather and spandex hugs his body. Gee whiz. "Yeah, I. I can take care of myself. Thanks!" He surges forward, practically smacking his mouth against Red Robin's cheek, before running off into the night. Maybe not headed home, but to as close as anything gets, these days.

---

Two weeks later, Batman catches him boosting tires on Crime Alley. A week later, he's going home with the man. Jason asks about Red Robin and gets a confused, clueless look, which is strange. With everything else happening, he forgets about the man in the black cowl with the silver staff, but he still finds himself drawn to that one particular shade of red.

---

He forgets until the memory is jarred out of the deepest depths years later on the other side of the multiverse, when he's bound to a chair and staring down the barrel of gun. A gun held by another Batman, a different Bruce. One who did all the things he thought he wanted his Bruce to do, only to end up a broken man as a result. Jason tries to explain himself and his presence, but it's hard to when he keeps seeing that suit in the case over this Batman's shoulder.

They reach an understanding, a kind of peace. Both of them, finally, for the first time in ages. This other Bruce offers him the suit, and Jason doesn't think twice before putting it on. He's traveled across the multiverse, seen places where dead people live again, where evil people are good and vice versa. It's not too far a stretch to believe that somehow, he's going become his own childhood hero.

When he finishes pulling on the last piece, Bruce looks on him with pride and announces, "Red Robin lives!"

"Red…?" Jason murmurs, more than a little startled. It's been so long, he'd nearly forgotten the name, but it fits, it makes sense. Finally, he's back on the right path, back to being someone the boy he once was could be proud of. Will be proud of, when their paths cross again, which he's sure they will.

---

The other Batman dies.

---

They get back, finally done traveling across the multiverse, fleeing across Apokolips, running from plagues and maybes and might-have-beens. Donna and Rayner return to wherever they call home, and Jason... He thought he finally found himself when he put on the cowl and became Red Robin, but with everything that happened after that moment, all the contrition he gained has been too long stewing in a half-broken heart. He isn't sure who rescued him when he was a kid, but it wasn't him, and it wasn't the long-dead Jason of another world. Maybe it was no one at all, and he made it all up and convinced himself it was real.

He runs back to Gotham, strips off the cape and cowl, the bandoliers and leather. Throws it all in the trash and goes to knock some heads and blow off some steam, anything to escape from what the rest of the Justice League brought with them—a sob story and a broken, days-old body.

---

The suit disappears from the can where he threw it, and he thinks good riddance to bad rubbish, but the person who's wearing it now doesn't understand the significance, the legacy. Doesn't know what it symbolizes, a last chance at redemption, a final loss of innocence.

The new kid distracts him, muddies the water and still Jason doesn't see it, doesn't realize what's happening. Even when the kid takes the cowl, adds it to his green-free suit, he doesn't see it.

Jason's too busy fighting, too busy screaming, raging, being angry at himself and the world to realize how things are swirling tighter and tighter, closing in, twining together, weaving themselves in an intricate, impossible mesh that's new and old and always existing all at the same time. The three of them—him and Dick and the new kid—push and shove and fight and scream and grieve in their own ways, trying to figure out who they're going to be now, what the world is without Bruce.

He ignores overtures of friendship, leaves the kid broken and bleeding out and thinks nothing of it, still too busy hurting and too busy denying he hurts.

Thinks nothing of Robin back on the streets in red and green and black and yellow, a different boy, an actual child.

---

Bruce comes back, but he's just as stubborn as always, and Jason burned the last of his bridges while the old man was playing possum. There's nothing left for him to do but lurk in the shadows and grit his teeth and watch Drake bounce around the city in a costume that isn't his, telling himself he doesn't care, that it doesn't rub him the wrong way.

Doesn't actually realize what's happening until one day he's watching as Drake races across the city, ready to step in and stop him if he dares to cross into Red Hood's territory when suddenly—

There's no one. The roof's empty, not a soul in sight.

He swings over, investigates. There's a strange acrid smell in the air along with the faintest traces of sweat and exhaustion, but there's no clue to where he's gone, no hint. Minutes pass and the sky is getting darker as evening turns into night. Just when he's given up, Drake reappears, but still, unmoving. One hand grasping his staff while the other touches his cheek and he stares into nothing, dazed and unfocused.

His attention snaps up, and Jason is too startled to move, still standing there in the middle of the roof, the two of them locked in place.

"Holy fuck." He can't. This isn't—

He's tried to kill Drake multiple times over the years. They've barely had a conversation that hasn't ended with Jason drawing a knife or a gun, and more often than not he comes out on top. Leaves the guy knowing that he's alive at Jason's mercy.

But now he's standing there, finally grown into the Red Robin suit and name, filling it in all the right places, all the right ways, grasping a staff that Jason somehow failed to recognize until this exact moment.

"I never—" He never thought to make the connection, always assumed it had to be someone else, some one huge. Big enough to match the larger-than-life figure that dominated a half-forgotten memory.

"Huh." Red Robin collapses his staff, clips it his belt. "Random time blip? I didn't even realize."

Which would explain it. Of course he didn't realize—no way would he have helped that other, younger Jason if he'd known who it was. Why save a boy who's going to grow up to become a monster bent on destroying him over and over again. "Sorry," Jason says, startled, confused, unable to wrap his head around it all as he stumbles backwards, tries to do what he always does when he's confronted with too much, too fast—run.

Red Robin—Drake—tilts his head to the side and then does something completely unexpected. He shoves back the cowl and studies Jason with cool, clear eyes. "I have a feeling this has been a weird night for both of us. You could stick around. We could figure this out together."

So help him, Jason hesitates. "Time travel is pretty weird."

"I was thinking more being kissed by my childhood crush. But yeah, that too."

"Your… what?"

"Come on," he says, holding out a hand. "I think it's time we finally talked. Maybe without the death threats this time?"

Gulping, Jason takes that hand in his.

It's not much, but. It's a start.

(The Fanfic Trope MASH-UP is still open for asks!)

#JayTim #time travel #Red Robin #ask meme #anonymous #themandylion writes #my fic #weirdly canon compliant in its own special way 🤔#trope mash up

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wild-karrde · 3 years ago

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The Quarry - Part 13

Master List | Previous Part | Next Part

Author's Note: mention of serious injury in this chapter

“DIN!” Versa’s voice was hoarse as smoke and dust filled the narrow alleyway before being tamped down by the drizzle. Without thinking, she reholstered her weapon and dove, wrapping her arms around his body and rolling him to the opposite side of the alley, tucking their muddy forms down between two stacks of crates. He grunted in her arms as she pushed his body up against the wall, frantically digging her fingers under his shirt to find where he’d been hit. He groaned as she found the blaster hole in his side, quickly inspecting it. “Vers,” he gasped.

“Stay still,” she commanded. Karking hells it’s bad. The bolt had hit him right between the ribs, luckily cauterizing most of the flesh around it, but the way he was struggling to breathe was scaring her. “Are you gasping because of the pain or because you’re short of breath, Din? This is important.”

He tilted his visor up to look at her. “Pain…I think.” The air smelled electric. She glanced at his leg. Not pretty, but he’ll live. Din was grasping at her, trying to pull himself up, but she pressed him back against the wall.

“Stay down,” she ordered.

Versa ripped her blaster back out of its holster with one hand as she assessed the situation. Breathe. Think. Which way is the blaster fire coming from? Her cloak was heavy with mud and water, and she wrenched it from her shoulders, tossing it aside as her hair stuck to her forehead and neck in the rain.

“Alright, you stay here. I’ll handle this. Ok, Din?” She was met with silence. “Din?” Fear strangled her as her fingers dug under his cowl, desperately searching for a pulse. He was unconscious, but she found a heartbeat. Must have passed out from the pain. Kriff. Ok, I’m on my own.

As the bolts whizzed by, she figured out they were coming from the direction she and Din had been heading, towards the market. Good. We can get back to the ship. At least, so far. She allowed herself to peer around the corner. A troop of masked hunters were making their way down the alley towards them, about twenty meters away and closing quickly. Her peek around the corner earned her another volley of blasterfire. She blindly fired back without hitting anything before withdrawing.

Versa felt her heart rising in her throat. She hadn’t brought any spare munitions with her from the ship, thinking that this would be quick and at most, they’d run into one or two hunters. Now with at least half a dozen advancing on them, she cursed her lack of planning. She began patting down Din’s body, searching for anything that could help them. Her eyes landed on the whistling birds on Din’s wrist. She whispered a prayer as she scraped the mud away that it would be loaded, and for once, luck was on her side. She quickly studied the mechanism on his vambrace, finding the switch he engaged with his thumb and the mechanism that clicked on when he snapped his wrist downwards. The heavy footfalls of boots were growing closer as she wrenched his arm out from behind the crate, bending his wrist downwards and depressing the button on his gauntlet. The salvo whistled out of his armor, and she counted six satisfying thuds as their attackers hit the ground. A second passed before a few more blaster bolts whizzed past. Damn. Didn’t get them all.

Tucking Din back behind the crates, Versa began digging through his pouches and pockets. She found a vibroblade and smoke grenade. These’ll do. Cautiously, she peeked again. Another four hunters were advancing. They really brought the whole gang. She inhaled deeply, concentrating on the sound of approaching boots as her training from her youth took over.

Versa tossed the grenade, and the alley erupted in smoke and blaster fire. Gotta move quickly before the rain clears it. Ducking low, Versa dashed forward, drawing the vibroblade and her blaster. The first form came out of the smoke and she kicked his leg out from under him. He landed with a dull thud before she smashed her elbow into his throat and fired two rounds into his chest. Blasterfire slammed into the wall inches from her face as another nearby attacker shot blindly at the noise. A piece of the stone hit her in the mouth, splitting her lip open, but Versa barely noticed it. She dove forward towards the source of the fire, landing in a crouch at the hunter’s feet. She stood quickly, driving her shoulder upwards into the arm he was holding his blaster in, and his next round of fire flew wildly skyward. He swung his other arm and landed a blow to her ribs, driving a grunt from her lungs. She embedded the blade in between his chest plate and back plate on his blaster side, twisting the knife as he screamed and slumped onto her.

The final two assailants were becoming more visible as the smoke cleared, and they charged forward firing at her. Versa used the body she was holding up as a shield as they ran towards her. She fired from behind the body, managing to hit one of her attackers in the knee, and he went down. She quickly spun on her knees, yanking the blade out of the man she was holding and throwing it as hard as she could at the hunter closest to her. Her aim was true and the vibroblade embedded into the man’s throat. He collapsed with a sickening gurgle.

Pushing herself to her feet and yanking the knife out of the hunter’s neck, Versa advanced on the final assailant, a human man tucked back against the wall, holding the knee she’d obliterated with her blaster bolt. He scrambled for his weapon as she approached, but she kicked it out of reach, leveling her blaster at his head.

“Who sent you?” she demanded through gritted teeth. “Are you with Farr or someone else?”

“F-F-Farr,” he stammered. “Please don’t kill me. This was my first job. I don’t even know who you are.”

She crouched down in front of him, pointing the bloodied vibroblade at him menacingly. “My pity is more than you deserve. You may have killed my friend back there. I’m going to take him, and we’re leaving on our ship, but if he dies, you had better believe I will come back here and hunt you and everyone Farr has out for me to avenge him, is that clear?” The man nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed hard.

“Good. And if I ever see you again, I will kill you on sight. Understand?”

He nodded again. She stood, gazing down at him as he trembled before she raised her blaster and pistol-whipped him across the face. He slumped to the ground unconscious.

What a kriffing mess. She raced back down the alley to where Din was hidden. Gently, she grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “Din. Din I need you to wake up. Those kilos you have on me are going to make getting you back to the ship a lot harder.” He groaned, hissing as he pressed a gloved hand to his side. “Can you stand?” she whispered frantically. The helmet nodded. “Good. Lean on me. We’ve got to go.”

As gently as she could, she pulled him up, tucking his arm across her shoulder so that he could take some of the weight off his injured leg. They limped along slowly, Versa keeping her eyes open for any additional threats. “The supplies,” he wheezed.

“Forget ‘em. We’ve got enough to get us to Naboo. We’ll definitely have to restock there though.”

“You…you’re still…buying.”

She smirked and her concern abated slightly. “Yeah, yeah, smartass,” she muttered.

“Vers…your lip.”

“Worry about it later. We gotta get you back to the ship.” The ground was becoming slippery with mud as the drizzle slowly became a downpour. Din felt more heavy as her feet squelched in her boots, but Versa tightened her grip on him. Finally, the ship came into view. Versa hauled Din up the ramp before gingerly setting him on one of the bunks. “Stay still. I’m going to get us out of here, and then I’ll come back and take care of you. Ok?”

He just nodded, holding his side and grunting as he leaned back against the wall. Versa whirled, slamming the hatch panel to close it before jogging to the cockpit. She piloted the ship out of the port and into orbit before running the hyperspace calculations and punching in the coordinates for Naboo. Once the ship was cruising, she searched one of the supply cabinets until she found a med kit, striding back to Din. His breathing had evened out, but she could tell he was still in a lot of pain. Gently, she helped him remove his sopping wet cloak and armor, carefully setting the beskar to the side piece by piece.

“Alright, lay on your side,” she said quietly.

“I can…” he said weakly, reaching for the med kit.

She swatted him away again. “Stop being an idiot. I’m taking care of you this time. Now lay down.” Gently, she guided him onto his side without any further protest. She could hear him sucking in through his teeth, and she tried her best to sooth him with quiet words and soft touches. Once he was laid out, she began peeling up the wet layers of his shirt and flight suit to get to his ribs. When she got to the final layer, she took a deep breath. This is going to be ugly. Gingerly, she lifted the fabric and still grimaced as she saw the wound in his side.

“That...bad huh?” Din gasped.

“Well, it’s certainly not good. Here, let me take some of the edge off.” Digging around in the med kit, she found a painkiller injection. Pulling the neck of shirt down, she pressed the syringe against the skin at his throat before depressing the end of it. He hissed slightly at the prick, and she whispered an apology, but it only took a few seconds for her to see some of the tension leak out of his body as the medicine did its job and he relaxed.

Versa applied a numbing agent around the edges of Din’s burned skin, trying not to let her eyes wander over his body too much. There was light scarring across his back and ribs and one rather large one that tore across his hip bone and disappeared below the waistline of his pants. That one can’t have felt good.

“Come a little closer if you can. I wanna get a good look at it and make sure I get it clean.”

With her help, Din scooted closer to the edge of the bunk. Versa leaned over his body, flushing the mud and grit out of the wound as best she could with some saline from the kit. Din shivered a bit at the cold liquid as it hit the burns around it. Versa stroked her thumb down his back as he tried not to jerk beneath her. Once it was cleaned, she pulled her light from its place on her hip and shone the light into the hole in Din’s side. Her stomach flipped, but she was relieved to see it hadn’t torn into him as deep as she thought.

“Didn’t hit anything critical, but your ribs are probably slightly bruised from the plasma impact. I’m going to put some bacta gel in there now and then patch you up, ok?”

He managed another small nod. She worked as carefully as she could trying to not press at the damage around the wound. Din was silent, and the only way she could tell he felt anything was when his body would occasionally tense beneath her. His breathing was somewhat less labored because of the painkiller, and after a few moments, she smoothed the patch over his injury. Her fingers lingered a little bit on his skin before he shifted underneath her again.

“All done?” he asked quietly.

“With that one. Time to look at your thigh. Can you sit back up for me?” She quickly smoothed his shirt back down, silently chiding herself for the thoughts she’d had at the sight of just a fraction of his bare body. She helped him to a sitting position before taking a look at where the other bolt had torn through his pantleg.

“I’m going to need you to take your pants off, Din,” she finally sighed.

“You normally have that little enthusiasm when you say that?” he teased through gritted teeth as she prodded the wound.

“It’s that or I cut them off, Mando, and I don’t see a spare pair lying around anywhere, so unless you want to walk around Naboo with your ass hanging out, take ‘em off.”

“You’re so bossy,” he muttered as he undid his belt, shimmying his pants down his thighs to his knees, leaving his undershorts in place. Versa tried not to have any sort of reaction to seeing Din in his undergarments, crouching down by this exposed thigh. It was another direct hit, but not quite as deep as the one in his ribs. She wondered if it had somehow glanced off of the thigh armor he wore. Yeah, focus on that. Repeating the same process she had completed with the shot to his ribs, Versa found her mouth more dry as she kept her eyes focused on his leg, not allowing them to wander upwards at all. Even then, she still found herself thinking about how muscular his thighs were and counting the other scars she could see along his knee and running up his leg. He’s been through a lot. As she pressed the bandage to his leg, he hissed.

“Sorry. That hurt?”

“Yeah, somehow, that one hurts more than the ribs right now. Might have just hit the right nerves or something.”

Without thinking, Versa leaned down and placed a kiss on his bare skin near the bandage. She felt him stiffen underneath her slightly and she stood quickly. Why the kriff did I do that? What is actually wrong with me? “There, that help?” she asked, her voice at least an octave higher than normal. He just looked at her as she quickly turned away to dispose of the spent medical supplies, her face on fire. She heard him shuffle his pants back up, his belt buckle clinking as he refastened it.

“Vers.” His voice was soft. She turned back to look at him, leaning heavily on the bunk on his uninjured side. He patted the spot next to him. “Your turn.”

“Huh?”

“Your lip.”

“Oh. It’s fine. I don’t-“

“C’mere.”

Her entire body was on fire as she stepped towards him, slowly sitting down on the bunk next to him. He turned to face her more, pulling his gloves off. Gently, he took her face in his hand, running his thumb along her lower lip to inspect the damage. Every nerve of her body was screaming as he tilted his head to look at her closer. “Just a split. A little swelling. Not too bad,” he said quietly. “You do have blood running down your chin though, so you look a bit…well I wouldn’t mess with you if I saw you in a cantina,” he chuckled.

Great. I just kissed him on his thigh with blood dribbling down my chin. Very attractive. Well done, Versa.

He dug through the med kit until he found a disinfectant wipe. Taking her jaw in one hand, he wiped the blood away with the other, gently cleaning the cut as well. She inhaled sharply at the slight sting, and he quietly apologized.

“It’s not too deep. Just needs some ointment and time to heal.” He took a small tin out of the med kit, opening the lid and running his middle finger through the salve inside. With his other hand, he gently grasped her chin again. “Open your mouth a bit,” he said, and it took everything within Versa to not shudder as she obliged, parting her lips for him. Din slowly ran his middle finger over her the cut on her lip, and she felt a cooling, numbing sensation that was counter to what she was experiencing in every other cell of her body. She didn’t know where to look, so she focused on the wall over his shoulder, not daring to peer into the visor that was studying her so carefully now. After what felt like an eternity, he released her jaw, and she sat back.

“Better?” he asked.

“Yeah. Much. Thanks.” She stood quickly, eager to put distance between them. Grabbing the med kit, she replaced it in the storage cabinet, shutting it quietly before turning around. Din was sitting on the edge of the bed watching her and her cheeks burned again. She stood there for what felt like a sufficiently awkward amount of time before pushing a lock of hair behind her ear nervously. “Alright, well…um…I’m going to go check on…where we are and how much longer we’ve got. You should uh…get some rest. Yell if you need anything.”

With that, she strode to the cockpit, shutting the door behind her and slumping into the pilot seat as she began to fight internally with herself about what had just happened. And what hadn’t.

#the quarry #star wars #fanfiction #my fic #fan fic #din djarin #the mandalorian #din djarin x ofc #din djarin x oc #din djarin x original female character #queer oc #whump #angst #slow burn #romance #we're going to naboo kids #pedro pascal

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randomlut · 4 years ago

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Unpopular opinion : Canon wise, I like it better when Jason is Batman antagonist (Not in the villain way ofc, but more like UTRH way)

Yes, they used to be father and son but now they're not and that's why it's so tragic.

To force batfam concept when it comes to Bruce - Jason right now made no sense because Batman do hurt him a lot (and vice versa?) and then they have to reconcile just because "bat family" is silly for me because they haven't solve the main issue. Batman will never able to kill Joker, Jason will always be angry (rightfully so) that his killer is alive and his own father refused to avenged him.

Let them fight because their ideology is way too different. Let Jason be himself. Give Jason his independence and his values. Let them develop without each other and we don't have to repeat this cycle

(That being said, please don't make Jason a full villain like in the Battle of the Cowl or Tentacle Todd or Condom head Todd. Anything but that)

#jason todd #Red hood #anti - batfam #(?)#rant #3 jokers is actually pretty good for me #if only they don't do jaybab #it ruins everything

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sohotthateveryonedied · 4 years ago

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If There’s a Reason I’m Still Alive

Read here on AO3!

Summary:

Tim opens his eyes. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Doing what?” She’s tapping soundless piano notes on the metal floor now, a Beethoven piece she played for him once.

“You know what.”

“Would you rather be alone?”

“You look like you could use a break.” Tim ignores the advice and keeps tinkering with his gauntlet. He holds a piece in place and reaches for the screwdriver beside his knee. “You’ve been at this for days. It won’t work.” “It’ll work,” Tim says. “It has to.” “What if it doesn’t? There’s nothing left here for you to break.” Stephanie is sitting cross-legged on the floor next to a pile of discarded junk. Old devices that have been taken apart and put back together, meshed into what were once Tim’s second, third, and fourth attempts at escape. “Go away.” “You and I both know you don’t want that.” “What I want,” Tim grunts, tightening a stubborn bolt, “is to get out of here. What I want is for you to shut up and let me work.” “Someone’s grouchy.” “I wonder why.” Steph hums. She scoots a little closer to grab a discarded bolt and spin it like a top. It makes no noise, which brings Tim to wonder if he’s hallucinating the bolt itself or just the action. From this close he can smell her floral shampoo. “What are you working on?” “You’re in my head, aren’t you? Figure it out yourself.” “Tell me anyway.”

Tim’s hands still for only a moment. He twists two wires together. “I’m turning my gauntlet into an EMP emitter.” “So it’ll short out whatever is powering the cell door and you can escape.” “It’s almost like you’re reading my mind.” She laughs, and Tim can’t help but close his eyes and listen. It sounds so real—so much like the real Steph that if he keeps his eyes shut he can almost pretend it’s really her. That they are back home making pancakes while Stevie Wonder plays on the radio and sunlight filters in through the window. They’re together and everything is perfect. Tim opens his eyes. “Why are you doing this to me?” “Doing what?” She’s tapping soundless piano notes on the metal floor now, a Beethoven piece she played for him once. “You know what.” “Would you rather be alone?” “I don’t know what I want.” “I do.” Steph stands and comes over, her hand trailing across his shoulder and he can swear it’s her real flesh. She kneels in front of him. Tim keeps his eyes trained on the gauntlet between them. “You want me. You want all of us. You want to be back home, safe and sound.” She ducks her head down, forces him to meet her eyes. They’re as beautiful as he remembers. “Don’t you?” Something like a rock sticks in Tim’s throat. His voice cracks when he says, “Please. Just go away.” Stephanie looks genuinely sad when she lifts her hand to cup his cheek, wiping away a tear with her thumb. It feels real. She feels real. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Misery makes its own company.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You should sleep,” Dick says. “What are you going to do, make me?” Stephanie left hours ago, and the funny part is that Tim never noticed when she dissipated and Dick took her place. Minutes and hours blur together until none of it matters. Then what does that make me? “You haven’t slept in days. It’s not healthy.” “Neither is hallucinating, but that ship has already sailed.” Tim snaps the final piece into place and grins. “Finally.” Dick watches him calibrate the EMP with pitiful eyes. He’s in his Nightwing uniform, leaning against the far wall of the cell. “It won’t work.” “Stop talking.” Tim readjusts the device, fingers flying as he flips the switches that will turn off all the surrounding systems and evoke his escape from this prison. The emitter glows, and Tim knows he’s got it. It fizzles and jerks for a moment, spitting sparks until it dies. “Shit,” Tim hisses. He bangs on the side of it, willing it to turn back on. “Shit, shit—no.” He turns a knob, but nothing happens. It’s as if this place sensed his plan drained the juice right out of it. “Fuck!” With a roar, Tim throws the gauntlet against the wall where it smashes into pieces. He collapses onto his knees, pounding his fists into the metal floor until his knuckles crack. “Damn it. Damn it.” Dick places a hand on his shoulder. Tim doesn’t know when he even came closer from his spot against the wall. “Tim, I told you—” Tim’s head whips, eyes ablaze. “Shut up.” “Why can’t you give up? You’re only setting yourself up for disappointment.” “I’ll find a way.” “You’ve tried everything.” “I always figure it out eventually.” Dick shakes his head, squeezing Tim’s shoulder. “I know you do. But you won’t this time.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Tim.” “Go away.” “I can’t. You know I can’t.” Tim covers his ears, pressing his forehead against his knees. “Go away.” Bruce sighs. “You’re the one who keeps bringing us here. Deep down, you want us with you.” “Please. Leave me alone.” “We warned you about trying to escape. You knew it was pointless.” Tim’s heart pounds with every pulse of his headache. Or maybe it’s vice versa. He doesn’t know which way anything goes anymore. “I want to go home.” “They aren’t looking for you. If they were, they would have found you by now. They forgot about you.” Tim presses his palms harder against his ears, but it does nothing. He can’t escape the voices. “You’re a liar.” “Am I? Then why hasn’t anyone found you yet?” “Bruce is working on it. I know he is.” “You know as well as I do that you’ve been here too long. If he hasn’t found you by now, then it’s time to accept that maybe he isn’t looking.” “He is.” Tim grits his teeth, wrapping his arms around his knees. Trying to make himself small in his corner of the cell. “He’s coming for me. He has to.” The hallucination kneels in front of Tim. His cowl is down, his eyes cold. “Face the facts, Tim. Even if the others did know you were alive, they wouldn’t look for you anyway. We’re all doing fine without you. Your loss left barely a ripple in our lives.” “Be quiet. Be quiet, be quiet.” “We’re relieved to be rid of you.” Tim scrambles for the closest object he can find, hurling it at the hallucination. It goes right through him and smashes against the wall. “Shut up!” The imitation Bruce presses his lips together, as if stuck in a gray zone between sympathy and indifference. “It’s okay, Tim. You don’t need them anymore. You have us.” “Stop. Just stop.” Tim can’t bring himself to look at him, at Bruce’s face. “Please, just leave me alone.” Bruce sighs. “You’re already alone, Tim. But you don’t have to be.” The hallucination fades, leaving Tim by himself.

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gra-sonas · 4 years ago

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Day after day this summer, with covid-19 shuttering much of the world, Lily Cowles would enter a small sewing room in her family’s 18th century home in Northwest Connecticut, crawl inside some blankets, and scream. Along with her wails, she’d repeat the same phrases, over and over — all part of a daily ritual that spanned some four hours, until a collection of voices told her they were satisfied. Then she would collect herself, climb out from the blankets and greet her boyfriend who could hear her through the walls in the next room.

“Man, you died a lot of ways today,” he’d say.

“I don’t know why they killed me so bad,” Cowles would reply.

Such were the unusual conditions for Cowles and others when recording the dialogue — and other vocalizations — for the upcoming game “Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War,” the newest addition to the famed and fanciful war sim series. The blanket-draped fort served as the actress’s workstation, with a host of audio producers providing directions via video conference. Occasionally those instructions included imagining a wide variety of fates for her character, requiring lengthy sessions capturing death cries. All of it was part of a months-long, pandemic-related process to produce the game, one that proved both challenging in its never-before-done nature and cathartic for its ample opportunities to exorcise the many anxieties of 2020.

“It just felt so good to scream for that long,” said Cowles, who plays MI-6 operative Helen Park and supplied the character’s voice for both the game’s story and multiplayer modes. She recalled one session in which the game’s audio producers recorded her falling from a 30-story building. “I was like, ‘can we make it 40 floors? I could really use the extra 10 [stories] of just straight screaming.’ It just felt like a real relief.”

The unorthodox routine was shared by “Cold War’s” cast of 125 actors as they pivoted to follow safety protocols related to the novel coronavirus, which temporarily shut down the game’s production in March. The latest installment in the Call of Duty franchise, releasing Nov. 13, was completed with both developers and actors working remotely and overcoming a variety of logistical challenges.

“At the time [in March, when covid cases escalated in the United States] we thought it might be like 20 people or 50 percent of the studio who would have to work from home, and maybe that would be for like two weeks,” Dan Vondrak, Senior Creative Director at Raven Software, said. “And then it was everybody. … In my head, I was thinking, if this thing lasts six to eight weeks, we can’t get it done. That’s impossible.”

For Cowles and the game’s other actors, that meant recording lines of dialogue — and their many screams — from the confines of their homes. That process normally would be captured in large part during live shoots using motion capture suits on a studio sound stage. During the pandemic, capturing those recordings provided a unique challenge for narrative producer Natalie Pohorski and her team.

“One of those areas I thought we were just dead in the water was the external talent [voice overs],” Vondrak said. “I can’t have actors go into a studio. So, how is this going to work? And what Natalie and the narrative team did to get that to work and have people recording at home was unbelievable.”

Before dispersing from the studio, Pohorski and Vondrak estimated they had between 50 and 60 percent of the voice over work finalized. Working with their partners at Activision (the game’s publisher) and Treyarch (“Cold War’s” co-developer), Pohorski and her team shipped the actors crates filled with recording equipment that included helmets wired with microphones, sound mixing boards and materials to improve the acoustics around their homes.

“They sent me this giant Pelican briefcase that looked like I’m an arms dealer,” Cowles said.

Veteran actor Bruce Thomas, who plays the role of CIA agent Russell Adler in the game, already had a 5-foot-by-5-foot sound booth he’d constructed in his apartment adjacent to his kitchen. He’d used it to previously to record voice overs, including for some commercials, but he’d never recorded himself there quite so regularly — or at quite the same volume level. To that end, he sought to get ahead of any potential problems with a kind gesture and a heads-up for his neighbors about any yells they may hear through the walls.

“I delivered cookies and a little note to their doors right next to me and below me,” Thomas said. “I just moved here in January, so I hadn’t really met them yet, and I got a text message from the person below me who was like, ‘Oh my God! You do that for a living? How cool is that? Even if I hear you, don’t worry about it.’”

The conditions also required the actors to perform another role as well: that of audio engineer, recording and tinkering with sound levels to ensure quality and consistency. The studio’s engineers would call actors and walk them through proper setups and troubleshoot issues, but when something went wrong, the actors would have to be the ones to fix it manually. Turns out CIA operatives have the same tech troubles as other remote workers.

“Because of covid, everybody’s home and sharing bandwidth,” Thomas said about the Internet connection in his apartment building. “Sometimes it would just cut right out [during an online recording session]. And sometimes when that happens, a glitch will happen on your laptop and so you have to reboot it.”

The recording process consisted of four sessions per day, every day of the week, according to Pohorski, who also noted they wrapped at a similar time compared to what they’d anticipated in their pre-pandemic production schedule, even as they navigated challenges that would have been easily addressed in their usual studio setting.

“To not be able to just walk up and touch the screen and act out what I was talking about … ‘I want the guy’s head to turn this way,’ … I was trying to do it real time in a video camera,” Vondrak said. “Just the communication of that last 20 percent [of the game] was probably the most difficult.”

The on-the-fly evolution of several standardized processes did carry some fringe benefits, according to both the developers and actors. On the development team, Vondrak noted some people seemed more willing to contribute their opinions to the creative process when they didn’t feel the pressure of speaking up in a formal meeting. For the actors, Cowles said her isolated, remote location led her to take more chances with her character.

“I think I was able to make facial expressions and noises that, in a normal setting, my body would be like, ‘Don’t, don’t, don’t. You don’t want to make that noise. Don’t make that face,’" Cowles said. “But I was alone in this thing, and you know, the context in which we’re working [as characters] is this crazy war zone where horrible things are going down. Right? And no one in that situation is thinking about the sound they’re making or the face that they’re making. … I think that led to a degree of authenticity in my work.”

Another silver lining, according to Vondrak, was the increased flexibility in scheduling follow-up sessions for VO work. Oftentimes VO recording sessions are pegged to specific times of the year when the developers can gather all the actors in one place and free them from their other projects. (For example, Thomas is also the motion capture actor for Master Chief for the upcoming game “Halo: Infinite.”) With everyone working from home, the actors’ schedules became more flexible.

“It was like, wait a minute, we can just go back to these people and have them pop out of their family room, into their closet and record some VO lines,” Vondrak said. “Normally it would have been like, ‘We need some new lines.’ And [the schedulers] would have said, ‘Well, the next pick up session where everyone’s going to be in the studio is June.' It’s [normally] a very slow, formal process."

The flexibility did carry an occasional side effect of home life encroaching on the working world, and vice versa, often providing a uniquely 2020 kind of amusement.

Cowles remembered recording a scene in which her character laments the loss of one of her companions, screaming his name repeatedly as a helicopter whisks her away.

“I came out of the sewing room, and my boyfriend is like … ‘So, who is he?’” Cowles said. “I was like, ‘Don’t worry about it. He’s dead now.’”

#lily cowles #call of duty: black ops cold war #rnm cast interviews #helen park

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soulmate-game · 5 years ago

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Oneshot #3

Just one (1) imagining of Mari and Damian meeting as kids.

Darkness clung greedily to every street corner, and perhaps nobody would truly know whether it was the sheer viscosity of every shadow or the scope of talent in the newest Robin, but even clad in bright greens and reds and yellows the brand new vigilante easily slunk around unseen.

A shrill scream rang out in the air, sounding young. Unfortunately (or fortunately) Robin wasn’t the only one with the ability to slink around unseen in the Gotham night. His father and mentor followed close behind as they both made a beeline towards the newest disturbance.

What they saw was… not exactly what they expected. See, they had expected a little girl in the midst of getting kidnapped. While they weren’t exactly wrong, they had not at all been anticipating the kid’s apparent mother to be there.

Or that said mother had already beaten down four of the five traffickers after her daughter with a broken mop handle from the nearby dumpster.

The little pigtailed girl cowering behind her mother was scared without a doubt, tears pricking the corners of her startlingly bright blue eyes, but she was making a valiant effort to stay brave. She was biting her bottom lip, doing her best to suck in the tears and stay as silent as possible. And when the fifth and only attacker to remain conscious managed to slice along her mother’s arm with a knife?

Well, neither vigilante about to jump into the scene expected the terrified girl to grab a little grocery bag of trash that was nearby and toss it at him.

“Don’t touch my Maman!” She yelled in heavily accented English. The weak knot holding the bag broke when it hit the guy’s face, releasing used tampons and a half-empty bottle of milk over his head. The momentary surprise and disgust allowed enough time for the clearly Chinese mother to land another smack with her broken broom handle, and for Robin to jump down and take the fight away from the two civilians.

Batman stayed back, tying up and securing the already defeated traffickers while keeping a close eye on his son. The last thing he needed was for the boy, only on his second month in Gotham, to traumatize the little girl with murder.

But Batman made the mistake of dragging the goons to the corner of the alley by the street. When Robin rose his sword to deliver a killing blow to the guy’s heart, the Bat was too far away to make it in time.

“ROBIN!” He barked, hoping the tone of his voice would be enough.

It wasn’t.

Instead, a tiny hand came out of seemingly nowhere and latched to Robin’s wrist. The boy froze. Suddenly in front of him, blocking his blade from reaching its target, was the girl. They were the same height, he realized, and her blue eyes bore into his with startling ferocity despite the tears.

“He’s… asleep,” she told him, clearly meaning “knocked out” but lacking the right words to say it in English. “No killing. Will do nothing. Will only make you bad like him,” she told him sternly, scolding the vigilante despite the clear difference between them. One, a girl who threw a trash bag and the other, a boy who would kill with a katana without a second thought. “Maman needs… doc-tor,” she stumbled over the word, but despite the accent managed to get it out decently understandably. “Help her instead of hurt him.”

“Marinette!” The adult woman had finally gotten out of her shock, one hand pressing her sleeve over her shallow but long wound tightly even as she ran over to her daughter. She started to speak in French, and was halfway through asking her daughter if she was okay when Robin sheathed his sword without a word. As soon as the weapon was put away, a bright flash of green light erupted from where Marinette still clutched his wrist.

As if stung, the kids sprung away from one another. They both blinked, and when their eyes reopened it was to their vision suddenly being sliced in half like a video game. One half was their own perspective, the one they were used to seeing. The other was…

From the kid they just met?

Robin found he was staring straight at himself in half of his vision, and Marinette realized the same thing. They were seeing from both of their perspectives at once.

Bright, green-and-pink letters flashed before their eyes in bubble text, reading: Soulmate Game! Romance, Start (but not too fast)!

“YOU’RE my soulmate?” Was the first thing Robin asked, voice incredulous and unflatteringly surprised. “But-but you’re so tiny, and clearly untrained! Far too naive, and reckless, and you are wearing a bright pink skirt at night in Gotham City. There’s no WAY you can be my equal!”

Marinette puffed out her cheeks angrily. She might not have been the best at speaking English, but she was good at understanding it. She just had trouble forming the words sometimes, her mouth being too used to Cantonese and French to easily adjust to the more blunt and enunciated American English.

“And you’re mean and dumb and scary, but I didn’t choose you! Maybe it’s my job as your soulmate to make you nicer. Here, smile!” She lunged forward with all the audacity of someone who did not know Robin AT ALL. Pinching his cheeks a bit too roughly to be accidental, she pulled them apart and lifted them up so that he was “smiling.”

He batted her hands away, albeit a bit slower than usual. The multiple perspectives were incredibly disorienting, and he found himself confused as to which one he should focus on. Marinette didn’t seem to have that issue, easily shrugging off his rude gesture and lunging forward to try her assault a second time.

This time, when he tried to knock her hands away, Marinette grabbed one and locked it behind his back.

“Wha— I thought you were harmless!”

“Not my fault,” she cooed with false sweetness. “I never SAID I was har-harmless,” she kept his hand firmly pinned at the base of his spine, and while Robin knew he could twist away, she was still a civilian and his soulmate and he didn’t want to hurt her. Much. He did have the urge to flick her forehead though. “Maman teach me a little. She says she will teach more when I get older. See? I will be equal with you! Maybe not yet, but later!”

Damian bit his lip, forcing himself not to scowl. His grandfather had been of the mind that soul bonds were next to worthless, but his mother had a different opinion. She had raised him to treat his soulmate as nothing short of his equal. If he was an assassin Prince, then his soulmate would hold the same title. The universe paired everyone with who it deemed as the most complimentary to them. The one whose strengths would cover their weaknesses and vice versa. If he was strong alone, having his soulmate by his side would make him and his empire exponentially stronger and more stable.

So said his mother, anyway.

So he would not attack her. Not outside of a spar, that is. And they WOULD spar. He was not allowing his soulmate to only know rudimentary self defense, it was an insult to his name.

Whether he meant Al Ghul or Wayne, he didn’t know yet. Maybe both.

“Your mother TAUGHT you a little,” Damian corrected instead of insulting her like he would have normally done. Not much of a step up, but noticeable enough for his father to raise a brow behind his cowl. “Now let go, I thought you wanted us to get your mother first aid?”

Marinette huffed, clearly not pleased with his attitude still, but relented. She backed away from him, and followed him to where their parents were waiting for the police and an ambulance to arrive. The sirens could already be heard not far away. She waited until after her mom had a bandage firmly wrapped around her cut, which had also been properly disinfected, and had turned the police’s offer of a ride home down. She offered to give her statement the following morning instead.

The officers had been bemused, but Sabine didn’t care. Her daughter’s soulmate was a vigilante, and there was no way she was letting either of them run off without a talk.

“Don’t you sneak away, Batman!” The woman’s sweet but somehow terrifyingly stern voice cut through the otherwise silent air, stopping the vigilante in his tracks. He had been about to pull one of his signature vanishings, but apparently Sabine’s motherly instincts were not having it.

The little Asian woman firmly poked a finger into the much larger man’s chest, leaning in fearlessly with righteous fury in her almond shaped eyes. “My daughter is your prodigy’s soulmate, so you don’t get to just leave. Whether you like it or not, their connected now and I’m not about to let you keep them apart for her “safety” either. My little baby deserves a chance with her Destined. And that means she’s gonna be in danger because of your night life whether we like it or not, so I don’t care how painful this is gonna be for you. You’re letting us in on it. But ground rules? She’s not joining you. You might have taken other kids on this dangerous hobby of yours, but she won’t be one of them. What you CAN do is help me train her, so that she can at least protect herself from whatever danger might follow her because of this. What you CAN’T and WON’T do is ignore us once we go back to Paris and expect that I won’t hunt you down and make you regret ever trying to get rid of us. You and I are gonna make sure our kids get to have their soulbond and enjoy it to the best of their ability, and you don’t get a choice in the matter. Understand?”

Robin and Marinette were left blinking at the fearless woman as she laid into the well known vigilante and one of the founding members of the Justice League. Even more impressive, Batman didn’t seem to be capable of arguing with her. Every attempt was thoroughly thwarted until he was left with a growl of defeat in his throat and a triumphant Chinese mother smirking at him.

“Are you sure SHE isn’t my soulmate?” Robin whispered to Marinette, earning a snicker.

—*—*—*—*—*

THREE YEARS LATER

“The stadium is this way, Ladybug!” Adrien pointed the correct direction, but his heroine partner was still lagging behind.

“Hold on!” A familiar static had given her the warning she needed. Far too familiar static. “Keep going, I’ll—“

“Marinette, are you alright? Who is with you?”

The girl cursed under her breath, glad that at least she was the only one who could hear the voice.

“You’ll what? What’s wrong?” Chat Noir asked, slowing down as he looked back at her in concern. She sighed. Best to tell the truth.

“It’s my soulmate, just finish heading where we agreed! Right now he can hear everything I can hear!”

“Oh meowch,” the cat themed hero flinched. “That’s not great. I’ll just, uh,” he took an awkward step to the side before hauling tail away. Everyone knew better than to get between soulmates, especially when one was in potential danger.

“Who was that?” The icy voice of Damian Wayne persisted, and Marinette could pretty much FEEL the suspicion through their bond. At least he was still in Gotham.

“Just a friend! From school, yeah! A friend from school!” Unfortunately, though the pigtailed girl might have learned a lot when it came to combat ever since her soul bond was completed, she had never improved her ability to lie.

“Uh Huh. Suppose I believe you, What is their name?”

“Uh, Cha— Chane! Chane—“

“Marinette.”

“I’ll explain later! Gotta go, Akuma attack, taking cover!”

“If you’re taking cover then it is best I remain on audio only mode in order to make sure you get to safety.”

Marinette dropped into the stadium, a giant robot that should have only been inside the game Ultimate Mecha Strike Three slamming into the ground behind her.

“What was that? I thought you were headed to safety! That means AWAY from the danger, Marinette!” Yep, that was genuine worry in his voice. The girl winced, she’d be getting a lecture later for sure.

“Uhh, sorry I really—“ she dodged alongside Chat Noir, struggling to focus on both the conversation and fight at the same time. “Can’t talk— right now— very busy trying to get to safety!”

Another voice, completely deadpan and just as familiar as her soulmate’s, filtered in from Damian’s side of the audio connection of their bond.

“Oh really? That’s why you’re fighting a giant robot in the center of the stadium right now?” It was Nightwing, and he was in full Protective Brother Mode. Meaning, he was not amused at all and now she had double the lecture in store for her. Marinette gulped.

Her vision split in half, a sensation she had grown very accustomed to over the years since herbond was first completed. It no longer disoriented her like it had at first.

And her new perspective showed her and Chat Noir, right as she ordered her partner to try Cataclysm on it, in the stadium. Startled, she looked up to see two costumes figures standing with their arms crossed in the nosebleed section.

“Merdé, I am so dead,” she whispered to herself as she focused back on the gaming-themed Akuma. Having seen enough villain attacks in Gotham, she knew better than to assume they had won that easily. Therefore, she was not nearly as shocked as Chat when their enemy reformed his robot. Robin used the moment to drop in next to her. “I thought you weren’t coming to visit until NEXT month. You just got back from, you know, DEATH,” she hissed out of the corner of her mouth.

“I wanted to surprise you. Looks like I have good timing,” he replied equally softly. “And before you catastrophize—“ he started as all three of them pressed the red orb next to them, and jumped into the robot that spawned for them. Which… only had two seats…Robin shoved the cat hero out of the way. “—I am not angry that you are a hero. Merely surprised you did not tell me as soon as it happened. Oh, and feline boy, Ladybug and I will handle this. Just stay back and be quiet.”

“What— Who are you, and why are you taking my partner from me?” The blond asked, thoroughly caught off guard. Ladybug just got into her seat and sighed.

“Chat Noir, meet Robin. He’s one of Gotham’s vigilantes and my soulmate.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yes, really,” Robin responded impatiently, his hands finding the controls of the robot easily. “And honestly, Ladybug, I suspected something like this would happen eventually. My family tends to be a horrible and very invasive influence. And it isn’t as if you lack the necessary skillset. Batman and I made sure of that much at least.”

“Uh, how are you guys doing this so easily?” Chat Noir piped up from where he watched as the two soulmates easily moved their robot with a fluidity that seemed profoundly natural. Marinette just smirked at her Parisian partner secretively.

“Robin and I are pretty used to combat games.”

Her soulmate laughed. She didn’t know if it was because of her inside joke, or the fact that he just found out their robot came with a cat saber.

—*—*—*—*—*

#mlb x dc #maribat #daminette

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broken-arrow32 · 4 years ago

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Birdflash burning building promt? anybody??

oh... just me? ok.. well im gonna dump this here anyway.

im sorry this post is going to be long. i cant get the read more thing to work! i tried for like an hour! @staff FIX THE READ MORE FEATURE!!!!!

Anyway so what if Dickiebabe and Walls were trapped in a burning building and they couldn’t get out. And they’re standing the teeniest bit away from each other. And the burning room starts to shake as flames flicker and crackle around them.

And Robin looks up and notices the ceiling right above Wally is about to collapse on top of him. So Robin runs to Wally, pushes him out of the way into a bit of a more open space in the room, and the ceiling collapses on Dickie Instead. And Wally screams. A heart wrenching scream. Because he can only imagine what all this burning wood and ember would do to Robin. So then he runs over, and he pulls robin out from under all the wood. And the blood. Oh god the blood. There’s so much. And it’s every where. Over the wood, the floor. Wally’s uniform. Oh god Wally’s uniform was covered in blood. Robins blood as he held the little bird close. It was hard to tell but the blood was staining his gloves too. Because oh god there’s so much. And Robin? It just hurts. He just hurts. Everywhere. So much. God he’s in so much pain. But He can’t help but focus on the wet hot tears falling on his face. And he bites back a scream as Wally moves him to lean against something for support. His side was bleeding. and it hurts. A lot. And he notices the additional pressure as Wally presses his hands down on Dicks side to try and stop the bleeding. And again, He has to bite back a scream because everything just hurts. So. So. Much. His ribs where definitely broken. And he could barely breath at all. Bjt the thing that brings him comfort is Wally whispering sweet little nothings over the crackle of the flames telling him everything’s fine, and that he was ok. But he knew those were shallow lies for Wally to keep himself strong. Becuase kid flash doesn’t break down in front of Robin, nor vice versa. But Wally West can break down in front of Dick Grayson. And Dick knows Wally needs to let go. So he reaches up, and pulls the yellow cowl back and off Wallys head And he cups Wally’s cheek.

“Hey. It’s ok. You don't need to be strong. You're ok.” Dick chokes out, watching as more hot tears spill down Wally’s face.

“We need to get you out of here...” Wally says frantically, moving to pick the smaller up. Dick shakes his head smally.

“Wally no- Wally- babe” Dick grabs the front of Wally’s uniform and tugs Wally’s face close to his, and cups the older’s cheek again.

“It’s ok.” He says brokenly. But It’s not. And Dick knows. Dick knows it’s not ok. That he’s not ok. He knows he probably won’t survive tonight. But he can damn well use his last moments to make sure Wally’s safe.

“I love you Wally. So much.” He whispers.

“I love you too, but we need to-“

“No. We don’t have much time. I’m not gonna make it, ok?”

“Dick-“

“Wally I can’t move. I can barely breath. I won’t make it. You need to leave.”

Wally’s chest tightens. Wally’s shaking now. With fear. Fear that he’ll lose his best friend, His lover. The one who was there for him when no one else was. He goes to speak and his voice is high, shaky.

“N-no. Your fine, everything’s gonna be fine. Just let me-“

“Wally.”

“...Please...”

Dick tugs Wally in for one. Last. Kiss. Cause he’ll be damned if he doesn’t kiss his redhead goodbye.

“Go. Get out of here. There’s not much time”

“What and leave you behind?” Wally could barely keep his voice level. Though it was still high pitched and shaky.

“Yes. Wally you need to get out of here. Leave me.. and go.”

Wally whimpers as a few more tears fall. But this time they weren’t his own. Robin pulled off his mask weakly as tears slid from his once vibrant, now dulling blue eyes. Wally let’s out a shaky breath, removing his one hand from robins profusely bleeding side and gets up. He turns to walk. But he can’t help looking back over his shoulder at the poor bird. And the small bastard gives him a damn smile. But Wally can’t find it in himself to do anything about it. And So he runs out of the building, regretfully leaving Dick behind. He was so grateful when he saw the trademark cherry red suit and black cape standing side by side.

“Kid? Where’s- where’s Robin?” Barry asks. Wally can’t help the warm fresh tear that slips from his emerald eyes.

“H-he saved me- hes still in there. We need to go back in and get him.

“No. Bruce and I need to go in and get him”

“W... what? No! I need to-“

“Wally-“ Bruce starts

“NO! Dick is DYING up there I’m not gonna sit around and not do anything about it! So no! The three of us are going back in. I’m the only one who knows where he is! By the time you two find him on your own it could be too late!” Wally snaps. Did he just raise his voice at the Batman? Yes. Did he give a damn? No. The life of the man he loves is on the line so respecting your adults he damned. Wally was going to save his boyfriend or die trying.

“Now come on. We don’t have much time and we’re wasting what we do have standing around here” Wally turns on his heal and bolts for the entrance back into the building, Bruce and Barry following in tow. Once they finally reached Robin he had moved from where Wally had set him. Wally was quick to find out why. The building was collapsing more. More of the ceiling had fell.

Wally finally left and disappeared into the flames to get out of the building. Dick let’s out a small, choked sigh of relief. Then he hears the creaking from above. He looks up. And “oh shit..” is the only thing he can say before he has to propel himself out of the way before more of the ceiling collapsed on him. And this time. He did scream. He let it out. He was in pain and he couldn’t hold it in anymore. So he screamed, and curled up as best he could, clutching his ribs. "Never thought I’d die like this.” He mumbled only to himself. Mere seconds later everything went black. This was it. He was gonna die in this fire.

Wally scrambled over to the injured, unconscious body, and checked him over as the two older heroes came up behind him.

“H-he’s not breathing. He’s alive but he isn’t breathing and his pulse is barely there. We don’t have enough time we have to get him out and get him to a hospital or something”

Bruce put his hands on Wally’s shoulder, and carefully picked his son up.

“Lead the way out. We’ll follow.” Bruce said. And even if just for a spare moment, Wally felt hope again. Even if for just a second, things seemed like they were going to be alright

#dc #Birdflash #batfam #batkids #dick grayson #nightwing #Robin #Dick Grayson Robin #Wally West #Kid flash #Wally west kid flash #dick Grayson/Wally west

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capricornus-rex · 4 years ago

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Two Sides of the Coin (17)

Chapter 17: Deliverance | Jidné Sheedra x Cal Kestis

Summary: Hell-bent on exacting revenge and retrieving the Holocron, the dreaded Darth Vader is now on the hunt for the young Jedi Knight, Cal Kestis. Under the assumption that he still possessed the artifact, while fueled by the intrigue of the boy’s strength and skill with the Force, the dark lord hires the bounty hunter, Jidné Sheedra, to track him down and have him delivered alive. However, the task becomes a trial for young Jidné, as she faces a conflict that tests her beliefs of a scarred past she had hidden for so long.

Also in AO3

Tags: Fem OC, Jidné Sheedra, Force-Sensitive! Fem OC, Bounty Hunter! Fem OC, Jedi! Fem OC | Special tags: Sixth Sister! Fem OC, Inquisitor! Fem OC, Twi’lek Inquisitor, OC Twi’lek

Chapters: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 | Previous: Part 16 | Next: Part 18 | Masterlist

17 of ?

Jidné strolled to the meadow and settled herself by the bank of the waterfall’s pool, something about that spot calmed her and so she chose it as a meditation spot. She unclipped her saber from her belt, nestling it in the curve of her palm and then her other hand cradled the three strands of beads. The smooth, dainty baubles ran between her forefinger and thumb as her hand followed its length.

She clutched onto the longer strand, the chipping of the color at the edges were more visible when brought closer, the dust that never washed away reminded her of the Purge; the Jedi holds her saber with both hands with great care and devoutness.

“Master…” the air answered her call, a gust of cold wind blew the wisps of her fringe, it’s as though the wind cradled her face in its hands.

She urged herself to open her eyes, and slowly, she did just so.

Standing in front of her again is a vision of her late master, but this one is very much different than the last. A venerable air loomed around the figure of the vision, compared to the last one that felt stale, heavy, and hostile.

“You’re right, I’m may not be the Padawan you trained and hoped to be… but I’m the Padawan you left behind—along with the teachings you’ve given me all my life.”

The walking memory spoke nothing, instead, she smiled and walked closer. Nomara’s Force Ghost was just two paces shy from the line between water and land. She knelt in the same manner as her broken apprentice, now grown into a young woman and no longer a child, in Jidné’s eyes the appearance of Nomara’s ghost was so opaque that she almost seemed real.

“Master… If that was your way of testing me, then whatever the result I will accept—it just means I have a long way to go, but I know you’ll always be there to guide me… like you always have.”

Jidné wondered if her hand would feel soft, warm flesh. She was startled by the answer of her unspoken question when the Force Ghost’s hand nestled under her jaw. From that touch, her heart leaped wildly, skipping a beat one after the other; she couldn’t pinpoint if this was grief or joy—whichever it was, she perfectly knows that she’s been yearning this comforting touch from Master Anesh.

Tears streamed ceaselessly from her eyes, her breath shuddered as she tried to regain the rhythm of her breathing while savoring the feeling of Anesh’s touch—albeit only a vision. The Force Ghost never spoke a word, but the genuine, affirming smile didn’t disappear. The Jedi girl’s eyelids drooped, savoring the surreal yet warm caress of her master, she dared to hoist her own hand up to clutch back the hand… only to touch her own jaw.

Her eyes shot up and found the waterfall’s pool absent of any Force Ghost standing on the water as if it was the floor. Although, it felt like she’s had some kind of closure, and that was enough. Jidné mounted a Q’aval and she spurred the steed, galloping to an area of the forest where she and Cal have agreed to meet.

“Did I make you wait too long?” the girl beamed, dismounting the animal.

“Not really,”

The pair hiked through the forest, finding eroded structures such as a bridge over the river in the deeper part of the woods, hinting that this location must have connected to Diitana and its other villages before the overgrowth set in.

Jidné scaled the thick railing of the bridge and walked on its length like a tightrope as they walked. She slightly bobbed left and right, Cal held her one hand that’s closest to him as she continued to gently tread the bridge’s fence.

“Be careful or you’ll fall,”

“Would you catch me if I did?”

“Sure I will!”

Cal caught Jidné, holding her by the waist as she hopped down once she’s reached the end; her bead tassels faintly rattled and swung wildly after landing on the balls of her feet back onto the soil. The two were faced with a wide section of the woods, shaded by the great trees forming a large canopy over their heads—shielding them from the sun—and framed by the river snaking along the edge where the bridge stood.

At first glance, there was an eerie emptiness to it, which Cal found oddly serene and calming. He felt Jidné’s grip loosening around his fingers, he took it as a sign of caution; he takes notice of her irises carefully rolling from one side to the other, examining the breadth.

“Something wrong?”

“No, I…” she trailed off. “I thought I heard something. Probably an animal.”

The girl’s feet hesitated another step forward. Cal gently dragged her along and her legs were finally coaxed into moving. Jidné dismisses whatever it is that she felt as nothing—though her senses were still keen from earlier, the feeling that was left behind in her after that last encounter with Nomara’s Force Ghost is still fresh in her.

“What do you think was in here before?” the redhead wondered out loud.

Looking around, it seemed to be an open base until it was eventually abandoned for reasons unknown. Small structures and machines still stood, however, they’re already riddled with signs of negligence and weathering over time.

“Could’ve been a town outpost,” guessed Jidné. “Looks like one anyway.”

The two explored the desolate checkpoint, as well as ID-3 and BD-1 who filled their databanks with tons of scans around the place. Cal did more investigating rather than exploring it: picking up objects and using his Psychometry on them. He takes a small, tattered leather satchel leaning against one of the vapor towers and detects its Force Echo.

“This was place was an outpost all right, this was also a hotspot for wandering traders,”

“Until no one came here anymore,” Jidné finished.

“Wooo…” the probe droid lowed a sad yet spooked tone at Jidné’s sentence, to which she immediately consoled him that nothing’s going to hurt them in there.

On the northernmost point of the outpost was a path that may lead to the badlands, but the view comprised mostly path that connects the transitioning from desert to forest—and vice versa—as well as a view of the trenches that framed the road.

“Travelers who came from the direction of the badlands surely stopped here for rest and restocking supplies, until they reached Diitana,” the girl hypothesized.

“Well, that does explain some of the cluttered stuff. Do you think they were in a hurry to leave?”

“More like in a hurry to run,”

Cal shot her a look with a raised eyebrow, “From what?”

Both heads jerked to the empty space in front of them, their attention drawn by an incoherent roar in the distance followed by the rustling of the treetops and startled birds.

“Probably that,” blurted the girl.

“Come on, let’s mosey on other places where that thing won’t find us,”

It was most unusual for a pair of Jedi to take a stroll into the heart of the forest, though the fresh air that filled their lungs and the tranquility put their worries at bay. They came across another bank and rested there, refreshing their parched throats with the sweet, clear water.

“You know, you fit right in the crew,” Cal blurted out of nowhere.

The girl turned around and sat beside the redheaded Jedi, curious to know more with what he said.

“Oh?” she drew her legs up so she can rest her chin atop her knees. “You’d want me to tag along?”

“Why not? We can travel as a pair with our ships, I didn’t say we’d leave your freighter behind,”

Jidné smiled at the idea. She felt warm and fuzzy all of a sudden, then her mind began imagining what misadventures she, Cal, and the crew would bump into. The Mantis crew had a different flavor of fun in their mishaps, Jidné almost missed that feeling—it would’ve been nice to experience it all over again, this time, she won’t be alone in doing so.

“You’ll have more time to think about it later,” Cal leaned closer and planted a kiss on her forehead, the quick peck took her by surprise—the same way his kiss on her cheek did—and scrambled up to his feet, offering her his hand in the next second.

They decided to take on the path where the road connects the forest and badlands—a canyon pass, which they learned its moniker from the locals: the Red Wall. They stepped out of the green and yonder into the blood-orange trench. The roof of the trench was a gaping space where the sun managed to peek its rays through, as the two walls of rock split open to produce a wide, winding path.

As one would expect, the desert was barren and almost devoid of anything organic. The canyon was no stranger to that setting. The wind was beginning to pick up and dust was pricking the two youngsters’ faces so they shield themselves with the flaps of their cowl and poncho until the gust dies down. When it did, ID-3’s rather sensitive scanners were picking a signal, his tiny satellite dish spinning erratically on his head.

“What is it, ID?”

“BEEE-TRILL!!! CHIRP!”

“What?!”

Before Jidné could understand what ID-3 meant by “a lot of Imperial signals” the collective clicking sound of blaster rifles being cocked came from all directions, white-clad figures started materializing through the setting sand, but what alarmed the two young Jedi the most was the sound of a third saber being activated—followed by a throaty yet feminine chuckle.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Cal moaned.

The sand had finally cleared, and just like in Jidné’s memory, they were surrounded by Stormtroopers, led by a red female Twi’lek clad in a black ensemble with the bright white insignia of the Empire stamped on her gauntlets.

The Sixth Sister carried herself in a menacing yet graceful stride, emphasizing her height over the pair whom she perceived as mere children; her lightsaber—as crimson as her skin-glowed in her hand, while a smirk plays along the edge of her lips.

Cal ignited her saber upon sight of the new Inquisitor, readying himself in a defensive starting stance as he usually does, the smirk in the enemy’s lips grew. Due to his spiked alertness, he didn’t realize that Jidné hasn’t activated hers, instead, she stuck close against his back—quite reminiscent of her final scenario with Master Anesh against their clone troopers.

“Well, well,” the Inquisitor uttered in a singsong tune. Her eyes examined the boy from head to toe, her mouth finally stretched across her face to reveal a pearly white, fanged grin. “Look what we have here.”

“You’re new,” Cal blurted.

“And you must be Cal Kestis,” the Sixth Sister cooed. “Do me a favor and stand still while we cuff you up. Unless, you wanna do this the hard way.”

She peeked over Cal to find Jidné taking a sideways glance over her own shoulder.

“Well done, Jidné, just like Lord Vader asked—though a little overdue, if I may say so,”

Jidné’s eyebrows furrowed together until her forehead creased. Her heart raced so ceaselessly that her breathing couldn’t possibly keep up. Her brain sent out a string of sentences—almost causing a haywire—that when spoken, it’d be so fast-paced to comprehend, but the only thing that stuck in her head is Vader.

Cal’s mind as well ran endlessly and yet couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that the Sixth Sister had just said. His grip around the hilt shook and loosened, eyes wide with bewilderment and confusion as he slowly turns to the girl he thought was an ally.

“Ji-Jidné…? You?”

The Inquisitor read the room and chortled once.

“You never told him?” she then turned to Cal. “She was sent out to get you—because apparently you have something of great importance to Lord Vader.”

Cal heard the Twi’lek but didn’t listen, he kept his eyes on Jidné, desperately searching for the truth to come out of her mouth or see it in her eyes.

“You’re a bounty hunter? And you never told me?”

“I was going to hand you over…” she murmured only within his earshot, the pressure’s taking its toll on her that she doesn’t have the strength to make her voice louder. “Until I decided not to anymore.”

Before Cal could even process what she meant, the Twi’lek signaled the Stormtoopers—one of them produced binders for Cal, another shoved Jidné away for her to watch him be apprehended right in front of her, whilst the rest of them close in around with caution around the Jedi boy. By instinct, Cal fought back—particular the Stormtrooper who held the cuffs and the other who pushed Jidné away.

A single swing of his saber and the Sixth Sister brandished hers in the speed of lightning. The boy could feel the glow pulsing out of the red beam hovering at mere inches away from his only flawless cheek.

“I wouldn’t go for it if I were you, ginger,” the Twi’lek blurted.

Cal lowered his saber and switched it off, prompting the Stormtroopers to continue what they should be doing to him. The trooper confiscated the Jedi’s weapon and took his hands to his back and secured the metal binders around his wrists. Deep inside Jidné, she wanted to whip out her saber and take them all on—she even dared in her mind to face the Sixth Sister—but it would be doubly difficult for herself and Cal, should he ever choose to back her up.

“Take him away,” Sixth Sister aloofly waved her hand, gesturing at the troopers to put Cal into the transport shuttle at the end of the trench.

“No…!” Jidné exclaimed out of the blue.

The Inquisitor immediately reacted to it, “No?”

She made a back-and-forth glance between the cuffed boy and the girl standing there frozen, another sardonic laugh came out of her throat and she felt the need to tilt her head back for emphasis.

“Oooh, dear gods!” she sighed. “Honey, you can’t be serious?”

The two Jedi stood there in silence, eyes shifting between one another and then to the Sixth Sister, this urged her to elaborate. She strode towards Jidné and cupped her jaw, taking the Jedi girl by surprise; she tried to fight it, slightly thrashing her head to shake off the Inquisitor’s grasp but to no avail.

��Don’t tell me, sweetie, you’ve fallen for the boy?”

Upon asking the question, Cal skidded his boots against the soil, halting his pace to anticipate Jidné’s response.

The Inquisitor’s reply was a low growl rumbling within Jidné’s throat—it did very little to intimidate her, it rather amused her, and she took it as a yes. A pink line appeared on the girl’s jaw underneath the older humanoid’s long, polished fingernails. She licked her lips and grinned.

“That’s cute…” she clicked her tongue. “But sad.”

The Sixth Sister shoved Jidné’s face away from her hand, finally letting her go. Her suggestive, coy tone transformed into a firm and demanding one. She turned aroud as she followed behind the Stormtoopers pushing Cal into their vessel.

“Chart a course to Mustafar,” the Twi’lek stopped and turned around to find Jidné standing as still as a rock pillar. “Oh, you’re coming too, Jidné, sweetie. Can’t collect your bounty without getting it from the source, hmm?”

The whole time as they walked through the rest of the canyon pass, Jidné can’t find the strength to look at Cal in the eye and face him as this revelation unfurls at this very moment. Having no other choice, she pressed a button on her right-hand gauntlet which remotely activated and controlled the Scarab—even from afar. A distant rumble thundered, followed by the whirring of an engine’s throttle until the sound got closer and louder.

The Scarab zoomed past above their heads and—using her gauntlet remote—landed right beside the deep gray transport shuttle waiting for them at the end of the path. The exit ramp unfolded as soon as its landing gears touched the drought-plagued soil. She entered the safety of the Scarab, but she wasn’t exactly relieved—not the slightest bit.

“Beee, chirp trill?”

“I know, ID, and it’s all my fault!” she retorted, her anger mixing with her stress heavily affected her speaking tone. She marched to the cockpit and settled herself on the captain’s seat.

From where she sat, she watched the bevy of Stormtroopers herd Cal into the transport while the Twi’lek Inqusiitor was the last board the shuttle—before she did, she gave Jidné a passing glance when she turned in the direction of the Scarab’s windshield. Jidné watched steadily until the entry ramp sealed off the hole where all of the passengers of the transport went through.

“I should’ve told him earlier on,” she snarled, regretting the moment of telling the truth too late. She slapped her forehead. “Fucking idiot!”

Cal was relieved of the handcuffs when he was thrown into the holding area guarded by a pair of Stormtroopers on the other side of the door. During occasional peeks through the small rectangle on the door that served as a window, the soldiers found him surprisingly still and calm, one guessed that he was trying to sleep through the trip.

In truth, Cal has spaced out for he can’t pinpoint the emotions that’s gathered in his very being and all of them revolved around Jidné. He starts with his infatuation for her until, it would be violently interrupted by the loud confusion that birthed from the moment the Sixth Sister opened her mouth and exposed Jidné’s agenda.

“I was going to hand you over… until I decided not to.”

Her words had burned its way into his head. He afforded the luxury of meditating through the rest of the journey. When he closed his eyes, he felt a faint pang of Jidné’s energy mingling with his—as if in an attempt to resonate, but slowly dying down like candlelight on the verge of being extinguished. In the middle of his trance, he could sense a sheer amount of regret, a soul that was once loud with laughter and stories has become languid and dispirited—although, buried within those inhibitions was a tiny spark that seemed to be holding up. He followed that spark, but it kept eluding him; just when he thought his subconscious self has gained on that little speck of light, he was cut short of his meditation when the turbulence from the atmosphere rattled the vessel.

They have arrived.

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queen-scribbles · 4 years ago

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🖊?

You, dear patient anon, get me rambling about my boy Phillip, bc I’ve had this brewing in me pretty much since my fist time through the @speakergame demo and I need to let it out, just kept procrastinating about actually doing so :D

I need to gush about his friendship with Lily, bc even if there was no crushing involved on his end, she was a very, very important part of his life until they got split up.(and also maybe a bit about his teens in general. It sort of all ties together.)

Phillip was noticeably less reserved as a kid than he is now. He was never especially bold or sought out the spotlight, just more... willingly social. He’s always been an introvert, but I guess you could say he went longer before needing to recharge his batteries as a kid. And he had(still has) a mischievous streak that pretty much solidified him as Lily’s best friend when they were, like, three or four. He helped her plan and perpetrate pranks of all kinds through their younger years; everything from glitter bombs in bullies’ desk to a couple fire-alarm pulling stunts that were close enough together the pair of them got suspended and very nearly got expelled. Phillip was almost always the distraction/lookout, being equally good at thinking on his feet and talking, absolutely ride or die committed to having Lily’s back. Seriously. There was one time when they were eight he did the whole “Whoops, I fell” thing to distract a teacher and actually nicked his ear on a metal cabinet door he hadn’t noticed was partially open. (It didn’t even hurt that bad, but it did bleed like crazy, and he will absolutely joke their friendship scarred him for life, even as he winks at her or gives her a side hug etc. :P)

The one time they switched roles they were about.... nine; Lily played lookout so Phillip could sneak into the teachers’ lounge and swap both the sugar and the powdered creamer for salt. >:) They absconded with the sugar for personal enjoyment, but the powered creamer was put to nefarious purposes.

Lily’s also to blame/thank for his artistic bent; she’s the first thing he drew when it started being more than just doodling in notebook margins. It’s not very good (better than he thinks it is, though), and he’d probably die before he showed it to her. (His mother is the only person other than him who knows it exists. Far as he knows.) He has several notebooks from the last year or two before they got split up where the margins and covers are full of doodles or sketches of the two of them--some serious, some silly, most with “SHENANIGANS” written over their heads with a rainbow or sparkles or something (Steph’s addition, to tease him).

And then came the split. Sure, the school probably had a system that was fair and impartial behind deciding who went to which school, but trying telling that to a thirteen year old boy who just found out he’s not gonna get to see his partner in crime best friend every day anymore. He was convinced he and Lily got split up on purpose, because they were Too Much Trouble when they were together. Also, he hated the new school. He got in three fights in the first two months bc kids wouldn’t stop picking on Stephanie for being “weird” and he’s extremely protective of his sister. He did’t win any of these fights--his finesse is a BIG FAT 0--but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t stand up for her anyway. (He can’t make the visions go away, so protecting her from other stuff is the best he can do.)

He didn’t go sulky-quiet in the new surroundings, but he did get a lot more insular those first couple years before he balanced out to “introvert with a wicked, dry sense of humor who could charm the socks off just about anyone if he had a mind”. He started drawing and reading more(already things he loved doing, they just got more of his time bc he didn’t click friendship wise with anyone), spent all of high school trying and failing to work out time to hang out with Lily somehow; their schedules were just too different; he’s busy when she’s free and vice versa. It still takes a while for him to finally give up. (They came really, really close once when he was seventeen, but then Steph Saw something imminent and terrible and their family had to go blazing halfway across the country last minute to stop it. That was what did it. Even when everything else in life is willing to cooperate, what- or whoever is behind those damn vision thinks it’s funny to fuck things up so FINE. He’s so pissed at The Universe he deliberately doesn’t try for four months. Which turns into five... six.... a year and, well... *gestures at the story*)

After that, after he finishes school, after his and Steph’s parents move, he still thinks about trying to reconnect, but now they’re in that zone when it’s been long enough it would be weird. Awkward. He doesn’t know if she’s moved on and made other friends, maybe she’s... outgrown(?) their friendship and it’s one of those cherished memories but not something she’d want to renew, so he chickens out(”For now, maybe I’ll try later...”), and the longer he puts it off, the more awkward it feels like it’ll be without a Good Reason. He can’t just call her out of the blue after all this time; that would be like stalker-weird, wouldn’t it?

And then Steph has the RK vision and it drops the perfect excuse to reconnect with the Cowles family in their laps and he jumps on it. He and Lily slip right back into their friendship without missing a beat. Like they didn’t spend a decade apart. And Phillip is very grateful his overthinking induced worry couldn’t have been more wrong. He missed her.

#phillip prince #speaker

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absentlyabbie · 5 years ago

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family and (mis)fortune

or, tommy merlyn accidentally part-time joins the batfam

hello, please enjoy and have mercy, pretty much all of my batfam knowledge is informed either by batman: the animated series or tumblr posts. be gentle with me, i know so little about jason todd, i’m doing my best

this meta developed over whatsaspp in messages to @andyouweremine, @acheaptrickandacheesyoneline, and @storiesofimagination

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Just a fun little notion to mull over: Malcolm Merlyn dies/disappears (hallelujah) in the two years after his wife’s death and leaving his child behind. Accident and happenstance bring Tommy Merlyn, orphan, to the attention of Bruce Wayne. And thus Tommy becomes a part time foster sibling to the batfam

(lol the above was supposed to be it, the end, literally the entire whole thing, but then all the rest happened)

Like. Say Bruce (probably he knew Rebecca?) takes over custody of Tommy. For the sake of the boy and his clear attachment to the Queens, especially Oliver, Bruce has Tommy enrolled as a boarding student at Starling Academy. So the boys still get to spend the school year together, and sometimes in the summer or over holidays Oliver visits in Gotham

And Tommy is pretty much just a part time addition to the Bruce Wayne orphans-who-eerily-resemble-me collection, so it’s several years before he catches on even a little to what Bruce and older foster brother Dick get up to after dark

But eventually he DOES find out. And maybe he doesn’t suit up too, but Bruce can’t have one of his kids knowing about Batman and not prepared to protect himself so he gets a lot of the same training

(Meanwhile Tommy grows up with siblings and a father figure(s)—heyyy Alfred—who show him care and don’t abuse him. And maybe even therapy. But also he gets to maintain his closeness to Oliver and even Thea because he still spends most of the year in Starling)

As a better adjusted dude all around Tommy is probably a moderately better influence on Oliver. Like he can’t change everything but maybe things are mitigated. Then the gambit still goes down (probably Malcolm didn’t actually die after all? He just went deep into the league or whatever and continued to influence things in Starling towards the Undertaking from the shadows?)

In the wake of that Tommy moves to Starling full time and insists to everyone including Bruce that Oliver is still alive etc etc. he doesn’t give up hope (although also maybe he doesn’t get involved with Laurel? Maybe.) and then Oliver actually comes back

More or less most of canon stuff goes on except now you have a Tommy who eats breakfast casually with Batman and multiple Robins and has training and has been inside the Batcave and knows what it looks like when someone he loves is not doing a great job of a) hiding how deeply traumatized they are and b) concealing their vigilante side gig

(@acheaptrickandacheesyoneline contributed: "Oliver, you need to get better excuses"

"Excuses for what?"

"Like that. Right there"

To which i responded: “Look I know the reckless playboy thing seems like an awesome cover story at first but trust me, if you don’t balance it right it just makes everything more work than it’s worth”)

Bruce calling Tommy ostensibly just to check in with his foster son but non-covertly actually sniffing around about this murderous new vigilante in Starling

Tommy very awkwardly and transparently lying that he has no idea who it could possibly be

Tommy tries to crack bad jokes about how he just seems to attract cape and cowl types to wherever he lives and Bruce heaving the longest sigh on record because Tommy and Dick really are way too similar for Bruce’s mental health

Also in this headcanon Bruce was definitely like early 20s when he took in Dick so he was like maaayyybe 27 when he took in Tommy. Putting him younger than 40 or just over at time of Oliver’s return. So Bruce is like barely older than Diggle

Okay my math wasn’t great. So if Dick is a few years older than Tommy and Oliver and Bruce adopted him at like 22, let’s say Bruce is 24 when Rebecca dies and Tommy is 8... 26 when he takes custody of Tommy... which means he’s actually like 43 at time of Oliver coming back from the dead (subject to change, i’m bad at math!)

The way I picture it is that Bruce knew Rebecca (maybe their families knew each other??) and went to her funeral, where he observed the lost looking, clearly devastated eight year old that widower Malcolm was too busy brooding furiously to attend to. Bruce never liked Malcolm. They’d met a few times over the years and he always thought Rebecca could have done better. Malcolm always stuck Bruce as oily and shark eyed. Something cold and hungry under the surface of his charming facade. But Rebecca seemed happy with him so it wasn’t his business

That boy though. The image of that grieving boy, his whole world snatched away and not even a kindly butler to hold his hand at the graveside, that stays with Bruce, nags at him. He checks up on the remaining Merlyns from a distance after returning to Gotham. He’s unsettled and unhappy when he learns Malcolm has run off, leaving his young son behind with some hired help and power of attorney vested in his friend Robert Queen. He follows the situation for two years. When Malcolm returns he’s hopeful Tommy’s life will go better than Bruce’s did, but Malcolm only leaves again all too soon. And then he disappears. His plane goes down or something (who even cares as long as Malcolm is gone-zo, pfft bye bitch). And Tommy is truly alone, an orphan in name as well as circumstance now

Bruce knows there’s no other family to claim Tommy. He knows the boy is staying with the Queens at the moment, that Robert has guardianship, but it’s also apparent they’re in no rush to formalize the situation to anything more permanent. Bruce decides to go to Starling himself and see what will become of Tommy

It’s immediately obvious the Queens are a mess. Infidelity and fighting and periodic separation between Moira and Robert. Moira is just recently pregnant. And she seems anxious and uneasy about Tommy. Even as she does seem to care about him, she also seems determined to keep him at arm’s length. However it’s just as obvious that despite all this, Tommy and the Queen boy might as well be brothers for as close as they are

It’s clearly not an ideal situation. Bruce being Bruce decides he’s just gonna fix things. But when Moira catches wind of it she goes oddly protective and it leads to a face off between the two of them. Moira hits Bruce about being too young, unmarried, having no prior relationship with Tommy, living so far from everything Tommy knows.

Bruce hits back with brutal truths, the killing blow that Moira clearly has no intention of making Tommy part of her own family. Robert may have slightly more ground to stand on, but ultimately they all know that if the Queen marriage falls apart, it’s not Robert who would take custody of Tommy in the aftermath of another family disintegration

And so with the cooperation of Moira and Robert and a lot of money, Bruce becomes Tommy’s legal guardian and works out with the Queens an arrangement that has Tommy in boarding at the same school Oliver attends and charges Moira and Robert to act in loco parentis for daily or immediate matters. Moira will eventually unclench and let Tommy connect easily with Oliver and even Thea, because with Malcolm gone she doesn’t have that fear about her baby girl and her secret half brother putting her family at risk

And then @storiesofimagination was sad that there would be less Thea/Tommy sibling shenanigans in this AU, to which I said:

Oh but there will still be plenty of that! Because Tommy spends most of his school years largely in Starling and a lottttt of time at the Queen home. And Moira isn’t as uneasy about Tommy adoring Thea and vice versa because with Malcolm gone/presumed dead she’s less worried about her indiscretion being exposed

So @andyouweremine asked if Dick and Oliver get along

Dick is a few years older than Tommy and Oliver so he probably didn’t spend loads of time with them during Oliver’s visits? Not none though. Tommy thinks Dick is absurdly cool so Oliver might have been a little bit jealous but also thinks Dick is cool. Dick almost definitely thrives on the fact that living human beings think he is cool

But yeah. Dick. Dick is probably weird about Tommy at first. Is this a threat? A rival? Nope it’s a shy goofy kid who thinks Dick is way funnier than Bruce does and looks up to him and he’s only around for holidays and summers so he’s the best part time little brother ever

They get on like a house on fire probably. So many bad jokes. So many. Bruce probably hides from the puns down in the Batcave even when there’s no mission because Dick can either hang out with Tommy or annoy Bruce in the super secret crime fighting lair but not both

Tommy loves the hell out of Alfred. He’s like Raisa, only Tommy gets to keep him

Alfred is just pleased to have a charge he doesn’t have to semi regularly do sutures for

If we’re going full batfam, Tommy and Jason probably can’t stand each other most of the time, but it’s mostly because Jason is extremely prickly and acts out wildly (younger days, obv)

Years later when Tim arrives on the scene, Tommy delights in being the older brother at last. They don’t have tons in common but they get along well enough

AND THEN, because @andyouweremine campaigned to ship Tommy/Dick because both Tommy Merlyn and Dick Grayson are as bi as they come:

Tommy would absolutely have the world’s most awkward crush on Dick at least in his teens. He so would though. Dick would probably be his bisexual awakening. Oliver would get sick of hearing about it. Tommy just looks up one day at like 14-15 while Dick is tooling around the house doing dumb acrobatic impressive-feats-of-athletic-dumbassery and there’s all those taut muscles and a flash of rock hard abs and suddenly Tommy needs to go to his bunk excuse himself to his bedroom to freak out privately that apparently he also likes boys now and ugh WHY THIS ONE

(later in life he’ll somewhat bitterly lament that his type seems to be “taboo.” probably he mentions this to Jason when they are both adults and sharing a beer and doing some extremely rare bonding, and Jason shoots him one hell of a side eye like “Please tell me you’re not into underage girls because I will kill you and I won’t feel bad.”

And Tommy barks a mortified laugh and says “No. Jesus Christ, no, I mean people—adult people!—that I should stay away from, because I should know better or they’d never be into me or, uh,” sweating nervously, hoping his face isn’t telegraphing DICK GRAYSON or OLIVER QUEEN to someone trained by the actual Batman, “other reasons.”)

And you know, Tommy probably doesn’t find out about his foster dad and foster brother being Batman and Robin until he’s like 16-17. So right before Dick stops being Robin/Jason arrives on scene

Not telling Oliver about kills him

And he’s probably torn between reactions. Excited/in awe that his found family are actual superheroes. A little self conscious and insecure that his found family are superheroes but he’s just... him. Stressed that Bruce and Dick are regularly putting themselves in danger. A little off balance and hurt because Bruce Dick and Alfred have all been keeping this secret from him for years

Eventually he knows why they didn’t tell him. Because it’s so hard not to tell Oliver. He doesn’t actually want to brag to the world and he’s not dumb enough to just accidentally give it away, but not telling Oliver is excruciating, and Oliver can probably tell there’s something Tommy is hiding from him all of a sudden.

It probably puts a new and awful strain on their relationship, but Tommy finally puts the words together to beg Oliver to understand that he has to keep someone else’s secret. That it’s important and not his to tell and that that’s the only reason he wouldn’t tell Oliver something. Things are still stiff for a little while but Oliver accepts it eventually. Especially after Tommy likens it to how just because Tommy has told Oliver he’s bi it wouldn’t be okay for Oliver to tell somebody else Tommy was bi without Tommy’s permission

And so, after Tommy finds out that he’s part of the actual batfam, Bruce makes him train. Not to take up a mask but to be prepared to protect himself if what he now knows were ever to endanger him

Tommy actually doesn’t want to take up a mask. He’s never been a big “family business” guy, even if he did intern at Wayne enterprises last summer

The strain of keeping Bruce’s secret from Oliver was bad enough. Tommy can’t imagine keeping it secret from Oliver if that same secret was his own

(After all, Tommy may have interned at Wayne enterprises but so did Oliver. He stayed with the Waynes the whole summer and Bruce was never more stressed out in his life over things not directly related to costumed villainy)

@memcjo @klaus-hargreeves-katz @its-a-pygmy-puffle @keabbs @princesssarcastia @obscure-sentimentalist

#tommy merlyn #oliver queen #batfam #bruce wayne #dick grayson #jason todd #arrow #the batfam tommy au #family and (mis)fortune au #more to inevitably come (someday)#sorry i almost forgot to tag folks!!!#happy (early) birthday from me to you #fam au

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justgotham · 6 years ago

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Time is running out for Jim Gordon and Gotham, and nobody is more acutely aware of that fact than Ben McKenzie, the actor who has portrayed the flinty Gordon for five seasons on the Fox series that shares its name with Batman’s hometown. “It’s a lot to take in,” McKenzie said about the Gotham series finale that airs tonight. “It really is one of those bittersweet moments. But the show was never an open-ended proposition.”

Tonight’s finale is titled “The Beginning…” but the name isn’t quite as ironic as it sounds. That’s because the drama was built to be a sort of “prequel procedural” that leads up to the familiar Batman mythology that DC Comics has been publishing since 1939. The narrative window would begin in Bruce Wayne’s youth with the murder of his parents, and effectively end with his first forays as a costumed crimefighter: Gotham would end when Batman begins. That graduation moment arrives tonight with the show’s 100th episode, the first to feature an appearance by the Caped Crusader in action.

Gotham fans are more than ready to see the Dark Knight in all his cowled glory, but the show’s creative team hasn’t shared that eagerness. Just the opposite. Executive producer Bruno Heller, the British producer best known for The Mentalist and Rome, has said he would never have developed the show if it was a traditional costumed-hero franchise. “I don’t think Batman works very well on TV,” Heller said back in 2014. “To have people behind masks? Frankly, all those superhero stories I’ve seen, I always love them — until they get into the costume.”

That has made Gotham an eccentric entry in the superhero sector, but not an entirely unprecedented one. Smallville (217 episodes, 2001-2010) still reigns as the longest-running television series ever based on DC Comics heroes, and creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar shared a similar aversion to costumed exploits. Their early mission statement was “no flights, no tights,” and the series held out until its final episode to put Clark Kent (Tom Welling) in Superman’s iconic suit.

For Heller and his team, the key to making a compelling Gothamwithout a Batman was to spotlight the hero’s trusted friend, James Gordon, the dedicated lawman destined to become the police commissioner of a city defined by its lawlessness and celebrity criminals. Gordon was introduced in the first panel of the first page of the first Batman comic book ever published, Detective Comics No. 27, the landmark issue that reached its 80th anniversary last month. Gotham added a key element to its version of Gordon — when Thomas and Martha Wayne are murdered, Gordon is the detective who handles the investigation.

Gordon is the good cop who holds on to his morals in a bad city that loses its marbles. The show found the man for the job in McKenzie, who had memorably portrayed LAPD officer Ben Sherman on the highly regarded (but lowly rated) Southland, which aired 2009 to 2013 on NBC and TNT. Before that, the Texan portrayed Ryan Atwood, a scruffy outsider adopted by a wealthy Newport Beach couple and the central character on The OC, the frothy Fox teen drama that aired for 92 episodes from 2003 to 2007.

“I had some things in common with the character,” McKenzie says with a shrug. It’s true, the 23-year-old actor trekked west from dusty Austin (instead of rural Chino) to Southern California, and bought himself a eye-catching Cadlliac DeVille that already had logged 17 hard years and 228,000 long miles. “That’s lot of miles.”

McKenzie has covered a lot of distance in his personal life while channeling the role of Gordon. In 2017, for instance, McKenzie married his Gotham co-star, Morena Baccarin, who has portrayed Dr. Leslie Thompkins on the series (and is well-known for her role in the Deadpool films as the mutant anti-hero’s love interest). The couple now have their first child.

For McKenzie, the end of Gotham closes a pivotal chapter in his screen life. But he’s also hoping that the final seasons will also someday represent a prelude to a different career story — one writing and directing. The actor directed the sixth episode of Season 5, and also directed one in each of the previous two seasons. McKenzie has also written the screenplay for two Gotham episodes: “One of My Three Soups” in Season 4 and “The Trial of Jim Gordon” in this final season.

McKenzie, the writer, didn’t exactly go easy on his fictional screen persona. The cop took a slug in the chest and hovered near death for much of the episode, stuck somewhere between “the here” and “the hereafter” in an existential courtroom where he had to defend his life.

‘I actually feel no sympathy for him at all,” McKenzie said with a chuckle. “The less sympathy you feel, the better, I’d say. The more pain you inflict upon the protagonist, hopefully, the higher the stakes are and the more emotion gets elicited. So I had to be a bit of masochist. Putting him through the ringer and having this existential crisis, this dream, where he’s on trial for his crimes and faces the loss of everything: the love of his life and his child at the same time. I think we got there. That’s about as high stakes as you can get. I think, ultimately satisfying, with the kind of emotional payoff we were looking for.”

That seems to apply to the season as a whole. The final episode is an epic send-off, too, with a story that flashes forward a decade (long enough for Gordon to sport a new mustache) and finds the Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor) returning from prison and Bruce Wayne returning to his ancestral home after years in self-imposed exile. It also coincides with the rise of the show’s off-kilter version of the Joker (Cameron Monaghan). “It’s fitting that he comes into conflict with Gordon and Wayne right at the end,” McKenzie said. ��Cameron has been amazing and there was room for one more big flourish with the role.”

Most of the reviews have veered from good to great, encouraging news for the cast and crew of a series that had been uneven or over-the-top at times. “Everybody’s been very enthusiastic and positive,” McKenzie said. “The final season has been wrapping things up in the way the audience hoped we would.”

Gotham City is arguably the most famous city created in American popular culture since the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz (although Metropolis, Springfield, Mayberry, Twin Peaks, and Riverdale are other prominent spots on the map of un-real estate). Even without Batman, the city zoned by greed, paved in corruption, and mapped by trauma seems to have no limits as far as its story range.

“It’s extraordinary when you think about it,” McKenzie said. “The city itself is a character. There’s a lot of stories to be found in Gotham City. There’s a lot of stories being told from Gotham, too.”

It’s true, Gotham City will be the site of Batwoman, the pilot on The CW this fall, and for a string of upcoming feature films including Joker, The Batman, and the Birds of Prey project.

Also this year: a Harley Quinn animated series and Pennyworth (a series about Batman’s loyal butler) on Epix. Pennyworth and Gothamare unconnected in their story continuity, but both are from the tandem of executive producer/writer Bruno Heller (The Mentalist) and executive producer/director Danny Cannon (CSI franchises).

A passing reference in the 2016 film Suicide Squad identified Gotham City as a major metropolitan hub in the Garden State. The city’s location had been a vague matter for decades, but now it is officially part of New Jersey’s map, and Springsteen isn’t the only local hero named Bruce.

On Gotham, the city feels more like Al Capone’s Chicago than Dracula’s Transylvania. “There’s a specific look and style that Gotham has that sets the show apart. It’s visual identity is distinctive and it was really interesting to work within that as a director.”

Has McKenzie inherited anything Gordon, anything he will take with him forward? “Maybe. We have some things in common, too. He’s living in the same city I live in, New York, but just the slightly more dramatic version. He’s had to figure things out on the fly and his life has changed and met the love of his life and had a child. There’s a lot of similarities there. But I haven’t bought a gun and I don’t go around shooting one. And I’m more a jeans and t-shirts guy. Although Gordon’s given me an appreciation for a good suit, that’s for sure.”

McKenzie said he’s learned a lot from the creative team he’s worked with, and he believes his acting has made his directing better and vice versa, as well. There’s several new projects that looks promising for McKenzie, both as an on-screen presence and writer or director. Still, saying goodbye to Gotham has been a sentimental exercise for the man who plays the taciturn detective.

“It’s hard. I’ve been through it a couple of times before. I’ve been on two shows before, so it’s been less daunting then before. I’ve built really strong bonds with these folks. We spent more time together than we do with our families for nine months a year. It’s been a joy and a experience I will never forget. I can’t forget. I wake up every morning to my wife and child who happened during it. So yes, it’s been a city without limits for me.”

#Jim Gordon #James Gordon #Ben McKenzie #Leslie Thompkins #Morena Baccarin

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julietatruesdale-blog · 5 years ago

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Batch Convert WMA, WAV, OGG, APE, Flac, TTA To MP3 Format, Support Watch Folder A

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