#then the events of dp canon happen

[dat1angel]

When Ra's needed an heir, Talia impregnated herself with The Detective's DNA to give him the perfect offspring. When she delived fraternal twins the boy was raised to one day take over the League and the girl was kept around so that she might one day provide the LoA with new recruits. When she came of age and learned that the only reason she was kept around was the idea of her future children, she fled. They never found her.

Years later, Duke Thomas introduces his family to his new boyfriend, Danny Fenton.

[starry-bi-sky]

For the Danyal Al Ghul AU: How would Danyal react to other canon events like when Sam wishes she never met Danny, Tucker wishes for powers, the christmas episode, or other DP canon events?

(Also, I assume Danyal's cover is blown by the reality Gaunlet event.)

Ohooho I love this question. So im only gonna respond to the episodes you mentioned, since it's been a while since i actually watched the show and I don't remember all the episodes. And also since I don't remember them fully, I'm gonna get details wrong. I am fine with that, it still gets the gist down lol. I've got the tvtropes recap page pulled up, so i'll be using that to try and hit the major points it mentions.

So, Memory Blank! Man I've thought about that one, and its the one I'm frankly most excited to answer because it gets to show just how much of a positive impact being friends with Sam and Tucker had on Danyal. So where to start? Their fight goes differently than in canon, but I'm going to start from after Sam makes her wish.

Firstly; she and Tucker are friends, but the two of them are not friends with Danny. He's on his own. In this au, the three of them became friends when they were 11 and Danny's been in Amity Park for about a year.

They met in the beginning with Sam trying to befriend him at first because she realized that they shared similar ideals on environmentalism, but he rebuffed her pretty harshly due to a combination of grief over leaving his home, trying to process the fact that he can never return and will never see his brother again or meet his father, and just plain League arrogance lmao. He really hated being in Amity Park just in general because it wasn't his home and it was the city too.

So he was really rather unapproachable in the beginning. People kept a pretty wide berth of him due to Fenton association and his own vibes.

But Danny's still a kid, and they want socialization with their peers. At 11 he didn't have any friends, and was frankly quite lonely. He decided to approach Sam and Tucker after deeming them "acceptable allies", although Sam wasn't really interested at first up until he did the equivalent of apologizing. Tucker warmed up first afterwards, but Sam really wasn't too far behind.

So thats how they became friends, post-wish though? Lets say that Sam didn't accept the apology and rebuffed Danny, and kinda intimidated Tucker into doing the thing. Danyal closed down, backed off, and then never approached them again because he decided right then and there he wasn't going to chase it. Wasn't worth his effort or time.

Then he just. never approached another person after that because he didn't want to get rebuffed again (he wouldn't admit that it hurt a bit), and he could already tell his efforts wouldn't work. He turned his attention to other stuff. In this timeline it wasn't too difficult to find him at events dedicated to combatting climate change, deforestation, light pollution, animal cruelty, etc. the LOA is an environmentalist group, after all. They just also happen to be eco-fascist assassins-for-hire.

In summary, Sam and Tucker helped Danyal realize the flaws in some of the League's beliefs (the fascism) to the point where he could deconstruct it on his own. Being friends with them made him realize that, frankly, genocide was not the answer to environmental equilibrium, and that the people outside of the League had lives worth living. They also helped quell his arrogance, and just in general influenced him to become kinder even if it doesn't look like that all the time to other people. Sam and Tucker make him laugh, and smile, and just happy.

OG Danyal: wears pretty casual teen clothes. More punky-aesthetic. Has multiple ear piercings. These were self-done. Will have a lip piercing by the time he reunites with Damian, mark my words. Can and will wear muscle tees. Makes puns, jokes, is generally sassy with his friends. Can, will, and has climbed shit he shouldn't be because he enjoys the challenge of scaling a building. It's also very funny seeing Tucker and Sam reenact the "Gregory! HOW DID YOU GET UP THERE?!" meme. Still has a questionable moral compass, but like, he's not an eco-fascist.

This Timeline Danyal: dresses much more sophisticated; dark academia vibe. Closed off, cold. Is 2x more likely to kill someone than OG Danyal, who was frankly, pr kosher with murder already but only if he deemed it extremely necessary. Still an eco-fascist.

Danyal without Sam and Tucker? Still believes in the teachings of the League because he has not been really challenged on them. In fact, he has doubled down on it, actually. Living in the city, growing up estranged and ostracized by his peers, has only strengthened his resolve that all of humanity minus the league (and the Fentons) deserves to be wiped out. He is disgusted by the people around him and desperately wants to go home, even more than the last timeline. The only reason he hasn't is for Damian's sake, but he's been checking in with mother whenever she visits and asking to find a way to come home. She's been steadily wearing down on it; her child is miserable here.

This version of Danyal should not have powers, and is, essentially on the fast track of rejoining the league -- doubly so when he hears Damian is living with father. Clearly it's safe enough for him to be with father, if mother allowed it, and father has become safe enough for Damian to live there. Good. With the threat of two heirs being in the League gone, Danny can return with Mother's permission. And. he probably takes Jazz (and the Fenton parents) with him. Forcibly if he has to.

So Sam has her work cut out for her here, a lot more than in canon, because even when she does tell him that they used to be friends in another timeline, and he believes it, he is not going to give a shit. Clearly they were not as good of friends as she thought they were, if she had wished they never met in the first place. Good riddance, then. This Danny is cold, incredibly hurt, and very closed off.

He is a cave wall in comparison to the Danny Sam knew, and talking to him feels like walking into one. Because he is looking at her with just utter disgust and disdain, keeping a distance like he is revolted by her presence and allergic to her and everyone else's touch.

Which really, really fucking hurts when she knows that in their last timeline, he would actively seek out her and Tucker's company and affection. Sam could read her best friend like an open book, and now its like she's trying to read one in another language she barely speaks. This boy used to smile at her, he used to laugh at Tucker's jokes, and he was so passionate about the things he enjoyed. Now he looks at her like he wants nothing more than for her to drop dead on the spot.

It hurts even more knowing that her last words to her Danny were the words, 'some days i wish we never met'; the way he looked at her afterwards haunts her. For a split second, he looked completely crushed and heartbroken, before his entire body language and expression shut off and he totally closed down on her.

Because by this point in his friendship with her and Tucker, he's told them, he has told them, in a very intimate moment of vulnerability, that they are one of the best things that's happened in his life -- right there alongside the day he first met his baby brother. They are very important to him, and he has finally felt comfortable enough with telling them. There's not a day that goes by that he isn't grateful for their friendship.

So to hear Sam say that some days she wishes they never met? well. That breaks his heart. Just- just a little bit. Sam regrets it the moment it leaves her mouth, and she immediately tries to apologize, but Danny immediately spits back; "Well. I hope you get your wish." and then stalks off.

I'm warring with myself here trying to decide whether or not this new timeline Danyal is at a "point of no return", where nothing Sam says is going to make him attempt to reignite that friendship. Clearly that will end badly anyways, if this is the result of that friendship. He's cut all ties from these people; he feels no prerogative to fix things she broke.

Like, the version of Danyal I'm thinking of here has no close bonds with anyone in the city sans Jazz -- and she? has her own life outside of Danny. She is not his keeper, not his caretaker, and certainly not his therapist. (which i have beef about too, considering how she gets boiled down to 'therapist with no life of her own' but im not going into that.) She has some influence on him, but frankly not enough to really make him challenge his beliefs. Danny cares about her that, if he returns to the league, she is coming with him. Or at the very least, will be spared from the League's goals.

Mmmm. I can't make it a total point of no return though. Sam's very stubborn, and she knows Danny. And while this Danny is still very different, he is still Danny. She'll try and befriend him insistently in a way that might annoy him, but at least not push him away further.

(Tucker, meanwhile, is just soo confused about Sam's very random, very abrupt switch up. Cuz girl he thought you hated this guy? Why are you suddenly trying to get all buddy-buddy with the terrifying Fenton kid. Have you been possessed? Is this some kind of crisis?)

(Sam drags Tucker into befriending Danny because he is the only person she knows that can get him to belly laugh. Tucker is mildly terrified but going along with it.)

Anyways this does end with Sam befriending Danny, or at least getting him to like her long enough that he'll pick up a ghost weapon and face off against Desiree. There's no way in hell he's walking into that portal, that last timeline might have been a 1/billionth chance of it happening and he's not dying for the chance to get powers. And frankly with his training -- which he's probably kept up with even more than the old timeline because he had no one to spend his time with -- he doesn't really need them to be good at fighting them. Just show him how to ghost proof a weapon and he'll handle the rest from there.

But Sam does end up undoing the wish and getting back to her own original timeline in the end. It's the morning after her fight, and the literal first thing she does that morning is get her shoes on and fucking sprriiint to the fenton house. Bursts into tears when she sees Danny and apologizes over and over again. She swears she didn't mean any of it, and to please believe her, and Desiree's still loose and they need to stop her, and she's had the worst time.

She does tell him about the other timeline she just went through, and she hopes that, if it still exists, that that Danyal manages to find friends in the Sam and Tucker there after this. And if not them, then anyone.

Danny's still pretty hurt by what she said, it cut really deep, but he forgives her.

-----

Tucker getting his powers! Frankly things gooo... relatively the same as canon, I think? Actually, no. Danny probably figures out the whole Genie "i wish you would go back into your lamp" thing faster than canon danny since he's not a C student lmao. TV.Tropes doesn't give me too much specifics for a recap on the plot, so we're gonna wing it. For the plot I'm going to say that Tucker gets his powers before Danny figures out the "i wish" thing, which happens relatively quickly.

Danny tries to be... rather supportive of his friend getting powers? Especially since, in comparison to Danny, it was rather painless. However, he's also very suspicious. He doesn't trust the source of Tucker's powers, and warns him to be careful and to let Danny know if he feels off in anyway.

Tucker does end up helping Danny a few times, but the quick progression of his powers and Tucker's willingness to use them more often than not worries him. He reminds him a handful of times that Tucker shouldn't rely on his powers to help -- not even Danny does that. He prefers to use his weapons and martial arts to fight instead. Tucker doesn't listen.

And they end up fighting anyways. Things get resolved, everything turns out okay!

------

Christmas episode straight up just. doesn't happen. Danyal doesn't care enough about the Fenton arguing or about Christmas to be upset about said arguing. He thinks its really childish, but he's not a grinch about all of it.

--------

Okay it wasn't explicitly mentioned but i have thought about TUE. And I'm trying to think how that would go because it's the result of Danny getting his hands on the math answers and cheating. Which Danyal would not do.

And someone mentioned in the comments on my ao3 under the oneshots there that TUE might just straight up not happen. Which makes sense, Danyal is so different from canon that things don't have to always happen like it did in canon. So that's something I need to chew about, cuz if it does happen, then I'm going to figure out a different way for it to.

[faeriekit]

Health and Hybrids (XXI)👽👻💚

[I can't remember the original prompt posters  for the life of me but here's a mashup between a cryptid!Danny, presumed-alien!Danny, dp x dc, and the prompt made the one body horror meat grinder fic.]

🖤Chapter navigation can be found here🖤 Click to browse previous updates.

💚 Ao3 Is here for all parts (now featuring mediocre mouseover translations, only available on a computer)

Where we last left off... Wonder Woman! Robin! Impulse! Danny! Dick drawings! Who says that occupational therapy and learning a second language can't be fun?

Trigger warnings for this story:  body horror | gore | post-dissection fic | dehumanization (probably) |  my nonexistent attempts at following DC canon. On with the show.

💚👻👽👻💚

EXTRA TW for: vomiting, panic attacks (this chapter only)

Danny can hold a spoon now. He is unstoppable.

So, when the lady isn’t there to feed him dinner (more mush), one of the not-the-lady nurses gives Danny a tray, and lays a mat over his lap so that he can eat without completely messing up his bedsheets.

Eat he does. Slowly. Maybe a little messily, and it’s kind of embarrassing to have to admit to himself that food definitely spills out of his mouth and onto his lap. The doctor/nurse/medical person, whoever they are, turns on the television, and Danny doesn’t try to ask for the remote. The television only gets something like ten channels, and none of them are cartoons at lunch hour.

So. News it is.

Most of the news follows the same cycle; the weather, sports teams Danny can now recognize the colors of, traffic cameras, and events with long, scrolling text to detail the happenings onscreen. There’s something about dogs? That’s fun. The scientist/nurse/tech, whoever they are, says something in the tone of Aaw, aren’t they cute? as puppies run about and wrestle on screen.

Danny kind of misses Cujo. He picks at his bedsheet, and doesn’t say anything.

The dog program transitions away— there’s a bright banner in its place. Danny’s seen it before: it’s something to the equivalent of Breaking News. It’s usually weather, or crime, or something.

Um. But it’s not that. Danny’s spoon drops, because a ROBOT LADY lights up the screen with a glistening silver suit, not unlike the Ecto-Skeleton his parents used to keep in the basement. Or, well…this one might be more streamlined?

Danny shifts. He can’t help. He’s here, in the hospital. Or. Uh. The space…hospital. His body is very broken.

But there’s a robot lady wrecking a town on Earth.

And Danny can fly.

…Could fly. Could have flown. If he was. Well.

Danny’s not well, and his body aches and his hands don’t work and his legs work even less, but there’s people out there who need help. People who are getting shot at with rays and Danny can fight them, and humans can’t. Danny can help. He—

His core throbs. Danny chokes. He pulls at his chest, trying to find some kind of purchase on his medical gown to tug himself—up?? Out?? He can’t fly right now, but maybe—?

“Whoah, whoah, whoah, abide, abide.”

Danny grits his teeth. “Look!” he snaps, and jams a finger at the television. “There’s—look! There’s a giant robot out there punching buildings!”

“Wacie,” the human protests, but at least turns up the volume so that Danny can see better. “Wacie, þær eart firas þær nou.”

What does that mean?!

Danny hasn’t lifted himself in forever. His legs don’t work, but his arms…might.

He presses his palms down to the mattress. He pushes.

There is a liberated fraction of a second where Danny’s whole weight is on his arms.

—And then he comes crashing back to reality, his elbows snapping back into place. His butt slams back onto the bed and the whole frame jitters.

Danny pants. His arms quake.

The medic completely barrels through Danny’s usually meticulously-kept personal bubble, trying to make sure Danny didn’t dislodge his IV or rip his ligaments and tendons or tear his muscles or. Something. Danny barely notices, barely cares, because someone else blasts onto the television screen in a red bathing suit and gold boots.

And suddenly, both the people on screen are fighting. It’s brilliant. It’s bloody—it’s physical, in the way that flesh and bone and metal must be. Danny’s never seen serious fighting like that before.

And the new woman flies.

Danny stares.

She flies. She fights. She wins—narrowly dodging or displacing lasers with something shiny on her arms, and getting long hair singed in the process. In the end, the robot is tethered down with some kind of shiny metal rope, screaming and kicking all the way.

…Danny barely remembers to choke in air. That's so cool.

The medical person says something reassuring, but Danny’s too tired to listen. He watches this new woman take her applause, floating down on nothing but air to meet the reporter and answer questions. She looks poised. Confident. People clap. People shout things out. People smile. People cheer.

…No one is screaming. No one is running.

There are no ghost hunters in the crowd.

Danny’s exhale is manual. So is his inhale. His heart monitors are making all sorts of funky pictures most likely, but that’s not his business—he watches a woman in armor who flies take off into the sky, free to come and go as she pleases.

It…it hurts. It’s so beautiful and so peaceful and gentle and it hurts so much.

His eyes well up with tears. Why did she get this? This…niceness? Everyone had hated him when he'd tried to help—the teachers, Vlad, the town, his parents. They’d hated him! All he ever wanted to do was help like she did!

What made him so different?! Why was it Danny who got hunted down and shot at? Why was it Danny who got kidnapped and taken hostage?!

Tears burn his eyes like fire. It’s got to be the salt. Danny’s strangled whine turns into a choked off sob before he can catch it. His hand goes to his mouth, but he can’t stifle the noise.

He doesn’t want to. He wants to cry. He thinks he deserves it.

The tears come until he is sobbing, crying, wailing—because WHY WHY WHY was it so easy to hurt him?! WHY DID THEY HURT HIM, WHY DID MOM HURT HIM, HE DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG!

A towel appears in his hand. They’re so nice to him here. So much nicer than when Mom and Dad had—

Danny’s cries are as much screams as they are anything else.

There are hands on his shoulder. On his back. Rubbing. Danny wants to shove them off but the lady isn’t here, which means that it’s one of the staff-members who isn’t supposed to touch him. They’re not supposed to touch him in case Danny hurts them but one of them gave Danny a clean towel to scream into and is rubbing his back because he’s crying.

They’re trying to be so nice and gentle but EVERYONE JUST WANTS TO HURT HIM.

They’re smart, though. They notice before Danny does, and have a bucket ready by the time heaving sobs turn into outright vomiting.

At least the mush mostly makes it into the bucket.

*

…So.

Having a breakdown…sucks.

Danny has to carefully brush his teeth with an extra-soft bristle brush and rinse out his mouth before he gets more water.

Someone is being very nice. There’s artificial fruit punch flavoring in his drink. He wants to feel grateful but he mostly feels dead.

…His eyes slide listlessly across the room. Ha. Dead.

Danny is horizontal and wrung dry and too tired to do anything but pant by the time the lady comes back to his room. She’s in quicker than usual—her gown is sort of sloppy, hair sticking out of her hair net, and she’s still looping her mask around her ear.

She gets down on her knees beside his bed. She asks him if he’s alright.

Danny’s not alright. He isn’t sure he’s been alright in…ages. Ages and ages. Before he was trapped and tied down. Before he was hated. Reviled.

…Before he was Phantom, maybe; before Danny Fenton had died a shocking, senseless death.

Tears try to wring themselves out of his aching eyeballs, but he’s too dry-eyed to cry; the lady make sad, wet eyes for him, and that’s probably enough between the two of them. Danny’s misery is a vast, gaping void, and all he has to show for it is the shovel he’s been digging through all this shit with for the last few years.

The lady brings her hands closer to his hairline, curled fingers hovering in the air. Her word’s don’t mean anything to him, but the gesture is clear: May I?

“…Mm,” Danny agrees. His eyes fall closed when she gently scratches at his scalp with her fingers.

No one’s touched him gently, on purpose, in…ages. When he was little, Dad used to pop him between him and Mom in bed. Mom would brush out Danny’s bangs with her fingers and Dad would hum. It was always something ill-fitting and silly. Guns N’ Roses. Led Zepplin. Santana. Sometimes Jazz would sit with them, crushing him until Dad had to pull him up and out of harm’s way.

In the quarantine lab, hurting him had just been part of the scientific process. What if there was some new discovery under his fat layer? On the other side of his ribs? Nestled between his alveoli?

Danny sniffles. He’s too dry to cry. He blinks invisible dust off of his eyelashes, and focuses on the weird lady who’s with him now.

Up close, when his eyes work, she looks nice. She has blue eyes, like him. Like Dad. They’re kinda…glowy, maybe? Sparkly? They remind him of ice in the Far Frozen—inhumanly brisk, and impossibly clean. She has eye crinkles where she smiles, tan skin making them more defined than their actual depth. Between her hair net and her medical mask, little wisps of black baby hairs shine through.

She pets him. She smiles. Danny isn’t sure why, but. Whatever. Jazz used to insist that human skin-to-skin contact was an essential need, so this is probably, like, also medical care.

Yeah. Danny squints. …Sure.

Whatever. It’s nice.

So Danny gets petted and it’s fine. He almost doesn’t notice the giant gauntlet under the paper sleeve of her gown, but then it’s right in his field of vision, and. Hey. Didn’t he see that on TV, like, an hour ago?

Danny stares.

He can’t actually tell if they’re gold under the pale blue color of the gown, but. The color is certainly some sort of unusually colored metal, cold to the touch even through the paper-like material of the gown.

…He doesn’t want to touch her, or let her know that he’s touching her. But. He brushes the back of his wrist against the bracelet, and it hums against the paper gown between it and his bare skin.

The lady blinks. She looks down at where they made contact, and asks him if he’s alright.

Danny looks away.

She knows she saw him reach out to her, though, so she takes her hand off of his hair (…hey…) and pulls back the sleeve on her gown. “Sest,” she offers. See?

It is the same kind of bracer he saw on TV. Up close he can see the designed etched into it—geometric lines stretching down from her fingers to her elbow, terminating in something structural. Not quite diamonds. Just…strong.

There’s a couple of very, very tiny letters down towards the bottom. His eyes strain when they try to make any sense out of them; they’re too small for him to actually focus on, which sucks.

She steps back, and pushes her sleeves down to show off her gold bracers. She lifts up the hem of her gown, revealing red boots that go waaaay up her thigh. They have the same gold metalwork as she does on the bracers.

Danny just saw those on the television. His eyes widen.

“You—“ he starts, and then remembers their difference in language. He points his hand at the television. “You fought? You were on TV?”

“Hwæt?”

“The TV?” Danny repeats. She doesn’t understand. Danny doesn’t know how to tell her what he means. “The…you were there?”

She looks at him to expand. Danny looks back at her.

…So they just stare at each other silently.

The door cracks open; the person who’d mediated Danny’s breakdown pokes their head in and says something. “Eower feoht wæs an þe box todæge.”

The lady blinks. Danny blinks. Wait. Did they just call the television the box?

“…Box?” Danny clarifies, and lifts a hand to shakily point at the television again.

The lady blinks, and grins. “Yea!” she returns, pumped up. She stands, to the powerful height she’d had on the television—excuse him, the box—and flexes her now-exposed arms to show off massive biceps.

Holy moly. Danny hasn’t seen any bigger biceps on his Dad.

She flexes one arm, the other, both—in front, and behind. If Danny had that much definition, he’d be showing off too! She leaps back impossibly far—and holy crap she can fly— to show off some mock punches at invisible enemies at speeds that Danny would be hard pressed to follow even with supernatural abilities.

He goggles.

She laughs at him, but she doesn’t sound mean—she sounds show-boating and silly, and teasing and playful, but not mean.

She’s like him. She’s not a ghost but she flies and she’s not human. She’s not human just like Danny. Just like that one green guy. Like the fast kid who visits him.

It’s such a relief. It’s so scary. Who are these people? Why are they healing him? Why are they keeping him?? Why do they have access to so many non-human people? What do they want him for? Is Danny supposed to fight like that?

He would fight. If he had to. He’s done it before.

If they make him fight, Danny’s pretty sure he’s going to fall apart like cheap glass.

The lady comes back when Danny goes quiet, her gloved fingers brushing up against his knuckles. The sensation is enough to bring Danny out of his…fog. Sometimes everything is so cloudy and vague. The pain medicine makes it go away, and the pain medicine brings it back.

Danny curls his hand into a shaking fist. He bumps her knuckles against his.

She makes a surprised noise. Danny feels her gently move his fingers, rearranging, moving where his thumb goes—

He huffs out a laugh. His fist wasn’t good enough to her standards. Her fist bump meets his in the middle with a smirk and a laugh, victory written all over her face.

[sorensouls]

Here's some of the lookism x dp stuff by itself

Just incase yall didn't read my post about the au here is the summary : the og daniel park is missing along with his father (they went missing simaler to Canon only difference is it wasn't just mr park. daniel park went missing/dead was still a lil kid the events of lookism hadn't happened). danny gets in to a mess where he has to go on the run ends up in mama parks care danny is now the new daniel park

[spencer-sweets]

Marvel Fic Recs | Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier

so.. i never watched these movies as they came out.. seeing as the first was released 5 years before i was born. i also kind of had a strange loyalty to the mcu for most of my adolescence that made me not watch the fox films except deadpool. well, when i first took my baby steps into this side of the fandom after dp&w, i was introduced to this pairing. at first i saw the merits of it and shipped it tangentially. like i wasn't seeking out cherik fics but in my mind it may as well have been canon and i didn't put much thought into it. then the edits on tiktok indoctrinated me into watching the rest of the movies and now here we are.

[this rec list is incomplete and will be updated as I find more fics I enjoy - last update 12/21/24]

given back, but not to keep by etharei (LJ) Explicit 5,014 It starts one morning when, walking down a hallway during a lull between lessons, Erik comments casually to Charles, "Don't forget to train yourself too." Warning: mention of non-con fantasy

a fun and smutty exploration into charles' powers. i feel like there is often not enough credit given to how powerful he is, and often erik seems to treat charles' telepathy with disdain compared to other mutations - not in this fic! yummy telepathy sex ftw.

If This Isn't A Kingdom by Jeeps (Dreamwidth) Adult (Explicit) 7,105 [Charles teaches Erik to Dance]

a short and sweet smut fic.

Iolaus by clarasteam��for Kalypso (ao3) Mature 9 465 He calls Erik my friend and the words resonate with a meaning only Charles can hear. There's a dangerous pleasure in it, that hidden meaning he longs to be able to share with Erik. Maybe one day, or one night, he'll find a way to tell him. But time is running out and he hasn't done it yet.

such an amazing fic for how short it is. this fic really touches of the homophobia of the mid-1900's in ways that i findbare often ignored in cherik fics. charles comes to terms with his feelings for erik during xmfc with his memories of his queer friend at oxford (who was in love with charles) it was beautifully written and is definitely worth the read - coming from someone who doesn't typically like oc's in fics.

The One About The Turtleneck by zamwessell (LJ) NC-17 (Explicit) 10,543 Charles decides to borrow one of Erik's turtlenecks. Things quickly get out of hand.

cute and fluffy and set at westchester during xmfc. i also really loved the interactions with the rest of the characters in this fic.

Been There, Done That by As You Wish (ao3) Mature 10,722 Erik Lehnsherr is stuck re-living the same day over and over again. A day that just so happens to be the day he and Charles Xavier took a handful of mutants to Cuba to stop a war.

i listened to this in PODFIC format, read by the marvelous Litra

so this is a time loop fic and one that takes the trope and makes it very useful. its a beach divorce time loop, but it does something i don't see often in these and makes it clear neither charles nor erik want what would be the best outcome. it's great and a fun take on the trope.

By my Side by MacandLacy (ao3) Teen+ 11,444 Erik comes back for Charles, three weeks after the events of Cuba.

so this ones on the shorter side of the fics i tend to enjoy and i would have wholeheartedly loved a hundred thousand more words of this. erik kidnaps charles from the hospital post-xmfc and helps to rehabilitate charles after his paralysis. it feels like a slow burn but rather than watching it in real time we are just watching a timelapse - glimpses over time as to how they come to trust each other again.

First Time For Everything by sunshineofthespotlessmind (FF.Net) Teen 14,000 When your life is a constant quest for revenge, you don't have time for the little things- so now, with the help of our favourite telepath, Erik discovers ice cream, among other things. Slash & totally fluffy, but I couldn't help it.

erik experiencing things for the first time while living at westchester during xmfc. its short and fluffy and was fun to read.

Another Way by glacis (ao3) Not Rated 14,863 Another way it might have gone, if Charles had found the right words, and Erik had listened.

if only charles and erik were a little bit more grey in their moralities - erik a little lighter and charles a little darker. a short glance into what it might have been like if only they could stay on the same side in xmfc.

Time to Grow by zarah5 (ao3) (Restricted) Mature 20,964 In which you'll find chess dates which aren't dates (or maybe Charles is wrong about that). -- Based on First Class, this turns (slightly) AU during the beach scene.

this one was really interesting. charles isn't paralyzed in this one (if that's an issue for you) but the story is set post-xmfc and is the two of them slowly reconnecting. it was really good and i really enjoyed the way the author let them grow as characters and their dynamic grow in ways that felt realistic.

it's like one of us woke up by kaydeefalls (ao3) 25 293 "You came here for me," Charles said, meeting Shaw's gaze levelly. "So let's not waste any more time." Canon!AU in which Charles and Erik do find Shaw in Russia.

this was an interesting exploration of a what if! for xmfc and it has some x men we didn't see in the movie in it

Five Nights In Nuremberg by FuryRed (ao3) Explicit 26,138 When Charles escapes from the mutant prison he has been held in for the last two years, he knows that he’s going to need help to avoid being recaptured. What he doesn’t expect is that help will come in the form of a mysterious German man who rescues Charles and takes him to his home; a handsome stranger who, frustratingly, doesn’t speak a single word of English…

so this was the first fic i ever read for this ship in its entirety, and it held me in a vice grip. i listened to it while camo grinding for cod multiplayer, and i was so enamored by this story i had to turn off my game because i kept dying.

if you have ever seen one of my fic recs before, you might be aware i don't typically like au fics. often, i find myself frustrated because i feel like if it's possible for me to change the names of the characters and a few aspects of the story around and see it published as its own work - it's not really a fanfic in my mind. at that point, it's original fiction that takes inspiration from a character or dynamic from another piece of media. which is fine!! no shade to those who like it but when i'm in the mood for fanfiction, i want to explore these characters and the world they live in more vividly than the source material and if i wanted an original story i'd go to the library.

yeah, so this is an exception. every once in a while, i stumble across an au that explores the world and characters so well that it overrides that rule. it's rare, but it happens, and this is one of them. i love it. this fic awakened something deep within me and held me hostage until it was over. dear god, this fic was hot, and it was such a beautiful exploration into their dynamic in a world adjacent to the x men. marvelous. this fic has earned a spot alongside some 300,000 word fanfictions in my top 10 greatest fanfictions of all time

Lucid Dreaming by listerinezero (ao3) Mature 28 537 Magneto finds himself in 1962, on the morning they go to Cuba, in the bed of the young Charles who'd spent months letting him think they were in love before breaking his heart. But he is not the same man he was forty years earlier, and as he gets to know young Charles again, he discovers that things might not have been exactly the way he remembered them after all.

this is on pretty much everyones rec lists and its for good reason. theres another fic thats highly recomended in this fandom where charles travels back in time that i personally didn't enjoy but i loved this one. flops between the perspectives of both versions of erik as he encounters a world that could have been his own.

Blood and Steel and Miles Between by dreamlittleyo (ao3) Explicit 29 464 (Post-movie AU.) On a beach in Cuba, Charles manages to talk Erik down from the edge. But even after the missiles have been diverted, compromise is impossible. There are two different futures to build, and Erik and Charles will always be separated by their principles. But when Charles is kidnapped and the X-Men can't find him, Erik will get him back no matter the consequences. Meanwhile, trapped alone in his mind for the first time in his life, Charles comes face to face with the truth about what and who he wants. When convictions stand in direct opposition to the heart, which will prevail?

ugh this one is bittersweet to me. protective!erik my heart. they both clearly love each other so much but neither can compromise their trust or their ideals.

Shout it Out Loud by dreamlittleyo (ao3) Explicit 30,403 (Movie-Concurrent AU.) When Charles forges a telepathic link between himself and Erik, the two men find themselves bound together by more than just destiny. With the world on the brink of war, Charles and Erik struggle to cope with a psychic connection that may well be permanent.

so this is essentially xmfc retold with the addition of charles and erik having a telepathic bond. charles feels guilty about it and erik is more resigned to it.

What the Future brings by Nera_Solani (ao3) Mature 30,442 If you could change the future, would you do it? If you knew something was about to go wrong, would you try to prevent it? If you could change anything you wanted, would you fix things, or make them worse? If you could see every possible future, which one would you choose and would you be brave enough to make the required changes? Time is a fragile concept, you never know what a tiny change can lead to, but if you could see it all, if you knew exactly what needed to happen or not to get a certain outcome, what would you do? There’s one mutant, only one, who can do exactly that and she already knows what needs to be changed. For the greater good and for the good of two stubborn men who don’t even know she exists. Yet. Or: The one in which Erik keeps dreaming about Cuba until it actually happens

an interesting take on the timeloop genre - a mutant with the ability to see all possible futures visits erik in his dreams to let him play out the events of cuba over and over until it happens. compared to Been There Done That, this one felt a lot softer and fluffier. It has its sad moments but overall its a sweet story. felt slightly ooc at times but i didn't mind.

If You Loved Me by frau_kali, spaceAltie (ao3) Mature 32,535 Canon divergent AU set before DoFP. Having escaped from prison, Erik returns to the mansion to find Charles at his lowest point, and is confronted with the guilt of what his actions in Cuba did to his friend, and the contempt he feels at Charles for giving up as much as he has.

this fic felt very realistic as to how they might feel between xmfc and dofp - this one has a very bittersweet ending but honestly it made sense given how little they were willing to compromise. felt very in character especially with how erik felt about charles throughout the story and his urge to help him get sober from the serum.

For I Mean to Conquer Troy by twelve_pastels (ao3) Mature 34,570 Set one year post movie, Charles overloads himself in Cerebro, and his mind goes walkabout; wherever he is (and he’s around), it’s not in his body. Erik temporarily takes over the school in his absence, and finds that there’s little time for resentment or hatred when he’s busy organizing assigned reading for English lit, keeping the youngest children out of trouble, and trying to talk Raven into wearing clothing for the boys’ sake. Somewhere in between taking responsibility for the students and dreaming Charles’ dreams every night, he manages to remember that he’s something rather more than a weapon. In other words: A Love Story between two Gentlemen, told in Prose, Epistles, and Nonsense Rhymes.

so this fic doesn't have a whole lot of charles in it considering he's kind of in a coma the whole time. but erik gets to run the school and becomes attached to the students, plus his free time and his ability to see charles' nightmares leads him to realize how much he loves charles and how much he wants to stay at the school.

Arms I'd Never Use by alby_mangroves, anselm0 (ao3) Explicit 35,759 “We’re both disasters,” Erik states quietly. “In all likelihood, this will end in disaster.” “You love me,” Charles says simply, “as much as I love you. That has to count for something.” It doesn't end on the beach in Cuba, but that doesn't mean it's going to be easy as Erik tries to repair his relationship with Charles.

this one was great! an xmfc fix it fic where erik stays after cuba. it also has phenomenal art attached throughout the story.

When an Unstoppable Force Meets an Immovable Optimist by ToriTC198 (ao3) Teen+ 53,323 "You are always trying to save me, Charles." Erik mused aloud. "Ever since you dove into the ocean and dragged me out. Did it ever occur to you that I might not be worth saving?" A genuine smile broke out on Charles' face as he brightly answered, "No, my friend, not once. I have every confidence you are well worth saving. But, I never truly believed I could save you. You are not the sort of man who someone saves. The choice to be a better man has always been yours to make and I hold no illusions that I can make that decision for you. I simply have faith that one day you will save yourself. I only hope I am still at your side to witness it." - What if Erik and Charles had been able to find a middle ground in the end?

a retelling of xmfc that expands on charles and eriks relationship througout the story and how it may have changed what happened in cuba.

lay down beside me (so still and so soft) by TakePenAndInk (a03) (Restricted) Mature 53,534 A different take on the events of the film.

so i was initially hesitant to read this because of the vague description but i wound up really enjoying it. this really focused on erik's trauma prior to xmfc. its also very explicit in its sex scenes - with erik not wanting charles to see his scars. its an interesting exploration of eriks character and what he hides - and it has a happier ending than the movie.

Thou Shalt Not Eat Stones by valancysnaith (ao3) Not Rated (Mature) 77,422 Two months after Washington, Raven found Erik in a skeevy motel off the Florida interstate. “They have Charles, Erik,” she said. The bedframe shrieked. In the bathroom, the showerhead snapped in half and clattered into the tub.

ooof. this one made me have a bit of a crisis. so sometimes when i read fanfic and there's a lot of whump of an existential or philosophical nature i wind up going "if i were _ i'd just kms".

well, if i were charles i'd just kms.

anyways, great whump and comfort that doesn't compromise the integrity of their characters and gives them a deeply nuanced and three-dimensional feel. technically, dark!charles but more so an exploration into/an interpretation of his motives for pacifism and the extent of his powers.

Through the Barricades, Cross the Lines, Dance Upon the Streets by starandrea (ao3) Mature 118,141 Erik and Charles learned to live without each other once. It's harder the second time--so before they even discuss it, they've decided not to try. (Erik accidentally moves into the mansion without anyone but Charles noticing for days. He may be the first to return, but he won't be the last.) Erik spent nine years in a prison without metal. Charles spent three years cut off from any thoughts but his own. As they recover their powers, they try to rekindle their relationship, but the world won’t wait for them to catch up. (The government is entirely too interested in Charles even before the X institute officially reopens. Charles and Erik spend a lot of time talking about their feelings while Hank runs the school.) Charles may be a visionary, and Erik is a force of nature, but their plans are alarmingly short-sighted and their organizational skills are nonexistent. It’s up to the teachers at Xavier’s to keep Icarus aloft, or they’re all going to have a hell of a view for the end of the world.

so omg. these are three fics that are a part of a 4 part series. i'll admit i haven't read the last one but only because i have a feeling its set in the same world but there is a time skip unlike the other three so i haven't found the motivation for finishing it. however, i can attest to the greatness of the first three. it has pretty much everything i like in it - fictional politics, erik and charles learning to compromise, post-dofp. there are so many side characters in this and even if they aren't perfectly fleshed out they are always great. ugh so good. this shit is my bread and butter of fics.

its set dofp and it really does give credence to the level of power charles holds. this author's writing style is great for this, the dialogue, the writing for scenes really does convey what the characters are feeling. sometimes its messy and there are a lot of set-backs within the story but honestly its worth the read if not just for how well crafted it all is. if "by my side" felt like glimpses into them growing together like a timelapse this felt damn close to real time.

All Along the Watchtower, Education or Why Cerebro was Built by Hippies by NezumiPi (FF.Net) Teen+ (I would rate it Explicit) 133,595 A series of vignettes expanding the story of the First Class movie, largely exploring Charles' attempt to "help" Erik. A sequel to All Along the Watchtower beginning 4 months after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Can you fight a war and build a school at the same time? Charles and Erik struggle with compromise, practicality, and drug enforcement policies.

don't let the author's descriptions of these fics turn you off - i thoroughly enjoyed reading both. the first is a retelling of xmfc with some added scenes but i think they do a marvelous job at making the world feel real. it explores the perspectives of some of the other characters from xmfc like sean, hank, and alex as well. the author did an amazing job of making erik feel like a deeply traumatized man and charles a complex character. the sequel continues this. the author did a lot of work in writing this fic outside of putting words down - its clear they did a lot of research on the holocaust, paralysis, and social issues of the 1960's. ive seen some criticize that these fics kind of jump and have some flimsiness in their plot and pacing but i thought it made the fics feel very real. to me it makes perfect sense to explore side stories that may not have an overwhelming importance on the plot because in real life the world doesn't wait for plot progression. it was an amazing read.

Dark Flowers (by Niphrehdil) by AliceAngel (ao3) (Restricted) Teen+ (I would rate it Mature or Explicit) 183,423 When Charles is captured by a secret organization and used as a weapon for searching and destroying other mutants, Erik has to go after and save him. Erik keeps telling himself he does it only for the mutant kind. At least until he finds Charles.

this fic is rather dark. fair warning there. but, if you can look past some of the glaring grammatical issues - this is one of the best pieces of fiction i've found in a while. it was dark and it made me feel sick to my stomach at some times but there was a lot of comfort to balance out the hurt. it felt insanely in character and it felt like a very well thought out dynamic between charles and erik and it feels very believable. if you like side characters or really fun stories this isn't for you but its an amazing story, it made me feel viscerally sick at times, cry, laugh out loud - the writing is wonderful and beautifully conveys erik's feelings.

originally posted: 12/3/24

[hyperraduo22]

my dps roman empires

cuz i keep seeing those videos with my love mine all mine on my feed with consistently ugly-sob-inducing stories and roman empires so now i have this long list i wanna share

+ may include some little facts here and there for anyone new in the fandom

• anderperry’s entire relationship and dynamic

literally no explanation needed on why it’s the top of the list and the first thing i wrote down

the whole hourglass and icarus x the sun dynamics makes me sob every time without fail

someone rewrite the script so they have a happy ending please

also me: wym they already do?? they got married and went to new york??????

• charlie and neil :(((

• thinking about charlie’s experience and dealing with grief post-expulsion

• todd’s entire character

bro makes my quiet x anxious kid heart go brrr

like just thinking about the little implications of his behavior and what’s said about his brother in the script makes me wanna cry and scream and throw a tantrum

he really represents the epitome of all quiet shy kids out there and i really appreciate it

• dead poet’s society but from cameron’s perspective

i understand y’all wanting to punch and yell at him and show no forgiveness but i also think you should give a bit of sympathy for this kid

he doesn’t know any better just like charlie or any of the other poets

damn this movie does a great job of showing reality and the fact that there’s no real enemies

• dead poet’s society but from pitts’s perspective 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

like i’d pay to see this honestly

• pitts’s screen time :((((

my underrated boy :(((((

• pitts and cameron’s dynamic

i KNOW we see these two talking in the background and seeing him make cameron laugh and smile the most compared to everyone else

like??? i wanna see more?????

cameron being outwardly comfortable around someone finally???

• the fact that all the movie's events ensued as they’re all high schoolers

like idk if there’s a canonical age for any of them but whether they’re juniors or seniors the trauma is still the same

• the thoughts of the kids who stood up on their desks at the end of the movie

how are they dealing with keating being away now? how do they view life in general?? did they really appreciate keatings class???? would they join the dps if they had the chance???????

• hopkins’s portrayal

its kind of a 50/50 since bro barely has screen time, yet i see his character oftentimes being portrayed as the class asshole

i think it’s clear that him and his friends commit tomfoolery and are overall jerks but to think that he’s the more sensible, level-headed guy makes a lot of sense to me—kinda similar to charlie in a way

like he knows limits and when to not push them even if he doesn’t come off that way. all bro does is chill in class and stare off into the windows daydreaming (as shown in the whole ripping out the poetry intro scene). bro doesn’t wanna be there. he’s just chilling and honestly same💀

• spencer’s actual treatment in the movie

ik we love this man, and our headcanons (or at least what i’ve seen and my own for the most part) say that people treat him well but low key everyone be on his shit

like it brings up the question of whether or not this is considered bullying cause any scene i see he’s either blatantly shoved around or even the guys around him purposely steal his medicine and pass it around so he can’t have it (including stick participating in this)-

like i think there’s some limits to being a jerk and idk how spencer really feels throughout the movie cuz he’s a background character :////

• HANDSOME ASS BACKGROUND CHARACTERS AND THEIR SCREEN TIMES = UNFAIR! CRIMINAL !!!!!

• the fact that ginny’s character just gets completely cutout. like she has a few lines to begin with and then the movie comes out and she ends up being a non-speaking extra in the play like i’m- what happened???

• tina and gloria / girl characters portrayed in dps in general

let me explain cuz i love them but also feel bad for their characters

like low key they’re just used as experiments for the cave (implied by charlie in a deleted scene that wasn’t recovered although i think this part is in the original script as well if i remember correctly)

although he brings them back a second time in a deleted scene where they’re all dancing around outside of the cave on the night of the play only for him to make out with one of them in another deleted scene that wasn’t recovered… (( this was revealed in an old interview on someone working behind the scenes btw ))

so like i kinda feel bad for them. like y’all just there for show but i wish you had more lines and other purposes besides possibly not passing a bechdel test ://////

^ lowkey this same concept is kinda seen with chris’s character too. like all she’s there for is a romantic interest for knox. like cmon now she’s one of the main female characters and THIS is what she gets. i wanna know more about my girl chris!!!!

and i kind of understand why it’s set up this way since y’know it’s an all male boarding school in the 1950s—how do you fit female characters in and how are they viewed? it’s not the greatest setup of all time

• ANDERPERRY DELETED SCENE ON THE DOCK NOT MAKING IT INTO THE FILM LIKE OUT OF ALL DELETED SCENES THAT ONE IS THE REALLY IMPORTANT ONE !!!!!!!!!!!!!

• the deleted scene of the poets carrying neil’s coffin 🚶‍♂️

like goodbye. doors closed. tears shed.

kinda glad it’s not in the movie cuz i would’ve sobbed uncontrollably even more than neil’s death

• todd’s poem

another deleted scene that really rearranges my internal organs

the fact that him reading this poem was supposed to be in tandem/include shots with neil’s death-

why do the writers want us to cry rivers?????

BUT ALSO ITS FUNNY ASF IF YALL WATCH THIS DELETED SCENE WHEN TODD IS TELLING THEM WHAT TO REPEAT BETWEEN VERSES, ONE OF THE POETS GOES “what??🤨”

I’M SORRY TODD IK YOURE TRYING BUT THAT LITTLE AIRHEADED ASS “what?” IS SO FUNNY TO ME

• the fact that in the very first version of the script, keating was supposed to have cancer

I FORGOT ABOUT THIS UNTIL LAST MINUTE

LIKE Y’ALL ADMITTED THAT YOU WANTED TO HAVE A SCENE OF KEATING DYING IN A HOSPITAL AND WERE PONDERING ON WHETHER HIS CHARACTER SHOULD HAVE A FATAL ILLNESS FOR THREE DAYS ?!?!?

thank god y’all made the right decision and rewrote the script to take that out

[livannasalinger]

Dc x Dp prompt 3

I was thinking lately that most of the prompts and fics that I see, they range from: focus on Danny, focus on Jazz, oneshots here and there with some different characters, maybe sam and tucker, but not much more than that. Of course, ultimately, the idea of Dc x Dp goes through the importance that Danny has to establish this connection (ghost king, meta laws, being a hero, classic black hair and blue eyes of the Waynes, etc etc) and focus more on relationships with DC characters (batfam, superman, Wonder Woman, etc) . At the same time, I've recently been thinking about how there are few fics that portray the rest of the Casper High as a functional group (not counting Everlasting trio). And then, there's this fic that I really like (see prompt 2) that talks about a different way that the incident with Spectra could have happened. With all this, I thought:

- what if, these incidents with the ghosts made the group more cohesive: I'm not talking about everyone being super friends, although that can be cool, but I'm talking about actually seeing them build a dynamic because they need to protect themselves from danger and they can't get help from anyone else -  Justice League doesn't interfere/doesn't know/doesn't believe

- Anyway, X years pass, the events of DP (except Danny's revelation to the world) occur, but unlike canon, the children mature faster, and start to blossom like powerhouses - imagine Assassination classroom and how they became after graduation, that kind of thing.

- But that's when things start to get interesting, because "out of nowhere" a group of people with impressive skills and suspicious training in different areas begins to appear, young people trained in things they shouldn't. At first, the connection was not clear, as everyone is in different areas, but little by little a pattern starts to become clearer: maybe their presence, maybe some more ghostly physical characteristic.

I see two ways this starts to get noticed:

-- At a Justice League meeting, several superheroes start listing people of interest and justifying why. They might have noticed these people as possible future villains, or maybe they want to recruit them, or something like that. The point is: when one person starts talking, another hero starts remembering that he knows a similar person, a pattern starts to be observed, an investigation starts to be made.

OR

-- An investigation is already under way, as there is a group of people who came from the same place, started to become influential in the field of choice, and nobody can prove, but many suspect that this group is responsible for the disappearance of a mysterious government organization called GIW

In any case, an investigation begins showing  the different ways that the Amity Park group has grown to be BAMF including: Tucker Foley, Sam Manson, Jazz Fenton, Valerie Gray, Dash Baxter, Paulina, Kwan, Star, Wes weston.… maybe even Ellie and Dan.

The investigation proceeds, old photos of the group can be found and they notice the disappearance of only one person: Danny Fenton. Which makes no sense, as he is seen multiple times with all the suspects, but effectively there is no record of him anywhere: no college, no job, not even how he gets from one place to another, no plane ticket, nothing.

It would still be really cool if everyone in the group followed certain customs, derived from the lessons they received on how to deal with ghosts or because they are Liminal and that's why they behave a little differently and, even if they've been living with "normal people" for years , sometimes they just forget common sense and scare people without intending to.

The conclusions that the JL, villains  and other groups, can come to are potentially hilarious: are they villains? what are their goals? Are they a secret cult with this Danny as their leader? Are they or are they not doing something illegal? Are they a threat? And if so, a threat to whom?

At the end of it all I can see Mr Lance showing up and thinking "how come this is supposedly the most powerful group of people in the world?!" and in 5 minutes solving any chaos or misunderstanding like:

"Pride and Prejudice, not even Mr. Weston was that bad" (looking at Red Robin's conspiracy board)

[anemovisionuser]

50 Genshin asks 🌠 - ask game

First main dps?

First in game character crush?

Aether or Lumine?

Who are you pulling for next?

Top 3 Favorite character designs?

Popular character you hate?

Unpopular character you love?

Unpopular opinion about a character?

Underrated character in your opinion?

Character that gets misrepresented in fandom in your opinion?

The characters in your team actually interact. What are your team's dynamics?

Favorite aspect of the game? (Archon quest, exploration, abyss spiral...)

Favorite region?

Favorite Archon?

Which element do you feel the most drawn to?

If your irl region is "represented" in Genshin impact, thoughts?

If your irl region is not represented in Genshin Impact, do you have questions?

Which region of Teyvat would you rather live in? (Not necessarily your favorite design wise)

Lore element you wish more people knew of?

A headcanon you have?

What is Paimon?

Fuck Marry Kill + 3 characters

You are stuck in an elevator with 3 Genshin people. Who and why?

Do you save primogems or pull every opportunity you have?

Who did you lose your last 50/50 to?

Perma character you got on a lost 50/50 you least regret getting?

Perma character you got on a lost 50/50 you most regret getting?

Favorite voiceline?

Favorite idle animation?

Top 1 to 3 favorite ships? (If you do the shipping game) why?

A crack ship you have? (Characters who have never interacted in Canon)

A story or a line that stuck with you?

Favorite Hangouts?

Favorite story quest?

You can only pick four stars on your team, who do you chose?

You can only pick four stars and NOT Bennet NOT xingqiu and NOT xiangling on your team. Who do you pick?

If you could play ANY character, not taking into account damage or materials, who would you play?

Which character do you think has the most fun gameplay?

Which character(s) did you pull for because you liked them?

Which character(s) did you pull for because you "needed them" in your team?

Something you found out has a different name in your original language than in English, that surprised you?

Something fun that happened in multiplayer mode?

Worst multiplayer experience?

Favorite event so far?

Do you have any theories? Which ones?

Do you read theories? Why or why not?

"The skies of Teyvat are fake". Discuss

Describe the game to someone who has 'ever played. Wrong answers only

Describe your favorite character to someone who's never played. Wrong answers only

If you could change the traveler's appearance (sims/Skyrim Slider Mode), what would your traveler look like?

Of course it's up to you, but consider sending an ask to whoever you reblogged it from so everyone can have fun with it! Good luck for your pulls and Ad astra abyssosque!🌠

[silvermeww]

The other day I had to go out shopping with my family, and while I usually hated shopping for once, I have found some pretty funny Pokémon merch (or rather, bootlegs).

(Under a read more because it is very picture heavy)

I mean, nice try but I know that’s a Mimikyu lol /j

Wait… Lego Brock? What’s next to him? What is happening—

Literally the first thing I see after DP Brock is OG Gary. Nice.

JAMES??? Are you okay?? Please speak to me!! Also is that supposed to be a rose? I actually thought it was a sceptre right until I started posting this lol.

IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE DAISY?? SHE ISNT EVEN IN THE ANIME??? HELP???

Anyways, after this fun run I realised that there was the back of the box that shows all of the characters available and I’m just here to say that I wish I never saw it.

Ash: My brother called him bold and yeah, I’ve got to agree

Pikachu: Not his Pokédex number but I’ll let it slide.

Misty: #notmymisty (Why is her hair like that???)

Bulbasaur: Could’ve put this guy first. Also okay, this seems to be an OG thing here…

Brock: Still stuck in Hisui I see. It happens to the best of us.

Daisy(?): Had to get some girl rep I guess

Squirtle: #notmysquirtle Get the sunglasses if you’re going to be bootleg

Eevee: It’s crying out in pain, I can just hear it. How did they massacre your design that badly???

(Me: Okay, who is this rando??? …Wait, it couldn’t be…)

It’s Leon. Yeah. He lost his cap and ended up in this strange dimension with the rest of everyone. Also his hair may be cut down to shoulder length, I can’t tell.

Professor Oak: Yeah his hair went disco, he’s still in the 1970s having the time of his life or something. My sister thought he was a girl lol.

Charmander and Pichu aren’t bad ig, but the latter is a bit unexpected at this point.

James and Gary are There. Gary at least got the canon family so I can’t be too mad. James, however, is stuck with the last two of the pack imo, Gengar and Snorlax (Gen 1 who get GMax and a Mega/Z Crystal respectively… also just very well known mons) and now I’m scared if it’s an allegory for Meowth as a big cat and Jessie being dead or something. Or maybe I’m just reaching.

ALSO. Each part they have works into making a Dialga and Palkia, so there’s that. Maybe that’s the reason why they are all badly made and have been summoned to the White Space. Someone make a fanfic about it.

Further on my quest to find a small gift token for some people in a class I teach, I came upon this curious thing.

Me: Oh boy, I can’t wait to see what stickers they would make out of the XY series! Hopefully there would be some good ones out here.

(My sister: That keyhole is for the Master Class)

The stickers:

Wow, I totally remember May being there! Also I’m pretty sure it was DP that had the 10th anniversary but idk (Advanceshipping real?). Anyways I love how there is so much AG and then we get Togepi and Piplup coming in. And OG Ash. And Cyndaquil. And Phione. And my personal favourite Pokémon Rumble Charmander.

But

But perhaps the next page will give me what I want, right?

Wrong! Deoxys movie sticker be upon you!!! No, seriously, how did they get that as a sticker? I love the rep though, just wished we had all of the other characters too ngl to complete the pic. My brother loved the second Ash on the bottom pic, said it looked very smug, and honestly imagine using that sticker. For what occasion would it be most useful?? Also miscoloured OG Ash on the third row from the bottom my beloved, more 3D pics, Skitty in a Contest stage, DP Ash?? And Birch merchandise (we need that around here). Now there is one more sticker page left (it repeats the same pages afterwards), and I honestly gave up hope. And I was right to, but still, look at this lol:

The only Lucario you will ever get. That Croagunk one with Chimchar at the back. That one Ranger from that one Ranger’s special (I think the Deoxys one???). And of course, we can’t forget Shedinja.

So yeah, it was definitely a pretty eventful shopping day. I couldn’t get a picture of it, but there was this holographic picture in a frame that had Pikachu changing into different Kanto Starters, and another frame from another shop that flashed with Ash and the gang from multiple series (got jumpscared by XY help). Idk but that existed lol.

[fenricken]

It seems that the majority of the dp x dc fandom is more familiar with danny phantom + phandom canon/lore than dc canon, and I'm curious where people are getting their information about dc comics.

I've been thinking about writing fic for a while, and the one I've started writing is based off of Bruce's time lost in the time stream after the fight with Darkseid, and it's already apparent that there are a lot of differences between the events laid out in Batman: Return of Bruce Wayne, than what I expected based off the fanworks in dp x dc. Notably, most times in the fandom we depict Tim/Red Robin as ignored when he tries to present proof of Batman's being alive, but from what I'm reading in the graphic novel, he, Wonder Woman, and Superman are basically leading different task forces in the effort to recover Bruce while preventing him from becoming a reality-ending bomb. Then again, I'm having a hard time figuring out which comics cover the events between Darkseid's defeat and the search for Bruce Wayne aside from Battle for the Cowl, which from the summary Comicstorian's video provides still doesn't depict the events as I see them often depicted in the common fanon

I'm not trying to argue that we should be sticking more to the events as they happen in comics, I'm just genuinely curious where people get their information. To be fair, one of the first DCU fanfics I read had a tag that said something like "DC stands for Disregard Canon", and when I started trying to get into comics one of the first things I heard is that DC doesn't even respect it's own canon all the time so I don't think that there's much point trying to stick to canon, especially when it can be more fun or create a more engaging story when we break it.

[maggotpoolautism]

hi can u explain the entirety of ur lore from ur canon before i keep saying ur the logan i dug up because uhhhhhh i dont wanna keep misloreing you idk i hope that makes sense

ooh i can try. i don't recall a whole lot, but as far as i know, i never died? well, considering that i'm here now, i at least don't think i died how the "Logan" movie went out. not as violently, at least.

readmore because i've started to ramble and it is LONG 😭. most of it is guesswork, too, but i complied my thoughts and made a long summary at the bottom that basically entails everything.

but i remember most of the events of the "Deadpool and Wolverine" movie as if they were my own, and remember some of my life before that, too. i looked like how i was in the movie, except for having a large grey streak in my hair (similar to my hair in Days of Future Past).

however, i ALSO remember a lot of the "Logan" movie as it was mine, except i'm.. pretty sure i didn't die, and Charlie (prof. x) was younger.

so my running theory is either:

- one, i have TWO different timelines, one where i'm from the Logan movie, and one where i'm from the DP&W movie.

- or two, i have a singular timeline that is SUPER fucked and full of reincarnation bullshit and time travel (also bullshit).

also, a lot of the xmen movies contradict their own timelines, so that.. REALLY doesn't help.

so, what i know i remember:

- "xmen origins: wolverine" movie. do Not remember young wade being there, so i don't think he existed yet. instead of me and victor fighting him as a weapon, i think it was me fighting experimented-on victor? not sure. i DO know i still ended up getting shot with the adamantium bullet.

- the events of the "the wolverine" movie. where i was living alone after something wrong had happened with the xmen, Yukio found me, took me to Japan to meet the guy i saved in WW2, he wanted to take my lifeforce yadda yadda. (big differences were that i briefly hooked up w Yukio instead of Mariko. i'd remember that bright ass pink hair anywhere. and my claws *couldnt* be slashed off by heated adamantium. heated adamantium makes it hot, but once it cools it CANNOT go back to a liquid. it is impossible. at least, it was for that universe. unfortunately he was still able to drill into my knuckles. aaand it was just as painful.)

- magneto still tried to use rogue for his genocide run against regular humans, but instead of victor/sabertooth he just had some other muscle. it wasnt just toad and mystique, but they were (mostly) the best fighters out of the lot.

- the events of "logan", save for the dying part at the end. also, charlie was younger (and did Not have hair. still a baldy) but the poisoned food still had effects on his physical and mental health. so he was Slightly more sound but not by too much.

do NOT remember:

- "xmen" or "x2: xmen united" movies. rogue is still my southern kiddo, and i know i met the xmen obviously, but i think what happened instead is that when i picked up rogue, i traveled with her for much longer because we never encountered victor/sabretooth. so we met the xmen much later.

- the hudsons' farm being blown up in "xmen origins: wolverine". i think they got to live longer than that, and their barn was blown up, but i wanna say stryker had given more of a warning so they were able to get to their basement. so thejr house got some damage but i think it was mostly fire damage. me and rogue visited them during our travels, i think? pretty sure they eventuslly died from old age and they put the farm in my name, because something.. had happened with their biological children?

- "xmen the last stand" and "xmen the days of future past". i dont think DoFP happened at all, for me. and with the last stand, i think summers lived and instead of jean having sacrificed herself in "x2 xmen united", she was under mind control due to magneto discovering how powerful she actually was, and we only thought she was dead. i still had to gravely injure her, but she was just in a coma for a few months after it (both from the injuries and her broken mind that charlie had to help fix). she wasnt really the same after that.

so then, those shitheels from "logan" started poisoning the food, i got older, prof x had a meltdown when the xmansion was stormed and that along with those murdering fucks, killed most of the mutants at the mansion. the poison did the rest. they took charlie in to detain and contain him. i went into a depression, then everything with yukio happened i went back to the us with her, but we parted ways. then i kidnapped charlie back, and the events of "logan" happened.

they killed charlie, and i got closer with laura sooner. and. at the end, i think they killed all of the kids instead of just me.

and i was dying, but the rage kind of. turned me into a bloodthirsty monster. i really only remember waking up somewhere much farther than when i began, basically covered in blood. i think. the food continued to be poisoned, so i started eating natural. animals and nonmeats grown by myself. some little fucked up farm somewhere deep in the woods. sometimes id go to the nearest bar with 100% homemade stuff and drink until i passed out, and everybody hated me and wanted me to leave, but knew there was no killing me so they just had to wait. and thats when the events of "deadpool and wolverine" started, im pretty sure.

and after that, i joined wade in his universe (along with laura, gambit and those other two, im pretty sure) and.. i dont think i started dating him or anything, we were more fuckbuddies, if anything. and i mostly avoided the xmen for the first year or two i was there, until we realized the food was still getting poisoned like in "logan" so we had to fix that, and i finally met the xmen again. it was weird, and absolutely terrifying, but kinda nice in the end.

so.

if i have one timeline, the LONG ASS summary is "xmen origins: wolverine" (except young wade didnt exist, so i found experimented sabretooth/victor instead and. killed him(?)) -> the hudsons survived -> left, found rogue, traveled a while, stayed w hudsons again, then met xmen for the first time -> magneto using rogue for human genocide, except he had more goons and didn't have victor (because he died(?)) -> didn't find anything around area of strykers compound -> "x2 xmen united" but jean was under magneto mind control and her death was fake, summers survived, jean didnt die (did go into a coma for a while, then came back different) -> i became an alcoholic outta depression -> poison food from "logan", i got older and charlie deteriorated, xmansion stormed, when i came back everyone was dead and charlie had been detained -> got even more depressed and got older and lived in the woods -> "the wolverine" (except it was a lil different) -> me and yukio part ways in the U.S. -> i break charlie outta detainment -> events of "logan", except laura and her friends die instead of me -> i go berserk and kill shit ton of people -> alcoholic, start living in woods again, eat natural food and my body heals -> events of "deadpool and wolverine" (and the laura, gambit, elektra and blade guy come with) -> we, plus xmen of wades universe, fix the poisoning problem brought on due to "logan" (unsure how wades logan died without the mansion incident and charlie and laura, so i know his universe was different, too. not super sure about that.)

[trilogiesofterror]

FANS OF THE ALIENIST WILL LOVE THE RIPPER LIVES

The Ripper Lives is a Victorian gothic murder mystery that continues the story of Jack the Ripper after the Canonical Five. The serialized novel is narrated from a first-person perspective by Scotland Yard Inspector Frederick Abberline after retirement. Abberline, greatly bothered that the public has never been given closure in the Ripper case, finally reveals what happened after the death of Mary Jane Kelly, confirming that the Ripper did not just disappear into history as many believe.

Like The Alienist, the 10-part novel follows the 19th-century investigation of an unknown serial killer and includes historical facts. Many famous names associated with the Jack the Ripper case appear and interact with the characters, enhancing the connection between the fictional story and the real-life events.

ABOUT THE RIPPER LIVES: JACK THE RIPPER'S REIGN OF TERROR CONTINUES The world’s most elusive and terrifying serial killer returns in the 10-part Victorian gothic murder mystery series, The Ripper Lives. Dripping with 19th-century atmosphere and intrigue, each thrilling, suspense-filled chapter ends with a shocking cliffhanger that compels the reader forward. The fear builds as the historical horror story unfolds, culminating in an explosive, mind-bending conclusion.

The Ripper Lives is a sequel to the true story that commences after the slayings of the Canonical Five. As a secretly appointed task force works to bring the butcher to justice under the radar of the newspapers, the unsuspecting public believes the threat has subsided. But while hiding in the shadows, the serial killer's compulsion to mutilate has grown exponentially stronger, and for Whitechapel, the harrowing nightmare of tension and terror has only just begun.

BOOK SERIES PAGE: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CR7Y98R6

[faeriekit]

The Firstborn Son (part II)

Read the first part here!

dp x dc | Batman 👻 tw for: canon-typical violence, threats against children, purposeful exacerbation of triggering events

****

Dick is sick.

It started out as a cold, but the symptoms keep shifting—Dick’s been vomiting periodically, but not frequently enough to encourage them to fetch a doctor; Dick is too cold, then too hot, and then freezing all over again.

Alfred, of course, provides ‘round the clock care, but…

Bruce can’t help it. He’s Bruce Wayne’s ward, not Alfred Pennyworth’s, so Bruce makes himself busy reading children’s books and tucking in pillows and delivering small sips of blue Gatorade to the most miserable child in the whole wide world.

(According to Dick, anyway).

(Considering the keening whimpers and constantly cleaned sheets Bruce has been replacing, Bruce is inclined to believe it.)

Bruce is down the hall, fetching Zitka from the wash, when he hears the scream.

It’s too high to be discomfort—it’s too loud to be anything but fear.

Or pain.

“B!! B B Beebeeebeebee—!!”

Bruce has never been faster in his life. Not training with the league of assassins. Not flinging himself off rooftops.

He slides into the room just in time to see a sobbing, struggling Dick leave it. A clawed hand drags the nine-year-old by the arm out of bed, across the hardwood floor, and into a toxic green rift floating in the air. And then he’s gone.

Bruce’s world melts around him.

He needs—he needs his armor. He needs his gear. Dick is gone and he needs gear—

He hurtles towards the cave so fast that he almost bowls over Alfred in his desperation. He’s practically on all fours down the stairs. Bruce nearly rips the hands off the antique grandfather clock he’s fashioned into a door trying to get it open that much faster, and he’s shoving himself into Kevlar and thick black boots as soon as he reaches his gear locker. His belt is packed. His weapons are loaded—he needs to go before that green rift closes—before Dick gets anything farther—before anything happens to him—

Alfred is going to be upset down the line for the grapple-marks on the bannister, but all Bruce can think of is how quickly he can get back up to the boy’s bedroom. He lands, he launches himself off the railing, and lunges back towards Dick’s room.

(Again, blowing past Alfred.)

“Master Bruce, what on God’s green earth—“

“Something kidnapped Dick!”

“What?”

Bruce lands with all his considerable weight on the floor of Dick’s room, ignoring the colorful circus posters and world flags tacked to the walls for the sake of a green ripple burning through the center of the room. Bruce makes to jump through.

Alfred’s grip on his arm holds him back.

Bruce can’t even process it for a moment. That his parent—who knows how important Dick is, and cares for him too—is stopping him from going in after him. And then Bruce’s ears tune back in and Bruce begins to understand a little more.

“—throwing yourself into danger with only a moment’s notice and no back-up! We need more information before you go careening, head-first—“

Bruce would normally agree.

But he can see the tattered edges of reality closing in on the green wound. There won’t be much time to go through before the rift—whatever is it and wherever it goes—closes, and his nine-year-old-ward is left alone in a secondary location.

Bruce really hopes he’s not going to leave Alfred alone in Wayne manor if he goes through this. But he has to go through with this. Bruce has always been weak to stray pets and people in need, and this boy is—he’s—he’s Bruce’s responsibility.

He doesn’t say anything. Alfred raised Bruce—he knows how to read him. Bruce uncurls Alfred’s hands from around his arm, shifts his weight, and lunges through.

The world turns uranium green.

Kryptonite green, even. Everything has this odd, incandescent glow to it; considering that he can’t see the sun, Bruce—Batman—has to guess that the ever-present light is the only substitute for solar energy.

He’s going to investigate it more. Later.

When there isn’t a huge, periwinkle dragon with Dick clutched in its lime green claws.

The dragon is as long as a school bus, with the expected claws and teeth, red eyes, and ridged spines along its back to deter predation. It looks, in a way that is almost comical, like a living, breathing version of what a child might think a dragon looks like. It isn’t a color that can camouflage even in this green environment.

There’s no ground, but—somehow—Bruce is able to launch himself forward after the beast. He’s treading…air. Or something like it. Whatever this atmosphere’s glowing substance is. Dick is scrabbling against the unyielding surface of the beast’s claws, and Batman has to fetch Dick back before something worse than sudden transportation happens.

He’s not fast enough to catch it. It can fly, and Batman cannot.

Bruce flings batarangs at its foot. With any luck, it will have to drop Dick, and he can—who knows—dip down and catch him.

It flips a wing. The batarangs are harmlessly batted away.

But its mobility is compromised as it does, unable to pump its wings as it defends itself. Interesting. There isn’t anything in particular holding Bruce up in the air, a speck in an array of floating island, but when the dragon’s wing-beats are interrupted, it no longer moves as it ought to.

The reason why doesn’t matter. It’s an exploitable weakness. Bruce hurls another two batarangs at its foot, and when it ducks a wing to hide Dick from him, he hurls another two towards its other wing.

Bingo. The dragon’s wings stutter. It doesn’t fall, as Bruce worried it might have, miraculously. There doesn’t seem to be anything but abyss below or above them.

He strides forward. Dick is miserable, snotty and sobbing in his little elephant jammies, and all Bruce wants to do is pick him up and bring him home. He’s so close. Dick is reaching out with his little, fragile hand. Bruce has to grab it back.

He’s so close. All Dick has to do is reach out and grip his black glove—

A sonic blast propels Batman back.

“Come on, Bat-boy!” Bruce hears. His head snaps upwards. A blue-haired woman with a guitar and studded black clothing floats above him, pleased to be between him and Dick.

Bruce’s eyes narrow. Finally, he gets someone verbal. “Who are you? What do you want with the boy?”

The woman’s smile is all teeth. “It’s not about what I want, Bat-guy. Care to dance for a spell?”

The guitar in her hand changes shape; the fist-shaped body of the instrument precedes the fist-shaped beam sent his way, her fingers on the strings as she summons the musical blast.

Bruce dodges the first one. The second— the third one is too close, as Bruce tries to fistfight the woman as quickly as he can to get her out of the way, and takes a sonic punch to his Kevlar-padded chest instead.

He can’t breathe. The woman takes full advantage of his breathlessness by lifting her guitar, swinging it back, and giving him a hit that would have concussed him without his cowl.

Bruce can’t move. Dick’s captor is getting away. Dick is getting dragged away and he cannot make himself move.

“Golly G, Bat boy, I thought this would be harder!” the woman laughs. “Let’s try something smoother, instead. What do you think about a love song?”

There’s no point in engaging with her. She’s actively trying to stall him from going after Dick. However, despite knowing that she’s stalling, there isn’t a great way to disengage from the fight. Dick’s cries are tapering off with the distance, and Bruce can feel his heart stuttering for reasons not related to the thoracic injury he’s just endured.

(Her fingers flick across the strings, and her guitar flickers into the shape of a heart.)

So he takes a risk. And feints. Jumps back, gets distance between them, and tries to go after his kidnapped ward fast enough that the dragon won’t escape his sight.

Bruce dodges the first few blasts, but the lack of cohesive planes of movement are disorienting. He gets hit in the side with a blast, and—

Everything does fuzzy. Concussive-fuzzy, even. Where is he going? Ember (that’s her name?) is right here. He was…looking for her. Wasn’t he? Yes. Right. He was looking for Ember.

She floats down to his height. (Perfect control of her flight, a dim part of him notices.) “You with us, Bat-boy?”

Bruce. Nods. He wants to give her good information. She’s the important thing he’s looking for.

Her smile is electric. She’s the center of the world. “Good work! If you love me, you’re going to stay here and be patient. I’ll come get you in a minute, ‘kay?”

Bruce nods. He’s getting better at making his body move. He has to listen to her; how could anyone not listen to her, when her voice is so hauntingly beautiful?

Her laughter is the sunlight. And then she’s off.

Bruce is patient.

He will wait.

   He will wait.

 He will…

    Oh God.

Dick is gone.

Bruce doesn’t quite wake up, but—Dick is gone. His ki—his ward, the bright little bird, the light of his house is gone. He’s sick and—Alfred isn’t here, and—

His looks around the area are frantic. There won’t be footprints or dust or debris left behind, but there has to be something. There has to be something he can use to get Dick back.

Focus. He needs to focus. Whatever rip he had broken through to get here, the spatial rend that was used to take Dick, is already gone. There is no way to go back and gather intel or get help. The woman that had trapped him in his head is already gone, with no trail to follow. Neither does the dragon have a trail.

He takes a—step. Whatever the equivalent is of stepping. And then another. If he triangulates the positions of the islands he had seen the dragon fly past, he might be able to approximate a direction. Maybe. It’s all he has—

—And something cracks against the back of his cowl. Bruce staggers.

A second blow and he’s out.

****

Bruce wakes up.

He’s still in the majority of his Batgear, which is a sign that 1) there has been little attempt to frisk him, and 2), that Dick’s naming conventions have worn off on him. Bruce is in an approximately 6’ by 6’ stone cell. His limbs are free.

Still. He automatically checks his belts for his equipment. Sure enough, his belt—smoke pellets, last of his batarangs, grapple gun, lockpicks, rebreather—and everything in it is gone.

There’s still a knife in his boot, though, so that ought to count for something. His captors aren’t used to trained operatives, nor deeply-entrenched criminal elements. Likely more used to common abductions; Bruce would be embarrassed to be taken by surprise by such amateur elements, but. Well. It’s not as if he can hear the footsteps that weren’t there in that vast green wasteland.

And, just like the outside green landscape, there is no central light. Everything simply…glows.

So he wasn’t removed from this new…dimension. He is only trapped in a building within it.

The cell has bars, but not bars big enough to slip through, cowl or no cowl.

Guards flicker past in concentrated routes. They’re just as liquid and green as their uranium homeworld. Their body armor places them more closely to a riot squad than to usual prison sentencing, but it’s not as if Bruce knows why they’re here or what their role is. They’re identical, from their helmets down to their wispy…tails…

A larger, bone-white build makes its way into his field of view. “Make way,” it announces to the guards, authority barely softened with a southern twang. “I’m going to speak to the prisoner.”

Great. Batman is a prisoner.

The huge build reveals itself to be a huge, broad-shouldered man, clothed entirely in white. Black boots. Black hat. His nose is…rotted away.

“Prisoner,” the man addresses him.

Bruce says nothing.

“You’re in here for the maximum sentence of a hundred years for bringing real-world items into the Ghost Zone. There’s no trial for this sentence: the King,” the man spits, “Demanded this personally. I am Walker, and I am the warden here. Cross me and you will regret it eternally.”

A warden.

Not an active member of the legal institution, but the end of it. Interesting.

Batman draws his cape around him. “I am only here for the boy. He is nine, he is ill, and he was kidnapped from his bed. Help me find him, and I will be out of your…”

Bruce takes a look at the man again.

“…Hat.”

“No can do,” the man says, firm. “Boy’s scheduled for a private execution with his Majesty. You’re in my custody now, and the boy’s going to find himself a permanent house in the Zone somewhere. Sit tight, or else your sentence is getting a few years’ extension.”

An exec— “He is nine,” Batman snarls, more his armor than he is the man within. “He is a nine year old with a hundred degree fever—why does he have an execution date?”

The warden, Walker, gives Batman a look. “Common practice for breaking your contract with the Ghost King,” the—ghost?—explains. “No reason for you to worry about it; you certainly can’t make any contracts from in here. Nothing comes in. Nothing comes out. Get comfortable—you’re not going anywhere.”

Not going anywhe— Bruce hurls himself at the barred door and the man within it, needing to go get his ill nine-year-old as soon as physically possible. He is getting out of here, and he is getting out of here this instant. The need to get his boy back is overwhelming. The thought of Dick, aching and fevered, in his pajamas and not even his armored suit, in the hands of someone who wants to kill him—

Bruce manages to wriggle past the first two guards, but a fourth and third manage to get him in the side with electricity. He doesn’t scream. The electricity doesn’t end—Bruce grits his teeth together and he tastes copper in his mouth but he does not scream, he has to get to Dick.

“Get him back in there!” the warden barks. The hall swarms with guards, and Bruce is pushed back into the cell, slammed onto the floor.

He rolls to his feet and lunges back up, fists outstretched.

The guards are too smart to fight him, and it burns, because he wants to repay this threat to his child with blood and broken bones. (Do ghosts even have bones to break? The best way to find out is to try. The barred door is slammed in his face.

Bruce heaves all his weight against it. pushes it with all the force in his body. Tries to pick the lock with the clawed tips of his gloves.

It doesn’t move.

A hundred-year sentence. A hundred years. It doesn’t even matter that Bruce could be stuck here forever, if Dick is about to lose his life in mere hours.

He wants to bang on the bars with his fists. He does. He wants to scream. He doesn’t scream, because one action might actually damage the bars and the other will only alert the guards to his state.

A hundred years. An execution date.

Bruce has to think. He has to get his way out of here. He has to think.

Someone is accusing Dick of a crime. The punishment is execution. It’s a pressing matter, but not helpful in the first problem of finding a way out of the cell.

Bruce has accrued a hundred year sentence. This is because he has brought “real world” items into the “Ghost Zone”. His tools and gear are all from his world, ergo, the world Bruce and Dick come from are the “real world”. This makes the world Bruce has fallen into the “Ghost Zone”. Ruled by the “Ghost King”, Bruce recalls.

He buries his face in his gloves. He needs to get out. There has to be something he can use. There are guards crawling everywhere and the prison is on high alert. The bars are drawn over the door.

This world is not the real world. There must be something exploitable in its occupants, in its functionality, in its physics—right?

Bruce knows—something—about ghosts. He tries not to worry about the supernatural in his work but he’s read a little of everything in his life. They are afterimages of people. More concept than personhood. If Walker is the warden, and the guard is the guard, that is all they are. There is no personal detail to exploit.

Not going through people, then.

Ghosts… Bruce has been hit and smashed on the head a lot, but they’re not famous for combat, they’re famous for their ethereality. For being able to walk through walls, float, disappear, reappear… They have done none of that. Ghosts, if that’s what they are, while they are in the Ghost Zone, are very tangible. Bruce has taken enough hits to the head and to the ribs to prove it.

Real world objects are forbidden, for some reason, but ghost objects lack the intangibility that would be expected of them in the real world. Ghost objects in the Ghost Zone retain real world physics.

Would real world items in the Ghost Zone retain real world physics…?

Bruce takes his face out of his hands. Looks at them.

This ought to work, he thinks, and punches the wall with no intention of meeting it.

His hand goes through. Hm.

Bruce is going to get his gear, and he is going to get it now.

****

Outside the prison is a large swathe of blackness. Gone is the green sky and floating islands.

All the better for Batman’s escape, then; since he doesn’t glow, there’s no easy way to notice him in the blackness of the all-consuming atmosphere.

In the distance is a stark red castle. The towers rise in the murky atmosphere, with its own red glow seeping into the rest of the zone around it.

If Bruce would have to guess, it’s pretty likely that the Ghost King lives in the giant castle. Dick is probably there. He’s lost his ward for a few hours, so reclaiming the lost time has become essential.

Bruce strides towards the castle. Or. Flies? He’s trying not to pay attention, to be honest; it seems that one of the rules of this Zone is that if Bruce starts thinking about what ought to happen, he’ll simply impose physical laws of his own world to apply to this one and start falling. It’s not helpful.

He has to focus on getting his ward. Making a plan—to ferret his kid out of wherever they’re holding him. To make diplomatic reasons as to why his nine year old shouldn’t be executed. To get down to the bottom of the issue… At his furthest, to take the fall for whatever Dick’s been blamed for as his guardian.

That Dick might not be alive is…not something Bruce is willing to consider.

He’s going to get Dick and figure out a way home. Bruce promised to take care of him, the same way Alfred promised to take care of Bruce.

So Bruce struggles his way through the wasteland. He keeps his eyes out for stray dragons he does not see. He makes his way to a red castle, unsure of how long it’s taken or how long it’s been since Dick was snatched away.

Bruce tests the durability of the outer wall. It flows around him like water, the same way the prison cell walls had. Batman ducks inside the fortress. And—

Bruce wakes up in bed.

Alfred is there. He looks…younger. For some reason, the bed is too big for Bruce to comfortably get out of on his own, so Alfred offers his hand and helps him down.

Oh. This room is his childhood bedroom. It’s so large. Why doesn’t he remember this blue-striped wallpaper? He doesn’t think he’s changed it.

Alfred supervises as Bruce washes his face and brushes his teeth (tasks which require a stepstool), and then they go down to breakfast.

Mom and Dad are there. Dad’s dressed for work, of course; Wayne Enterprises can solve its own problems, which means that today he’ll be in his clinic’s office. Mom is still in her sleeping robe. She probably has charity work today.

Bruce only lets go of Alfred’s hands for good morning kisses from his parents.

They have breakfast.

He doesn’t seem to have school today; Alfred dresses him in his much-smaller-in-Alfred’s hands peacoat, hands him a wrapped lunch, and waves goodbye as Mom takes him in her taxi to the city.

Everything seems….warm. Fuzzy. Mom’s hand holds his as they walk through hazy city streets on their way to her charity work. Her smiles are painful and familiar in Bruce’s heart. Although he can’t remember why, he’s missed them. He plays packed games and toys with her desk pens as his mother’s office does work around him.

He blinks, and they’re at dinner. His mother is in evening dress, although his father looks like he’s rushed here fresh from work. Bruce’s shed peacoat is on the chair behind him. They’re having his favorite meal. Alfred is plating Bruce’s seconds.

Bruce thinks he’s going to cry. He doesn’t know why all the quiet domesticity hurts like a wound to the stomach. Dinner is the same as it’s always been. Bruce goes to bed with goodnight hugs and kisses and I love you!s and it feels like something has been ripped out of him and he is bleeding. All his strength is leaving him.

Or, perhaps, Alfred is right, and he’s just tired. Alfred leads him up the stairs, cracks open his door. Waits for Bruce to enter before him.

Something is wrong about the room placement. Bruce can’t put his finger on it. Bruce is supposed to be in the other room. (His parents’ room).

No, he’s not… Yes, he is. This is supposed to be Dick’s room.

The bleeding sensation in his stomach gets bigger. Deeper. Bruce presses his hand there, and looks to see if he’s bleeding. He’s. Not? But the sensation of wetness is there. He just can’t see it.

Alfred is asking for him. Bruce can’t see his face anymore—just the spot where his face is supposed to be. The colors of the walls fade. There’s water covering his socked feet. When he looks down, there’s nothing there, not even a puddle?

Where is Dick? Where did he go? He’s supposed to be in this room—this room hasn’t been Bruce’s in years—no, he just work up in it this morning. Where’s—

Batman claws out of his dream with heaving chest. He swallows back bile before he accidentally leaves evidence of his passage, because—

Right. He’s after his ward. He’s retrieving Dick from his captors. His clawed gloves dig into the castle’s plush carpet as he tries to gain back a semblance of balance. He’s trembling. He’s no use to the rescue mission if he’s trembling.

Pity, a voice slithers out. Bruce’s neck cracks as his head jerks up. Up above his bent form is an indistinct body of stars. I was hoping I could feed on you more. Never mind your breaking and entering; I’ll inform the King of your attendance. I believe there’s a special moment for a special bird in the throne room.

Bruce feels his wan face grow paler yet. This is—worse than he thought. They know whose Dick’s second identity is. At the very least, they feel comfortable implying who Dick’s second identity is.

The body of stars slides down and away. It convalesces into some sort of elegant form, a goat-shaped face topped with ram’s horns.

It doesn’t matter. It does because it reveals Bruce’s location to the entity who wishes his ward ill, but it doesn’t because it does not change that Bruce has to get to the throne room and fix this. Whatever this is. Whatever’s going on.

Whatever. Bruce hurls himself through walls and looks for the throne room.

He finds one room entirely swathed in blackness. Bruce would withdraw himself from it, except. There’s a ping on his comm. His finger goes to click it automatically. “Ro—“

There’s no further sound. The lights around him click on—blinding in their intensity, until his cowl cycles into its sunglass lenses and Bruce can finally see.

He wishes that he hadn’t.

Skyscraper-high above him, scraping the rounded ceiling at its height, is a platform. On it—surrounded by colorful ghosts flipping and walking midair—is Dick.

No. Is Robin.

Dick is clearly still sick. He’s clutching himself, taut and shaking, and Bruce thinks he can hear sniffles over the comm in his ear. But there is a domino on his face and he is dressed in the bright colors and cape, a hundred thousand feet in the air.

Bruce’s heart races. “DICK!”

“B?” Dick shouts back, faint as the wind. His head tilts around. Bruce realizes that Dick can’t see him. Probably can’t see anything with the stage lights. The entire floor would be a swath of darkness and a deadly drop. “B-Bee? B, are you there?”

“I’m here,” Bruce reassures loudly, just in case Dick’s comm isn’t working. “I’m here.”

“That’s right, the guest of honor is here!” one of the colorful ghosts shouts, and lights play on the arched dome of the ceiling above them. “Now, for the star of the show! Everyone welcome Robin, last living son of the Flying Graysons! Round of applause from the audience!”

The room is empty of everyone but the performers and superheroes. Still, applause echoes hollowly from the walls, as if there are beings living in them, or the memory of what applause is meant to sound like.

There isn’t a clear answer as to how Dick got up there—there is neither a ladder nor a net to have climbed up to reach the platform. What is clear is that there is only one way down, and Dick’s yellow-caped form is surrounded by hostile spirits in diamond unitards, all grinning identical, captivating smiles at audiences that aren’t there.

“Tonight, we celebrate the reunion of a family! This little bird is going to meet his parents again at long last. Round of applause for the petit Robin, getting his wings at long last!”

The applause goes on and on. The sound thunders in Bruce’s ears. His veins go cold. There’s a burst of noise—and then confetti begins its descent, fluttering around them in a cloud of colors.

“B?” Dick whimpers over the comm. His usual confidence is gone. There is no grapple gun. No trapeze. No wires, no edges. No nets. Only hungry ghosts at his back, ready to end the life of a little bird. “I’m scared.”

“Don’t—“ Bruce doesn’t want to lie to his son. So he doesn’t. He will simply have to succeed. He holds out his hands. “Don’t worry. I’ll catch you.”

“Bee?”

“I’ll catch you, Robin. Focus on me, okay?”

The comm crackles. “…Okay.”

Bruce swallows. The voices and the applause swallow him down just as equally, and he fights to stay present and focused. He holds out both hands. There isn’t a choice. He has to catch Dick. There is no acceptable alternative.

“I love you,” Dick says, suddenly, and that’s the only warning before Robin’s small form begins to plummet from the platform. Bruce isn’t close enough. He sprints, arms outstretched. The sight is—it’s hauntingly reminiscent of the night they met—the plummeting, the gravity, the inability to breathe, but now it’s worse because Bruce has dared to care and he loves this boy more than he can stand to rationalize his feelings for—

Bruce catches his boy around the waist. Dick is in his arms. Thank God.

Bruce sobs. Dick one-ups him by bursting into tears. There’s some functioning part of Bruce that approves of age appropriate expressions of emotion; meanwhile, the rest of him has joined Dick in his tears.

It’s instinct and immediate to pull Robin’s shivering, crying form under Batman’s cloak. Not a moment too soon: the acrobatic ghosts on the ceiling whoop and cheer, dropping from their midair revelry to descend upon them. Bruce curls up around his child. He’ll have to be the wall between Dick and the world once again.

“Love you,” Bruce mumbles, just to verbalize the emotion. Just once.

And then everything goes quiet.

    There’s only the sound of Dick’s labored breathing. Bruce peels back the cloak to only see what’s in front of them.

There’s a child in the room. No one else. The colors, the lights, the confetti are all gone. He looks like Dick. He has the wrong colors—white hair, blue pajamas to Dick’s red ones—but the features are close enough to be…eerie. The effect is likely on purpose.

“It’s okay,” the boy says. An echo layers over his voice. “It’s over. No one is coming to get you.”

Bruce doesn’t move. There is no evidence to prove the statement as fact.

“There were statements made about a hundred year sentence. And an execution.”

The boy doesn’t move. And then, like the corner chipping off an ice cube, a small smile cracks through a serene façade.

“…I mean either of you. He was never in any danger. And besides, it’s over.”

Bruce needs answers. “What is over?”

“The test.” The boy is succinct.

“A test.” It’s certainly not one Bruce had opted into. “Elaborate.”

The boy’s head tilts. Bruce notices for the first time that his eyes are the same unsettling green that he had been forced to swim through to find Dick. They have the same glow as well, casting green light on his cheekbones that flickers as he blinks. “Your son says that you are a good guardian. That he trusts you to care and protect him as needed, that you would fetch him if he were in any danger far from you.”

…All of which Bruce had done. He doesn’t quite let up from his crouch. There’s no guarantee that the danger actually has passed. But it’s easy enough to rearrange his stance, to lift a quietly hiccupping Dick onto his hitched leg, to put the boy’s head on his shoulder.

The little ghost looks…fond. “I see that he was correct. As such, I have something to entrust to you.”

Bruce is rather tired of the games. “Not interested.”

The white-haired boy smiles. Little fangs protrude from white lips. “See it first. I will return you home despite either decision you make.”

And then he’s off—skipping towards the back of the room, the ethereal glow following him. The spotlights are gone, if they ever existed. There is no sign of the absent audience, the acrobats, the Ghost King that had been teased in other conversation.

There is something in the back of the room. Bruce can’t make out what it is. But the boy lifts the top and dips his arms down into it, retrieving a green-wrapped bundle from inside.

The ghost boy darts back.

In his arms is a human infant. Bruce would recognize the look and feel of real flesh anywhere. This is a newborn. So new, in fact, it’s almost purple.

“You might recognize his mother’s name,” the boy offers, bouncing. It is very clear, suddenly, that this conversation was the end game. “She gets the Al-Ghul name from her father, who sold the baby to me.”

Bruce’s lungs choke. No, Talia wouldn’t have—would she—?

The ghost doesn’t even ask before putting the baby on top of Dick, careful to balance the baby and his ward both until Bruce’s arms are around one each.

The baby grouses ever so slightly in its sleep. Dick opens gummy eyes to wipe shaking fingers across the emerald swaddling cloth.

“Baby,” Dick breathes. The grabby hands should have been expected at that point.

“Robin. You are ill.”

More grabby hands. God help them both.

The ghost laughs. Bruce would dare call it a giggle. “I cannot keep him here, or he will be dead in all the ways that matter to the living. I’ll trust you to raise this precious thing of mine, Bruce Thomas Wayne. When he becomes his own man, we may speak of his role between worlds.”

And with that alarming statement, the floor around them becomes dotted with dozens of bright points, speckled amongst the carpeting and tile. The floor dips down, drags itself out from beneath them. They are surrounded by a floor of stars, floating. Floating, until—

Bruce wakes up in bed.

****

He thinks he had a bad dream last night. Bruce doesn’t remember it all, but he isn’t sure he wants to, either; his time in the league has taught him how unsettled nightmares can make him.

Bruce washes his face. Brushes his teeth.

He has a vague memory of being worried about Dick in his dream the night before. It’s probably related to his ward’s sudden illness, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t check in on him. Just that he has an understanding how the dream originated. Bruce might ordinarily be the first downstairs and meet Dick at the breakfast table. For now, he exits the master bedroom and looks for his ward.

Dick, unexpectedly, finds Bruce first—slamming his door open, spotting his guardian in the hallway, and electing to make a running leap into Bruce’s chest.

Bruce stands there and takes it, of course. Moving might disrupt the boy’s trajectory and put him in danger of collision. Dick nearly smacks his skull against Bruce’s in his haste.

“Good morning, Dick.”

“BRUCE!” Dick shouts, which is…not unusual, but is rare so early in the morning. He clings to his guardian’s broad shoulders. “Bruce—B, I had a bad dream!”

Huh. “So did I, chum,” Bruce validates, wrapping his arms around Dick so he doesn’t fall. “Coincidental. You’re feeling better this morning.”

“Yeah!” Dick agrees with a grin. “That’s because I wasn’t sick! It was a ghost.”

Bruce’s mood does a 180. “It was a what?”

“A ghost,” Dick reiterates, impatient. His bony knees dig into Bruce’s ribs. “He gave me a ghost disease. But ghosts aren’t real so now I’m all better.”

Bruce wants to ask more questions. He really does. But then there’s a faint little cry from behind one of the shut doors of the family wing, and Dick beams like the sun has come out from the cloud. “Put me down!!”

Bruce, numb, does. Dick scampers off after the sound in his jammies, popping open the door across then hall, and then the one next to it, before ducking into the room with the door ajar.

Dick screams like a bird, and the cry grows louder. Bruce darts into the room after them.

In a previously untouched family bedroom is a walnut-brown cradle. Dick is leaning over the side and cooing like a dove, one hand in and on his tippy-toes as he tries to reach…something.

Bruce’s deja vu of his dream gets stronger. He thinks he knows what he’ll find, but…

He approaches slowly. Lets his gaze fall inside.

Inside is a tiny, Talia-brown baby boy, swaddled and grouchy.

He’s probably hungry, Bruce’s brain says. He probably needs diapers, ASAP. The rest of brain promptly lights itself on fire.

“B it’s your baby!” Dick crows, as if he was in on this. “Look, we got it back! Ooh! Ooh! Do you think it’s a boy or a girl?!”

Bruce carefully sits down on the floor before his legs lock. The nine year old takes the opportunity to climb atop his lap to reach the crib better.

There’s no clear path out of this one. So, of course, Bruce shouts back into the hall: “Alfred?”

Alfred, who has clearly had a morning of his own, rushes up the stairs and into the room without his coat, only to find his previously-missing employer, his previously-kidnapped ward, and an infant on the floor of an unoccupied bedroom.

“What have you done now?” Alfred asks, more out of gross curiosity than genuine interest. Bruce shrugs.

“Actually, do not tell me. Young Master—yes, pass the little one here, please. Thank you, Master Dick.”

There is a lot of tender memory of a younger Bruce that he must have once been in Alfred’s care; the unwrapping of the swaddle, the gentle check of limbs, of the stomach, the hands and feet. The baby is in good health, if a little lethargic.

Dick peeks into the makeshift changing-table bed as Alfred attends to the infant. “It’s a boy!” Dick shouts two inches away from the butler’s ear, startling Alfred, the baby, and a too-sensitive Bruce all at once.

Bruce opens his arms, and Dick obligingly hops in them. He’s clingier this morning than usual. Bruce isn’t sure why, but he does feel the same, so he resolves to selfishly accept all the hugs Dick is willing to spare today.

“Thank you for checking,” Bruce says, and makes a not to remind Dick about body privacy again.

“Having a first son is important,” Dick announces, apropos of nothing. “Pop Haley used to talk about it all the time. How do you feel about it?”

Bruce thinks. Gives the question its due consideration. Opens his arms, just to see what will happen, and isn’t surprised to see Dick fall into them, relieved to be wanted.

“Well,” Bruce says. “I think I already have one.”

This is clearly the wrong thing to say; Dick looks at him, stares deep into his guardian’s eyes, and promptly cries loudly enough to compete with the baby.

(Hours later, Bruce will run his hands over the new cradle while putting his son to sleep, and find Damian Al-Ghul Wayne etched neatly into the crib railing.)

[bunbitti]

We love Lighter in this household

Me when I’m poor but scrounge up the polychrome for his w-engine (me when my behavior is wildly different from my hsr behavior bc I am poor in zzz and somewhat wealthy in hsr) bc I felt like un-stealing Koleda’s (me when I don’t listen to advice saying characters can get like 90% of their potential from non-signature w-engines and get the signature ones bc I like giving my favorite people the things they like the most)

His damage is pretty good for the fact that his main job is stunning, but also I put the fire damage discs on him and not the energy regen ones

Anyway Lighter/Burnice/Jane is pretty good, just start with Jane and let her do some damage then perfect assist to Lighter for stun once the enemy attacks like that and keep going (idk what I’m doing)

I love dps men that may not have been intended for dps

Lighter just punches everything, and the range is surprisingly high bc apparently we can in fact do fire damage to someone 15 feet away by punching the air

Anyway I am friending him and apparently his trust goes up if you choose to watch a romance movie???

And he said, about dying for love, that he wanted to try it sometime??? Sir pls you said it was a joke but I feel like based on your backstory you only barely lived out of love and guilt pls don’t die

He’s just a softie who wants to impress us (canonically, according to Piper he’s apparently the kind of guy who gets sulky when he can’t)

Let me give him cuddles (preferably with the spiked jacket off)

He can take off his sunglasses at night, right??

Anyway biker gangs can apparently be massive, and only like 5 of the Sons of Calydon are important/strong enough to be playable (not counting Billy bc he’s currently with Cunning Hares) rn (I was kinda wanting Pompey to be playable but then he died, but maybe we’ll get Big Daddy at some point)

But also when are we going to go back to that dude and the trial that he escaped from and the fact that the Sons of Calydon found him???

Can ZZZ do a thing that Dragon Raja does (and HSR with the assignments) where you can like give your characters tasks and stuff to do and it takes some amount of time

Idk I really just wanna interact with the characters more and idk how beyond somehow adding even more friendship events (zzz needs to randomly add romance events so I can pursue the men and we don’t get a vague ‘this is implied to be more intimate than is shown’, yes I know it’s never going to happen)

Edit: if you ask Lighter to come to Lumina Square and suggest workouts, you better be doing the workouts (you don’t know the way I flailed when I got the significant trust boost) even if you’re the most unfit person ever

Lighter pls don’t pfft at me I’m just a little thing that can barely walk places with my short legs and I haven’t lifted my body weight up to anything in a long time

Edit 2: saw a leak that there's going to be a feature where you can do stuff with the characters in the overworld and give them gifts and stuff idc that I have no idea when they implemented this or how long it would take to do so, the extra friendship events was totally 100% my idea that I made up myself /j

Hoyo hire me

[exoticalmonde]

Part II. Hortus de Escapismo Dr. Evealia's Reaction

Well, first of all, my snake sandwich gets his skin before anything else happens.

Second, SPOILERS up ahead about the entire Hortus de Escapismo event, including the story, art and the full blow of my tears.

I think this is covering HE-1 through HE-4.

God in the basement has spoken and it says that something is wrong. A totally normal day in Laterano where your robotic diety is getting haywired from the inside. Surely this isn't going to be another cliffhanger where we never learn about whatever the hell this is since I may or may have not... skipped... Guiding Ahead story-wise.

Transcribed: [Raise your head and stand by my side, Saint Federico Giallo, the first Chosen of Laterano who does not come from the ranks of the popes.]

AYO IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING WE GET TO SEE HIM BECOME A SAINT???

The reason for that is that Pope Yvangelista XI got the threat responce from the MachineTM, but how does he plan to stop that, whatever it is, from happening if he just... baptises everybody? I agree with that other knight a moment ago, this sounds like a bad idea if that's the procedure for every account. Of course, we know Executor is the perfect personification of clean-cut justice, so how could it go wrong?

---

Transcribed: [Eating]

Ah.

---

Transcribed: [ Delfina: You always have that gun with you. You got it from your dad, right? I thought it doesn't work anymore.

Fortuna: It doesn't. Maybe it's a parts problem. And I don't know how to use a gun myself...]

Can we just very shortly mention the meaning of their names? Delfina is Dolphin and Fortuna is Good Fate; Luck, but Delfina keeps calling Fortuna just Tuna. So they're Dolphin and Tuna.

---

I absolutely need everybody to keep in mind that this is a fragment of a city that drifted away from the main city 60 or so years ago and got stranded. This is a city on wheels in the middle of ABSO-FREAKING-LUTELY NOWHERE. And it's winter. These guys here are going to perish.

---

... Great. Wonderful. Bleed me to death why don't you?

Where are they even come from? Are those Iberian beasts that are prowling the streets? Is it just a random angry wolf that's evolved in some bizzare way from the wastes and stalks people? Do they have any way to defend themselves against those canonically?

---

Can i insert a spoiler from the me that played this on my own for the second time? These are useless. It says that they can help relax the panicking residents but it left me with the impression it was meant to do it somewhat passively.

Not even a smitherine. If anybody tells you they do, they're lying. 20 DP for a resident whose bar raises faster than DP regenerates on 70% of the maps is a terrible introduction into the overall gameplay.

Maybe I was bad, but it's so... Not meant to force me to replay the tutorial twice, you know? Not this one at least.

---

It does remain a funny act though. They run from statue to statue looking for something to pray to. How... futile. At least I don't have to defend them from enemies.

---

The maps are gorgeous though... I love what they're doing for everything after spending way too long in chapters 4-8 looking at literally nothing. I enjoy this a LOT.

---

Raimund huh?

I'm not a nun but I'd be on my knees for you in a second. Lord have mercy on you or whatever.

---

BABABABABABABABY BIRDS LITTLE FLOOFERS WHAT ARE YOU WHY ARE YOU SO CUTE EXPLAIN YOUR SMOLLNESS!!!

---

I love them so much... I hope the children are not doomed by the narrative.

---

Oh I like Gerald as well... Him and Reimund are such father figure/son figure I hope to see more interaction between them. He seems pretty trustworthy though. Like, seriously just cares about his people and considering so far we saw a peace between Sarkaz and Sankta that has never been in the outside world... you know he has authority that matters.

---

PFFHAHAHAHAHAHAHA LEMUEN IS SUCH A MIPY YOURE A GOOD BEAN

---

Me: "Don't you love it when people in the story talk about plans they have previously made in such a way that doesnt tell me anything just so they can agree upon actions and or warn each other of consequences to actions without ever mentioning what they are and then I end up not understanding a single thing when the story ends, like… Isn't it fun?" Pinkie: "Ok, Fiametta." Me: "No, I'm being serious this is all over Arknights, I hate it." Pinkie: "I really can't tell if you're sarcastic right now, but this is really why Fiametta is so pissed." Me: "Well, call me spicy chicken." Pinkie: "Call me a Fat Duck then, because I'm about to go off."

---

HA! Throwback to Guiding Ahead. Very nice.

---

Transcribed: [The average conversation between the two of you is about as entertaining as 'What did you eat last night?' 'Dinner.']

THEY DO TALK LIKE THAT THOUGH HEFHFNAHGOINAGN

---

Transcribed: [

Spuria: Federico, how much do I have to pay you for a few extra words? You name the price, and I'll send the bill to His Holiness.

Federico: I have never considered this question.]

They have the funniest banters and Federico probably doesn't even understand that it's happening, this is simultaniously the funniest and saddest outcome to any conversation ever.

---

...

...

Transcribed: [The dim light finally illuminates the girl's face, revealing spotty traces of blood, as well as the black horns protruding from her forehead.

Sankta blood drips onto the chapel's floorboards, giving off a dull sound. It is a deafening sound, one that opens all eyes wide.

The patron firearm used for prayer finally slips from the hands that were clutching it tightly.]

Oh... My... Fortuna...

---

Transcribed: [

Twisted Monster: (Indescipherable howling)

Lemuen: Nuh-uh, just because I'm physically handicapped doesn't mean you can pick on me, visitor!]

I love Lemuen, she is the best bright pink-haired girl ever.

---

Oya, welcome to Rhodes Island, uh-- *nervously looking around as there is not a single Sankta on my ship* -- feel... feel uh-- at home... Not Laterano home uh--- Sarkaz are not allowed there haha, but uh-- Just take... I mean your room is down the hall, di- mm dinner is at seven o'clock.

[fandomfiish]

What I love about how the Dps fandom writes future Anderperry; to be precise is that they still go through canon except Neil didn't commit and got transferred instead like his father said that night.

Without saying goodbye to any of the poets, without saying goodbye to Todd.

The poets heartbroken from this, tries their best to somehow find out what happened to Neil, where had he gone? And why'd he never told them?

Charlie and Todd were obviously the more active ones as the others helped but had other priorities to it. And the two were the closest to Neil at that moment.

Years went by and slowly their efforts had gone down, and Todd can't blame Charlie, they're in college now, and their life is ahead of them and he remembers what Charlie said when he decided to stop looking for Neil entirely.

"It's been years Toddy, it's no use finding a guy who doesn't want to be found."

And it's true, Neil could've done anyway to communicate with them, or even speak to them, especially in college when most likely he has more freedom, and yet he didn't. And sure the poets all had their own time to grieve the loss of their leader, some were faster than others, and there was Todd. And honestly, he thinks he would've still been looking for him if it weren't for Charlie and Knox who were both helping in his own grief. There were times when he was depressed and angry at Neil that he never even wrote a letter to them to let them know of his well-being, but after a while, the anger extinguish and then there was nothing.

So he just accepts it, Neil's gone, alive somewhere out there sure, but gone from their lives, his life.

And then years later, Neil comes back to their life, and accident as Todd finds himself in the ER because of a high fever and Charlie and Knox we're scared to death.

It's a whirlwind of events because to Todd he heard Knox and Charlie bickering about Todd and then there was silence.

And then he hears it, and maybe it was due to his sickness that he's hearing things but that voice was unmistakable, surely it was deeper now but it belonged to one voice, one he's hasn't heard for years.

"Todd Anderson?"

Todd quickly moves to look at the origin of the voice and there he was, Todd found himself unable to breathe.

It was Neil Perry in the flesh.

And then Todd's surrounding fade to black.

------

What I genuinely love about this fic is that it's a slow burn but not in the way how slow burn usually is. In this one the two have feelings for each other, well ... had.

And Todd will not automatically hug and kiss Neil after meeting him cause that's not how it works. He grieved at the loss of someone he clearly loves and then suddenly when he thinks he's already moved on, he appears and breaks all of that work? How can Neil waltz back into his life all willy-nilly like he hasn't brought them pain and loss from his disappearance?

This is why I like this kind of anderperry fics, angst and slowburn :)