strap in for this week's fic flavor: the failsafe episode of season one of the young justice cartoon except the simulation just won't. fuckin. end.
(fics that inspired this at the end)
If I ever did sit down to make my own fic, I'd split it in 3 parts:
The Simulation: bits and pieces of the 40 years Dick lives after most everyone he knows has died
The Return: the immediate aftermath and healing from the trauma of having not-quite-actually lived a whole life only to wake up and find out it was all fake. nothing traumatizing about that whatsoever.
The Unintended Consequence: aka the twist I'd love to add and would hint to in the second part - finding out the simulation, through martian mind fuckery, pulled from the real world (and in many cases, from real minds). Dick meets a bunch of people he didn't think were real outside the confines of his simulated life. A bunch of rowdy, heroism-inclined teens across the years get to meet the sibling/friend/mentor figure they all dreamed up one night.
(actual idea snippets under the cut)
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Dick Grayson is 14 and most of the world's heroes have died. He planned a suicide mission that left him the sole survivor of a doomed team he helped found. The invasion may have been stopped, but is this really the price he wanted to pay?
The first face he sees in the infirmary is Roy's, and he has to close his eyes and just breathe for a few minutes because for one painful moment he'd thought it was Wally. But this isn't the world where his best friend miraculously survived alongside him. This is the one where he got his best friend killed and didn't even give him the courtesy of following behind him. Behind them.
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Dick Grayson is 27 and has lived longer without Bruce than with him. The invasion's anniversary is always a tough day for him, but that morning seems especially harrowing. He'll get shit for it later, but can't resist stepping out onto the balcony of the manor's master bedroom (Bruce's old bedroom) for a smoke -- his first since he'd promised to quit if Jason, just 15 then, did too.
"Bad habits tend to pile up," he'd said, a rueful quirk to his tired grin. He'd tapped the cigarette twice on the railing and added, lower, "and this one's especially nasty, huh."
He inhales, watches the sun creep across the horizon, and lets acrid smoke burn through his lungs for a long moment before blowing it out in a small cloud. His eyes water, but he doesn't cough. It tastes just as bad as it did the first time he smoked one, not even a year after the invasion and treading water as Robin proved insufficient.
There hadn't been enough heroes to go around then, and Dick had been trained by one of the best. It hadn't been fair, but it had been his plan that had ultimately stopped the invasion. His shoulders everyone's expectations fell on.
He takes another drag, then smudges the lit end against the rail he's leaned on when he hears a boot scuff purposefully against the roofing above him.
"Todd and Pennyworth will be upset with you."
He doesn't turn around. Damian doesn't jump down to join him.
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Dick Grayson is 54 and wakes up in a room full of ghosts. He hears his long-dead father-figure tell his long-dead team about a simulation they weren't meant to win. A training exercise gone wrong and only half a day spent under their mentors' careful, if slightly panicked, supervision.
He looks at his hands, watching the way his gloves crease when he flexes them in and out of tight fists. He looks at his team, their eyes a little haunted but shoulders slumped with relief even as they grumble. Batman's heavy, gloved hand settles on his shoulder and the weight of it is a nauseating mix of foreign-familiar.
He opens his mouth. Closes it.
Tears prick his eyes behind his domino mask, and he tells himself the suffocating, acidic void building in his chest is just some leftover side effect of the ordeal and not the grief-guilt of outliving yet another family (no matter that they hadn't been real in the end).
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Dick Grayson is 16-going-on-56 and well used to the coincidences piling up between his simulated life and the real thing. Some of it -- missions and villains he remembers cropping up -- he's marked for Bruce to review and sort as he pleases. Some -- security for the cave, team building anecdotes, and training regimens -- he's shared with the team. And some he keeps only for himself.
Tim is one of those. He knows it's not fair to the kid (so much smaller now than he ever was when Dick lived his simulated life), but he can't help being selfish just for this. Tim is the one kid he's sure he didn't make up, and if Dick's taken to babysitting the kid just to be near at least one member of the family he built for himself in the wake of the worst days of his life .... Well, anyone who says shit about it can happily stand in line to have their teeth kicked in.
Despite this, it still catches him off-guard when he sees a familiar face pop up in one of Bruce's reports.
Jason Todd, caught boosting tires off the batmobile, is nearly the same age now as he was when Dick met him. He stares at the words, but none of them really sink in beyond the kid's name and address. He's moving before he's even made the decision.
He's used to the world kicking him when he's down - lived it for 40 frustrating years. But he has Bruce again. And things with Tim have been so good. And he's always been selfish when it comes to family. If he could just see Jason. If he could just meet him. If he could talk to him.
If if if if if--
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Inspirations:
Circles in Shattered Mirrors by InfinityIllusion
Fine (But Not Okay) by CharlotteDaBookworm
Verisimilitude by mutemelody
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drew out my canon shepard, Circe, and her journey from Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3.
ME1: Basically the default femshep model, bc i love her design. She has a tattoo of cosmos along her neck. There’s no deeper meaning to it; she just thinks they’re pretty, and everyone else in her gang had a tattoo, so...
ME2: After being resurrected, Circe found that her hair had grown out, and she just never found the time to chop it off. Of course, as a renegade, her scars got worse. And with her re-grown body, her tattoo was gone.
ME3: Bored out of her mind in Alliance confinement, she finally cut off her hair with a pair of scissors. She also gets a new tattoo, and this one does have meaning: it’s reminiscent of her lover, Thane’s, markings.
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setting : highgarden, just before lenora leaves for the crownlands to be married, laena is completing a final fitting of the lady's wedding dress before their departure ;; @lecnora
blonde brows furrowed in concentration as lithe fingers delicately placed a pin within the emerald silk fabric of the dress she had made for the lady lenora lefford, soon to be a princess. laena always felt a sense of pride in her work, but she hoped others would believe this dress to be worthy of the beauty draped in it. she stood up straight now, walking in a semi-circle around the other, ensuring the placement was absolutely perfect. this was no simple business proposition, though laena knew it could prove beneficial should others take notice of her work, it was personal. wedding gowns had far more stake in them, and therefore she found herself putting much more soul into such work, tiny bits of it within each and every stitch.
she had known lenora lefford some time, the women coming and going in and out of the others’ life for some years. laena found the woman to be kind, with an elegance she wished she could exude herself. the lady of golden tooth was a natural at life in court, where laena felt her heart did not quite so belong in it, though she did it well enough. she thought, genuinely, the lady would make a perfect princess.
lilac hues drifted over the golden embroidery she had painstakingly stitched amongst the fabric, her fingers still numb and poked from such a process, but it was a feeling she had missed, having not made such an intricate dress in some time. “there.” she stated, satisfied with the adjustments she had made, her hands clasped in front of her as she awaited the others response. “what do you think?”
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This is the anon who sent the ask about wsab potentially copying NCM. I am so sorry, I don’t mean to cause any drama or hate!!! I was just genuinely concerned and I would hate to see your hard work get ripped off :( love the new chapter btw, can’t wait for the next update <3
Oh no worries, sorry! I’m on high alert after the last time I got a ton of hate and claims of making shit up, so I assumed you were coming to stir it up since I’ve learned some people thrive on drama. So all good, thank you!! 💚💚 NCM is my baby and I appreciate you letting me know. I thought it wasn’t a real lead/was trying to make me attack her for no reason and look bad.
Also it’s funny with the other account, I’ll be honest that it does look really weird?? Like I legit happened to notice the kudos within hours of the misscrankypants sending me that. I feel like doing the Coincidence I Think Not Meme at myself 😂
Also just kidding, looks like their account was actually made 10 days ago, so never mind my previous theory! But either way, this is what they sent me if anyone is curious:
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