#so system coded I love them

[debb987]

GRAS!!! THE CLIFFORD EFFECT AKSJSBHS

Listen, listen, nobody needs size consistency in these lands 👏😌 8ft = 12ft which equals 10ft and the only correct answer is Yes.

Donnie with the Rad plushie is everything to me 🥹💕 and Raph so excited with his tail bow??? KAKSJ LOVE LOVE LOVE

Leo's rants, Leo's rants my BELOVED AND Mikey little menace literally playing with fire I LOVE THEM SO MUCH AHHH 💖💖

rad and the sd kids would get along I think

the eldest brother by @debb987 (also tagging @kittynomore , their art of rad is so cool!!)

[frogaroundandfindout]

You remember when dick was in space (for the first time with the new teen titans) because komand’r took Kory back and they needed to save her? And you remember how he understood it was a war they were fighting and that they needed to do what they had to in order to survive it? And how when Gar told him he needed to control Kory, dick wondered if he even should try to stop her from killing her sister? And how he literally killed to save her (there’s some deniability but he’s literally hitting them with lasers described as deadly right in the head)? I do.

[pixelatedraindrops]

RainCode Sickfic (Sequel 3) preview!

(RainCode Endgame Spoilers!)

Behind the mask…lies the pain you’ve kept hidden all this time…

So as I’ve briefly mentioned multiple times, over winter break I will be writing a new fic, aka the third and final part to my RainCode sickfic trilogy. I call the it the “Sickfics of the Heart” series~ :)

The final fic I write will take place in the post game. Where former Number One, Yuma decides to visit Kanai Ward to check on his homunculus Makoto before the year ends as a break. But he finds out he’s not in good shape health-wise and decides to try to look after him.

I will be making multiple references to my first fic “Home is Where the Heart is” so be sure to read that fic first!

This fic will also contain more angst. (that I will make super fluffy in return :3)

Here is the summary of what I have planned.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Title: A Heartwarming Reunion

With his memories back, Former Number One, now Independent Detective Yuma Kokohead has recently solved yet another case. One more step towards his goal of eradicating all the world’s mysteries. He finds himself a little tired and realized that it was getting close to the end of the year. He thinks maybe it’s a good opportunity to take a small vacation to recuperate.

New Years is usually a time best spent with family. Sadly, Yuma didn’t have any blood relatives. His secondary family was the Nocturnal Detective Agency, but with the master detectives off doing their own thing, and the chief deceased (or rather wandering aimlessly as an undead homunculus zombie) he couldn’t be selfish and take up their time.

But as he thought back to his time spent in Kanai Ward's city of endless rain as an amnesiac, one person crossed his mind. The person who shared his face, his mind and his build. The homunculus clone he had to battle to solve the city’s mystery. (Though he could not remember what exactly happened) The CEO and now Leader of the clouded city of rain full of homunculi like him. Makoto Kagutsuchi.

Yuma thought to himself that even if they were previously enemies, Makoto was probably the closest thing to a blood relative he had left. So he decides to return to Kanai Ward to pay him a visit, to see how the city is fairing and hoping he had some time off to talk and catch up. And as the city’s leader, he was usually alone. He wouldn’t mind a little surprise visit from his original …would he?

Little did Yuma know, that Makoto may have needed his help more than he originally expected. He overhears rumors in the city that speak concerns of Makoto pushing himself too hard. It turns out their city’s leader was ill, and he had only gotten worse due to his days of continuous overworking and trying to brush it off, by hiding it using his mask.

Yuma is about to experience being a caretaker for the first time in his life, and to his own double. He has a bit of trouble at first, but he has a little bit of help from his heartwarming memories of his previous found family, the Nocturnal Detective Agency. He also finds out more about Makoto in the process. Realizing that he’s been in a lot of pain…that he’s kept masked all this time, all alone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also yes this edit is terrible... x'D Makoto's sprite art makes it difficult to edit into his body... I tried okay? x-x;

Anyway, I hope you will look forward to it! I will try to get it done by either Christmas or...the end of the year :3c

Also this will likely be a multi-chapter fic.

[panicbones]

its so sad to learn ppl dont like beast wars bcuz of its stupid loony toons style slap stick humor eps like bro thats what makes it the best. youre telling me you dont think its the best shit ever to watch inferno slam quickstrike into the ground hulk style by his tail??

[welcometogrouchland]

EXTREMELY CRUSTY but I’ve been working on oc designs in between DC prompts. My little meow meows im so sorry i neglected you (i will inevitably do it again </3)

[calamitypod]

By the Dice: Ten Candles

Heya folks, this is Avery, your friend and dice guy. Let's talk dice stats.

We didn't do this last time as Kingdom is completely diceless---it's a fully narrative engine, and dispenses with the chance element that dice introduce.

Ten Candles does use dice, albeit with a few twists that make analysis interesting, so let's talk about it! As this is lengthy with multiple figures, we'll be doing so below the cut.

Part One: The Basics

Ten Candles operates on a d6 dice pool system, with (usually) between 1 and 10 dice in the pool. Only a 6 counts as a success, and only one success is needed to keep a scene from ending (though rolling fewer 6s than the GM cedes narrative control, which we'll talk about later).

Since each die only has about a 17% chance of rolling a 6, pool size is going to be your best indicator of success, like so:

[fig 1: pool success rate]

Part Two: The Kicker

Each scene starts with a dice pool equal to the number of candles lit, and any 1s rolled during the scene are removed from the pool until the next scene. As such, you're probably only rolling that 10d6 dice pool once, and the longer a scene lasts, the more likely it is to end.

So, question one: how many 1s are you likely to roll, given your pool size? (This is the same answer as 'how many 6s', so we'll be coming back to it in a bit.)

[fig 2: % chance of rolling a certain number of 1s based on pool size.]

And question two: for a given starting pool, how long can you expect a scene to last? Remember, all that's needed to end a scene is a roll with no 6s.

[fig 3: dice rolls before failure, by starting number of dice.]

From this, we could construct a basic game of Ten Candles: we start with a dice pool of 10d6, and for each roll, remove any 1s from the pool. When we fail a roll, we refresh to 9d6 and continue, and so on, until we eventually lose our 1d6 pool and end the game.

We can talk about this distribution in a couple ways. A median dice roll game would look something like 3/3/3/2/2/2/2/1/1/1---but, interestingly, if we sum our games together, the actual median game roll is about 23.

We can also think about this in terms of cumulative probability. The chance that you will have exactly 10 rolls in your game is overall pretty small, but the chance that you will have at least 10 is 100%*. Thus we can get the plot in figure 4b, which might be a more intuitive interpretation.

[fig 4: (a) total anticipated dice rolls; (b) probability of at least x number of rolls occuring.]

*for dice-only purposes; we'll talk about the candles later.

Part Three: But Wait!

One of the core pieces of Ten Candles is that your character sheet is burned as you go. Two of the four parts are traits, which are mechanically straightforward: each trait provides a single opportunity to reroll the 1s in your dice pool. This could save you from ending a scene early, or simply safeguard part of your dice pool for future rolls. Crucially, you can't burn both your traits in the same scene.

So, about those 1s: referencing figure 3 above, we can anticipate any roll that includes a 1 to be available for rerolling, which is higher for earlier scenes/higher starting dice pools. However, as pools shrink, those chances go down.

How often we can expect this come up is something like this:

[fig 5: total valid rerolls per game]

We've got a median of around 13-14, which for a game with median 23 rolls is around 60% of the total rolls in the game.

Of these, a fair number are likely to be rolls that would otherwise end a scene.

[fig 6: total scene-ending rolls that could be rerolled by burning traits]

These are all most likely to happen early: the median breakdown of rerolls per scene is something like 3/2/2/2/1/1/1/1/0/0.

[fig 7: valid rerolls per scene, by number of starting dice]

So how do we think about these? How likely are they to succeed, and how much do they extend a game?

This is where things get trickier, because we have to start considering two new factors: (1) how many players there are, and (2) free will. The problem presented by the number of players is clear---it directly corresponds to the total number of traits that can be burned, and thus the rerolls available. This is something we can implement.

The second problem is more difficult. Unfortunately, I can't simply summon 3-6 of my friends to play several thousand games of Ten Candles with me so I can track when and how often they choose to burn traits, but what we can do is look at a couple possible options:

Part Three-point-One: We Carry On

To start with, let's assume that we only burn traits when an available roll would otherwise end the scene. For the moment, we're also going to assume that rolls align perfectly with people who haven't already burned traits in the scene. So that means:

The total number of rerolls is twice the number of players.

The number of rerolls per scene cannot be more than the number of players.

Keeping in mind that Figure 4a above should hold for any player number provided that they aren't burning traits---and thus represents our sort of minimum median number---when we roll the dice we find the following:

[fig. 8: total anticipated dice rolls, burning traits for valid scene-ending rolls]

What I think is fun about this is that while burning traits does extend the game, by this metric it doesn't really matter how many players you have---the median is up from 23 to 27, and stays there solidly the whole time.

If we think about why this might be, we get a couple possibilities, including that most trait-burning instances are done with small pools and are likely to end in failure. We could get into the average number of traits burned and the average success rate, but frankly this is already long, and we'll cover some of that ground later.

For the moment, then: if burning traits on scene-enders brings the roll count up, but can fall short due to shrinking pool size, let's expand our burning criteria.

Part Three-point-Two: Dice Pool Conservation

While we could theoretically reroll any dice pool with a one in it, for the moment, we're just going to assume that---in addition to any valid failure---we're rerolling any time that there are two or more 1s in the dice pool.

[fig. 9: anticipated total rolls with expanded burn criteria]

So we can see that player number does make a difference, but it's not as big as you'd necessarily think---and rerolling those extra 1s doesn't matter quite as much as one might hope, bringing our medians up to 28 rolls for a 3-player game and 30 for a 6-player.

What's interesting as well is that the chances of burning everyone's traits drops overall as player number increases---it's about 98% for a three player game, 92% for 4, 77% for 5, and only 54% for 6. Which in some ways makes sense---so far we've been increasing the total number of rolls (and thus valid rerolls), but not in a way that's quite proportional with player count.

While we could leave it here, for the curious, we're going to run one more edition of trait burning:

Part Three-point-Three: Maximum Reroll

[fig. 10: anticipated total rolls if rerolling at every opportunity]

If we reroll at every possible opportunity, it turns out that it... doesn't really matter (at least for extending the game)! Our 3-player median roll count actually goes back down to 27.

What it does do is ensure that you're almost certainly going to get through everyone's traits; even a 6-player game has about a 96% chance of getting through all 12 rerolls. Whether that matters is another question, but that's governed by the narrative and not by the dice. Where it makes a difference here is for the other parts of the character sheet.

Which means...

Part Three-point-Four: So That Was A Lie

Whoops, we've got one more thing to consider for traits, which is that we've assumed perfect roll distribution.

In actuality, if one character is particularly active in a scene, there's a reasonable chance (if not necessarily an easily-quantifiable one) that they'll have a reroll-valid roll after already burning a trait in a scene. Likewise, stack order means that characters with moments (we'll get to them) above traits in their stacks are likely to encounter reroll-valid rolls but won't have anything to reroll it with.

As such, the trait-burning numbers above should be a considered a sort of best-possible case, where the rolls magically align with people who have traits to burn. In a real game, that's likely to drop, and the chances of getting through everyone's piles goes down. And while we can't actually simulate the way that a narrative might follow a character through part of a scene, we can simulate stacks.

So, what's that going to look like? Consider the following:

Each player has a possible two rerolls available to them, which cannot be used in the same scene.

Each scene has a number of rolls, which we are going to randomly assign to players. (This is going to be on a per-roll basis, so whether that shakes out to random for the scene overall is its own question that we're not addressing here!)

Because rerolling at every possible point didn't seem to help, we're going to loosen our reroll criteria to scene-enders and situations with 2+ 1s in the pool.

If a player still has traits to burn and has not already burned a trait in the scene, the reroll goes ahead.

[fig. 11: total anticipated rolls with randomized player selection and middle reroll criteria]

Now this is interesting.

But Avery! you say. The last four graphs you've posted all look kind of the same, with small variations that maybe only some kind of pedant would care about!

To which I say: That's fair.

However, note that all of these are back down again: our median rolls are 27/28/28/28. So burning traits is still having a positive impact, but player number doesn't matter quite so much, which makes sense; on the one hand, the chance that a high-reroll scene is going to hit only people who haven't rerolled is low, but on the other, most scenes aren't high-reroll scenes.

The most interesting part about this, though, isn't the total reroll graph; it's the total burns per group. Mean traits burned per group for the above looks like 5.5/6.7/7.6/8.2 (median is 6/7/8/8), and the chance of burning all your traits goes down dramatically for every group, but increasingly for larger groups---it's at 61% for a 3-player group, 25% for 4, 7% for 5, and only 1.3% for a 6-player group.

Compare that to the much higher burn rates for non-randomized rolls following the same burn criteria (it's under Figure 9, but as a reminder: it's 98/92/77/54% for 3/4/5/6 player groups). An actual gameplay scenario is likely going to fall between these two cases---especially with a GM who is paying attention to who hasn't burned their traits yet---but in my opinion, it's going to align more with the randomized case than the idealized.

Part Four: Living Your Moment

The third part of the character sheet is a moment. When lived (and accompanied by a successful dice roll), a moment provides a hope die, which the player in question adds to their pool. This (1) cannot be lost on a roll of 1, and (2) counts a success as a 5 or a 6.

Moments require a conflict roll to successfully live, and furthermore can be placed anywhere in the stack---a moment earlier in the game is more likely to have access to a larger dice pool, and therefore succeed. However, this also requires that it happen, which ends up being a confluence between players, GMs, and plot events, and is not particularly easy to represent in virtual dice.

With that said---that from this point forward, we're moving increasingly far into the realm of the theoretical---let's see what we can say:

In a sort of longest-case scenario, everyone has put their moment under both their traits, which means we'll get our first active moment after at most [player number + 1] rerolls---4 for a 3-player game, 7 for 6 players.

However, because we're assigning rolls to players, and because this would push moments to later stages of the game, we can choose to randomize the stack. We are generally going to be efficient about moments, and assume that the next roll made by the player will be for their moment, but this should hopefully put some into the early game.

That said, because the moment is a narrative moment, we're going to say that they can't be in the first scene, even if they're at the top of the stack. If we wanted to be really stringent about this, we could furthermore say that two moments can't be in the same scene, but maybe that's going too far. So, our criteria:

Each stack has two traits and a moment, with the order randomized.

Each roll will be randomly assigned to a player.

If a player's trait is at the top and their roll either has two 1s or will end the scene, they will burn the trait.

The same player cannot burn both traits in the same scene.

If the player's moment is at the top of their stack, and it is not the first scene, their next roll will be for their moment.

If the player succeeds in their moment, they will gain a hope die, which will be applied to all their future rolls.

The hope die will count as a success on a 5 or a 6, and cannot be lost.

[fig. 12: total anticipated rolls with moments and hope dice]

Okay, this is giving us some interesting stuff to work with!

So first of all, all our medians have gone up---they're all 30 rolls now---but our spread is bigger. Personally, I'm going to hold that this isn't strictly reflective of how most games will go; our randomized stack schema currently means that anyone with a moment at the top of the stack could have it starting in scene 2 (with a starting pool of 9), and this could happen to multiple people, which isn't strictly accurate---most of the time, moments are probably going to happen later.

However, this represents another reduction in the chances of everyone fully burning traits. They're down to 44.5% for 3 players, 12.4% for 4, 2% for 5, and just 0.28% for 6. So although moments---particularly early moments---are likely to lengthen the overall game with the increased chance of success that the hope die provides, they aren't necessarily going to help people burn through their stacks.

Without running the numbers, we can extrapolate about the potential effects of tighter (perhaps more game-like) moment criteria. If we move our first moments back in the game, or assume that two moments can't happen in the same scene, we're probably going to see lower chances of burning everyone's traits (nothing to burn if your moment is on top!), and lower overall roll number (later moments are more likely to fail; can't reroll without a trait). This is likewise true for a more GM-like approach to moment rolls, where rather than the first available roll after the appearance of the moment, they are two, or three, or four rolls later, as the story works its way toward a moment.

All of which is to say that, so far, it seems pretty unlikely that everyone is going to burn through their stacks, but in case they do, we have one more trick up our sleeves, and should see (1) if that's going to happen and (2) how it plays out.

Part Five: On the Brink

The final part of the Ten Candles character sheet is the brink, which is always the last to be used. Hitting a brink allows a full reroll of all dice in a pool, regardless of the number of 1s. Failing a brink roll results in loss of brink, and loss of the hope die, if applicable.

For our longest-case scenario, this means that we at most have to have [player number x 2] rerolls and one moment, successful or not, before a brink is active. For a 3-player group, that's at least 6 rerolls; for a 6-player group, it's 12.

This is where our trait-burning numbers from above become important---a larger group is going to have to work harder to get to their brinks, solely because the number of rerolls doesn't increase much with increasing group size, and roll distribution isn't likely to be optimized for trait burning.

With that in mind, let's turn to our above criteria for moments, with the following additions:

after burning all other traits, the brink becomes active

players hit their brink if the roll would fail, or if there are more than two 1s in the pool (the same as our trait-burning criteria above)

[fig. 13: total anticipated rolls, with the inclusion of brinks]

This gives small groups the advantage, but not by much---their median roll count goes up, but only to 32. This makes sense if we think about it: these groups have the highest chance of hitting multiple brinks, and hitting them early, when there's still a reasonable chance of succeeding on brink rolls.

[fig. 14: Traits burned, using the full game set-up described above.]

Median number of traits burned across the board here are in the 5-7 range; 5 for 3-player groups, 7 for 6-player. Since we're currently assuming fast moment criteria, that means most small groups could be able to get to at least one brink (that's one trait left unburned!), but it's going to be much harder for larger groups. Anything that shortens the game or pushes off players living their moments is going to decrease these chances, while brinks themselves---though an interesting narrative tool---aren't actually likely to extend the game much at all.

Just for fun, though, let's run through one more of these, but with the maximum reroll criteria outlined in Part Three.

[Fig. 14b: Traits burned by player number with more aggressive burn rates]

This doesn't much effect game length, but it gets everyone a little closer to burning through their piles, with an 80% chance that a 3-player group can reveal everyone's brinks. However, that's a 50% chance for 4 players, 23% for 5, and about 8.5% for a six player group, so even aggressive burning won't necessarily help if the rolls don't line up just so. Overall medians here are 6/7/9/9---so, again, close to revealing everyone's brinks, but not quite there, even in a high-burn scenario.

Part Six: Narrative Control

We've now officially left the dice engine proper and gotten into nuance. Crucially, while any 6 rolled indicates a success (and therefore continuation of the scene), rolls are also for narrative control, made against a GM pool of d6 that increases as the player pool decreases.

While this won't make your game end any faster (in a strictly mechanical sense, although losing narrative control may mean that your next roll is coming up fast), it is worth examining, at least briefly.

Fortunately, we've already got the tools to do this. The GM is also rolling a d6 pool, which we have the statistics for, and also counting 6s. However, this starts with no dice and increases by one for every scene, and does not decrease under any circumstance.

[fig. 15: Percent of rolls for which the GM has narrative control, for (a) 3 and (b) 6 players.]

While the above graphs are for test games with both 3 and 6 players, that doesn't make much of a difference overall. The GM is far more likely to gain narrative control over all rolls in a scene as the game moves into its later stages---this is presumably due to both the growing GM pool, and the tendency of later scenes to be shorter. Notably, the GM also has narrative control for scene-ending rolls and for ties.

Part Seven: The World Is Dark

Of course, if you've played Ten Candles, read the rulebook, or listened to our episodes, you are likely aware that a failed dice roll is not the only way to end a scene. Scenes also end if a candle goes out---something that definitely plagued our particularly chatty group, to the point where several scenes didn't happen at all due to multiple candles going out in quick succession.

While the candles are a crucial part of gameplay, their effect is somewhat more difficult to mechanize without making a bunch of assumptions about burn time, average scene length, and dice rolls per minute, so we're not doing it---this is a dice zone, and it's going to stay that way. However, if we're interested in thinking about the effects, keep in mind that the candles are only ever going to make the game shorter, and consider everything discussed above as a functional upper limit.

Part Eight: Conclusions

So, what can we say about the dice engine underlying Ten Candles?

First of all, these simulations are probably closer to upper limits on the game than anything else, but I think they are revealing nonetheless. Real games are more likely to encounter fewer traits burned and fewer dice rolled.

Secondly, while the game length itself is not particularly dependent on group size*, many things in the game directly are, including the chances of seeing moments or brinks in play. The latter in particular drops dramatically as group size increases.

*at least within the parameters here, although we can certainly think of ways in which it would matter more.

All that said, the engine beautifully mechanizes the downward spiral the game wants to represent---the further into the game you are, the less chance you have of narrative control, and the shorter the scenes become. Even using the tools available to you---your traits or your brink---can become mechanically less effectual as your average pool size drops. The horrors will consume you. The dice make sure of it.

[nexus-nebulae]

thinking about when i had such intense phantom limbs as a kid i told my math teacher about it

[doctorweebmd]

afa;ldf;lakdflk;asdf urgh sorry i've been MIA i unexpectedly got super busy with the grant and my grand rounds and having to pick up shifts for people with emergencies/illnesses/moving PLUS my 'graduation' is tomorrow so i'm all over the place AHHHHH

[blueish-bird]

burnout is sapping my hyperfixation of creative energy, but not to worry! I’m still thinking about Aki and Angel an incredibly abnormal amount

[dbphantom]

drew this on my phone in the gallery app at like 4am i just cleaned it up + colored it in for funsies. their relationship means everything to me. caleb's magical girl transformation involves lots of holographic pixels and he is fucking pissed

bonus image accompanying the story from the tags

also i swear i do actually draw the other Veneer characters i'm just fixating on the scientists rn

in order left to right, top row to bottom row: Thrymr Orvyn, Leonardo James Bingham [Bing for short], Echo Adan, Jack Mako Hyder [former drowned corpse], Ike Olis, Bing (again) and Chase Allen [code name: Orion] with his pet parasite, Echo (again), Bing (again x2), and Jikan Diggory with Rose the cat

i guess jikan also counts under the scientist umbrella, but he's not crestfall...

[sailorsuit]

.

[xhatake]

watching this show has made me realize that my main dnd character [ vaeron moongleam ] is just percy if he was itachi

[splattermouth]

*putting two fingers to my temples and furrowing my brow* the venn diagram between volo pokemon and john kramer is more circle than i realized

[sunanthrope]

Asshole-proofing yourself: Dogpunk edition

Edit: hey! A lot of people like this post! So I wanted to add in where I coined the term Dogpunk

i attach my tails to stretchy/coil hair ties so if it gets pulled, it won't snap, the tie will just stretch. sometimes the tie itself will get too stretched out, but it's easy enough to replace. make sure it's stretchy enough that it won't go slack and break your tail anyway

spiked collars. so serious. if people try and grab your neck/collar they'll get poked. Breakaway collars might not be such a bad idea either, but admittedly i hate how they look so i usually just go with a buckle lol

when i was younger and just getting into the punk scene (maybe 12 or 13) i got a pair of combat boots and had my dad (also a punk) to put holes in the toe and superglue in 4 heavy duty spikes on each boot. then i painted them to look like dog toe boots, the kind that you see on pinterest. They were against my school dress code, but i wore them on walks through my redneck ass town to keep myself safe, and the spikes looked like claws. super cool imo way to go 12 year old me

if you go masking, doing quads, or even gearing in public, please for the love of fuck don't go into sketchy areas alone, and make sure at least one of your friends knows if you're going out. plus faking a phone call has saved my life before

continued >>

if you aren't safe, don't wear it/do it. i promise being safe but looking like a 'normie' is better than getting your ass kicked because you're wearing a tail

find friends! seriously, there are probably others in your area. just sitting in my summer school class, i met a cat therian who was doing over her math class who sat with me at lunch. if you're wearing stuff, people will strike up a conversation. don't be afraid to chat with people! the buddy system has also saved my life!

[dasketcherz]

omg they did the wicked thing ! !

just finished reading til the latest chapter of And They Were Roommates by @dreadpirateurania13

gosh i have so much to say about this fic, first off the world building was so much fun to learn about. i didnt grew up an ever after high gurly so i dunno which things are straight from the source material and which are a personal spin but regardless, it was pretty stellar mix of both things !

i am so happy the whole gang is here, it's always a treat to see all of them present in the story on a fic ! and the evolution of varigo's relationship here was hella fun to witness shift over the course of the story, they are so elphaba and glinda coded in the best of ways. I especially love how well set up their clashing beliefs and convictions were, being interwoven to the system they are forced to participate in and watch them develop an ounce of understanding for the other's opinions eventually. also love how natural it felt seeing hugo slowly get dragged involved in varian's circle of friends the way that he did !

and the way vat7k core elements (like varian decoding ulla's research) was slowly implemented into the lore as the plot thickens was so seamlessly done i loved it so much like oughh i ate that up !

overall i enjoyed this fun fic a lot and i am eagerly waiting for the True Hearts Day chapter ! [hyperventilating]

[nightingale-prompts]

Saving Batboy

First | Previous | Next

It was as though he was being led through the city. Dick seemed to know exactly where he should go next as he drove.

Dick turned off his location as he closed in on Joker's location. If anyone had doubts about what would happen tonight they knew now. The clown dies tonight.

Batman never did it because he knew there would be no coming back once he crossed that line but he was not Batman.

Tim knew the moment Nightwing's symbol disappeared that he had found Joker's location. He knew he could track him still based on where he was before but he held off. The last time Dick crossed the line and killed the Joker, Tim was there to stop him. In the time since Tim had grown to regret it. Especially after Jason's return. He should be avenged after everything that happened.

Tim never put much thought into what happened when he was kidnapped just like Danny. Joker Jr was just a nightmare and everyone pretends it didn't happen. His past self doesn't exist to him and the gaps in his memory are better as they are.

If Dick was really going to finish this then Tim wasn't going to stop him. Bruce's code was his code alone. What of the Robins that suffer for it? What about his kids that he loves to the point of self-destruction if they die?

It was clear to Tim now. Batman isn't strong enough to kill Joker. If he can't handle it, someone else would.

Maybe Dick just cared more. Or maybe he had seen this happen too many times to sit by and let it happen again. The cost be damned.

Tim took a deep breath. He knew it was a bad move but he shut down the bat computer. No one could locate each other for the next 10 minutes. Enough time to give Dick the lead he really needs. All the comms are down and no information can be shared.

Tim looked up and saw Alfred putting down a cup of tea for him. Tim felt like a child caught doing something wrong under Alfred. But Alfred nodded wordlessly before turning to leave. He cast a forlorn glance at Jason's robin uniform before ascending the stairs.

****

"I was hoping Batman would come for the little bat. Oh sorry, I mean the boy." Joker mocked holding Danny by the back of the neck.

The teen's body was limp. His silver locks stained a rusty brown from dried blood. Blood covered his back and legs. If there had been any doubt if the wings were real there is none now.

"…" Nightwingwing said nothing. His fist clenched.

"You know I debated skinning him next. That fur of his would be a lovely shawl. It's so soft. But it looks like I won't have the time now." Joker provoked, running a hand through the boy's white neck fur.

"Get your hands off him." Nightwing demanded, his eyes locked on Danny for any signs of life.

"You know I am so curious what he was doing here. I was about to build a new trap here for fun when I stumbled upon this little guy here. Practically gift-wrapped. Did he run away from you? Just like you did from good ol'papa bat." Joker's smile widened sickeningly "This all feels so familiar, doesn't it little bird? Are you going to finish what you started?"

"I'm never letting you hurt my family again." No witty one-liners. No games. This bad joke ends today.

****

Batman had scoured the area. He memorize the last location Dick was before the system went down. He wasn't these kids' father for nothing he knew what they were doing.

When sound came back he had already made it to the abandoned factory. The comms rang back to life as the sounds of crying came through.

"Nononono…please no. Wake up. Please wake up." It was Dick's voice. "It's okay. I'm here now. So just wake up. We need to get home soon. Your favorite show will be on soon. WAKE UP! YOU CAN'T DIE!"

Batman bolted to their location and found Dick hovering over Danny trying to resuscitate him.

His son looked at him with pleading eyes.

"I can't hear his heart. He's not breathing." He let out a shaky breath. As distressed tears ran down his cheeks.

Bruce knelt next to them. Danny didn't react to the pressure on his chest. The pain should have at least caused an involuntary jerk if he wasn't too far gone.

Bruce signaled Dick to move back as he checked Danny's pulse again. Nothing. And he wasn't breathing. Bruce looked at his son. Deep down Dick probably knew.

"I'm sorry. He's gone." Bruce said simply as he took off his cloak.

Danny looked so peaceful. Like he was sleeping soundly. Bruce hated that his own suspension had been the thing that had prevented him from having a relationship with his own grandson. He felt foolish to not realize that of course Danny and Batboy were the same. It was a brilliant disguise. But he'd never get to say this to the boy.

Bruce wrapped the boy in his cloak.

"Come on. We'll fix this." He told Dick, carrying Danny for him.

The journey back to the manor was silent until.

"I'm sorry." Bruce said.

"Don't. Just Don't. He's my son. Its my fault." Dick rasped his voice scratchy from crying.

Bruce felt a bitter sting. That was exactly what he felt when he lost Jason and what happened with Tim. When Damian lost his life. These pains didn't go away.

When they arrived back in the Batcave Bruce laid Danny's body on the table. The others were notified about what happened and had already gathered.

Barbara looked like she had bawled her eyes out as she hugged Stephanie.

Damian had pressed himself close to Tim as the older brother told him that it was going to be okay.

The new hole in the wall was clearly Jason if his bloodied knuckles were any clues.

Cassandra paced the floor deep in thought. She was moments away from starting a new crusade.

Duke stared off into the distance. His anger boiling under the surface. All he could think about was the number of lives ruined by the Joker and even in death he took another.

Dick stood still as a statue. Thinking about if Danny could be brought back and even if he was his wings were gone. What if he was gone for good? Could he live like that?

Never had he understood Bruce more than in that moment.

Bruce braced himself for what would come next. He had a plan to bring Danny back at any cost.

But suddenly a sound broke through the tension.

A sneeze.

A fucking sneeze.

It came up from under the cloak.

Everyone snapped to look at the body hidden under the cloak. It shifted under the heavy black blanket groggily and yawned. Then Danny jumped up twisting to feel his back.

"What happened!!" He yelped.